Health & WellnessS


Alarm Clock

Florida's Governor Rick Scott signs drastic anti-abortion measure into law

Steve Benen
msnbc.com
Mon, 28 Mar 2016 16:04 UTC
florida govenor
© Joe Raedle/Getty ImagesFlorida Gov. Rick Scott speaks to the media during a visit to the Advanced Pharma
It was the kind of bill that made Florida the subject of national ridicule once again: the Republican-led state legislature passed a measure intended to cut funding to reproductive health clinics, and in the process, the state would direct women to dentists and optometrists for reproductive care. But the bill, signed into law late last week by Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R), is even more drastic than it appeared at first blush. The Orlando Sentinel reported over the weekend:
The law, which takes effect July 1, requires doctors performing abortions to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital, requires annual licensure inspections for clinics and bans the purchase, sell or transfer of fetal remains. The law upgrades the failure to properly dispose of fetal tissue from a second-degree misdemeanor to a first-degree misdemeanor.

Comment: Woman publicly shames Florida Governor for signing anti-abortion bill and cutting Medicaid

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Info

Meat eating made us human: If you want a big brain, you'll need more than vegetables

Jeffrey Kluger
Time
Wed, 09 Mar 2016 14:24 UTC
steak
© The Washington Post/Getty ImagesYou know you want it—or at least your brain does
Science doesn't give a hoot about your politics. Think global warming is a hoax or that vaccines are dangerous? Doesn't matter, you're wrong.

Something similar is true of veganism. Vegans are absolutely right when they say that a plant-based diet can be healthy, varied and exceedingly satisfying, and that—not for nothing—it spares animals from the serial torments of being part of the human food chain. All good so far.

But there's veganism and then there's Veganism—the upper case, ideological veganism, the kind that goes beyond diet and lifestyle wisdom to a sort of counterfactual crusade. For this crowd, it has become an article of faith that not only is meat-eating bad for humans, but that it's always been bad for humans—that we were never meant to eat animal products at all, and that our teeth, facial structure and digestive systems are proof of that.

Comment: We became human BECAUSE we ate meat: Kleiber's law and how humans got their big brains
Meat eating made us human. The anthropological evidence strongly supports the idea that the addition of increasingly larger amounts of meat in the diet of our predecessors was essential in the evolution of the large human brain. Our large brains came at the metabolic expense of our guts, which shrank as our brains grew.


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People

UCLA study shows 'toxic friendships' can be cause of serious health problems

Kristine Johnson
CBS New York
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 23:30 UTC
toxic friendships
It can happen to anyone, sometimes a friendship goes bad.

It can be unpleasant, and researchers claim there is a physical toll that comes from being with toxic friends.

Friendships are supposed to give you a warm and fuzzy feeling, but it turns out, instead of making you feel good some friends can literally make you sick.

"Between the headaches and you're just feeling like, you just feel bad all over," one woman said.

As CBS2's Kristine Johnson explained, science now backs that statement up. A study by researchers at UCLA found that stressful friendships lead to significantly high levels of a protein that causes inflammation in the body. Over time that can cause serious health problems including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer.
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Coffee

Gluten-free coffee flour?

Sarah McColl
Take Part
Sun, 05 Jul 2015 13:15 UTC
coffee flour
Highbrow coffee drinkers know all about shade-grown, bird-friendly, and direct trade coffee. But being a conscientious caffeine consumer isn't necessarily enough, as it turns out that coffee pods, disposable paper cups, and all those grounds you're left with after making cold brew aren't even the worst waste offenders when it comes to our global habit.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, the process of separating the seeds of the coffee cherry, or the beans, from the fruit generates enormous volumes of pulp, and the waste finds its way into local water sources, causing profound environmental impacts. Innovators have tried to make use of the 17 billion pounds of coffee cherries thrown away every year, including turning them into biofuels or building materials.

"None of them has really worked to the point of success that you'd call a solution for the industry," said Andrew Fedak. He and his partner, Dan Belliveau, former director of technical services at Starbucks, are betting on a product they think could cut coffee-pulp waste in half - and lead to both delicious gluten-free pastries and significant economic opportunities in coffee-growing communities.
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Arrow Up

Milk thistle: The many unknown benefits

Reuben Chow
Natural News
Sun, 24 Apr 2016 13:01 UTC
Milk Thistle
© mdidea.com
Milk thistle is most well-known and widely-studied for its benefits on liver health. However, milk thistle also has numerous other proven health benefits not many know about.

Milk thistle boosts overall liver function and health, protecting the liver from damaging toxins, detoxifying it, regenerating its cells, and giving it a glutathione boost.

Research has also shown milk thistle helps with various liver conditions, including cirrhosis, poisoning, hepatitis (viral or alcoholic, B or C), sluggish liver, liver congestion, fatty liver, jaundice, and other liver issues related to drug use and alcoholism.

Comment: Additional benefits of Milk thistle:

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Bacon n Eggs

The healthiest old person on the planet explains how to stay in shape

Matt Blake
Vice
Mon, 11 Apr 2016 07:16 UTC
Healthy old man
© Charles EugsterCharles Eugster posing with his World Rowing Masters trophy.
Charles Eugster is the greatest British sprinter you've probably never heard of. He currently holds world records in the 200m (indoor) and 400m (outdoor) sprints, as well as British records in the 60m (indoor), 100m (outdoor), and 200m (outdoor). A couple of weeks ago, he narrowly missed out on the world record for the 60m sprint after pulling his hamstring halfway through. He still won the race to become European Champion. It's an impressive record, given that the man—by pretty well established standards—shouldn't be able to cross a road without help, let alone run. He is 96 years old.

The London-born ex-dentist, who now lives in Switzerland, is arguably the fittest senior citizen on the planet. He's also a body-builder, a public speaker, a writer, a rower, a wakeboarder, an entrepreneur, and a budding fashion designer, planning his own line in elderly couture. But more than anything, he is a professional death defier who hasn't just slowed the ravages of aging, but reversed them all together: where once white pubic hairs grew, he says, brown ones now flourish.

Comment: See also:

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Blackbox

Does an Italian village filled with cigarette smoking centenarians hide the secret to long life?

Andrea Vogt
The National Post
Fri, 01 Apr 2016 07:42 UTC
Italian village of Acciaroli
© FotoliaA view of Acciaroli, a southern Italy village
An international research team studying 300 centenarians in a remote Mediterranean fishing village say that eating rosemary could be the key to the pensioners' remarkable longevity.

A team of medical experts and scholars at the Sapienza University of Rome and University of California San Diego have been granted the first ever permission to closely study the elderly residents of the coastal hamlet of Acciaroli, south of Salerno.

Nestled between unspoilt mountain scenery and the pristine sea, Acciaroli has earned a reputation among tourists as one of the pearls of the Mediterranean — and, for foodies, of the famed Mediterranean diet. Now, the local mayor has agreed to allow the Italian and U.S. researchers to collaborate with local doctors and their patients to more systematically investigate the village's secret to a long life.

Comment: Smoking would greatly benefit Alzheimer's patients as the condition involves a loss of the levels of the neurotransmitter, acetylcholine, by up to 90%, and smoking helps to boost the availability of acetylcholine.

For more information, check out the episodes of our Health and Wellness Show on the topic of the health benefits of smoking:

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Bacon n Eggs

Huge LA school district switching to chicken free of antibiotics and hormones

Amanda Froelich
True Activist
Sat, 23 Apr 2016 17:35 UTC
Child eating carrot
Whether you realize it or not, the majority of animal products consumed in the U.S. are laced with a number of unappetizing substances, including steroidal hormones and antibiotics.

This is because industrial feedlots often inject animals with synthetic hormones to make them grow faster and/or produce leaner meat for food. While the end result may be good for farmers' wallets, humans who consume them don't fare as well.
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Red Flag

Hormone-disrupting pesticides put millions at risk

Alex Formuzis
Environmental Working Group
Wed, 20 Apr 2016 16:49 UTC
pesticides
© sustainablepulse.com
The European Union just banned two agricultural weed killers linked to infertility, reproductive problems and fetal development - the first-ever EU ban on endocrine-disrupting pesticides. That's good news for Europeans. But as in Europe, many endocrine-disrupting weed killers remain widely used on American crops, and from farm fields make their way into drinking water and food.

One of the most widely used and most troublesome endocrine-disrupting pesticides in the U.S. is atrazine. Manufactured by agro-chemical giant Syngenta, atrazine is sprayed mostly on Midwest corn fields and is consistently one of the most detected crop chemicals in drinking water.

Comment: More Stark Evidence of the Hazards of Atrazine:

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Attention

Utah: Porn is now deemed a 'health hazard'

Alanna Ketler
Collective Evolution
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 16:35 UTC
senator
Utah Gov. Gary R. Herbert signed two pieces of legislation — one resolution and one bill — this week in an attempt to combat what he has deemed a "sexually toxic environment" caused by pornography.

Resolution:
S.C.R. 9 Concurrent Resolution on the Public Health Crisis

This resolution states that pornography is "a public health hazard leading to a broad spectrum of individual and public health impacts and societal harms."

It claims that Utah would be the first state in the nation to make this declaration, and this move is particularly significant because it may inspire other states and even nations to follow suit.

The resolution also cites what it says are the detrimental effects of porn, including the treatment of "women as objects and commodities for the viewer's use." It also states that pornography "equates violence toward women and children with sex and pain with pleasure which increases demand for sex trafficking, prostitution, child sexual abuse images and child pornography."
View the entire resolution here.

Comment: This Is Your Brain On Porn
This presentation is not an argument against pornography. It was created for anyone who has a porn addiction, or wants to understand pornography addiction.

Science teacher Gary Wilson explains the evolutionary forces behind porn's appeal, how the brain changes in response to super-normal stimulation, what makes today's porn different from static porn of the past, and what you need to know to regain your sense of direction if you're hooked on porn.


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