Health & WellnessS


Pills

Study Backs Heroin to Treat Addiction

Benedict Carey
New York Times
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:36 UTC
The safest and most effective treatment for hard-core heroin addicts who fail to control their habit using methadone or other treatments may be their drug of choice, in prescription form, researchers are reporting after the first rigorous test of the approach performed in North America.

For years, European countries like Switzerland and the Netherlands have allowed doctors to provide some addicts with prescription heroin as an alternative to buying drugs on the street. The treatment is safe and keeps addicts out of trouble, studies have found, but it is controversial - not only because the drug is illegal but also because policy makers worry that treating with heroin may exacerbate the habit.

The study, appearing in the current issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, may put some of those concerns to rest.
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Stop

New York Psychiatrist Exhorts FDA to Rescind Artificial Sweetener Aspartame Approval

Dr. Ralph Walton, M.D.
OpEd News
Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:15 UTC
Margaret Hamburg, M.D.
Commissioner, F.D.A.
5600 Fishers Lane
Rockville, Maryland 20857

Dear Dr. Hamburg,

I would like to urgently request that the F.D.A. re-visit the approval of aspartame.

This is an issue which I have been involved with for the past 25 years - initially because of the adverse effects experienced by one of my patients. I had been treating a then 54 year old woman with imipramine because of recurrent major depressive episodes. Previous psychoanalytically based therapy had proven ineffective, but she responded dramatically to 150mg of imipramine per day. She had done well for 11 years on this medication, but was then suddenly hospitalized with a grand mal seizure and subsequent manic episode.
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Magnify

The Truth About Record-Setting U.S. Life Expectancy

Robert Roy Britt
LiveScience
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 16:12 UTC
Life expectancy in the United States rose to an all-time high, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said today. But that's only half the story.

The country is behind about 30 others on this measure.

Though the United States has by far the highest level of health care spending per capita in the world, we have one of the lowest life expectancies among developed nations - lower than Italy, Spain and Cuba and just a smidgeon ahead of Chile, Costa Rica and Slovenia, according to the United Nations. China does almost as well as we do. Japan tops the list at 83 years.
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Cow

Farmacology: Antibiotics resistance generated at factory farms

Dale Keiger
Johns Hopkins Magazine
Sat, 20 Jun 2009 08:39 UTC
Image
Ellen Silbergeld, Eng '72 (PhD), recalls that she did not want to go to the seminar. She was a professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in 1999 when her department's chairman needed an audience for the seminar's presenter, a candidate for a faculty position. Silbergeld recalls the chairman saying, "Please, just sit in the room. You can come to lunch." So she sat in the room, and something caught her attention. The seminar was on hospital-acquired infections, but the presenter mentioned in passing that some drug-resistant infections came from food. That seemed odd. Silbergeld knew you could pick up Salmonella from, say, tainted chicken salad. But how would that Salmonella have become resistant to antibiotics? She turned to a colleague and asked. Because, he said, factory chicken farms routinely feed antibiotics to their flocks, to accelerate growth, and the drugs generate resistance.
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Target

Food Labels: Learning from Europe

Marion Nestle
The Atlantic
Wed, 19 Aug 2009 03:11 UTC
You will recall that the FDA's 1994 stance on labeling of genetically modified (GM) foods was that labeling foods as GM or non-GM would be misleading because the foods are no different. Despite overwhelming evidence that the public wants to know whether foods are GM or not, GM foods do not have to be labeled. Worse, those that are labeled non-GM have to include a disclaimer that this makes no difference (I explain how all this happened in Safe Food).

At present, there is no way to know whether GM foods that have been approved by FDA (such as potatoes, tomatoes, squash, papayas) are actually in the produce section of supermarkets. When I was writing What to Eat, I paid to have some papayas tested. Most were not GM. But you have no way of knowing that.
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Health

The Expense of Eating With Celiac Disease

Lesley Alderman
New York Times
Fri, 14 Aug 2009 01:41 UTC
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Kelly Oram and his daughter Micaela make gluten-free bread at home. Mr. Oram suffered for years from celiac disease before a doctor thought to test him for it.
You would think that after Kelly Oram broke more than 10 bones and experienced chronic stomach problems for most of his life, someone (a nurse? a doctor?) might have wondered if something fundamental was wrong with his health. But it wasn't until Mr. Oram was in his early 40s that a doctor who was treating him for a neck injury became suspicious and ordered tests, including a bone scan.

It turned out that Mr. Oram, a music teacher who lives in White Plains, had celiac disease, an under diagnosed immune disorder set off by eating foods containing gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley.
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Health

One in Four Fish in U.S. Waterways Contaminated with Unsafe Levels of Mercury

Sara Goodman
Scientific American
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 02:08 UTC
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© Brian Hughes, U.S. Geological Survey The U.S. Geological Survey found mercury in waterways, sediments and fish.
A U.S. Geological Survey study finds mercury levels above federal standards in 25 percent of fish

Mercury contamination found in a quarter of U.S. freshwater fish exceeds federal safe levels for human consumption, according to a study released today by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The agency examined mercury in fish, sediment and water drawn from 291 rivers and streams between 1998 and 2005, finding 25 percent carried mercury at levels above the safe standard for human consumption (0.3 parts per million wet weight), while all of the fish had detectable mercury levels.

"This study shows just how widespread mercury pollution has become in our air, watersheds, and many of our fish in freshwater streams," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement. "This science sends a clear message that our country must continue to confront pollution, restore our nation's waterways, and protect the public from potential health dangers."
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Syringe

Swine Flu Vaccine Scam?

Sonya Weir
Common Ground
Thu, 20 Aug 2009 01:26 UTC
We've been told by the World Health Organization (WHO) that the swine flu is a pandemic and spreading rampantly, with two billion people expected to contract the virus globally in the next two years. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the regular, garden-variety influenza claimed 24,000 lives during the last flu season. Yet, in what it is citing as a pandemic, WHO has attributed the swine flu with 700 to 800 deaths worldwide to date (as of Common Ground's press date July 29). Pandemic? It's difficult to understand the logic until one pays attention to the underlying motives.
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Eye 2

New England Journal of Medicine: Gluten Can Cause 55 Diseases


AntonyLemme.com
Mon, 18 May 2009 08:22 UTC
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© UnknownGolden wheat fields: looks divine doesn't it? But we're not supposed to be eating the stuff!
Welcome back everyone. I hope you all made it a great weekend. I did!

Seems that since I've written the last few articles, I've received numerous comments on gluten. Don Shepherd, John Ho and Pat Becker all made comments on the dangers of gluten. One does not have to have Celiacs disease to be negatively affected by it.

We discussed in earlier posts how there can be many different causes for one disease. If you remember, we used the example of depression in which it could be caused by one's thyroid, a deficiency in folic acid, blood sugar disturbances, hidden infections, deficiency of omega-3 fats, low testosterone and so on.

Now let's flip the coin and turn to gluten and see how one thing can be the cause of many problems and diseases.

In fact, a recent review in the New England Journal of Medicine listed fifty-five diseases that can be caused by eating gluten!
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Magnify

Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop

Natalie Angier
New York Times
Wed, 19 Aug 2009 05:21 UTC
If after a few months' exposure to our David Lynch economy, in which housing markets spontaneously combust, coworkers mysteriously disappear and the stifled moans of dying 401(k) plans can be heard through the floorboards, you have the awful sensation that your body's stress response has taken on a self-replicating and ultimately self-defeating life of its own, congratulations. You are very perceptive. It has.

As though it weren't bad enough that chronic stress has been shown to raise blood pressure, stiffen arteries, suppress the immune system, heighten the risk of diabetes, depression and Alzheimer's disease and make one a very undesirable dinner companion, now researchers have discovered that the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence.
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