Health & WellnessS


Megaphone

Big Food: Kicking, screaming, and losing lots of money

Daisy Luther
Natural Blaze
Mon, 08 Jun 2015 15:05 UTC
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A red flag sign of an emotionally abusive relationship is when the abuser goes to great lengths to make the abused party seem "crazy" or "ridiculous." This is actually just an attempt to maintain power in the relationship and the behavior worsens when they sense that their victim is breaking free. They humiliate, demean, and "tease" the victim in an effort to remain in control. This is the classic pattern of a bully, whether it's in a romantic relationship, a workplace relationship, or a parent/child relationship.

Apparently this is also how a dying multi-billion dollar industry behaves in an attempt to shame the fleeing customers.

Comment: Stigmatizing Health: The War Against 'Health Nuts'
We live in a world where it's normal to be more like the walking dead than a fully functioning human, but that doesn't mean it's truly normal. We have had our health and our senses hijacked by food manufacturers who develop designer chemicals to keep us eating what they are selling. Dr. Dean Ornish said it best when he said that it's considered radical to ask people to dramatically change their diets and adopt a healthy, plant-based diet, but not considered radical to crack open their chests and perform heart surgery.


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Magnify

No definitive 'No' on nanotechnology

Linley Dixon, PhD
Cornucopia Institute
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:30 UTC
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© Foodandwaterwatch.org
USDA Disregards NOSB's Recommended Prohibition on Nanomaterials in Organics.

Despite the consensus in the organic community that nanotechnology should be prohibited in organics, the USDA's National Organic Program issued a new guidance in March that allows companies to petition for use of human-engineered nanomaterials in organic production and processing. The new guidance dismisses the recommendation of the NOP's advisory body, the National Organic Standards Board (NOSB).

Nanomaterials are tiny particles measured in nanometers, or billionths of a meter. Due to their incredibly small size, nanoparticles ingested in food are fundamentally different and can move throughout the body and through cell structures in unknown ways. Experts on nanotechnology are virtually unanimous that nanoscale materials have the potential for health effects that are uniquely different from the same substances comprised of larger-sized molecules.

Comment: Comment: 'The National Organic Standards Board was very clear in their wording that nanomaterials should not be allowed in organic production or in organic processing and packaging ' Not surprising that the USDA disregards concerns over 'nano' particles in organic foods, learn more about the growing concern regarding nanotechnology and how organizations like the USDA want to keep the consumer uninformed!

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Health

Why you should never eat tilapia

Anya V
Living Traditionally
Fri, 11 Apr 2014 11:15 UTC
Tilapia , one of the cheapest and most popular fish in the United States, may actually lead to many serious health problems.
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Their feed is not natural — in the wild, tilapia would eat algae and lake plants, but the farms fatten up the fish on GMO corn and soy pellets. The amount of healthful fish oils in these creatures is almost non-existent, negating the main reason why fish is so good for us. Almost all tilapia sold in the U.S. is hormone drug treated. Did you know that the low price of tilapia is achieved by converting the young females to males through the use of the hormone drug 17alpha-methytestosterone? By having all male population allows fish farmers to produce larger fish in a short period of time.

Additionally, farmed fish consist of more fat and less Omega-3 fatty acids due to the smaller area in which they swim, and the constant availability of food. Unlike many other fish, farm-raised tilapia contains high levels of an unhealthy kind of omega-6. It also contains less than 0.5 grams of omega-3s per 100 grams of fish.
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Bad Guys

Medical insider: "science has taken a turn towards darkness"

F. William Engdahl
New Eastern Outlook
Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
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© Unknown
A shocking admission by the editor of the world's most respected medical journal, The Lancet, has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-chief of the Lancet recently published a statement declaring that a shocking amount of published research is unreliable at best, if not completely false, as in, fraudulent.

Horton declared, "Much of the scientific literature, perhaps half, may simply be untrue. Afflicted by studies with small sample sizes, tiny effects, invalid exploratory analyses, and flagrant conflicts of interest, together with an obsession for pursuing fashionable trends of dubious importance, science has taken a turn towards darkness."

To state the point in other words, Horton states bluntly that major pharmaceutical companies falsify or manipulate tests on the health, safety and effectiveness of their various drugs by taking samples too small to be statistically meaningful or hiring test labs or scientists where the lab or scientist has blatant conflicts of interest such as pleasing the drug company to get further grants. At least half of all such tests are worthless or worse he claims. As the drugs have a major effect on the health of millions of consumers, the manipulation amounts to criminal dereliction and malfeasance.

Comment: Finally, finally, we have some deep acknowledgement from establishment science of what others in the alternative health field have been saying, literally, for decades - and have become vilified for. The run-away train that has become modern medicine and science has, and will, destroy the life of many millions. Its time that the people of conscience in this field take a much stronger stand.

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Comet

Cyclical return of 'Black Death': Scientist considers 430 BC Athens Plague to be 'first Ebola epidemic'


sputnik
Thu, 18 Jun 2015 22:04 UTC
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There is a widely held belief that the first outbreak dates back to 1976, in the Democratic Republic of Congo with the virus reemerging in West Africa in 2014. However, Powel Kazanjian, a professor of history and infectious diseases from the University of Michigan, suggests that the origin of the Ebola virus lies in Ancient Greece. His paper was published June 1 in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. Kazanjian believes he has traced the virus back to infected mice and rats some 20 million years ago. The virus may have become available for humans from the animal reservoir long before scientists found it in 1976.

The devastating Plague of Athens in 430 BC, which has been a bone of contention between historians and physicians, may have actually been caused by the Ebola virus, claims the professor. The illness was also known as Thucydides syndrome, after the name of the famous historian who survived such an infection. His description of the symptoms allows scientists to speculate about the roots of today's outbreaks. The first manifestation of the illness often led to death after a fever, headache, fatigue and stomach-ache. The professor added that some people experienced such a severe dehydration that they plunged themselves into wells trying to quench their unceasing thirst. No medication could help those who contracted the virus.

It's also known that the disease came from Egypt, more specifically from Ethiopia, the name ancient Greeks used to refer to the modern sub-Saharan region, where the Ebola epidemic of 2014 originated.

Comment: Clearly a particularly virulent virus - and very probably never quite the same one as before - periodically wipes out (or seriously decimates) the human population.

See also:

It finally reaches mainstream: Researchers argue 'Black Death' was due to Ebola, not Bubonic plague

New Light on the Black Death: The Cosmic Connection

New Light on the Black Death: The Viral and Cosmic Connection

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Syringe

The polio vaccine: A worthless and carcinogenic threat to humanity

Richard Gale and Dr. Gary Null
Global Research
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
vaccine bomb
© unknown
During the past several months as a slew of draconian vaccine bills have been aggressively pushed upon state legislators to legally enforce vaccination against Americans freedom of choice, I have had the opportunity to debate publicly pro-vaccine advocates on a number of occasions. When faced with a barrage of peer-reviewed scientific facts confirming vaccine failures, and its lack of efficacy and safety, representatives of the vaccine establishment will inevitably raise the issue of the eradication of polio and smallpox from the US as case examples of two vaccine miracles. Yet neither case, has their been scientifically sound confirmation that the demise of these two infectious diseases were the result of mass population vaccine campaigns.

Furthermore, this horribly simplistic belief that polio and smallpox are exemplary models for all other vaccines is both naïve and dangerous. Vaccinology does not follow a one-size-fits-all theory as the pro-vaccine industry propagates to the public. For any coherent public debate, it is necessary for each vaccine to be critically discerned upon its own terms with respect to its rate of efficacy, the properties of viral infection and immune response, vaccine adverse effects, and the long term risks that may not present symptoms until years after inoculation.

This article is the first part of a two part series to deconstruct the false claims of polio and smallpox as modern medical success stories and put each in its historical and scientific perspective. In this first part, the legacy of the polio vaccine and its ongoing track record of failure, particularly in developing nations, will be presented.

It is a very dangerous assumption to believe that any new vaccine or drug to fight an infectious disease or life-threatening disease will be safe once released upon an uninformed public. The history of pharmaceutical science is largely a story of failures as well as successes. Numerous drugs over the decades have been approved and found more dangerous than the condition being targeted, but only after hundreds of thousands of people were turned into guinea pigs by the medical establishment. In the case of vaccines, both the first human papilloma vaccine (Gardasil) and Paul Offit's vaccine for rotavirus (Rotateq) were disasters. Both were fast tracked through the FDA and both failed to live up to their promises.

Comment: See also:

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Red Flag

Fracking region in Texas shows 'incredibly alarming' levels of water pollution


Sputnik
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 20:03 UTC
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© Flickr/ WildEarth Guardians
Even as US environmental regulators are reluctant to declare fracking a widespread water pollutant, a new study of water in Texas' Barnett Shale area reveals "incredibly alarming" levels of contamination, with fracking the prime suspect.

The University of Texas at Arlington's study of the groundwater near the Barnett Shale — which underlies about 5,000 square miles of North Texas, including Fort Worth — is being called one of the most comprehensive of its kind.

While the study does not claim to definitively establish fracking as the source of groundwater contamination, it does document a strong association, and says the findings should "be an impetus for further monitoring and analysis of groundwater quality."

The results of two years of tests, published Wednesday in the trade journal Environmental Science and Technology, show groundwater contamination with "multiple volatile organic carbon compounds throughout the region, including various alcohols, the BTEX family of compounds and several chlorinated compounds."
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Nuke

Study finds DDT exposure in utero resulted in daughters with nearly four times the rate of breast cancer


RT
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 19:24 UTC
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© Reuters / Stringer
Blood samples taken from pregnant mothers showed that exposure to high levels of the pesticide DDT resulted in daughters with nearly four times the rate of breast cancer, according to a new study.

Researchers followed 9,300 women born between 1959 to 1967, when the insecticide DDT was widely sprayed on lands and agriculture. When taking into account the history of these women's mothers, the study found that they had a 3.7 times higher risk of breast cancer if they had been exposed to the insecticide in utero.

"It has long been suspected that environmental chemicals that interfere with hormone systems could be connected to risk of breast cancer. Here we found the first direct connection for measured levels of DDT in mothers' pregnancy blood," the study's lead author, Barbara Cohn, director of child health and development studies at the Public Health Institute in Berkeley, California, told Reuters.

DDT behaves like a synthetic estrogen hormone, and when in contact with insects it cause seizures, leading to death. In humans, the estrogen hormone is involved in signaling breast cells to grow and divide. The current study reviewed blood tests for DDT levels in 20,754 women who had given birth in Oakland, California during the 50s and 60s.
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Health

Study suggests sedentary lifestyles linked to anxiety disorders

Lecia Bushak
Medical Daily
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 00:00 UTC
sedentary, mental health
© ShutterstockSitting in front of a TV, laptop, or computer all day is certainly bad for your physical health; but it's also detrimental to your mental health.
We already know that sitting is bad for pretty much every aspect of your health: It weakens your muscles, impairs blood circulation, and increases your risk of chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, and obesity. But it turns out that sitting all day at work, then sitting all night at home in front of the TV, are detrimental to your mental health, too.

A new study examines how a sedentary lifestyle can increase your anxiety. Researchers out of Deakin University's Centre for Physical Activity and Nutrition Research in Australia found that low-energy activities and sitting down likely makes your anxiety worse. Working at a computer all day, watching TV, playing video games, or simply crouching over your phone or laptop in bed are all considered low-energy activities that are eating away at your mental acuity.

Megan Teychenne, the lead researcher of the study, notes that modern society has seen a huge surge of anxiety disorders in recent years. In the U.S., anxiety affects some 40 million adults, or 18 percent of the population, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America. While this increase in anxiety might result from several factors, such as more frequent use of distracting technology and social media or increased urban sprawl and air pollution, the researchers wanted to investigate the link between anxiety and sedentary living.

"[W]e are seeing an increase in anxiety symptoms in our modern society, which seems to parallel the increase in sedentary behavior," Teychenne said in a press release. "Thus, we were interested to see whether these two factors were in fact linked."

Comment: Most people now understand that sedentary lifestyles are unhealthy for the body, but more evidence is showing that it also negatively impacts our mental health as well. We need to take frequent breaks throughout the day to engage in low level activity as well as intermittent bursts of intense exercise, rather than just set aside a few days a week for exercise.

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Smoking

SOTT Focus: The Health & Wellness Show: The Truth About Tobacco with Richard White

Sott Editors
Sott.net
Fri, 19 Jun 2015 14:00 UTC
Smoking is healthier than fascism
Smoking: it's healthier than Fascism!
Smoking is hazardous to your health and causes lung cancer... but is that really true? Are tobacco and cigarette smoking really the scourge that Big Pharma, the media and millions of people around the world believe it to be? Today we'll be talking with Richard White, author of "Smoke Screens: The Truth About Tobacco". We'll examine studies on smoking, what researchers have to say, the scientists involved in the anti-smoking movement, previous attacks on smoking, the origins of the anti-smoking movement, the diseases said to be caused by smoking... and more!

Keeping your pets safe during the summer months is the topic of this week's Pet Health Segment.

Running Time: 01:59:00

Download: MP3

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