* In 2012 one in eight deaths worldwide were linked to pollution

* In that year seven million deaths globally were linked to polluted air

* The main causes of death linked to pollution are heart disease, strokes and lung disease

Air pollution killed about seven million people in 2012, making it the world's single biggest environmental health risk, the World Health Organisation (WHO) says.

The toll, a doubling of previous estimates, means one in eight of all global deaths in 2012 were linked to polluted air.

This means air pollution has overtaken poor diet and high blood pressure as the leading cause of preventable death worldwide.

Just after crossing the finish line of the Virginia Beach Shamrock Half Marathon on Sunday, 16-year-old Cameron Gallagher collapsed.

The Richmond-area teen, an accomplished swimmer, had just completed her first half marathon in two hours and 19 minutes with her best friend Abby Donelson by her side. Her parents, David and Grace, who had been cheering her on, rushed over when she fell to the ground.

Gallagher was carried to the EMS tent and then rushed to a local hospital, where doctors were unable to revive her. She died close to 11 am, an hour-and-a-half after she lost consciousness.

The cause of death has not yet been officially released, but it is believed to have been cardiac arrest.

While the debate rages over medical marijuana in America, approximately 200 Americans die daily in U.S. hospitals, according to a new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The CDC report found that preventable healthcare-associated infections in hospitals kill 75,000 patients per year, reports AFP.

Most of these fatal infections could be easily avoided if only healthcare professionals simply practiced common hygiene, says the report, which surveyed 181 hospitals in 2011.

The study, which was published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found 721,800 infections happened in 648,000 hospital patients.

"The most advanced medical care won't work if clinicians don't prevent infections through basic things such as regular hand hygiene," said CDC Director Tom Frieden in a statement.

In some places, towns essentially shut down in the afternoon while everyone goes home for a siesta. Unfortunately, in the U.S. - more bound to our corporate lifestyles than our health - a mid-day nap is seen as a luxury and, in some cases, a sign of pure laziness. But before you feel guilty about that weekend snooze or falling asleep during a movie, rest assured that napping is actually good for you and a completely natural phenomena in the circadian (sleep-wake cycle) rhythm.
As our day wears on, even when we get enough sleep at night, our focus and alertness degrade. While this can be a minor inconvenience in modern times, it may have meant life or death for our ancestors. Whether you are finishing up a project for work or hunting for your livelihood, a nap can rekindle your alertness and have your neurons back up and firing on high in as little as 15 to 20 minutes.

The citizens of Vermont want GMO foods to be labeled. As NaturalSociety's Anthony Gucciardi reported in 2013, a bill which has already passed the House awaits a final O.K. by the Senate. If Monsanto gets their way though, as made evident in heated testimony given at the Statehouse this past Wednesday before a Judiciary Committee, not only will the bill get stalled in the Senate, but Monsanto points to the fact that the state will have to spend around a million dollars just to defend the bill in court.

You can guess who is on Monsanto's latest pay-roll. Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, chairman of the Senate Judiciary committee warned that, although he 'supports a labeling bill', he feels that there are potential litigation costs which could hinder state finances.

He also mentions that dairy would also be excluded from the bill, but currently there is no GMO dairy in Vermont.

Agreeing with Monsanto's interests and testifying that the new law would have to be defended is Assistant Attorney General Bridget Asay, stating that even if the state was successful in passing a GMO-labeling bill, the legal challenge could end up costing more than $5 million, and the state would not be able to recover legal fees. She estimates that the total cost would include potential reimbursement for a victorious plaintiff - Monsanto, Dow, Syngenta, and their poison-filled coffers.

The 'expert' testimony arguing against the labeling law likely did not include the potential costs if genetically modified organisms are allowed to continue to run rampant in our food supply - including costs to organic farmers, and the possibility that just three companies could end up owning the seed rights to just about every food we eat, once they are genetically modified and have cross-pollinated non-GMO crops.

"The presence of glyphosate residues in both humans and animals could haul the entire population towards numerous health hazards, studying the impact of glyphosate residues on health is warranted and the global regulations for the use of glyphosate may have to be re-evaluated."

A newly released study published in Environmental & Analytical Toxicology highlights the chemical dangers associated with the GMO agricultural system, which relies heavily on the herbicide known as glyphosate (aka Roundup), and to which widespread exposure through the environment and our food is increasingly becoming inevitable.

The study titled, "Detection of Glyphosate in Animals and Humans," aimed to investigate glyphosate residues in different biological samples from humans and animals, in order to gain insight into the modern day exposure situation.

Long vilified butter is making a comeback. Butter consumption in the US has reached its 40-year peak, according to new data from the dairy industry. The butter boom, at least in part, has been attributed to a shift in consumer preferences away from processed foods and back toward natural foods.

It has also helped that USDA began the process of banning trans fats from the American food supply last fall.¹

During the past decade, Americans have increased their butter intake by 25 percent - but it's really taken off over the past five years. Butter consumption has now reached 5.6 pounds per capita, compared to 4.1 pounds in 1997.² While butter hit its 40-year high, margarine fell to its 70-year low.

Even Unilever Foods (maker of Country Crock margarine) just added real butter to Rama, their most popular spread in Germany, in order to rescue dwindling sales.³

After decades of believing the myth that butter clogs arteries and causes heart attacks, people are now beginning to realize that partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, margarine, and shortening.

So-called "heart healthy spreads," are the culprits - not wholesome saturated fats like butter. The now discredited "lipid hypothesis"⁴ is thankfully going the way of bloodletting and lobotomies. It's time to bury the myth that butter is bad for you - for good.

In a major new book, Professor Richard Wiseman explains the simple tricks and techniques you can use to get the sleep you need.
How much sleep did you get last night? If the answer is 'not much', then you're not alone. A third of us have difficulty sleeping, and perhaps the worst aspect of spending the night feeling you're unable to sleep is the anxiety it causes. Over the course of a night, this anxiety disrupts your sleep even more, creating a vicious downwards cycle.

If this sounds familiar, the first thing to remember is that you are probably getting more sleep than you think. Research shows that we all tend to underestimate how much of the night we spend sleeping.

In one study, for instance, the time insomniacs spent actually sleeping during the night was compared with how much they thought they had slept. The insomniacs were convinced that they had slept for only an average of about three hours per night, whereas in reality they had been asleep for an average of nearer seven hours.

Psychologist Jeremy Mercer, from Flinders University in South Australia, has attempted to discover the cause of this strange phenomenon. In one study he invited insomniacs to his sleep laboratory, woke them when tests showed they were in the 'dreaming' stage of sleep known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM) and asked them whether they had just been asleep.

Remarkably, many of the volunteers believed that they had been wide awake despite having been sound asleep, thus raising the intriguing possibility that they were essentially dreaming about being awake.

Jodi Corbitt had been battling depression for decades and by 2010 had resigned herself to taking antidepressant medication for the rest of her life. Then she decided to start a dietary experiment.

To lose weight, the 47-year-old Catonsville, Md., mother stopped eating gluten, a protein found in wheat and related grains. Within a month she had shed several pounds - and her lifelong depression.

"It was like a veil lifted and I could see life more clearly," she recalled. "It changed everything."

Corbitt had stumbled into an area that scientists have recently begun to investigate: whether food can have as powerful an impact on the mind as it does on the body.

About half of American adults believe in at least one medical conspiracy theory, according to new survey results.

Some conspiracy theories have much more traction than others, however.

For example, three times as many people believe U.S. regulators prevent people from getting natural cures as believe that a U.S. spy agency infected a large number of African Americans with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

J. Eric Oliver, the study's lead author from University of Chicago, said people may believe in conspiracy theories because they're easier to understand than complex medical information.

"Science in general - medicine in particular - is complicated and cognitively challenging because you have to carry around a lot of uncertainty," Oliver said.