Health & WellnessS


Health

Pathogens, chemical contaminants and how factory-farmed chicken can sicken

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Wed, 15 Aug 2018 14:11 UTC
raw chicken
While health agencies make a big stink about unsterilized foods such as raw organic milk, the food associated with the greatest number of foodborne illnesses is factory farmed chicken.

According to the latest Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) statistics,1 there were 5,760 reported foodborne outbreaks between 2009 and 2015, resulting in 100,939 illnesses, 5,699 hospitalizations and 145 deaths. Of these, chicken was responsible for the most outbreak-associated illnesses - 3,114 illnesses in total (12 percent), followed by pork and seeded vegetables, each of which was responsible for 10 percent of illnesses. As noted by CBS News:2
"No other food, it turns out, is quite as problematic as chicken - the heart-healthy alternative to red meat. Though fish and dairy technically caused more "outbreaks," chicken sickened the most people ...
'Chicken is a reservoir for salmonella,' explains Thomas Gremillion, director of the Food Policy Institute at the Consumer Federation of America.
Though proper cooking can kill most salmonella strains, normal food preparation techniques - like using a sponge to clean up spills or rinsing your chicken in the sink - tend to spread the bug around your kitchen, he says. That can 'cross-contaminate' your sink, cutting boards and vegetables."
'This CDC report shows that government inspectors and industry need to do more to protect consumers from unsafe chicken,' says Gremillion.
'Rather than focusing on schemes to boost industry profits - such as eliminating slaughterhouse line speed limits - we should be talking about why the U.S. lags so far behind other countries on issues like addressing salmonella contamination in poultry, and what can be done to avoid some of these illnesses and the havoc they wreak on families.'
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Gold Seal

Mercury fillings, the EU and US FDA: One protects consumers and the other ignores them

Dr. Joseph Mercola
Mercola.com
Tue, 14 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
EU amalgam
For an entire week each year, I focus on the campaign to end dental amalgam. Those silver fillings are really mercury fillings, and their use in America and around the world needs to stop - for health reasons, for environmental reasons, for workplace safety reasons and for social justice reasons.

We have a united worldwide team, and we can win the campaign for mercury-free dentistry. I have worked closely with the leader of this campaign - Charlie Brown of Consumers for Dental Choice - and I have full confidence that we are on the path to victory.

If you check out my August 12 interview with Charlie, I think you'll agree we have a winning strategy and a winning team in place.

I believe so strongly in this campaign and its potential for full victory - the end of amalgam use worldwide - that I have stepped up to the table with a matching funds campaign. This week, through August 19, 2018, I match every dollar donated by you, your friends and everyone else, up to $125,000. Please join me with every dollar you can. I promise you that I will double it!

The European Union Bans Amalgam for Children

A sustained multiyear campaign led by Consumers for Dental Choice and its European NGO allies, joined by scholars and nonprofit groups across Europe, bore great fruit last year.

In a rule spearheaded by two outstanding members of the European Parliament, the honorable Stefan Eck of Germany and the honorable Michele Rivasi of France, the European Union adopted a ban that virtually stops any amalgam use for children under age 15, for pregnant women and for breastfeeding mothers.
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Bug

Nasty! US invaded by savage tick that sucks animals dry, can spread diseases and spawns without mating

Beth Mole
ars Technica
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 16:00 UTC
ticks
© CDC / James GathanyTwo Haemaphysalis longicornis on a US dime.
Eight states reporting the little suckers. No evidence they're carrying disease - yet.

A vicious species of tick originating from Eastern Asia has invaded the US and is rapidly sweeping the Eastern Seaboard, state and federal officials warn.

The tick, the Asian longhorned tick (or Haemaphysalis longicornis), has the potential to transmit an assortment of nasty diseases to humans, including an emerging virus that kills up to 30 percent of victims. So far, the tick hasn't been found carrying any diseases in the US. It currently poses the largest threat to livestock, pets, and wild animals; the ticks can attack en masse and drain young animals of blood so quickly that they die - an execution method called exsanguination.

Key to the tick's explosive spread and bloody blitzes is that its invasive populations tend to reproduce asexually - that is, without mating. Females drop up to 2,000 eggs over the course of two or three weeks, quickly giving rise to a ravenous army of clones. In one US population studied so far, experts encountered a massive swarm of the ticks in a single paddock, totaling well into the thousands. They speculated that the population might have a ratio of about one male to 400 females.

Comment: See also:

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Sun

Too much of a good thing? Excess Vitamin D

Rosanne Lindsay
natureofhealing.org
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 18:01 UTC
vitamin D
Vitamin D is known as the "sunshine vitamin." This is because 90 percent of our D requirements naturally comes from the sun. Bioavailable vitamin D3 is created in the skin through the action of the sun's UV-B rays on cholesterol (7-dehydroxycholesterol), as one of five forms.

Diet offers Vitamin D2 and D3 as the remaining ten percent (i.e., fish liver oils, fatty fish, egg yolks, and as fortified foods), though these forms are not biologically active. Vitamin D2, added to "D-fortified foods," is produced synthetically by exposing the mold ergot (ergosterol) to ultraviolet light. This process was patented and licensed to pharmaceutical companies which is used as prescription vitamin D. D4 and D5 are synthetic analogues of D3 being tested in vitro for the treatment of cancer.

Vitamin D's reputation as a potent cancer fighter is mainstream news. A lack of vitamin D is also reported to be behind increased rates of infections, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, osteoporosis, and autoimmune disorders. Models and studies have most of us convinced that excess vitamin D intake could reduce cancer deaths by 75 percent. Why else would the government add vitamin D2 to fortify food? Meanwhile, as cancer rates rise, we are urged to cover up with sunscreen against the sun which nature intended as the truest source of vitamin D. Why the contradiction?[1]
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Megaphone

One man's suffering exposed Monsanto's secrets to the world

Carey Gillam
The Guardian
Sat, 11 Aug 2018 11:11 UTC
Dwayne Johnson
© Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty ImagesDewayne Johnson reacts to the verdict at the superior court of California in San Francisco.
Company's own records revealed damning truth of glyphosate-based herbicides' link to cancer

It was a verdict heard around the world. In a stunning blow to one of the world's largest seed and chemical companies, jurors in San Francisco have told Monsanto it must pay $289m in damages to a man dying of cancer which he claims was caused by exposure to its herbicides.

Monsanto, which became a unit of Bayer AG in June, has spent decades convincing consumers, farmers, politicians and regulators to ignore mounting evidence linking its glyphosate-based herbicides to cancer and other health problems. The company has employed a range of tactics - some drawn from the same playbook used by the tobacco industry in defending the safety of cigarettes - to suppress and manipulate scientific literature, harass journalists and scientists who did not parrot the company's propaganda, and arm-twist and collude with regulators. Indeed, one of Monsanto's lead defense attorneys in the San Francisco case was George Lombardi, whose resumé boasts of his work defending big tobacco.
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Info

New paradigms in addiction therapy

Anthony Tyler
thelastamericanvagabond.com
Fri, 10 Aug 2018 21:02 UTC
addiction
"The Difference Between Medicine And Poison Is In The Dose" - Circa Survive
A true enveloping substance addiction is gritty, and tends to be enabled by a varying degree of self-loathing. Self-loathing is such a tumultuous, seemingly endless circumstance that any decent person would not wish on their worst enemy-yet it is something that many decent people deal with on a regular basis. Modern advancements in cognitive sciences have conclusively shown that this state of mind (self-loathing, low self-esteem, an existential dilemma of similar nature with a deep tone, et cetera) is a neurological state that is considered "cognitive dissonance." This means, with the many layers of consciousness that it takes to assimilate a "Waking Consciousness/Diachronic Narrative," there can be pieces that don't meet; there are pieces missing from the self-image of the individual, and this causes a literal dissonance in a person's biosocial interactions and feedback. The "missing pieces" come from the person's own neurological landscape, and are perpetuated/reinforced/diminished by the environment according to what the environment represents, and how the individual person has been predisposed to stress-handling-mental-mechanisms beforehand.
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Pills

Chronic: For big pharma, the perfect patient is wealthy, permanently ill and a daily pill-popper

Clayton Dalton
Aeon
Tue, 07 Aug 2018 20:54 UTC
Chronic
Will medicine ever recover?
Just a few years ago, infection with the hepatitis C virus guaranteed a slow and certain death for many. Available treatments were effective in about half of all patients, and the side effects could be awful. Things changed in 2014, when a new medication called Harvoni was approved to treat the infection. With cure rates approaching 99 per cent and far fewer side effects, the medication became an instant blockbuster. Sales topped $13.8 billion in 2015.

But then an odd thing happened - sales began to drop precipitously. Harvoni, in conjunction with four other hepatitis C drugs, is projected to generate only $4 billion this year, a three-fold decline in as many years. Part of this decline is due to new competitors entering the market. But according to analysts at Goldman Sachs, another reason could be that the drug's cure-rate erodes its own market.
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2 + 2 = 4

Today's M.D.s get virtually zero nutrition instruction in medical school - a horrible price to pay for most of their patients

S.D. Wells
Natural News
Wed, 08 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
medical school
One hundred years ago, in 1918, American doctors attended substandard medical schools and earned less than $2,500 on average per year. Morphine and heroin were all available over the counter at local corner drugstores. The best "medical" help you could find came from skilled mid-wives, herbalists, and American Indians. Most doctors made house calls regularly. Natural remedies were abundant, inexpensive, effective, and caused nearly zero side effects. What happened?

Physicians in America joined forces and formed an insidious racketeering alliance called the American Medical Association, and began labeling anyone who did not use chemicals for medicine as "quacks." The incorporated AMA was a "prestigious" organization founded on only patentable lab-made concoctions, and there would be plenty of money to go around. The AMA quickly gained power in the United States and nutrition education was quickly removed from all medical schools (bar a few classes just for justification and bragging rights). Vitamins and minerals were no longer part of the "Western School of Medicine."

Comment: By the same token, one should be very careful about their choices in natural or alternative healing modalities too. Needless to say not every solution is for everyone, and not all alternative practitioners are sincere. Research, research, research.

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Display

Blue light emitted from smartphones and laptop screens accelerates blindness - study


RT
Fri, 10 Aug 2018 16:08 UTC
Blue light
© Thomas Peter / Reuters
Blue light emitted from smartphone and laptop screens speeds up blindness by transforming vital molecules in the eye's retina into cell killers, according to new research.

The study, carried out by optical chemistry researchers at the University of Toledo, explains how exposure to blue light can cause age-related macular degeneration - one of the leading worldwide causes of blindness.

"It's no secret that blue light harms our vision by damaging the eye's retina. Our experiments explain how this happens, and we hope this leads to therapies that slow macular degeneration, such as a new kind of eye drop," study co-author Ajith Karunarathne said.

Macular degeneration occurs when photoreceptor cells in the retina die - these cells need molecules called retinal in order to sense light and trigger signals to the brain.
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Health

The importance of stretching for recovery and remodeling

David Prologo
The Conversation
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 14:21 UTC
stretching
There seems to be a lot of confusion regarding the value - or lack thereof - of muscle stretching to accelerate recovery after exercise. "Stretching clears out your lactic acid," and other similar claims abound. Is any of this true?

Sort of.

First, it is important to understand the difference between stretching for recovery and stretching for remodeling.

Comment: Anatomy 101: The science of stretching

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