Health & WellnessS


Health

Persistent insomnia linked with increased inflammation and mortality

Rick Nauert PhD
Psych Central
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 00:00 UTC
Insomnia
© Getty
Researchers have identified an association between persistent insomnia and increased inflammation and mortality.

Scientists from the University of Arizona found that people who suffer from persistent insomnia are at greater risk of death than those who experience intermittent insomnia.

Their study has been published in The American Journal of Medicine.

Experts say that although about 20 percent of U.S. adults are affected by insomnia, only half (10 percent) suffer from persistent (or chronic) insomnia.

"We hypothesized that insomnia that was persistent over eight years, rather than intermittent insomnia, was associated with death independent of the effects of sedatives, opportunity for sleep (to distinguish it from sleep deprivation), and other confounding factors in a representative sample of the general adult community," explained lead investigator Sairam Parthasarathy, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the University of Arizona College of Medicine-Tucson.

Comment: Once again, research points to the dangers posed by chronic inflammation which contributes to almost every major disease. One of the best ways to reduce inflammation is to eliminate gluten and dairy products, as well as processed foods which often contain highly inflammatory GMO's. See the following articles for other tips on conquering insomnia and inflammation:

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Black Cat 2

SOTT Exclusive: Natural Pet Health: How dry food is killing your pets

Zoya Klebanova
Sott.net
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 21:04 UTC
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Hello, and welcome to the second article in our new series on natural pet health (as featured on SOTT Radio Network's Health and Wellness Show). Previous articles in this series:

SOTT Exclusive: Natural Pet Health: Top 10 issues facing pet owners when it comes to your pets' well-being
In this article we are going to talk about nutrition, or how to feed your dog or cat (or both) in a way that will contribute to their healthy and long life. But before we go into the proper way of feeding your pets, let's talk about dry food first, and why it's the worst food you could give to them.

What is dry food?

It's a highly processed mix, dried and ground to powder, that is comprised of various animal meats from cattle, swine and chicken, or restaurant waste and out-of-date supermarket meat, and yes, even so-called road kill or cows that died on the farm but never reached the slaughter house. It also includes non-meat parts, such as intestines, lungs, spleens, unborn fetuses, diseased or parasitized livers, cut-away tumors, and other parts unsuitable for human consumption.


Comment: Listen to the entire Health and Wellness show on the SOTT Radio Network, which covers topics of health, diet, science, homeopathy, wellness culture, and more.



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Question

Seriously? Monsanto's VP tweets 'Why do people doubt science?'

Colin Todhunter
Coutnerpunch
Fri, 27 Feb 2015 11:12 UTC
Monsanto
© Deesillustration
On Twitter recently, someone asked the question "Why do people doubt science?" Accompanying the tweet was a link to an article in National Geographic that implied people who are suspicious of vaccines, genetically modified organisms (GMOs), climate change, fluoridated water and various other phenomena are confused, adhere to conspiracy theories, are motivated by ideology or are misinformed as a result of access to the 'University of Google.' The remedy, according what is said in the article, is for us all to rely on scientific evidence pertaining to these issues and adopt a 'scientific method' of thought and analysis and put irrational thought processes to one side.

Who tweeted the question and posted the link? None other than Robert T Fraley, Monsanto's Vice President and Chief Technology Officer.

Comment: Monsanto's VP seems to be lamenting that not everyone in the world is a brain-dead zombie with no common sense or ability to do their own research. "Just close your eyes, turn off your brain and trust us." Sorry, Monsanto, the jig is up. No one in their right mind wants your frankenfoods.

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Syringe

SOTT Focus: Pro-Vaxxers are the new pro-lifers: Religious hysteria trumps rational discussion in the vaccine debate

Erica Burt & Doug DiPasquale
Sott.net
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 19:52 UTC
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© thedailybeast.com
In the early 80s' the world was shocked by headlines reporting violence against abortion clinics, staff and doctors by religious fundamentalist groups. The first such reported case was the kidnapping of Hector Zevallos, an abortion clinic owner and operator, and his wife, by three men identifying themselves as the Army of God. Zevallos and his wife were held for eight days. Since that time, there have been further kidnappings, bombings of clinics, murders and attempted murders of staff and supporters, hundreds of death threats and over 150 cases of assault and battery by anti-abortion activists. The violence has since spread from the United States to Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

And the violence continues today, with the 2012 bombings of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Grand Chute, Wisconsin and the firebombing of the Ladies Clinic in Pensacola, Florida, the site of the 1994 murder of Dr. John Britton and his attendant James Barrett and a previous bombing on Christmas Day, 1984 (the quartet of perpetrators later calling the bombing "a gift to Jesus on his birthday").

The actions of these Pro-Lifer terrorists leave many people confused. How can anyone care so much about a cause like pro-life versus pro-choice that they are prepared to carry out violent attacks and protests, death threats and smear campaigns? How can one's fundamentalism lead one to take such seemingly contradictory actions - to kill in order to uphold the "thou shalt not kill" commandment?

But such is the mindset of the religious terrorist. One becomes so wrapped up in their cause, no matter how misguided, that these seeming contradictions don't hold any water. It's what's commonly referred to as "being a complete whackjob".
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Video

Trace Amounts: The Documentary the CDC doesn't want you to see

Anna Rodgers
collective-evolution.com
Thu, 19 Feb 2015 17:38 UTC
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Mercury Toxicity: Has it caused one of the worst health crises in American history?
"We found out that the Thimeresol would be toxic down to - not grams, not mg's, not mcgs, but nano grams - parts per billion - which was almost unbelievable. This was published in the American Journal Medical Society, in the New York Academy Sciences and in the Journal For the Chemical Speciality Manufactures Association and it didn't make waves, there wasn't even a ripple - no one seemed to care." - Dr Frank P Engley PhD - Blue Ribbon Panel Member 1948 AMA meeting regarding Thimeresol's concerns
During the past two decades, the diagnosis of autism occurring in children has risen dramatically from 1 in 10,000 to 1 in 68 and our scientific community is no closer to determining a cause. But one thing they automatically do is emphatically deny a possible link between autism cases and something found in our vaccines.
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Magnify

Behind the label: How manufacturers are hiding how your food was made

Aaron Dykes
Truthstream Media
Mon, 23 Feb 2015 17:13 UTC
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What we eat is a much more intricate subject that it might first appear.

Behind the labels are many troubling issues... and GMOs are just the tip of the iceberg.

The London Guardian carried this interest piece revealing how so much of our foods - even the most natural in appearance - are engineered, manufactured and packaged with invisible processing 'ingredients' derived from sophisticated lab processes.

Now, as the food manufacturing industry is keeping up with consumer demand, scary sounding and artificial looking ingredients are increasingly fading from food packages. But as the London Guardian makes clear in this expose from a food ingredients exposition, it is not always because the quality or ingredients improved, but instead because the industry has embarked upon a "clean label" initiative to derive substitutes that fly under the radar of current regulations or - like 'extract of rosemary' - sound benign compared with previous industry solutions like butylhydroxyanisole (BHA), which has been classified as a 'reasonably anticipated human carcinogen,' despite assurances by many that it is safe in small doses.

Comment: Read the articles below to learn more about what's behind the label in many 'All Natural' foods:

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Megaphone

Best of the Web: 25 facts about vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry coverup

Julie Lévesque
Global Research
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 22:52 UTC
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During the recent measles outbreak, the mainstream media blamed the epidemic solely on non vaccinated children, even though people who were vaccinated caught the disease and some vaccines have proven to be inefficient in the past. Without the slightest nuance, the mainstream media constantly portrays people reluctant to accept just any vaccine as "anti-vaxers", irresponsible and misinformed people, relying on irrational fears and the one and only "fraudulent" Andrew Wakefield study linking autism to vaccines. (Watch Lina B. Moreco's documentary Shots in the Dark, which features Dr. Wakefield and thankful parents of his young patients with autism.)

In reality, many so-called "anti-vaxers" are not ALL totally against vaccines. While some people may be totally against any kind of vaccination, many, including doctors and health specialists, question certain vaccines, ingredients in the vaccines and/or the vaccination schedule. This is not based on a survey but on my own perception resulting from the fair amount of articles on vaccines and the pharmaceutical industry that I've read over the last five years as a journalist. There are a large number of doctors and health specialists who have done truly independent research and who criticize vaccination based on scientific studies and solid evidence.

Why is the media so keen on portraying Big Pharma critics as crazy, uneducated, unscientific and irresponsible people?

Dr Marcia Angell worked for over two decades as editor of The New England Journal of Medicine. She was fired after criticizing the pharmaceutical industry, which had exerted an overriding and negative influence on the scientific literature. She said:
"It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published."
Numerous journalists say the same goes for the mainstream media.
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Smoking

Best of the Web: Nicotine metabolite cotinine found to improve learning and memory


Science Daily
Wed, 18 Feb 2015 13:30 UTC
writer typewriter smoking
Nicotine's primary metabolite supports learning and memory by amplifying the action of a primary chemical messenger involved in both, researchers report.

"This is the first hint of what the mechanism of the metabolite cotinine might be," said Dr. Alvin V. Terry, Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the Medical College of Georgia at Georgia Regents University and corresponding author of the study in the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.

While the findings show therapeutic promise for a metabolite once thought to be inactive, cotinine's benefits don't hold up across all learning and memory systems so Terry is already looking at analogues that would be even more broadly effective and equally safe.

The new findings indicate cotinine makes brain receptors more sensitive to lower levels of the messenger acetylcholine, which are typical in Alzheimer's, and may boost effectiveness, at least for a time, of existing therapies for Alzheimer's and possibly other memory and psychiatric disorders.

Comment: Reading between the lines of the Big Pharma doublespeak, smoking is good for you, or for some people at least.

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Stop

Additives used to thicken foods found to cause inflammation and weight gain leading to metabolic syndrome

Tia Ghose
Live Science
Wed, 25 Feb 2015 19:00 UTC
food additives
© Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.comProcessed foods containing emulsifying agents disrupt gut bacteria
Food additives that are commonly used to thicken and stabilize processed foods may disrupt the bacterial makeup of the gut, causing health problems, a new study in animals suggests.

In the study, mice that were fed two chemicals that are commonly added to foods gained weight, had altered blood sugar and developed intestinal problems. The chemicals were "emulsifying agents," chemicals that hold together mixtures that include both fat and water, which would otherwise separate.

The chemicals were "able to trigger low-grade inflammation and metabolic syndrome," in the mice, said study co-author Benoit Chassaing, a microbiologist at Georgia State University in Atlanta.

The food additives may also have harmed the mice by promoting the growth of bacteria that eat through the protective mucus lining of the gut, the study found.

Comment: Most packaged and highly processed foods contain a myriad of ingredients used to make such 'foods' more palatable. While the FDA approves these ingredients, very often they have been banned in other countries. In addition, FDA oversight of food additives is often lacking as they often don't even know about their existence. Companies are increasingly adding secret ingredients by using a voluntary certification system thus effectively bypassing FDA oversight. The best way to protect yourself is to eat a diet that contains as little pre-packaged food as possible, avoid grains, dairy, carbohydrates and be sure to include healthy saturated fats.

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TV

U.S. free press freezes about Italian Court Ruling that Vaccines cause Autism

Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
Thu, 26 Feb 2015 19:53 UTC
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© forums.canadiancontent.net
Have any readers read about the Italian court's ruling that vaccines have caused autism? Have you heard about it on your nightly TV news channels? Have you scanned it on your favorite online newspaper? Probably not—but even more so, why not?

Well, there were at least two such autism rulings, the latest being in September 2014. Here is the 8-page official court document written in Italian, signed by Judge Nicola Di Leo. Mary Holland, JD, wrote an article about that ruling, which everyone at the HHS, CDC, FDA and all state and local health agencies should read, know about and, furthermore, accept because vaccines DO cause autism.

The Italian court in Milan ruled against GlaxoSmithKline for damages caused by its hexavalent vaccine Infanrix Hexa, which is given to children during their first year of life.
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