Health & WellnessS


Pills

New study suggests shorter duration of antibiotic therapy is preferable and less likely to fuel drug resistance

Sarah Bosely
The Guardian
Wed, 26 Jul 2017 18:30 UTC
antibiotic treatment
© Julien Behal/PAExperts suggest patients should stop taking the drugs when they feel better rather than completing their prescription. The idea that stopping antibiotic treatment early encourages antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence, while taking antibiotics for longer than necessary increases the risk of resistance.
Telling patients to stop taking antibiotics when they feel better may be preferable to instructing them to finish the course, according to a group of experts who argue that the rule long embedded in the minds of doctors and the public is wrong and should be overturned.

Patients have traditionally been told that they must complete courses of antibiotics, the theory being that taking too few tablets will allow the bacteria causing their disease to mutate and become resistant to the drug.

But Martin Llewelyn, a professor in infectious diseases at Brighton and Sussex medical school, and colleagues claim that this is not the case. In an analysis in the British Medical Journal, the experts say "the idea that stopping antibiotic treatment early encourages antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence, while taking antibiotics for longer than necessary increases the risk of resistance".

Comment: Medical malpractice and misuse of antibiotics are leading to dangerous resistance

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Biohazard

Sperm levels in Western men plummeted by more than half in just 4 decades - study


RT
Wed, 26 Jul 2017 19:15 UTC
sperm
© SCIEPRO / Getty Images
Chemicals, diet, stress, and lifestyle choices have caused the sperm levels of Western men to plummet to less than 50 percent of what they were four decades ago, a new study has found.

The research found that sperm in the ejaculate of men from Europe, North America, Australia, and New Zealand fell by 1.4 percent every year between 1973 and 2011, leading to an overall drop of just over 52 percent.

"The results are quite shocking," said study co-author Hagai Levine, an epidemiologist from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, according to Reuters. He called the results an "urgent wake-up call."

Levine added that while fertility treatments such as IVF can sometimes offer solutions to the procreating problem, little is being done to address the root of the issue - an overall general decline in men's health.

Comment: See also:

Number of US states with declining populations of Whites increases to 17

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Cupcake Pink

The cholesterol and calorie hypotheses are both dead — it is time to focus on the real culprit: insulin resistance

Maryanne Demasi, Robert H Lustig, Aseem Malhotra
Clinical Pharmacist
Sat, 15 Jul 2017 14:45 UTC
Emerging evidence shows that insulin resistance is the most important predictor of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.
insulin resistance
Aggressive lowering of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) has been the cornerstone of preventative cardiology for decades. Statins are widely used as the go-to solution for the prevention of heart disease owing to their ability to slash LDL-C levels, a 'surrogate marker' of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Indeed, statins are one of the most widely prescribed class of drugs in the world. But this phenomenon begs two questions: is the enthusiasm for aggressive lowering of LDL-C justified; and is pharmacotherapy superior to lifestyle intervention?

Over the years, medical guidelines have continually expanded the number of individuals for whom statin therapy is recommended. Proponents argue that statins are 'life-savers' and that 'people will die' if they discontinue their medicine[1],[2]. Prominent researchers from reputable universities have declared that 'everyone over 50' should be on a statin to reduce their risk of CVD and that even children with high LDL-C as young as 8 years should be afforded statin therapy[3].

However, the true benefit of statins in altering risk of CVD is increasingly being questioned by respected members of the medical community, creating bitter divisions within the ranks. Several cardiologists have countered that the benefits of statins have been grossly exaggerated (especially as primary prevention), while their risks have been consistently underemphasised. In some quarters, the scepticism about statins has reached fever pitch. Some say that the preponderance of statin trials has been tainted by 'industry sponsorship', influenced by 'statistical deception', and riddled with 'flawed methodology'[4],[5],[6].
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Brain

Why You Need To Learn About Leptin If You Are Overweight


Alex Fergus Blog
Wed, 12 Jul 2017 16:17 UTC
Leptin
© Alexfurgus.com
Are you trying to lose weight? Or keep weight off? You've tried exercising more and eating less right? You've tried other fad 'quick fix' diets? But they don't work do they? Sure these are short term fixes, but they're not long term solutions to a leaner slimmer healthier body. I have a saying that I use a lot in my Program, it goes "Calories matter but hormones matter more".

You see, hormones play a pivotal role in whether one increases or decreases fat loss. More than the total amount of calories your consume (or burn).

Comment: More information on Leptin can be found here: As mentioned in the original article, leptin is tightly regulated by the circadian rhythm. Anyone who is finding it difficult to lose weight may benefit from taking appropriate precautions to optimise circadian rhythmicity:

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Syringe

Vaccinate vs Unvaccinated: Study reveals vaccinated children are sicker

Celeste Mcgovern
Children's Medical Safety Research Institute
Thu, 04 May 2017 16:30 UTC
vaccine children sick
© Children's Medical Safety Research InstituteVaccinated children are more likely to suffer from the a variety of negative health conditions.
It's never been done before. The first-of-its-kind study of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated American homeschooled children shows who is really ailing...and parents should be worried

Something is wrong with America's children. They are sick - allergic, asthmatic, anxious, autoimmune, autistic, hyperactive, distracted and learning disabled. Thirty-two million American children - a full 43% of them - suffer from at least one of 20 chronic illnesses not including obesity.

Across the board, once rare pediatric disorders from autism and ADD to Type 1 diabetes and Tourette's syndrome are soaring, though few studies pool the data. Compared to their parents, children today are four times more likely to have a chronic illness. And while their grandparents might never have swallowed a pill as children, the current generation of kids is a pharmaceutical sales rep's dream come true: More than one million American children under five years old takes a psychiatric drug. More than 8.3 million kids under 17 have consumed psychiatric drugs, and in any given month one in four is taking at least one prescription drug for something.

Comment: The human body is equipped with a variety of sophisticated defence mechanisms designed to protect against foreign disease-causing agents that may be encountered in a natural environment. However, injecting toxic materials directly into the bloodstream bypasses all of these innate defences and effectively overwhelms the immune system in many individuals. With this considered, are the results of this study any surprise?

More information on the destructive health effects of vaccination can be found below:

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Health

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy reverses toddler's brain damage

Heather Callaghan
Natural News
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 21:00 UTC
Eden Carlson
Once the brain is dead, it's dead, right? Especially the more the time moves on after an accident such as drowning... Or so we think. And what of the initial loss of oxygen? A person deprived of oxygen for four minutes might be all right, but what about an hour? What about two?

After two-year-old Eden Carlson of Arkansas nearly reached complete death by drowning in 2016, her parents were told she'd be in a vegetative state for the rest of her life. She was even ensconced at home with her own feeding tube.

We are happy to report that the now three-year-old girl is now enjoying a happy, energetic and talkative childhood thanks to the alternative treatment called hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT).

You may have heard of this treatment being used for Lyme disease, autoimmune disease, mystery illness, sepsis and more. Oxygen therapy is being hailed as a regenerative approach to speed recovery.

Comment:



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Health

Can Chronic Wasting Disease be transmitted from deer to humans?

Dr. Mercola
mercola.com
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 20:34 UTC
deer in a field
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a contagious neurological disease that is part of the transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs) disease family - the most notable member of which is bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), also known as mad cow disease. Unlike BSE, which infects cattle, CWD affects deer, elk and moose.

"It causes a characteristic spongy degeneration of the brains of infected animals resulting in emaciation, abnormal behavior, loss of bodily functions and death," The Chronic Wasting Disease Alliance reports.1 The symptoms are similar to those of mad cow disease, scrapie (a similar disease found in sheep and goats) and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD) in humans. The infectious agent thought to cause CWD and other TSEs is prions - an infectious type of protein known to cause neurodegeneration.

A human version of mad cow disease, known as variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (vCJD), can be caused by eating beef contaminated with brain, spinal cord or other central nervous system tissue from infected cattle.2 This can occur in ground meat (including hot dogs, bologna, taco fillings and more), as it may become contaminated during the "extraction of the last bits of meat from cow carcasses," the Center for Food Safety stated.3

The question then, as CWD continues to spread across the U.S., is whether this disease may also jump to humans - and the Canadian government has recently issued a warning based on new research suggesting the answer is yes.

Comment: Chronic wasting disease in may be impossible to eliminate in Alberta, Saskatchewan deer, elk

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Syringe

9yo with AIDS 'virtually cured'; injections may replace daily pill treatment in future


RT
Tue, 25 Jul 2017 19:24 UTC
injection
People living with HIV may one day be able to replace their daily pills with just a few injections a year, according to a new study. It comes amid reports that a South African girl has shown no signs of the virus rebounding despite being taken off drugs years ago.

The study results were published in the journal The Lancet on Monday, to coincide with an HIV science conference being held by the International Aids Society in Paris.

The research involved nearly 300 HIV positive people who were given a course of daily pills to bring the virus under control. Participants were located in the US, Germany, Canada, Spain, France, and Germany.

Daily oral pills are currently the only option available to HIV patients, and those who forget their medication run the risk of the virus rebounding to make them ill, or developing a resistance to the drugs they were using.

Comment: See also:

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Flashlight

SOTT Focus: Shame on the American Heart Association - Big Business' Interests Take Precedence Over Human Health

Gabriela Segura, M.D.
Sott.net
Mon, 24 Jul 2017 22:30 UTC
O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

"To A Louse, On Seeing One on a Lady's Bonnet at Church" by Robert Burns
jamon iberico
© CC BY-SA 3.0"Iberian ham", eaten since time immemorial without any ill-effects.
Over the last few years an increasing number of publications have absolved saturated fat from being implicated in cardiovascular disease. I've lost count of how many studies I've read on this subject, but perhaps the most straightforward recent paper was written by Gerhard Spiteller of the University of Bayreuth (Germany) and Mohammad Afzal of the Biological Sciences department of Kuwait University.

Spiteller has a PhD in organic chemistry, a basic science, knowledge of which is a fundamental prerequisite for entering any medical school. In a most fascinating study, Spiteller shows why a basic understanding of organic chemistry explains why the Lipid Hypothesis - where a high intake of saturated fat and elevated LDL ("bad") cholesterol are the most important causes of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease - doesn't make sense from a chemical point of view. In other words, if doctors and nutritionists would only apply their basic training in organic chemistry, they would be embarrassed to support the cholesterol myth.
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Beaker

Researchers resurrect old antibiotic molecule in hopes of treating Zika


RT
Sun, 23 Jul 2017 14:58 UTC
lab work
© Mike Segar / Reuters
A molecule previously used as an antibiotic could be key in combating the effects of the Zika virus, according to new research from a Spanish university.

The San Antonio Catholic University of Murcia announced Saturday that researchers from its Bioinformatics and High-Performance Computing research group discovered that the 'novobiocin' compound in a now defunct antibiotic countered the symptoms of the mosquito-borne disease.

"It's a drug that had been withdrawn from the market because it lost its potency as an antibiotic, but we know it can be administered to humans," said Jose Pedro Cerón, a member of the research team, reported RTVE.

Comment: Surely, Big Pharma, with their DNA-altering Zika vaccine in the works won't let anything steal their thunder... in addressing a benign disease with mild, flu-like symptoms that no one made a big deal about until recently.

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