Health & WellnessS


Life Preserver

Congress's $12 billion giveaway to health insurers

Betsy McCaughey
New York Post
Thu, 15 Dec 2016 17:44 UTC
Health Care
© Getty ImagesHealth Care
As Congress rushes to pass an omnibus tax/spending bill for the coming year, it's concocting a special tax break for health-insurance companies.

And it amounts to a back-door bailout.

Until this week, insurance-company lobbyists and their allies in the White House were pushing for an outright bailout, spending taxpayer dollars to cover what insurers are losing on ObamaCare plans to persuade insurers to keep selling them.
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Bacon n Eggs

Is the ketogenic diet the holy grail of anti-ageing?

Mithu Storoni, MD, PhD
Green Med Info
Mon, 28 Dec 2015 14:52 UTC
keto foods
A ketogenic diet may unlock the secrets to the fountain of youth.

In the late 1940s, Denham Harman PhD, an accomplished chemist, became so fascinated with the idea of finding a cure to ageing that he decided to go back to school and study medicine. In 1953, while still an intern at Berkeley in California, he proposed a radical new theory called the 'the free radical theory of ageing'. [i] In this theory, he declared that ageing is caused by reactive oxygen species accumulating within cells. Denham then noticed that it wasn't simply the accumulation of reactive oxygen species that affected lifespan, but the damage these reactive oxygen species were inflicting on mitochondria. So, he modified his theory and gave it a new name: 'the mitochondrial theory of ageing'. Harman changed the course of anti-ageing research forever.

Comment: There are numerous studies on the benefits of the ketogenic diet. See this forum thread for real word examples: Ketogenic Diet - Path To Transformation?

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Bomb

Flexible working can make you ill because you stay stressed all the time, say experts


Daily Mail
Sat, 02 Jan 2016 15:01 UTC
Office Workers
© Alamy
Flexible hours can make employees ill because they find it harder to switch off from their work, experts have said.

Working away from the office or part-time can create an 'always on' culture that keeps stress hormones persistently high, they claim.

Their arrangements can also irritate colleagues who feel flexible workers have a cushier work-life balance and so could leave them isolated socially.
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Cupcake Choco

Hershey drops sugar beets because of GM concerns

Tom Meersman
Star Tribune
Sun, 27 Dec 2015 02:27 UTC
Hershey
© Jim Gehrz/jgehrz@startribune.comThe Southern Minnesota Beet Sugar Cooperative in Renville produces sugar from sugar beets, which had a record harvest this year.
Something was different about a lot of the Hershey's kisses in your stocking this year: The popular chocolates no longer contain sugar made in Minnesota.

For decades, the Hershey Co. has used sugar made from both sugar beets and sugar cane, but it decided earlier this year to stop buying beet sugar because it comes from genetically modified, or GM, seeds that some consumers don't like.

Hershey, with 2014 sales of $7.4 billion and more than 80 brands of candy sold around the world, was a huge customer for beet sugar farmers, and its decision was significant enough to be noted earlier this month at two annual shareholder meetings of sugar beet cooperatives.

David Berg, president and CEO of American Crystal Sugar in Moorhead, Minn., the nation's largest sugar beet co-op, told members gathered in Fargo, N.D., that the anti-GM movement is one of the industry's biggest challenges. And Kurt Wickstrom, president and CEO of Minn-Dak Farmers Cooperative in Wahpeton, N.D., said that anti-GM groups are a real threat whose claims need to be countered.

Comment: See more:
  • DARK Act shocks consumers with Non-GMO label for GMO fed meat & dairy

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Red Flag

Failures of vaccines continue

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Thu, 29 Dec 2016 20:10 UTC
vaccine failure
Most of us wish for our children to be healthy and free of disease. We wish the same for ourselves as adults, too. But it's time to critically examine and have an open conversation about whether multiple vaccines in early childhood should be our nation's No. 1 disease-prevention strategy.

In fact, such a conversation is long overdue. Many red flags have appeared that suggest vaccines not only have the potential for failure but also for harm. There can be little doubt that we need to review the safety and effectiveness of the current vaccination program in the U.S.

If you're not sure this is necessary, just consider some of the recent vaccine failures that have made headlines. The one-size-fits-all vaccination schedule in the U.S. is not safe for every child, and there comes a point when we may well be sacrificing too many children's lives in the name of "the greater good."
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SOTT Logo Radio

SOTT Focus: The Health & Wellness Show: New Years Resolutions: Biohacking!


Sott.net
Fri, 01 Jan 2016 15:00 UTC
Sott Talk Radio logo
As we pass the arbitrarily chosen date to mark another successful pass around the sun, it is traditional for residents of this Big Blue Marble to reflect upon the year that's passed and make resolutions, of varying degrees, to attempt improvement in some facet of our lives.

Today on the Health and Wellness Show on the SOTT Radio Network we'll be looking into the phenomenon of New Years resolutions, but more specifically, we'll be picking out some good ones for turning around one's health in 2016. Whether you're not in the best state of health or are just looking for ways to take your body, mind and emotional health to the next level, there will be something we cover that will address ways you can make your 2016 your healthiest year yet!

Join us Fridays at 10 am EST for the SOTT Radio Network's Health and Wellness Show. With us, as always, will be resident animal health expert Zoya, with her Pet Health segment.

Running Time: 02:12:00

Download: MP3


Here's the transcript of the show:
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Top Secret

What Big Pharma & your doctor don't tell you about depression

Arjun Walia
Collective Evolution
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 14:19 UTC
depressed brain
Before starting off, it's important to mention that yes, some individuals suffer more than others when it comes to depression, and people do need assistance to climb out of these dark places. There is no denying that in this article, what is being challenged is the disease-model of depression, and how it may not be helpful in helping get rid of a problem that continues to rise exponentially. Are drugs really the answer? Do they even do anything? What's the science behind depression? It's also important to mention that many doctors are completely unaware of this type of information, it's not like they are 'not telling' you on purpose.

Anti-depressant drugs are the most commonly prescribed drugs in North America. Pharmaceutical companies are bringing in billions of dollars every single year from the sale of anti-depressant drugs alone, and they also spend billions of dollars marketing and advertising their products. Not only that, pharmaceutical companies have been found to falsify research and influence scientific literature. This is a big problem that plagues the modern day medical industry. For example, last month, an independent review found that the commonly prescribed antidepressant drug Paxil (paroxetine), is not safe for teenagers, despite the fact that a large amount of literature already previously suggested otherwise. The 2001 drug trial that took place, funded by GlaxoSmithKline, found that these drugs were completely safe, and used that 'science' to market Paxil as safe for teenagers. You can read more about that story here.

Comment: Read more information about why so many people suffer from depression:
Today we'll be discussing mood and mood-stabilizing supplements, four syndromes that affect mood, carbohydrate addiction, the gut brain connection and some possible solutions to neurotransmitter imbalances.


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Whistle

Scientist digs into double dipping

Paul Dawson
The Conversation
Tue, 24 Nov 2015 00:00 UTC
What do you do when you are left with half a chip in your hand after dipping? Admit it, you've wondered whether it's OK to double dip the chip.

Maybe you're the sort who dips their chip only once. Maybe you look around the room before loading your half-eaten chip with a bit more dip, hoping that no one will notice.

If you've seen that classic episode of Seinfeld, "The Implant," where George Costanza double-dips a chip at a wake, maybe you've wondered if double-dipping is really like "putting your whole mouth right in the dip!"


But is it, really? Can the bacteria in your mouth make it onto the chip then into the dip? Is this habit simply bad manners, or are you actively contaminating communal snacks with your particular germs?

This question intrigued our undergraduate research team at Clemson University, so we designed a series of experiments to find out just what happens when you double-dip. Testing to see if there is bacterial transfer seems straightforward, but there are more subtle questions to be answered. How does the acidity of the dip affect bacteria, and do different dips affect the outcome? Members of the no-double-dipping enforcement squad, prepare to have your worst, most repulsive suspicions confirmed.
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Alarm Clock

Age of anxiety: Today's students report more worry than psychiatric patients in the 1950's

April McCarthy
Prevent Disease
Wed, 30 Dec 2015 18:46 UTC
anxious teens
Two new meta-analytic studies involving thousands of children and college students show that anxiety has increased substantially since the 1950's. In fact, the studies find that anxiety has increased so much that typical schoolchildren during the 1980's reported more anxiety than child psychiatric patients did during the 1950's. The findings appear in the December issue of the American Psychological Association's (APA)Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

"The results of the study suggest that cases of depression will continue to increase in the coming decades, as anxiety tends to predispose people to depression," says psychologist and study author Jean M. Twenge, PhD, of Case Western Reserve University.

Comment: For a natural, non-pharmaceutical approach to stress relief see:


Learn more about how to do Éiriú Eolas for free, and what makes it so effective, here.

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Hotdog

Diet and exercise just don't cut it when food is engineered

Alex Pietrowski
Waking Times
Tue, 29 Dec 2015 17:48 UTC
doritos
There is a good reason why diet and exercise don't work like they used to, and that's because food is not at all what it used to be.

Ninety percent of grocery store shelf space is dedicated to processed foods, developed by food companies who compete against each other for 'stomach space,' the industry term for the market share of product food companies can push down consumers throats. The foods most widely available in our culture are scientifically engineered to create physical and psychological dependency, and in the last couple of decades our cultural eating habits have been socially re-engineered to include endless mindless eating of industrialized junk food.

Perfectly Engineered Food

Perfectly engineered food is serious business, and as Michael Moss, author of Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us, points out, companies like Nestle, Pillsbury, Kraft, Nabisco, General Mills, Procter & Gamble, Coca-Cola and Mars, employ absolutely everything at their disposal to get people to not only like their products, but to crave more and more of them.

Comment: For a diet plan more conducive to weight loss see:

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