Vital Votes Health Blog - Natural Health Articles by Dr. Mercola
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03/12/2010 Soft Drinks Firms Claim Sugary Sodas Cut in Schools The U.S. soft drinks industry says it has dramatically cut the number of high-calorie soft drinks sold in schools as part of a drive to tackle obesity. The American Beverage Association said shipments of full-calorie drinks to schools were down 95 percent. Nearly one in three children and teenagers in the U.S. are overweight or obese, and health experts say sugary drinks are part of the problem. Several U.S. states and cities are considering taxing soft drinks. Under voluntary guidelines in place since 2006, full-calorie soft drinks were removed from school canteens and vending machines. However, other drinks, including diet sodas, are being promoted in their place. Pregnancy-related deaths appear to have risen in the U.S. over the past decade, nearly tripling in California, the state with the most careful count. The maternal mortality rate is four times higher than a goal the federal government set for this year. Maternal mortality gets little public attention in the U.S. Among the leading preventable causes are hemorrhage, DVT-caused pulmonary emboli and uncontrolled blood pressure. It's not clear what's fueling the overall increase, but there are some suspects:
Read more at this website... 03/12/2010 Traffic Accidents are a Major Killer The World Health Organization global status report on road safety makes for shocking reading. Over 3000 people die on the world's roads every day -- and over 90 percent of the deaths occur in low-income and middle-income countries, which have only 48 percent of the world's registered vehicles. Tens of millions of people are injured or disabled every year. Nearly 1.3 million people are killed each year. If trends continue unabated, deaths will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030. According to a new study, healthier men, no matter their age, have better sex more frequently and desire it more often than healthier women -- and a healthier sex life could mean a longer life. The paper's findings have wide implication for attitudes toward public health and how patients respond to doctors' advice. If a doctor tells a man diagnosed with diabetes or high blood pressure that losing weight could mean five extra years of sex life, that could be a powerful incentive. Women outlive men by an average of five to six years and without a partner, women are less likely to engage in sex. Also, while there is a cultural acceptance for drugs such as Viagra for men, this is not necessarily the case for women. There has always been a correlation between how ethically people behave and how brightly their surroundings are lit; most evil deeds are done under cover of darkness. A new study suggest that this is not only because of the threat of discovery. Researchers recruited 84 students and divided them between a brightly lit room with 10 fluorescent bulbs burning and a dimmer room with only four bulbs. The subjects were each given a brown envelope with $10 in singles and coins as well as an empty white envelope. They were all then told they had five minutes to complete a simple mathematical task, looking for pairs of numbers that added up to 10 in a grid of three-digit numbers. They could keep 50 cents for every pair they found and were to put the leftover money in the brown envelope. When the researchers collected the envelopes and reviewed the results at the end of the five-minute period, what they found was striking. Consistently, the people in the dimmer room reported finding more matches than those in the bright room. When their work was checked, it turned out that cheating was rife in the dim room. The darkness seemed to confer what the researchers called a "false sense of concealment." Two other experiments by the same researchers had similar results. Scientists know that the primary way methylmercury affects people is through consumption of fish and shellfish. But how does the toxic substance get into species that live in the open ocean? A new study uses chemical signatures of nitrogen, carbon, and mercury to answer those questions. The work opens the door for new ways of tracking sources of mercury poisoning in people. Researchers wanted to know if tuna and other open-ocean fish pick up methylmercury by eating contaminated fish that live closer to shore. They studied 11 species of fish, including red snapper, speckled trout, Spanish mackerel, and two species of tuna. The found that coastal fish and open-ocean fish are feeding from two separate food webs. The finding runs counter to the long-held view that the open ocean is too oxygen-rich to support methylation -- but it is consistent with recent studies suggesting more methylation may be occurring in that environment than was previously thought. U.S. researchers estimate that an 18 percent tax on pizza and soda can push down U.S. adults' calorie intake enough to lower their average weight by 5 pounds per year. The researchers suggested taxing could be used as a weapon in the fight against obesity. With two-thirds of Americans either overweight or obese, policymakers are increasingly looking at taxing as a way to address obesity on a population level. California and Philadelphia have introduced legislation to tax soft drinks to try to limit consumption. A heart patient's own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research. Post-menopausal women taking supplements of a red clover extract may experience fewer symptoms of depression and anxiety. Such symptoms reduced by about 80 percent following 90 days of doses of 80 milligrams of red clover isoflavones. Researchers recruited more than 100 post-menopausal women over the age of 40 and randomly assigned them to receive either the red clover isoflavones or a placebo. Measures of depressive and anxiety symptoms showed that anxiety was reduced by 76 percent and depression by 78 percent. The researchers proposed that the isoflavones could protect against neuron damage by inhibiting inflammatory pathways. Here are five things that research has shown can improve happiness: 1. Be grateful -- People who were asked to write letters of gratitude to people who had helped them in some way reported a lasting increase in happiness -- over weeks and even months -- after implementing the habit. Even when people wrote letters but never delivered them to the addressee, they still reported feeling better afterwards. 2. Be optimistic -- People were asked to visualize an ideal future and describe the image in a journal entry. After doing this for a few weeks, these people too reported increased feelings of well-being. 3. Count your blessings -- People who practice writing down three good things that have happened to them every week show significant boosts in happiness. The act of focusing on the positive helps people remember reasons to be glad. 4. Use your strengths -- Another study asked people to identify their greatest strengths, and then to try to use these strengths in new ways. This habit, too, seems to heighten happiness. 5. Commit acts of kindness -- It turns out helping others also helps ourselves. People who donate time or money to charity, or who altruistically assist people in need, report improvements in their own happiness. Fosamax, one in a class of drugs called bisphosphonates, is supposed to make bones stronger. But now there's mounting evidence that, for some women, taking these medications for more than five years could cause spontaneous fractures. Fosamax has already been linked to severe musculoskeletal pain, as well as a serious bone-related jaw disease called osteonecrosis. Sales of the popular drug increased when doctors began prescribing it not only to women with osteoporosis, but to others who were osteopenic -- with reduced bone density that might lead to the disease. U.S. food regulators announced a voluntary recall of food made with hydrolyzed vegetable protein that could be contaminated with salmonella bacteria. Hydrolyzed vegetable protein is used in soups, sauces, hot dogs, snack foods, dressings and dips. A handful of companies have recalled products ranging from dips, potato chips and dressings to tofu, burritos and pasta. Salmonella can cause fever, diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain, and can also cause bloodstream infection and organ failure. The U.S. government is preparing a safety warning about baby slings -- popular infant carriers that parents can sling around their chests to carry their baby. The concern is that infants can suffocate, and a few have. Consumer Product Safety Commission Chairman Inez Tenenbaum says her agency is getting ready to issue a general warning to the public. Safety advocates have cautioned that some slings, where the baby falls into a curved or "C-like" position inside the sling, can lead to suffocation by restricting the baby's breathing. Department of Agriculture officials failed to act on reports of illegal and unsafe slaughterhouse practices, letting suspect operations continue despite public health risks, USDA veterinarian Dean Wyatt has alleged in testimony at a congressional hearing. Wyatt is a supervisory veterinarian at the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service. His charges detail instances in which he and other inspectors were overruled when citing slaughterhouses for violations such as shocking and butchering days-old calves that were too weak or sick to stand. He also describes being threatened with transfer or demotion after citing a plant for butchering conscious pigs, despite rules that they first be stunned and unconscious. The Tuba City Regional Health Care Corporation’s hospital, run by the Navajo Nation and financed partly by the Indian Health Service, prides itself on having a higher than average rate of vaginal births among women with a prior Caesarean, and a lower Caesarean rate over all. The national Caesarean rate, 31.8 percent, has been rising steadily for the last 11 years and is fed by repeat patients. In Tuba City, the overall Caesarean rate is only 13.5 percent. Changes in malpractice insurance might help the rest of the nation reach this goal. The hospital and doctors in Tuba City are insured by the federal government, and therefore insurance companies cannot threaten to increase their premiums or withdraw coverage if they allow vaginal births after Caesarean. Critics say that doctors are performing too many Caesareans, needlessly exposing women and infants to surgical risks and running up several billion dollars a year in excess bills. |
