In the U.S. dietary kingdom, saturated fat is most feared - fingered as the cause of coronary heart disease and stroke. According to the American Heart Association (AHA) website, the AHA has been warning us away from saturated fat since 1957. At the urging of AHA board members Ancel Keys and Jeremiah Stamler in 1961, the AHA officially endorsed a low fat, high carbohydrate diet - recommending that we replace saturated fat with margarine, polyunsaturated vegetable oils, and hydrogenated vegetable shortenings like Crisco.
Since then, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have spent billions of dollars reinforcing the American Heart Association's saturated fat is bad message. For the last thirty years, USDA low fat Dietary Guidelines (1980 to 2010) have recommended that we limit saturated fat to less than 10 percent of calories and cholesterol to less than 300 milligrams a day - the exact numbers in the American Heart Association's 1961 anti-saturated-fat diet.
Health & Wellness
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Coriander: The herb extract is resistant to a range of toxic bacteria
Coriander: The herb extract is resistant to a range of toxic bacteria
The herb extract is resistant to a range of toxic bacteria which cause infections that are resistant to drugs, a study has found.
Portuguese scientists tested samples of the oil - taken from the seeds of a coriander plant - against 12 lethal bacteria.
All showed reduced growth and most were killed by a solution containing less than 1.6 per cent of the oil.
The team from the University of Beira Interior found the oil attacks and kills the outer membrane of bacteria cells, including salmonella, E.coli and MRSA.
Dr Fernanda Domingues, who co-authored the study, said coriander oil could help the millions who suffer from food-borne illnesses every year.
'It could become a natural alternative to common antibiotics,' she said
The results were reported at the recent International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease, in Paris, France.
Comment: For more information on the benefits of essential fatty acids from fish oil read:
Why Fish Oil is Good for Your Health
Fish oil can ward off psychosis
Why fish oil is good for you
Fish Oil and Fatty Fish Protect from Heart Failure
Researchers Find Fish Oil Reduces Inflammation
© Activist Post
What doctor would vaccinate this child?
What doctor would vaccinate this child?
What is wrong with this story? Seems like a normal enough thing to do - go into a refugee camp and vaccinate everyone. But there was a time, when doctors were doctors, that they would not vaccine children when their immune systems were compromised by the flu or even a bad cold. Certainly no doctor in his right mind would vaccinate if their patients had a high fever or any serious acute situation going on.
Now, why was it that prudent doctors used to take some precautions before vaccinating children? Any doctor worth his weight in salt knows that vaccines put stress on the body's physiology and that is why some children die quickly after being vaccinated. Usually side effects are not fatal but they do indeed damage the nervous and other systems.
© Zachary Zavislak
I'm sitting in a comfortable chair, in a tastefully lit, cheerfully decorated drug den, watching a steady line of people approach their dealer. After scoring, they shuffle off to their tables to quietly indulge in what for some could become (if it hasn't already) an addiction that screws up their lives. It's likely you have friends and family members who are suffering from this dependence - and you may be on the same path yourself. But this addiction is not usually apparent to the casual observer. It has no use for the drama and the carnage you associate with cocaine and alcohol. It's slower to show its hand, more socially acceptable - and way more insidious.
I'm in a Panera Bread outlet. The company is on Fortune's 2010 list of the 100 Fastest Growing Companies and earned more than $1.3 billion in 2009, mainly from selling flour and sugar by the railcar. Last year, Zagat named it the most popular large chain in the United States and ranked it second in the Healthy Options category. The company responded by touting its "wholesome" food. Sure, Panera sells a few salads. But why do the scones, pastries, baguettes, and bear claws get all the good lighting? Why are the grab-and-go packs of cookies and brownies next to the register? What need is fulfilled by serving soup bowls made of bread, with a mound of bread for dipping, and then offering more bread on the side? How come it's noon and the couple behind me are eating bagels while the guy to my right is sawing into a cinnamon roll with a fork and a knife like it's a steak?
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Traces of toxic chemicals harmful to the environment and to human health have been detected in products made by 14 top clothing manufacturers, Greenpeace said Tuesday.
Samples of clothing from top brands including Adidas, Uniqlo, Calvin Klein, H&M, Abercrombie & Fitch, Lacoste, Converse and Ralph Lauren were found to be tainted with the chemicals, known as nonylphenol ethoxylates, the watchdog said at the launch of its report "Dirty Laundry 2".
Greenpeace campaigner Li Yifang said that nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEs), commonly used as detergents in industries including the production of natural and synthetic textiles, were detected in two-thirds of the samples the group tested.
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We heard Gary Taubes, author of the tour-de-force book Good Calories, Bad Calories speak both days. The first day was about obesity - how we've come to believe what we do about the causes of obesity and why they don't hold up to scrutiny. For example, we're told "just to cut calories". And yet, to maintain weight, which in general our bodies do very well unless something goes wrong, requires an accuracy of better than .4 percent, which amounts to about 10-12 calories per day. Our bodies have hormonal and other signaling systems to make sure weight is regulated. The idea that we can consciously intervene in this system for years on end is a fool's errand.
Comment: For more information about the benefits of saturated fats read the following articles:
Enjoy Saturated Fats, They're Good for You!
Saturated Fat is Good for You
7 Reasons to Eat More Saturated Fat
Latest Research Debunks The Saturated Fat Diet Myths
You've Been Living A Lie: The Story Of Saturated Fat And Cholesterol
© Lou Beach
For years, scientists thought they understood the skeleton. It serves as structural support for the body. It stores calcium and phosphate. It contributes to blood cell development. And it serves, indispensably, as the creepy mascot of Halloween.
But as it turns out, there may be still more to bone.
A few years ago, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center discovered, to everyone's surprise, that the skeleton seems to help regulate blood sugar. Now the team, led by Dr. Gerard Karsenty, geneticist and endocrinologist at Columbia University, has found that bone may play an unexpected role in reproduction. If the work pans out, it may help to explain some cases of low fertility in men.
"It's definitely an attention-grabber," Dr. William Crowley of Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in the research, said of the new finding regarding fertility. "I think it will turn out to be a seminal observation." (No pun intended, presumably.)
It is well known that the hormones estrogen and testosterone, produced in the ovaries and testes, help to regulate bone growth. When women reach menopause, estrogen levels decrease along with bone mass, putting them at increased risk for osteoporosis. As men age, their testosterone and estrogen levels decline, as well. Men lose bone, but much more slowly than women do.
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The real thing? Some sea bass fillets turned out to be other kinds of fish.
The real thing? Some sea bass fillets turned out to be other kinds of fish.
Are environmentally conscious consumers getting what they pay for when they buy ecolabeled fish? Maybe not, according to a new study of Chilean sea bass bearing the label of the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC), which gives seafood products its stamp of approval. Nearly one in five fillets sampled by the researchers may not have been sustainably caught.
"The high rate of mislabeling revealed in this study could potentially undermine MSC's reputation as the gold standard for environmentally friendly fishing," says Lars Gulbrandsen, a researcher at the Fridtjof Nansen Institute in Lysaker, Norway, who studies eco-certification. The sample size is quite small, however, so it is difficult to know the extent of the problem.
Chilean sea bass is popular for its white, oily flesh that is easy to cook. Also known as toothfish (Dissostichus eleginoides), many of these fish are caught off Patagonia, where the stocks are threatened by overfishing. In 2004, companies that operate farther south, around South Georgia Island, received MSC certification as being environmentally friendly. The certification depends on a host of factors, such as not overfishing and reducing bycatch - the accidental killing of birds , turtles, and other animals. This seal of approval gives the industry access to more supermarkets and a premium price.
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Artist's view. The basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain.
Artist's view. The basis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain.
But a new Northwestern Medicine study for the first time has identified a common cause of all forms of ALS.
The basis of the disorder is a broken down protein recycling system in the neurons of the spinal cord and the brain. Optimal functioning of the neurons relies on efficient recycling of the protein building blocks in the cells. In ALS, that recycling system is broken. The cell can't repair or maintain itself and becomes severely damaged.
The discovery by Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers, published in the journal Nature, provides a common target for drug therapy and shows that all types of ALS are, indeed, tributaries, pouring into a common river of cellular incompetence.
"This opens up a whole new field for finding an effective treatment for ALS," said senior author Teepu Siddique, M.D., the Les Turner ALS Foundation/Herbert C. Wenske Professor of the Davee Department of Neurology and Clinical Neurosciences at Northwestern's Feinberg School and a neurologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "We can now test for drugs that would regulate this protein pathway or optimize it, so it functions as it should in a normal state."
Comment: For more information on the health benefits of Coriander (cilantro) see:
Coriandrum sativum chelates with methyl mercury.
Cilantro oil (Coriandrum sativium) has anti-Listerial activity
Coriander oil has antimicrobial activity against Campylobacter jejuni.