Health & Wellness
Eat Food
When they're not busy picking our pockets, or telling us we have to give up liberties in order to have freedom, they're selling us garbage and telling us it's food.
Last time I checked, the manufactured food business is bigger than Big Oil and that kind of money buys inconceivably large amounts of propaganda, misinformation and corrupted science.
"Eat food"...
What a beautifully profound and revolutionary piece of advice.
In research just published in the January issue of American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, published by the American Thoracic Society, scientists from Seoul National University conclude that a diet high in inorganic phosphates, which are found in a host of processed foods including meats, cheeses, beverages, and bakery products, might spur the growth of lung cancer. The researchers also suggest the food additive may contribute to the development of malignancies in people predisposed to lung cancer.
Myung-Haing Cho, D.V.M., Ph.D., and his colleagues studied mice with lung cancer tumors for four weeks. The rodents were randomly assigned to eat a diet of either 0.5 or 1.0 percent phosphate, a range roughly equivalent to what's found in most modern human diets that contain processed foods. At the end of the study period, the animals' lung tissues were analyzed to see what effects the inorganic phosphates had on tumors.
Alex Renton's four-year-old daughter Lulu with her pile of banned sweets
But I'm going to have to tell her she cannot have any of them. Not a wine gum, not a chewy snake, not one Roses chocolate. I've been sitting painstakingly going through the ingredients list on the back of each jazzy-coloured packet - occasionally with a magnifying glass. Amazingly, almost all of them contain some additives that I've had to decide are actively dangerous to her.
These are additives that are banned in many countries, ones that our government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) decided over a year ago should not be in our children's sweets. But they are still on sale in every supermarket and sweet shop across Britain.
Time magazine named Merck's HPV Vaccine, Gardasil, one of the top medical/science stories of 2008. But it's the vaccine's side-effects and not its cancer prevention claim that got it there.
According to VAERS (the nonprofit Vaccine Awareness Event Reporting System) October 2008 statistics, there have been over 14,000 reports of serious side effects from Gardasil since it became available in 2006. My daughter is included in that statistic as she developed epilepsy since being vaccinated. Other young women suffer with daily seizures, excruciating joint pain, debilitating fatigue, difficulty breathing and some are so ill they can no longer attend school.
Yet Merck, the CDC and FDA staunchly stand by the vaccine, attribute side effects to other factors and maintain its safety.
According to VAERS (the nonprofit Vaccine Awareness Event Reporting System) October 2008 statistics, there have been over 14,000 reports of serious side effects from Gardasil since it became available in 2006. My daughter is included in that statistic as she developed epilepsy since being vaccinated. Other young women suffer with daily seizures, excruciating joint pain, debilitating fatigue, difficulty breathing and some are so ill they can no longer attend school.
Yet Merck, the CDC and FDA staunchly stand by the vaccine, attribute side effects to other factors and maintain its safety.
An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
Researchers at The University of Texas School of Public Health recently described studies that support the link between the severity of community-acquired antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA MRSA) infections and the Panton Valentine leukocidin (PVL).
The Panton Valentine leukocidin is made up of two components - LukF-PV and LukS-PV - and is typically produced by community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA MRSA). In the United States this strain is the most common CA MRSA isolate and can cause severe skin infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical wound infections.
This work has identified using animal models that the PVL leukotoxin can be used as a vaccine against infections caused by CA MRSA. Results from the research will be published in the December issue of Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
The Panton Valentine leukocidin is made up of two components - LukF-PV and LukS-PV - and is typically produced by community-acquired methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA MRSA). In the United States this strain is the most common CA MRSA isolate and can cause severe skin infections, pneumonia, bloodstream infections and surgical wound infections.
This work has identified using animal models that the PVL leukotoxin can be used as a vaccine against infections caused by CA MRSA. Results from the research will be published in the December issue of Clinical Microbiology and Infection.
Antioxidant supplementation was found to be effective in relieving pain and reducing levels of oxidative stress in patients with chronic pancreatitis (CP), reports a new study in Gastroenterology. CP is a progressive inflammatory disease of the pancreas in which patients experience abdominal pain (in early stage) and diabetes and maldigestion (in late stage).
Pain is the major problem in 90 percent of patients with CP and currently, there is no effective medical therapy for pain relief. Gastroenterology is the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
In this placebo-controlled, double blind trial, 127 patients, ages 30.5+/-10.5, were assigned to placebo or antioxidant groups. After six months, the reduction in the number of painful days/month was significantly higher in the antioxidant group, compared with the placebo group (7.4±6.8 versus 3.2±4, respectively). The reduction in the number of analgesic tablets/month was also higher in the antioxidant group (10.5±11.8 versus 4.4±5.8, respectively). Furthermore, 32 percent and 13 percent of patients became pain free in the antioxidant and placebo groups, respectively; the beneficial effect of antioxidants on pain relief was noted early at three months.
Pain is the major problem in 90 percent of patients with CP and currently, there is no effective medical therapy for pain relief. Gastroenterology is the official journal of the American Gastroenterological Association (AGA) Institute.
In this placebo-controlled, double blind trial, 127 patients, ages 30.5+/-10.5, were assigned to placebo or antioxidant groups. After six months, the reduction in the number of painful days/month was significantly higher in the antioxidant group, compared with the placebo group (7.4±6.8 versus 3.2±4, respectively). The reduction in the number of analgesic tablets/month was also higher in the antioxidant group (10.5±11.8 versus 4.4±5.8, respectively). Furthermore, 32 percent and 13 percent of patients became pain free in the antioxidant and placebo groups, respectively; the beneficial effect of antioxidants on pain relief was noted early at three months.
Study is among first to link short term drug use for osteoporosis to bone death.
Researchers at the University Of Southern California, School Of Dentistry release results of clinical data that links oral bisphosphonates to increased jaw necrosis. The study is among the first to acknowledge that even short-term use of common oral osteoporosis drugs may leave the jaw vulnerable to devastating necrosis, according to the report appearing in the January 1 Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).
Researchers at the University Of Southern California, School Of Dentistry release results of clinical data that links oral bisphosphonates to increased jaw necrosis. The study is among the first to acknowledge that even short-term use of common oral osteoporosis drugs may leave the jaw vulnerable to devastating necrosis, according to the report appearing in the January 1 Journal of the American Dental Association (JADA).
A team of Johns Hopkins neuroscientists has worked out how some newly discovered light sensors in the eye detect light and communicate with the brain.
These light sensors are a small number of nerve cells in the retina that contain melanopsin molecules. Unlike conventional light-sensing cells in the retina - rods and cones - melanopsin-containing cells are not used for seeing images; instead, they monitor light levels to adjust the body's clock and control constriction of the pupils in the eye, among other functions.
"These melanopsin-containing cells are the only other known photoreceptor besides rods and cones in mammals, and the question is, 'How do they work?'" says Michael Do, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at Hopkins. "We want to understand some fundamental information, like their sensitivity to light and their communication to the brain."
These light sensors are a small number of nerve cells in the retina that contain melanopsin molecules. Unlike conventional light-sensing cells in the retina - rods and cones - melanopsin-containing cells are not used for seeing images; instead, they monitor light levels to adjust the body's clock and control constriction of the pupils in the eye, among other functions.
"These melanopsin-containing cells are the only other known photoreceptor besides rods and cones in mammals, and the question is, 'How do they work?'" says Michael Do, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow in neuroscience at Hopkins. "We want to understand some fundamental information, like their sensitivity to light and their communication to the brain."
© Ken Fisher / Stone / Getty
A new study by researchers at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City suggests a biological explanation for why certain people tend to live life on the edge - it involves the neurotransmitter dopamine, the brain's feel-good chemical.
