Health & Wellness
LiveScience
Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:05 EST
Some moms might pass more than genetics to their newborns. Doctors found three babies born to women with hip implants had high levels of chromium and cobalt in their umbilical cord blood - metals that had worn off the implants.
The results show an association between levels of
cobalt and chromium - components of metal implants - in mothers and their babies at the time of delivery.
The finding was only for women with so-called "metal-on-metal" hip implants, in which both the ball of the joint and the surface of the socket are made of metal. The charged form of the cobalt and chromium, called ions, get released as a result of wear and corrosion as the metal parts rub against one another.
The researchers stress that they aren't sure if these metals have detrimental effects for either the mother or her offspring. And the study involved only a few participants, so more research is needed to confirm the findings.
Barry Groves, PhD
Second Opinions
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:28 EST
Just published is a study into a new drug which makes statins more effective - and it lowers the levels of thyroid hormones in the blood.
But wait a minute. Is it just me, or is there something cockeyed here?
The reason I ask is that, analogues of thyroxine have been used to lower blood cholesterol at least since the mid-1930s when dextrothyroxine was first studied. Right up to the 1970s Dr Broda Barnes and others showed that hypothyroidism - low levels of thyroid hormones - increased cholesterol levels. They suggested that, if a patient came to his doctor with high cholesterol, the first thing that should be checked was his thyroid levels. If thyroid hormone levels were low - and in these cases, they usually were - then treatment with laevothyroxine (T4) or dessicated thyroid (T4 + T3) to raise thyroid hormones into the normal range was usually the most effective way to correct the patient's cholesterol.
Yet here we have a drug which lowers thyroid hormone levels being used to lower cholesterol. Does that stack up?
Why not forget statins and just go back to using thyroxine?
Well, of course, there is a good reason why this isn't contemplated: Statins are expensive (and good profit makers), while thyroxine is probably the cheapest drug on the market. It's even cheaper than aspirin. And who can make money out of that?
Here's a report of the new drug, which is called eprotirome:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The Huffington Post
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 23:03 EST
A central figure behind the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) claims disputing the link between vaccines and autism and other neurological disorders has disappeared after officials discovered massive fraud involving the theft of millions in taxpayer dollars. Danish police are investigating Dr. Poul Thorsen, who has vanished along with almost $2 million that he had supposedly spent on research.
Thorsen was a leading member of a Danish research group that wrote several key studies supporting CDC's claims that the MMR vaccine and mercury-laden vaccines were safe for children. Thorsen's 2003 Danish study reported a 20-fold increase in autism in Denmark after that country banned mercury based preservatives in its vaccines. His study concluded that mercury could therefore not be the culprit behind the autism epidemic.
Jeffrey M. Smith
Urban Garden Magazine
Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:21 EST
Something doesn't quite add up about genetically modified (GM) foods.
Big biotech claims that genetic engineering is a necessary step towards feeding the world's growing population. And yet debate still rages as to whether GM crops actually increase yields at all. Furthermore, the UN recently stated that 30,000 people a day were starving to death, but not because of underproduction of crops. It's simply through lack of access.
Independent scientific studies raised serious alarm bells over the safety of GM foods over a decade ago. But while this made front-page headlines in European newspapers, the North American mainstream media were conspiratorially silent.
Biotech companies stand to make billions from their seed patents. Governments and supreme courts have sanctioned the patenting of life itself. The planet's food supply is becoming increasingly dominated by fewer and fewer players.
If the biotech industry's stated intention of feeding the world is misguided or even misdirecting, is there another political agenda behind GM food? Have we been mis-sold? Were we even given a choice in the first place?
Sarah Boseley
Guardian
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 13:39 EST
© Ann Tornkvist/Getty Images
The UK ranks 26th in the world for mothers' deaths in childbirth, with the US coming in at 41st.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the likelihood of a woman dying in childbirth in the US is five times greater than in Greece.
The US has some of the best medical care in the world, but Amnesty says the lives of poor, uninsured, African American and Native American women are put at risk by neglect.
"This country's extraordinary record of medical advancement makes its haphazard approach to maternal care all the more scandalous and disgraceful," said US Amnesty executive director Larry Cox. "Good maternal care should not be considered a luxury available only to those who can access the best hospitals and the best doctors. Women should not die in the richest country on earth from preventable complications and emergencies.
Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
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."
David Gutierrez
NaturalNews
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
High-dose vitamin D supplements may help increase the body's sensitivity to the blood sugar-regulating hormone insulin, thus reducing the risk of diabetes, researchers have found.
Insulin resistance (or insensitivity) occurs when the body's tissues stop responding as strongly to the presence of insulin. As a consequence, the cells uptake less sugar from the bloodstream, producing the elevated glucose levels characteristic of diabetes.
In the current study, conducted by researchers from Massey University and published in the British Journal of Nutrition, researchers randomly assigned 81 South Asian women between the ages of 23 and 68 to take either a placebo or 4,000 IU of vitamin D once per day. All participants suffered from insulin sensitivity at the start of the study, but none were taking diabetes drugs or vitamin D supplements larger than 1,000 IU per day.
Ethan Huff
NaturalNews
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
A recent study published in the British Medical Journal found that high levels of vitamin D help to lower the risk of developing bowel cancer. The study, which was the largest of its kind, evaluated nearly 2,500 people with and without bowel cancer to see how vitamin D plays a role in preventing the disease.
Scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, and Imperial College London, compared 1,248 bowel cancer patients with 1,248 control group patients. Observers were able to make a clear connection between bowel cancer and low vitamin D levels, indicating that maintaining higher blood serum levels of vitamin D may help to prevent it.
Vitamin D is primarily derived from exposure to natural sunlight where the skin converts UVB rays to the vitamin D. During the winter months or other times when sun exposure is limited, though, it can be difficult to get adequate levels of vitamin D. Few foods are rich in vitamin D but a few of the best sources include fish, cod liver oil, and raw milk.
Laura Weldon
NaturalNews
Fri, 12 Mar 2010 00:00 EST
Prenatal exposure to phthalates has been linked to problem behavior in children. A collaborative study by Mount Sinai, Cornell University and U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention connects attention deficits and aggressiveness in children to levels of prenatal phthalate exposure.
Researchers analyzed phthalate metabolite levels in urine samples of 404 multiethnic women who were pregnant with their first babies. The mothers were not told of the urine test results. When contacted for follow up visits four to nine years later, 188 women consented. They completed questionnaires designed to determine their child's reasoning skills as well as behavior. They were interviewed by researchers unaware of the previous urine test results.
The study showed that mothers with higher concentrations of low molecular weight phthalates reported poorer behavior in their children. The behavioral indicators were highly consistent with conduct and reasoning problems associated with ADHD and Oppositional Defiant Disorder.
Mike Adams
NaturalNews
Mon, 14 Dec 2009 00:00 EST
When it comes to selling chemicals that claim to treat H1N1 swine flu, the pharmaceutical industry's options are limited to two: Vaccines and anti-virals. The most popular anti-viral, by far, is Tamiflu, a drug that's actually derived from a Traditional Chinese Medicine herb called star anise.
But Tamiflu is no herb. It's a potentially fatal concentration of isolated chemical components that have essentially been bio-pirated from Chinese medicine. And when you isolate and concentrate specific chemicals in these herbs, you lose the value (and safety) of full-spectrum herbal medicine.
That didn't stop Tamiflu's maker, Roche, from trying to find a multi-billion-dollar market for its drug. In order to tap into that market, however, Roche needed to drum up some evidence that Tamiflu was both safe and effective.
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