Health & WellnessS


Light Saber

EWG Calls on Coca-Cola to Protect Customers From BPA


ConnonDreams.org/Environmental Working Group
Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:43 UTC
Coca-Cola Rep Discussed "Fear Tactics" to Save BPA at Infamous "Cosmos Club" Confab

Washington - Environmental Working Group (EWG) today called on The Coca-Cola Company's chairman and chief executive officer Muhtar Kent to take immediate steps to reduce children's exposure to bisphenol A (BPA), a toxic chemical used in beverage bottles and beverage can linings.

"Along with hundreds of thousands of Environmental Working Group supporters, I was very disappointed to read reports in The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and The Washington Post that a Coca-Cola representative joined chemical and food processing company lobbyists in a recent meeting to consider, among other things, the use of "fear tactics" to protect the market for the toxic chemical bisphenol A (BPA)," EWG's President, Ken Cook wrote Kent.
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Magnify

Nightmares Predict Elevated Suicidal Symptoms

Kelly Wagner
Medical News Today
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00 UTC
Self-reported nightmares among patients seeking emergency psychiatric evaluation uniquely predicted elevated suicidal symptoms, according to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Results indicate that severe nightmares were independently associated with elevated suicidal symptoms after accounting for the influence of depression, whereas symptoms of insomnia were not. These findings suggest that nightmares stand alone as a suicide risk factor.

The sample included 82 men and women between the ages of 18 and 66, who were in a community mental health hospital admissions unit awaiting an emergency psychiatric evaluation. Evaluations determined eligibility for crisis stabilization inpatient admittance. Patients' nightmares, insomnia, depression and suicidal tendencies were assessed through several questionnaires, including the Disturbing Dreams and Nightmare Severity Index, Insomnia Severity Index (ISI), Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Beck Scale for Suicide Ideation (BSS).
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Genetic Link Found Between Stress-Induced Sleep Loss and Intrusive Thinking

Kelly Wagner
Medical News Today
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00 UTC
The genetic factors that cause increased sleep problems during times of stress seem to be the same as those that make people with intrusive and ruminative thoughts have a higher prevalence of insomnia, according to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies.

Results indicate that sleep reactivity to stress mediates the genetic relationship between ruminative thoughts (unwanted thoughts that are difficult to control) and insomnia. Findings highlight the importance of revealing the influences of sleep reactivity on ruminative thoughts and insomnia.

According to lead author Naomi Friedman, PhD, senior research associate at the Institute for Behavioral Genetics at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the substantial genetic predispositions to these problems may be modifiable; treatments designed to reduce sleep reactivity to stress might have the potential to improve insomnia related to rumination.
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Magnify

The Importance of Sleep in Regulating Emotional Responses

Kelly Wagner
Medical News Today
Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:00 UTC
According to a research abstract presented at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, sleep selectively preservers memories that are emotionally salient and relevant to future goals when sleep follows soon after learning. Effects persist for as long as four months after the memory is created.

Results indicate that the sleeping brain seems to calculate what is most important about an experience and selects only what is adaptive for consolidation and long term storage. Across long delays of 24 hours, or even three-to-four months, sleeping soon after learning preserved the trade-off (compared to waiting an entire day before going to sleep).

According to lead author, Jessica Payne, PhD, of Harvard Medical School in Boston MA, It was surprising that in addition to seeing the enhancement of negative memories over neutral scenes, there was also selectivity within the emotional scenes themselves, with sleep only consolidating what is most relevant, adaptive and useful about the scenes. It was even more surprising that this selectivity lasted for a full day and even months later if sleep came soon after learning.

"It may be that the chemical and physiological aspects of sleep underlying memory consolidation are more effective if a particular memory is 'tagged' shortly prior to sleeping," said Payne.
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Health

Bisphenol A exposure dangerous for human heart and reproduction

Natalie James
The Money Times
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 23:26 UTC
Image
Adding more to the already touted harmful effects of a chemical, bisphenol A, or BPA, three different new studies have now suggested that this controversial estrogen-like chemical, usually present in almost all everyday use plastic products, may affect human health.

BPA is a synthetic chemical that is the main component in polycarbonate, which ultimately forms the unbreakable plastic used in the food cans, water bottles, drink containers, compact discs, electronics and also baby bottles.

People around the world are facing a dilemma over deciding whether chemical bisphenol A, which is commonly known as BPA, is safe for them and their kids if used in low levels or not. Some experts say the chemical can pose threat to lives of human beings, while other say it's not that much harmful.
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Fish

Oily Fish 'Can Halt Eye Disease'


BBC News
Mon, 08 Jun 2009 19:27 UTC
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Mackerel is rich in omega 3 oils
People with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) should eat oily fish at least twice a week to keep their eye disease at bay, say scientists.

Omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in fish like mackerel and salmon appear to slow or even halt the progress of both early and late stage disease.
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Red Flag

Hormone Experts Worried About Plastics, Chemicals

Maggie Fox
Reuters
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 18:41 UTC
Hormone experts said on Wednesday they are becoming worried by a chemical called bisphenol A, which some politicians say they want taken out of products and which consumers are increasingly shunning.

They said they have gathered a growing body evidence to show the compound, also known as BPA, might damage human health. The Endocrine Society issued a scientific statement on Wednesday calling for better studies into its effects
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Alarm Clock

Pathological: Antipsychotics get tentative OK for kids

Rita Rubin
USA Today
Thu, 11 Jun 2009 01:24 UTC
Adelphi, Maryland - With varying degrees of enthusiasm, a Food and Drug Administration advisory committee Wednesday concluded that three newer antipsychotic drugs already widely used "off-label" in children and teens are "acceptably safe" and effective in treating them for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

However, because of the risks involved with the drugs - mainly weight gain, sleepiness and increases in blood fats and sugars - several panel members expressed concerns about their inappropriate use in pediatric patients who don't have schizophrenia or bipolar disorder or are younger than the age range studied.
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Syringe

Swine flu cases in Australia could force WHO to declare pandemic

Bonnie Malkin
Telegraph
Wed, 10 Jun 2009 00:00 UTC
The World Health Organization is "very, very close" to declaring an official swine flu pandemic, after a sharp spike in cases in several countries, including Australia.

The WHO has so far left its six-level pandemic alert scale unchanged at phase five, signalling that a pandemic is "imminent." But a swift increase in cases in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria could prompt the organisation to declare its first pandemic in four decades.

The country has recorded 1,211 infections, with 1,011 in Victoria, the fourth highest number of infections in the world. Less than a month ago Australia had only a handful of cases of the H1N1 virus but its spread has been rapid.
tamiflu_australia
© Reuters Australia has recorded 1,211 cases of swine flu

Comment: For the history and origin of Flu, read SOTT Special Report: The Flu Threat

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Better Earth

Music speeds recovery

Sylvia Thompson
Irish Times
Wed, 10 Jun 2009 17:00 UTC
Image
© unknown
Patients recovering from heart surgery who were given music to listen to through headphones while they were still asleep and on ventilators, spent about three and a half hours less in an American intensive care unit (ICU) than patients receiving normal post-operative care, according to recent research.

"The music-listening patients also reduced their sedative medication by 10 per cent," said Dr Fred Schwartz, anaesthesiologist at the Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, Georgia, who presented the study, Music and the Heart, at the first meeting of the International Association for Music and Medicine at University of Limerick at the weekend.
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