Health & Wellness

Common Plastic Ingredient Linked to Birth Defects

Maggie Fox
ABC Science Online
Wed, 02 Apr 2003 17:19 UTC

A common ingredient used to make plastics such as baby bottles has been shown to cause birth defects in mice - defects that may also occur in humans, U.S. researchers have discovered.

The scientists, whose study appears in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, urged more research into the potential effects of bisphenol A, a chemical long criticized by environmentalists as being a hormone disruptor that could cause defects in embryos.

The defects observed in tests on mice, had they occurred in humans, could lead to miscarriages or mental retardation such as Down Syndrome - and they seem to be caused at what were considered to be low levels of exposure, the researchers reported.

Comment: Despite FDA concern, American Chemistry Council insists Bisphenol A is safe for everyone:

"The American Chemistry Council (ACC) has never met a chemical it didn't like. The organization is a chemical advocacy group whose members include all the largest chemical producers such as Monsanto, Bayer, Merck, Chevron, DuPont and many more. It's like a Who's Who of companies whose products pollute the world..."

For more information on the negative health effects of Bisphenol A or BPA read: The Real Story Behind Bisphenol A

Listed below are several articles that clearly depict the toxicity of BPA and it's effects on the human body.

New Study Confirms Bisphenol A Found in Plastic is Linked to Heart Disease
BPA Study Points To Intestine Damage
BPA Linked To Male Sexual Dysfunction
Bisphenol A Linked to Metabolic Syndrome in Humans
Plastics chemical alters female brains - Research renews debate over the toxicity of bisphenol A, a plastics chemical found in humans
Prenatal BPA Exposure Linked to Behavioral Issues
Bisphenol A exposure dangerous for human heart and reproduction
BPA Should Be Avoided, Federal Official Says

Wisconsin Protects Kids from Toxic BPA

wispirg.org
Wed, 03 Mar 2010 17:12 UTC

Madison, Wisconsin - Today, Governor Doyle signed the BPA Free Kids Act into law, making Wisconsin the third state in the nation to ban the toxic chemical, bisphenol-A (BPA), from children's products.

"Wisconsin is leading the way with today's signing of the BPA Free Kids Act. This is a historic day for toxics reform, public health and consumer protection, but this is just the first step" said Bruce Speight, WISPIRG Director.

"Our kids are exposed to thousands of toxics chemicals, most of which are on the market with little to no safety testing. We are just starting to see the health effects; we must build on this important victory for the health of our kids and for the health of all of us."

The BPA Free Kids Act prohibits the manufacture and sale at the wholesale level of baby bottles and sippy cups that contain BPA. It also requires that these bottles and sippy cups be clearly labeled as being "BPA Free." The law will go into effect 90 days from today.

World Water Day: The Water Bottle Lie and Your Health

Edison de Mello, MD, PhD
Huffington Post
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:42 UTC

March 22nd is World Water Day. On this day all eyes will be turned overseas to the 1.1 billion people that lack access to clean drinking water. What few Americans realize is that the world water crisis has hit America with little fanfare and if we do not act soon, the devastating effects will be irreversible. But luckily this year something significant is being done about it. Beginning on world water day, an amazing new award-winning documentary, called Tapped, will embark on a 30-day cross-country trip across America in an effort to raise awareness of the water crisis in America and wean the public off their reliance on bottled water.

And yet, this is just a "drop" of what needs to be done.

While 90 percent of the US has access to clean drinking water, the remaining 10 percent live in conditions that resemble a third-world country. In a bonus clip for Tapped offered on their website, Tapped takes us to a town just three hours from Los Angeles where the water has been so polluted by the local farming community that residents must make daily trips to buy bottled water to cook, clean, and bathe in. They spend their paychecks buying bottled water thinking they will limit their exposure to the toxins in their tap water, not realizing that only a few of us really know what's in our bottled water because less than one full-time staff person at the FDA is responsible for making sure that bottled water is safe for us.

Women Do Make Men Throw Caution to the Wind, Research Confirms

ScienceDaily
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC

The presence of an attractive woman elevates testosterone levels and physical risk taking in young men, according to a recent study in the inaugural issue of Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Researchers asked young adult men to perform both easy and difficult tricks on skateboards, first in front of another male and then in front of a young, attractive female. The skateboarder's testosterone levels were measured after each trick.

When skateboarders attempt tricks, they make a split-second decision about whether to abort the trick or try to land it, based on a mid-air evaluation of the likelihood of success and on the physical costs that failure might bring. It was that moment the researchers sought to examine because it resembles the type of risky decisions that young men make when behind the steering wheel of a car or when in physical confrontations with each other.

Health Care Reform Bill Dooms America to Pharma-Dominated Sickness and Suffering

Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC

© Larry Downing/Reuters
Rep. John Dingell speaks at the microphone as House Democratic leaders celebrate healthcare bill passage after vote on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 22, 2010. At right is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Today the medical mafia struck another devastating blow to the health and freedom of all Americans. With the support of an inarguably corrupt Congress that has simply abandoned the real needs of the American people, the sick-care industry has locked in a high-profit scheme of disease and monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals in a nation that can ill afford either one.

And this Pharma-funded betrayal, it turns out, was led by the Democrats. Passed on a 219-212 vote that was only accomplished thanks to closed-door, last-minute secret meetings among the last holdouts, this new legislation puts America under the stranglehold of the medical mafia while doing absolutely nothing to address real health care reform. There is no mention in the bill, for example, of vitamin D for preventing cancer, or orthomolecular medicine for preventing degenerative disease. There's not even a word about protecting health freedom or ending the century of oppression that has been waged against naturopathic practitioners by the AMA, FDA and FTC.

The new legislation does, however, lock in billions of dollars in monopoly profits for the pharmaceutical companies -- the same companies who spent millions of dollars pushing for its passage and who depend on the continuation of sickness and disease for their future profits.

Married people 'twice as likely to be fat' according to Greek researchers

Andrew Hough
The Telegraph
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:18 UTC

Married people are twice as likely to become obese than their single counterparts, scientists claim.

Greek researchers found that married couples were more likely to become fat due to their significantly changed lifestyle as they "let themselves go".

Married men are three times as likely to suffer obesity while married women are twice as likely to have weight problems, it found.

Wish You Were a Genius? Just Practise, Says Geneticist David Shenk

Hannah Devlin
The Times
Sat, 20 Mar 2010 06:00 UTC

The subject is given two mashmallows to see if they can resist for 15 minutes the temptation to eat the one of them.

Mathematical flair, musical ability or a way with words have come to be thought of as innate talents or, biologically speaking, in our genes. But now David Shenk, the American writer on genetics, asks people to think again.

Stepping into the nature v nurture fray, he argues that the case for genetic predisposition has been vastly overstated and that this view is causing us to overlook our potential. "There is a profound misunderstanding about what great achievements are all about. Our genes don't limit us to mediocrity or worse than mediocrity," he says.

In his new book The Genius in All of Us, which is drawing comparisons to the work of the Canadian pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell, Shenk describes an emerging view that far from being a static blueprint, our DNA is open to continual influence by external factors.

How atom bomb tests could help detect wine fraud

Ian Sample
Guardian UK
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 20:57 UTC

'Bomb pulse' in grapes harvested since atmospheric tests can be dated to within a year

A trace of Bikini atoll could join hints of black cherry and complex citrus notes in the sommelier's lexicon for describing fine wines, research has suggested.

Harmless amounts of radioactive carbon have been found in wines made from grapes harvested since the last atmospheric atomic bomb tests were carried out in the 1960s.

But the "bomb pulse" of radioactive carbon lingering in the alcohol of wines produced since could be a good thing for wine dealers and collectors.

Scientists have been able to pinpoint a wine's vintage to within a year by analysing the levels of radioactive carbon in the wine, a technique they say could help detect fraudulent attempts to repackage cheap plonk as a high-end tipple.

Children With Insomnia May Have Impaired Heart Rate Variability

ScienceDaily
Sun, 21 Mar 2010 00:00 UTC

Children with insomnia and shorter sleep duration had impaired modulation of heart rhythm during sleep, Pennsylvania researchers reported at the American Heart Association's 50th Annual Conference on Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology and Prevention.

In a study of young children, researchers showed that insomnia symptoms were consistently associated with impaired heart variability measures. They also found a significant but less consistent pattern with shortened sleep duration and decreased heart rate variability.

Heart rate variability is the beat-to-beat variations of heart rate. In a healthy person, beat-to-beat intervals change slightly in response to automatic functions like breathing.