Health & WellnessS


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Five Reasons You Need More Water

Aaron Turpen
NaturalNews
Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
Water is the Elixir of Life.

It comprises 80% of your body and is the most important element to your well-being and health, outdistancing all others. New readers to Natural News may not be familiar with the review Mike Adams did of the seminal water cure work of Dr. Batmanghelidj. That alone should tell you why you need to get enough water.

There is no "magic amount" that covers everyone. Some need more than others and most need more than they're getting now. It's estimated that 75% of Americans are chronically dehydrated.

Even if you don't drink coffee, soda, or other diuretics and water-robbers, you may still be dehydrated. There is no such thing as too much water - you literally can't get sick or die from drinking too much (good) water. You can, however, if you don't drink enough.
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Understand DNA Damage and Repair

Kim Evans
NaturalNews
Fri, 07 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Planet-Science News
Most people today are consistently exposed to substances that are known to damage our DNA.

Radiation, plastics, cigarette smoke, chemicals in soft drinks, pesticides, and many more common substances have all been found to damage our DNA. It's unfortunate because when our DNA is damaged, we subject ourselves to numerous health problems. Our cells become inhibited in producing what our bodies need and our bodies become challenged in re-growing healthy cells.

Worse, the effects of our chemical habits and lifestyles are passed to our children - and our children's children. Fortunately though, our DNA has the ability to repair itself and below are a few easy ways to start your DNA on the road to repair.

Consume Chlorella

Chlorella is a chlorophyll-rich algae and it's known to help the body remove harmful substances like heavy metals, dioxins and pesticides. This is an obvious benefit because some of these substances are causing the damage in the first place. Numerous studies have found that chlorella helps our DNA repair itself - and packed with chlorophyll, chlorella adds an alkaline kick that comes in a structure that's similar to the hemoglobin of healthy blood. To add chlorella to your diet, try adding a teaspoon to fresh apple juice or a fruit smoothie each day.
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Surgeon offers widescreen TV 'diversion' to patients under the knife... instead of general anaesthetic


The Daily Mail
Thu, 06 May 2010 21:01 UTC
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© Cntre Press AgencyPain pioneer: Dr Nick Pace offers his patients the chance to watch their favourite DVD while undergoing surgery
Some people think television is mind-numbing - and they could be right.

Doctors believe that watching shows such as Only Fools And Horses during surgery could allow many more patients to go without general anaesthetic.

They have found that patients are far happier to choose a local anaesthetic instead if they can have the distraction of a DVD during surgery.

Doctors are increasingly keen to use local anaesthetic, as it cuts dramatically the health risk which comes from being fully sedated, and leads to a faster recovery.

Dr Nick Pace, a consultant and lecturer in anaesthesia at Glasgow University, has been offering DVDs for use during orthopaedic surgery.
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Family

US Nationwide study: 1 in 4 women show ambivalence toward pregnancy


University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Thu, 06 May 2010 18:19 UTC
Social pressures, attitudes on pregnancy examined

For years, a widely held assumption was that women of childbearing age fell neatly into two camps: those trying to have children, and those not trying to have children.

A new nationwide study suggests, however, that nearly a fourth of women consider themselves "OK either way" about getting pregnant - a wide swath of ambivalence that surprised researchers, and that could reshape how doctors approach many aspects of women's health care.

In a study of nearly 4,000 women ages 25 to 45 who are sexually active, about 71 percent said they were not trying to get pregnant, while 6 percent said they were. But nearly one in four, 23 percent, told researchers they were "OK either way" - they were neither trying to conceive, nor trying to prevent a pregnancy.

Among women who had no children, 60 percent said they were trying to not get pregnant, 14 percent were trying to get pregnant and 26 percent responded that they were "OK either way."
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Family

Teen girls talk more to parents about their dating habits than to boys

Jessica Orwig
The Ohio State University
Thu, 06 May 2010 17:27 UTC
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Christopher Daddis
When it comes to talking to parents about most dating issues, teen girls tend to disclose more than boys, and both sexes generally prefer to talk to their mothers.

However, a new study found that girls and boys are equally close-mouthed about issues involving sex and what they do with their dates while unsupervised. And in this case, teens were no more eager to talk to their mothers than they were their fathers.

Results showed that the amount of information parents hear from their teenagers about dating depend on a variety of matters, including age, gender, and what aspect of dating the topic involves.
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Recalled Children's Tylenol Products Were Knowingly Contaminated, Says FDA

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© NaturalNews
The other day I wrote a story about the massive recall by McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson, of its infants' and children's line of Tylenol products. An FDA inspection report found these drugs to be contaminated with dangerous bacteria (they did not disclose the actual type) as well as "foreign materials" that were visible as "dark or black specks". But a recent story published by USA Today has revealed that McNeil actually knew about the bacterial contamination and kept shipping the products anyway.

Only the drug industry could get away with this type of careless, reckless behavior with nothing more than a slap on the wrist from the FDA. In fact, the FDA did not even require McNeil to issue a recall after discovering the problem; McNeil did so voluntarily over "theoretical concerns" that were expressed by Deborah Autor, an FDA official who was quick to emphasize that the risk to consumers from the tainted products "is remote".

So let me get this straight. An FDA report finds that a pharmaceutical company is knowingly using contaminated raw materials to make children's and infants' medicines in a factory that is failing to maintain its equipment, properly train its employees and correctly measure and weigh drug ingredients, and FDA officials consider the problem to be "theoretical"?
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High Stress Levels Can Cause Weight Gain, Researchers Claim


The Daily Mail
Thu, 06 May 2010 09:50 UTC
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© Peter RealiWeight problem: Stress activates a gene which affects the metabolism and contributes to our cravings for sweet, fatty foods, according to a new study.
Most people trying to lose weight know it's a case of eating less and moving more.

But weight-watchers may also do well to cut down on the stress in their lives if they want to drop a few pounds.

New research has found that that high levels of anxiety can cause people to become obese.

The Israeli study found that stress activates a gene which affects the metabolism and contributes to our cravings for sweet, fatty foods.

Dr Alon Chen, a neuro-endocrinologist at the Weizmann Institute, said: 'We showed that the actions of a single gene in just one part of the brain can have profound effects on the metabolism of the whole body.'
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New Research Shows Grapes Reduce Risk for Heart Disease and Diabetes

S. L. Baker
NaturalNews
Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© iStockphoto
The millions of Americans with heart disease and type 2 diabetes didn't develop these diseases out of the blue. Their disorders are the result of a cascade of problems including high blood pressure, insulin resistance, abdominal fat and other symptoms of metabolic syndrome. Now University of Michigan (U-M) scientists say they've found something that could help put the brakes on this downward spiral of ill health. It's not a new drug but a delicious and easy lifestyle change: just eat grapes.

The U-M research findings, announced April 26th at the Experimental Biology convention held in Anaheim, California, showed grape consumption lowered blood pressure, improved heart function and reduced other risk factors for heart disease and metabolic syndrome, a condition affecting an estimated 50 million Americans that often leads to type 2 diabetes. The scientists stated the beneficial effects of grapes appear to be due to the rich supply of phytochemicals in the fruit.

The research team tested a mixture of green, red and black grapes on laboratory rats that are prone to being overweight. For three months, one group of the animals ate powdered grapes mixed into their regular feed, which was devised to imitate a typical high-fat, American style diet. A control group of similar rats received no grape powder in their food (which was supplemented so it had the same number of calories as the grape-added diet).
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Chocolate can Help Prevent Strokes

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
Researchers from the University of Toronto recently conducted a study in which they observed measurable health benefits in people who eat chocolate. The study involved roughly 50,000 participants and it revealed that those who eat a serving of chocolate a week are 22 percent less likely to suffer a stroke.

Sarah Sahib, author of the study, and her colleague Dr. Gustavo Saposnik also conducted a second study in which they found that those who ate 50 grams of chocolate per week were 46 percent less likely to die after having a stroke than those who ate no chocolate at all. All findings are set to be presented at the 62nd Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Toronto.

Experts believe that the key components in chocolate that give it protective health benefits are its antioxidant flavanoids. Flavanoid-rich foods are known to reduce the risk of developing cardiovascular disease, in part due to their anti-clotting characteristics that prevent blood platelets from clumping together and stopping healthy blood flow.
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Health

Drug Side Effects "Neglected, Restricted, Distorted and Silenced" by Drug Companies

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Thu, 06 May 2010 00:00 UTC
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© biojobblog
New research shows that information on potentially lethal side effects of the blockbuster painkiller Vioxx was "neglected, restricted, distorted and silenced" by pharmaceutical giant Merck, writes London-based physician and author John Briffa in The Epoch Times.

Vioxx was first approved for sale in 1999 and quickly became a top seller. Yet according to an analysis published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, clear evidence existed by 2001 that the drug increased the risk of cardiovascular thrombotic events, including heart attack, stroke and death. This evidence was contained in studies conducted by and for Merck.

"Most of the information we are using in this study was never published, or if it was published, they never included the key safety data," co-author Harlan Krumholz said.
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