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NaturalNews.com

March 15, 2010

by: Ethan Huff, citizen journalist

(NaturalNews) With hundreds of thousands of people dying every year from the side effects of pharmaceutical drugs, one would imagine that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) would be out in full force pulling these drugs from the market, right? Actually, the agency has recently been spending its time targeting a walnut manufacturer for making legitimate, scientifically-proven health claims about walnuts on its packaging.

Such behavior is nothing new for the rogue agency that spends all of its time ridding the market of natural products, legitimate health claims on food, and other important products and information that actually help people become healthy rather than remain disease-stricken pharmaceutical drug addicts. In the case of walnuts, though, the vast amount of studies concerning the numerous benefits of the nut makes the FDA's mission to stop all purveyance of this information utterly incomprehensible.

OpEdNews.com

By Carolyn Moffa

Published 03/12/10

Corporatism: Say No to G.M.O!

This week I heard a disturbing commercial on the radio which was produced by Monsanto. If you aren't familiar with Monsanto already, they are the corporation who created Roundup weed killer and Agent Orange, the chemical which caused over 400,000 deaths and disabilities during the Vietnam War. Some of Monsanto's most recent controversies are engineering rBST (recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) or rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) and Genetically Modified Organisms or GMO's. These industrialized forms of food have saturated the diet of Americans for years now without consumers even noticing.

Genetically Modified Organisms are created through changing the DNA of a plant. Biotech engineers execute this by finding bacteria from the soil that is Roundup resistant and splicing its genes. They then create gaps in E. coli bacteria and mix it with the Roundup resistant DNA. After that, the mixed gene is injected into the original plant cell. When this happens, they are able to create the desired result of a "Roundup Ready" seed. After the DNA of a seed has been altered, it will kill any pest that eats the plant. Damaging health affects have been found in rodents that genetically modified foods have been tested on and animals all around the world have died after eating BT crops for only one day.

research by Cal Crilly

This is not doctor's advice, as you will plainly see when you start reading. Cal is just a normal guy with a bent for ferreting out biochemical connections and finding the important information hidden in scientific studies that the pharma-controlled cancer industry has no desire to make known. Since Cal is not an expert, you must make up your own mind ...

Pineapple flower - by Sepp
(Bromelain is obtained from unripe pineapples)

This is dedicated to Jacquie, my loving ex-mother in law who was a surrogate mum to me for a good decade. If I had known these things 5 years or so ago she might be still with us now but when I press send on this button here I know she'll be behind me with the biggest cheesiest grin and she'll be happy.

I've been giving dietary advice to various friends who have been passing this information on to relatives with differing forms of cancer. So far all the ones who have taken this advice are alive and also free of cancer, this is over a period of 3 years, 2 had surgery first and no more, one had surgery and chemo, one had chemo and radiation.

Writing this is an attempt to get a my interpretation of the cancer phenomena out of my head, to describe with proof what I think the data means and to come up with simple, affordable and doable self treatments that can be used with whatever other therapy is chosen.

I'd like to see the work of oncologists who treat cancer get easier.

I also want to see people get better and get on with their lives.

All I tell them to do is take up to 2 grams of Bromelain with meals. To get some form of Selenium food either from 3-4 Brazil nuts a day or from Broccoli and Garlic. I now recommend a bottle of Cod Liver Oil a week (I do this for psoriasis, it's not recommended if pregnant). I suggest Green Tea as Green Tea and Cod Liver Oil work synergistically. Some Lysine tablets, at least 3 grams worth with cancer. Vitamin C, preferably from food such as lemons though Sodium Ascorbate powder will do. I haven't advised people to take B3 or Nicotinamide but I now think I should.

Sott

E. Huff

Natural News

March 15, 2010

© Todd Warnock/Getty Images

Trans fats are found in many cakes, biscuits, pies and chips.

The Faculty of Public Health (FPH) in the U.K. is urging British lawmakers to ban trans-fats from the British food supply because the artificial fats are causing heart attacks, strokes, and other serious diseases. Comprised of 3,300 doctors and health specialists, FPH hopes to follow in the footsteps of places like Denmark, Austria, and Switzerland which have all banned trans-fats from their food supplies.

Trans-fats are derived from vegetable oils that have been chemically modified. They bear no nutritional value but are used by food manufacturers to bulk up foods and extend their shelf life. Typically labeled as hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated, these artificial fats are commonly found in processed baked goods and desserts, pastries, and fast foods as well as in margarine and shortening.

NaturalNews.com

March 12, 2010

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

(NaturalNews) There is an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency sweeping across our modern world, and it's an epidemic of such depth and seriousness that it makes the H1N1 swine flu epidemic look like a case of the sniffles by comparison. Vitamin D deficiency is not only alarmingly widespread, it's also a root cause of many other serious diseases such as cancer, diabetes, osteoporosis and heart disease.

A new study published in the March, 2010 issue of the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism found that a jaw-dropping 59 percent of the population is vitamin D deficient. In addition, nearly 25 percent of the study subjects were found to have extremely low levels of vitamin D.

Lead author of the study, Dr. Richard Kremer at the McGill University Health Center, said "Abnormal levels of vitamin D are associated with a whole spectrum of diseases, including cancer, osteoporosis, and diabetes, as well as cardiovascular and autoimmune disorders."

This new study also documents a clear link between vitamin D deficiency and stored body fat. This supports a theory I've espoused here on NaturalNews for many years: That sunshine actually promote body fat loss. Vitamin D may be the hormonal mechanism by which this fat loss phenomenon operates.

Sott.net

David Cronin

IPS News

March 5, 2010

Brussels - Genetically modified (GM) foods appear to be back on the European Union's political menu - thanks to a potato.

Manufactured by the German chemical firm BASF, a potato named Amflora became the first GM crop to be authorized for cultivation by the EU's executive arm, the European Commission, in 12 years Mar. 2.

It is unlikely that the same length of time will elapse before the next such approval is granted by Brussels officials. Files relating to 17 other GM crops - including varieties of maize, oilseed rape and more potatoes - are on those officials' desk and awaiting a formal rubber-stamp.

Although many of the EU's governments are opposed to the introduction of GM foods, the Commission's most powerful representatives have long been eager to resume the approval of new varieties. Last year, it sought unsuccessfully to force France and Greece to ditch moratoriam they had placed on the planting of Mon-810, a corn variety developed by the American multinational Monsanto.

Sott.net

NaturalNews

Mike Adams

March 8, 2010

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) is one of most common soy-based food "fillers" used to make literally thousands of processed food products. It's found in veggie burgers, gravy mixes, soups and many other grocery products. Last Thursday, one of the largest producers of HVP in the United States, Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors Inc., was the subject of an FDA consumer safety warning announcement. Salmonella had been found contaminating the company's HVP production equipment, the FDA said, and a nationwide recall was initiated that now includes products from Trader Joe's, Safeway, McCormick and many other companies.

See the FDA list of recalled products here.

Liversupport.com

March 4th, 2010

To keep soft drinks fresh and prevent harmful bacteria from growing, sodium benzoate has been used in soft drinks for many years. However, discover why this common preservative has been implicated in being a detriment to our health – and find out how you can help minimize any potential toxic and mitochondrial damage from sodium benzoate.

by Nicole Cutler, L.Ac.

By accelerating the course of liver disease, drinking soda may contribute to the decline of your health. Once diagnosed with liver disease, the overarching therapeutic goal is working to prevent your condition from worsening. With the progression of liver disease, the quantity of functioning liver cells diminishes, causing liver fibrosis and – ultimately – cirrhosis. Additionally, non-functioning, cirrhotic liver cells are more prone to mutating into cancer than healthy, vibrant ones. Protecting the deterioration of liver health helps your liver cells function at the highest level possible.

by Tom DeWeese
December 1, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

As the battle over government-controlled health care continues, many Americans simply want out of the whole mess. They instead seek a plan of wellness based on healthy eating and natural supplements.

That approach, however, is the opposite of the health care agenda of the American Medical Association and the Pharmaceutical industry. Those forces, which literally control America’s health industry, are based on sickness. The sicker you are, the more drugs you will buy.

In addition, insurance companies, working hand in hand with the AMA and the drug companies, refuse to provide coverage for the wellness approach. Most won’t pay for natural supplements nor will they pay for visits to homeopaths or chiropractors. The only thing most Americans can do when sick (and unable to afford to pay for natural treatment out of their pockets) is to stick with the big pharma/AMA game plan. In short, it is cheaper to be sick than to try to stay well.

However, in spite of a stacked deck in favor of the sickness agenda, more Americans are going for wellness and the natural supplement industry is growing. In response, and to preserve their dominance over health care, big pharma is lobbying hard to get the Food and Drug Administration to make many natural supplements available only by prescriptions issued by AMA licensed doctors. In other efforts, they seek to drastically reduce the dosage of natural supplements sold over the counter, making them useless. Again, only a prescription would allow a workable dosage.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service,
November 1, 2009
by Dr. Damien Downing

(OMNS, November 1, 2009) 2009 may be the year of the vaccine show-down, the moment when enough of us start questioning all we're being told about vaccines. A survey published in the BMJ in August (http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/abstract/339/aug25_2/b3391) reported that less than half of healthcare workers in Hong Kong were willing to accept "pre-pandemic" flu vaccination. And that was before a letter from the Health Protection Agency to 600 United Kingdom neurologists on July 29th warning them to be on the alert for an increase in cases of Guillain-Barre syndrome following the vaccination campaign.

If nurses and doctors start questioning vaccination for themselves, sooner or later we'll have to advise patients to make their own minds up. They seem to be doing so anyway. A poll by Fox News (http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2009/08/26/think-greater-risk/ ) , often described as a right-wing channel, found that 51% thought taking the H1N1 vaccine carried a greater risk than not being vaccinated.

Yet both in the USA and the UK, this year's swine flu vaccine will be rolled out without adequate safety testing. What's going on? Two things: profits and power.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
October 14, 2009
NewsWithViews.com

It seems simple enough to understand. A well person contracts swine flu from a sick person, who, once sick, passes it along to another. In the case of H1N1 swine flu, most of the population is not familiar with the virus, thus it has the potential to readily spread from sick to well. Sick people are supposed to quarantine themselves to prevent transmission. Everyone else is supposed to get a vaccine. One small problem - what if the sick people aren't really the ones spreading the infection? At first glance that sounds preposterous. A second look may cause you to pause and ponder.

Take a journey back almost a hundred years to the last swine flu epidemic, a true killer infection that preyed on young people. An experiment was conducted, one that would not be allowed today. A hundred Navy personnel volunteered. None of them had demonstrated any signs of the flu in the year prior to the experiment. The goal was to prove the swine flu spread from sick to well. The sickest of the sick coughed and sneezed onto some of the volunteers. Others were directly exposed to the mucosal secretions and viral-laden droplets of these very sick people. Surprise - not one of the volunteers fell ill.

www.opednews.com

by Stephen Fox

Food democracy gets a boost from Woolies with the removal of aspartame

2009/07/01

Food democracy, the growing trend whereby consumers are flexing their muscles and influencing decisions made by big food retailers and producers, is finding a foothold in South Africa.The first big retailer to pay close attention to what customers are saying, is Woolworths. In fact, it's in response to requests from customers that Woolworths has become the first South African retailer to remove aspartame from its foods.

It's not the only so-called 'artificial' sweetener to go, either. Woolworths has also removed the sweeteners saccharin and cyclamate from its own-brand foods.

By Allison Kaplan Sommer
April 02, 2006

A drink with as little as one gram of lemon grass contains enough citral to prompt cancer cells to commit suicide in the test tube.

Israeli researchers find way to make cancer cells self-destruct - Ben Gurion University

At first, Benny Zabidov, an Israeli agriculturalist who grows greenhouses full of lush spices on a pastoral farm in Kfar Yedidya in the Sharon region, couldn't understand why so many cancer patients from around the country were showing up on his doorstep asking for fresh lemon grass. It turned out that their doctors had sent them. 'They had been told to drink eight glasses of hot water with fresh lemon grass steeped in it on the days that they went for their radiation and chemotherapy treatments,' Zabidov told ISRAEL21c. 'And this is the place you go to in Israel for fresh lemon grass.'

www.opednews.com

May 20, 2009
by Lord Rudi C. Loehwing

Codex Alimentarius – Translation: "Food Code" Originally envisioned and designed by what became the most ruthless and inhumane of 20th century Western European regimes, Codex Alimentarius (Codex) was later organized and officiated mainly by members of an emerging pharmaceutical industry spawned by that very same source.

In its near half-century of existence Codex has emerged as the self-proclaimed international authority on food and nutrition. Intent on dictating or significantly influencing international health and nutritional policies and legislation, and backed by international trade agreements and the United Nations, Codex has done much to accomplish unimpeded protection of chemical and pharmaceutical interests on a global scale – much to the detriment of sustainable health and nutrition. While there are approximately 30 committees under the banner of Codex, the pharmaceutical industry's focus is mainly within the "Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses." The committee's actions and published materials give the impression that their view of the natural health industry is as "an unwanted competitor" as opposed to that of an "adjunct" as it is viewed in the emergent integrated medicine industry.

Vitaminespress.com
By Michael leVesque

Perception is everything. So let's look at the influences that help determine it.

Medicine is based upon observation, as the French Philosopher Michel Foucault stated in The Birth of the Clinic, when describing the medical profession.

Observation is Perception

For years the wealthy in northern Europe ate off pewter plates, which have a very high lead content. Tomatoes are very acidic and when placed in contact with the pewter they leached out the lead. When eaten, the tomatoes then produced lead poisoning. Lead poisoning manifests itself in many ways from headaches to delirium to death. Based upon perception tomatoes were considered poisonous in those regions for several hundred years by society and the medical community until the 19th Century when a merchant publicly ate a bushel of tomatoes to prove they were harmless without ill effects.

OpEdNews
April 7, 2009
By Marti Oakley

Looming in our Congress are several bills dedicated to the creation of a yet another bureaucracy which will be used to facilitate the usurping of US laws, standards and regulations in deference to international agreements and global committee edicts.

At stake here is what has been the most dynamic and productive agricultural system ever known….and the most safe. Our congress has decided that preserving this system and allowing it to continue is not beneficial to corporate AG nor to the continued compliance relating to non-US laws and regulations.

Physorg.com
March 6th, 2009 in Chemistry / Analytical Chemistry

Revered in India as "holy powder," the marigold-colored spice known as turmeric has been used for centuries to treat wounds, infections and other health problems. In recent years, research into the healing powers of turmeric's main ingredient, curcumin, has burgeoned, as its astonishing array of antioxidant, anti-cancer, antibiotic, antiviral and other properties has been revealed.

Yet little has been known about exactly how curcumin works inside the body.

Now, University of Michigan researchers led by Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy have discovered that curcumin acts as a disciplinarian, inserting itself into cell membranes and making them more orderly, a move that improves cells' resistance to infection and malignancy.

"The membrane goes from being crazy and floppy to being more disciplined and ordered, so that information flow through it can be controlled," said Ramamoorthy, a professor of chemistry and biophysics. The findings were published online March 3 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
March 6, 2009

In a stunning and unexpected 6-3 ruling the right-leaning Supreme Court went against the wishes of the last president, took the wind out of the sails of health care reform of the current president, sent irresponsible Big Pharma a major wake up call, and bluntly told the arrogant FDA that they are indeed not above the rule of law. It is a major victory for every American citizen.

Central to the issue is a power struggle between the federal government and states, which in this situation meant the federal government authority to pre-empt your state rights to sue if you are injured by a drug. The FDA, acting on behalf of the Bush administration and on the side of Big Pharma, has helped tie up thousands of drug injury lawsuits across the country. The FDA, who is supposed to be protecting consumers from drug injury and ensuring a correct risk/safety picture for any person taking a drug, was instead trying to shirk their responsibility and simply claim that Americans had no right to sue.

Richard Alleyne
The Telegraph
March 2, 2009

Compounds from the vegetables mixed with selenium, which is contained in Brazil nuts, have been shown to prevent the skin cancer and work better at attacking tumours than conventional treatment, researchers said.

They believe that mixing isothiocyanates, the substances that give the greens flavour, and selenium found in the nuts, may even be added to sun screen lotion in future.

Laboratory tests suggest that these compounds target tumours more safely and effectively than traditional methods.

Now work is under way to develop the first commercially available drugs made from a cocktail of compounds to fight skin cancer.

Researchers at Pennsylvania State University in the US have already made a drug which can halt the growth of skin cancer tumours in mice by up to 60 per cent.

Sweet reversal: Harmful effects of fructose traced to one protein in a study of mice.

Knocking out a liver protein in mice can reverse the damaging effects of a super-sweet diet. Diets loaded with high-fructose corn syrup wreak havoc on metabolic processes, but how fructose does its damage has been a mystery. The new study, appearing in the March 4 Cell Metabolism, identifies a possible culprit, a protein in the liver called PGC-1 beta.

The new research is "putting together things that we know and making a link," comments Carlos Hernandez of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The paper highlights the importance of PGC-1 beta in the whole process, says Hernandez, who wrote a commentary in the same issue of Cell Metabolism on the new research.

Treehugger.com
by Brian Merchant, Brooklyn, New York
on February 27, 2009
Business & Politics

Photo via SF Gate

Sott.net
OpEd News
Linn Cohen-Cole
February 16, 2009

[Editors' note: Community-Supported Agriculture or C.S.A., is the distribution system in which people buy shares in return for a weekly allotment of local fresh farm food.]

The New York Times ran on a piece on CSAs doing well despite the economy.

Forgive me, I am so boggled by the ironies that my computer is stuttering.

The New York Times is in New York state which is responsible for the fact that CSAs are actually in terrible trouble and that trouble stems directly from a New York source, Hillary Clinton. She pushed a centralized Food Safety Department when she ran for president, one that would bring together the USDA and FDA, giving them vastly more power over food. Both agencies are grossly corrupted by Monsanto so the multiplication of power accrues powerfully to Monsanto.

Sott.net
Dan Eskelsom
Garden Journal
February 3, 2009

Genetically modified organisms (GMO) have become a hot topic among farmers, environmentalists, gardeners and others concerned with food and environmental safety. Some folks believe that GMO technology is "the single most potent technology the world has ever known" and capable of causing incurable damage to our species' well being.

Here is a very simple explanation of the issue: Monsanto, the producer of the infamous chemicals Agent Orange and PCB, has developed a biotechnology that alters the genetic makeup of seeds. The original and ongoing intent of the technology is to allow mass spraying of herbicide over entire fields without hurting the crop.

Seeds are altered to produce plants that are not affected by herbicide, so farmers can broadcast spray huge amounts of Monsanto's Roundup herbicide without affecting the food crop. Did I say not affecting? That is what Monsanto would have you believe, but common sense and the evidence indicates otherwise.

SOTT.net
Natural News
Mike Adams
January 28, 2009

New research published in Environmental Health and conducted in part by a scientist at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy has revealed that high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is contaminated with the toxic heavy metal mercury.

That means that many of the products using HFCS may also be contaminated with mercury. Carbonated sodas are sweetened with HFCS, as are candy bars, bread, salad dressings, pizza sauce, fruit drinks and thousands of other grocery items.

Mercury is so highly toxic that it causes severe neurological disorders. It can also result in the loss of hair, teeth and nails as well as muscle weakness, loss of kidney function, emotional mood swings and memory impairment. (P.S. Somebody please update this Wikipedia page with this latest research about HFCS being a source for mercury exposure, too.)

Image via Wikipedia

Bloomberg
Matthew Craze and Duane D. Stanford
November 28, 2008

A leaf the Guarani Indians of Paraguay's jungles used to sweeten drinks for centuries may help Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. revive flagging sales in the $320 billion-a-year global soft-drink industry.

The Food and Drug Administration is poised to act on allowing a zero-calorie sweetener derived from the stevia plant grown in Paraguay and China. Approval may allow the world's two largest soda makers to reverse three years of U.S. soft-drink sales declines with beverages containing the natural extract, according to Mariann Montagne, an analyst at Minneapolis-based Thrivent Asset Management.

"They are really desperate for something to pick up colas," said Montagne, whose firm owns Coca-Cola and PepsiCo among the $70 billion it oversees. "There is definitely a need, and people will respond if they have this natural sweetener."

Lyndsey Layton
Washington Post
November 27, 2008

Public health groups, consumer advocates and members of Congress blasted the Food and Drug Administration yesterday for failing to act after discovering trace amounts of the industrial chemical melamine in baby formula sold in the United States.

"This FDA, this Bush administration, instead of protecting the public health, is protecting industry," said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), who chairs the Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA budget. In an interview, DeLauro said she wants the agency to disclose its findings and to develop a plan to remove melamine from formula. "We're talking about babies, about the most vulnerable. This really makes me angry."

The FDA found melamine and cyanuric acid, a related chemical, in samples of baby formula made by major U.S. manufacturers. Melamine can cause kidney and bladder stones and, in worst cases, kidney failure and death. If melamine and cyanuric acid combine, they can form round yellow crystals that can also damage kidneys and destroy renal function.

Comanche County Chronicle, Elgin, OK, September, 2008
from Institute for Responsible Technology, Spilling the Beans newsletter on GM Foods
by Jeffrey M. Smith, author of Seeds of Deception

Before the Appleton Wisconsin high school replaced their cafeteria's processed foods with wholesome, nutritious food, the school was described as out-of-control. There were weapons violations, student disruptions, and a cop on duty full-time. After the change in school meals, the students were calm, focused, and orderly. There were no more weapons violations, and no suicides, expulsions, dropouts, or drug violations. The new diet and improved behavior has lasted for seven years, and now other schools are changing their meal programs with similar results.

Years ago, a science class at Appleton found support for their new diet by conducting a cruel and unusual experiment with three mice. They fed them the junk food that kids in other high schools eat everyday. The mice freaked out. Their behavior was totally different than the three mice in the neighboring cage. The neighboring mice had good karma; they were fed nutritious whole foods and behaved like mice. They slept during the day inside their cardboard tube, played with each other, and acted very mouse-like.

Image via Wikipedia

Physorg.com
July 30, 2008

An enriched extract of the 'Indian Frankincense' herb Boswellia serrata has been proven to reduce the symptoms of osteoarthritis. Research published today in BioMed Central's open access journal Arthritis Research & Therapy has shown that patients taking the herbal remedy showed significant improvement in as little as seven days.

Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis; it commonly affects weight-bearing joints such as the knees and hips, along with the hands, wrists, feet and spine. The symptoms include pain, stiffness and limited movement. This randomised, double-blinded, placebo-controlled trial of 70 patients will be of great interest to sufferers, especially those who don't get adequate relief from existing treatments.

Sott.net
Thea Deley
Informity News
June 6, 2008

DANGEROUS DYES? A food safety advocacy group claims eight dyes commonly used in food, from Lucky Charms to M&Ms, cause behavioral problems in children. Since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration disputed these claims in the past, it seems unlikely it will ban the artificial colorings.

Monday the Center for Science in the Public Interest formally petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to ban eight food dyes, including the two most common - Red 40 and Yellow 5. The United Kingdom already phased out several of these dyes.

FDA Considers Petition to Ban Artificial Food Colors

The Center for Science in the Public Interest asked the FDA to ban the following dyes:

* Yellow 5
* Red 40
* Blue 1
* Blue 2
* Green 3
* Orange B
* Red 3
* Yellow 6

ScienceDaily
June 3, 2008

Electron microscope image of budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae. UC Berkeley researchers insert variants of human enzymes into yeast to see if these enzymes can be tuned up with vitamins. (Credit: UC Berkeley)

ScienceDaily (Jun. 3, 2008) — As the cost of sequencing a single human genome drops rapidly, with one company predicting a price of $100 per person in five years, soon the only reason not to look at your "personal genome" will be fear of what bad news lies in your genes.

University of California, Berkeley, scientists, however, have found a welcome reason to delve into your genetic heritage: to find the slight genetic flaws that can be fixed with remedies as simple as vitamin or mineral supplements.

"I'm looking for the good news in the human genome," said Jasper Rine, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology.

"Headlines for the last 20 years have really been about the triumph of biomedical research in finding disease genes, which is biologically interesting, genetically important and frightening to people who get this information," Rine said. "I became obsessed with trying to decide if there is some other class of information that will make people want to look at their genome sequence."

What Rine and colleagues found and report in the online early edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) is that there are many genetic differences that make people's enzymes less efficient than normal, and that simple supplementation with vitamins can often restore some of these deficient enzymes to full working order.

Telegraph.co.uk
By Kate Devlin, Medical Correspondent
May 27, 2008

Drinking organic milk has greater health benefits than drinking normal milk, according to a new study.

Scientists found higher levels of vitamins, antioxidants and "healthy" fat in milk from organically farmed animals.

The researchers believe that letting cows graze on fresh grass boosts the nutritional value of their milk. The benefits could include a lower risk of cancer and heart disease.

The study, which analysed produce from 25 farms, found that organic milk contained 67 per cent more antioxidants and vitamins than ordinary milk. Scientists at Newcastle University also found organic milk contained 60 per cent more of a healthy fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA9, which tests have shown can shrink tumours.

Similar levels of vaccenic acid, which has been linked to a reduced risk of heart disease, diabetes and obesity, were also found.

Organic milk contained 39 per cent more of the fatty acid Omega-3, which has been shown to cut the risk of heart disease, and 32 per cent the levels of the less healthy Omega-6.

Gillian Butler, the livestock project manager for the Nafferton Ecological Farming Group at Newcastle University, who led the study, said the research had potential health benefits even if consumers did not switch to organic milk.

"In an ideal world it would be better, but logistically I don't think there would be enough," she said.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
May 29, 2008

The brotherhood of Big Pharma’s weight loss cartel is taking direct aim at your health freedom and natural options to help you lose weight. They have submitted a petition to the FDA requesting that all claims that dietary supplements promote, assist, or otherwise help in weight loss are disease claims. The goal is to eliminate competition for dietician services, drugs, and surgery in the multi-billion dollar weight loss industry. It is a blatant attack on health freedom and free commerce – a significant threat that the Big Pharma-friendly FDA is sure to seriously consider.

Immediate consumer action is needed. Steps to take are provided at the end of this article. Defeating this Big Pharma proposal will require an all out grassroots consumer effort. Various health freedom organizations such as the National Health Federation and Citizens for Health have already taken the lead in this effort.

This specific attack is part of an overall campaign in which the FDA plays a major negative role, seeking to reduce your access to dietary supplements. The FDA is actively participating on an international basis (CODEX) and regional basis (FDA Trilateral Cooperation Charter/SPP/North American Union) to circumvent existing U.S. laws (DSHEA) so as to undermine your access to natural health options. In the face of this current attack even the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), who often comes down on the wrong side of regional and international health freedom issues, has stated that it will vigorously defend the dietary supplement industry’s legal right to make factual weight loss claims.

Australian Herbs Could Replace Dangerous Sodium Benzoate in Foods, Beverages
by David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) An inventor has developed a blend of native Australian herbs that he says functions as an effective preservative for foods and beverages, and can be used to replace artificial preservatives such as sodium benzoate.

Vic Cherikoff markets his product Herbal-Active as an inhibitor of bacteria and surface mold growth, and as a flavoring agent. Cherikoff says that he researched a number of native Australian herbs and developed a blend that is 30 times more effective as a preservative than the sum of all the plants put together. Because he cannot afford to patent the blend, Cherikoff says, he will not reveal which herbs are being used. He says only that all of them are native culinary herbs and are either wild-harvested or grown on organic plantations.

Common Dreams
April 20, 2008 by The Independent/UK
By Geoffrey Lean

Genetic modification actually cuts the productivity of crops, an authoritative new study shows, undermining repeated claims that a switch to the controversial technology is needed to solve the growing world food crisis.

The study - carried out over the past three years at the University of Kansas in the US grain belt - has found that GM soya produces about 10 per cent less food than its conventional equivalent, contradicting assertions by advocates of the technology that it increases yields.

Professor Barney Gordon, of the university’s department of agronomy, said he started the research - reported in the journal Better Crops - because many farmers who had changed over to the GM crop had “noticed that yields are not as high as expected even under optimal conditions”. He added: “People were asking the question ‘how come I don’t get as high a yield as I used to?’”

He grew a Monsanto GM soybean and an almost identical conventional variety in the same field. The modified crop produced only 70 bushels of grain per acre, compared with 77 bushels from the non-GM one.

NaturalNews.com
by Mike Adams
April 16, 2008

(NaturalNews) The latest attack on vitamins A, C, E, selenium and beta-carotene comes from the Cochrane Library, a widely-read source of information on conventional health matters. In the paper published yesterday, these antioxidants were linked with a higher risk of mortality ("they'll kill you!"), and now serious-sounding scientists have warned consumers away from taking vitamins altogether. But with all the benefits of antioxidants already well known to the well-informed, how did the Cochrane Library arrive at such a conclusion? It's easy: The researchers considered 452 studies on these vitamins, and they threw out the 405 studies where nobody died! That left just 47 studies where subjects died from various causes (one study was conducted on terminal heart patients, for example). From this hand-picked selection of studies, these researchers concluded that antioxidants increase mortality.

Just in case the magnitude of the scientific fraud taking place here has not yet become apparent, let me repeat what happened: These scientists claimed to be studying the effects of vitamins on mortality, right? They were conducting a meta-analysis based on reviewing established studies. But instead of conducting an honest review of all the studies, they arbitrarily decided to eliminate all studies in which vitamins prevented mortality and kept people alive! They did this by "excluding all studies in which no participants died." What was left to review? Only the studies in which people died from various causes.

Brilliant, huh? This sort of bass-ackward science would earn any teenager an "F" in high school science class. But apparently it's good enough for the Cochrane Library, not to mention all the mainstream press outlets that are now repeating these silly conclusions as scientific fact.

Independent.co.uk
By Josie Clarke, PA
April 10, 2008

Children's campaigners today welcomed a recommendation by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) to ban six artificial food colourings.

The board of the FSA said UK manufacturers should voluntarily remove the additives from their products by 2009 and also called on the EU to take action.

The FSA wants the E numbers to be removed from food products because of an "accumulating body of evidence" that they are associated with child hyperactivity.

At a meeting in London, the board agreed that the EU should phase out the colourings but said UK manufacturers should voluntarily remove them in the meantime.

The colourings involved are sunset yellow (E110), quinoline yellow (E104), carmoisine (E122), allura red (E129), tartrazine (E102) and ponceau 4R (E124).

UK ministers will now consider the recommendation but the final decision will be made at EU level.

The board's chairwoman, Dame Deirdre Hutton, concluded: "If one puts consumers first, which is our duty, we must recognise that these colours are not necessary and it would be sensible to have them removed from all foods."

In a study for the FSA, researchers at Southampton University looked at the effect of food colouring on behaviour.

NewsWithViews.com
By Shane Ellison M. Sc.
The People's Chemist
April 13, 2008

If you could make one simple change in your diet to help you melt fat, sleep better, and improve your memory ... wouldn't you do it? What if that same simple dietary change could increase your energy, conquer depression, save your eyesight, restore your mental alertness, get your bedroom energy rockin', and increase your lifespan?

This may sound too good to be true. But it's not. And you don't have to take drugs. Nor do you have to try some newfangled experimental supplements. Or stop eating. Or even give up the foods you love.

It's as simple as reducing the amount of sugar you eat.

This is not a trick. I said you don't have to give up the foods you love. And that includes sweets. You can actually give up sugar and keep your sweet tooth happy. This is the greatest health secret of all time. And I'm gonna teach you how to incorporate it into your life.

Before I tell you how, I want you to know just why you should give up sugar.

It's not just because of all the aforementioned benefits. It's because sugar can have serious health consequences.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
April 10, 2008

It is a colossal failure on the part of our government to not warn parents of the actual risks associated with vaccines. The blind insistence that vaccines are safe and effective is not supported by science, at least for a significant number of our children. There are now 25,000 children per year developing autism (1 in 150), a problem that has expanded in direct proportion to the increase in vaccinations. How do you know if your child is at risk?

The government’s primary goal appears to be to prevent parents, en masse, from refusing to vaccinate their children. To prevent such a “run on the public health bank” all caution is being recklessly thrown to the wind. American children are now the most vaccinated people in the world. What are we actually doing? The vaccination problem needs to be objectively solved so that public health is maintained, yet needless vaccine injury is avoided.

By Terrence McNally, AlterNet
April 3, 2008

Why would anyone need to write a book called In Defense of Food? If we can afford it and can get our hands on it, we eat food several times a day. Or do we?

According to Michael Pollan, most of what Americans consume isn't food. He calls it "edible foodlike substances." He also says that the way we consume it is not really eating. It's something we do pretty unconsciously as we work or drive or watch TV.

We all know about the U.S. epidemic of obesity and diabetes over the past 25 years, on top of the steady rise of chronic diseases over the past hundred. Paradoxically, this happens just as Americans and the food industry are ever more aware of nutrition. What's going on here?

Pollan claims that in the Western diet, good old food has been replaced by nutrients, mom's good advice by nutritional experts, common sense by confusion, and for most, a relatively good diet by a bad and dangerous one. The book in which he makes all these claims and advises us simply to "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly plants," has topped the New York Times bestseller list.

Michael Pollan's previous books include The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, named one of the ten best books of 2006 by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and The Botany of Desire. Pollan is a contributing writer to the New York Times Magazine and a Knight Professor of Journalism at U.C. Berkeley.

The New Nation
Professor Dr. M. Afzal Hossain

Stevia (Stevia rebaudiana) is an exotic plant in our country. It has both economical and medicinal importance. The main glycosidic compound accumulated in this plant is stevioside which is 250-300 times sweeter than sucrose. Stevia (also called sweetleaf or sugarleaf) is a genus of about 150 species of herbs and shrubs in the sunflower family (Asteraceae), native to subtropical and tropical South America and Central America. Stevioside is a glycoside of the diterpene derivative of steviol. Steviol glycosides are natural constituents of the plant Stevia rebaudiana Bertoni.

Man does not produce stevioside, or synthesize it in a laboratory or manufacture it. Man simply *extracts* it, just like nature produced it from the tiny leaf of a beautiful little South American plant. Thus stevioside is not "artificial" or "synthetic"; it is truly a natural product and also a "low-calorie" one.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
April 4, 2008

On April 2, 2008 CNN spent the day bringing awareness to the problem of autism. Larry King’s segment, which included Jenny McCarthy along with a panel of guests, was particularly enlightening. My hat is off to Jenny, a celebrity mother who is making it quite uncomfortable for the Center for Disease Control (CDC) to ignore parents of Autistic children seeking answers. Why does a mom have to do the work of the CDC? The answer is rather simple: our government’s zeal to insist on too many vaccines while ignoring the actual risks is the driving force behind the autism tragedy. Sure there are many related factors – but the bottom line is that our government is causing disease at an alarming and devastating pace.

It is an interesting comment on our society that an outspoken and impassioned mother of an autistic child, along with her partner (actor Jim Carrey), are the catalysts that are likely to cause a warped empire to crumble. Many before them have tried; and typically been burned at the stake. Jenny and Jim are the government’s worst nightmare. They can’t shut down their medical practice because they don’t have one. They can’t financially damage them into silence. And as they lead their autism March on Washington D.C. this June 4th it is quite clear that they haven’t a prayer of shutting them up. A powder keg is about to blow.

University of Rochester Medical Center
March 25, 2008

Rochester researchers showed for the first time that a natural antioxidant found in grape skins and red wine can help destroy pancreatic cancer cells by reaching to the cell's core energy source, or mitochondria, and crippling its function. The study is published in the March edition of the journal, Advances in Experimental Medicine and Biology.

The study also showed that when the pancreatic cancer cells were doubly assaulted -- pre-treated with the antioxidant, resveratrol, and irradiated -- the combination induced a type of cell death called apoptosis, an important goal of cancer therapy.

The research has many implications for patients, said lead author Paul Okunieff, M.D., chief of Radiation Oncology at the James P. Wilmot Cancer Center at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Alternet
By Kim Ridley, Ode
March 14, 2008

By the middle of the afternoon, Ellen Ryan was out of steam. A community organizer in central Maine, Ryan says her energy crashed every afternoon. To get through the rest of the day, she'd grab a chocolate bar or a handful of candy kisses. "But I'm 52," Ryan says, "and those explosions of calories are becoming harder to work off."

When a friend said cinnamon helped alleviate another health problem, Ryan decided to give it a try by taking two 500-milligram capsules in the morning. "I immediately noticed a difference," Ryan says. "My chocolate cravings went away and I no longer have that crashing feeling in the afternoon. I haven't talked to a doctor; all I know is that cinnamon is inexpensive, easy to take and it stops the crash."

Clinical studies support Ryan's experience. Just half a teaspoon of cinnamon a day lowered blood sugar levels in adults with type 2 diabetes, according to a study of 60 subjects carried out at NWFP Agricultural University in Peshawar, Pakistan, and published in Diabetes Care in 2003. The same study found that cinnamon also lowered cholesterol.

PhysOrg.com
February 24, 2008

Tears streak Rita's cheek as she recalls what it was like trying to figure out what was wrong with her son more than a decade ago, but she breaks into a smile when she explains how changing his diet made all the difference.

"I could tell something was wrong with him as soon as he began eating solids as a baby. It was if the food was draining him," says Rita, 50, describing how her son Christoffer had yoyoed between passive and hyperactive behaviour until she had removed several staples from his diet including milk and grains.

Christoffer, today a normally developed 14-year-old, is one of 23 children suffering from hyperactive disorders who were put on milk-free diets in 1996-1997 and whose development has been tracked ever since by a small group of educators and researchers in the southwestern Norwegian town of Stavanger.

The group set out to prove a theory by Oslo-based scientist Karl Ludvig Reichelt that a metabolic disorder making it difficult to break down certain proteins, including casein (the protein in milk that makes it possible to make cheese), could cause mental problems like Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD).

Steve Lendman
February 22, 2008

This article discusses the potential health risks of genetically engineered foods (GMOs). It draws on some previously used material because its importance bears repeating. It also cites three notable books and highlights one in particular - Jeffrey Smith's "Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods." Detailed information from the book is featured below.

Genetically engineered foods saturate our diet today. In the US alone, over 80% of all processed foods contain them. Others include grains like rice, corn and wheat; legumes like soybeans and soy products; vegetable oils, soft drinks; salad dressings; vegetables and fruits; dairy products including eggs; meat, chicken, pork and other animal products; and even infant formula plus a vast array of hidden additives and ingredients in processed foods (like in tomato sauce, ice cream, margarine and peanut butter). Consumers don't know what they're eating because labeling is prohibited, yet the danger is clear. Independently conducted studies show the more of these foods we eat, the greater the potential harm to our health.

Zeus Information Service
February 15, 2008

A report just released by the Acting Chair of the Coroner’s Council has shown natural medicines have the lowest fatality rate of all medical treatments in this country.

Despite extensive research, coroner Dr Wallace Bain found no deaths have occurred in this country due to natural medicines such as vitamins, minerals and herbal products.

Dr Bain, who is also a trained pharmacist and lawyer, undertook the study in light of growing opposition to new legislation that will see New Zealand’s natural health industry come under Australian laws.

The safety of natural products is often sited as a reason for the need for such a move.

The Labour government plans that the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Authority (ANZTPA) will soon replace the current Medsafe agency as part of a `trans-Tasman harmonisation’ push. Opponents fear this move will decimate New Zealand’s natural health industry as has already occurred in Australia.

At present lack of support from New Zealand First, the Maori and Green parties is the only thing stopping the legislation coming into effect.

Says Dr Bain: “In my capacity as Acting Chair of the Coroner’s Council, I enquired of all Coroners as to whether or not from a search of their Coronial findings they could find any instances where there had been a problem with any of these natural products.

Sott.net the world for people who think
The New York Times
By Nicholas Bakalar
February 10, 2008

Researchers have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome - the collection of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes that include abdominal obesity, high cholesterol and blood glucose levels, and elevated blood pressure.

The scientists gathered dietary information on more than 9,500 men and women ages 45 to 64 and tracked their health for nine years.

Over all, a Western dietary pattern - high intakes of refined grains, fried foods and red meat - was associated with an 18 percent increased risk for metabolic syndrome, while a "prudent" diet dominated by fruits, vegetables, fish and poultry correlated with neither an increased nor a decreased risk.

But the one-third who ate the most fried food increased their risk by 25 percent compared with the one-third who ate the least, and surprisingly, the risk of developing metabolic syndrome was 34 percent higher among those who drank one can of diet soda a day compared with those who drank none.

"This is interesting," said Lyn M. Steffen, an associate professor of epidemiology at the University of Minnesota and a co-author of the paper, which was posted online in the journal Circulation on Jan. 22. "Why is it happening? Is it some kind of chemical in the diet soda, or something about the behavior of diet soda drinkers?"

Comment: He can't be serious, or his level of ignorance is shocking for an associate professor. Here's a hint for him: The name of the chemical begins with "A". It is a deadly poison and was banned as a food additive for many years before Rumsfeld forced its approval in 1981.

BBC NEWS:
February 6, 2008

Cheap dietary supplements could protect young children from malaria, research suggests.
The study, published in Nutrition Journal, found giving children vitamin A and zinc cut incidence of illness by a third.

Malaria remains a major killer in many parts of the world - in sub-Saharan Africa it is estimated to account for a million child deaths a year.

Resistance to drug treatments is an increasing problem.

And efforts to kill the infected mosquitoes that spread the disease have been hampered by the use of ineffective insecticides.

Many people living in malaria endemic areas suffer from malnutrition so researchers in Burkina Faso experimented with adding vitamin A and zinc supplements to the diets of children aged from six months to six years.

Half of the children were given a placebo. After six months the scientists observed a 34% decrease in incidence of malaria in those children taking the supplements.

Yahoo News
February 5, 2008

Lack of folate, also called vitamin B-9, may triple the risk of developing dementia in old age, according to a study published Tuesday.

Researchers in South Korea measured naturally occurring folate levels in 518 elderly persons, none of whom showed any signs of dementia, and then tracked their development over 2.4 years.

Wellness resourses

January 14, 2008

Physorg.com

January 10, 2008

Mercola.com

January 14, 2008

Do you want to be healthy? Drinking soda is bad for your health in so many ways; science can’t even state all the consequences. Here’s what happens in your body when you assault it with a Coke:

NewsWithViews.com

By Byron J. Richards, CCN

Reuters

January 1, 2008

PRESS RELEASE of the National Health Federation

Codex Meeting in Germany Set to Decide Future for
Vitamin Consumers Around the World
November 12, 2007

The U.S.-based National Health Federation (NHF), the world’s longest-standing international health-freedom organisation, is today beginning a week of meetings at the 29th session of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) in Bad Neuenahr, Germany. Expected to be attended by over 300 delegates, observers and advisors, representing about 70 member countries and over 30 international organizations, the Committee, sponsored by the Food & Agriculture Organization and World Health Organization, is the world’s highest international body setting global standards and guidelines on nutrition

With consumer members all over the world, and a Board of Governors and Advisory Board containing representatives from six countries, the NHF is unique as being the only consumer health-freedom organization in the world to enjoy official observer delegate status at Codex. The NHF therefore has the opportunity to make representations on behalf of natural health interests all over the world, which are presently being threatened by over-regulation stimulated by spurious science, misinformed media attacks and corporate pressure from large food and pharmaceutical concerns.

angryscientist
October 3, 2007

An unholy alliance of California Child Protective Services (CPS) with a hostile doctor and judge is attempting to railroad Laurie Jessop, framed as a threat to her son and the establishment for finding a way to cure him of malignant melanoma. She is now on trial, under a gag order, since she had gone to the press. When she was arrested, she was put in maximum security, solitary confinement, in the Orange County, CA jail. They claim that everything about. her says anti-Establishment, so she was told, as she was considered a threat in starting a riot.

On the morning of Sept. 12, Gary Null read on KPFK, a Pacifica station in Los Angeles, an e-mail from Ron Miller, who had met Ms. Jessop at the Cancer Control Society annual convention during the Labor Day weekend. They had discussed this persecution by Big Brother in the guise of saving her son from this evil mother who has failed to protect him! She disobeyed doctor’s orders and found a natural way to cure her son. These forces arrayed against her and insisted he must have the cancer removed surgically and attacked with the standard chemical fare. The cancer is gone, but nobody in authority will accept that because her doctor doesn’t believe that’s possible.

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 30, 2007

(OMNS October 30, 2007) The US Recommended Daily Allowance/Daily Reference Intakes are too low and most should be raised immediately, says an independent panel of physicians, academics and researchers. In a statement this week, the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel said: "Government-sponsored nutrient recommendations, such as the US RDA/DRIs, are not keeping pace with recent progress in nutrition research. While current official recommendations for vitamin A, iron, calcium, and some other nutrients are generally adequate, the public has been asked to consume far too little of many other key nutrients. Inadequate intake, and inadequate standards to judge intake, have resulted in widespread nutrient inadequacy, chronic disease, and an undernourished but overweight population." Citing a large number of physician reports and clinical studies, the IVSRP called for substantial increases in daily intake of the B-vitamins, vitamins C, D and E, and the minerals selenium, zin! c, magnesium and chromium. "Raising the RDA/DRI will save lives and improve health," the Panel said. "Clinical and sub-clinical nutrient deficiencies are among the main causes of our society's greatest healthcare problems. Cancer, cardiovascular disease, mental illness, and other diseases are caused or aggravated by poor nutrient intake. The good news is that scientific evidence shows that adequately high consumption of nutrients helps prevent these diseases."

The European Union is currently deliberating how to limit dosages of vitamins and minerals available in the Community. The move is mandated by the food supplements directive, which came into force in 2004. The directive regulates the commerce of nutrient-dense food supplements but full implementation is still years away, expected to take hold in the year 2010. Temporary permission for hundreds of specific forms of vitamins and minerals used in supplements for decades, for which 'dossiers' were required to be submitted, will run out in 2009. The deliberations on dosage limits are expected to come to a conclusion that same year.

Kyprianou's office has received a large number of letters from concerned consumers, who do not like the prospect of having to switch from vitamin C to lemon juice. The letters have solicited a response.

The Commissioner's 'detailed reply' however does not address specific consumer concerns. It reads like a plea for people to stop bothering the Commission while it does its important work. Well worn phrases like supplements are "intended for supplementing the normal diet" and they should be "safe and provide a wide choice to consumers" are little consolation to those of us who use nutrients at higher than normal doses to keep illness away and support an active and healthy life style.

Both the Commission's 'discussion paper' on dosages and the responses to its call for input from member states and stakeholders - industry, trade and consumers - but not the letters from individual consumers, are linked from that same page.

This episode recalls an earlier reply to consumers available on this site by the previous EU Commissioner, David Byrne, given during the deliberations for passage of the food supplements directive. Byrne similarly assured us that nothing untoward was going to happen - that the new regulations were going to be all for the best, that consumers would have a wide choice and be safe in the knowledge of being 'protected' by the authorities.

If the objective of the European Commission really was to provide "a wide choice" of (safe) supplements, why can't they leave good enough alone and turn their legislative fervor to other, more worthwhile targets? Supplement safety is not problematic, as evidenced by actual statistics. If anyone took their legislative work seriously, they would act according to the maxim: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it".

On the other hand, registered medicines are tightly controlled and patented and have given rise to a multi-mega profitable industry, yet they kill - in the United States alone - over 100.000 people every year. There is no question that they are unsafe. Now here would be a fruitful field of endeavor for our busy European legislators.

Why fuss over the dosages of nutrients that haven't killed anyone in decades, when the very industry that is supposed to prevent and treat illness is so far off the track? All the Commissioner has to say is that food supplements "are intended for supplementing the normal diet rather than having therapeutic effects". So it's ok for medicines to kill, but supplements better not have any curative effects - that would impinge negatively on the monopoly of medicines.

Could it be that the medical/pharmaceutical industry has regulators and legislators firmly in its pocket? Is the very industry that has become a leading cause of injury and death directing legislators' attention towards the supposed dangers of those nasty nutrients, to hide the very real skeletons in its own closets?

CommonDreams News Center
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OCTOBER 29, 2007

WASHINGTON, DC - October 29 - An international coalition of consumer organizations announced the formation of the Global “Dump Soda” Campaign to call attention to the marketing of sugary soft drinks and other high calorie beverages linked to the world-wide childhood obesity crisis.

The campaign, aimed at transnational giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo, is calling on government officials to require the companies to:

1. Cease all marketing of sugar-laden beverages to children under 16, including print and broadcast advertising, product placement, the Internet, mobile phones, athletic event sponsorship, signage, packaging promotions, merchandising, and other means.

Reuters
September 25, 2007
By Julie Steenhuysen

CHICAGO (Reuters) - A diet rich in fish and other sources of omega-3 fatty acids helped cut the risk that children with a family history of diabetes would develop the disease, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday.

"It is a relatively large effect," said Jill Norris, whose study appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"It is exciting because it suggests we might be able to develop nutritional interventions to prevent diabetes."

Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes, is the most common form of diabetes in children. It occurs when the immune system goes haywire and starts attacking insulin-producing cells in the pancreas.

No one knows exactly what triggers this process, but heredity and environmental factors such as diet are thought to play a role.

From the Irish Association of Health Stores

PUBLIC VIEW FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE AS REASON TO VOTE ‘NO’ IN REFERENDUM ON EU TREATY

14 Sep 2007 - At a public meeting about the Food Supplements Directive held in Dublin on Wednesday and attended by over 100 people, serious concern was expressed regarding the control being exerted over the lives of Irish citizens by the EU. Politicians, consumers and nutritional therapists were among those attending.

MEP Kathy Sinnott, who addressed the meeting, commented that the EU “is about economics” and stated that experts attached to EU working groups are frequently sourced from industry, resulting in victory for vested interests.

Citing her own personal experience of restoring the health of her son, Jamie, by the use of supplements, Ms Sinnott expressed the view that the impact of the Food Supplements Directive could lead to a monopoly by the pharmaceutical industry. She commented, “Commissioner David Byrne, whose ‘baby’ the FSD was, pushed ahead with this directive at a time when government policy was to entice the burgeoning pharmaceutical industry into Ireland, since both agriculture and tourism were on the wane.”

Elaborating on the need for supplementation of high levels of many nutrients nowadays, President of the Irish Association of Nutritional Therapists Anne Darcy explained that depleted nutrient levels in the soil have resulted in our food being seriously compromised nutritionally.

While it is common veterinary practice to supplement the diets of livestock with nutrients such as selenium and cobalt, Ms Darcy commented: “It is quite shocking that humans are going to be denied access to the levels of nutrients necessary to compensate for the nutritional inadequacy in common foodstuffs under this directive.” She added “There has to be something wrong with a system that acknowledges the problem of nutritional deficit in our foods and on the one hand endorses supplementation for animals, while on the other hand bans citizens from being able to meaningfully supplement their own diets.”

Commenting on our over-burdened health service, Ms Darcy said: "If we were a nation of physically and mentally healthy people, with empty doctors’ surgeries and hospitals, then there would be no need to have health food stores where people come searching for the way to return normal function in their lives.”

A consumer campaign is currently being run throughout the country, petitioning both the Irish government and the European Commission to ensure continued access to the higher level supplements that have been available for 40 years in this country, without any record of serious side effects. Over the past six weeks, more than 100,000 people have signed the petition.

Jill Bell, President of the Irish Association of Health Stores summed up the feelings of those present at the meeting: “Outrage about the Food Supplements Directive has reached such a pitch now that it looks likely that the 2.5% of the population who have signed the petition will be unwilling to give a ‘yes’ vote in the referendum to be run on the EU Treaty.” She added “The Food Supplements Directive seems to have stirred a hornet’s nest in relation to people’s feelings about the EU. People are becoming angry about the degree to which Brussels is interfering with our basic freedoms.”

Washington Post Foreign Service
By Craig Timberg
July 23, 2007

NKANGE, Botswana -- Doctors noticed two troubling things about the limp, sunken-eyed children who flooded pediatric wards across Botswana during the rainy season in early 2006: They were dying from diarrhea, a malady that is rarely fatal here. And few of their mothers were breast-feeding, a practice once all but universal.

After the outbreak was over and at least 532 children had died -- 20 times the usual toll for diarrhea -- a team of U.S. investigators solved the terrible riddle.

NewsTarget.com
July 17, 2007
by Mike Adams

Big Pharma has successfully completed its takeover of veterinary medicine in the United States and other first-world nations. Knowing that massive profits could be generated through the bodies of pets, drug companies have spent two decades pursuing an aggressive campaign of rewriting vet school curricula, influencing veterinarians and brainwashing pet owners into thinking their dogs, cats and horses need drugs in order to be healthy. It was an easy sell: Most consumers already demonstrate a cult-like belief in pharmaceutical medicine thanks to a barrage of direct-to-consumer advertising funded by deep-pocketed drug companies, and it was only a minor shift to get them to believe animals need synthetic chemicals in their bodies, too.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
June 27, 2007

The FDA, emboldened by its transformation into a drug company, has embarked upon an anti-American plan of interfering with business and intentionally eliminating various dietary supplement companies from the market. The FDA announcement came on Friday, June 22, 2007 under the guise of a final rule for dietary supplement good manufacturing practices (CGMPs). Within this 800 page rule the FDA states, “We find that this final rule will have a significant economic impact on a substantial number of small entities.... Establishments with above average costs, and even establishments with average costs, could be hard pressed to continue to operate. Some of these may decide it is too costly and either change product lines or go out of business.... 140 very small [less than 20 employees] and 32 small dietary supplement manufacturers [less than 500 employees] will be at risk of going out of business.... costs per establishment are proportionally higher for very small than for large establishments....The regulatory costs of this final rule will also discourage new small businesses from entering the industry.”

The Independent
June 24, 2007
By Roger Dobson

Thousands of people who take prescription medicines for everyday conditions are gaining large amounts of weight as an unexpected side effect, scientists have warned.

Researchers, who found that some patients were putting on up to 22lbs in a year, say that the drugs may even be contributing to the nation's rocketing obesity epidemic.

All of the patients they studied, on medication for conditions as diverse as diabetes, epilepsy, depression, high blood pressure and schizophrenia, showed evidence of weight increase.

"Given the common and long-term use of many of these drugs," said the researchers, "it is likely that they play a significant contributory role in the increasing prevalence of obesity."

A team from Glasgow University and Glasgow Royal Infirmary reviewed and analysed data on drug use by more than 25,000 people to quantify the effects of prescription drugs.

NewsWithViews.com
Shane Ellison M. Sc.
The People's Chemist
June 20, 2007

My wife recently consumed her body weight in beef jerky. What was supposed to be light, healthy snacking turned into an all-out eating binge. Her ravenous consumption of the stuff made me think it must be an especially good brand. I was in a hurry when I bought it at my local health food store - and that’s where I messed up big time. Ignoring the label, I was caught by the number one grocery store fat trap - which was the cause of my wife’s abnormal appetite.

U.S. News and World Report
By Deborah Kotz
June 8, 2007

A single nutrient that keeps bones strong, wards off cancer, and protects against tuberculosis, diabetes, colds, and the flu. Sound too good to be true? There's more: It's free. But you're almost certainly not getting enough.

NewsTarget.com
June 8 2007
by Mike Adams

The Food and Drug Administration has been gleefully warning us about the dangers of China-made food and personal care products recently. Why gleefully? Because announcing the discovery of toxic chemicals in products made by other countries (especially a Communist country) allows the FDA to appear as if it's protecting the public without having to tell the truth about the toxic chemicals found in American food and personal care products. Talking about the deadly chemicals and poisons used by American food and personal care product manufacturers is, of course, an activity to be avoided at all costs. It's much easier to point the finger of blame at someone else and imply that U.S. manufacturers of such products would never poison their customers.

Globe and Mail
June 8, 2007
By Martin Mittelstaedt

Recommendation comes on heels of U.S. study suggesting supplement slashes risk of disease by as much as 60 per cent

TORONTO — The Canadian Cancer Society plans to announce Friday that all adults should start taking vitamin D, coinciding with the release of a groundbreaking U.S. study indicating the supplement cuts the risk of cancer by an astounding 60 per cent.

The move is believed to be the first time a major public-health organization has endorsed daily use of the sunshine vitamin as a cancer-prevention therapy for an entire population.

It follows a flurry of research suggesting the low-cost vitamin confers a high degree of protection against a wide variety of cancers. There are also striking study results suggesting that people who develop the disease often have low blood levels of vitamin D.

Nutra usa
ingredients.com
By Philippa Jones
June 1, 2007

Agribusiness Cargill has teamed up with Coca-Cola to market a new calorie-free natural sweetener made from the South American herb Stevia.

A spokeswoman said she could confirm reports about the existence of the sweetener, but was unable to give further details.

According to reports in the Wall Street Journal, Coca-Cola has filed 24 patent applications for the product, which has been tentatively named Rebiana, and plans to use the sweetener in certain of its beverages.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 28, 2007
wholenutritionist@earthlink.net
www.wholesoystory.com

VEGAN PARENTS JAILED FOR BABY'S DEATH
SOY EXPERT CALLS FOR SOY MILK MANUFACTURERS TO PROPERLY WARN PARENTS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF SOY MILK FOR BABIES

The murder conviction this week of vegan parents whose six-week old baby died of starvation underscores the dangers to infants of vegan ideology. To supplement the mother's inadequate supply of breastmilk, the parents had fed their son soy milk and apple juice. The baby was only 3 ½ pounds when it died of starvation in April 2004.

by PhysOrg.com
May 24, 2007

It's research that may have you thinking twice before upgrading to the large size at your favorite fast food joint. Saint Louis University research presented this week in Washington, D.C., shows the dangers of high-fat food combined with high fructose corn syrup and a sedentary lifestyle – in other words, what may be becoming commonplace among Americans.

Brent Tetri, M.D., associate professor of internal medicine at Saint Louis University Liver Center, and colleagues studied the effects of a diet that was 40 percent fat and replete with high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener common in soda and some fruit juices. The research is being presented at the Digestive Diseases Week meeting.

NBC11.com
May 21, 2007

Lab Studies Show Lower Inflammation

Cells in the bladder are less likely to become inflamed when they're also exposed to components of green tea, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh say.

In a paper presented at an American Urological Association conference, Dr. Michael B. Chancellor said that lab tests show that catechins -- an anti-oxidant found in green tea -- prevented the cells from becoming irritated when exposed to hydrogren peroxide, which damages or kills cells.

PhysOrg.com
May 20, 2007

Herbal agents could be used to treat inflammatory bladder diseases, according to a preliminary study that looked at the ability of green tea to protect bladder cells from inflammation. The University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine study, being presented at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association (AUA) in Anaheim, Calif., found that components of green tea protected bladder cells from damage in culture. The study is Abstract 299 in the AUA proceedings.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
May 16, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Senators were taken off guard by the public outrage over the passing of bill S.1082 with language that can be used to seriously harass dietary supplements by enabling the FDA to apply drug-related risk analysis to the safety of food and food ingredients (and thus dietary supplements). Senators are also struggling to defend the fact they enabled the creation of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, having been conned into believing this foundation was for the purpose of improved safety when in fact its mission is to assist the FDA to develop the next generation of drugs with drastically reduced safety or effectiveness testing. These issues are fully explained in Part 1 of this article, if you would like to know the details in greater depth.

PHYSORG.com
May 15, 2007

Individuals who have higher dietary intake of foods with omega-3 fatty acids and higher fish consumption have a reduced risk of advanced age-related macular degeneration, while those with higher serum levels of vitamin D may have a reduced risk of the early stages of the disease, according to two reports in the May issue of Archives of Ophthalmology.

NewsWithViews.com
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
May 15, 2007

Your right to have free access to safe and highly effective dietary supplements is under an intense multi-pronged FDA attack. On May 14, 2007 the Supreme Court sided with the FDA by deciding not to hear the case of Nutraceutical v FDA, letting stand a federal appeals court ruling that permits the FDA to use drug-related risk/benefit analysis to determine if a nutrient is safe. This is the exact same point the FDA is trying to get put into law through Senate bill S.1082 and HR.1561, which consumers have flooded the Senate on over the past few weeks. And it is the same point the FDA is seeking to help implement on an international basis through Codex. The Supreme Court denial to hear this case is a dramatic turn of events that means there is very little time left to act to preserve free access to dietary supplements. The first part of this article explains this issue in depth so that Americans can understand what is taking place. The second part explains the steps Americans need to take to preserve their health freedom.

rense.com
Jeff Rense
May 10, 2007

Note - This is likely the biggest non-surprise 'study result' of the last 50 years. The vile, despicable commercial food industry has been POISONING hundreds of millions of children and destroying the lives of many of them for decades...with total, leering impunity. There has never been any question that these chemicals and 'additives' approved as 'safe' by the hideously corrupt Monsanto/Big Pharma/Factory Farming/AMA-dominated FDA - and the FSA in the UK - are toxic, life-altering, life-destroying POISONS.

BBC News
May 13, 2007

A dose of vitamin D may help ward off tuberculosis, research suggests.

A study of 131 people found the vitamin helped to boost the ability of the body to inhibit the growth of bacteria that causes the respiratory disease.

Researchers from Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Imperial College said it could be used to target at-risk patients or added to drinks.

The study appeared in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Vitamin D was originally used to treat TB in sanatoriums before antibiotics came in to use.

By Katy Byron
CNN
May 2, 2007

• Contaminated feed found in 38 Indiana chicken farms; more farms likely affected
• Feed contains recalled pet food with tainted wheat gluten
• No human illnesses have been reported related to tainted poultry feed
• Reports of 4,150 dog and cat deaths related to pet food recall

NEW YORK (CNN) -- More farms across the United States will likely be affected by animal feed tainted with recalled pet food, federal health officials said Tuesday, after an investigation of Indiana chicken farms found the contaminated feed in more than three dozen facilities that raise poultry for human consumption.

The Food and Drug Administration said it expects farms in other states will report they received the tainted pet food and predicted that the number of plants that received contaminated feed could reach into the hundreds.

By Dr. James Howenstine, MD.
May 1, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

When you look below the surface at the specialty of psychiatry what you uncover is so ludicrous it is difficult to believe that it is really true. Prominent psychiatrists from all over the world gather annually for a meeting at which new diseases are invented. There are no objective findings that establish the diagnosis of these diseases. These new diseases are included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Diseases. Potential new diseases are discussed at these meetings and new diseases are voted in or out by a show of hands.[1] Among the new diseases are social anxiety disorder (everyone who is uncomfortable in a social setting has this disease) and mathematics disease (anyone who has struggled over a math problem has this disease). Gender identity disorder, passive-aggressive disorder, disorder of written expression and sexual disorder are other examples of invented diseases that will follow the individuals tagged with these ridiculous diagnoses the remainder of their lives. Naturally all these phony diseases have a psychoactive drug which supposedly ameliorates this disease.

physorg.com
April 27, 2007

(AP) -- Several hundred of the 6,000 hogs that may have eaten contaminated pet food are believed to have entered the food supply for humans, the government said Thursday. The potential risk to human health was said to be very low.

The government told the three states involved it would not allow meat from any of the hogs that ate the feed to enter the food supply.

No more than 345 hogs from farms in California, New York and South Carolina are involved, according to the Agriculture Department. It appears the large majority of the hogs that may have been exposed are still on the farms where they are being raised, spokeswoman Nicol Andrews said.

PhysOrg.com
April 20, 2007

Dr. Stephen Hsu, a researcher in the School of Dentistry, studied an animal model for type I diabetes and primary Sjogren's Syndrome, which damages the glands that produce tears and saliva and found significantly less salivary gland damage in a group treated with green tea extract, suggesting a reduction of the Sjogren's symptom commonly referred to as dry mouth. Credit: Medical College of Georgia

Green tea may help protect against autoimmune disease, Medical College of Georgia researchers say.

Researchers studied an animal model for type I diabetes and primary Sjogren's Syndrome, which damages the glands that produce tears and saliva.

Sciencedaily
April 18, 2007

Science Daily — It may seem improbable, but one of the best allies against sunburn and skin cancer could be growing in your own back yard.

Researchers at the Ohio State University Medical Center say a topical compound made of black raspberries significantly slows the growth of squamous cell carcinomas of the skin in mice exposed to ultraviolet B (UVB) radiation, the most dangerous light in the solar spectrum.

“In terms of shutting down the inflammatory response, we’ve never seen anything like it,” says Dr. Anne VanBuskirk, an assistant professor of surgery in Ohio State’s College of Medicine and senior author of the study, presented today at the annual meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research.

BBC NEWS:
April 17, 2007

An Indian herbal remedy could one day be used to help fight pancreatic cancer, scientists hope.
A team at the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute found extracts of triphala slowed the growth of human pancreatic tumours grafted onto mice.

The findings, presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, offer hope that one day a treatment might be developed.

But experts have warned the research is still at a very early stage.

Triphala triggered the cancerous cells to die off and significantly reduced the size of the tumours
Professor Sanjay K Srivastava

NBC11.com
April 9, 2007

Forskolin Flushes Out Hidden Infections

A study at Duke University says that a common herbal extract could greatly reduce urinary tract infections and boost antibiotics' power against the bacteria that cause them.

Encyclopedia: What Are Bladder Infections?

Researchers studying mice found that forskolin, an exract from the Indian coleus plant, kills bacteria that can hide in the bladder's lining, leading to reinfections.

The researchers said in a news release that about 90 percent of urinary tract infections in the bladder are caused by E. coli. Women are four times as likely to have them.

"After customary antibiotic treatment, the vast majority of the bacteria are either killed by the antibiotics or eliminated during urination," Abraham said. "However, there are small numbers of bacteria that survive antibiotic treatment because they sneak into the lining of the bladder, waiting for the opportunity, after antibiotic treatment, to come out and start multiplying again," said author Soman Abraham.

Physorg.com

Medicine & Health

March 28, 2007

Soldiers exposed to the deafening din of battle have little defense against hearing loss, and are often reluctant to wear protective gear like ear plugs that could make them less able to react to danger. But what if a nutritious daily "candy bar" could prevent much of that potential damage to their hearing?

In a new study in animals, University of Michigan researchers report that a combination of high doses of vitamins A, C, and E and magnesium, taken one hour before noise exposure and continued as a once-daily treatment for five days, was very effective at preventing permanent noise-induced hearing loss. The animals had prolonged exposure to sounds as loud as a jet engine at take-off at close range.

Clinical trials of a hearing-protection tablet or snack bar for people could begin soon, and if successful such a product could be available in as little as two years, says Josef M. Miller, Ph.D., the senior author of the study, which is published online in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine. Miller is a professor in the Department of Otolaryngology at the U-M Medical School, and former director of the U-M Health System’s Kresge Hearing Research Institute, where the study was performed.

Story from BBC NEWS:
March 27, 2007

Scientists have produced evidence to suggest that Europe was right to ban the beef industry from using growth promoters to increase yield.

A US study has linked use of the chemicals to damage to human sperm.

The University of Rochester found men whose mothers ate a lot of beef during pregnancy had lower sperm counts.

The Human Reproduction study found they were three times more likely to have a sperm count so low they could be classified as sub-fertile.

March 16, 2007

SHANGHAI: A panel of medical and nutritional professionals has rebuked an essay published in the February 28 issue of the JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association), which claimed that taking vitamins increases the risk of death.

Gathered at a recent symposium on vitamin C, the experts agreed that a balanced intake of vitamins and minerals is actually beneficial, not harmful, to one's well-being.

The group said that the study by Serbian doctor Goran Bjelakovicon was "biased and selective".

Dr Hong Zhaoyi from Shanghai's Xinhua Hospital said that many of the test subjects were suffering from serious diseases, such as cancer and vascular disease, which invalidated the findings.

www.telegraph.co.uk
March 19, 2007

With 40,000 British children now being prescribed drugs to counter hyperactivity, the parents of a son with ADHD tell Victoria Lambert how diet can make a big difference

When 36-year-old lecturer Karen Gray was told that her son Jac, then six, was "hyperactive", she wasn't terribly surprised.

She and her husband Martin, 42, a firefighter, became aware that Jac was different from his younger brother Thomas early on.

"He was always a handful," says Karen. "He was on the go, into everything, but it was more than just boyish energy."

Jac was having trouble concentrating and he couldn't sit still. School holidays were a nightmare.

6abc action news
A Special HealthCheck Report
by Anita Brikman and Dawn Heefner, HealthCheck Producer

The growing problem of obesity in this country has led some experts to take a closer look at diet soft drinks. It turns out they may not be as helpful to weight loss as some people might think.

Ever since Tab hit the market in the swingin' 60s, diet soda has become an American mainstay.

In the era when thin-became-in thanks to mini-skirts - and the rail-thin model Twiggy - diet soda's appeal was instant...

Save hundreds of calories a day, and stay skinny - right?

Omega News
March 9, 2007
By Dr. Gerald Goldberg

As concerns the pineal, the role of calcium in general and the role of crystals within the pineal gland reveal some interesting points. As in radio and other transmitters, crystals act to convert certain discrete frequencies into electrical signals. Before we had all of the electro-pollution, animals could simply orient themselves to the earths electromagnetic signature. Additionally animals could store into memory at a subconscious level the discrete signatures of subtle variations in electromagnetic signalling from various regions. This would explain the highly specific nature of migratory behaviour seen in certain animals. What has not been appreciated is the ability which has probably evolved over time to see, complex patterns that are generated from the earth's electromagnetic signature.

By Julia Havey
commonvoice.com
March 7, 2007

Oopsy. I should have said "sparkling beverages"; not soft drinks! My bad!

The case against swigging soda just got stronger. A large systematic review reveals clear associations between consumption of nondiet soft drinks and increased calorie intake and body weight.

Full-calorie soft drinks are also linked with reduced intake of milk and fruit and increased risk of type 2 diabetes. "Recommendations to reduce population soft drink consumption are strongly supported by the available science," concludes the review of 88 studies.

Los Angeles Times
By Jerry Hirsch
March 8, 2007

The major milk supplier is phasing out use of a synthetic compound that boosts production.

Under pressure from supermarket chains and their customers, California cows are going drug-free.

The giant Central Valley dairy co-op that produces 4 of every 10 glasses of milk drunk by Californians is phasing out the use of a synthetic bovine growth hormone that increases how much milk cows produce.

Despite evidence that the rBST hormone doesn't harm humans, California Dairies Inc. said its biggest customers such as Vons and Safeway didn't want it in the cows. The co-op also supplies brands such as Foster Farms, Knudsen Farms and Producers Dairy.

By Ian Sinclair
www.vaccinationdebate.com
March 8, 2007

As parents become aware of the dangers and inefficacy of childhood vaccines, they will, for obvious reasons, seek an alternative approach to safeguard their children's health.

Many parents choose a practice known as "Homeopathic Prophylaxis" sometimes referred to as homeopathic vaccination. Other parents employ vitamin and mineral supplements in the belief that they will strengthen their child's immune system, while others prefer their children to contract the childhood infections in the belief that it will give them natural life-long immunity. There are many parents who are just plain uncertain or confused as to what alternatives to embrace and therefore live in a constant state of fear and anxiety over their children's health.

Alliance for Natural Health
By the ANH team
5 March 2007

Last week we saw headlines around the world that told people that 'vitamins kill'. ANH provides insight into how, it would appear, the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) resorted to massaging previous studies to stop people taking vitamins.

On 28th February we saw headlines around the world once again condemning vitamin supplements. The stimulus? A Serbian doctor, Goran Bjelakovic, who was involved in an earlier canning job on vitamins – in 2004 on vitamin supplements for reducing risk of gastrointestinal cancers (Lancet 2004; 364: 1219–28) – somehow found himself doing it all over again. This time he published in the US-based Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). On both occasions, his papers triggered headlines around the world which appeared to have just one purpose: getting people to stop taking vitamin supplements.

NewsTarget.com
February 28 2007
by Mike Adams

The latest round in conventional medicine's ongoing attempts to discredit (and ultimately outlaw) nutritional supplements is found in a highly questionable study published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, which claims that vitamins actually increase the risk of death.

The study claims to have analyzed a collection of previous studies on Vitamin A, beta carotene, Vitamin C, Vitamin E and selenium, concluding that most of the nutrients are actually dangerous to human health. Of course, this is research from conventional medicine – an industry that promotes patented chemicals as perfectly safe, even though FDA-approved pharmaceuticals are killing 100,000 Americans each year. (Imagine the uproar if vitamins killed even a fraction of that number…)

Antioxidants are part of many plants and a myriad of foods we eat every day. Their health promoting effects have been well documented. Antioxidants work by donating an electron to a molecule that has been compromised by oxidation, bringing it back into a state of proper function. Having been "used up" in this way, the antioxidant mulecule is then either re-charged by accepting an electron from another type of antioxidant or it is re-cycled into building material such as - in the case of vitamin C - collagen for purposes of tissue repair.

Veggies - Image: HealthyNJ

According to this Wikipedia entry,

"Antioxidants are widely used as ingredients in dietary supplements, which are used in the hope of maintaining health and preventing diseases such as cancer and coronary heart disease. Although some studies have suggested antioxidant supplements have health benefits, other large clinical trials did not detect any benefit for the formulations tested, and excess supplementation may even be harmful."

Vitamins 'could shorten lifespan' and Antioxidants Don't Mean Longer Life are the titles of some typical articles discussing the findings of a recent Cochrane review of clinical trials involving beta carotene, vitamin A and vitamin E. The results - a slight increase in mortality in those taking the pills - seem to contradict experience and good sense. They are opposed to the results of a large number of epidemiological studies, which have found positive effects of higher levels of intake of the natural antioxidants in fruits and vegetables.

The doubt being thrown on the healthful properties of antioxidants, says Beldeu Singh, is due to the fact that many studies designed to clinically test the effects of antioxidants do not take into account nutrient synergy - they are designed around the use of only one single substance. But what's even more important - they are not even using the real thing! Most pharmaceutical studies rely on synthetic versions or artificial analogs of these natural biomolecules. Beldeu Singh, a Malaysian researcher and writer, adds:

"We know that food and dietary sources contain antioxidants. Minerals and antioxidants are part of our nutritional intake and epidemiological studies show that populations with high antioxidant intake from dietary sources are at a lower risk to diseases such as cancers, hypertension cardiovascular disease, stroke etc more so in contrast with malnourished people.

We also know the role of antioxidants in our biochemistry is to scavenge free radicals or convert hydrogen peroxide formed during cell metabolism into water and oxygen as soon as it is formed and that ability is part of health.

Yet studies try to show that antioxidants are "harmful". If so, do not take fruits and vegetables for they are rich sources of natural antioxidants! Go on a diet that is low or devoid of antioxidants...is that what these scientists want you to believe? Utter rubbish. But science does not spew such rubbish, only the conclusions of some scientists.

If your diet is low in natural antioxidants, free radicals begin to be in excess of your antioxidant ability to biochemically neutralize them (scavenge) and there will be oxidative damage and free radical chain reactions that will damage molecules and cell membranes and quickly lead to the development of disease states as well as impair the function of your immune system."

The difference seems to be that, contrary to the natural variety, the synthetic analogs cannot be recycled and re-used by the organism, once they have donated their electron. When they are "spent", they tend to turn into harmful metabolic byproducts that increase, rather than decreasing, the total load of oxidative stress on the organism. That may, according to Beldeu Singh, explain the apparently contradictory results.

There is another 'confounding' factor: The ease with which a meta analysis - a study that examines only the results of previous studies and re-interprets them - can be manipulated to say almost anything and the contrary of it. Meta analyses have previously been used by pharmaceutical interests to show how wonderful their products are, or how bad the (competing) non-patentable natural substances are.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
February 27, 2007

(OMNS, Feb 27, 2007) Over a twenty-three year period, vitamins have been connected with the deaths of a total of ten people in the United States. Poison control statistics confirm that more Americans die each year from eating soap than from taking vitamins.

Where are the bodies?
A 23-year review of US poison control center annual reports (1) tells a remarkable and largely ignored story: vitamins are extraordinarily safe.

Annual deaths alleged from vitamins:

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 23, 2007

(OMNS Feb 23, 2007) There was not even one death caused by vitamins in 2005, according to the most recent statistics available from the US National Poisoning and Exposure Database. The 129-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers published in the journal Clinical Toxicology (1) shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.

The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service says in their Jan 30, 2007 letter:

VITAMINS FIGHT DISEASE: Nutrients Effective but Overlooked

Vitamin supplementation fights disease. Although medical research has repeatedly shown this, such has not always been the case in the news media. Recently, however, the popular press is picking up more of the good news: Nutritional therapy is cheaper, safer, and often more effective than pharmaceutical drugs.

NIACIN FIGHTS CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE

The New York Times just reported (1) that inexpensive vitamin B-3, niacin, "can increase HDL as much as 35 percent when taken in high doses, usually about 2,000 milligrams per day. It also lowers LDL . . . (and) triglycerides as much as 50 percent." The Times quoted Steven E. Nissen, M.D., president of the American College of Cardiology, as saying: "Niacin is really it. Nothing else available is that effective."

Niacin was first used to successfully lower serum cholesterol in 1955. (2) Since then, placebo-controlled studies have confirmed that niacin prevents second heart attacks, and niacin also reduced strokes. One study showed that after 15 years, men taking niacin had an 11 percent lower death rate. Although a warm "flush" is a common side effect of niacin, the vitamin is safer than any drug.

VITAMIN D PREVENTS MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS, CANCER

The Associated Press reports (3) that "An abundance of vitamin D seems to help prevent multiple sclerosis, according to a study in more than 7 million people that offers some of the strongest evidence yet of the power of the 'sunshine vitamin' against MS."

Multiple sclerosis is known to be more common among those persons living in northern latitudes. But, says Harvard School of Public Health's Dr. Alberto Ascherio, "This is the first large prospective study where blood levels are measured . . . (providing) much stronger evidence." (4,5)

AP adds that "Other studies have linked high levels of vitamin D in the blood to lower risks of a variety of cancers."

VITAMIN E EXTENDS LIFESPAN

People who have vitamin E in their bodies live longer, according to a 19-year study of 29,092 men. National Cancer Institute researchers concluded that "Higher circulating concentrations of alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E) within the normal range are associated with significantly lower total and cause-specific mortality in older male smokers." (6) Vitamin E was found to reduce death from all causes, including cancer and cardiovascular disease.

VITAMIN C PREVENTS STOMACH CANCER

"(O)ne of the largest prospective analyses of the association of plasma and dietary vitamin C levels with gastric cancer risk ever performed on Western European populations" (7) indicates that having more vitamin C in your blood plasma reduces your risk of stomach cancer.

VITAMIN SAFETY

And best of all, vitamins are safe. There is not even one death per year from vitamin supplementation. American Journal of Emergency Medicine, Vol. 22, No. 5, September 2004 (PDF)

Nutritional Medicine is also known as Orthomolecular Medicine

Linus Pauling defined orthomolecular medicine as "the treatment of disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment, especially the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human body." Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Bradford Weeks, M.D.
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.

Andrew W. Saul, Editor and contact person. email: drsaul@doctoryourself.com .

References:

1. Mason M. An old cholesterol remedy is new again. NY Times, January 23, 2007. (login required)

2. Altschul R, Hoffer A & Stephen JD: Influence of nicotinic acid on serum cholesterol in man. Arch Biochem Biophys 54:558-559, 1955.

3. 'Sunshine vitamin' protects against MS: Huge study suggests vitamin D reduces risk of debilitating disease. The Associated Press, Dec 19, 2006.

4. Munger KL, Levin LI, Hollis BW, Howard NS, Ascherio A. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels and risk of multiple sclerosis. JAMA. 2006 Dec 20;296(23):2832-8.

5. Munger KL, Zhang SM, O'Reilly E, Hernan MA, Olek MJ, Willett WC, Ascherio A. Vitamin D intake and incidence of multiple sclerosis. Neurology. 2004 Jan 13;62(1):60-5.

6. Wright ME, Lawson KA, Weinstein SJ, Pietinen P, Taylor PR, Virtamo J, Albanes D. Higher baseline serum concentrations of vitamin E are associated with lower total and cause-specific mortality in the Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene Cancer Prevention Study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2006 Nov;84(5):1200-7.

7. Jenab M, Riboli E, Ferrari P, et al. Plasma and dietary vitamin C levels and risk of gastric cancer in the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC-EURGAST). Carcinogenesis. 2006 Nov;27(11):2250-7.

--------------------------------------

Read any previous OMNS release at:
http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

To subscribe to the orthomolecular email news service at no charge:
http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

By: Christopher Barr
Naturally Speaking
January 29, 2007

FOR SALE: CBS Evening News?

Remember the forged documents reported as “news” by Dan Rather at CBS Evening News just prior to the last Presidential election? Rather was out the door sometime thereafter.

The names and faces may have changed but the making up the news as they go remains the same at CBS Evening News.

Several attack pieces on dietary supplements were launched in the guise of “news” during the course of last week’s CBS Evening News broadcasts.

January 19, 2007
By Alex Pulaski
The Oregonian

Milk - The chain joins a trend in the Northwest to stop using the disputed growth hormone

Milk suppliers to Safeway's Northwest processing plants have stopped using an artificial growth hormone under fire by some consumer groups, the grocery chain said Thursday.

NATURALLY Speaking
By Christopher C. Barr
January 22, 2007

New laws for old?

Laws banning trans fats are becoming all the rage – and rage is coming from both those for and against such laws.

A New York City ban passed last month doesn’t actually take effect for quite some time and even then, only in limited steps. Interest about similar legislation has spread in big cities across the nation from Chicago to Los Angeles. Possibilities about such a law even came home to roost in discussions of the Arkansas legislature last week.

NewsTarget.com
January 4 2007
by Mike Adams

I keep hearing stories of how people are changing their diet and amazing their doctors in terms of the positive change they've been able to make. One person I spoke with had been given a prescription for a high cholesterol drug by his doctor, and was told that changing his diet alone could only lower his cholesterol 10 points. He was told he would need to be on statin drugs for the rest of his life. Refusing to believe that information, he did not fill the prescription and instead started altering his diet, removing animal products, cheese and fried foods, and boosting his consumption of blueberries and other nutrient-dense superfoods.

Pete Shanks
www.biopoliticaltimes.org
January 15, 2007

Who is pushing to legalize cloned meat? Follow the money -- and there are strong connections to human genetic engineering.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA)'s draft risk assessment leans heavily on the work of animal-cloning companies Cyagra and ViaGen. Over a quarter of the 700-page draft is a data dump from those two -- a fact that the New York Times failed to mention, even when quoting the president of ViaGen saying "I think that this draft is going to provide the industry the comfort it needs."

Dr. Betty Martini
Mission Possible World Health International
January 5, 2007

This article on Aspartame in your diet says that the 1976 Grolier Encyclopedia states cancer cannot live with phenylalanine. Aspartame is 50% phenylalanine.

Are you sick and don't know it?
There are 92 documented symptoms of ASPARTAME, from coma to death. The majority of them are all neurological, because the ASPARTAME destroys the nervous system. ASPARTAME Disease is partially the cause to what is behind some of the mystery of the Dessert Storm health problems some of the soldiers are experiencing. The burning tongue and other problems discussed in over 60 cases can be directly related to the consumption of an ASPARTAME product. Several thousand pallets of diet pop were shipped to the Dessert Storm troops. (Heat can liberate the methanol from the ASPARTAME at 86 degrees F). Diet pop sat in the 120 degree F. Arabian sun for weeks at a time on pallets. The service men and women drank this diet pop all day long. All of their symptoms are identical to ASPARTAME poisoning.

Part 2
By Byron J. Richards, CCN
December 18, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

In the middle of the night the House passed a bill at the conclusion of the lame duck session known as Adverse Event Reporting legislation for dietary supplements (S.3546). The bill was pushed through the Senate and the House by Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), also known as the Hatch-et-man. Many Congressional leaders were hoodwinked by Hatch to back the bill, as he passed around letters of various trade organizations to imply the bill had wide support amongst stakeholders (it does not). Others were most likely bribed with threats to hold other legislation hostage in the Senate unless Hatch-et-man’s bill was passed in the House.

BBC NEWS:
December 20, 2006

Higher levels of vitamin D in the blood may lower the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), research suggests.

Previous studies have suggested vitamin D may have a protective effect - but the evidence has been inconclusive.

A Harvard School of Public Health team measured levels of the vitamin in large numbers of US military personnel.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found the risk of MS fell as blood levels of the vitamin rose.

Christopher Barr
Naturally Speaking
December 18, 2006

Mourning freedom's early morning loss

Does this nation have a war on drugs or are drugs at war with this nation? This question concluded last week’s column. The answer was clearly given by Congressional cowards while most all of America slept after 3 a.m. in the early morning hours of 12/09/06.

Late in the evening of the day that last week’s column was written there was a bill passed stealthily by the United States Senate without a vote being taken. This was accomplished through a parliamentary maneuver that was also a paramilitary maneuver for the war of drugs against this nation.

By Tom Blackwell
canada.com
National Post
December 15, 2006

In a discovery that has stunned even those behind it, scientists at a Toronto hospital say they have proof the body's nervous system helps trigger diabetes, opening the door to a potential near-cure of the disease that affects millions of Canadians.

Diabetic mice became healthy virtually overnight after researchers injected a substance to counteract the effect of malfunctioning pain neurons in the pancreas.

"I couldn't believe it," said Dr. Michael Salter, a pain expert at the Hospital for Sick Children and one of the scientists. "Mice with diabetes suddenly didn't have diabetes any more."

By Jim R. Schwiesow
December 12, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

“Well I woke up this mornin’, looked outdoors I can tell my milk cow, I can tell by the way she lows If you see my milk cow, please drive her on home ’cause I ain’t had no milk and butter since that cows been gone” --Mark Knoffler – “Milk Cow Blues”

If I were to tell you that over the course of the last sixty years there were 233,034 serious cases of bacterially caused diseases and nine deaths attributed to the consumption of “certified safe” pasteurized milk, would you believe it? Well, you had better because that is a verifiable truth. I imagine this will wipe that milk mustache off of the face of more than a few.

NewsTarget.com
December 6 2006
by Jerome Douglas

(NewsTarget) New research states that at least 59 of the nation's 250 children's hospitals have fast-food restaurants as part of their cafeteria operations. According to Dr. Hannah Sahud -- the lead researcher behind the new study -- that is a troubling phenomenon, particularly given rising obesity rates.

PrimeNewswire, Inc.
Public Affairs Newsline
Source: Dr. Rath Education Services USA, BV

Specific Combination of Lysine, Proline, Arginine, Ascorbic Acid, and Green Tea Extract Stops the Ability of Kidney Cancer Cells to Spread

SANTA CLARA, Calif., Dec. 4, 2006 (PRIME NEWSWIRE) (PRIMEZONE) -- The Dr. Rath Research Institute, a leader in developing a natural means of controlling the spread of cancer through nutrient synergy, has published another study confirming the effectiveness of this approach in kidney cancer. The research further supporting the effectiveness of natural compounds applied in synergy to control cancer has recently been published in the medical journal, Oncology Reports 16: 943-947, 2006.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
December 5, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Today I received an e-mail from the Natural Products Association (NPA) asking me to support the Dietary Supplement and Non-Prescription Drug Consumer Protection Act (the “AER bill”). Apparently they do not know I am one of the most outspoken critics of this legislation. I have already posted two articles on this topic for NWV, one in July and one in November. The NPA, formerly the NNFA (National Nutritional Foods Association), is the largest trade association for ingredient suppliers and health food stores. This group, along with CRN (the Council for Responsible Nutrition) has been taken over by Big Pharma and is selling out the supplement industry.

Baseline of Health Foundation
December 4, 2006
By Jon Barron

Well, it looks like Alzheimer's is set to become our next big medical terror. In the early 1900's it was infectious diseases. From 1950 to around 1975, it was heart disease; and then from the mid 70's to pretty much now, it's been cancer. But rising rapidly in our consciousness as it makes regular appearances on popular TV shows from Boston Legal to Grey's Anatomy, Alzheimer's looks ready to take its place as our new collective nightmare. So what is Alzheimer's? What do we know about it? What can we do about it?

Nutrausa
ingredients.com
By Stephen Daniells
November 27, 2006

Regular consumption of the antioxidant rich green tea could reduce blood lipid levels and cut the risk of developing heart disease, suggests a small trial from Portugal.

The results, which suggest a heart-healthy benefit for the tea, add to an ever-growing body of science linking consumption to a wide range of health benefits, including lower risk of certain cancers, weight loss, and protection against Alzheimer's.

Such benefits have mainly been put down to the polyphenol content of the tea. Green tea contains between 30 and 40 per cent of water-extractable polyphenols, while black tea (green tea that has been oxidized by fermentation) contains between 3 and 10 per cent.

BBC News
November 30, 2006

Hospital food needs to be more nutritious, according to a watchdog.

The Audit Scotland report said patients were not routinely screened for poor nutrition, and claimed this should be a priority for the NHS.

The research also suggested catering services had improved over the past three years and patients were now being offered a greater choice of food.

The Scottish Executive said it was working on new nutritional standards, which NHS caterers will have to meet.

NewsTarget.com
November 27 2006
by Ben Kage

(NewsTarget) Experts have long recommended folic acid for pregnant women or women who may become pregnant, but a new study by researchers at the Wolfson Institute for Preventive Medicine in London and the Barts & The London Queen Mary's School of Medicine and Dentistry has confirmed the B vitamin also reduces people's risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke.

The Guardian
By Felicity Lawrence
October 17, 2006

Research with British and US offenders suggests nutritional deficiencies may play a key role in aggressive behaviour

That Dwight Demar is able to sit in front of us, sober, calm, and employed, is "a miracle", he declares in the cadences of a prayer-meeting sinner. He has been rocking his 6ft 2in bulk to and fro while delivering a confessional account of his past into the middle distance.

He wants us to know what has saved him after 20 years on the streets: "My dome is working. They gave me some kind of pill and I changed. Me, myself and I, I changed."

Demar has been in and out of prison so many times he has lost count of his convictions. "Being drunk, being disorderly, trespass, assault and battery; you name it, I did it. How many times I been in jail? I don't know, I was locked up so much it was my second home." Demar has been taking part in a clinical trial at the US government's National Institutes for Health, near Washington. The study is investigating the effects of omega-3 fatty acid supplements on the brain, and the pills that have effected Demar's "miracle" are doses of fish oil.

Health Sentinel
By Roman Bystrianyk
November 20, 2006

When Jonathan was four years old it was apparent that he wasn’t quite the way a four-year-old should be. He didn’t focus and was not very verbal. He often got angry and punched his own head and physically attacked others. He didn’t sing. He just didn’t seem normal.

His parents, Denise and Jose, took their son to the pediatrician. After several visits he was diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorder (PDD) and more specifically with autism. PDD refers to a group of disorders characterized by delays in the development of socialization and communication skills.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
October 26, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

On October 19, 2006, the FDA fired off twenty-four warning letters to small nutrition companies that made claims they had natural remedies to help with diabetes. At first glance, one might think the FDA was actually doing its job. With tremendous bravado they announced to the world their trouncing of internet fraud. It is interesting how the FDA is now teaming up with Mexican and Canadian health authorities to attack American companies, part of the FDA‚s illegal North American Union.

By Byron J. Richards, CCN
November 19, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

It had to happen sooner or later. On October 3, 2006, after extensive review of all studies relating to cholesterol-lowering benefits by statin drugs, scientists reporting in the Annals of Internal Medicine pulled the rug out from under the current government-sanctioned cholesterol levels for reducing cardiovascular disease. Their conclusion, “current clinical evidence does not demonstrate that titrating lipid therapy to achieve proposed low LDL cholesterol levels is beneficial or safe.”

This is not a trivial issue. Many billions of taxpayer dollars have been wasted on the cholesterol drug scam. The health and well being of millions of Americans may have been compromised by reckless lowering of cholesterol, a substance that is vital to health and energy production.

Science News Online
Week of Nov. 11, 2006; Vol. 170, No. 20
By Janet Raloff

Deficiency in vitamin D may predispose people to infection

In April 2005, a virulent strain of influenza hit a maximum-security forensic psychiatric hospital for men that's midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles. John J. Cannell, a psychiatrist there, observed with increasing curiosity as one infected ward after another was quarantined to limit the outbreak. Although 10 percent of the facility's 1,200 patients ultimately developed the flu's fever and debilitating muscle aches, none did in the ward that he supervised.

"First, the ward below mine was quarantined, then the wards on my right, left, and across the hall," Cannell recalls. However, although the 32 men on his ward at Atascadero (Calif.) State Hospital had mingled with patients from infected wards before their quarantine, none developed the illness.

A Special HealthCheck Report
6abc.com
By Anita Brikman

November 8, 2006 - Millions of us start the day with orange juice, because it tastes good and because we think vitamin C is important for overall health.

A growing number of doctors think this essential vitamin could do a lot more. They are putting it directly into bloodstreams of patients to fight one of the deadliest diseases around.

When Donna Gudauskas of Cherry Hill learned she had early-stage colon cancer last December, she underwent surgery to take out the tumor. But the advertising representative did not want to have chemotherapy and radiation afterward.

New Hope for Cataracts
Vitamin Research Products
Ward Dean, MD

Cataracts are the leading cause of blindness, accounting for about 42 percent of all cases of blindness worldwide (affecting about 17 million people). Twenty-eight thousand new cases are reported everyday. About 20 percent of all people over 60 have at least the beginning of a cataract in one or both eyes, and that figure rises to 80 percent for people over 75.

mediterraneandiet.gr
November 9, 2006

The health and therapeutic benefits of olive oil were first mentioned by Hippocrates, the father of medicine. For centuries, the nutritional, cosmetic and medicinal benefits of olive oil have been recognized by the people of the Mediterranean.

Olive oil was used to maintain skin and muscle suppleness, heal abrasions, and soothe the burning and drying effects of sun and water. Olive oil was administered both internally, and externally - for health and beauty.

Recent research has now provided firm proof that a Mediterranean diet, which includes olive oil, is not only generally healthy, but that consuming olive oil can actually help lower harmful LDL cholesterol.

NewsTarget.com
November 7 2006

(NewsTarget) Men who eat just one serving of salmon per week reduce their risk of developing prostate cancer by 43 percent, compared to men who do not consume fish, according to new research published in the online edition of the International Journal of Cancer.

MSNBC.com
The Associated Press
October 20, 2006

National trial is one of a growing number to look at natural treatments

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. - A plant used widely in China is the focus of a national clinical trial that aims to see if it could help treat Alzheimer's disease and other types of dementia.

The University of North Carolina Hospitals are participating in the national clinical trial on Chinese club moss, which is already being sold in stores with nutritional supplements and is used in China as a treatment for cognitive disorders.

The study, sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, is one of a growing number of federally funded research studies focused on natural and alternative therapies. The centers of the National Institutes of Health expect to spend $300.5 million in complementary and alternative medicine research in the 2007 budget year.

Even with the recent financial commitment, research in that area is limited, making it difficult for doctors to get information that is essential to understanding the risks and benefits of certain treatments.

Willner Chemists
Reference Library
www.willner.com

Fifteen million people suffer from asthma. Over six billion dollars are spent on asthma annually, with over one billion spent on medications alone.
But are these medications working? Are the side effects worse than the cure?
Dr. Richard Firshein believes there is a better answer, and his new book provides a detailed, alternative approach to treating asthma.
In one chapter, he provides information on the role of certain nutrients:

Time magazine
By PAMELA PAUL
Posted Sunday, Jun 11, 2006
www.time.com

Somewhere between mother's breast and the lunchroom, something has gone very wrong. How to instill good eating habits from the start

Too much sugar, too much fat, too many meals on the run and not enough vegetables or variety. Could it be that Americans' worst eating habits all take root in the high chair and stroller? Consider this: By age 2, according to a 2002 survey, 1 in 5 babies is eating candy every day. And the No. 1 vegetable for toddlers isn't pureed peas or carrots; it's French fries. Sounds a lot less like baby food and a lot more like, well, our own meals.

The New York Times
By NICHOLAS WADE
November 2, 2006

Yes, Red Wine Holds Answer. Check Dosage.

Can you have your cake and eat it? Is there a free lunch after all, red wine included? Researchers at the Harvard Medical School and the National Institute on Aging report that a natural substance found in red wine, known as resveratrol, offsets the bad effects of a high-calorie diet in mice and significantly extends their lifespan.

Their report, published electronically yesterday in Nature, implies that very large daily doses of resveratrol could offset the unhealthy, high-calorie diet thought to underlie the rising toll of obesity in the United States and elsewhere, if people respond to the drug as mice do.

Resveratrol is found in the skin of grapes and in red wine and is conjectured to be a partial explanation for the French paradox, the puzzling fact that people in France enjoy a high-fat diet yet suffer less heart disease than Americans.

Alternative Medicine
November / December 2006
By ALAN REDER

The Other Youth Drug Problem

Teaching our kids to "just say no" may keep them off street drugs, but what do we do when the schools, government, and pharmaceutical companies partner to push another kind of dangerous drug?

When 13-year-old Luisa (family names and location changed to protect identity) of Atlantic City, New Jersey, began complaining of stomachaches, her mother, Eva, did what a good mom does - drove her to the pediatrician. After an exam, the doctor agreed with Luisa that her stomach pain was likely caused by anxiety. He prescribed a psychiatric medicine, Zoloft, commonly given to adults to ease depression. When her parents asked about side effects, the doctor reassured them the drug was mild. "If she needed something strong, I would have sent her to a psychiatrist," he said.

Alternative Health and Nutrition

Dr. Janet Starr Hull:
www.janethull.com
October 31, 2006

Can you imagine discovering that your 12-year-old child is using dry, powdered forms of aspartame to get high? I recently received an email from a woman who discovered her daughter had been eating dry aspartame to get "high."

"I learned months ago," she wrote, "that a friend of my 12-year-old daughter had turned her on to ingesting Crystal Lite® (with aspartame) without water to get "hyper." I consulted with our doctors, called Poison Control, and met with school administrators to see if they were aware of this.

"The message I received," she continued, "was 'Crystal Lite is perfectly safe and the problem was most likely in their heads.'"

As a concerned parent, this mother has been researching aspartame ever since. "With the listed symptoms/side affects of aspartame on your website," she continued, "it is apparent to me that the children are getting some type of 'altered' sensation. I know my daughter experiences a rapid heart beat, dizziness, headaches and nausea, to name a few reactions she has described to me."

CBS News.com
Sep 19, 2006
By Daniel DeNoon

(WebMD) Eating fatty fish — but not lean fish or shellfish — cuts women's risk of kidney cancer, a Swedish study shows.

A recent overview of all existing dietary studies recently found no proof that eating fish fights cancer. But that study didn't differentiate fatty fish — which are full of healthy omega-3 fatty acids and vitamin D — from lean fish.

Alicja Wolk, DMSc, of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues looked at more than 15 years of data on 61,433 women aged 40 to 76. The women filled out food-frequency questionnaires.

Women who ate fatty fish at least once a week had a 44 percent lower risk of kidney cancer than those who ate no fish. Those who consistently ate lots of fatty fish over a 10-year period had a 74 percent lower risk of kidney cancer.

HerbalGram. 2005;65:46-49 © American Botanical Council
by Kenneth Jones
http://www.herbalgram.org

Purple corn is fast approaching classification as a functional food˜ an integral component of the diet that provides energy and essential nutrients. Researchers in the fields of food and nutrition are intensely searching for functional foods in almost every corner of the world and from a diversity of plants. Examples include purple corn (Zea mays L., Poaceae), green tea (Camellia sinensis [L.] Kuntze, Theaceae), soy isoflavones (Glycine max [L.] Merr., Fabaceae), various nuts, plus various other natural substances in the human diet containing antioxidant and other substances with alleged or proven potential disease-preventive properties.

NewsTarget.com
October 20 2006

(NewsTarget) According to a 70-week government study published in the November edition of the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, popular attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drug Ritalin's side effects -- including stunted growth -- are more likely to affect preschoolers.

The scientists maintain that the drug benefits children with severe ADHD, and that the positive outcome of its use outweighs its drawbacks, but they also recommended close monitoring of preschoolers on the medication.

Preschoolers on the generic version of Ritalin, methylphenidate, showed slowed growth, increasing about a half-inch less in height and gaining 2 pounds less in weight than expected during the study. About 40 percent of children taking the drug developed side effects, and 11 percent of children dropped out of the study due to irritability, weight loss, insomnia, and other problems. Some children even reacted with severe behaviors including hanging from ceiling fans and playing with fire.