Health & WellnessS


Family

Lack Of Social Support Tied To Parental Depression


Science Daily
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 15:36 UTC
The latest research from Family Relations shows that parents in low-income environments are more prone to depression when there is a lack of social support. This is especially prevalent in rural regions, where mental health and social resources can be deficient.

Social support mechanisms such as community groups, churches, and school or sports-related activities, can act as a barrier against negative thinking and allow parents who are prone to depression, in order to make better, more positive choices and engage in healthy parental practices.
Read More...
Magnify

The Vital Key to Maximum Antioxidant Activity is Glutathione

Paul Fassa
Natural News
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 05:00 UTC
What if you were told you weren't getting enough cellular oxidation or free radical protection, despite consuming all the high antioxidant foods and some of the best antioxidant supplements available? Would you wonder how that could be, or would you simply ignore it? Don't ignore it, read on. How it could be, according to many health experts, is that your glutathione levels are too low. This is a very common situation with all the oxidation stress our toxic environment provides, along with a little help from our own personal stress.

Why Are Antioxidants Necessary?

Oxidation occurs on a cellular level during the body's efforts to produce energy and fortify cells metabolizing oxygen. The oxygen atoms or molecules that are not fully absorbed become free radicals, unstable atoms missing an electron, which begin robbing cells of electrons to balance and stabilize themselves. Then the atoms robbed of an electron become free radicals and continue the oxidation process, robbing electrons as needed from other sources.

A chain reaction occurs. This changes the identity and function of those atoms as they combine in unnatural ways, leading to cellular and DNA damage. And eventually, of course myriad health issues and disease will breed freely. It is the downside of oxygen, similar to the way metal becomes rusty with exposure to air. We can't stop breathing, so there will be some free radicals loose from just that.
Read More...
Magnify

Pink Brain, Blue Brain: Claims of sex differences fall apart

Sharon Begley
Newsweek
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 10:40 UTC
Among certain parents, it is an article of faith not only that they should treat their sons and daughters alike, but also that they do. If Jack gets Lincoln Logs and Tetris, and joins the soccer team and the math club, so does Jill. Lise Eliot, a neuroscientist at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, doesn't think these parents are lying, exactly. But she would like to bring some studies to their attention.

In one, scientists dressed newborns in gender-neutral clothes and misled adults about their sex. The adults described the "boys" (actually girls) as angry or distressed more often than did adults who thought they were observing girls, and described the "girls" (actually boys) as happy and socially engaged more than adults who knew the babies were boys. Dozens of such disguised-gender experiments have shown that adults perceive baby boys and girls differently, seeing identical behavior through a gender-tinted lens. In another study, mothers estimated how steep a slope their 11-month-olds could crawl down. Moms of boys got it right to within one degree; moms of girls underestimated what their daughters could do by nine degrees, even though there are no differences in the motor skills of infant boys and girls. But that prejudice may cause parents to unconsciously limit their daughter's physical activity. How we perceive children - sociable or remote, physically bold or reticent - shapes how we treat them and therefore what experiences we give them. Since life leaves footprints on the very structure and function of the brain, these various experiences produce sex differences in adult behavior and brains - the result not of innate and inborn nature but of nurture.
Read More...
Syringe

Canada: Study prompts provinces to rethink flu plan

Patrick White
Globe and Mail
Mon, 28 Sep 2009 08:37 UTC
flu_vac_globemail
© Chuck Stoody/The Canadian PressRegistered nurse Teresa Burrows working for Vancouver Island Vaccine loads a syringe with flu vaccine
A "perplexing" Canadian study linking H1N1 to seasonal flu shots is throwing national influenza plans into disarray and testing public faith in the government agencies responsible for protecting the nation's health.

Distributed for peer review last week, the study confounded infectious-disease experts in suggesting that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are twice as likely to catch swine flu.

The paper is under peer review, and lead researchers Danuta Skowronski of the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control and Gaston De Serres of Laval University must stay mum until it's published.

Comment:
"Canadian findings were an international anomaly and could constitute a "study bias"
Australia: Swine flu vaccine plan in disarray as insurers may refuse to cover doctors who administer the jab

UK: A third of nurses will refuse to have the swine flu jab

Vaccine Creators Refuse to Take H1N1 Vaccine

German Health Expert Warning: Does H1N1 Vaccine Increase the Risk of Cancer?

Seasonal flu shot may increase H1N1 risk

Eighteen Reasons Why You Should NOT Vaccinate Your Children Against The Flu This Season

Another Shocking Warning About Swine Flu Vaccine

Ten Swine Flu Lies Told by the Mainstream Media

Another Shocking Warning About Swine Flu Vaccine

Read More...
Magnify

The Debilitating Effects of TV on Children

John M Grohol
Psych Central
Sun, 27 Sep 2009 10:00 UTC
TV
© Unknown
Most of us are generally aware that television isn't the healthiest of activities. Yet, like cigarette smoking in the 1970s, it's one of those harms we continue to whitewash or worse - exposing our children to it as though it were as innocent as playing with Tinkertoys.

Yet as today's Boston Globe reminds us, TV is not this passive device you sit your children in front of with no ill effects. Decades worth of research have shown the harmful effects of TV on your child's development. Most child psychologists and child development experts recommend no TV whatsoever for a child before the age of 2 or 3. None. Yet a whopping 43 percent of parents plop their toddler down in front of the television set, apparently blind to the consequence of their actions.
Read More...
Attention

School Drinking Water Contains Toxins

Garance Burke
The Associated Press
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 22:36 UTC
Image
© APJesus Lealstripe, left gets a drink of water from a dispenser at Lovell High School after playing basketball
Cutler, California - Over the last decade, the drinking water at thousands of schools across the country has been found to contain unsafe levels of lead, pesticides and dozens of other toxins.

An Associated Press investigation found that contaminants have surfaced at public and private schools in all 50 states - in small towns and inner cities alike.

But the problem has gone largely unmonitored by the federal government, even as the number of water safety violations has multiplied.
Read More...
Heart

Is Eating a Plant-Based Diet a Cure for Cancer?

Kathy Freston
Alternet
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 13:48 UTC
Experts are saying a plant-based diet is not only good for our health, but it's also curative of the very serious diseases we face.

I have been working closely recently with a few extraordinary nutritional researchers, and I find that the information they have compiled is quite eye opening. Interestingly, what these highly esteemed doctors are saying is just beginning to be understood and accepted, perhaps because what they are saying does not conveniently fit in with or support the multi-billion dollar food industries that profit from our "not knowing." One thing is for sure: we are getting sicker and more obese than our health care system can handle, and the conventional methods of dealing with disease often have harmful side effects and are ineffective for some patients.
Read More...
X

Weightloss website abuses dieters!


The Telegraph
Fri, 25 Sep 2009 05:40 UTC
Weightnags, a website which sends abusive lose-weight emails to dieters, has been launched.

People struggling to shed the pounds are subscribing to weightnags.com in a bid reduce their waistlines.

The websites creators say it 'inspires' its users through a mixture of personal abuse and insults.

Messages sent to dieters include, 'face it fatty, you need someone to bug you every 15 minutes don't you?' and 'You oughta lay off the buffet'.
Read More...
Magnify

Chelation Detox Eliminates Mercury and Heavy Metals and Leads to Better Health

Melanie Grimes
Natural News
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:00 UTC
The modern environment is filled with many toxins. Thousands of new chemicals are invented and put into our environment and our bodies each year. A recent study showed that even newborn infants have over 200 chemicals in their blood and umbilical cord. It is impossible to avoid chemicals as they are present in the mattresses we sleep on, the carpets we walk on, the houses we live in, the waters we swim in, and even in the acid rain that washes over us when we are outside. Fortunately, there are numerous simple and inexpensive ways to clean out the body with natural chelation and detoxifying agents.

Because mercury is in our water supply, the fish we eat contain more mercury than they did in decades past. Because of the harm to fetuses, pregnant women have been advised to reduce the amount of fish they eat when pregnant. And with the newfound link between mercury poisoning and increased risk of autism, fish should be avoided, as well as vaccines containing mercury, especially the flu vaccines.

One of the ways the body cleans out toxins is via the kidneys. Heavy metals are detoxed in this way. The body also eliminates through the lungs, skin and the digestive system. Heavy metals and other chemical toxins are eliminated by being carried by the blood into the kidneys where they are filtered out of the blood and eliminated in the urine.
Read More...
Magnify

Detoxification or Amputation: You Decide

Kim Evans
Natural News
Thu, 24 Sep 2009 06:00 UTC
When patients' bodies have been showing signs that detoxification is needed, doctors have been prescribing a drug that can lead to tissue damage to the degree that amputation is then the next step. The FDA hasn't called for the elimination of this treatment, but recently said that a stronger label is needed to let consumers know that this drug, called promethazine and used to stop vomiting, could lead to the eventual amputation of their limbs.

What they don't mention is that vomiting is one way your body removes harmful substances from itself. You'd be wise to understand what's going on and help your body remove those substances, instead of taking drugs to stop the process and keep whatever poisons your body wants to remove inside your body. You'd be particularly wise not to keep those poisons in your body with prescribed chemicals that might damage your limbs to the point that they're no longer useful.

There's something about detoxification that medical folks just don't get.
Read More...