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TV Food Ads Promote Bad Diets


USNews.com
Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:42 UTC
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Study found they peddle huge amounts of sugar and fat, with few fruits and vegetables

If you let TV ads determine what you eat, you'll end up with huge amounts of fat and sugar but precious few vegetables and fruits in your diet.

That's the finding of a new study that analyzes what would happen if a person were to eat 2,000 calories of foods that are advertised on the tube.

Researchers found that such a diet would include 25 times the recommended servings of sugar and 20 times the recommended servings of fat in a daily diet. But it would include less than half the recommended servings of vegetables, fruit and dairy products.
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FDA Defeated in Federal Court Over Censorship of Truthful Health Claims

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00 UTC
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© NaturalNews
Health freedom has just been handed a significant victory by the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, which ruled last week that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) violated the First Amendment rights of a nutritional supplement company when it censored truthful, scientifically-backed claims about how selenium can help reduce the risk of cancer.

See the ANH announcement here.

Essentially, the FDA applied its doctrine of censorship to these selenium supplements in the same way it oppresses truthful and scientifically-supported health claims across all dietary supplements. The purpose of the FDA's censorship of truthful information about the health benefits of dietary supplements, as NaturalNews readers already know, is to keep the American people nutritionally illiterate and protect the profits of the pharmaceutical industry.
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Letting Babies Swim in Chlorinated Pools Harms Their Health for Life

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Young children who swim in chlorinated pools may suffer an increased risk of lung infections and even lifelong asthma and respiratory allergies, according to a study conducted by researchers from Catholic University Louvain in Brussels, Belgium, and published in the European Respiratory Journal.

"This suggests that chlorinated pool attendance can increase the risk of asthma and respiratory allergies by making the airways more sensitive not only to allergens but also to infectious agents," senior researcher Alfred Bernard said.

Researchers conducted health tests on 430 Belgian kindergarteners and had their parents fill out questionnaires about their health history and swimming habits. They found that while 36 percent of children who had been exposed to chlorinated pools before the age of two had a history of the lung infection known as bronchiolitis, compared with only 24 percent of children who had not been exposed.
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Attention

McDonald's Pulls 12 Million Cadmium-Tainted Shrek Glasses

Justin Pritchard
The Associated Press
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:19 UTC
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© U.S. Consumer Product Safety CommissionShrek Forever After 3D Collectable Drinking Glasses being promoted by McDonald's Corp that are being recalled because the designs on the glasses contain cadmium
Cadmium has been discovered in the painted design on Shrek-themed drinking glasses being sold nationwide at McDonald's, forcing the burger giant to recall 12 million of the cheap U.S.-made collectibles while dramatically expanding contamination concerns about the toxic metal beyond imported children's jewelry.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall early Friday, warned consumers to immediately stop using the glasses; McDonald's said it would post instructions on its website next week regarding refunds.

The 16-ounce glasses, being sold for about $2 each as part of a promotional campaign for the movie Shrek Forever After, were available in four designs depicting the characters Shrek, Princess Fiona, Puss in Boots and Donkey.
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Family

Bangladesh Kids Who Lose Mother More Likely to Die

Maria Cheng
The Associated Press
Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:00 UTC
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© Daves Travel CornerKids in village behind ISD school in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
For children in Bangladesh, losing a mother - but not a father - can be deadly, a new study says.

Researchers in Bangladesh, Britain and the U.S. used data from population surveys from 1982 to 2005 in Matlab, Bangladesh, to follow what happened to more than 144,800 children. Of those, nearly 15,000 died by age 10.

The experts found that children whose mothers died had about a 24 percent chance of making it to age 10. Children who didn't lose their mothers had about an 89 percent chance.

The effect was particularly dramatic in infants; those aged 2 to 5 months who lost their mothers were 25 times more likely to die than babies whose mothers were still alive.

And for children whose fathers died, there was no effect. The study was published Friday in the British medical journal, Lancet.
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Family

Good Grades? It's All in Who You Know: Having Friends Who Attend the Same School is Key, Study Shows

Mark Wheeler
ScienceDaily
Thu, 03 Jun 2010 20:00 UTC
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© Flickr/Woodley Wonder Works
Enrichment classes, after-school activities, tutoring, not to mention the gentle prodding of parents -- all may count in giving a child that extra academic edge. But parents still puzzle over what the right mix is to make their children excel in school.

It turns out that the missing ingredient could be the friends a child keeps, specifically their in-school friends, the ones who sweat the same tests and homework and complain about the same teachers, rather than those they may make outside of school.

UCLA professor of psychiatry and senior study author Andrew J. Fuligni and first author Melissa R. Witkow, a former graduate student of Fuligni's, report in the online edition of the Journal of Research on Adolescence that adolescents with more in-school friends than out-of-school friends had higher grade-point averages and -- complementing this finding -- that those with higher GPAs had more in-school friends.
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Link Identified Between Lower IQ Scores and Attempted Suicide in Men


PhysOrg
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 05:00 UTC
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© iStockphoto
Low IQ scores in early adulthood are associated with an increased risk of attempted suicide in men, according to new research funded by the Wellcome Trust.

In the largest study of its kind, a team of researchers studied the medical records of over one million men in Sweden dating back over a period of twenty four years and compared rates of hospital admission for attempted suicide against IQ scores. The research is published today in the British Medical Journal.

Out of a cohort of 1.1 million men with IQ measured in early adulthood, almost 18,000 had been admitted to hospital at least once for attempted suicide. Even after adjusting for factors such as age and socioeconomic status, the researchers found that men with lower IQ scores were increasingly likely to have attempted suicide at least once. By far the most common method used was poisoning, for example taking an overdose of medication.
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Mummy, can we meditate now? How relaxation exercises can help your child to sleep

Michelle Teasdale
The Independent
Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:21 UTC
Sweet dreams
© John LawrenceSweet dreams: Michelle Teasdale with her daughter, Elise, who took easily to techniques of creative visualisation
Like most parents of small children, I was having major problems at bedtime. Things had gone from bad to worse: each night, my four-year-old refused to go to bed, and once she got there, was repeatedly getting up. The whole process could last as long as two hours, leaving us both frustrated and exhausted.

I tried everything: reading longer bedtime stories in an attempt to calm her down; a frog that played classical music. I tried extra trips to the park, trying to tire her out even more in the hope that she would collapse into bed at night. Nothing seemed to work. Until last Christmas, when I slipped a CD of guided meditations into her stocking, along with a bit of wishful thinking.
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Roses

Feed Your Adrenal Glands to Reduce Stress and Feel Great


Suite101.com
Fri, 04 Jun 2010 00:09 UTC
Rehmannia glutinosa
© UnknownRehmannia glutinosa
The adrenal glands influence factors throughout the entire body. The correct nutrition and herbal medicine reduce stress and enhance physical function.

Feeding and supporting the adrenal glands is an essential part of reducing the impact of stress. Dr James Wilson specialises in adrenal fatigue and states that it occurs when "stress overextends your body's capacity to compensate". As a result he says the "adrenal glands become fatigued and are unable to continue responding adequately to further stress."

The ensuing suboptimal adrenal response can be greatly improved through the use of nutritional and herbal therapy. Vitamins and minerals can be used to prevent metabolic disturbances and to act as cofactors in the production of adrenal hormones. Herbal medicine is effectively used to tone, restore and enhance the function of the adrenal glands as well as reduce symptoms of adrenal fatigue.
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More Bad News About Sunscreens: Nanoparticles

Andrew Schneider
Aol News
Wed, 02 Jun 2010 21:47 UTC
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© Getty ImagesA new report from Friends of the Earth says that using nanoparticles in sunscreens provides a "risk without benefit." The group has urged manufacturers to stop using the tiny particles in the products.

As millions of us who play and work under the bright sun dutifully slather our bare skin with creams, oils and sprays, consumer safety activists continue to blast the government for failing to ensure the safety of these sunscreens.

The latest target of concern is the use by sunscreen manufacturers of nanosized particles of titanium dioxide and zinc oxide. A new report based on several preliminary studies says these atom-sized additives have the potential to cause serious harm.

That follows last week's report that the Food and Drug Administration has known for a decade that almost half of the most popular sunscreens contain an ingredient that may actually accelerate the growth of skin cancer cells.
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