Health & WellnessS


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Brain Fog Increasing? Here's a Plan

Sue Scheible
The Metro-West Daily News
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 10:36 UTC
"Old age and treachery will overcome youth and skill."

"We grow too soon old and too late smart."

Both proverbs pay tribute to the powers of the brain with age. An editor liked to say the first as the newsroom grew younger around him. He was all for shrewdness -- the ability to anticipate problems and make the first move. A high school friend's mother would quote the second: Wisdom comes with experience.

There's reason to be optimistic about how the brain changes as we grow older. The news keeps getting better: Time may improve some abilities, such as complex reasoning and empathy. New brain cell growth appears possible with the right stimulation. And while certain lapses in memory can be expected, there are new strategies to stay sharp.

Don't worry about not remembering names, walking into a room and forgetting why, or getting confused by a ton of new information. By age 50, neuroscientists say, that's normal.
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Health

Don't Quit Smoking! Longtime Smokers Less Likely to Develop Parkinson's Disease

Larry Roth
InsuranceRate.com
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 00:43 UTC
Medical scientists have investigated the incidence of Parkinson's disease for long-term smokers and have discovered an inverse correlation between smoking and Parkinson's disease.

"The study, released today in the journal Neurology looked at the lifetime smoking history of more than 300,000 people, and confirmed the inverse relationship between smoking and Parkinson's disease, established in earlier scientific studies. But, researchers say they've found a critical new piece to the puzzle: It appears to be the length of time one has been a smoker - not the number of cigarettes smoked - that has the most effect on disease risk reduction," reports the Paging Dr. Gupta blog.

Experts are quick to let the public know they are not advocating smoking. However, they are curious to find out what chemicals in cigarettes lower the risk of Parkinson's disease.
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Health

Food allergies are answer to medical mystery

Ed Rockey
Los Angeles Times
Sat, 03 Apr 2010 00:31 UTC
Symptoms of weakness and nausea were afflicting me, sometimes disabling me for hours at a time. So I went to an internist, who ran a series of tests, which turned up nothing.

Finally, at a loss, he ordered a brain scan. I vividly recall the words of the neurologist when the results came in: "There's nothing wrong with your brain. But you might have a potassium deficiency. If you are feeling low, eat a banana." How easy! I enjoyed slicing a banana onto my Wheaties and milk for breakfast.

"We've done every test I can think of, and there's nothing organically wrong with you," said the internist. "I think you are clinically depressed. I'm putting you on an antidepressant." I had an intuitive sense I'd been misdiagnosed. Had I ever felt depressed? Sure. But the symptoms I had reported to him didn't feel like depression. I asked him about the side effects of the drug he prescribed. I refused to take it. As I left, he warned me, "You'll be sorry."

A couple of months later, I was in the office of a dermatologist for a routine checkup, and I had one of those attacks of nausea and weakness. It was the first time I'd had those dreaded symptoms while with a physician. He checked my vitals. Blood pressure was way down, for one thing. He got a hunch. "I once had a patient with symptoms just like yours," he said. "Turned out he had food allergies. Why not get checked out for food allergies?"
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Question

India: Seven kids die due to mysterious disease in Bihar


IANS
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:52 UTC
At least seven children have died and dozens fell ill due to an unidentified disease in Bihar's Araria district, officials said Tuesday.

The children in Simaria village in Araria, about 400 km from here, suffered from high fever and a type of rash before they died, a district administration official told IANS.

Nearly half of the villagers have shifted to neighbouring villages in panic.

Comment: Recently, and perhaps during the same period, similar case happened in Gujarat's Amreli district, India.

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Syringe

US: Ohio Hospitals Fight Resistant Bacteria - Clostridium difficile Now More Common than MRSA Infections

Misti Crane
The Columbus Dispatch
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 02:50 UTC
As the bacteria known as C. diff continues to raise concerns throughout the nation, a group of Ohio hospitals is having some success driving down the infections that patients pick up after they are admitted.

Clostridium difficile is one of the most common causes of bacterial colon infections and often is brought on by use of antibiotics, which can disrupt the normal bacteria in the bowel. Many infected people have no symptoms, but some become severely ill.

A recent report shared at an infection-control conference showed that C. diff infections are now more common than MRSA infections at 28 hospitals in the Southeast. MRSA is a deadly, drug-resistant staph infection.
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Question

India: Mysterious fever kills five in 12 days

Kulsum Yusuf
The Times of India
Fri, 02 Apr 2010 17:09 UTC
A mysterious fever has claimed five lives, including that of two children, in the past 12 days at Trakuda village in Khambha taluka of Amreli district. The village has a population of 2,000.

The district health officers were not available for comment. The new born baby of Ashok Ambabhai did not survive even for a day. Savji Arjan's daughter had come to her maternal home for delivery but her baby too did not survive for long. Nileshpari Rameshpari, 17, Jivabahi Bhagvanbhai ,70, and Harjivan Premjibahi, 60, also fell victims to the fever.

Comment: Recently, and perhaps during the same period, similar case happened in Bihar's Araria district, India.

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Bell

BPA Contamination Found in 90% of Soup Cans

Martin Hickman
The Independent
Thu, 01 Apr 2010 09:58 UTC
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18 of 20 most popular tins made with controversial bisphenol A in lining

Some of Britain's best-known foods contain the controversial chemical bisphenol A, The Independent can reveal.

Tins of Heinz baked beans, soup and beans, John West and Princes fish, and Napolina tomatoes are lined with a membrane containing bisphenol A, or BPA. Other companies using it in their tins include the biggest retailers in the UK, Tesco, Sainsbury's and Asda, who use it for tins of tuna and sardines.

Britain's Food Standards Agency (FSA) has given the chemical the all-clear, in contrast to the US Food and Drug Administration, which in January expressed concern over its impact on the brains and development of young children and said it was "taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure" to it in the food supply. After the American U-turn, the EU-funded European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) launched and is still carrying out a review of BPA.
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Plastic Nanoparticles Can Move From Mom to Baby Through Placenta

Thea Edwards
Environmental Health News
Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:43 UTC
Research shows for the first time that plastic nanoparticles can cross the human placenta, possibly exposing the developing fetus to the tiny materials that are increasingly used in medicines, vaccines and personal care products.

Plastic nanoparticles can quickly traverse the human placenta from the mother's side to the developing fetus' side, according to new laboratory research that confirms prior findings from animal studies.

The results confirm that smaller sizes of the manufactured materials are able to cross the placenta at a time toward the end of pregnancy when the membrane barrier between mom and fetus is thinner. The growing brain and other organs may be exposed to the particles, for which health effects are unknown. Researchers suggest more research on the toxic effects of nanoparticles is needed to understand if the fetus is at risk.
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Red Flag

Beware of the Agave Nectar Health Food Fraud


Dr. Mercola
Tue, 30 Mar 2010 08:29 UTC
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Shocking! This 'Tequila' Sweetener is Far Worse than High Fructose Corn Syrup

Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer "natural" sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that agave is actually WORSE than HFCS.

This expose will offend many hard core natural health advocates because they have been convinced of the agave hype by companies that are promoting it.

Some have even criticized me for having "ulterior" motives. But nothing could be further from the truth. Although I do offer natural health products of sale on this site, I sell no competing products to agave.

Rather I recommend flavored stevia products like English Toffee or French Vanilla. You can also use xylitol in small amounts or glucose which is sold as dextrose and can easily be purchased on Amazon for $1 per pound. I do not sell any of these products.

My only purpose for sharing this information is to help people understand the truth about health. In case you haven't noticed we have an epidemic of obesity in the US and it wasn't until recently that my eyes opened up to the primary cause - fructose.
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Attention

Farm Pesticides Linked to Deadly Skin Cancer

Gordon Shetler
Environmental Health News
Wed, 31 Mar 2010 08:12 UTC
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Certain pesticides used in the U.S. on a variety of crops can double the risk of skin cancer for farmers or others who apply the chemicals.
Sun exposure has always been considered the driving force behind rising rates of melanoma. But new research suggests that repeated, long-term use of pesticides may be an important factor, too.

Workers who apply certain pesticides to farm fields are twice as likely to contract melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to a new scientific study.

The researchers identified six pesticides that, with repeated exposure, doubled the risk of skin cancer among farmers and other workers who applied them to crops.

The findings add to evidence suggesting that frequent use of pesticides could raise the risk of melanoma. Rates of the disease have tripled in the United States in the last 30 years, with sun exposure identified as the major cause.

Four of the chemicals - maneb, mancozeb, methyl-parathion and carbaryl - are used in the United States on a variety of crops, including nuts, vegetables and fruits. Two others, benomyl and ethyl-parathion, were voluntarily canceled by their manufacturers in 2008.
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