While it may be commonplace in most Asian countries, the cultural norm of taking your shoes off before entering your home has yet to catch on in Europe and America. In Asian cultures it's easily understandable as to why people remove their shoes before coming into a home as their meals are typically eaten on mats on the floor, and they sleep on rolled out futons at night.

A new study has researchers suggesting that maybe we might want to be more aware of what exactly we're bringing into our homes via our shoes.

As a child who grew up in the seventies, I'm flabbergasted at the degree of generational differences in health, medicine, food, safety, and general well-being of children. Don't get me wrong, I love technology and all the advancements we've made in several areas, but at the same time when you break it down to the simplest ways of managing human lives, we've taken one step forward and three steps back. The level of fear we currently exhibit as parents and as a society towards children is at an unprecedented level. When comparing the two time periods, an element of certainty exists where we have now immersed our most precious assets into an toxic, overly hygienic, medicalized, obsessive compulsive, paranoid, anxious and at the very least, a "cowardice culture" where children are being trained and almost indoctrinated into a world where "the norm" is to fear everything and everyone.

Intermittent fasting is a powerful tool for preventing and reversing disease. Learn how this dietary approach could help you optimize your health.

In previous podcasts and articles on this site Chris discussed some of the factors to consider when deciding if intermittent fasting is the right approach for you. While the decision to use intermittent fasting as a strategy to improve or optimize health should be considered carefully, it is a powerful tool when used appropriately. In this article, I want to discuss some of the potential benefits offered from intermittent fasting.

Intermittent fasting is a general term used to describe a variety of approaches that change the normal timing of eating throughout a day, with short-term fasts used to improve overall health. In other words, the one consistent theme of intermittent fasting is that individuals periodically fast for a longer duration than the typical overnight fast.

Helen Caldicott, MD was among 45 leading scholars, authors and activists who convened at The Great Hall of Cooper Union, New York City, on October 25-26, 2014, for the public presentation: "Techno-Utopianism and the Fate of the Earth." Speakers discussed the profound impacts—environmental, economic and social—of runaway technological expansionism and cyber immersion; the tendency to see technology as the savior for all problems.

Dr. Caldicott is President of The Helen Caldicott Foundation & NuclearFreePlanet.or­g, which initiates symposiums and other educational projects to inform the public and the media of the dangers of nuclear power and weapons. The mission of the Foundation is education to action, and the promotion of a nuclear-energy and weapons-free, renewable energy powered, world.

The Foundation's most recent symposium, co-sponsored by Physicians for Social Responsibility was held at the New York Academy of Medicine in March 2013, 2013. It was entitled The Medical and Environmental Consequences of Fukushima.

A book - Crisis Without End - emanating from the conference proceedings and edited by Dr. Caldicott was published by The New Press in 2014.

By an overwhelming margin, American voters say consumers should have the right to know if their food is genetically modified, with 89 percent in support of mandatory GMO labeling, according to a new national poll. Nearly the same number of consumers would like to see the labels in an easy to read format.

University of Michigan researchers have identified an accessible, non-invasive way to identify patients at risk for progression of kidney disease.

Together with the European Renal cDNA Bank and the Joint Institute for Translational and Clinical Research (a collaboration between Peking University Health Sciences Center and U-M), the U-M team found a simple, new test to identify one of the nation's fastest growing chronic illnesses.

Chronic kidney disease is a condition in which damaged kidneys cannot filter blood as well as healthy kidneys. Currently, it is estimated that over 10 million individuals suffer from chronic kidney disease, with the number of those affected continuing to rise.

A U-M team led by nephrologist Matthias Kretzler, M.D., renal systems biologist Wenjun Ju, Ph.D., M.S., and bioinformatician Viji Nair, M.S., has discovered a simple test to identify patients at risk for chronic kidney disease by measuring a specific molecule in a routine urine sample.

This molecule, a protein called epidermal growth factor, indicates whether the patient is at risk of end-stage kidney disease. End-stage kidney disease means an affected individual's kidneys can no longer meet their body's need to remove waste.

Given the highly toxic state most people find themselves in, the rapidly changing environment which we live in, and the incredible ability that iodine has to strengthen people's health and improve their lives, I decided to write the following summary about iodine supplementation as an introduction to the subject. The information presented here is based on preliminary research available on this forum discussion thread on iodine and on the books Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It (5th Edition) by Dr. Brownstein, and The Iodine Crisis by Lynne Farrow.

Iodine is an essential micro-nutrient. This means every single cell of every single person needs it. Evolutionary biologists reckon that seafood consumption, and thus iodine absorption, played an important role in human brain development and evolution. Iodine also has excellent antibacterial, anticancer, antiparasitic, antifungal, and antiviral properties.

Unfortunately, iodine deficiency in the general population is of pandemic proportions in our modern world due to iodine's displacement in our bodies by environmental toxins such as bromide, pesticides, and food additives. Modern farming techniques have also led to deficiencies of iodine and other minerals in the soil. Thus, crops grown in iodine-deficient soil are deficient in iodine.

Certain diets and lifestyles can also predispose a person to develop iodine deficiency. Those who eat a lot of bakery products (breads, pasta, etc), which contain high amounts of bromide, are at risk. So are vegetarians and those who don't like sea food, sea vegetables or salt.

According to Dr. Brownstein, author of Iodine: Why You Need It, Why You Can't Live Without It, about one-third of the global populations live in a region of iodine deficiency. He and other iodine researchers have tested thousands of people, and found consistent results: approximately 96% of patients test low for iodine. The World Health Organization has recognized that iodine deficiency is the world's greatest single cause of preventable mental retardation. Iodine deficiency has been identified as a significant public health problem in 129 countries and up to 72% of the world's population is affected by an iodine deficiency disorder.

"We could be on the cusp of a new era in human history," said Dr. David Baltimore of the California Institute of Technology as an opener to his talk at a recent conference in Washington on the field of genetic alteration.

Why? Because the process of gene "editing" and "tweaking" is not only getting easier and easier these days, but the technology is getting cheaper. All of it is moving at a faster pace than laws, rules, regulations, and ethics considerations can keep up with. We have already passed the moment where the lines between science fiction and science fact have blurred to the point that the definition of the word "reality" in the dictionary is going to need a complete overhaul.

Before you say I'm being too dramatic, let me explain.

From a global perspective, the cost to consumers and government agencies of prescription drugs in the U.S. is off the charts.

For instance, the Medicare Part B program earlier this year paid $1,936 for a vial of Lucentis used for treating macular degeneration, while the Norwegian government paid just $894 for the same drug. The U.S. health system meanwhile paid $3,678 for a vial of Rituxan/MabThera, which treats rheumatoid arthritis, while England's health service paid $1,364.

While the Medicare program had to shell out $685 for a vial of Avastin, a cancer drug, the Canadian government in Ontario was spending only $398.

According to a revealing report this week by The Wall Street Journal, the pharmaceutical industry is gouging the U.S. Medicare program and its millions of beneficiaries to maximize profits while providing drugs at bargain-basement prices to government agencies and consumers overseas.

There is no single known cause for autism spectrum disorder (ASD), but it is widely accepted by the scientific community that it is triggered by abnormalities in brain structure and function. This has been established in studies which illustrate the differences in the shape and structure of the autistic brain compared to those seen in the brains of neurotypical children. There is also a decent amount of evidence to support the theory that some children are born with a susceptibility to autism, but scientists have yet to identify this "trigger." This is why researches have theorized that irregular segments of genetic code may be the root cause of autism.

In recent years, however, a wealth of information has emerged that was once never even considered. Despite the fact that the cause for autism isn't certain, and that it's highly unlikely researchers will ever find that 'one' cause of autism, scientists are now realizing that autism could be the result of the modern day human lifestyle. There are a number of significant studies that should be ringing alarm bells in the medical and scientific communities in this regard.