Health & WellnessS


Attention

Antibiotic resistance - massive agricultural overuse of drugs

Emma Rose
The Ecologist
Fri, 11 Sep 2015 15:42 UTC
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© fixfood.org
Doctors have been told to limit their use of antibiotics to limit the spread of microbial drug resistance, writes Emma Rose. But 40% of the UK's antibiotics are used on farms, of which 85% is fed to disease-free animals. We can no longer ignore the massive agricultural overuse of the drugs, now a major driver of antibiotic resistant infections.

Last week, the National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) joined the ever-more vocal debate on antibiotic resistance, calling on GPs, nurses, pharmacists and dentists alike to rein in inappropriate prescription practices.

According to the institute, 10 million prescriptions for antibiotics are dished out unnecessarily every year, despite - in the words of NICE Director of the Centre for Clinical Practice Professor Mark Baker - "knowledge amongst GPs that many patients ... do not require and will not benefit from antibiotics."

Comment: The SOTT page has been covering the issue of factory farms and antibiotic resistance for the past several years and yet nothing has really changed. As the article states above; 'Why are the principles around 'responsible' antibiotic use in human medicine considered less salient when applied to animal medicine?'

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Pills

New analysis says: Antidepressant Paxil is unsafe for teenagers

Benedict Carey
New York Times
Wed, 16 Sep 2015 15:44 UTC
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© Raedle/Getty ImagesA reanalysis of a 2001 study found that Paxil, the antidepressant, is not safe for teenagers.
Fourteen years ago, a leading drug maker published a study showing that the antidepressant Paxil was safe and effective for teenagers. On Wednesday, a major medical journal posted a new analysis of the same data concluding that the opposite is true.

That study - featured prominently by the journal BMJ - is a clear break from scientific custom and reflects a new era in scientific publishing, some experts said, opening the way for journals to post multiple interpretations of the same experiment. It comes at a time of self-examination across science - retractions are at an all-time high; recent cases of fraud have shaken fields as diverse as anesthesia and political science; and earlier this month researchers reported that less than half of a sample of psychology papers held up.
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Cheeseburger

America the fast food nation: Over a third of children and teens eat fast food daily


Russian Times
Thu, 17 Sep 2015 15:10 UTC
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© Lucy Nicholson / Reuters
A new government report shows that over a third of US children and teens eat fast food daily. More than 12 percent obtained nearly half of their daily diet from fast food, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"I can't say I was surprised," said Cheryl Fryar, one of the study's authors, to the Guardian.

On any given day, 34.3 percent of American children and teens between the ages of two and 19 eat pizza, fried chicken, tacos or some other dish prepared in a fast-food restaurant, according to data collected by the CDC and published on Tuesday.

Comment: Additional examples of the prevalence of large corporations (think Big Food/ Fast food chains) targeting children and minorities with 'fast food' campaigns:

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Health

NASA closes cafeteria after cook diagnosed with Legionnaire's disease


RT
Thu, 17 Sep 2015 15:30 UTC
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© WikipediaAerial View of Glenn Research Center at Lewis Field
NASA closed the cafeteria at the main campus of its Glenn Research Center in Ohio after a line cook was diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease. It will remain closed as a NASA crew conducts an inspection with the help of an outside expert to identify the source.

The worker went home feeling ill early Monday and was diagnosed with Legionnaires' disease on Tuesday, according to officials at the research center. The cook was employed by Marigold Catering of Cleveland and worked in the Glenn center's campus cafeteria. NASA only became aware of the employee's illness Tuesday afternoon.

"The health and security of the Glenn workforce is the center management's number one concern," Lori Rachul, NASA's Glenn Center spokesperson, said in an email to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. "We are monitoring the situation and will provide updates to the workforce as they become available."

Rachul said the cafeteria will be closed for the rest of the week as it undergoes an inspection.
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Beaker

The cocktail effect: Today's modern day toxic soup

Kelly Brogan MD
kellybroganmd.com
Tue, 15 Sep 2015 14:41 UTC
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© drericz.comEvery day people are exposed to a cocktail of chemicals that interact with each other in ways that are far beyond our understanding.
Be skeptical.

Be very skeptical when you are delivered platitudes of reassurance about the safety of chemicals and pharmaceutical products from those who stand to profit from their sales. It can take more than a decade for signals of harm to trickle into consciousness. We have an even more complex problem at play here: scientists are not doing the right types of studies.

I specialized, in residency and fellowship, in the "safety" of psychiatric medications during pregnancy and breastfeeding. After memorizing every study on the subject, I furrowed my brow and said, "Hold on a minute...these studies aren't asking the right questions!" They ask - are babies born on time, are they big or small, and are they born with ten fingers and ten toes.

Comment: The Hundred Years' War over Toxic Chemicals
Oddly named substances, whose origins are sometimes obscure even to chemists, have spread throughout the globe. Scientists detect many of them among a myriad of artificial compounds in the blood of every living person. We are all guinea pigs in a vast experiment of chemical alteration of the environment, with consequences that are no clearer to us than the effects of life-long exposure to arsenic.


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Coffee

Caffeine at night resets your circadian clock

Nell Greenfieldboyce
NPR
Wed, 16 Sep 2015 21:17 UTC
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© Hayato D./FlickrGulping down coffee to stay awake at night delays the body's natural surge of the sleep hormone melatonin.
Everyone knows that caffeine can keep you awake, but a new study shows that the world's most popular drug can actually interfere with your body's internal sense of time.

"The circadian clock is way beyond 'sleep and wake,' " says Kenneth Wright, a sleep and circadian physiologist at the University of Colorado Boulder. "The circadian clock is present in cells throughout our entire body. It's in your fat cells; it's in your muscle cells. It's in your liver, for example, as well as in your brain."

And irregularities in the circadian clock have been linked to everything from obesity to cancer.

Scientists have had hints that caffeine could alter cellular timekeeping, from studies in bread mold, green algae and sea snails. But Wright wanted to know if it did the same thing in people.

"To our surprise, no one had really tested his question," he says.
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Question

Unsolvable digestive problems?

Catherine Frompovich
Activist Post
Tue, 15 Sep 2015 16:37 UTC
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With more and more people becoming aware of the importance of a healthful dietary, even switching to organically grown foods, some find they still can't shake their digestive problems. Are you one of those folks? If so, please read on.

Digestive problems can start with the first mouthful of food you ingest, especially if the food has been compromised by chemical farming practices; is processed with numerous food processing chemicals; is 'fortified' or 'enriched' with numerous synthetics; or even contains natural ingredients found in Nature, not the 'natural ingredients' made from GMOs and chemicals. [1]

Comment: Examine what you are eating!

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Health

Dr. Mark Sircus: New form of Medicine replaces the old

Dr. Mark Sircus
drsircus.com
Thu, 10 Sep 2015 16:19 UTC
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In my Transdermal Magnesium Therapy book I start out with the words, "The book that you hold in your hands could save your life. It certainly contains information that can extend your physical existence and save you and your loved ones from a considerable amount of pain." I wrote those words before I had full developed my Natural Allopathic Medicine protocol.

Magnesium in oral and topical form is powerful and useful and makes surgery much safer for patients to undergo. Now years later, after going beyond the use of magnesium as a standalone therapy, I can safely say, no shout from the rooftops that I have developed a revolutionary form of medicine that is safe, easy to learn, highly effective in saving lives and incredibly low in cost compared to modern pharmaceutical and surgical medicine.
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Cow

Farm dirt arms kids for allergens

Rachel Feltman
Valley News
Sun, 06 Sep 2015 15:24 UTC
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© pinterest.com
People who grow up on farms — especially dairy farms — have way fewer allergy and asthma problems than the rest of us. Now one research team thinks they've brought science closer to understanding why.

In a study published Thursday in Science, researchers report that they were able to pinpoint one possible mechanism for the allergy protection in mice they studied. Surprisingly, the protein that they fingered as the likely allergy-preventer doesn't actually affect the immune system — it affects the structural cells that make up the lining of the lung.

The research is related to something called the hygiene hypothesis, where a lack of exposure to microbes as a tyke leads to more allergy and asthma.

Comment: The Hygiene Hypothesis - Can being too clean harm your health?
The immune system learns how to fight illness and disease by being exposed to it; it then builds defenses. When we don't allow our immune systems to have any exposure to these micro-organisms, it doesn't know how to fight them—leaving us vulnerable.

Further supporting the hygiene hypothesis, in a research project entitled the Human Microbiome Project, researchers show that bacteria and microbial bodies are actually much more beneficial than they will ever be detrimental. Not only do bacteria keep people alive and healthful by helping to strengthen the immune system, but they also explain in a broad sense why people are so different when it comes to vaccinations and diseases.


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Attention

Too little or too much sleep associated with low-grade inflammation


Science Daily
Mon, 14 Sep 2015 00:00 UTC
Woman sleeping
© Unknown
People who sleep fewer than 6 hours or more than 10 hours per night suffer from low-grade inflammation more often than people who sleep 7-8 hours per night. This was observed in a University of Eastern Finland study focusing on the health and lifestyle habits among middle-aged men.

"Earlier studies have found a relation between reduced sleep and low-grade inflammation," says Maria Luojus, MHSc, one of the study researchers.

Furthermore, low-grade inflammation occurs in overweight, depression and diabetes.

The study is the first to analyse the association between sleep duration and serum micronutrient concentrations in a large sample, and it found a link between high serum copper concentration and long sleep duration. Serum micronutrient concentrations are affected by many factors, including an individual's general health and diet.

Comment: Sleep deprivation and health - most of us are the 'walking dead'

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