More children in the U.S. are being diagnosed with ADHD than even before -- 10.4 million in 2010 -- according to a new study that concluded a staggering rise in diagnoses of 66 percent since the year 2000.

"There is increased concern on behalf of parents and teachers and doctors. There's been a lot more press and advertising and public health announcements around diagnoses and treatment," said Craig Garfield, a researcher at Northwestern University and the lead author of the study. "Therefore, more people are probably asking their doctors about (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder)."

The study, which will be published in the journal Academic Pediatrics, did not focus exclusively on new diagnoses. Instead, Garfield said researchers analyzed trends using a national sample of visits to more than 4,000 office-based physicians. The 66 percent increase refers to the number of ADHD-related office visits, some new patients and others repeat visits for ongoing treatment, he said.

But the dramatic jump heats up the ongoing debate over whether ADHD is overdiagnosed -- and how many children are over-medicated as a result.

Ron Rosedale, M.D. interviewed by Shelley Schlender, KGNU radio, Boulder, Colorado.

RON ROSEDALE

No, we don't want diseases, period. Unfortunately, it is part of life. The major problem is not that we're getting the diseases, but that we're getting them more frequently and younger. The rise in these chronic diseases - in fact, virtually all chronic diseases - correlates with the patterns of dietary changes that we've been seeing, perhaps delayed by 20 or 30 years for the results of the dietary changes to actually manifest themselves. But I think there's a strong link between diet, metabolism, and all of the chronic diseases of aging, including neurodegenerative diseases.

Not everybody agrees that diet is a major contributor to this increase in neurodegenerative disease. A more widely held medical theory is called the hygiene hypothesis. It says autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases are increasing because our world has gotten too clean. We don't have enough germs and dirtiness in the world, we have more vaccines and antibiotics used.

RON ROSEDALE

I recall hearing that at least 20 years ago, and I totally agree with it. I see no fault with that argument. The only fault I see is that that's the only reason. I think there's ample evidence to show that the dietary changes, exclusive of cleanliness, have a huge impact on neurodegenerative diseases in addition to our lack of early exposure to antigenic stimuli for our immune system. So I think that that certainly plays a role. I think when you're exposed early in life to the typical antigens, the typical bacteria and viruses and other immune stimulating effects, it does program our immune system to do what it evolutionarily is supposed to do and therefore help fight disease and not fight itself, not fight your own body. In other words, it helps the body to become less confused as to what is self and what is non-self. That's a very, very important bit of information that the body requires for its immune system, so the regulatory T cells and inhibitory T cells that prevent overactivity of the immune system are properly developed.

The reason is a steep drop in mouse populations, a tick's preferred host

The northeastern United States may see a significant increase in cases of Lyme disease this spring, an expert warns.

The reason is that oak trees produced relatively few acorns in the fall of 2011, part of a normal cycle of boom and bust years for the acorn crop. But the small crop means trouble for the white-footed mouse, which feeds on the acorns.

"We had a boom in acorns, followed by a boom in mice. And now, on the heels of one of the smallest acorn crops we've ever seen, the mouse population is crashing," Richard Ostfeld, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, N.Y., said in an institute news release.

What does that have to do with Lyme disease?

Dr. Brian Clement is the medical director of the Hippocrates Health Institute, which is one of the world's oldest complementary health centers.

Dr. Clement started with the organization in 1975, and has been a director since 1980.

Here he shares his considerable knowledge of how to improve your health.

The primary focus of this interview is on detoxification, because this is an area that Dr. Clement has great experience with.

It is well-established that 25-30% of all cancer are caused soley by tobacco consumption - a completely avoidable cause.

But what if the tobacco itself were not actually the primary cause of the cancer, but something else contaminating it? And what if it the tobacco industry knew this lethal contaminant was in their product, and even knew how to remove it, but did and said nothing for over 30 years in order to conceal this deadly secret from the public?

In 1998, major tobacco industries' internal secret documents were made available online by the Master Settlement Agreement, revealing that the industry was aware of the presence of a radioactive substance in tobacco as early as 1959.

It was discovered in 1964 that the cancer-causing radioactive substance was Polonium 210, which millions still inhale in their cigarette smoke, unwittingly. Polonium 210 is a byproduct of the decay of uranium daughter isotopes, which, while occurring naturally in the environment, are primarily found within our soil as a result of pollution from various industries. Uranium mining is one source, as are the nuclear and coal-fired power industries. In fact, "fly ash" produced from coal-fired power carries 100 times more radiation into the surrounding environment than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy.¹ This is, of course, when nuclear power plants properly contain their radioactive fuel and waste and don't release massive, irretrievable quantities of radioisotopes into the environment, as occurred in Chernobyl and Fukushima. Nuclear weapons and munitions (depleted uranium), are another well-known source of global contamination. No matter where the uranium comes from, tobacco plants selectively absorbs and concentrates the byproduct of its decay, Polonium 210, to dangerous -- if not lethal -- levels.

In horror movies, fog often provides creepy atmospherics, hiding threats from hideous creatures, bandits, ax murderers, and the like. Now, a new study suggests that fog can harbor real-life horrors. Researchers have found that coastal mists may carry toxic mercury that can harm ecosystems and human health.

Mercury pours into the atmosphere from coal-fired power plants and various industrial processes, including some used in refining ores and paper manufacturing. It's a neurotoxin that isn't easily excreted by organisms that ingest it, so it becomes increasingly concentrated in animals at higher levels of a food chain. A well-absorbed form is monomethyl mercury, a positively charged ion that readily binds with proteins and can be transported throughout the body, even across the blood-brain barrier into the brain and through the placenta into a developing fetus. Monomethyl mercury can impair neurological development in fetuses and young children, reducing memory, attention, and language and motor skills. In adults, exposure can impair peripheral vision, trigger a "pins and needles" feeling in the hands and feet, and lead to muscle weakness and a lack of coordination.

Most scientists presumed mercury deposited from the atmosphere came either from raindrops that had absorbed the element from the air or via "dry deposition," in which the vaporized atoms stick to or chemically react with an exposed surface, says Peter Weiss-Penzias, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Now, field experiments conducted by Weiss-Penzias and his colleagues have identified another atmospheric source of mercury that's likely to be substantial in some areas, especially along some coasts.

San Francisco - Exposure to nano-sized particles can impair the responsiveness of very tiny blood vessels, new animal studies show.

Vessels called arterioles don't dilate or constrict appropriately after recent nanoparticle exposure. The changes are small "but equate to a level of impairment that would preclude affected tissues from functioning normally," says microvascular physiologist Timothy Nurkiewicz of West Virginia University in Morgantown.

His team described new experiments March 13 at the Society of Toxicology annual meeting.

The West Virginia researchers "have a unique set of findings that are pretty powerful," says Alex Carll, a toxicologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Their data "offer further demonstration that air pollutants can impair cardiac function."

Man-made chemicals present in homes, schools, offices, cars and food are probably contributing to the sharp rise in obesity and diabetes in western societies, according to a review of scientific literature published today.

Until now lifestyle factors such as lack of exercise and poor diet were believed to be the primary causes of the increased incidence of both conditions, whose proliferation has strained global health budgets.

While these remain undisputed factors, the review of 240 scientific papers by two leading experts, Professor Miquel Porta of Spain and Professor Duk-Hee Lee of South Korea, suggests chemicals in plastics and other surfaces play an important and avoidable role.

Their study assessed the impact of chemicals including the now banned PCBs, the plastic-softeners phthalates, and the plastic-hardener Bisphenol A, or BPA, a common substance in food packaging and plastic bottles which The Independent has written widely about. All 240 studies they reviewed - whether in test-tubes, on animals or on humans - had been peer-reviewed and published in scientific journals.

The paper, the Review of the Science Linking Chemical Exposures to the Human Risk of Obesity and Diabetes, found some of the chemicals appeared to have a causal effect on obesity, some on diabetes and some on both.

Round-the-clock cell phone radiation may harm growing brains, a mouse study suggests. Mice exposed to an active phone for the duration of a pregnancy gave birth to pups that displayed long-lasting behavioral and brain abnormalities, researchers write March 15 in Scientific Reports.

Although the results indicate that chronic exposure to cell phone radiation can disrupt the fetal brain in mice, it's unclear whether the same holds true for people. "The paper is an interesting paper. There are no two ways around that," says Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Bethesda, Md., who has studied the effects of cell phone radiation. "The issue is, ultimately, what is the significance to humans?"

In the study, reproductive endocrinologist Hugh Taylor of Yale School of Medicine and colleagues rigged up bare-bones cell phones (not smart phones) to pregnant mice's cages. Half the phones were actively receiving a call on mute for the entirety of the mice's pregnancies, which last about 17 days. The other phones were inactive.

The swine flu pandemic of 2009 was caused by a type A influenza (H1N1) virus. This virus was originally referred to as "swine flu" because many of the genes of this new virus were very similar to influenza viruses that normally occur in pigs in North America. The H1N1 virus is genetically similar to the 1918 pandemic virus, as determined from victimes of the latter who were buried, and later disinterred, in Svalbard. It was responsible for most of the outbreaks up until 1956 and then disappeared.

However, this new virus was actually quite different from the typical swine flu viruses. This virus first caused illness in Mexico and the United States in March and April, 2009. This novel H1N1 flu spread from person to person, unlike typical swine flu. In 2009 vaccines were being developed for the prevention of swine flu in humans.

On 11 June 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared that the swine flu had developed into a full scale world epidemic - a pandemic alert to Phase 6. Margaret Chan, the Director-General of WHO, commented on the situation in a somewhat ambiguous way. While stressing that the swine flu had reached a serious pandemic level, she declared later in the same statement that the illness seemed to be mild and that most of the patients would recover without medical intervention.

The world chose to listen to the first part of her message.