Monsanto is one of the most hated companies on the planet. ...Unless you ask FORTUNE Magazine, that is. In that case, it's apparently one of the world's most admired companies. But if you actually ask real human beings then it ranks right behind BP and Bank of America as the third most hated company in the world.

Strange, then, that Monsanto's reputation in the scientific literature is so squeaky clean. Apparently it's just a bunch of science-hating neanderthals who dislike Monsanto's products and all of those squeaky clean couldn't-tell-a-lie, couldn't-hurt-a-fly scientists know better.

Of course, as readers of this column will know, this seeming conundrum isn't so strange after all. Scientists aren't angels and the things they study (as well as the results they get) are all too often influenced by who's paying for their research. And in the case of the peer-reviewed GMO safety literature, it isn't hard to tie a lot of it back to the biotech companies themselves, Monsanto foremost among them.

If any more proof of this insidious influence were needed, it just arrived. A set of emails obtained under a freedom of information request has exposed the types of tricks that Monsanto does to keep "problematic" studies out of the literature.

First, some background. If you haven't seen it already (or even if you have) go back and re-watch or re-read my (award-winning) 2013 report on the Seralini Roundup toxicity study, "Genetic Fallacy: How Monsanto Silences Dissent" and last year's follow-up, "Study Linking GMOs and Tumors Vindicated Yet Again...MSM Stays Silent."

Elite tennis players have an uncanny ability to clear their heads after making errors. They constantly move on and start fresh for the next point. They can't afford to dwell on mistakes.

Peter Strick is not a professional tennis player. He's a distinguished professor and chair of the department of neurobiology at the University of Pittsburgh Brain Institute. He's the sort of person to dwell on mistakes, however small.

"My kids would tell me, dad, you ought to take up pilates. Do some yoga," he said. "But I'd say, as far as I'm concerned, there's no scientific evidence that this is going to help me."

Still, the meticulous skeptic espoused more of a tennis approach to dealing with stressful situations: Just teach yourself to move on. Of course there is evidence that ties practicing yoga to good health, but not the sort that convinced Strick. Studies show correlations between the two, but he needed a physiological mechanism to explain the relationship. Vague conjecture that yoga "decreases stress" wasn't sufficient. How? Simply by distracting the mind?

The stress response in humans is facilitated by the adrenal glands, which sit on top of our kidneys and spit adrenaline into our blood whenever we're in need of fight or flight. That stress response is crucial in dire circumstances. But little of modern life truly requires it (especially among academic scientists). Most of the time, our stress responses are operating as a sort of background hum, keeping us on edge. Turn that off, and we relax.

"It might explain why certain sensations we find very relaxing or stressful."
For a long time, it has been understood that the adrenal glands were turned on and off by a couple discrete pathways coming from the brain. "Folks said there was one particular cortical area, perhaps two, that controlled the adrenal medulla," Strick explained.

Randy Bruno, an associate professor of neuroscience at Columbia University, further explained that "the way people usually think about the cortex, it's very hierarchical." That is, perceptions come in from the world and get sent from one part of the brain to the next, to the next, to the next. They go all the way up the chain of command to the frontal cortex. That sends some signals down to create motor actions.

Catchy media headlines often poke fun at gluten sensitivity, and a considerable percentage of the population, including many doctors, still do not believe that non-celiac gluten sensitivity is real. Yet many people without celiac disease feel better with a gluten-free diet. A recent study may have settled the debate once and for all.

While the scientific community has widely accepted celiac disease as a condition caused by gluten and other related proteins, non-celiac gluten sensitivity has remained a topic of heated debate in the media and among the general public.

In this article, I'll talk about the reasons I have acknowledged non-celiac wheat sensitivity as a real condition for many years, and I'll describe the results of a new research study performed at Columbia University that adds supportive evidence. Before we jump in, though, let's review the difference between celiac disease and non-celiac wheat/gluten sensitivity.

Celiac disease vs. non-celiac wheat sensitivity

Celiac disease and non-celiac wheat sensitivity are two distinct conditions, with a few major differences.

Celiac disease (CD) is an autoimmune disease characterized by an inflammatory immune response to wheat gluten, rye, barley, and related proteins. It results in marked disruption of normal gut tissue structure, including atrophy of epithelial cell projections called villi and an enlargement of intestinal crypts where new epithelial cells form from stem cells. CD is strongly associated with the haplotypes DQ2 and DQ8 of the HLA gene (1). In terms of blood markers, transglutaminase 2 (TG2) autoantibody is considered the most sensitive marker for celiac disease ⁽²⁾.

Non-celiac wheat sensitivity (NCWS, and also called non-celiac gluten sensitivity) is a term applied to individuals who experience symptoms in response to wheat or gluten ingestion but lack the characteristic markers of celiac disease. Symptoms can range from GI discomfort to fatigue and other neurological issues. These people tend to improve on a gluten-free diet ⁽³⁾. Unfortunately, many are mocked or ridiculed for avoiding wheat and told that their sensitivity is "all in their head."

The EpiPen is a useful device for individuals who suffer from severe allergies. So when news broke that Mylan, the sole maker of the autoinjector "pens" in America, had hiked the prices of its products from $57 each in 2007 to $600 for a package of two in 2016, news outlets had a field day.

Promptly after, politicians seized the opportunity to bank on this crisis by promising to "do something."

Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton urged Mylan to voluntarily slash the prices of its products while promising that, once she's elected, her "plan to address exorbitant drug price hikes like these" will be finally implemented. This is a particularly empty promise considering Mylan has donated between $100,000 and $250,000 to the Clinton Foundation, which was recently revealed to be peddling influence in exchange for cash.

Senators Susan Collins (R-ME) and Claire McCaskill (D-MO) are also pressuring the manufacturer to disclose more about its pricing. Even Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV) — whose own daughter, Heather Bresch, serves as Mylan's CEO — weighed in, claiming he, too, shares his colleagues' "concerns about the skyrocketing prices of prescription drugs."

Doctors have been using your mind for decades to help you feel better. Also known as the placebo effect, using pills and therapies known to have no effect on the body can sometimes have a significant effect on your health and wellness.

In medical practice, a placebo is a treatment that appears real, but isn't. Oftentimes researchers use placebos in medical studies to determine if there is a measurable difference between the treatment being tested and the effect your mind has over your body.

Doctors have used pills, therapies and shots in order to effect a change in your health without increasing your risk to potential side effects from other treatments. Research into this effect has found a relationship between what you could reasonably expect from your treatment and your body's response.

The head of an alternative cancer treatment clinic in the city of Brueggen in western Germany is under investigation after three of his patients died in quick succession after treatment. Two more have been hospitalized with life-threatening conditions.

According to German prosecutors, Klaus R., a non-medical practitioner who uses experimental drugs to treat cancer patients, is being investigated for three counts of manslaughter and two counts of negligent injury in the cases of two other patients who have been hospitalized.

Investigators are looking into allegations that Klaus R., or the "cancer healer," as he has been dubbed by the German media, treated cancer patients with a drug called 3-Bromopyruvat (3-BP), or Glukoseblocker - an experimental substance that has not been authorized for use in fighting the disease.

On this episode of the Health and Wellness Show we give updates on some of our favorite previously covered topics. Supplements are back in the news but not in a good way. The FDA is cracking down and guess who will benefit? The UK is experiencing a resurgence in diseases that were common in the Victorian age. Why? Does it have anything to do with diet? Speaking of diet, we revisited our old friend gluten (it can make you crazy, you know) and re-explored the wonders of the ketogenic diet in case you forgot. We rounded out the show with the virus psy-op of the year: Zika.

Stay tuned for Zoya's Pet Health Segment on pet allergies.

Running Time: 01:25:56

Download: MP3

Hey! Did you know that the fluoride American cities gleefully add to our drinking water is actually hazardous waste? If that isn't enough of a reason to keep you from drinking it, how about this: A recent study examined links between water fluoridation and Type 2 diabetes, and you aren't going to like what they found out.

Published in the Journal of Water and Health, the research found that fluoridation with sodium fluoride could be a contributing factor to diabetes rates in the US, as the chemical is a known preservative of blood glucose.

Kyle Fluegge, PhD, performed the study as a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

The press release describes the method and findings:

For most people, exercise plays a huge role in weight control and fitness level. Men and women who successfully maintain a healthy weight after losing weight, or who never really have a problem with their weight, tend to be people who are physically active. Regular exercise empowers you to improve your weight status and fitness level because it uses up excess calories that otherwise get stored in your body as fat. But that's not all exercise does. Exercise can also:

Build muscle. Weight-lifting and weight-bearing exercises (pulling, pushing, pressing, pumping) strengthen your different muscle groups.

Boost your energy levels. Aerobic exercises, including fast walking, swimming and bicycling, build up your cardiovascular endurance, while push-ups and other weight bearing exercises build up your muscular endurance. More endurance means more efficient and sustained delivery of oxygen and nutrients to every cell in your body.

Improve your mood. Exercise, particularly at a level of intensity that you prefer, has been shown in studies to improve mood, even after just 15 minutes of physical activity.

Suppress your appetite. Active people have better control over their appetites, at least in the short-term, than sedentary people.

Reduce the effects of stress. Exercise has consistently been shown to improve resilience to stress and protect against the harmful effects stress can have on both physical and mental health.

It appears that acupuncture may be a viable option for pain management when it comes to complex medical conditions, according to new research published by Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The study found that a significant portion of children who have chronic care conditions -- many of whom are already on numerous medications -- might benefit from the use of the low-risk and non-toxic benefits of acupuncture. The study was published in a recent edition of Medical Acupuncture.

Contemporary Medical Acupuncture is a precise peripheral nerve stimulation technique, in which fine solid needles (acupuncture needles) are inserted into anatomically defined neurofunctional sites, and stimulated manually or with electricity for the therapeutic purpose of modulating abnormal activity of the nervous system and/or the endocrine, exocrine and immune systems, in pain syndromes, functional problems, and any diseases in which these modulatory mechanisms are available.