Health & WellnessS


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One more reason to stay away from radiation therapy

Walt Bogdanich
New York Times
Sat, 23 Jan 2010 18:59 UTC
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© New York TimesFor his last Christmas, Scott Jerome-Parks rested his feet in buckets of sand his friends had sent from a childhood beach.
As Scott Jerome-Parks lay dying, he clung to this wish: that his fatal radiation overdose - which left him deaf, struggling to see, unable to swallow, burned, with his teeth falling out, with ulcers in his mouth and throat, nauseated, in severe pain and finally unable to breathe - be studied and talked about publicly so that others might not have to live his nightmare.

Sensing death was near, Mr. Jerome-Parks summoned his family for a final Christmas. His friends sent two buckets of sand from the beach where they had played as children so he could touch it, feel it and remember better days.

Mr. Jerome-Parks died several weeks later in 2007. He was 43.
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School Teaches Boys to Meditate to Reduce Stress

Sam Lister
Telegraph
Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:28 UTC
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A Year 10 pupil during a mindfulness class that Tonbridge School has introduced
Pupils at a leading public school are to receive weekly 40-minute classes in meditation and stress relief in a ground-breaking addition to the school curriculum.

Schoolboys aged 14 and 15 at Tonbridge School, in Kent, were given their first lesson yesterday as part of a course designed with psychologists from the universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

The project - the first to introduce meditation skills as a regular subject on the curriculum - has been designed specifically for adolescents and comes after the success of a pilot study at the school last year.

The "mindfulness" course for Year 10 pupils will last for eight weeks. It is designed to develop skills in concentration and to combat anxiety, showing teenagers the benefits of silence and helping them to identify and escape corrosive mindsets that could lead to mental health problems such as depression, eating disorders and addiction.

Comment: Breathing and Mediation are key to reducing stress not just for young adults but people of all ages. For more information about the Eiriu Eolas breathing program see here:
Introducing Éiriú Eolas (pronounced "AIR-oo OH-lahss"), the modern revival of an ancient breathing and meditation program miraculously revealed as THE TOOL that will help you to relax and gently work through past emotional and psychological trauma. Éiriú Eolas will enable you to let go of repressed emotions and mental blockages that stand between you and True Peace, Happiness, and ultimately, a successful, fulfilling life.

The Éiriú Eolas technique grew out of research conducted by historian and author Laura Knight-Jadczyk and her husband, physicist Arkadiusz Jadczyk. The practice has been thoroughly researched and proven to work by the thousands of people who are already benefiting from this unique revelation in our time.


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Vitamin D Promotes Weight Loss

E. Huff
NaturalNews
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:00 UTC
A recent study conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota found that overweight people have better success in losing weight when their vitamin D levels are increased. Dr. Shalamar Sibley, the researcher who headed the study, placed 38 obese men and women on a diet program and discovered that those whose vitamin D levels were increased lost up to a half pound more than those who followed the diet plan only.

When combined with a reduced-calorie diet, it appears that supplementation with vitamin D helps to promote increased weight loss among those whose levels are low to begin with. For each nanogram per milliliter increase in vitamin D precursor in the blood, it was observed that an extra half pound loss in weight was able to be achieved while the diet plan.

A study published earlier this year in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that 75 percent or more of American teens and adults are deficient in vitamin D. Vitamin D deficiency is linked to all sorts of serious illnesses including cancer, diabetes and heart disease.
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Heart

Breastfeeding: The miracle of mother's milk

Victoria Lambert
Telegraph.co.uk
Fri, 22 Jan 2010 16:43 UTC
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© CORBIS Breastfeeding is the cheapest, cleanest and healthiest way to nurture a baby
Whatever the studies say, breast is still best, says Victoria Lambert.

We've all known mothers who can whip out a breast, whip on a baby, and lactate like mad - without effort, embarrassment or, in some cases, embonpoint. For me, breastfeeding was a slog: six months of broken nights, screaming and tears (mine, mostly). But I don't regret a moment.

Breastfeeding - if you can - is the cheapest, cleanest and healthiest way to nurture a baby. That's not just my opinion or that of the World Health Organisation (which recommends breastfeeding for the first six months) - it's common sense, isn't it?

Perhaps, but Breast v Bottle is still one of the most furious debates in modern mothering, fuelled by powerful hormones on one hand, and the billion-pound formula industry on the other. This month, the fire has been fed by two scientific studies suggesting that breastfeeding might not be worth the bother - let alone the guilt and distress if you can't or choose not to.

Comment: For more information about the Breast Feeding debate read the discussion on the forum: Breast Feeding - It's the best, but...

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Bandaid

Doctors are Addicted to 'Every Drug Under the Sun'

Kate Devlin
Telegraph.co.uk
Fri, 29 Jan 2010 16:34 UTC
Doctors are addicted to "every drug under the sun" the head of the first ever
confidential GP service for health professionals has warned.

In its first year the clinic has treated NHS staff hooked on drugs including heroin, ketamine, a horse tranquillizer, and methadone, a drug linked to amphetamines, said Dr Clare Gerada, medical director of the Practitioner Health Programme.

The service also uncovered six cases of undiagnosed psychosis, in which sufferers see things or hear voices.

The clinic was set up amid fears many health professionals were treating themselves or avoiding their local GP or hospital because of worries colleagues could learn of their health problems.
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Syringe

Grieving Mother Blames Gardasil


Dr. Mercola
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 16:06 UTC
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Rhonda Renata is in no doubt about what caused the death of her 18-year-old daughter Jasmine, who died last September, apparently in her sleep.

It was six months since she had received the last of the three injections of the cervical cancer vaccine Gardasil.

Her grieving mother is still waiting for official answers on what happened to Jasmine, but she doubts the medical investigations will provide them.

Her own inquiries have led her to cases overseas, which she considers similar to Jasmine's clutch of symptoms before she died.

In the U.S., it has been alleged more than 10 deaths are linked to Gardasil.

A month after Jasmine's first Gardasil dose, she began to progressively develop pains in various parts of her body. She had episodes of her heart racing, weak arms, tingling in her hands and legs, and she became tired and irritable.

Sources:

New Zealand Herald January 9, 2010
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What You Eat After Exercise Matters


American Physiological Society
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 00:00 UTC
Many of the health benefits of aerobic exercise are due to the most recent exercise session (rather than weeks, months and even years of exercise training), and the nature of these benefits can be greatly affected by the food we eat afterwards, according to a study published in the Journal of Applied Physiology.

"Differences in what you eat after exercise produce different effects on the body's metabolism," said the study's senior author, Jeffrey F. Horowitz of the University of Michigan. This study follows up on several previous studies that demonstrate that many health benefits of exercise are transient: one exercise session produces benefits to the body that taper off, generally within hours or a few days.

"Many of the improvements in metabolic health associated with exercise stem largely from the most recent session of exercise, rather than from an increase in 'fitness' per se," Dr. Horowitz said. "But exercise doesn't occur in a vacuum, and it is very important to look at both the effects of exercise and what you're eating after exercise."
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Antibiotic Found to Protect Hearing in Mice


Washington University School of Medicine
Wed, 27 Jan 2010 06:00 UTC
A type of antibiotic that can cause hearing loss in people has been found to paradoxically protect the ears when given in extended low doses in very young mice.

The surprise finding came from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis who looked to see if loud noise and the antibiotic kanamycin together would produce a bigger hearing loss than either factor by itself. The results will appear in an upcoming issue of the Journal of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology and are now available online.

"The protective effect of this type of antibiotic is a previously unknown phenomenon that now leads to at least a dozen important questions about what mechanisms cause hearing loss and what mechanisms could be protective," says senior author William W. Clark, Ph.D., professor of otolaryngology and director of the Program in Audiology and Communication Sciences, a division of CID at Washington University School of Medicine.
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Losing Sleep, Losing Brain?

Maureen Hunter
Medical News Today
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 04:00 UTC
Chronic and severely stressful situations, like those connected to depression and posttraumatic stress disorder, have been associated with smaller volumes in "stress sensitive" brain regions, such as the cingulate region of the cerebral cortex and the hippocampus, a brain region involved in memory formation. A new study, published by Elsevier in Biological Psychiatry, suggests that chronic insomnia may be another condition associated with reduced cortical volume.

Using a specialized technique called voxel-based morphometry, Ellemarije Altena and Ysbrand van der Werf from the research group of Eus van Someren evaluated the brain volumes of persons with chronic insomnia who were otherwise psychiatrically healthy, and compared them to healthy persons without sleep problems. They found that insomnia patients had a smaller volume of gray matter in the left orbitofrontal cortex, which was strongly correlated with their subjective severity of insomnia.

"We show, for the first time, that insomnia patients have lower grey matter density in brain regions involved in the evaluation of the pleasantness of stimuli, as well as in regions related to the brain's 'resting state'."
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Map of fear memory formation extended by brain scientists

Quinn Eastman
Medical News Today
Thu, 28 Jan 2010 05:00 UTC
Draw a map of the brain when fear and anxiety are involved, and the amygdala - the brain's almond-shaped center for panic and fight-or-flight responses - looms large.

But the amygdala doesn't do its job alone. Scientists at Emory University have recently built upon work from others, extending the fear map to part of the brain known as the prelimbic cortex.

Researchers led by Kerry Ressler, MD, PhD, found that mice lacking a critical growth factor in the prelimbic cortex have trouble remembering to fear electric shocks. The discovery could help improve diagnosis and treatment for anxiety disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder and phobias.
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