Health – Page 627 – Infinite Unknown

‘Heavy water’ could help us live longer

November 27, 2008 by Infinite

Drinking “heavy water” enriched with a rare form of hydrogen could prolong our lives by up to ten years, it has been claimed.

Mikhail Shchepinov, a former Oxford University scientist, says that the modified drink protects against dangerous chemicals known as free radicals that are known to contribute to conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s.

He also claims that foods such as steak and eggs could be enriched with the special hydrogen isotope, known as deuterium, raising the possibility of people being able to “eat themselves healthy”.

His research has shown that worms live 10 per cent longer and fruitflies up to 30 per cent longer when fed on heavy water, which is slightly sweeter than normal water.

Mass testing plan to tackle Aids

November 26, 2008 by Infinite

Radical WHO strategy aimed at halting epidemic

Preventive use of drugs raises human rights issues

A nurse prepares a dose of anti-HIV drugs
Intervention with anti-Aids drugs before symptoms appear could reduce HIV rates to under 1% in 50 years, a study claims. Photograph: Adrees Latif/Reuters

A radical new strategy to stop the Aids epidemic in its tracks was proposed yesterday by World Health Organisation scientists but ran into immediate controversy over its implications for human rights.

The plan involves testing everybody for HIV every year in hard-hit areas like sub-Saharan Africa and immediately putting those who are positive on Aids drugs. It could slash dramatically the number of new infections, because Aids drugs lower the levels of virus in the body, making HIV transmission through unprotected sex much less likely.

But the strategy, expounded in a paper published online today by the Lancet medical journal, raises major issues both over implementation and over ethics.

Currently people who are HIV positive are not put on treatment until they need it, because of the toxicity and side-effects of antiretroviral drugs. It raises the prospect of subjecting people to potential medical harm for the public good, rather than their individual benefit. “We wouldn’t do that in the UK,” said John Howson of the International HIV/Aids Alliance. “These are huge issues.”

Melamine Traces Found in U.S. Infant Formula

November 26, 2008 by Infinite

The Food and Drug Administration said Tuesday that it had discovered the toxic chemical melamine in infant formula made by an American manufacturer, raising the possibility that the problem was more extensive in the United States than previously thought.

While few details were available late Tuesday, agency officials said they had discovered melamine at trace levels in a single sample of infant formula. It was also discovered in several samples of dietary supplements that are made by some of the same manufacturers who make formula.

F.D.A. officials insisted that the levels of melamine were so low that they did not pose a health threat.

“There’s no cause for concern or no risk from these levels,” said Judy Leon, an agency spokeswoman. Ms. Leon said the contamination was most likely the result of food contact with something like a can liner, or from some other manufacturing problems, but not from deliberate adulteration.

She declined to name the company that made the tainted infant formula.

Hungry Gazans Resort to Animal Feed as U.N. Blasts Israel

November 25, 2008 by Infinite

British journalist and peace activist Lauren Booth, sister-in-law of Palestinian development envoy and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair visits a family in the Rafah refugee camp, south Gaza on Sep. 14. Booth arrived in Gaza on a boat carrying human rights activists protesting against an Israeli blockade. (UPI)

GAZA CITY, Gaza — Half of Gaza’s bakeries have closed down and the other half have resorted to animal feed to produce bread as Israel’s complete blockade of the coastal territory enters its 19th day.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon alarmed at the escalating humanitarian crisis called incumbent Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last week and demanded that he lift the blockade.

Following the continued closure, the secretary-general reiterated his appeal on Friday but to no avail.

Karen AbuZayd, commissioner-general for the U.N.’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which supports Palestinian refugees, warned that a humanitarian “catastrophe” loomed if Israel continued to prevent aid from reaching Gaza.

“It’s been closed for so much longer than ever before. We have nothing in our warehouses. It will be a catastrophe if this persists; a disaster,” said AbuZayd.

AbuZayd added that the human toll of this month’s closure of the territories was “the gravest since the early days of the second intifada or Palestinian uprising.

Cops raise Taser safety claims; Metro officers hurt during training sue company

November 24, 2008 by Infinite

Metro officers hurt during training sue company, say warnings didn’t suffice

Several cops got on their knees on a rubber gym mat. Kneeling in a line, they linked arms, interlaced hands, and looked up. All they knew of what comes next is this: It’s going to smart.

This was called the “daisy chain.” It was part of the Metro Police Taser training program, the alternative to hitting a single individual with thousands of volts from the weapon. It was the option officer Lisa Peterson chose, a decision she regrets.

The officers were at a training seminar in November 2003 to learn how to use the newest weapon on their belts, a device the manufacturer claimed would incapacitate a person but not do permanent harm. You can’t really comprehend the Taser, students were told, until you’re Tasered.

Pine Bark Cuts Jet Lag in Half

November 24, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) If you’ve ever taken a super long flight that lasts seven to nine hours and crossed a time zone or two, you probably know that jet lag can make you feel just plain awful — and it can keep you from enjoying your trip for at least a day or two. That can be especially aggravating when you travel over the holidays. But now comes news that a natural plant substance, an extract from the French maritime pine tree, can cut jet lag symptoms by about fifty percent.

The new research, conducted at the G. D’Annunzio University in Pescara, Italy, and just published in the journal Minerva Cardioangiologica, reveals pine bark extract, or pycnogenol, reduced symptoms of jet lag including feeling exhausted, headaches, insomnia and brain edema (swelling). It was effective in both healthy individuals and those with high blood pressure. In addition,airline passengers experienced far less lower leg edema, a common condition associated with long flights, when they took pine bark extract.

Plants from the Mint Family Found Highly Effective Against HIV and Herpes

November 24, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) Herbs from the Lamiaceae family, also known as the mint family have been shown to drastically reduce the infectivity of HIV-1 virions, single infective viral particles. A research team from the University of Heidelberg has found that extracts of lemon balm, sage and peppermint work rapidly to produce their effects in amounts that display no toxicity. The extracts were seen to enhance the density of the virions prior to their surface engagement. They also displayed a strong activity against herpes simplex virus type 2.

The researchers examined water extracts from the leaves of lemon balm, sage and peppermint for their potency to inhibit infection by HIV-1. They found that the extracts exhibited a high and concentration-dependent activity against the infection of HIV-1 in T-cell lines, primary macrophages, and in ex vivo tonsil histocultures. This effect was produced at extract concentrations as low as 0.004% without affect to cell viability.

Austrian Government Study Confirms Genetically Modified (GM) Crops Threaten Human Fertility and Health Safety

November 22, 2008 by Infinite

Advocates Call for Immediate Ban of All GM Foods and GM Crops

(Los Angeles, CA.) – A long-term feeding study commissioned by the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety, managed by the Austrian Federal Ministry of Health, Family and Youth, and carried out by Veterinary University Vienna, confirms genetically modified (GM) corn seriously affects reproductive health in mice. Non-GMO advocates, who have warned about this infertility link along with other health risks, now seek an immediate ban of all GM foods and GM crops to protect the health of humankind and the fertility of women around the world.

Feeding mice with genetically modified corn developed by the US-based Monsanto Corporation led to lower fertility and body weight, according to the study conducted by the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna. Lead author of the study Professor Zentek said, there was a direct link between the decrease in fertility and the GM diet, and that mice fed with non-GE corn reproduced more efficiently.

In the study, Austrian scientists performed several long-term feeding trials over 20 weeks with laboratory mice fed a diet containing 33% of a GM variety (NK 603 x MON 810), or a closely related non-GE variety used in many countries. Statistically significant litter size and pup weight decreases were found in the third and fourth litters in the GM-fed mice, compared to the control group.

The corn is genetically modified with genes that produce a pesticidal toxin, as well as genes that allow it to survive applications of Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup.

Scientists take a step closer to an elixir of youth

November 21, 2008 by Infinite

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. – Lao Tzu

A naturally occuring substance that can create “immortal cells” could be the key to finding a real elixir of youth, scientists claim.

Researchers believe boosting the amount of a naturally forming enzyme in the body could prevent cells dying and so lead to extended, healthier, lifespans..

The protein telomerase helps maintain the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes which act like the ends of shoelaces and stop them unravelling.

As we age, and our cells divide, these caps become frayed and shorter and eventually are so damaged that the cell dies. Scientists believe boosting our natural levels of telomerase could rejuvenate them.

A team at the Spanish National Cancer Centre in Madrid tested the theory on mice and found that those genetically engineered to produce 10 times the normal levels of telomerase lived 50 per cent longer than normal.

Cancer Cured For Good

November 20, 2008 by Infinite

It works 100% of the time to eradicate cancer completely, and cancer does not recur even years later. That is how researchers describe the most convincing cancer cure ever announced.

The weekly injection of just 100 billionths of a gram of a harmless glyco-protein (a naturally-produced molecule with a sugar component and a protein component) activates the human immune system and cures cancer for good, according to human studies among breast cancer and colon cancer patients, producing complete remissions lasting 4 and 7 years respectively. This glyco-protein cure is totally without side effect but currently goes unused by cancer doctors.

Pioneering Stem Cell Surgery Announced

November 19, 2008 by Infinite

Claudia Castillo, the patient in the ground-breaking operation. Photo: AP

PARIS — Physicians at four European universities have completed what they say is the first successful transplant of a human windpipe using a patient’s own stem cells to fashion an organ and prevent its rejection by her immune system, according to an article in the British medical journal The Lancet. One of the physicians said the surgery could herald a “new age in surgical care.”

The transplant operation was performed on the patient, Claudia Castillo, in June in Barcelona, Spain, to alleviate an acute shortage of breath caused by a failing airway following severe tuberculosis. It followed weeks of preparation carried out at the universities of Barcelona, Spain, Bristol, England and Padua and Milan in Italy.

Half of primary-care doctors in survey would leave medicine

November 18, 2008 by Infinite

Experts say if many physicians stop practicing, it could be devastating to the health care industry.

(CNN) — Nearly half the respondents in a survey of U.S. primary care physicians said that they would seriously consider getting out of the medical business within the next three years if they had an alternative.

The survey, released this week by the Physicians’ Foundation, which promotes better doctor-patient relationships, sought to find the reasons for an identified exodus among family doctors and internists, widely known as the backbone of the health industry.

A U.S. shortage of 35,000 to 40,000 primary care physicians by 2025 was predicted at last week’s American Medical Association annual meeting.

In the survey, the foundation sent questionnaires to more than 270,000 primary care doctors and more than 50,000 specialists nationwide.

Of the 12,000 respondents, 49 percent said they’d consider leaving medicine. Many said they are overwhelmed with their practices, not because they have too many patients, but because there’s too much red tape generated from insurance companies and government agencies.

Cancer Drugs Make Tumors Grow

November 18, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) Drugs like Avastin that are used to treat some cancers are supposed to work by blocking a vessel growth-promoting protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. With VEGF held in check, researchers have assumed tumors wouldn’t generate blood vessels and that should keep malignancies from growing. In a sense, the cancerous growths would be “starved”. But new research just published in the journal Nature shows this isn’t true. Instead of weakening blood vessels so they won’t “feed” malignant tumors, these cancer treatments, known as anti-angiogenesis drugs, actually normalize and strengthen blood vessels — and that means they can spur tumors to grow larger.

HEALTH CARE: Providers close doors to poor

November 16, 2008 by Infinite

University Medical Center

Medicaid cuts leave no choice, says doctors, hospitals

Budget cuts in the state’s Medicaid program are forcing a major shift in where Nevada’s poor can seek health care.

Cancer patients who had received outpatient treatment at University Medical Center, for instance, will have to seek treatment at other hospitals and clinics because UMC, citing reductions in Medicaid payments, says it can no longer afford to offer cancer treatment.

Low-income children with bone and spine problems may need to leave Las Vegas altogether for treatment, because pediatric orthopedists are no longer accepting payment from Medicaid because of cutbacks to their reimbursements.

And on Tuesday, UMC administrators will tell Clark County commissioners what treatments and programs they may need to drop because Medicaid payments don’t cover the hospital’s costs, and the hospital can’t afford to go in the hole.

Indeed, the Nevada State Medical Association said other pediatric specialists may also stop taking Medicaid patients because the government reimbursements don’t cover the cost of delivering the care.

US places ban on Chinese food imports

November 14, 2008 by Infinite

More than 1200 Chinese children have been hospitalised after drinking tainted milk formula (AFP)

Products from the dairy company whose tainted formula killed at least four babies are back on the shelves in China just as the United States issued a ban on Chinese food imports in case of similar contamination.

Such a broad ban by the Food and Drug administration on goods from an entire country rather than from a new rogue manufacturer is unusual and reflects the level of concern over how widespread the problem is in China.

Importers to the United States must now certify that food products are free of dairy or of the industrial chemical melamine that has been found in a vast array of Chinese products – from baby powder to milk powder to creamy confectionery. Failing that, the goods will be stopped at the border.

The FDA order said: “The problem of melamine contamination is not limited to infant formula products. Chinese government sources indicate contamination of milk components, especially dried milk powder, which are used in a variety of finished foods.” These are believed to spread throughout the food chain in China.

Rare Treatment Is Reported to Cure AIDS Patient

November 14, 2008 by Infinite

Doctors in Berlin are reporting that they cured a man of AIDS by giving him transplanted blood stem cells from a person naturally resistant to the virus.

But while the case has novel medical implications, experts say it will be of little immediate use in treating AIDS. Top American researchers called the treatment unthinkable for the millions infected in Africa and impractical even for insured patients in top research hospitals.

“It’s very nice, and it’s not even surprising,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “But it’s just off the table of practicality.”

The patient, a 42-year-old American resident in Germany, also has leukemia, which justified the high risk of a stem-cell transplant. Such transplants require wiping out a patient’s immune system, including bone marrow, with radiation and drugs; 10 to 30 percent of those getting them die.

“Frankly, I’d rather take the medicine,” said Dr. Robert C. Gallo, director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, referring to antiretroviral drugs.

Radioactive Beer Kegs Menace Public, Boost Costs for Recyclers

November 11, 2008 by Infinite

Scrap metal is processed at the Jewometaal Stainless Processing B.V. in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, on Tuesday, April 22, 2008. Photographer: Roger Cremers/Bloomberg News

Nov. 11 (Bloomberg) — French authorities made headlines last month when they said as many as 500 sets of radioactive buttons had been installed in elevators around the country. It wasn’t an isolated case.

Improper disposal of industrial equipment and medical scanners containing radioactive materials is letting nuclear waste trickle into scrap smelters, contaminating consumer goods, threatening the $140 billion trade in recycled metal and spurring the United Nations to call for increased screening.

Last year, U.S. Customs rejected 64 shipments of radioactive goods at the nation’s ports, including purses, cutlery, sinks and hand tools, according to data released by the Department of Homeland Security in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. India was the largest source, followed by China.

“The world is waking up very late to this,” said Paul de Bruin, radiation safety chief for Jewometaal Stainless Processing BV in Rotterdam, the world’s biggest stainless-steel scrap yard. “There will be more of this because a lot of the scrap coming to us right now is from the 1970s and 1980s, when there were a lot of uncontrolled radioactive sources distributed to industry.”

On Oct. 21, the French nuclear regulator said elevator buttons assembled by Mafelec, a Chimilin, France-based company, contained radioactive metal shipped from India. Employees who handled the buttons received three times the safe dose of radiation for non-nuclear workers, according to the agency.

Operations at the factory are now back to normal and the company has cut ties with the “source” of the radiation, Mafelec said in a statement. “In the worst-case scenario the exposure would have been under that of a medical scan,” Chief Executive Officer Gilles Heinrich said.

1 Million Missing Sources

Many atomic devices weren’t licensed when they were first widely used by industry in the 1970s. While most countries have since tightened regulations, it is still difficult to track first-generation equipment that is now coming to the end of its useful life.

Abandoned medical scanners, food processing devices and mining equipment containing radioactive metals such as cesium-137 and cobalt-60 are often picked up by scrap collectors and sold to recyclers, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear arm. De Bruin said he sometimes finds such items hidden inside beer kegs and lead pipes to prevent detection.

There may be more than 1 million missing radioactive sources worldwide, the Vienna-based IAEA estimates.

Mini nuclear plants to power 20,000 homes

November 9, 2008 by Infinite

£13m shed-size reactors will be delivered by lorry

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. ‘Our goal is to generate electricity for 10 cents a watt anywhere in the world,’ said John Deal, chief executive of Hyperion. ‘They will cost approximately $25m [£13m] each. For a community with 10,000 households, that is a very affordable $250 per home.’

Tyson Foods Injects Chickens with Antibiotics Before They Hatch to Claim “Raised without Antibiotics”

November 9, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) Tyson Foods, the world’s largest meat processor and the second largest chicken producer in the United States, has admitted that it injects its chickens with antibiotics before they hatch, but labels them as raised without antibiotics anyway. In response, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) told Tyson to stop using the antibiotic-free label. The company has sued over its right to keep using it.

The controversy over Tyson’s antibiotic-free label began in summer 2007, when the company began a massive advertising campaign to tout its chicken as “raised without antibiotics.” Already, Tyson has spent tens of millions of dollars this year to date in continuing this campaign.

Poultry farmers regularly treat chickens and other birds with antibiotics to prevent the development of intestinal infections that might reduce the weight (and profitability) of the birds. Yet scientists have become increasingly concerned that the routine use of antibiotics in animal agriculture may accelerate the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria that could lead to a pandemic or other health crisis.

After Tyson began labeling its chicken antibiotic-free, the USDA warned the company that such labels were not truthful, because Tyson regularly treats its birds’ feed with bacteria-killing ionophores. Tyson argued that ionophores are antimicrobials rather than antibiotics, but the USDA reiterated its policy that “ionophores are antibiotics.”

Harvard Psychiatrists Hide Millions of Dollars Received from Drug Companies

November 8, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) A congressional investigation has revealed that a group of Harvard psychiatrists, instrumental in pushing the diagnosis of bipolar disorder in children and its off-label treatment with antipsychotics, concealed from university officials the millions of dollars they earned in consulting fees for the companies that make those drugs.

Iowa Sen. Charles E. Grassley requested the financial disclosure reports that Drs. Joseph Biederman, Timothy E. Wilens and Thomas Spencer had filed with Harvard University between 2000 and 2007. He then asked a handful of pharmaceutical companies for their own records on how much had been paid to the researchers in that time.

The numbers reported by the drug companies were much higher than those on the researchers’ forms.

“Basically, these forms were a mess,” Grassley said. “Over the last seven years, it looked like they had taken a couple hundred thousand dollars.”

Upon being confronted with the discrepancies, the researchers admitted to having concealed certain consulting fees and upped their estimates. These new numbers still fell short of those reported by the drug companies.

Biederman, for example, originally told Harvard that he had received no money from Johnson & Johnson in 2001. When Grassley asked him to double check, Biederman admitted to receiving $3,500. The drug company’s records, however, recorded payments of $58,169 to Biederman in that year alone.

A more thorough investigation revealed that Biederman and Wilens had received at least $1.6 million from the pharmaceutical industry between 2000 and 2007, while Spencer had received at least $1 million.

Dispelling the Myths Surrounding Homeopathy

November 2, 2008 by Infinite

(NaturalNews) In this article, I would like to dispel a plethora of myths surrounding homeopathy which have been used to discredit this highly efficacious healing art and science. Homeopaths are given few opportunities in the media to defend their profession, so a lot of misconceptions abound. The medical profession in general presents a fierce and blinkered opposition, yet as Big Pharma is learning of all sorts of amazing cured cases, they are determined to stamp out competition via EU regulation.

Myth No. 1 – Homeopathic medicines cure nothing

Chinese shoppers shocked by tainted food scandal

November 1, 2008 by Infinite

BEIJING, China (CNN) — Consumers in Beijing’s malls and shops are shunning the milk and poultry sections — for good reasons.

Poultry products, including eggs, may be contaminated with melamine through animal food.

They are shocked and scared by the news headlines: some food produced in China is tainted with melamine.

“Of course I’m worried,” says a woman shopping in Nanxiaojie Market. Stop eating eggs? “That’s not possible,” she tells CNN. “If there’s a problem with eggs, it should be solved fundamentally.”

Chinese premier Wen Jiabao says China will take steps to win back consumers.

Chinese melamine scandal widens

October 31, 2008 by Infinite

There are fears contamination could be widespread throughout the food chain

The toxic chemical melamine is probably being routinely added to Chinese animal feed, state media has reported.

Correspondents say the unusually frank reports in several news outlets are an admission that contamination could be widespread throughout the food chain.

The melamine scandal began early in September, when at least four Chinese babies were killed by contaminated milk, and thousands more became ill.

The news led firms across Asia to recall products made from Chinese milk.

The problem widened last weekend when the authorities in Hong Kong reported that melamine had also been detected in Chinese eggs.

Four brands of eggs have since been found to be contaminated, and agriculture officials speculate that the cause was probably melamine-laced feed given to hens.

Melamine is high in nitrogen, and the chemical is added to food products to make them appear to have a higher protein content.

‘Open secret’

Several state newspapers carried reports on Thursday suggesting that the addition of melamine to animal feed was widespread.

China vows penalties as melamine eggs scare spreads

October 29, 2008 by Infinite

Eggs from mainland China are seen at a wholesale market in Hong Kong Monday. Wal-Mart pulled all the eggs from its store shelves Tuesday across the country over melamine fears.
Bobby Yip/Reuters

BEIJING (Reuters) – Authorities in a northeastern Chinese city on Wednesday vowed severe punishment for those responsible for melamine-tainted eggs turning up in Hong Kong, as the health scare spread to another city in eastern China.

At least four children have died and tens of thousands were made ill amid the melamine scandal, the latest in a series of health scares to sully the “made in China” label.

Chinese products ranging from chocolate to milk powder have been recalled throughout the world due to contamination fears. Melamine, used in making plastic chairs among other things, is often added to cheat nutrition tests.

Chinese eggs have now come under the spotlight, after Hong Kong food safety authorities over the weekend found melamine-tainted eggs produced by Hanwei Group in the northeastern port city of Dalian on local shelves.

Problem eggs have now been found in Hangzhou, capital of the eastern province of Zhejiang, the official Xinhua news agency said on Wednesday, citing quality authorities there who had ordered a city-wide recall of all “Ciyunxiang”-brand eggs.

Europe’s secret plan to boost GM crop production

October 26, 2008 by Infinite

Gordon Brown and other EU leaders in campaign to promote modified foods

AFP/Getty Images
GM corn growing in France, which has since suspended cultivation of modified crops

Gordon Brown and other European leaders are secretly preparing an unprecedented campaign to spread GM crops and foods in Britain and throughout the continent, confidential documents obtained by The Independent on Sunday reveal.

The documents – minutes of a series of private meetings of representatives of 27 governments – disclose plans to “speed up” the introduction of the modified crops and foods and to “deal with” public resistance to them.

And they show that the leaders want “agricultural representatives” and “industry” – presumably including giant biotech firms such as Monsanto – to be more vocal to counteract the “vested interests” of environmentalists.

News of the secret plans is bound to create a storm of protest at a time when popular concern about GM technology is increasing, even in countries that have so far accepted it.

Public opposition has prevented any modified crops from being grown in Britain. France, one of only three countries in Europe to have grown them in any amounts, has suspended their cultivation, and resistance to them is rising rapidly in the other two, Spain and Portugal.

The embattled biotech industry has been conducting a public relations campaign based round the highly contested assertion that genetic modification is needed to feed the world. It has had some success in the Government, where ministers have been increasingly speaking out in favour of the technology, and in the European Commission, with which its lobbyists have boasted of having “excellent working relations”.