Health & WellnessS


Snakes in Suits

TTIP tentacles: EU Commission caves in to US pressure, current European GMO rules to be 'disregarded'

Graham Vanbergen
True Publica
Wed, 27 Apr 2016 00:00 UTC
gene editing techniques
A joint report conducted by Greenpeace, Corporate Europe Observatory and Gene Watch UK issued a briefing paper last week entitled "Commission fails to regulate new GMOs after intense US lobbying."

In essence, the European Commission has effectively deserted its principles when it comes to GMO's entering the food chain within the 28 nation bloc. Intense lobbying by United States representatives for the EU Commission to disregard current GMO rules which require stringent safety tests and labelling has proved successful. The result is that genetically modified organisms produced through a modified technique called 'gene editing' will be allowed. Gene editing is all but the same as anything we understand about GMO's generally.

Freedom of Information documents show the scale of US lobbying has overwhelmed the EU Commission who now stand accused of bowing to US pressure and abdicating to the corporations and rejecting citizen concerns. The documents reveal that US representatives pushed for the EU to disregard its own GMO rules on the basis that the EU were simply putting up barriers and stifling trade under the proposed TTIP negotiations. The papers state that the EU should completely ignore health and environmental safeguards to pave the way for successful negotiations.

On the EC website the very first paragraph reads: "The European Union has established a legal framework to ensure that the development of modern biotechnology, and more specifically of GMOs, takes place in safe conditions."
Read More...
Book 2

Culture-bound syndromes: Diseases you only get if you believe in them

Julie Beck
The Atlantic
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 23:08 UTC
geography og madness
An exploration of syndromes that are unique to particular cultures.

You can't get your genitals stolen in America.

At least, not while they're attached to your body. But people can in Nigeria, Benin, China, Singapore, and Hong Kong. In all of these places, there have been cases of koro (also called suo yang in some places), "a cultural syndrome where people feel like their genitals are being sucked into their body," says Frank Bures. "And there's a fear of death." It's often thought to be caused by some kind of curse, or spell, or spirit—something otherworldly.

This is the condition that sparked Bures's interest and led to his new book The Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes. In it, he investigates mostly penis theft, but also other examples of what are called "cultural syndromes" or "culture-bound syndromes"—conditions that only exist in, and seem to stem from, particular cultures. Other examples include "frigophobia" in China, "a fear of cold which has its roots in traditional Chinese cosmology of balancing between hot and cold"; running "amok" in Malaysia, when people go on a killing spree they can't remember later; and "hikikomori," in Japan, when people socially withdraw to the point where they never leave home.

Comment: Learn more about the placebo effect and how belief does influence health and wellness: The Health & Wellness Show: Placebos: When Nothing Really Matters
Physicians and scientists have known about the placebo effect for well over 50 years. Studies have shown that placebos - dummy or sugar pills - are just as effective as medication with active ingredients. Yet the mainstream study of placebos as a first line treatment gets little attention. Today on the Health and Wellness Show we talked about the placebo effect and take it a step further. Do humans have an inner pharmacy that can be tapped into at will? What if you can become your own placebo and experience healing through the power of your mind alone? Can you change your genetic expression through thoughts? And if this is possible, how does it work? Joining us, as always, was Zoya with a pet health segment on placebos and pets.


Read More...
Bullseye

GMOs are NOT the future of food

Raluca Schachter
Wake Up World
Tue, 26 Apr 2016 22:41 UTC
GMOS
© experiencelife.com
Throughout our existence as humans, our genes have shown they are highly adaptable to the available food supply and a wide variety of diets. Over time, our genes gradually adapted to new ways of eating and we continued to thrive. But all these "new" foods were whole foods, unprocessed, unaltered, and found in nature.

So, how does this adaptation relate to the new era of genetically modified foods, made in the laboratory?
Read More...
Pills

What is melatonin and is it really effective?

Brian Resnick
Vox
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 20:06 UTC
melatonin
A perfect sleeping pill — one that gets people to fall asleep faster, and for a longer period of time, with no side effects — is a still a dream.

Such a magic pill could potentially solve many problems. Millions of Americans don't get enough sleep. In a recent survey, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 35 percent of Americans are sleeping fewer than seven hours per night, the recommended healthy amount.

Good sleep doesn't just boost our feelings of well-being. There's a growing scientific consensus that it protects us against heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. In sleep labs, participants who have their sleep cycles severely thrown off for just three weeks canstart to appear pre-diabetic on blood tests. (If you doubt the importance of sleep consider this: Scientists now believe that cycles of restfulness and alertness are core organizing principles of all life on Earth. Even the tiniest single-cell organisms contain the genetic coding for a circadian rhythm.)

Comment: There are also differences in melatonin effectiveness when comparing fast-released and timed-release melatonin. Choose carefully.

Read More...
Syringe

SaneVax challenges the European Medicines Agency on HPV vaccine safety

Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
Tue, 26 Apr 2016 17:41 UTC
HPV vaccine
By now, it's probably safe to assume that most of the world's population has heard about the fraudulent vaccine research that's been an apparent ongoing scientific 'end run play' in the USA since the clandestine Simpsonwood Meeting in June of 2000 to prove that vaccines do not cause, nor are they to be correlated with causing, autism [1,2,3] despite a CDC whistleblower, epidemiologist William Thompson, PhD, [4] stating for the record that CDC scientists actually discarded MMR vaccine research and data indicating the negative impact of vaccines on very young black boys, including autism [5].

If that weren't enough, there are other vaccines that cause dramatic health adverse reactions all over the world, which U.S. health consumers deliberately are not permitted to know due to Big Pharma's obvious media control and censorship. However, the vaccine safety advocacy group SaneVax [6] has been tracking, reporting on vaccines 'science', and also telling the tragic personal stories of damaged vaccinees regarding the three HPV (human papilloma virus) vaccines Gardasil, Cervarix, and Gardasil 9.

Comment: The HPV vaccine may go down in history as the most dangerous vaccine ever.

Read More...
Cheeseburger

Despite efforts, childhood obesity remains on the rise

Duke University Medical Center
EurekAlert!
Tue, 26 Apr 2016 07:24 UTC
Childhood obesity graph
© Mark Dubowski for Duke HealthThis graph shows the prevalence of childhood obesity, 1999-2014.
Durham, N.C. - The alarming increase in U.S. childhood obesity rates that began nearly 30 years ago continues unabated, with the biggest increases in severe obesity, according to a study led by a Duke Clinical Research Institute scientist.

"Despite some other recent reports, we found no indication of a decline in obesity prevalence in the United States in any group of children aged 2 through 19," said lead author Asheley Skinner, Ph.D., associate professor at Duke. "This is particularly true with severe obesity, which remains high, especially among adolescents."

Skinner, along with colleagues at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wake Forest University, analyzed data from the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, a large, ongoing compilation of health information that has spanned decades.

Comment: Nothing short of a complete paradigm shift in the thinking and approach of the inhabitants of the ivory towers of health and wellness will make any difference to the increasing obesity epidemic. It is a symptom of a total mismatch for our species in terms of our food and our environment. The standard American diet, high in vegetable oil and carbohydrates; inadequate amounts of essential fat and good quality drinking water; exposure to EMF, blue light, cellphones, cell towers: These things that are ingrained into modern life are the reason for society's declining health.

Read More...
Bulb

Dopamine neurons have a role in movement, new study finds

Princeton University
EurekAlert!
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 06:50 UTC
dopamine neurons
© I. B. Witten et al., Nature NeuroscienceDopamine neurons in the nucleus accumbens (left) and the dorsomedial striatum (right).
Princeton University researchers have found that dopamine - a brain chemical involved in learning, motivation and many other functions - also has a direct role in representing or encoding movement. The finding could help researchers better understand dopamine's role in movement-related disorders such as Parkinson's disease.

The researchers used a new, more precise technique to record the activity of dopamine neurons at two regions within a part of the brain known as the striatum, which oversees action planning, motivation and reward perception. The researchers found that while all of the neurons carried signals needed to learn and plan movement, one of the nerve bundles, the one that went to the region called the dorsomedial striatum, also carried a signal that could be used to control movements.

The work was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience this week.

Comment: Dopamine level is an important factor in good health, motivation, concentration, achievement and reward. For more information, see:

Read More...
Wine

Surgical implants are being prescribed to combat alcohol addiction in women

Michaela Whitton
The Anti Media
Tue, 19 Apr 2016 17:38 UTC
wine
Women who have become a little too fond of their night caps are being treated with implants to help them curb their drinking. According to Irish media, women between the ages of 30 and 50 have replaced afternoon chats over tea and cake with a glass of wine — and they are increasingly seeking help for addiction. Naltrexone, the implant prescribed, is traditionally associated with heroin users, but the opiate-blocker also reduces the pleasures and highs associated with alcohol consumption.

At first glance, the report in the Irish Independent reads somewhat sexist. It warns against the wine drinking culture of "ladies who lunch" and "middle-class women" who have become accustomed to a bottle of wine every night to shake off the day. Doctors claim the increased consumption is partly caused by the feminist revolution and "newly defined gender roles" that place pressure and expectations on women.
Read More...
Bug

Parasites: The hidden invaders

Ann Louise Gittleman
Curejoy
Mon, 25 Apr 2016 16:06 UTC
human digestive parasites
© Unknown
Inside A Hidden Epidemic

Learn all about parasites, these silent critters, which are causing so many health concerns.

The chilling reality may very well be that 8 out of 10 of us could be suffering from one or more microscopic vampires or even larger organisms. In 1978 a nationwide survey conducted by the CDC found that 1 in 6 people had one or more parasites. Nearly 30 years later, a second survey found that 1 in 3 were infected.

So - parasites are on the rise and are not only an inconvenient truth, but are one of the most unrecognized, neglected diseases of our time.

Comment: Further reading:

Read More...
Books

An herbalist library of historical references


Traditional Medicinals
Mon, 04 Apr 2016 15:28 UTC
herbs
Our ancestors cultivated a deep, rooted relationship with plants; they harvested plants in ceremony, made herbal medicines with intention, and passed along traditional plant knowledge to help future generations maintain wellness. In many cultures this information was shared orally, through stories or an apprenticeship with a local healer. The books we do have on traditional herbal medicines are a treasure to modern day herbalists; they're a window into our survival as a species and often hold surprising tidbits on how we once used common plants. Below, please find some of our favorite inspirational books from western herbalists that focus on traditional plant remedies, as well as the rich history of herbalism.
Read More...