Health & WellnessS


Video

Video: 'What's Wrong with Our Food System' By 11 Year Old Birke Baehr


foodfreedom.wordpress.com
Sun, 26 Sep 2010 19:48 UTC
Eleven-year-old Birke Baehr gives a five-minute TED Talk, promoting a decentralized food system.
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Alarm Clock

Raising Awareness of Methadone's Danger

Kate Santich
Los Angeles Times
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 19:25 UTC
Image
© mothersagainstmedicalabuse.org
A mother makes a mission of raising awareness among teens, parents and others after her son dies from a lethal mix of drugs.

Jonathan Lucas Levine should be celebrating his 21st birthday this month. Probably he would be in college by now, studying to be a math professor or perhaps a psychologist. Surely he would have plenty of friends. The way other kids used to follow him around, his mom dubbed him the Pied Piper.

Instead, Donna Levine sits in her Orlando, Fla., apartment surrounded by photos of her only child and tries not to cry again. Three years ago this month, at 18, Jonathan died of a drug overdose.

Among the mix of chemicals in his system was methadone - a drug that is readily available, relatively cheap and legal. The medical examiner ruled that methadone was the key ingredient that made the overdose lethal.
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Heart

A Harvest of Healing

Maria Rodale
foodfreedom.wordpress.com
Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:54 UTC
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© Rodale Institute
Why do we do it - garden - when it makes us sweaty, sore, and often cranky? By the end of the harvest season, our faces are red from cooking tomatoes and putting up food either into the pantry or the freezer. Our hands are calloused and nails dirty. And yet...and yet...when it's all said and done and autumn winds chill the night air, what we're left with, besides a stocked-up pantry, is a deep feeling of strength and satisfaction. It's true. With gardening, we harvest more than food and flowers; we harvest health and healing.

It starts with the health that comes just from physical activity: Gardening is proven to be great exercise. And that, I think, comes from our stubbornness; gardeners want to have things a certain way, so we find superhuman strength to move plants, rocks, logs, or whatever else it takes to make our gardens just right. All that weight lifting, bending, and stretching, while leaving us sore the next day, also builds good bone strength and muscles - especially as we age. I bet there are few gardeners who have sufficient vitamin D thanks to gardening in the sun (and occasional rainfall)!
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Health

Celiac Disease Rate Is "Growing", Particularly Among Elderly, Study Reveals


Science Daily
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 10:45 UTC
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© n/aMaybe everybody should get one of these?
Working to solve the puzzle of when people develop celiac disease has led researchers from the University of Maryland School of Medicine Center for Celiac Research to some surprising findings. They have found that the autoimmune disorder is on the rise with evidence of increasing cases in the elderly. An epidemiological study published September 27 in the Annals of Medicine supports both trends -- with interesting implications for possible treatment and prevention.

"You're never too old to develop celiac disease," says Alessio Fasano, M.D., director of the University of Maryland's Mucosal Biology Research Center and the celiac research center, which led the study. The Universita Politecnica delle Marche in Ancona, Italy; the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; the Women & Children's Hospital of Buffalo; and Quest Diagnostics Inc. of San Juan Capistrano, Calif., also participated.
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Cookie

Researchers Show That The Human Genome Is Helpless In The Face Of Chocolate


Science Daily
Fri, 05 Feb 2010 12:00 UTC
Chocolate DNA
© na
Knowing that extreme sensitivity to some bitter tastes is genetically-driven, researchers in the University of Washington School of Public Health and Community Medicine tried to find out if genetic taste markers might prevent some women from enjoying bitter chocolate or bitter espresso coffee. Dr. Adam Drewnowski, director of the school's Nutritional Sciences Program, says the study by graduate student Agnes Ly and himself showed that any aversion to bitter taste, genetic or not, was easily overcome by the addition of a little sugar or a lot of fat. The study was published in the January issue of Chemical Sense, an Oxford University Press journal.

"Human genetics is not destiny, particularly when it comes to a love for coffee and chocolate," Drewnowski said. "All the women tested, regardless of their ability to taste bitterness, enjoyed chocolate. But the ones who were more sensitive to bitter flavors would drink lattés, rather than straight espresso coffee."
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Shoe

Aerobic Exercise Can Nurture Sweet Dreams

Dorene Internicola
The Globe & Mail
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 23:02 UTC
Image
© therunningpeople.com
Sleepless and sedentary? Instead of counting sheep in a field, try running through a meadow.

Experts agree that an aerobic exercise routine during the day can keep you from tossing and turning at night, even if they're not sure why.

"The bottom line is we really don't know why people tell us that exercise helps them sleep," said David Davila of the U.S.-based National Sleep Foundation.

"But if people are normally active, reaching their aerobic goals, chances are they will sleep the right amount for what they need."

Dr. Davila, who practices sleep medicine in Little Rock, Arkansas, said the low-grade sleep deprivation suffered by many time-pressed, under-rested adults has a cumulative effect.

"People have more car accidents and what they call 'presentee-ism', or poor performance, at work," he said. "There are fallouts for the average person."
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Question

Genetically Modified Foods in Supermarkets: How Many?

Marion Nestle
The Atlantic
Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:23 UTC
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© sneakerdog/flickrHawaiian Papaya
A reader writes that the discussion over genetically modified foods makes no sense because "virtually every food we consume today has been genetically modified."

The accuracy of this statement depends, of course, on how you define "genetically modified." If you include traditional genetic crosses done through plant and animal breeding, the statement is correct.

If, however, you restrict the definition of GM foods to those involving actual manipulations of DNA (rather than eggs and sperm), and the insertion of DNA from one organism into the DNA of another, then the number of GM foods approved for production in the United States is quite limited.
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Health

Diabetes Risk May Fall As Magnesium Intake Climbs


Reuters
Fri, 24 Sep 2010 21:01 UTC
Getting enough magnesium in your diet could help prevent diabetes, a new study suggests.

People who consumed the most magnesium in foods and from vitamin supplements were about half as likely to develop diabetes over the next 20 years as people who took in the least magnesium, Dr. Ka He of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and colleagues found.

The results may explain in part why consuming whole grains, which are high in magnesium, is also associated with lower diabetes risk. However, large clinical trials testing the effects of magnesium on diabetes risk are needed to determine whether a causal relationship truly exists, the researchers note in Diabetes Care.

Comment: To learn more about how Magnesium can help with overall health and wellness read the following forum thread: The Magnesium Miracle

In addition read: Magnesium Supplement Helps Boost Brainpower

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Syringe

Thousands of US Pregnant Women Miscarry After the H1N1 Vaccine

Christina England
American Chronicle
Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:00 UTC
baby
© Clare Bloomfield / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
A new report by the National Coalition of Organized Women (NCOW), states, that as many as 3,587 cases, may of either miscarried or had a stillbirth after receiving the H1N1 vaccine.

In an exceptionally strong and well executed report, written on the Child Health Safety Website entitled "Flu Vaccine Caused 3,587 US Miscarriages from H1N1 Vaccines," they say :-

"The corrected estimate for the total number of 2009-A-H1N1-flu-shot-associated miscarriages and stillbirths during the 2009/10-flu season is 1,588 (95% goodness-of-fit confidence interval, 946 to 3587). That is, the lower and upper range-probability of miscarriage and stillbirths due to the H1N1 vaccine was as low as 946 and as high as 3,587.
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Info

Massage Benefits Are More Than Skin Deep

Roni Caryn Rabin
New York Times
Mon, 20 Sep 2010 20:49 UTC
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© mdresort.com
Does a good massage do more than just relax your muscles? To find out, researchers at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles recruited 53 healthy adults and randomly assigned 29 of them to a 45-minute session of deep-tissue Swedish massage and the other 24 to a session of light massage.

All of the subjects were fitted with intravenous catheters so blood samples could be taken immediately before the massage and up to an hour afterward.
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