Health & WellnessS


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USDA Protocols for Handling Food Contamination are Inadequate

Ethan A. Huff
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© USDA/FSIS
Most people are aware that the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) handles food contamination outbreaks by removing the tainted product from the market and working to identify the source of contamination. When it comes to tainted products that have not yet reached consumers, however, the agency's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) could care less about investigating the source and cause of contamination.

Every time there is an outbreak, demands for increased regulation, food irradiation, and a host of other illogical solutions flood the airwaves and newspaper headlines. Politicians and the media begin their tirades about how regulatory agencies like the FDA and USDA need more power in order to properly ensure the safety of the food. None of them ever mention the fact that these agencies already have the ability to effectively regulate but are failing to do so because they are largely corrupt and wholly inept.

One would think that when the FSIS identifies a contaminated product, it would perform due diligence by investigating the source and cause of contamination, as well as whether or not other products from the same source are contaminated as well. Instead, the agency simply stops the item from reaching consumers and closes the case. Such a careless approach is likely one of the reasons why contaminated food reaches consumers.
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New study: Breast Cancer Deaths Lower in Areas Without Mammograms

S. L. Baker
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© NaturalNews
A 2005 study concluded that a push in Denmark to screen large numbers of women for breast cancer with mammography had reduced breast cancer deaths in Copenhagen by a whopping 25 percent. Sounds like proof that regular mammograms are truly life-savers, right? Wrong. Scientists from the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen and the Folkehelseinstituttet in Oslo have re-examined this pro-mammogram study along with additional data and come up with an entirely different conclusion.

First, they found that the scientific validity of the 2005 study doesn't hold up because the research was deeply flawed. Even more important: the new report shows there's no evidence mammography itself was the reason behind any reduction in breast cancer deaths. In fact, deaths from breast cancer were lower in areas where women didn't undergo those screening tests.

The Danish research team looked at annual changes in breast cancer deaths in two Danish regions where breast cancer screening programs were offered to the public and compared this to data collected in non-screened regions throughout the rest of the country. To get a broad picture of the trend toward more or less breast cancer mortality, they analyzed breast malignancy rates in the decade before the screening was started and also looked at the ten years after screening was introduced.
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Latest Study: Diabetes Drugs Do Not Work; Diet and Exercise Are Still Best

Tony Isaacs
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
According to a recent study the latest "magic bullet" drug therapy for diabetes and heart disease does not come close to working as advertised. In fact, researchers found that the combination of the high blood pressure drug valsartan and the anti-diabetes drug nateglinide failed to reduce the risk of heart attack at all and valsartan was only slightly successful in slowing the development of type II diabetes.

Lead researcher Robert M Califf from Duke University School of Medicine stated: "This is a sobering confirmation of the need to continue to focus on lifestyle improvements."

In the study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers found that when compared to a placebo, valsartan and nateglinide failed to statistically reduce the incidence of either extended cardiovascular risk or core cardiovascular risk. The cumulative incidence of diabetes was 33.1% in the valsartan group, as compared with 36.8% in the placebo group.
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Expectant Mothers Reduce Diabetes Risk in Newborns by Eating More Vegetables

David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© iStockphoto
Women who eat more vegetables while pregnant significantly reduce their children's risk of developing Type 1 diabetes, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Gothenburg and Linkoping University in Sweden, and published in the journal Pediatric Diabetes.

"This is the first study to show a link between vegetable intake during pregnancy and the risk of the child subsequently developing Type 1 diabetes," researcher Hilde Brekke said. "Nor can this protection be explained by other measured dietary factors or other known risk factors."

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that develops when the immune system produces antibodies that attack the insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Researchers tested the blood of 6,000 five-year-old children for these antibodies, and compared the results to their mothers' self-reported vegetable intakes during pregnancy.
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Seaweed Could Hold Key to Natural Weight Loss

Sherry Baker
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Goggle ImagesSeaweed
Scientists at Newcastle University in the United Kingdom have discovered a substance that reduces fat uptake in the body by more than 75 percent. This potential obesity fighter isn't a drug but a natural substance found in seaweed.

The research team, headed by Dr. Iain Brownlee and Professor Jeff Pearson, tested more than 60 different fibers in the laboratory to see how effective they were in absorbing fat. The results? The scientists found that alginate, a natural fiber in sea kelp, blocks the body from absorbing fat far more effectively than anti-obesity treatments currently sold over the counter.

"There are countless claims about miracle cures for weight loss but only a few cases offer any sound scientific evidence to back up these claims," Dr Brownlee said in a press statement. "The aim of this study was to put these products to the test and our initial findings are that alginates significantly reduce fat digestion."
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Eat and Juice to Keep Alzheimer's Away

M. Thornley
NaturalNews
Wed, 07 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Getty Images
A 10-year study named the Kame Project found Alzheimer's risk 76 percent lower among those who drank juices more than three times a week. As reported by Susan Sharma, MD, in "Fruit Lowers Risk," April 27-May 3, 2008, in Dementia Weekly, the skins of fruit and vegetables are high in phenols, chemicals that "mop up" free radicals believed to cause the damage seen in Alzheimer's.

Researchers followed approximately 2,000 Japanese Americans in Hiroshima, Japan; Oahu, Hawaii; and Seattle for 10 years. Participants underwent a physical examination beginning in 1992, and their mental function was tested every two years.

Those who drank juice three or more times per week experienced a 76 percent reduced risk for Alzheimer's. Those who drank juice once or twice a week experienced a 16 percent reduced risk. These results suggested to researchers that polyphenols, a type of anti-oxidant, might have a protective effect on the brain, preventing or reducing dementia or Alzheimer's.
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Acedia: Struggling with "Bad Thought"

Kathleen Norris
CNN
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 08:16 UTC
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© CNN
On a recent trip across America, what surprised me most was the number of people -- over 200 in one city, 80 to 150 elsewhere -- who wanted to discuss this odd word, "acedia."

It's an ancient term signifying profound indifference and inability to care about things that matter, even to the extent that you no longer care that you can't care.

I liken it to spiritual morphine: You know the pain is there but can't rouse yourself to give a damn.

The concept of acedia was developed by Christians in the fourth century who had fled to the deserts of the Middle East, opting for a simple life in rebellion against a newly legal, wealthy and politically powerful church. Today, we would say that they went off the grid.

These men and women quickly discovered that although they had left material possessions behind, they hadn't shed their inner demons. They developed a sophisticated psychology of the "eight bad thoughts" that commonly troubled them, the most spiritually devastating of which were acedia, anger and pride.
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Unconscious Learning Uses Old Parts of the Brain


ScienceDaily
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 00:00 UTC
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© Brainmind.com
A new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet provides evidence that basic human learning systems use areas of the brain that also exist in the most primitive vertebrates, such as certain fish, reptiles and amphibians. The study involved an investigation into the limbic striatum, one of the evolutionarily oldest parts of the brain, and the ability to learn movements, consciously and unconsciously, through repetition.

"Our results strongly substantiate the theories that say that the implicit, by which I mean non-conscious, learning systems of the brain are simpler and evolutionarily older," says Associate Professor Fredrik Ullén from Karolinska Institutet and the Stockholm Brain Institute.

Many of the mundane skills that we apply every day, such as buttoning up a shirt or playing an instrument, comprise a sequence of discrete movements that must be carried out in the correct order. Scientists have long known that there are two learning systems for such patterns of movement; with the implicit system, we learn without being aware of the fact and without conscious training, such as through simple repetition. The explicit system, on the other hand, we use when we consciously train and are aware of what we are learning.
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Studies Suggest 'Regular' Flu Shot Increases Risks for H1N1 Flu


HealthDay News
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:52 UTC
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The traditional seasonal flu vaccine may have increased the risk of infection with pandemic H1N1 swine flu, according to the results of four new studies by Canadian researchers.

In one study, the researchers used an ongoing sentinel monitoring system to assess the frequency of prior vaccination with the seasonal flu vaccine in people diagnosed with H1N1 swine flu in 2009 compared to people without swine flu. The researchers found that seasonal flu vaccination was associated with a 68 percent increased risk of getting swine flu.

The other three studies included additional case-control investigations in Ontario and Quebec, as well as a transmission study in 47 Quebec households that were hit with swine flu. In these studies, the researchers found that seasonal flu vaccination was associated with a 1.4- to 5.0-times greater risk of having swine flu.
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Study Finds Negative Self-Image Stops Men and Women From Exercising Long-Term

Kristin Hodges
PhysOrg
Tue, 06 Apr 2010 19:30 UTC
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© SubTerrain Magazine
Individuals trying to become consistent exercisers might be deterred by a negative self-image, according to a Kansas State University study.

Elizabeth Fallon, K-State assistant professor of kinesiology, is conducting a series of studies to better understand how emotional barriers like a negative body image prevent individuals from having an active lifestyle. Her project stems from an undergraduate student's research findings that a low body image ultimately makes someone less successful at being physically active.

"We know how to get people to become active, but the problem is few people are able to maintain their physical activity," she said. "We often see people enroll in a new program to initiate physical activity, and when the program ends they go back to baseline levels. Then they enroll in another new program. We're spending a lot of time with the same people, so we really need to find the keys to physical activity maintenance."
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