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Monday
Jan092012
Entries by Gary Null (1298)
Friday
Jan062012
Using MP3 Players at High Volume Puts Teens at Risk for Early Hearing Loss, Say Researchers
January 6, 2012 ScienceDaily (Dec. 28, 2011) — Today's ubiquitous MP3 players permit users to listen to crystal-clear tunes at high volume for hours on end -- a marked improvement on the days of the Walkman. But according to Tel Aviv University research, these advances have also turned personal listening devices into a serious health hazard, with teenagers as the most at-risk group.
One in four teens is in danger of early hearing loss as a direct result of these listening habits, says Prof. Chava Muchnik of TAU's Department of Communication Disorders in the Stanley Steyer School of Health Professions at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine and the Sheba Medical Center. With her colleagues Dr. Ricky Kaplan-Neeman, Dr. Noam Amir, and Ester Shabtai, Prof. Muchnik studied teens' music listening habits and took acoustic measurements of preferred listening levels.
The results, published in the International Journal of Audiology, demonstrate clearly that teens have harmful music-listening habits when it comes to iPods and other MP3 devices. "In 10 or 20 years it will be too late to realize that an entire generation of young people is suffering from hearing problems much earlier than expected from natural aging," says Prof. Muchnik.
Read More:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/12/111228134852.htm
Thursday
Jan052012
Red meat lovers have more kidney cancer
January 5, 2012 NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - People who eat lots of red meat may have a higher risk of some types of kidney cancer, suggests a large U.S. study.
Researchers found that middle-aged adults who ate the most red meat were 19 percent more likely to be diagnosed with kidney cancer than those who ate the least. A higher intake of chemicals found in grilled or barbecued meat was also linked to increased risk of the disease, they reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
"Red meat is an important source for iron (and) it has protein," said Dr. Mohammed El-Faramawi, an epidemiologist from the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, who has studied diet and kidney cancer risks but wasn't involved in the new study.
Read more:
Thursday
Jan052012
Carol M. Ostrum - Study: Brain injury from high-fat foods may be why diets fail
January 5, 2012 SEATTLE — You've heard "a minute on the lips, years on the hips," or some variation. But did it make you put down that frosted butter cookie?
No? OK, here's another bit of research to snack on: After humans and rodents eat a high-fat diet, their brains begin to show evidence of injuries in just 24 hours. If they keep eating that yummy fatty stuff continuously, the area of their brains that regulates weight - the hypothalamus - will show evidence of serious inflammation and structural damage.
Researchers at the University of Washington and other institutions say they've found the first evidence that "hypothalamic neuron injury" is associated with obesity caused by a high-fat diet in rodents and humans.
Read More:
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/12/30/134511/study-brain-injury-from-high-fat.html
Tuesday
Jan032012
John LaForge - CT Scans as a Leading Cause of Breast Cancer?
January 3, 2012 December 26, 2011
by JOHN LaFORGE
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/12/26/the-leading-cause-of-breast-cancer/
Profiteers in the medical CT scan business took a big hit last week from a major new government report on the causes of breast cancer.
Published by the Institute of Medicine (IOM), the health arm of the National Academy of Sciences, the exhaustive analysis found that medical radiation, particularly the large radiation dose delivered by CT scans, is the foremost identifiable cause of breast cancer.[1]
Almost 230,480 new cases of breast cancer will be diagnosed this year in the United States, and about 40,000 women will die of the disease, roughly one out of every 3,875 women.
The new Institute of Medicine report probably doesn’t sit well with the industry, hospitals and clinics that make so many millions of dollars selling and over-using CT machines. The authors suggest that women avoid “unnecessary” or “inappropriate” medical radiation, a thinly veiled criticism of the industry that will give you a CT scan for a tooth ache if you don’t object to it.
In 1980, there were 3 million CT scans performed in this country. The number rose to 62 million in 2006,[2] to about 70 million by 2007,[3] and, according to NBC, to 72 million this year.[4] It’s a growth industry that doesn’t care if it promotes tumor growth.
Tuesday
Jan032012
John Phillip - Resveratrol and nuts team to protect the brain and boost cognitive function
January 3, 2012 by John Phillip
http://www.naturalnews.com/034503_resveratrol_nuts_cognitive_function.html
(NaturalNews) Nuts, especially walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts, combined with the potent polyphenol resveratrol team, together improve mood and protect the aging brain, thus helping to maintain memory and cognition. Researchers reporting in the New England Journal of Medicine have found that nuts consumed over a period of years not only help with weight management issues, but also can reduce systemic inflammation to improve spirits and prevent cognitive decline.
Resveratrol has long been associated with brain health. The Journal of Pineal Research reports that resveratrol demonstrates anti-aging properties in the brain necessary for energy production and optimal brain function. Combining these two natural agents together as part of your healthy diet can improve mood, help retain memories and preserve youthful thought patterns.
Researchers determined to validate the health-promoting capacity of nuts provided test participants with a diet of walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts for a period of 12 weeks. The volunteers for this study were sex and age-matched individuals given a control diet, and were compared to a group not receiving the nut mixture. All participants exhibited symptoms of metabolic syndrome, increasing risk for developing diabetes, heart disease, mood disorders and loss of cognition.
Tuesday
Jan032012
FoodFreedom.com - Three Approved GMOs Linked to Organ Damage
January 3, 2012
http://foodfreedom.wordpress.com/2010/01/01/three-approved-gmos-linked-to-organ-damage/
By Rady Ananda
In what is being described as the first ever and most comprehensive study of the effects of genetically modified foods on mammalian health, researchers have linked organ damage with consumption of Monsanto’s GM maize.
Three varieties of Monsanto’s GM corn – Mon 863, insecticide-producing Mon 810, and Roundup® herbicide-absorbing NK 603 – were approved for consumption by US, European and several other national food safety authorities. The data used for this approval, ironically, is the same data that independent researchers studied to make the organ damage link.
The Committee of Independent Research and Information on Genetic Engineering (CRIIGEN) and Universities of Caen and Rouen obtained Monsanto’s confidential raw data of its 2002 feeding trials on rats after a European court made it public in 2005.
The data “clearly underlines adverse impacts on kidneys and liver, the dietary detoxifying organs, as well as different levels of damages to heart, adrenal glands, spleen and haematopoietic system,” reported Gilles-Eric Séralini, a molecular biologist at the University of Caen.
Tuesday
Jan032012
Rob Waters - Are Psychiatrists Inventing Mental Illnesses to Feed Americans More Pills?
January 3, 2012 By Rob Waters, Salon
Posted on December 27, 2011, Printed on December 28, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/153588/are_psychiatrists_inventing_mental_illnesses_to_feed_americans_more_pills
Anyone who’s ever tried to get reimbursed by a health insurance company after seeing a psychiatrist or psychotherapist, or taking a child or teenager to one, has no doubt noticed the incomprehensible numbers that appear on the clinician’s statement, perhaps preceding some slightly less imponderable phrase.
Maybe you are a 296.22 (major depressive disorder, single episode, mild) or a 300.00 (anxiety disorder NOS–not otherwise specified). Hopefully, you are not a 301.83 (borderline personality disorder). Your kid might be a 313.81 (oppositional defiant disorder) or, more likely, a 314.01 (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type).
Since 1952, a tome called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, better known as the DSM, has been reducing to a few digits the psychological malady said to afflict a patient. This bible of mental health treatment, published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), provides a list and description of every mental health condition known to—or invented by—psychiatry, from histrionic personality disorder (301.50) to transvestic fetishism (302.3).
Friday
Dec302011
raw-food-health.net - Nutrition Requirements On A Raw Food Diet
December 30, 2011 This information came from: http://www.raw-food-health.net/Nutrition-Requirements.html#ixzz1hqUVFFmh
http://www.raw-food-health.net/
When they adopt raw food diets, many people start caring about their nutrition requirements due to concerns over inadequacy. What's the RDA for calcium? Am I getting enough zinc? What about protein?
Knowing what recommendations to follow can be a bit tricky, as different bodies of experts suggest different things. There's also no assurance their recommendations even apply to you because good raw food diets are so radically different than what most people eat, and require different standards.
For most nutrients my diet meets - and in many cases exceeds by large factor - the standard RDA suggestions, but in some areas I'm "deficient," by the SAD nutrition requirements proposed by the usual bodies of experts. Yet in following this diet since 2005, my health has been near perfect, with not so much as a head cold in sight. So can I really be deficient?
We have to look at why the RDAs are set where they are to understand that a healthy intake of some nutrients can be much lower than the official suggestion.
Friday
Dec302011
Dr. Hans Kugler - AIDS since 1984: No evidence for a new, viral epidemic – not even in Africa
December 30, 2011 Learn more about AIDS by downloading this PDF.
Friday
Dec302011
Dr. Hans Kugler - Science Notes (AIDS)
December 30, 2011 |
SCIENCE NOTES by Hans Kugler, Ph.D. What causes AIDS? a) “AIDS Vaccine a Total Failure!” News reports, September 2007.The vaccine, well made by reputable scientists, failed to be a weapon against AIDS. b) “A multibillion $ Quiz: Is AIDS a viral or a chemical epidemic?” Presentation by Berkeley Prof. Peter Duesberg at the Kern Medical Center, Bakersfield, 04.2007. Click here to view just a few key slides; the complete slide presentation can be viewed, as PowerPoint or PDF, at www.duesberg.com. |
Friday
Dec302011
Medical News Today - Nutrients May Stop Brain Shrinkage Linked To Alzheimer's
December 30, 2011 Medical News Today, 29 Dec 2011
A study of elderly people finds that those whose diets were high in certain essential nutrients were less likely to have the brain shrinkage associated with Alzheimer's disease and more likely to score better on tests of mental performance. The researchers published a paper on how they came to these findings in the 28 December online issue of Neurology.
The paper's first author is Dr Gene Bowman from the Departments of Neurology and Public Health and Preventive Medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. He and his colleagues describe three sets of findings:
Elderly people with diets high in several vitamins or omega 3 fatty acids were less likely to have the brain shrinkage that usually accompanies Alzheimer's disease than people whose diets were low in those nutrients.
Those whose diets were high in omega 3 fatty acids and in vitamins C, D, E and the B vitamins were also more likely to score better on tests of mental ability than those whose diets were low in those nutrients.
Those whose diets were high in trans fats were more likely to have brain shrinkage and perform less well on thinking and memory tests than those whose diets were low in trans fats.
Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for human health but the body can't make them. These are primarily found in fish, also an essential source of vitamin D; some plants and nut oils are also good sources of omega 3 fatty acids, which are also called polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs).
Friday
Dec302011
Kevin Gray - The 10 Most Dangerous Meds Driving America's Pill Crisis
December 30, 2011 By Kevin Gray, The Fix
Printed on December 30, 2011
For the first time in nearly a century, automobile accidents are no longer the nation’s leading cause of accidental deaths, according to a major report released Tuesday by the National Center for Health Statistics. The new number one killer is drugs—not smack, crystal meth or any other stepped-on menace sold in urban alleyways or trailer parks, but bright, shiny pills prescribed by doctors, approved by the government, manufactured by pharmaceutical companies and sold to the consumer as “medicine.” Yet of the billions of legit pills Americans pop every year for medical conditions serious and otherwise, the vast majority of lives are claimed by only a select few classes—painkillers, sedatives and stimulants—that all share a common characteristic: they promote abuse, dependence and addiction.
“This is just the tip of the iceberg of the prescription drug abuse problem,” says Dr. Margaret Warner, the federal report’s lead author. “The take-home here is, this should be a wake-up call.” Some 41,000 Americans died from what the report refers to as “poisonings” in 2008, compared with 38,000 traffic deaths. That tally marks a 90 percent increase in poisonings and a 15 percent decrease in car accidents since 1999.
Nearly nine out of ten of those poisonings were caused by prescription drug overdoses, with the chief culprit being opiate-based pain relievers such as Vicodin (hydrocodone), OxyContin and Percocet (oxycodone), codeine, morphine—and let’s not forget Actiq (fentanyl), the infamous berry-flavored lollipop that is 100 times stronger than morphine and—like most opiate analgesics—so overprescribed that only about 10% of its sales come from its original indication to treat cancer pain.
These legal opiates accounted for 40 percent, or 15,000, of the fatalities, up from 25 percent, or 4,000, in 1999. Deaths by painkiller now outpace the combined nationwide number of deaths by cocaine (5,100) and heroin (3,000); these fatal overdoses often involve mixing painkillers with other prescription drugs—for example, Klonopin, Xanax, Valium or another benzodiazepines, which are the second most lethal class.
Wednesday
Dec282011
Penn State University - Fish oil may hold key to leukemia cure
December 28, 2011 22-Dec-2011
Penn State University
A compound produced from fish oil that appears to target leukemia stem cells could lead to a cure for the disease, according to Penn State researchers. The compound -- delta-12-protaglandin J3, or D12-PGJ3 -- targeted and killed the stem cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, or CML, in mice, said Sandeep Prabhu, associate professor of immunology and molecular toxicology in the Department of Veterinary and Medical Sciences. The compound is produced from EPA -- Eicosapentaenoic Acid -- an Omega-3 fatty acid found in fish and in fish oil, he said.
"Research in the past on fatty acids has shown the health benefits of fatty acids on cardiovascular system and brain development, particularly in infants, but we have shown that some metabolites of Omega-3 have the ability to selectively kill the leukemia-causing stem cells in mice," said Prabhu. "The important thing is that the mice were completely cured of leukemia with no relapse."
Wednesday
Dec282011
HealthDay News - Drug Overdoses Kill More Americans Than Car Accidents: CDC
December 28, 2011 Almost half of drug poisonings are now from abuse of prescription painkillers, researchers note
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
TUESDAY, Dec. 20 (HealthDay News) -- More Americans now die from drug overdoses than in car accidents, according to a new government report released Tuesday.
In 2008, poisoning deaths became the number one cause of accidental deaths in the United States and the leading cause of injury death in 30 states, according to the report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Ninety percent of these poisonings were linked to drugs, with a surge in deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses reported.
"During the past three decades, the number of drug poisoning deaths has increased sixfold, from about 6,000 deaths in 1980 to over 36,500 in 2008," said report author Margaret Warner, an injury epidemiologist at CDC's National Center for Health Statistics, who added that this trend is only expected to continue.
The authors of the report found a 90 percent increase in poisoning deaths since 1999, while deaths from car accidents have dropped 15 percent in the same period.
By 2008, nine out of every 10 poisoning deaths were due to drugs. In that year, some 77 percent of these deaths were unintentional, 13 percent were suicides and 9 percent were of undetermined intent, according to the report.
Wednesday
Dec282011
HealthDay News - Mindfulness Training May Help Arthritis Patients Cope
December 28, 2011 Small study found those who used it were less tired, stressed
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
TUESDAY, Dec. 20 (HealthDay News) -- A small study finds that mindfulness training, which teaches people to push away troublesome thoughts, helped improve well-being in people with rheumatoid arthritis and similar diseases.
Patients in Norway who received the training didn't have less pain compared to those who didn't receive the training, but researchers found they coped better, were less tired and showed less stress.
"Yes, they still have pain, but they are able to manage their pain in more constructive ways," said study author Heidi Zangi, a graduate student at the National Resource Center for Rehabilitation in Rheumatology at Diakonhjemmet Hospital in Oslo.
Mindfulness training teaches people to "stay in the here and now," explained Stefan G. Hofmann, a professor of psychology at Boston University. "It keeps people in the present moment. The instructions are often to focus on breathing or present-moment awareness. As thoughts come into the mind, you just let them come and go without hanging on to them, without focusing on the future, without ruminating about the past."
Mindfulness isn't meditation, but the two are linked, Hofmann said, since "it's impossible to do meditation without doing mindfulness."
Wednesday
Dec282011
Ed Silverman - Pharma Fraud Continues To Fill The US Treasury
December 28, 2011 PHARMALOT
By Ed Silverman // December 19th, 2011
Boasting about recovering lots of money from prosecuting health care fraud has become an annual pasttime at the US Department of Justice. In general, fraud is a hot topic. Why? For the second consecutive fiscal year, the feds recovered more than $3 billion under the False Claims Act, and the total since January 2009 was $8.7 billion.
Of the $3 billion recovered this past fiscal year, which ended September 30, $2.4 billion in recoveries involving fraud committed against federal health care programs, nearly matching the $2.5 billion recovered in the previous fiscal year (see here). And of the $3 billion, whistleblower cases filed under the False Claims Act accounted for $2.8 billion.
As for drugmakers, the feds say that enforcement actions involving the pharmaceutical industry were, once again, the source of the largest recoveries this year. In all, the Justice Department recovered nearly $2.2 billion in civil claims against drugmakers last fiscal year, including $1.76 billion in federal recoveries and $421 million in state Medicaid recoveries (here is the Justice Department statement).
Tuesday
Dec272011
GMW - Undisclosed infection calls into question GM salmon claims
December 27, 2011 Coalition calls for FDA to halt approval of genetically engineered salmon
December 20 2011
http://truefoodnow.org/2011/12/20/coalition-calls-for-fda-to-halt-approval-of-genetically-engineered-salmon/
*Discovery of undisclosed infection of salmon eggs calls into question company claims that GE salmon are safe for the environmen
Washington DC – Yesterday afternoon a coalition of 11 food safety, environmental, consumer and fisheries organizations sent a letter to the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) calling for a halt to its approval of a genetically engineered (GE) salmon after learning that the company’s – AquaBounty Technologies, Inc. – research site was contaminated with a new strain of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), the deadly fish flu that is devastating fish stocks around the world.
“This new information calls into question the reliability of AquaBounty’s data and the validity of its claims that their fish are safe for the environment” said Andrew Kimbrell, Executive Director of the Center for Food Safety. “The FDA must respond appropriately and conduct their own environmental impact statement that looks at a broad range of environmental risks from these genetically engineered salmon, including the risk of spreading diseases such as ISA and antibiotic use for other diseases.”
AquaBounty has claimed that the company’s process for raising GE fish is safer than traditional aquaculture. However, documents that were revealed last week indicate that their production site was found by Canadian Authorities to have been contaminated in Nov. 2009. This information was hidden from the public and potentially FDA and other Federal agencies consulting on the GE salmon application. ISA is a deadly disease and is classified as a ‘Listed’ disease by the World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) – alongside diseases such as Anthrax, Bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), Foot and mouth disease, rabies, sheep pox, swine fever, avian influenza, West Nile fever, scrapie, fowl cholera, bovine tuberculosis and myxomatosis.
“Infectious Salmon Anaemia threatens wild fisheries around the world and the communities whose livelihood depend on those fish” said Erich Pica, President of Friends of the Earth US. “ISA infections in Chile cost the industry around two billion dollars. A similar infection in Canada and the U.S. could be the last blow to wild Atlantic salmon populations and bring a collapse in wild salmon fisheries.”
Tuesday
Dec272011
Ed Silverman - Should The FDA Be An Independent Agency?
December 27, 2011 PHARMALOT
By Ed Silverman // December 14th, 2011
http://www.pharmalot.com/2011/12/should-the-fda-be-an-independent-agency/
The outrage and hand-wringing continues over the unprecedented decision last week by US Human & Health Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to overrule the FDA and thwart a move to ease access to the Plan B pill, which is also known as the morning after pill. The move has generated intense debate that the White House politicized the FDA in favor of promoting sound science.
Those who supported approval of the pill saw the move as not only dangerous, but ironic, given that President Barack Obama had made a point, earlier in his administration, of insisting that decision making must favor science, not politics. Now, though, he is being widely criticized, by some, for pandering to conservatives as he campaigns for re-election. The FDA had favored making it possible for girls who are 17 and younger to get the pill without a prescription.
Tuesday
Dec272011
DAILY MAIL REPORTER - Daily dose of Vitamin B 'can fight memory loss and help protect against Alzheimer's'
December 27, 2011 17th December 2011
A daily dose of vitamin B can dramatically combat memory loss in old age and even protect against Alzheimer's, a study has found.
People taking the pill had lower levels of a brain protein known to lead to a rise in the risk of dementia.
More than 800,000 people in Britain suffer from dementia and the number is forecast to double within a generation, but previous drug trials have been unsuccessful.
Researchers found it also slowed mental decline in older people who have slight problems with their memory.
Around a sixth of people over 70 are thought to suffer from mild cognitive impairment and about half develop dementia, usually within five years of diagnosis.
