Health & Wellness

Mercury containing lightbulbs contaminate the home and the environment

Pedro Aquila
Waking Times
Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:40 UTC

Compact fluorescent bulbs (CFL's) are contaminating homes and the environment with mercury. They contain much higher amounts of mercury than other typical factors in the poisoning of people, often with many milligrams of mercury, whereas other factors in mercury poisoning are usually measured in micrograms. Thousands of times more than other typical mercury contaminants.

The damage done to people and the environment by mercury is well documented in papers found at sites like PubMed. According to a paper titled: "Current approaches of the management of mercury poisoning: need of the hour":

"Mercury poisoning cases have been reported in many parts of the world, resulting in many deaths every year."

"Humans exposure to mercury usually take place via eating mercury contaminated food, dental care procedures (using amalgams in endodontics) using mercury based, thermometers, and sphygmomanometer), occupational exposure (e.g. mining) and others (using fluorescent light bulbs and batteries)"

So how much mercury is in a CFL light bulb, compared to amalgam dental fillings or contaminated food?

Reading from the transcript of a documentary about big pharma:

"Mercury amalgams leak significant amounts of mercury vapor, an approximate 15 micrograms daily per filling.

Many people have multiple fillings, leaking up to 120 micrograms of mercury into the body every day. The vapor is swallowed with saliva and inhaled into the lungs. Agitating them with chewing or acidic foods can release more.

Mercury in seafood is a serious concern, and 1 microgram of mercury is enough to be concerned with that. 1 microgram of mercury per gram of fish exceeds the FDA standard."

Comment: How to Rid Your Body of Mercury and Other Heavy Metals

Change your destiny: Strategies that can boost brain performance and prevent dementia

Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Sun, 12 Mar 2017 00:00 UTC

Alzheimer's is an epidemic, currently affecting an estimated 5.4 million Americans. Unless there are radical changes, many experts project half of us will eventually acquire it.

Since diet is one of the root causes, diet is also a foundational prevention and treatment strategy. This is an important point, considering there are no meaningful conventional treatments for this devastating disease.

Drugs like Namenda or Aricept, which are commonly prescribed for Alzheimer's, have very limited effectiveness, and come with potentially serious side effects. But other healthy lifestyle strategies also need to come into play for a truly holistic approach.

In this interview, Dr. David Perlmutter, a board-certified neurologist and author of The New York Times best seller "The Grain Brain Whole Life Plan: Boost Brain Performance, Lose Weight, and Achieve Optimal Health," shares his insights into core strategies that will help boost brain performance and dramatically reduce your risk of Alzheimer's.

"The Grain Brain Whole Life Plan" is an extension and continuation of his previous book, "The Grain Brain: The Surprising Truth About Wheat, Carbs and Sugar — Your Brain's Silent Killers." Perlmutter's own father died from Alzheimer's — a death he has since realized was preventable, which has acted as a driving force for his work.

"To be clear, no one inherits Alzheimer's. Some of us who have relatives [with] Alzheimer's ... are at increased risk. We certainly know there are some genes, the apoliprotein E (ApoE) 3, 2 and 4 genes that are playing a role in carrying the ApoE-4 allele. It does increase a person's risk.

But this is not a determinant that you will or won't get the disease. It does indicate that you have a higher risk for that disease. But the beauty of what we are talking about is you can offset that risk. You can change your destiny," Perlmutter says

Comment: Further reading:

16-hour cap for 1st-year medical residents eliminated, 24-hour shifts under new rules

Lindsay Tanner
Yahoo! News
Fri, 10 Mar 2017 15:22 UTC

Rookie doctors can work up to 24 hours straight under new work limits taking effect this summer — a move supporters say will enhance training and foes maintain will do just the opposite.

A Chicago-based group that establishes work standards for U.S. medical school graduates has voted to eliminate a 16-hour cap for first-year residents. The Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education announced the move Friday as part of revisions that include reinstating the longer limit for rookies — the same maximum allowed for advanced residents.

An 80-hour per week limit for residents at all levels remains in place under the new rules.

Dr. Anai Kothari, a third-year resident on a council panel that recommended the changes, says he only occasionally works 24-hour shifts. The extra hours give him time to finish up with patients instead of being sent home in the middle of a case, said Kothari, who works at Loyola University Medical Center near Chicago.

But first-year resident Dr. Samantha Harrington thinks it will endanger the safety of residents and patients. Harrington says her 14-hour shifts this winter at Cambridge Hospital near Boston are already plenty long. To stay awake while driving home after work, she sometimes rolls down the window to let the freezing air blast her in the face.

Harrington says the grueling hours are "based on a patriarchal hazing system," where longtime physicians think "'I went through it, so therefore you have to go through it too.'" She is a member of the Committee of Interns and Residents, a union group that opposes the work-shift changes. So does the American Medical Student Association.

Comment: See also:

Your poo may be trying to tell you something

Tanya Mead
The Alternative Daily
Sun, 12 Mar 2017 15:25 UTC

Ask someone if their poop smells bad, and they'll most likely look at you like you're crazy. Of course poop smells bad! Yes, but some poop smells way worse than normal, and this can be the sign of a problem.

As we all know, even a healthy poop doesn't exactly smell nice. However, a healthy poop also should not smell too strongly or too awful. The odor associated with a normal bowel movement is usually mild and it passes quickly. If you're stinking up the bathroom to high heaven, enough to make yourself gag, it's a sign of your poop trying to tell you something.

Before you get too alarmed, having smelly poop from time to time may just mean you ate something funny or you need to adjust your diet. Sometimes, however, smelly poop can be the sign of a health condition that needs to be addressed, especially if it's smelly on a chronic basis or accompanied by other symptoms.

If you have horrible smelling bowel movements, it may be due to one of the following instances:

Agricultural chemicals are not helping feed the world - they are killing our children

Katherine Paul
Organic Consumer Association
Thu, 09 Mar 2017 22:40 UTC

"How could we have ever believed that it is a good idea to grow our food with poisons?" - Dr. Jane Goodall

Two new reports published in recent weeks add to the already large and convincing body of evidence, accumulated over more than half a century, that agricultural pesticides and other toxic chemicals are poisoning us.

Both reports issue scathing indictments of U.S. and global regulatory systems that collude with chemical companies to hide the truth from the public, while they fill their coffers with ill-gotten profits.

According to the World Health Organization, whose report focused on a range of environmental risks, the cost of a polluted environment adds up to the deaths of 1.7 million children every year.

Common insecticides can ruin your sleep by binding to melatonin receptors

Tanya Mead
The Alternative Daily
Sat, 04 Mar 2017 14:54 UTC

When we think of things which may disrupt our sleep, many come to mind. Alarm clocks set too early? Definitely. A middle-of-the-night emergency text? Of course. Screaming children and rambunctious pets? For sure. Thunderstorms, eating something not-so-healthy the night before and too much evening coffee? These are also a given.

But what about exposure to insecticides? This may seem downright counterintuitive. Most of us know that insecticides are made of toxic chemicals, but how could they possibly affect our sleep? Well, new research from the University of Buffalo has found a connection.

Common insecticides and melatonin

The study, published in the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology, looked at two common insecticide chemicals: carbaryl and carbofuran. Carbaryl is widely used in the United States, although it has been banned in some other countries. Carbofuran, on the other hand, is considered to be the most toxic of the carbamate insecticides. It has been banned in the United States since 2009. However, this insecticide is still used in a variety of other countries — places that export to the United States.

Cancer in America is a product of failed policies on energy, buildings, food & manufacturing

Devra Lee Davis
The Hill
Tue, 14 Feb 2017 16:30 UTC

Forty-five years ago President Richard Nixon declared that "the time has come in America when the same kind of concentrated effort that split the atom and took man to the moon should be turned toward conquering cancer."

Some four decades and more than $120 billion later Republicans have added more money to the National Cancer Institute budget than requested by President Obama to fund another Cancer Moonshot - bringing the total to more than $5 billion this year.

It might be a good idea to ask what have we won so far? We have made tremendous progress in treating relatively rare cancers of children. Breast and colon cancer are now often chronic diseases.

But rates of childhood cancer today are 50 percent higher than when the war began. Still taking into account the older age and larger size of our population, cancer deaths overall have fallen just five percent - most of this due to declines in smoking.

Comment: Number one cause of childhood death in U.S.? Cancer

By now it is clear that curing cancer has nothing in common with what was involved in tapping existing technologies to place Neil Armstrong on the moon. In fact, for more than fifty years we have known a lot about how to prevent cancer from developing.

California warns cell phone users - 'keep your distance'

Bill Walker & Olga Naidenko Ph.D.
Environmental Working Group
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 17:56 UTC

Under a court order, last week California public health officials released draft guidelines advising cell phone users to keep phones away from their bodies, use speaker phone and limit use. The guidelines, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, advise Californians that scientific studies have linked electromagnetic radiation from long-term cell phone use to an increased risk of brain cancer and other health problems.

The advice itself is not surprising. Eight years ago, EWG published a review of the science on cell phone radiation, reporting studies by the World Health Organization that linked cell phone radiation to brain cancer, and other studies that linked cell phone radiation to diminished sperm count and sperm damage. EWG also published its own Guide to Safer Cell Phone Use, which you can find here.

The California Department of Public Health had to be forced to release the guidelines by a lawsuit from a University of California, Berkeley, researcher and says the guidelines don't constitute its official position, but this is a major development in the debate over cell phone safety. Public health officials in the nation's largest state and largest cell phone market are acknowledging the need for caution, even as the cellular industry continues to insist there's nothing to worry about and fights efforts to inform the public.

Comment: A good place to start on really making sense of all the data that has come to light over the cell phone = cancer debate is to read about w hat 15 minutes on your cell phone actually does to your brain and then read the following articles:

Tech addiction: Why we can't look away from our screens

Claudia Dreifus
New York Times
Mon, 06 Mar 2017 17:33 UTC

In a new book, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked, the social psychologist Adam Alter warns that many of us — youngsters, teenagers, adults — are addicted to modern digital products. Not figuratively, but literally addicted.

Dr. Alter, 36, is an associate professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University who researches psychology and marketing. We spoke for two hours last week at the offices of The New York Times. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and brevity.

Comment: For a more in depth look at tech addiction listen to The Health & Wellness Show: Digital 'pharmakeia': Glow kids, screen addiction, gaming and the hijacking of children's brains

Daylight saving time could be hazardous to your health

John Sicilano
Washington Examiner
Fri, 10 Mar 2017 12:11 UTC

Moving the clock ahead one hour this weekend for daylight saving time is saving energy for the conservation fight, but it's also leading to more depression and heart attacks, making it hazardous to your health.

A magazine published by Duke Energy, one of the largest electric utilities in the country, included an article this week that took aim at the clock-changing law, which was updated just over a decade ago by a 2005 energy bill. It pointed out a number of adverse health effects that are a side effect of using 0.5 percent less energy per day as a result of gaining an hour of sunlight.

The practice has ebbed and flowed over the last 50 years, but most states in the U.S. adopted the practice after the policy was updated by Congress. Included in that adoption was Vice President Mike Pence's home state of Indiana, which had been an outlier for years.

The Duke Energy "Illumination" article said Energy Department data showed Indiana actually increased its energy use by 1 percent after the daylight saving time adoption, forcing residents to spend millions of dollars more per year.

Comment: See also: Why daylight saving time is bad for you

If you read the linked white house statement try not to puke.

sbc

Let's go, Brandon! Fucking asswipe, worthless, POS. Fraud! Argh! 😤

slbeaudry

I don't think this new requirement has undergone proper public review. There are procedures codified for this sort of thing. If some sort of...

Buffalo_Ken

First it will be 100 employees,then 50, then one. Masses are collectively powerful against the intolerant vocal minority and it is time to wipe...

Bezel Bub

I most certainly would not park my arse on a plane full of vaccinated people and have them infect me with their mutated virus. Whilst my...

Winternights3

Health & Wellness

Mercury containing lightbulbs contaminate the home and the environment

Change your destiny: Strategies that can boost brain performance and prevent dementia

16-hour cap for 1st-year medical residents eliminated, 24-hour shifts under new rules

Your poo may be trying to tell you something

Agricultural chemicals are not helping feed the world - they are killing our children

Common insecticides can ruin your sleep by binding to melatonin receptors

Cancer in America is a product of failed policies on energy, buildings, food & manufacturing

California warns cell phone users - 'keep your distance'

Tech addiction: Why we can't look away from our screens

Daylight saving time could be hazardous to your health

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