Health & WellnessS


Health

American Doctors Busted for Fraud

Mike Adams
NaturalNews.com
Wed, 01 Jul 2009 07:45 UTC
I've often asserted that doctors exploit people for personal profit, prescribing drugs and procedures that are medically unnecessary while raking in millions from health insurance companies, Medicare and Medicaid. This week, Miami doctor Roberto Rodriguez was sentenced to eight years in prison -- and ordered to pay $9 million back to Medicare -- for doing exactly that.

According to press reports, Dr. Rodriguez conspired with five other medical professionals to recruit patients, diagnose them with HIV, then forge false records for HIV treatment services that earned them millions of dollars in Medicare reimbursements. From October 2003 through February 2006, the team of doctors bilked Medicare (and taxpayers) for $20 million in false claims. (One of the co-conspirators -- Dr. Carmen del Cueto -- will be sentenced in September.)

But here's the best part: This fraud wasn't limited to just one medical clinic. Dr. Rodriguez was the medical director for five additional Miami-based HIV infusion clinics where the same fraud continued to the tune of millions of dollars.
Read More...
Sun

Vitamin B12 Protects the Heart, Mind, Eyes and More

Melanie Grimes
Natural News
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 17:23 UTC
Vitamin B12 is one of the eight B vitamins, and is important for brain function and the formation of blood. B12 deficiency can cause many diseases. Deficiency can be treated by diet or by B12 injections. Since B12 is hard to assimilate through the stomach, sublingual B12 is advised. B12 is water-soluble, is made up of a complicated chemical structure, and contains the element cobalt. The type of B12 used in food supplements is called cyanocobalamin.
Read More...
Cheeseburger

E.Coli 0157 Comes Back With a Vengence

Tom Philpott
Grist
Tue, 30 Jun 2009 04:14 UTC
Image
Tainted burger, coming soon to a plate near you?
In Meat Wagon, we round up the latest outrages from the meat and livestock industries.

Where's the tainted beef?

If you regularly eat fast-food burgers or unlabeled supermarket beef, you've almost certainly consumed a JBS product in the past month. That's because Brazil-based JBS is the globe's largest beef producer - and the third-largest U.S. beef packer. And what a month it's been for this emerging beef behemoth.
Read More...
Info

Ginseng is the Green Way to Reduce Swelling

Josh Peterson
Planet Green
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:54 UTC
Image
© WEKWEK/istockphoto
Ginseng has been used in natural medicine for centuries. You'll often find it boasted on those crazily named energy drinks.But before ginseng graced the side of a goofy energy can, it was busy bolstering the health of the convalescent, treating erectile dysfunction and Hepatitus C, the symptoms of menopause, keeping blood pressure down, improving mental and physical awareness, and contributing to a person's feeling of overall well-being. What a wonderful root.
Read More...
Bell

Study Says Alcohol-Related Deaths Are on the Rise

Eben Harrell
Time
Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:43 UTC
Image
© Getty Images
The last global statistical analysis of the damage caused by alcohol, undertaken in 2000, found that 3.2% of deaths worldwide were the result of alcohol consumption. The new study, part of the Lancet's "Alcohol and Global Health" series published last Saturday, used the same statistical tools as the previous one, and found that for 2004 the figure had increased 0.6%. Alcohol-related causes of death include accidents, violence, poisoning, mouth and throat cancer, colorectal cancer, breast cancer, suicide, stroke and many others.
Read More...
Attention

Sanofi Drug May Increase Cancer Risk, Studies Find

Ben Hirschler
Reuters
Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:28 UTC
London - Sanofi-Aventis's diabetes drug Lantus may increase the risk of cancer, according to European studies involving some 300,000 insulin-treated patients, prompting a call from experts for more research.

The European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD), which released details online of four studies from its journal Diabetologia, said they were "far from conclusive but they do indicate the need for further investigation of this issue."

The new research was released after mounting speculation that damaging data was about to be published over a cancer link with Sanofi's modern long-acting insulin analog, sinking the the French drugmaker's share price by 12.3 percent in two days.
Read More...
Health

Study Finds Even Tiny Levels of Carbon Monoxide Can Damage Fetal Brain


MDIndia
Sun, 28 Jun 2009 04:55 UTC
Exposure to even miniscule levels of carbon monoxide during pregnancy can have an adverse impact on fetal brain, resulting in permanent impairment, a new study has revealed.

"We expected the placenta to protect fetuses from the mother's exposure to tiny amounts of carbon monoxide," said John Edmond, professor emeritus of biological chemistry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.

"But we found that not to be the case," he added.
Read More...
Cookie

The gluten nightmare that attacked my brain

Carl Lowe
The Examiner
Mon, 01 Jun 2009 02:43 UTC
The effects that gluten had on my brain were disturbing and far reaching.

For me, waking up from a deep sleep used to be supremely disquieting. As I began the initial climb back to consciousness, I would be immersed in a dream, surrounded by a nighttime fantasy. But as I awoke further, and became more fully conscious, the memory of that dream would drain away - sometimes in torturous slow motion. Something circulating in my brain, or some warped circuit in my skull, would grab my dream memory and pull it slowly from my grasp no matter how hard I tried to keep it in mind. By the time the process was done, and I was fully awake, I was only left with the thin knowledge that I had had a dream. I couldn't recall where I had been or what I had done.
Read More...
Family

Canada Clamping Down on the 'Rubber Duck' Chemical

Martin Mittelstaedt
The Globe & Mail
Wed, 24 Jun 2009 00:30 UTC
Image
© unknownPhthalates are found everywhere -- bug sprays, children’s glow sticks, dentures, clothing, automobiles -- making it difficult to avoid
Health Canada wants to ban six types of phthalates, the so-called "rubber duck" chemical, from children's toys, but consumers interested in avoiding the compound in other products will find that a nearly impossible task.

Phthalates are in foods, plastic piping, cosmetics, sewage and, perhaps surprisingly, in trace concentrations in people who've been tested for the chemical.
Read More...
Ambulance

Grant System Leads Cancer Researchers to Play It Safe

Gina Kolata
The New York Times
Sun, 28 Jun 2009 16:57 UTC
Among the recent research grants awarded by the National Cancer Institute is one for a study asking whether people who are especially responsive to good-tasting food have the most difficulty staying on a diet. Another study will assess a Web-based program that encourages families to choose more healthful foods.

Many other grants involve biological research unlikely to break new ground. For example, one project asks whether a laboratory discovery involving colon cancer also applies to breast cancer. But even if it does apply, there is no treatment yet that exploits it.

The cancer institute has spent $105 billion since President Richard M. Nixon declared war on the disease in 1971. The American Cancer Society, the largest private financer of cancer research, has spent about $3.4 billion on research grants since 1946.

Yet the fight against cancer is going slower than most had hoped, with only small changes in the death rate in the almost 40 years since it began.

One major impediment, scientists agree, is the grant system itself. It has become a sort of jobs program, a way to keep research laboratories going year after year with the understanding that the focus will be on small projects unlikely to take significant steps toward curing cancer.
Read More...