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Low Amino Acids Linked to Fibromyalgia

Lourdes Salvador
American Chronicle
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 19:52 UTC
People with fibromyalgia (FM) may suffer from the inability to absorb amino acids. Significantly low amino acid levels have been found in the blood patients with fibromyalgia.

In malabsorption, nutrients are not absorbed into the body for utilization. This results in a deficiency which is not linked to poor diet.

Overall amino acid levels in test subjects were very low, especially those of taurine, alanine, tyrosine, valine, methionine, phenylalanine, and threonine.

Scientists have also linked certain amino acids to the clinical symptoms of fibromyalgia. The lower the level of these certain amino acids, the more pain the patient reports.
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US: Pistachio company: Raw nuts may be bacteria source

Garance Burke
Associated Press
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 21:49 UTC
Terra Bella, California - The salmonella scare that prompted a blanket federal warning against eating pistachios may have erupted because contaminated raw nuts got mixed with roasted nuts during processing, the company at the center of the nationwide recall said Tuesday.

Lee Cohen, the production manager for Setton International Foods Inc., said the company does not believe pistachios were contaminated by a human or animal source in its plant. He said the company suspects that roasted pistachios sold to Kraft Foods Inc. may have become mixed at Setton's plant with raw nuts that could have contained traces of the bacteria.

The pistachios were processed at central California-based Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc., which is in the corporate family of Commack, N.Y.-based Setton International Foods Inc. Cohen is in California to help as the Food and Drug Administration inspects the nation's second-largest pistachio processor.
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Naturally Treat Celiac Disease

Sheryl Walters
Natural News
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 18:41 UTC
Millions of people are affected by celiac disease, a condition that causes an autoimmune reaction to gluten which is found in wheat, barley, and rye. This reaction results in inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract and destruction of villi (small fingerlike projections responsible for nutrient absorption) in the small intestine. As a result, malabsorption and malnutrition often occur resulting in varied symptoms that often make diagnosis of celiac disease difficult. The symptoms of celiac are a result of this malabsorption and malnutrition and can be helped through dietary changes, natural supplements, and alternative healthcare.

As many as 1 in 133 people in the U.S. have celiac disease but many of these cases are mostly likely undiagnosed because of the vagueness of symptoms. Testing for celiac disease includes a blood test for antigens and a small intestine biopsy.

Comment: For information on how diet effects the immune system and creates imbalances in the body read Candida-The Silent Epidemic

For a more in depth look at the benefits of a gluten free diet read here

For healthy cooking ideas and recipes read here

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FDA Under Increasing Pressure to Approve Stevia, Lift Import Ban

David Gutierrez
Natural News
Sun, 29 Mar 2009 01:47 UTC
The American Botanical Council (ABC) has called for the FDA to lift its ban on the importation of stevia for use as a sweetener, in an article by ABC founder and executive director Mark Blumenthal, printed in the organization's publication HerbalGram.

"The FDA's import alert is an outdated policy, based on the market and regulatory conditions in the late 1980s," Blumenthal writes. "If FDA were to rescind its stevia import alert, importers of stevia would still have the burden of confirming safety for use."

Stevia is a natural sweetener derived from the leaves of the tropical American plant Stevia rebaudiana. Because it has approximately 300 times the sweetness of sugar, it only needs to be used in small quantities to supply a sweet taste. It contains no calories and does not affect blood sugar levels.
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Poverty Goes Straight to the Brain

Brandon Keim
Wired Science
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 17:42 UTC
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Growing up poor isn't merely hard on kids. It might also be bad for their brains. A long-term study of cognitive development in lower- and middle-class students found strong links between childhood poverty, physiological stress and adult memory.

The findings support a neurobiological hypothesis for why impoverished children consistently fare worse than their middle-class counterparts in school, and eventually in life.

"Chronically elevated physiological stress is a plausible model for how poverty could get into the brain and eventually interfere with achievement," wrote Cornell University child-development researchers Gary Evans and Michelle Schamberg in a paper published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

For decades, education researchers have documented the disproportionately low academic performance of poor children and teenagers living in poverty. Called the achievement gap, its proposed sociological explanations are many. Compared to well-off kids, poor children tend to go to ill-equipped and ill-taught schools, have fewer educational resources at home, eat low-nutrition food, and have less access to health care.
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Shootings, murder-suicide raise broader question: Is violence linked to recession?

Patrik Johnsson
The Christian Science Monitor
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 15:34 UTC
Four Oakland, Calif., police officers shot down. An Alabama man strolling a small town with a rifle, looking for victims. Seven elderly people shot dead at a North Carolina nursing home. And on Sunday, six people, including four kids, died in an apparent murder-suicide in an upscale neighborhood in Santa Clara, Calif.

The details in all these cases are still emerging. In most, the exact motive has yet to be determined - or may never be fully understood.

On a broader level, however, such incidents may be happening more often because an increasing number of Americans feel desperate pressure from job losses and other economic hardship, criminologists say.

"Most of these mass killings are precipitated by some catastrophic loss, and when the economy goes south, there are simply more of these losses," says Jack Levin, a noted criminologist at Northeastern University in Boston.
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"The flogging will continue until morale improves" - US Government Urges Mental Screening for All Teens


Fox News
Tue, 31 Mar 2009 09:38 UTC
An influential government-appointed medical panel is urging doctors to routinely screen all American teens for depression - a bold step that acknowledges that nearly 2 million teens are affected by this debilitating condition.

Most are undiagnosed and untreated, said the panel, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, which sets guidelines for doctors on a host of health issues.

The task force recommendations appear in April's issue of the journal Pediatrics. And they go farther than the American Academy of Pediatrics' own guidance for teen depression screening.
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Family

Spices linked to latest salmonella outbreak

Lynne Terry
The Oregonian
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:23 UTC
At least 42 people, including four in the Portland area, have become infected with salmonella from eating pepper, Oregon health authorities said today.

The pepper was traced to Union International Food Co. in the San Francisco Bay Area, which sells spices in bulk to markets and restaurants.

Many of the people sickened, including those in the Portland metro area, ate at Asian restaurants, which helped epidemiologists trace the source of the contamination.

"Spices are not the easiest thing to figure out," said William Keene, senior epidemiologist at the Public Health Division in Oregon, because they are used in so many ways.
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Fat infants at risk of being obese toddlers: study

Andrew Stern
Reuters
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:27 UTC
Infants who gain too much weight as babies are more likely to grow into obese toddlers, showing the importance of early eating habits, researchers said on Monday.

Watching children while they eat for cues about when they are full and encouraging them to drink plenty of water may help control their weight, according to two studies in the journal Pediatrics.
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Study: Video game play may improve eyesight

Steven Musil
cnet.com
Mon, 30 Mar 2009 20:20 UTC
Playing action video games may help adults improve their eyesight, according to a study released Sunday.

A new study finds that playing action video games such as Call of Duty 2 can help improve eyesight.

People who used a video-game training program saw improvements in their contrast sensitivity, or the ability to notice subtle differences in shades of gray, according to a study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience. The training could be beneficial to people who have amblyopia--commonly known as lazy eye--and those who have trouble seeing while driving at night, the study said.
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