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Acid suppression medications linked to serious gastrointestinal infections


Medical Xpress
Thu, 05 Jan 2017 18:35 UTC
nexium
In a population-based study from Scotland, use of commonly-prescribed acid suppression medications such as proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) was linked with an increased risk of intestinal infections with C. difficileand Campylobacter bacteria, which can cause considerable illness.

Compared with individuals in the community who did not take acid suppression medications, those who did had 1.7-times and 3.7-times increased risks of C. difficile and Campylobacter, respectively. Among hospitalized patients, those using the medications had 1.4-times and 4.5-times increased risks, respectively.

Although acid suppression therapy is often considered relatively free from side effects, the findings suggest that there are significant adverse gastrointestinal consequences of their use.


Comment: That is simply not true: Proton Pump Inhibitors: So dangerous that prescriptions border on being criminal


"Users of these medications should be particularly vigilant about food hygiene as the removal of stomach acid makes them more easily infected with agents such as Campylobacter, which is commonly found on poultry," said Prof. Thomas MacDonald, senior author of the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology study.

Comment: See also:

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Heart

Stress, heart health, and the amygdala: Links explained

Tim Newman
Medical News Today
Thu, 12 Jan 2017 12:06 UTC
stress and work
© Unknown
Breaking research explains why stress can contribute to poor heart health.
That long-term stress is linked to cardiovascular disease is not breaking news. However, despite the well-known connection, exactly how the two are coupled has been difficult to pinpoint. Two studies published this week provide new insight.

Psychological stress carries with it a wealth of ills. In fact, excessive stress is known to contribute to a range of conditions, including hypertension (high blood pressure), ulcers, asthma, and irritable bowel syndrome.

It also has a well-documented impact on heart health. Some of this negative influence could be due to coping mechanisms - such as drinking alcohol or smoking tobacco - but there also appears to be a direct link between elevated stress levels and heart complaints.

Although this relationship is common knowledge to medical researchers and laypeople alike, the exact physiological processes behind it have remained difficult to unpick.

How can an emotion that is constructed in the brain influence the physical health of the heart?

Comment: A fascinating correlation. To reduce stress in an easy and enjoyable way, we recommend the Eiriu Eolas breathing and meditation programme which can be found at eiriu-eolas.org. If you cannot afford to buy the DVD set, you can download it for free. The programme is based on sound scientific evidence. Have a read through the testimonials if you're not sure whether it is for you.

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Eggs Fried

Eggs are not just yummy, they also improve cognition

Natasha Longo
Prevent Disease
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 23:13 UTC
eggs
One of the most perfect foods, low in calories, containing every single vitamin (A, B, D, E, K) except C, and nearly perfect in protein can also improve aspects of cognition, according to research that also concludes neither high intake of cholesterol or eggs are associated with an increased risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

The study, involving almost 2,500 Finnish men, aimed to test a suggested link between intakes of cholesterol (and eggs as a major source of dietary cholesterol) and cognitive decline in both the general population and in a group of people genetically 'at risk' of dementia.

Led by Maija Ylilauri from the University of Eastern Finland, the team found that a relatively high intake of dietary cholesterol, or eating one egg every day, was not associated with an increased risk of dementia or Alzheimer's disease.

Furthermore, no link was found in people carrying the APOE4 gene - a gene that is known to affect cholesterol metabolism and increase the risk of memory disorders.

"Neither cholesterol nor egg intake is associated with an increased risk of incident dementia or AD in Eastern Finnish men," said the team. "Instead, moderate egg intake may have a beneficial association with certain areas of cognitive performance."
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Health

The drugs may be the problem: A tribute to whistle-blowing psychiatrists

Gary G. Kohls, MD
Transcend Media Service
Wed, 11 Jan 2017 01:04 UTC
Psychiatric drugs
© Reuters
Inconvenient Truths about Big Pharma and the Psychiatric Industry: A Tribute to Whistle-Blowing Psychiatrists Peter Breggin and Loren Mosher

I stole the main title from Dr Peter Breggin's ground-breakng book Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications. I, along with thousands of Big Pharma skeptics, regard Breggin as a valued mentor. I have spent many hours studying his books and they occupy a significant section in my personal library.

Peter Breggin is the giant of psychiatric whistle-blowers and a huge thorn in the flesh of the super-wealthy and super-powerful multinational psychopharmaceutical corporations (and much of academic psychiatry) ever since his first ground-breaking book was published in 1991.

The title of that book was Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock and Biochemical Theories of the 'New Psychiatry'.

2016 happens to be the 25th anniversary of Toxic Psychiatry and I am dedicating my seminar to Breggin. Soberingly, Breggin's books are essentially banned books in polite medical establishment circles. His titles are rarely found in mainstream book-seller's stores. His courageous truth-telling has resulted in his being treated as a banned author. His ideas are considered heretical in mainstream psychiatry, which makes his books continue to be somewhat popular for psychiatric survivors who know they have been sickened or made worse by the drugs.

Comment: For more on toxic psychiatry see:
The Health & Wellness Show: ‌Big Pharma Karma - Magic bullets and the astonishing rise of mental illness

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Magnify

The real cause of the Mumps outbreak


Alliance for Natural Health
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 00:36 UTC
vaccines
A recent article in Scientific American upends the conventional wisdom about what caused the recent spike in mumps in the US. In 2016 there were about 4,000 cases across the US; in 2010, there were about 2,000.

If you followed the mainstream press and a number of opportunistic politicians, the answer was clear: unvaccinated kids were the cause. Parents who didn't vaccinate their kids according to the government's schedule were vilified and derided in the opinion columns of newspapers and magazines, and state politicians like Sen. Richard Pan of California used the hysteria to enact legislation (SB 277) that eliminated parents' right to decide whether and how to vaccinate their children.

Comment: More Vaccine failure: Vaccinated people are spreading the mumps:

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Life Preserver

An interview with Bessel van der Kolk: How yoga helps treat PTSD


Trauma Center
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 23:16 UTC
Bessel van der Kolk
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk is considered one of the world's leading authorities on Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). He has pioneered the use of Yoga as a therapy that is helping these individuals to work through their PTSD and regain a sense of mastery. He discusses mind-body connections in trauma, how Yoga works and precautions for teaching trauma-sensitive Yoga students.

Integral Yoga Magazine (IYM): How did you get interested in Yoga for the treatment of PTSD?

Bessel van der Kolk (BvdK): I began my own practice six years ago. I was looking for a way for people to regulate the core arousal system in the brain and feel safe inside their bodies. My interest came from doing research that discovered how trauma affects the brain. Yoga turned out to be a way to get people to safely feel their physical sensations and to develop a quiet practice of stillness.

Comment: For more on Bessel van der Kolk's work with trauma, you can read The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma.

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Health

More research that the appendix is not useless after all

Bec Crew
Science Alert
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 22:19 UTC
appendix scar
© TaraPatta/Shutterstock.com
One of the first things you learn about evolution in school is that the human body has a number of 'vestigial' parts - appendix, wisdom teeth, tailbone - that gradually fell out of use as we adapted to more advanced lifestyles than our primitive ancestors.

But while our wisdom teeth are definitely causing us more pain than good right now, the human appendix could be more than just a ticking time bomb sitting in your abdomen. A new study says it could actually serve an important biological function - and one that humans aren't ready to give up.

Researchers from Midwestern University traced the appearance, disappearance, and reemergence of the appendix in several mammal lineages over the past 11 million years, to figure out how many times it was cut and bought back due to evolutionary pressures.

Comment: More on this humble organ:

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Cell Phone

Dopamine behind social media addiction


Sputnik
Tue, 10 Jan 2017 17:51 UTC
instagram
© Pixabay
Are you addicted to social media? Does your heart skip a beat when you receive a Tweet? If the answer is yes, then you can blame your brain, or rather, a particular chemical in it called dopamine.

And while the world becomes even more engrossed in social media, so do individuals who display addiction tendencies to certain sites such as Facebook and Twitter, as Mauricio Delgado, associate Professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh in the United States, explains.

"Dopamine is more about reinforcement and learning about potential rewards to guide behavior, than the pleasure itself," Dr. Delgado told Sputnik.

"Say someone receives their first 'friend request' on Facebook or something equivalent, this may lead to some initial surprise or pleasure and is an unexpected reward. Thus, it could be tied to some elevated levels of dopamine in regions of the brain that process reward," he said.
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Arrow Up

'Weekend Warrior' Workouts Improve Health

Rachael Rettner
Live Science
Mon, 09 Jan 2017 15:00 UTC
Hiking
© Vitalii Nesterchuk | Shutterstock
If going to the gym during the workweek sounds daunting to you, fear not: Working out only on the weekends has health benefits too, a new study suggests.

In the study, researchers examined so-called weekend warriors, who cram a week's worth of exercise into just one or two days.

The researchers found that the weekend warriors in the study who met physical activity guidelines were less likely to die during the nine-year study period, compared with people who didn't get any exercise. Meeting those guidelines meant engaging in a total of at least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity or 75 minutes of vigorous activity over one or two days a week.

What's more, even the people who didn't meet physical activity guidelines, but did exercise one or two days a week had a lower risk of early death than people who didn't exercise.

Comment: See also:

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Health

Cancer researchers discover how high-dose vitamin C kills cancer cells


Science Daily
Mon, 09 Jan 2017 00:00 UTC
IV vitamin C cancer
© sneeze/PixaBay
Scientists at the University of Iowa have discovered high-dose vitamin C given intravenously may be effective at killer cancer cells.
Vitamin C has a patchy history as a cancer therapy, but researchers at the University of Iowa believe that is because it has often been used in a way that guarantees failure.

Most vitamin C therapies involve taking the substance orally. However, the UI scientists have shown that giving vitamin C intravenously -- and bypassing normal gut metabolism and excretion pathways -- creates blood levels that are 100 -- 500 times higher than levels seen with oral ingestion. It is this super-high concentration in the blood that is crucial to vitamin C's ability to attack cancer cells.

Comment: Intravenous vitamin C does more than just kill cancer cells. It boosts immunity and can stimulate collagen formation to help the body wall off the tumor. It inhibits hyaluronidase, an enzyme that tumors use to metastasize and invade other organs throughout the body and corrects the almost universal scurvy in cancer patients.

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