Dinosaurs: small brains, big bodies. Extinct.

Humans: Large brains, small bodies. Not extinct. Not yet, anyway.

Our large brains, however, have created a world bathed in chemicals, engineered foods, plastic environments with poisons that surround us and invade all parts of the natural world -- and our own bodies.

We are bringing in those poisons through our mouths (food and contaminated liquids), our noses ("fragrances" and polluted air) and our skin (cosmetics, scented shampoos and moisturizers).

It took a meteor strike 65 million years ago to wipe out the dinosaurs, after they had a pretty successful run for about 250 million years. Humans, on the other hand, have been around for only 4 million to 5 million years, and our meager evolutionary run is now meeting a big obstacle: We are not able to metabolize the last 100-plus years of petroleum-based chemical pollution of the earth and of ourselves:

• Nitrates, chemical fertilizers and herbicides used in industrial farming overflow into our waterways and oceans.
• Oil-based chemicals saturate our food, the containers that hold that food, our furniture and carpeting, our cleaning agents, our "lawn care" products, our kids' toys, our cooking utensils and pans.
• Manufacturing, particularly paper making, pours millions of toxics into the air and water yearly.
• Unused medicines get dumped into our waterways and reappear in our drinking water.

Dinosaurs didn't have the luxury of observing their demise. We do.

Prison grub never had a high culinary reputation, but now some inmates say it's not just the taste they don't like.

Illinois convicts have gone to court, claiming that too much soy in their diets has left them with severe health problems, including heart issues and thyroid damage, along with allergic reactions and gastrointestinal distress.

Eddie Martinez, 50, was released in September after 4 1/2 years in the Illinois Department of Corrections, where he says his claims of gastric distress - belching, pain, cramps and constipation - and his fear that they were connected to his soy-rich diet there, were not taken seriously. He continues to see doctors for problems that he says will not go away, though he takes many medications.

"At my age, my health is a concern," says Mr. Martinez, a native of Puerto Rico who came to the U.S. when he was 8. "I keep reading about cancer risks, and obviously this is upsetting."

Now, Illinois is the target of a lawsuit filed by attorneys for the Washington, D.C.-based Weston A. Price Foundation on behalf of several Illinois inmates.

Tragically, the drug they endorsed is killing the women who take it. Why is FDA doing this?

The birth control pills Yaz and Yasmin, which were endorsed by an FDA advisory committee last December, contain a drug called drospirenone. Women who take it are nearly seven times more likely to develop thromboembolism (obstruction of a blood vessel by a blood clot, which can cause deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, stroke, heart attack, and death) compared to women who do not take any contraceptive pill, and twice the risk of women who take a contraceptive pill containing levonorgestrel. Thousands of women have filed a lawsuit against Bayer, saying they were injured by Yaz or Yasmin.

Why would the FDA approve such a dangerous drug? An investigation by the Washington Monthly and the British medical journal BMJ found that at least four members of the advisory committee have either done work for the drugs' manufacturers or licensees or received research funding from them. The members reported their industry ties to FDA, but FDA decided it didn't matter and didn't make the disclosures public.

Each of those four panelists who received money from the pill's manufacturer voted in favor of the pill. Interestingly, the committee's ruling that the drug's benefit outweighs the risks was decided by a four-vote margin.

Epidemiological data complied from 164 countries by the World Health Organization (WHO) and from BHF Heart Stats reveal something quite stunning: people with the lowest total cholesterol levels have the HIGHEST levels of mortality from all causes. Conversely, total cholesterol levels between 200-240 is associated with the LOWEST levels of mortality from all causes. People with the LOWEST total cholesterol also have the highest levels of infectious and parasitic diseases. Those with total cholesterol greater than 200 have very low levels of infection.

The epidemiological data also reveals that cardiovascular disease occurs with people who have low, normal and high total cholesterol. The implication from this is that total cholesterol is a very poor marker for the assessment of cardiovascular risk.

Metals like aluminum have been linked to breast cancer for some time, but new research is confirming the existence of an entirely new class of cancer-causing estrogens known as "metalloestrogens," and which are in thousands of consumer products -- some which are even used in supplements and foods as "nutrients"...

A new study published in journal Cancer Research reveals that dietary cadmium exposure increases the risk of postmenopausal breast cancer, confirming earlier research that a broad range of metals we are now being increasingly exposed to represent an emerging class of "metalloestrogens" with the potential to add to the estrogenic burden of the human breast.

In a 2006 report published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, researchers found that the following metals were capable of binding to cellular estrogen receptors and then mimicking the actions of physiological estrogens: "aluminium, antimony, arsenite, barium, cadmium, chromium (Cr(II)), cobalt, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, selenite, tin and vanadate."

Bacteria could soon become so resistant to antibiotics that common injuries or illnesses could eventually become life-threatening, the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) warned during a conference of infectious disease experts on Friday.

According to NewsCore reports, WHO Director-General Margaret Chan told those attending the meeting, which was held in Copenhagen, Denmark, that even ailments as simple as a scratched knee or a sore throat could someday become fatal.

Furthermore, Daily Mail reporter Mario Ledwith writes that Chan believes that the Earth was quickly approaching what she referred to as the "post-antibiotic era."

As these disease-causing microbes become more and more resistant to the drugs meant to treat the conditions they cause, those injuries and illnesses will become increasingly harder to treat, thus making some "remedies more expensive, and some conditions... untreatable," Ledwith added. If this so-called post-antibiotic era does, in fact, happen, Chan said that it would result in the "end to modern medicine as we know it."

This "post-antibiotic era" would "include many of the breakthrough drugs developed to treat tuberculosis, malaria, bacterial infections and HIV/AIDS, as well as simple treatments for cuts," says Hannah Furness of The Telegraph. Any medicines that would replace existing treatments would not only become more costly, but would also take longer in order to have similar affects as today's antibiotics.

The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that school lunch programs can now drop the famous 'pink slime' filler in cafeteria meals served to children.

Treated with toxic ammonium hydroxide and fed to unknowing consumers in schools and restaurants alike, the pink slime has gained significant attention as action groups and health advocates across the globe have been calling attention to the presence of the hazardous filler.

The news comes after fast food giant McDonald's was forced to stop using the substance in their burgers amid public outcry.

This is another special guest post from our favorite study-dismantler, Denise Minger. Read all of her previous Mark's Daily Apple articles here, here, here and here, pay her website a visit, and stay tuned for her upcoming book Death by Food Pyramid due out later this year.

We're already 74 days into the new year, which can only mean one thing: it's high time for our latest episode of Science Says Meat Will Kill You, complete with a brand new study and commercial-free viral media coverage! Have a seat and tune in (or at least set your DVR for later viewing).

If you haven't had at least one family member, coworker, or soon-to-be-unfriended Facebook acquaintance send you this study as a reminder that you're killing yourself, you're either really lucky or your inbox is broken. Thanks to an observational study called Red Meat Consumption and Mortality freshly pressed in the Archives of Internal Medicine, a slew of bold headlines exploded across every conceivable media outlet this week:

• All red meat is bad for you, new study says"
• Red meat is blamed for one in 10 early deaths
• Scientists warn 'red meat can be lethal'

Many in the UK will have heard on the news today that yet another study from Harvard University [1] has linked the eating of red and processed meat with an increased risk of heart disease and cancer.

This study is largely nonsense and quite irrelevant to us in the UK. There are lots of similar accusations about red meat, which really only apply (perhaps) to processed meat. The two are always lumped together just as saturated fats and trans fats are, even though the former is healthy and latter is harmful.

But there is more to this. Think of all the peoples in the world - Maasai, Inuit, Samburu, Marsh Arabs, Naga, and many more - who, when they lived exclusively or largely on red meat, DIDN'T get any form of cancer or heart disease.[2-8] There is also no evidence that eating red meat increases cancer and heart disease risk in UK or in mainland Europe.[9] (See also page 102 of T&T)

You see, all this red-meat-cancer stuff is confined entirely to the US. And it is not difficult to see why this might be so. Firstly look at the way most cattle are farmed today in the US - in concentrated animal feed operations (CAFOs), where the animals are not fed their proper diet of fibrous grasses and vetches, but starchy and omega-6 rich genetically modified soy and cereal grains. This ruins the health of the cattle so that they have to be dosed with antibiotics, it changes the fatty acid components of their body fat, and it reduces the amount of conjugated linoleic acid (CLA). And CLA is a powerful anti-cancer agent, which Americans cut off and don't eat!

Research Review Shows That Gluten Causes Leaky Gut

"The primary functions of the gastrointestinal tract have traditionally been perceived to be limited to the digestion and absorption of nutrients and to electrolytes and water homeostasis. A more attentive analysis of the anatomic and functional arrangement of the gastrointestinal tract, however, suggests that another extremely important function of this organ is its ability to regulate the trafficking of macromolecules between the environment and the host through a barrier mechanism. Together with the gut-associated lymphoid tissue and the neuroendocrine network, the intestinal epithelial barrier, with its intercellular tight junctions, controls the equilibrium between tolerance and immunity to non-self antigens. Zonulin is the only physiological modulator of intercellular tight junctions described so far that is involved in trafficking of macromolecules and, therefore, in tolerance/immune response balance. When the finely tuned zonulin pathway is deregulated in genetically susceptible individuals, both intestinal and extraintestinal autoimmune, inflammatory, and neoplastic disorders can occur. This new paradigm subverts traditional theories underlying the development of these diseases and suggests that these processes can be arrested if the interplay between genes and environmental triggers is prevented by reestablishing the zonulin-dependent intestinal barrier function."

Research Source: Physiol Rev. 2011 Jan;91(1):151-75.