Health & WellnessS

Syringe

About 80,000 Russians die of drugs annually

About 80,000 drug-related deaths are registered annually in Russia, Alexander Yanevsky of the Federal Drugs Control Service said on Friday.

"Some 70,000 Russians die of drug-related diseases and another 10,000 from overdoses," he said.

Calculator

Merck Agrees to $4.85B Vioxx Settlement

TRENTON, N.J. - Merck & Co. will pay $4.85 billion to settle thousands of lawsuits in one of the largest civil cases ever, the company said Friday.

Merck faced about 26,600 lawsuits representing 47,000 plaintiffs, plus about 265 potential class action cases, filed by people or family members who claimed the drug proved fatal or injured its users. The agreement is to cover cases filed in federal and state courts.

Wine

Cervical cancer risk seen higher when on pill

Women who take oral contraceptives run a higher risk of developing cervical cancer, but this risk is transient and reverts to normal about 10 years after they stop, British researchers said on Thursday.

Other studies have found a link between taking the pill and cervical cancer, but this is the first to show how long this risk persists, according to the study in the journal Lancet.

Magic Wand

Caveman diet found to be the best choice to control diabetes

If you watch television, you're a modern homo sapiens, with at least one sedentary habit. Despite its unhealthy drawbacks, T.V. can be very informative, especially when keeping abreast of pop-culture. The phrase, "It's so simple a caveman can do it," is one such example. If you pay attention to this advertisement, you'll also know how the caveman feels about being labeled a simpleton. Now, in the first controlled study of a Paleolithic (stone age) diet in humans, Lund University, Sweden, heralds the simple diet of the caveman as the "best choice to control diabetes 2".

This caveman or hunter-gather diet, as it is often called, is nothing new. One of the first suggestions that following a diet similar to that of the late Paleolithic period would improve a person's health was made in the New England Journal of Medicine in 1985 by S. Boyd Eaton and Melvin Konner.

Comment: We suggest reading more about the Paleolithic Diet at cassiopedia.org


Smiley

Sunbathing Cuts Breast Cancer Risk in Half

Exposure to sunlight may reduce your risk of advanced breast cancer, according to new research from Stanford University.

The study followed 4,000 women between the ages of 35 and 79, and evaluated the effects of long-term sun exposure. Women with a light skin color who had high sun exposure had half the risk of developing advanced breast cancer (cancer that has spread beyond the breast) as women with low sun exposure.

Comment: It seems that sunlight may be better for us than we have been led to believe.


Question

Health experts puzzled by mysterious Angola outbreak

International health officials are investigating the emergence of a mysterious disease in Angola that has killed at least four people and sickened more than 200.

The illness, which leads to weakness, muscular spasms, mental confusion and speech impairment, surfaced in Cacuaco, near Luanda, in early October, the World Health Organization (WHO) said in a press release sent to Reuters late on Tuesday.

It has since spread to seven neighbourhoods in the municipality, about 20 km (12.5 miles) north of the Angolan capital and home to some 200,000 people.

"As of 1st of November, more than 200 cases including four deaths have been reported," the WHO said in its statement.

Attention

Israeli stores recall toy found with elements of date-rape drug

Stores in Israel on Thursday recalled a China-made toy after scientists in Australia found that similar toys contained a chemical that converts into a powerful date rape drug when ingested.

The toys, seized in Hong Kong, were being tested Thursday. At least five children in the United States and Australia have been hospitalized after swallowing the toy beads, which are used in arts and crafts projects. They can be arranged into designs and fused when sprayed with water.

Syringe

Failed AIDS vaccine may have increased infection risk

A once-promising vaccine for AIDS may have inadvertently increased the infection risk of people participating in clinical trials, researchers said Wednesday.

Attention

Flashback Officials say vaccine caused Nigeria polio

A polio outbreak in Nigeria was caused by the vaccine designed to stop it, international health officials say, leaving at least 69 children paralyzed.

It is a frightening paradox in a part of the world that already distrusts western vaccines, making it even tougher to stamp out age-old diseases.

The outbreak was caused by the live polio virus that is used in vaccines given orally - the preferred method in developing countries because it is cheaper and doesn't require medical training to dispense.


Comment: Making it even tougher to stamp out should rather be translated as making it even tougher to re-introduce age-old diseases.


Comment: See the SOTT Flu supplement to see that the governments and Big Pharma don't actually have humanity's best interests at heart.


People

Goodbye Selfish-Gene: A New Upheaval in the Science of Human Behavior

For nearly half a century, the evolution of human behavior has been presented to the public framed by the ideas of Edward O. Wilson, Richard Dawkins, and a cohort of sociobiologists, evolutionary psychologists, and media gene-mongers. The scientific basis for the frame is the idea that the focus of Darwinian natural selection is the selfish gene, selection always acting within groups and never between groups -- individual selection rather than group selection, the unit of selection the gene. From this has followed the selfish-gene evolutionary analysis of various human behaviors, especially the analysis of altruism.