MedWorm: Consumer Health Advice

Vitamins and supplements: vital or superfluous?

UCTV Presents: Health and Medicine — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 09:01:36 +0100

Explore measures that can be taken to not only live longer but also live better with UCSF’s Dr. Donald Abrams who discusses vitamins and supplements. (Source: UCTV Presents: Health and Medicine)

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Happy birthday nhs!

NHS Direct News and health alerts — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 10:30:19 +0100

-The NHS turns 60 on Saturday 5 July.But it's not ready for retirement just yet. In fact the NHS is showing no signs of slowing down!Birth of the NHSThe NHS workforce is so big it rivals the size of the Chinese army!The National Health Service was introduced in 1948. It was part of a social welfare policy to help post-war Britain move forward.The basic principles of the NHS remain unchanged to this day. That is, to provide universal access to health care that is free at the point of delivery.Facts about the NHSFrom its humble beginnings back in 1948 the new National Health Service took over 480,000 hospital beds in England and Wales. A staff of 125,000 nurses and 5,000 consultants looked after patients.We now live on average 10 years longer that we would have in 1948Today 1.3 million people work for the NHS in England and Wales. Of the entire workforce, around 30% are nurses and 77% of all NHS workers are female. The NHS workforce is so big it rivals the size of the Chinese army!Other fantastic facts:Every month, 23 million people visit their GP practice.Community pharmacists dispense around 745 million prescription items every year.NHS chiropodists look at 150,000 pairs of feet every week.Every seven days, around 170,000 of us have an eye test.Emergency ambulance drivers respond to 50,000 emergency calls each week.We must also mention that access to healthcare is now provided 24 hours a day, 365 days a year with the introduction of NHS walk-in centres and NHS Direct.NHS DirectThe NHS Direct telephone service was set up in 1997 to provide advice and information 24 hours a day.We currently receive around 20 calls per minute. And last Christmas over one million people called 0845 4647 or health advice during the festive period.As well as the telephone helpline, NHS Direct also provide health information via the Internet here on this website. Our website receives over 3.5 million visits per month.You can also view health information and current health news if you have access to digital television, either on Freeview or Sky television.Freeview users can access the service on any of the ITV and Channel 4 channels by pressing the 'Text' button and going to page 700. Alternatively you can go to Freeview channel 100 and press the blue button to enter NHS Direct pages.Sky users can access the service by pressing the 'Interactive' button, and using the arrow key to select NHS Direct Interactive and pressing 'Select'. The Sky service can also be viewed online at www.nhsdirect.tv.What's changed in 60 years?The basic principles of the NHS remain unchanged to this dayBack in 1948 a simple cataract operation would have seen you confined to bed for a week and have sandbags attached to your eyes. In 2008 a cataract operation takes 20 minutes and the majority of patients are out of hospital the same day.In 1958, hip replacement operations were so unusual that patients were asked to return their replacement hip when they died! The NHS now carries out over 1,000 hip replacements every week.Another first for the NHS was the very first heart transplant in the UK which took place on 3 May 1968 in London.The NHS was also involved in the world's first 'test-tube baby' Louise Brown, who was born on July 25 1978. In the UK, 6,000 babies are born every year as a result of IVF (in vitro fertilisation).And if that isn't enough, we now live on average 10 years longer that we would have in 1948.So raise your glass and wish the NHS a very happy birthday!Further information:Common health questions about the NHSHow to use the NHS Direct telephone serviceCataracts, age-relatedHip replacementIVFFind a local health service GlossaryHeart The heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood around the body. Hip replacement Hip replacement surgery is used to replace the original, damaged hip joint with a new, artificial hip made from plastic, ceramic or metal. IVF IVF stands for in vitro fertilisation. An egg is surgically removed from a woman and fertilised by a sperm outside of the body. (Source: NHS Direct News and health alerts)

Go green for your breast health

Breast Cancer Chronicles — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 07:02:17 +0100

Research now tells us that green tea may also protect us against certain types of cancers, including breast cancer. (Source: Breast Cancer Chronicles)

Spinal cord compression - what you need to know

Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:35:54 +0100

Spinal Cord Compression: What you need to know (Source: Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)

Spinal cord compression

Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:34:54 +0100

Spinal Cord Compression: what it means and how it can be treated (Source: Christie Hospital NHS Foundation Trust)

Carotid artery disease

Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 14:56:25 +0100

Carotid Artery Disease (Source: Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio)

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Wound care

Mayo Clinic - Women's Health Podcast — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:28:24 +0100

For anyone with diabetes or other conditions that result in circulation problems, a simple cut, scratch, even a bump on the toe can turn into a big problem. Dr. Karen Andrews explains why wound care is so important. (Source: Mayo Clinic - Women's Health Podcast)

Wound care

Mayo Clinic - Men's Health Podcast — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 13:28:24 +0100

Big pharma "doomed" if it doesn't change, says eli lilly chairman

NaturalNews.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) With patents set to expire on major products and no new blockbusters on the horizon, the pharmaceutical industry must adapt or die, the chairman of Eli Lilly and Co. has said."I think the industry is doomed if we don't change," said Sidney Taurel.The expiration of patents on top moneymaking drugs is expected to reduce the top drug companies' profits by a total of $67 billion between 2007 and 2012, or 50 percent of those companies' combined 2007 sales in the United States. This decline in income is expected to be the industry's first in 40 years.Once a drug's patent expires after 20 years, the market is opened up to generic versions, which are typically sold at a cost close to that of production, in contrast to the 90 or 95 percent profit margins enjoyed by patent-protected drugs. Once the patent expired on Merck's cholesterol drug Zocor, for example, the company's revenues from the drug dropped an estimated 82 percent.Drugs set to go generic by 2012 include Lipitor, the best-selling drug in history, which grossed Pfizer $13 billion in 2006. Also due to lose their patent protection are asthma medication Singulair, blood-pressure drug Cozaar, and osteoporosis drug Fosamax, which currently bring in 44 percent of Merck's income.Meanwhile, no new drugs have emerged on the horizon to take the place of these money-makers. Compared with 1995-1999, 43 percent fewer new drugs came to market between 2002 and 2006."There haven't been any new therapies that are proven to reduce death and disability for atherosclerosis since the introduction of the statins in the late 1980s," said Richard C. Pasternak, Merck's vice president of Cardiovascular Clinical Research.As a result, Moody's Investors Service has lowered the pharmaceutical industry's outlook from "stable" to "negative," and investment has dropped drastically.Many in the pharmaceutical industry are hoping to shift their focus to biotechnology, where the laws currently do not allow the development of generic drugs. High-grossing biotech drugs include cancer drug Avastin, which costs $4,400 per month, and Gaucher disease treatment Cerezyme, which costs $200,000 per year. (Source: NaturalNews.com)

The politics of national health care reform: why no popular presidential candidate can solve our health care crisis (transcript)

NaturalNews.com — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) The following is a transcript of Health Ranger Report #16, entitled The Politics of National Health Care Reform, which is available free of charge as an MP3 download at: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.htmlHave you ever wondered who is going to win the presidency in the United States and what affects that might have on health care? Now people are terrified over the healthcare issue today. You probably have experienced some of this yourself.You stay in a lousy job that you do not like just because they offer healthcare insurance and you are afraid that if you lose that job or quit you will not be able to find health coverage anywhere because if you try to buy it privately they nail you over pre-existing conditions. You have been paying into that system year after year after year -- huge amounts of dollars every month -- and then they deny you coverage.That is the way the system works today and it is a system that is designed to keep you diseased and bankrupt. I am going to tell you about that system, how it works, and why no presidential candidate that has a chance of winning now has any kind of realistic solution for the healthcare crisis that is facing our nation. Not just the people but also the employers -- the companies that are footing the bill for this as well. That is one reason why so many jobs are leaving our shores.They are being offshored to countries that have better healthcare systems or less expensive healthcare systems. By the end of this show, you are going to find out that this entire system that we call healthcare in this country is a giant scam. It is a huge corporate-sponsored con designed to do just two things -- keep you in a state of disease and take all the money out of your pocket and out of your bank account.When you die from the side effects of pharmaceuticals, go bankrupt, even owing money to the hospitals, then the shareholders of those corporations consider that a success. They made more money off you by exploiting your body than they would make if they showed you how to stay healthy. I know it is a serious topic but let us dig into it here. Let us not hold back. Let us tell the truth, which is something that I am pretty well-known for doing on the air, especially about healthcare issues.Presidential candidates and the healthcare crisisLet us start at the top. Today in this country we spend 84% of our dollars--government dollars -- on three things: war, disease, and debt. Of course, the government itself would call it defense, health and debt. It is actually war, disease, and debt and in this show, we are going to focus on the disease part of it. They say they are providing health care. I said they are providing only sickness care and they are avoiding teaching people how to stay healthy. It is a very peculiar reason for doing this. It is not that mysterious. It is a reason of profit.Now we have presidential candidates who are telling you they are going to solve the healthcare problem. Hillary Clinton is famous for her healthcare platform; Barack Obama--we do not really know what his healthcare platform is, although he says he stands for certain types of reforms. Let us look at what these candidates would be inheriting if they were elected. Even if McCain were elected I think we would probably see just more collusion with Big Pharma because that would continue in the Republican line.On the other hand, if Hillary Clinton were elected, her plan is to mandate that every person purchase health insurance. She would start fining citizens who could not afford insurance. I find that to be just bewildering. She would financially punish people. Make it a crime -- a fineable crime -- to not purchase health insurance. That is her plan for "mandatory coverage" or health insurance that covers everyone. When she says a national healthcare plan, she does not mean that the government is going to come along and offer a socialized medicine plan.She means that it is a threat of a fine. Every citizen is going to be required to purchase health insurance whether they can afford it or not and whether they need it or not. For example, I do not carry health insurance at all. I only carry catastrophic injury type of insurance. For example, if I went skydiving or bungee jumping on the weekend and a piece of equipment did not work and I fell and broke a hip then I would be covered for that, but I do not have health insurance because I follow an extremely healthy lifestyle for one thing.My chance of ever getting cancer is just about zero. My chance of getting diabetes is zero. My chances of getting heart disease are zero as well because of the extremely clean diet I have and intense nutritional supplementation. I get sunlight every day. I exercise and I do not have any toxic chemicals in my house. I do not use toxic shampoos or laundry detergent or cologne, which is made with toxic fragrance chemicals.I do not eat sausage and processed meats that are made with sodium nitrite that causes cancer. I do not eat processed foods. I do not participate in that whole system of sickness and disease so I do not need health insurance. I have not been to a doctor in six years and I do not need to go. Under Hillary's healthcare plan people like me, and perhaps you, would have to buy health insurance and pay money to a corrupt system that is focused on keeping people diseased by giving them pharmaceuticals and chemotherapy and surgical procedures. We would be forced -- forced by our government to pay money to that system.So much for healthcare freedom in America, huh? Now, here is the thing that all of these politicians have forgotten. You cannot fix the healthcare problem in this country by simply deciding who pays for sickness and disease. They are all playing a shell game folks. All they are doing is mixing up the shells and trying to hide the cost of a nation that is diseased. They are trying to shift the cost to some other party.Some people want doctors to make less. Some people want health insurance companies to make less. Some people want government to pay more, or the taxpayers to pay more, or the customer to pay more right at the doctor's clinic, or the drug companies to make less. These are all shell games, folks. This entire conversation has no bearing on keeping people healthier. The way that you fix the healthcare problem in this country and the only way that you can fix it is to start teaching the population how to be healthy and how to prevent disease.Disease is preventableHow much disease is actually preventable? Ninety-eight percent of all cancers are preventable by simple changes in diet, nutrition, and lifestyle. Almost 100% of Type II diabetes patients could have prevented that disease. Almost 100% -- we know the answers to this. We know exactly how to prevent and even how to reverse Type II diabetes.Eighty percent of breast cancer can be prevented by one nutrient -- just one nutrient. It is the miracle nutrient and it is available free. What nutrient am I talking about? Vitamin D. Vitamin D prevents 80% of all cancers -- breast cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, liver cancer, colon cancer, and pancreatic cancer. Eighty percent is prevented by one nutrient. Then, add in other nutrients that prevent cancer like broccoli sprouts, Omega-3 fatty acids, seaweeds and sea vegetables and natural Vitamin C.Plus medicinal mushrooms like Reishi, Shitake, and all of the medicinal berries and different plants are out there provided by Mother Nature to prevent disease. If you add all of those in, you can prevent more than 90% of all cancers in this country. You can prevent at least 70% of all cases of Alzheimer's disease. You can prevent maybe 80% or more of all cases of osteoporosis and you can prevent nearly all cases of depression by changes in diet and lifestyle.Changes that are, in fact, very simple. These are not complicated changes. This is not rocket science. The answers are right in front of us. We have the technology and we have the knowledge to prevent these diseases. So you might say, "well, why then? Why is it not being prevented?"We are going to answer that question. We are going to talk about the scandal -- the healthcare scandal that is happening in this country and why no one is willing to talk about real solutions, and then we are going to talk about the solutions that we need -- that you need, that your family needs to avoid becoming diseased and bankrupt. The sickness industry is bankrupting our nationThink about this. One out of every five dollars spent in this country -- that is $1 out of $5 of GDP or Gross Domestic Product -- is spent on disease. They call it health care but I am calling it disease because most of it is just disease care.Now think about that: 20% of our economy is spent on disease -- and is any of that money actually causing people to be free of those diseases? Are any patients having their cancers reversed by conventional medicine? No. Conventional medicine says they have not even found a cure. In fact, conventional medicine and pharmacology have not found a cure for anything.They claim to be looking for the cure and they are holding all of these public events running around in circles, pink ribbons, yellow bracelets, or whatever, and they claim to be searching for a cure. They have been searching for a cure for cancer since the 1960s spending billions and billions of dollars and for some reason they still cannot come up with a cure.You know why folks? Because they are not looking for a cure -- they are looking for the next blockbuster drug they can sell that manages the symptoms of cancer but also creates a cycle of dependence so that the cancer patient needs to keep buying their drugs over and over again. That is how you make money in this country. If you are a greedy corporation that has no ethics, you find a way to hook a patient or a customer on your products so that you can keep selling it to them repeatedly. The last thing you do if you want to make money is to show somebody how to cure a disease so they leave the hospital and never come back.You do not make money showing people how to walk out of the hospital and be healthy and live a life free of pharmaceuticals and not needing medical care because they are so darn healthy. You do not make money by showing people how to take care of their health. That is the problem in this country, folks. We have a system of sickness care that is based on one thing -- profit. It is based on greed. It is based on shareholder value. And the shareholders in a pharmaceutical company do not make money when people get well and avoid the need for pharmaceuticals.They only make money when people get sick and stay sick, and the longer they stay sick, the more money the shareholders make. Every decision made by that corporation is made in the interest of the shareholders. It is part of the rules of every corporation. Part of the Articles of Incorporation -- you have to make decisions to maximize the profits for that corporation. In fact, any corporate officer working for a drug company that made a decision harming the financial impact on the shareholders -- that is taking money away from them -- that officer would be fired, could actually be sued in fact.Every corporation makes decisions that are in its own financial interest -- only financial interests, not social interests, not ethical interests and certainly no corporation runs around trying to compassionately help people get well. That is the image they try to portray on TV, that they are using all of this money that they are taking from people with these overpriced, monopoly-priced prescription drugs to search for tomorrow's cures.That is what they say! Let me ask you this. If a drug company took all this money that people are raising and donating by holding marathons and holding all these fundraising events, if they took that money and invested it and found a cure for cancer, do you honestly think they would give that cure away for free? Are you kidding me?If such a cure could ever be found, which by the way is bio-chemically impossible because cancer is not a virus or a bacteria, it is actually a systemic issue. If there could be a chemical found that would just cure cancer -- you take the chemical, it cures cancer do you think that company would give it away free? That would be the most profitable drug ever created in the history of our civilization. They would sell that drug at the highest price they could possible get for it.They would sell that drug and they would make trillions of dollars in profits. And thus, their whole story of taking your money so they can search for the cure is really a clever way of using people's guilt to get the public to fund their own R&D (research and development) efforts. Then they can create drugs that will make them filthy rich. That is what it is all about. It is just a clever way to get the public to pay their R&D costs.Now, if a drug company said, "Oh, we will take your money and we are going to search for a cure" and if they pledge, "If we find the cure we are going to give it away for free. We are going to give all our future drugs away for free. We are not going to seek patents on our drugs anymore" that would be different. They will not do that because they are in the sickness business. They depend on you being sick in order for them to make money. Where is all this heading then?Well, if we are spending 84% of our dollars -- our federal spending dollars -- on more disease and debt, if one out of every five dollars is being spent in this economy on disease right now, and if that number is growing -- it is about to become 25% of GDP. One out of every four dollars being spent on disease -- what kind of a future does that paint for our country? Can a country survive and prosper if it is spending 25% of every dollar produced by its economy on sickness? No way... not a chance -- this country, folks, is not just going bankrupt, it is already bankrupt.The healthcare costs are just driving it even deeper into debt. Think about this, the only thing that is keeping this country afloat fiscally is the fact that central banks of foreign countries like Japan and China are still willing to loan money to this government, a government that has no ability to pay back its loans, that has no willingness to pay back its loans. A country with a population that is more diseased than any population of any nation in the history of our world. How do these foreign banks think that they are going to be paid back from the U. S. government?They are not going to be paid back. So here is how the bankruptcies are going to happen. There are going to be a series of rolling bankruptcies. You are going to have personal bankruptcies, households, and families. You are going to have municipal bankruptcies -- cities and states. And you are going to have a federal bankruptcy. When all of this ripples through, we are going to wind up broke and diseased dying from perfectly preventable conditions. If we only had the sense to wake up and start preventing disease in this country.Now, I know that is a dark picture and I want to offer you some hope for a way to turn this around and solve this problem. When we come back from the next break, we are going to start talking about solutions. What can we do right now to turn this country around and save ourselves from the financial bankruptcy that will follow if we do not start controlling our healthcare costs?Real solutions to save our economyIn this segment -- what we can do to solve this problem and stave off this financial doom that seems to be approaching if we do not make some serious changes? I mean we have households going broke, 50% of all personal bankruptcies now are caused by medical costs.We have states going broke because they cannot cover the pensions and the healthcare benefits that they promised to their retirees. We have corporations going broke. Did you know General Motors spends more on healthcare than it does on steel? Really! These healthcare costs are driving corporations off our shores. They are forcing them to go overseas just to stay in business and stay competitive.Then we have a federal government that under the Bush Administration made such a lousy deal with the pharmaceutical companies that it actually made it illegal for the government to negotiate volume pricing with drug companies. How insane is that? Only under a system of greed and collusion and corruption could such an agreement ever have been reached between the federal government and the drug companies.As you have learned -- if you have been listening to this show for very long or listening to the Alex Jones Show, or Jeff Rents which I recommend -- corporations run this government. Corporations run this country so it is really no surprise the government would act in the interests of corporations. However, I promised to talk about solutions.There are solutions available. They are radical because we need some radical changes if we are going to make a difference and turn this thing around -- because things are so messed up. We need to take the profit out of disease. How are we going to do that? Here are my suggestions. Now, I am making these in all seriousness but I do not expect they will ever be adopted because they are not in the interest of the corporations and the power people that run this country.These suggestions go against the status quo. They empower the people, not the corporations. They are suggestions that make common sense but they might not make corporate fiscal sense. They are suggestions that decentralize power. Take it out of Washington, D.C. and put it back into the hands of the people who live in this country and the doctors who practice medicine locally. It puts the power back into the hands of the citizens where it belongs.That is where power is supposed to be in this country. That is what our founding fathers said and understood and tried to dictate in the Constitution. That is what they tried to do to create a system where the people are in power. Now the government and the corporations and the media have taken most of that power and they have left us in a state of chronic disease and bankruptcy. That is where they left us.End all patents on medicineWhat are the solutions? Number one is ending all patents on medicine. That is right. Take away the intellectual property from medicines. Why should medicines that are supposedly created for the benefit of humankind be made to benefit just one investor or one corporation?In fact, I am for ending intellectual property laws on medicines, genes, and seeds. I think it is wrong. I think it is evil for corporations to claim patent ownership over the human genome. Did you know that 20% of the genes in your cells right now are "owned by corporations?" That is true. The U.S. Patent Office has granted patents on your genes, which means technically if you have a child and reproduce those genes you are in violation of U.S. patent law and some day they could potentially start charging you a royalty if you happen to replicate the genes that they have patented. They could send you a bill. That sounds crazy. I know it sounds completely insane but so does the idea of patenting genes in the first place. Why were they given those patents?This is a real issue. We have to end the patents and that way we take the financial incentive out of the pharmaceutical industry to just keep creating fictitious diseases. Now I hear what you are saying. Skeptics listening to this are saying, "Well, what is going to be the incentive for them to create new medicines that we really need?" Well, first, 80% of the medicines that are created today are just drugs that are no better than the older drugs that went off patent. No better at all. In fact, many of them are more dangerous. But the drug companies cannot make money off the old drugs that went off patent so they try to discredit the old drugs and they hype up the new drugs. They hire their drug reps to go into doctors' offices and convince them to prescribe the "new" drug.It may be the same antihistamine, it may be the same blood thinner, it may be the same statin drug just with a slightly different molecule, a slightly different health claim, a slightly different package and a new fancy sounding name and a big television advertising campaign. The truth is folks, 80% of the drugs that Big Pharma releases and promotes each year and that doctors prescribe, offer zero benefits over the older drugs that went off patent.Most of the pharmaceutical promotion is just nonsense. Secondly, when people ask me, "well, if drugs could not be patented who would have the incentive to come up with drugs?" That is the assumption that there is no other organization that would have any interest in keeping people healthy with certain drugs that might be necessary. For example, universities could come up with drugs or governments could come up with certain drugs that might be needed like certain targeted antibiotics and so on.You do not have to have a profit incentive to create things. For example, the U.S. government put a man on the moon in 1969. They did not make any money doing it. They did it because it was important for them. Of course, it was important because of military technology. I think a government with the right leaders could have the foresight to invest some R&D in medical technology and not have to have corporations making billions of dollars off it. The problem is when you put the corporations in charge then they have incentives to make people sick.They have incentives to invent fictitious diseases like ADHD, which is a completely bogus, fictitious condition. It does not exist. There is no test whatsoever. You cannot see it under a microscope. You cannot see it on the MRI. There is no blood test. It is a completely fictitious condition but it sells a lot of drugs. You take away that profit incentive and then you can get back to a more common sense healthcare system that is focused on keeping people healthy rather than running TV ads that convince everyone they are diseased.Ban all drug advertisingYou see, the system we have today is based on just how much money you can make by convincing people that they are diseased. The second thing we need to do is ban all drug advertising. In fact, it was banned before 1997 except in medical journals but you could not just advertise pharmaceuticals to the public on television.It makes no sense because the public are not doctors. They cannot make decisions about what pharmaceuticals they need. So why advertise to the public? Well, the FDA allowed it. They legalized it in 1997 and 1998. Since then drug profits have skyrocketed because now the drug companies can use the power of television advertising and magazine ads and even radio ads to brainwash the public into thinking they are sick, into thinking they are depressed, into thinking that a cholesterol number is now a disease or that pre-diabetes has to be treated with drugs.People need to come in and be screened for breast cancer so they can be treated with cancer drugs regardless of whether the breast cancer screening process is accurate. Because the truth is, 10 women are harmed by mammography for every one woman that is helped by it. I have an article citing the study on www.NaturalNews.com. Check that out if you question that claim. It is true!Today sickness is a business. If we take the profit out of it then we can get back to a healthcare system based on keeping people healthy so that people can contribute to a better economy. So that people can stay alive longer, share their ideas more, and be more creative, more productive, and more functional. That is how we create abundance in this country by keeping people healthy -- not by keeping people sick and then taking profits out of our shares in the pharmaceutical companies. That is a ridiculous concept. We do not create abundance by making money off sick people.We create abundance by teaching people how to be well, how to have healthy children, how to have a healthy future.We have also discussed solutions for how to end the spiraling healthcare costs in this country. We do not do it by just simply requiring everybody to buy insurance. We do it by getting back to the basics of health and showing people how to prevent disease and how to stay healthy. We also talked about the fact that most diseases -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes, depression, you name it -- almost all of them are preventable at levels of 80%, 90% and 99% in some cases. All preventable but how do we do that?Another suggestion that we talked about in the last segment was ending pharmaceutical advertising because the advertising serves absolutely no public education purpose whatsoever. It is a joke. It is not justifiable by any sensible person. Why should drug companies be allowed to advertise to the public? It is illegal in every other country in the world. Only in America is it allowed. Ban junk food marketingThe next thing we should do is ban junk food marketing. Junk food companies, which include fast food joints, soda companies and snack chip companies and all the companies making products that promote diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer -- those companies should not be allowed to advertise their products. That would be a big change, would it not?Probably much of the TV would just be silence because most of what you see on TV today is just junk. It is pharmaceutical ads and junk food ads and soda ads -- all the stuff that makes you sick and broke. That is what the media loves because these companies have lots of extra money to invest in advertising. That is why the media -- the mainstream media -- is so biased against natural medicine. They love soft drink companies.Oh yes, they love snack companies. They love beer companies. They love drug companies because their products make so much money that they can spend a lot of it on more advertising. TV companies and cable news stations -- they love that. They get more money from it. I say we have to ban that marketing because, why should a company be allowed to promote products to children in particular, when we know they will harm those children? We know that soft drinks, for example, are made with high fructose corn syrup -- an ingredient that directly promotes diabetes and obesity.It also contains phosphoric acid, which is of course, a highly acidic chemical that eats away bones. It destroys healthy teeth. It causes osteoporosis in young people -- even men in their 20s for example, are now suffering from osteoporosis. It causes kidney stones and gout. Why should a soda company be allowed to advertise this dangerous beverage to children?We have children now who are obese and they are only seven years old. We have children so young now getting diabetes that they had to change the name of the disease. It used to be called adult-onset diabetes. They had to remove the words, "adult-onset" and just call it Type II diabetes because it is striking so many children now that the word "adult" seems somewhat ridiculous. Children are getting an adult's disease.Children are now being diagnosed with heart disease and cancer at levels that we have never seen before and children are being diagnosed with depression and then they are being put on anti-depressant drugs, which of course, makes them crazy, makes them violent, makes them walk into their schools with automatic weapons and blow away their classmates. This is medicine. Are you kidding me?This is not medicine. This system does not have the welfare of the public in mind but this system only exploits the public. I say we end it by banning the advertising of junk foods to children especially. I think we should ban them outright altogether. So far then, the suggestions are: end patent protection on pharmaceuticals, end the advertising of pharmaceuticals and end the advertising of junk foods. What is the next thing we should do? We should end government subsidies on those junk foods.End government subsidies junk foodsWhy should we use taxpayer dollars? You may not have even been aware of this by the way. Taxpayer dollars are being used to provide extra money to the sugar industry and the corn industry. What do you see when you walk into a grocery store as the most unhealthy processed foods -- corn products and sugar products. Think about it.Whatever you subsidize, you encourage the public to consume and eat because, of course, people are on a budget. They want to buy food at the lowest price they can. The poor people in this country are now buying more sugar and more corn. What does sugar and corn do? Well, sugar causes diabetes, obesity, and nutritional deficiencies that lead to depression and other problems. What does corn do? Well, how do you fatten up a cow? Have you ever heard the term corn-fed beef? You fatten up a cow by feeding it corn.How do you fatten up the American population? You do it by feeding it corn. There is corn in everything. There is corn in cereal. There is corn in tortillas. There is corn in chips. It is almost impossible to get away from corn. And then, of course, there is the high fructose corn syrup, which is an unnatural isolated substance extracted from corn that promotes even more diabetes and/or obesity. Then we have the government subsidizing these two industries.This means, of course, the government is trying to motivate people to buy more products that are bad for their health. I mean you could make a strong argument for a conspiracy behind this. I am not going to go there because I would rather talk about my suggestion, which is why do we not start subsidizing products that are healthy for people? The government should start subsidizing organic produce that would make organic apples, celery, and broccoli less expensive than sugar and corn.Gee, a whole lot of families in this country would start buying more organic produce would they not? Then they would have better nutrition because there is more nutrition in organic produce than in conventional produce and people would have fewer diseases. Then healthcare costs would go down. Kind of an interesting cause and effect, is it not? Too bad no one in the government is interested in actually doing what is right for our country it seems -- only what is right for private industry.The sugar industry -- why do we need to subsidize sugar? This industry is very wealthy. It has a monopoly control over the sugar industry -- over all sugar. Even imported sugar is taxed to protect the monopoly here in the United States. We have sugar in everything. There is sugar in salad dressing. There is sugar in pizza sauce. There is sugar in cornbread. Cornbread is really corn cake. It is corn and sugar mostly, the two things that we are talking about that we do not need more of. Why are we subsidizing corn? Why are we subsidizing sugar? We have to stop that and we have to start subsidizing the things that are healthy for people.Provide nutritional supplementation for all women of childbearing ageThe next thing we need to do is we need to provide at taxpayer expense -- which means the government pays for it -- nutritional supplementation for all women of childbearing age. All expectant mothers should be given free nutritional supplements to prevent birth defects and give their newborn children the health that they need to avoid medical costs, to enhance brain function. I mean we could save billions of dollars a year. We could save literally billions of dollars a year if we just gave a couple of dollars worth of nutritional supplements to expectant mothers.The cost of giving birth to a deformed baby is in the millions of dollars. And over the lifetime of that baby, it can be tens of millions of dollars. It is a huge cost to society but it costs almost nothing to prevent birth defects, almost nothing -- just a few pennies a day for just zinc. Zinc alone prevents 70% of low birth-weight babies from being low weight. If you wanted to make an investment in something in this country, this is the best investment you could possibly make. Nutrition for expectant mothers: make it free.Ban dangerous ingredients in the food supplyWe should also be running public service ads about nutrition. We should be banning dangerous ingredients in the food supply instead of just regulating them. We should ban them. We should ban, for example, high fructose corn syrup, I think. We should ban partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. We should ban sodium nitrite, which causes cancer and it is found in all processed meats.We should ban artificial food colors that cause ADHD and we should ban various chemicals in foods that are promoting cancer and diabetes and heart disease right now. These are just some of the many suggestions that we could use to solve this problem. We will continue with this topic on a future show because there is a lot more to talk about here. There are many more solutions. (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Celebrate july 4th safely

What's New on MedlinePlus — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:31:59 +0100

On the July 4th weekend, prevent injuries by using fireworks safely. (Source: What's New on MedlinePlus)

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Everyday cognition scale may help doctors better identify cognitive decline

About Alzheimers Disease — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

While doctors already have a couple of questionnaires that can help them identify possible Alzheimer's disease, many of these tests only detect problems when the disease has progressed beyond the... (Source: About Alzheimers Disease)

Children and gerd

About Heartburn / Acid Reflux — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

GERD isn't just an adult's disease. I was diagnosed with GERD when I was in my 30's. My grandson was diagnosed with GERD when he was 6 months old. Because children... (Source: About Heartburn / Acid Reflux)

Wireless insulin pump approved by fda

About Diabetes — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

In a press release dated July 1, 2008, Animas Corp. announced the FDA approval of their new wireless insulin pump, the OneTouch Ping. The Ping is the first insulin pump... (Source: About Diabetes)

Get the inside story in the diabetes forum

About Diabetes — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

The Diabetes Forum is a great community of people who cope with diabetes everyday. People who have had diabetes for years and people who have been newly diagnosed all have... (Source: About Diabetes)

Meningococcal meningitis

Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 14:56:11 +0100

Meningococcal Meningitis (Source: Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio)

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Regence wins four international telly awards for health and wellness videos prestigious awards reflect regence’s commitment to helping its members lead healthier lives

BCBS.com: Blue News — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 13:43:00 +0100

Regence won four bronze (second-place) Telly Awards for health and wellness videos it created and produced for myRegence.com., a health-focused Web site for Regence members (Source: BCBS.com: Blue News)

Choose nature instead of prozac for pms and pmdd

NaturalNews.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) Thanks to a recent question in the Ask Tony Isaacs Curezone forum, I discovered that it appears to be common to prescribe the dangerous drug Prozac for PMS -- at least in the United States, that is. Not only that, but it is evidently often prescribed not by the Psychiatrists who successfully lobbied the FDA for approval over the objections of the WHO (World Health Organization), but by ordinary ob/gyn doctors who are making diagnosis of a specially created condition the psychiatrists came up with to justify prescribing it: Pre Menstrual Distress Disorder, or PMDD.The initial question asked in the forum was :"Went to the ob/gyn yesterday. I am well into premenopause and he diagnosed me with PMDD. No doubt my PMS is getting worse as I get older. He wants me to start on Prozac for several days a month before I get my period to help with my symptoms. I don't want to go on Prozac or hormone therapy. What can I use naturally to help my symptoms? I think I need to revamp my diet as well. How can I ease into a diet change slowly so as not to overwhelm myself all at once? Also, any supplements I should add? I know there are lots of questions, but I NEED HELP! Thanks."My initial reaction was one of shock and outrage. Prozac for PMS? What the heck was an ob/gyn doing prescribing that scary drug? And what was PMDD anyway? A quick check of Wikipedia made it all too clear:"Originally called late luteal phase dysphoric disorder (LLPDD), the disorder was renamed PMDD by the American Psychiatric Association in its May 1993 revision of the DSM-IV. PMDD was moved from a position in the appendix of the manual to a "disorder requiring further study."[2][3] Some groups of psychiatrists and women's groups object to the labeling of a severe form of PMS as a psychiatric disorder.PMDD is accepted as illness by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) but has not been listed as a separate disorder in the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases. In 2003, the manufacturer of Prozac (fluoxetine) was required by the Committee for Proprietary Medicinal Products to remove PMDD from the list of indications for fluoxetine sold in Europe.[4] The committee found that...PMDD is not a well-established disease entity across Europe... There was considerable concern that women with less severe pre-menstrual symptoms might erroneously receive a diagnosis of PMDD resulting in widespread inappropriate short and long-term use of fluoxetine.[5]PMDD is not listed on the Australian Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. [6]Some commentators suggest that PMDD (along with social anxiety disorder, restless leg syndrome, and female sexual dysfunction) has been marketed by pharmaceutical companies in order to increase the demand for treatments.(PMID 16597181)."There it was -- PMDD is an essentially manufactured condition not recognized by the WHO yet approved by the FDA so that our doctors can write even more prescriptions for a dangerous and highly controversial drug known to cause suicide and uncontrolled violence. And those prescriptions are for a condition that Prozac is prohibited from being used for in Europe.Another fine example of the mainstream manage' a trois between big pharma, the FDA and our doctors.Not that the FDA would approve, but, as is often the case when dangerous mainstream drugs and treatments are thrust upon us, there are many natural and much safer alternatives to managing PMS, including diet, stress reduction such as EFT and supplementation. Here are some excerpted from my book "Collected Remedies':PMSMood swings, tender breasts, a swollen abdomen, food cravings, fatigue, irritability and depression. If you experience some or all of these problems in the days before your monthly period, you may have premenstrual syndrome (PMS).An estimated three of every four menstruating women experience some form of premenstrual syndrome. These problems are more likely to trouble women between their late 20s and early 40s, and they tend to recur in a predictable pattern. Yet the physical and emotional changes you experience with premenstrual syndrome may be more or less intense with each menstrual cycle.Still, you don't have to let these problems control your life. In recent years, much has been learned about premenstrual syndrome. Treatments and lifestyle adjustments can help you reduce or manage the signs and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome.Signs and symptomsFor many women the signs and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome are an uncomfortable and unwelcome part of their monthly menstrual cycle. The most common physical and emotional signs and symptoms associated with premenstrual syndrome include:* Weight gain from fluid retention* Abdominal bloating* Breast tenderness* Tension or anxiety* Depressed mood* Crying spells* Mood swings and irritability or anger* Appetite changes and food cravings* Trouble falling asleep (insomnia)* Joint or muscle pain* Headache* FatigueAlthough the list of potential signs and symptoms is long, most women with premenstrual syndrome experience only a few of these problems.For some women, the physical pain and emotional stress are severe enough to affect their daily routines and activities. For most of these women, symptoms disappear as the menstrual period begins.But for some women with premenstrual syndrome, symptoms are so severe they're considered disabling. This form of PMS has its own psychiatric designation -- premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD). PMDD is a severe form of premenstrual syndrome with symptoms including severe depression, feelings of hopelessness, anger, anxiety, low self-esteem, difficulty concentrating, irritability and tension. A number of women with severe PMS may have an underlying psychiatric disorder.CausesExactly what causes premenstrual syndrome is unknown, but several factors may contribute to the condition. Cyclic changes in hormones seem to be an important cause, because signs and symptoms of premenstrual syndrome change with hormonal fluctuations and also disappear with pregnancy and menopause.Chemical changes in the brain also may be involved. One clue to the cause may be traced to fluctuations of serotonin, a brain chemical (neurotransmitter) that is thought to play a crucial role in mood states, especially depression. Insufficient amounts of serotonin may contribute to other symptoms of PMS, such as fatigue, food cravings and sleep problems.Occasionally, some women with severe premenstrual syndrome have undiagnosed depression, though depression alone does not cause all of the symptoms associated with premenstrual syndrome. Stress also may aggravate some of the symptoms, but alone it isn't a cause.Some PMS symptoms have been linked to low levels of vitamins and minerals. Other possible contributors to PMS include eating a lot of salty foods, which may cause fluid retention, and drinking alcohol and caffeinated beverages, which may cause mood and energy level disturbancesAlcohol, sugar, spicy foods, hot drinks, and hot soups can trigger hot flashes.You can manage or sometimes reduce the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome by making changes in the way you eat, exercise and approach daily life. Try these approaches:* Modify your diet* Eat smaller, more frequent meals each day to reduce bloating and the sensation of fullness.* Limit salt and salty foods to reduce bloating and fluid retention.* Do not eat any type of sugar, and of course sweeteners. Modify your diet* Substitute garlic powder or onion powder for salt when cooking.* Choose foods high in complex carbohydrates, such as fruits, vegetables and whole grains.* Choose non-dairy foods rich in calcium and perhaps a daily calcium supplement.* Take a daily multivitamin supplement and a good source of plant derived trace minerals.* Avoid caffeine.* Avoid alcohol.* Incorporate exercise into your regular routine* Engage in brisk walking, cycling, swimming or other aerobic activity most days of the week. Regular daily exercise can help improve your overall health and alleviate symptoms such as fatigue and a depressed mood.* Reduce stress -- EFT is wonderful for reducing stress.* Get plenty of sleep.* Practice progressive muscle relaxation or deep-breathing exercises to help reduce headaches, anxiety or trouble sleeping (insomnia).* Record your symptoms for a few months* Keep a record to identify the triggers and timing of your symptoms. This will allow you to intervene with strategies that may help to lessen them.Here's what's known about the effectiveness of some of the more common natural products and remedies used to soothe the symptoms of premenstrual syndrome:* Calcium. Consuming 1,000 milligrams (mg) of dietary and supplemental calcium daily, such as chewable calcium carbonate (Tums, Rolaids, others), may reduce the physical and psychological symptoms of PMS. Regular, long-term use of calcium carbonate also reduces your risk of osteoporosis.* Magnesium. Taking 400 mg of supplemental magnesium daily may help to reduce fluid retention, breast tenderness and bloating in women with premenstrual syndrome.* Vitamin B-6. A daily dose of 50 to 100 mg of vitamin B-6 may help some women with troublesome PMS symptoms.* Vitamin E. This vitamin, taken in 400 international units daily, may ease PMS symptoms by reducing the production of prostaglandin, hormone-like substances that cause cramps and breast tenderness.* Herbal remedies. Many women report relief of PMS symptoms with the use of herbs such as black cohosh, ginger, raspberry leaf, dandelion, chasteberry, St. John's Wort and evening primrose oil.* Colloidal Gold. Colloidal gold is one of the least known yet most effective mood and mental enhancers.* Natural progesterone creams. These are derived from wild yams and soybeans. Some women report that these creams relieve symptoms. Combine one handful of chamomile and one handful of dried orange flowers in a cheesecloth or muslin bag and hang from the bathtub faucet. The warm water will release the fragrant oils and relieve PMS discomfort.Other topics that may be helpful:Cramping* Pumpkin Seeds. Eat pumpkin seeds about a week before your menstrual period (a handful - 1/4 of a cup a day) and your cramps should be non-existent. Also eat them as a snack during the period.* Hot water and ginger. Boil the water and stir in two to three tablespoons of ginger and drink it up. You should feel better in 30-45 minutes.* Dill pickle juice. Drink a half cup when you feel a cramp coming or as soon as it strikes. One heaping teaspoon of salt in water (1 to 2 to one glass) may also do the trick if you have no pickle juice handy.* Yogurt or calcium. Eat two cups of yogurt a day in the days or week leading up to your period and you should not be moody or have cramps when your monthly period comes. If you don't like yogurt, take a calcium supplement... Continue during the period. With either one, you should see a big difference in your time of the month.* Oregano and water. Take three tablespoons of oregano and mix with one liter of water, then bring to boiling and continue to boil for five minutes. Strain and drink as a tea. You should feel better soon and continue to feel well for an entire day.Menstrual Cramps* It should be no surprise that an herb named cramp bark (Viburnum opulus) would work wonders for menstrual pain. It contains at least six compounds that relax muscles, as well as salicin, the pain-relieving compound from which aspirin is derived. Take one teaspoon of the liquid extract every hour until your cramps subside. If they don't ease within 48 hours, stop taking cramp bark.* Supplements. Take 1,000 mg calcium and 500 mg magnesium daily. Calcium and magnesium work together to regulate muscle contractions and the conduction of nerve impulses.* Ginger tea (for cramps). Grate two to three teaspoons of fresh ginger root and simmer in two cups of water for several minutes. Add lemon and honey to taste. Drink as much as desired.* Acute cramps. Combine equal parts of ginger, valerian, and cramp bark tinctures, to be taken in half-teaspoon doses every twenty minutes until the symptoms subside.* Aromatherapy. A couple of days before menstruation begins, massage the following combination into the abdomen once or twice a day, as well as using them in the bath. Blend together equal parts of chamomile, an anti-inflammatory; clary sage, which relieves depression; lavender, a relaxing herb; and tarragon and marjoram, which are anti-spasmodic.* Hot ginger poultice. Make a strong ginger tea or add a half-teaspoon of ginger essential oil to a quart of hot water. Dip a towel in the water and wring it out, lay it over the abdomen, and place a hot water bottle over the ginger towel to retain the heat. Relax for fifteen minutes.Live long, live healthy, live happy!About the authorTony Isaacs, is a natural health advocate and researcher and the author of books and articles about natural health including "Cancer's Natural Enemy" and "Collected Remedies"as well as song lyrics and humorous anecdotal stories. Mr. Isaacs also has The Best Years in Life website for baby boomers and others wishing to avoid prescription drugs and mainstream managed illness and live longer, healthier and happier lives naturally. He is currently residing in the scenic Texas hill country near Utopia, Texas where he serves as a consultant to the Utopia Silver colloidal silver and supplement company and where he is working on a major book project due for publication later this year. Mr. Isaacs also hosts the CureZone "Ask Tony Isaacs" forum as well as the Yahoo Health Group "Oleander Soup" (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Read meat consumption linked yet again to increased cancer risk

NaturalNews.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) A new large-scale study has provided more strong evidence linking the consumption of red and processed meats to an increased risk of cancer.Researchers from the U.S. National Cancer Institute examined data on 494,000 participants in the National Institutes of Health (NIH)-AARP Diet and Health Study. Participants filled out a detailed questionnaire on their dietary habits at the beginning of the study, and were then followed for eight years. At the end of this time, researchers compared the cancer data on the 20 percent of participants who ate the most red and processed meat with the data on the 20 percent who ate the least.All participants were between the ages of 50 and 71. The highest red meat consumption group had an intake of 62.5 grams (2.2 ounces) of red meat for every 1,000 calories consumed. The processed meat consumption of the high group was 22.6 grams (0.8 ounces) per 1,000 calories.Red meat was defined in the study as any meat originating from a mammal, including beef, pork and lamb.Researchers found that people who consumed the most red meat had a 25 percent higher risk of developing colorectal cancer in the study period compared with those who ate the least, and a 20 percent higher risk of developing lung cancer. The risk of esophageal and liver cancer was increased by between 20 and 60 percent.Those who ate the most processed meat had a 20 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with colorectal cancer and a 16 percent higher risk of lung cancer. Increased intake of red and processed meat was also correlated with an increased risk of pancreatic cancer in men.According to the researchers, one in 10 cases of lung or colorectal cancer could be averted by limiting red meat intake.Prior studies have also linked meat consumption to increased cancer risk, particularly the risk of colorectal and stomach cancer. Other studies have found associations between meat intake and the risk of bladder, breast, cervical, endometrial, esophageal, glioma, kidney, liver, lung, mouth, ovarian, pancreatic and prostate cancers. Scientists have said that roughly 35 percent of cancers can be attributed to diet, a connection as strong as that with smoking. A November report from the World Cancer Research fund called alcohol and obesity the two biggest causes of cancer, and warned that the intake of processed and red meat should be limited.Because high meat intake correlates with cancer risk factors like high calorie intake and obesity, as well as the consumption of other unhealthy foods, the researchers could not determine for sure whether the meat was causing cancer or merely contributing to other risk factors. But research has suggested that meat contains a number of carcinogenic compounds, including some that are formed during cooking or processing.The researchers noted that meat also contains other potential carcinogens, including heme iron (the type of iron found in meat), nitrates and nitrites, saturated fat, hormones and salts. All of these substances have been observed to affect hormone metabolism, increase cell proliferation, damage DNA, encourage insulin-like growth hormones and promote damage of cells by free radicals, all of which can lead to cancer."Future research should also examine particular nutrients within meats (e.g., iron) or carcinogenic components (e.g., heterocyclic amines, nitrosamines) that are created as a result of certain cooking techniques, particularly among the rarer and less studied cancers," the researchers wrote. They also noted that certain animal agriculture practices, such as the use of antibiotics, may contribute to meat's carcinogenicity.Lung and colorectal cancers are the first and second leading causes of cancer death, respectively. The risk of developing either disease over the course of a lifetime in the Western world is approximately one in 20. (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Revolutionary healthbooksummaries.com delivers summaries of top health books for free

NaturalNews.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) I've waited over six months to bring you this news. It's our pre-announcement of a service that will utterly transform the way you get your health information. This article is a behind-the-scenes look at this breakthrough health information resource, which we'll be officially announcing later in July. What kind of resource is it? Fellow health information guru Kevin Gianni and I have created Health Book Summaries (www.HealthBookSummaries.com), a website that brings you condensed summaries of the very best books on health, nutrition and natural living... all for free!The concept is simple: We work with the industry's top authors and publishers to obtain the rights to publish summaries of the very best books on health, fitness, nutrition, green living and much more. Then we create information-rich summaries of each book and put them into non-copy-protected, downloadable PDF files (Adobe Acrobat) that you can print or read on any computer (or even e-mail to your friends). Every two weeks or so, we release another health book summary that arrives in your e-mail box -- free of charge, of course!The service is funded by selected sponsors whose ads appear in the summary documents, just like magazine ads. Current sponsors include Organic Food Bar, Wellness Resources, Nutrex Hawaii, Vitacost, Living Fuel, Boku Superfood, Bodhi Soap Nuts and Renegade Health. These sponsors cover all the costs of producing and distributing these health book summaries so that readers can have full, free access to the most concentrated source of health knowledge that's ever been offered in the industry!We're currently in our pre-launch phase. The official announcement of this service won't hit the mainstream media for another 10 days or so, but you can get signed up right now during our pre-launch phase and download three health book summaries instantly! Just go to www.HealthBookSummaries.com and enter your e-mail address to begin the download!(Please note: Word leaked out about this service last night and our e-mail servers are already overloaded, so please allow up to 30 minutes to receive your confirmation e-mail. I apologize for the slowness of the e-mail servers. We'll have this issue resolved shortly...)The top health information from the industry's best authorsTo create HealthBookSummaries.com, we've selected the very best books from the most pioneering authors who truly "get it" about nutrition, disease reversal, green living and fitness. These are authors like Dr. Gabriel Cousens, David Wolfe, Ray Moynihan, Bruce Lipton, Brendan Brazier and so many more! We're also working hard to bring you future summaries from pioneering writers like Jonny Bowden, Marcia Angell, Dr. David Brownstein and others.Current book summaries we'll be releasing over the next few weeks include:• The Biology of Belief by Bruce Lipton • Spiritual Nutrition by Dr. Gabriel Cousens • Selling Sickness by Ray Moynihan • Appetite for Profit by Michele Simon • The Genie in Your Genes by Dawson Church • EXPOSED: The Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Products by Mark SchapiroEach of these is available to you at no charge by simply registering at www.healthbooksummaries.com/Register.html(Just remember, it may take up to 30 minutes to receive your confirmation e-mail due to the unexpectedly high number of sign-ups we're experiencing right now...)An optional upgrade (which costs just $7.95 / month) brings you recorded audio of the book summaries, allowing you to listen to these book summaries on any MP3 player (such as an iPod device). You can also burn these MP3 files to a CD-Rom and listen in your car, office, or anywhere that you can play a CD. The audio files aren't available yet, but will be posted when we announce our official launch of the service in late July.HealthBookSummaries audio files are not copy protected, so you can play them anywhere! (We are anti DRM, and pro-open-source!)Stay informed, empowered and healthy!I'm simply thrilled to be bringing you news of this HealthBookSummaries.com pre-launch. Over the last several years, I've worked diligently to bring health consumers the kind of information they could use to greatly improve the quality of their lives. And our surveys show that more than 80% of users who read NaturalNews.com experience significant health improvements!I've worked diligently on ways to bring people even more concentrated sources of knowledge about health and peak performance, and HealthBookSummaries.com is the best new vehicle for accomplishing that. It's valuable because it delivers high-density health knowledge directly to readers, all in a format that's free, portable, easy to read and requires very little time.In other words, the "results vs. effort" ratio is very high! Invest just a few minutes of time reading HealthBookSummaries, and you'll experience the knowledge and know-how benefits that would normally require hours of your time!And who wouldn't love to get more knowledge in less time?Listen to my welcome message describing HealthBookSummaries.com and why it's such a great way to learn essential health knowledge in remarkably little time:www.healthbooksummaries.com/MP3s/HBS-Welcome-MikeAdams.mp3And then, be sure to register for HealthBookSummaries.com so you can receive our health book summaries as we release them. It's completely free to you, and yet the information provided in these summaries is extremely powerful! Register now at: http://www.healthbooksummaries.com/Register.html(Remember, please allow up to 30 minutes to receive your confirmation e-mail from us, due to our mail servers being temporarily overloaded thanks to the extremely high response...)Thank you, and enjoy HealthBookSummaries.com! - MikeFrequently Asked Questions about Health Book SummariesIs this service really free?Yes, it's free! Our costs are covered by sponsors whose ads appear in the book summary documents, just like magazine ads.How many books do you summarize each month?Currently, we send you two new book summarize each month via e-mail, and always for free, of course. As our service gains momentum, we will release 3 book summaries per month, and then eventually 1 per week.How long is each book summary?Each summary is about 15 pages long, condensing hundreds of pages from the original book into about 15 pages of the most important information.How do I view or print these health book summaries?Just download them by registering on our website, then open each document and read it or print it. You'll need Adobe Acrobat reader to open and print these documents.Are Health Book Summaries copy protected?Our content is copyrighted, but the files are not copy protected. You can freely copy them, send to friends, e-mail them as attachments, etc. (You cannot sell them, however...)Are there audio summaries of the health books available?There will be soon. We're working on the audio summaries, which you'll be able to download as MP3 files. There's a small monthly fee ($7.95) to access the audio files. Our MP3 files are also non-copy-protected.Which health books will you be summarizing?We are working with the top publishers in the industry to acquire permission to summarize the very best health books available today. Kevin Gianni and Mike Adams make all final decisions on which books to include in HealthBookSummaries.comI am an author or publisher. Will you summarize my book?See our section for authors and publishers, below.I would like my ad to appear in your book summaries. How do I become a sponsor?See our sponsorship section, below.Is this service available in languages other than English?Not yet. In the near future, we are planning on introducing Spanish-language summaries, following by summaries in other languages.Information for potential sponsorsIf you would like to sponsor future issues of HealthBookSummaries.com, please contact Health Book Summaries, Inc. by e-mailing sponsors@healthbooksummaries.comPlease note that sponsorship is subject to approval by Mike Adams and Kevin Gianni, and is strictly limited to companies offering honest, high-quality products or services to the natural health community. We do not accept advertising from drug companies, diabetic supply companies, disease front groups like the American Cancer Society or other similar conventional medicine organizations that promote medication instead of education.HealthBookSummaries sponsorship opportunities are already booked through July. We currently have two openings in August, so if you want to be included in our August issues, please contact us immediately.Health Book Summaries, Inc., is a separate business entity from NaturalNews.com.Information for authors and publishersWould you like Health Book Summaries to consider summarizing your book in a future issue? It's fantastic publicity for your book (and its author), and helps bring your information to potentially hundreds of thousands of readers.We're very selective about the books we choose to summarize, and if you would like your book to be considered, please contact us via e-mail to acquire our mailing address (where you can send your book or manuscript). That address is publishers@healthbooksummaries.com (Source: NaturalNews.com)

New look on nihseniorhealth

What's New on MedlinePlus — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 04:00:00 +0100

Check out the new look on NIHSeniorHealth. This easy-to-use website features health and wellness information for older adults. (Source: What's New on MedlinePlus)

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Energize yourself stay physically active

UCTV Presents: Health and Medicine — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 23:00:00 +0100

Despite common knowledge that exercise is healthful, many American adults are not regularly active, and some are not active at all. Catherine Waters of the UCSF School of Nursing explores measures that can be taken to not only live longer but also live better by being physically active. (Source: UCTV Presents: Health and Medicine)

Rxhub-surescripts merger

BCBS.com: Blue News — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 16:38:40 +0100

Scott P. Serota, president and chief executive officer of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA), released the following statement in response to today's announcement that RxHub LLC and SureScripts are merging to form a seamless, integrated e-prescribing network linking patients, doctors, pharmacies and payers. (Source: BCBS.com: Blue News)

Be safe from anaphylaxis

Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 14:55:58 +0100

Be Safe From Anaphylaxis (Source: Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Radio)

Cheap, processed chocolate has virtually no health benefits due to lack of flavanols

NaturalNews.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) People should not be misled into believing that the typical chocolate bar is good for heart health, according to an editorial published in the influential medical journal Lancet, because most processed chocolate bars contain very low amounts of the nutrient that makes chocolate good for you.A series of recent studies have suggested that the flavanols contained in dark chocolate are good for the heart. A paper published in the journal Circulation reported that heart transplant patients who were given a dose of dark chocolate showed significant improvement in measures of blood flow, clotting and vascular function within only two hours. Participants who were given a placebo dose of fake chocolate showed no improvement in any of these measurements.But the flavanols that make chocolate healthy also make it bitter, and as such are removed by many commercial chocolate manufacturers. And as the Lancet editorial noted, there is no requirement for manufacturers to state on the label whether flavanols have been removed or not.Flavanols are naturally occurring plant chemicals in the flavonoid family. They are powerful antioxidants that have been shown to have a number of health benefits, including for the heart. Flavonoids are also found in tea, red wine and a number of fruits and vegetables.For those seeking to exploit chocolate's heart health effects, an article published in the Mayo Clinic Health Letter recommends dark chocolate, which contains an average of 53.5 milligrams of flavonoids per bar. In contrast, the average bar of milk chocolate contains less than 14 milligrams, and white chocolate contains none.But the sugar and fat in chocolate bars come with their own health risks."If you ask me what's more important, a little physical activity like walking or eating the chocolate, go take your walk," said Jacob Shani, chair of the Cardiac Institute at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn. (Source: NaturalNews.com)

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Recent study finds plant foods preserve muscle mass in aging adults

NaturalNews.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) Fruits and vegetables contain essential vitamins, minerals and fiber that are key to good health. Now, a newly released study by Agricultural Research Service (ARS)-funded scientists suggests plant foods also may help preserve muscle mass in older men and women.The study was led by physician and nutrition specialist Bess Dawson-Hughes at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.The typical American diet is rich in protein, cereal grains and other acid-producing foods. In general, such diets generate tiny amounts of acid each day. With aging, a mild but slowly increasing metabolic "acidosis" develops, according to the researchers.The study was led by physician and nutrition specialist Bess Dawson-Hughes at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University in Boston, Mass.The typical American diet is rich in protein, cereal grains and other acid-producing foods. In general, such diets generate tiny amounts of acid each day. With aging, a mild but slowly increasing metabolic "acidosis" develops, according to the researchers.Acidosis appears to trigger a muscle-wasting response. So the researchers looked at links between measures of lean body mass and diets relatively high in potassium-rich, alkaline-residue producing fruits and vegetables. Such diets could help neutralize acidosis. Foods can be considered alkaline or acidic based on the residues they produce in the body, rather than whether they are alkaline or acidic themselves. For example, acidic grapefruits are metabolized to alkaline residues.The researchers conducted a cross-sectional analysis on a subset of nearly 400 male and female volunteers aged 65 or older who had completed a three-year osteoporosis intervention trial. The volunteers' physical activity, height and weight, and percentage of lean body mass were measured at the start of the study and at three years. Their urinary potassium was measured at the start of the study, and their dietary data was collected at 18 months.Based on regression models, volunteers whose diets were rich in potassium could expect to have 3.6 more pounds of lean tissue mass than volunteers with half the higher potassium intake. That almost offsets the 4.4 pounds of lean tissue that is typically lost in a decade in healthy men and women aged 65 and above, according to authors.Sarcopenia, or loss of muscle mass, can lead to falls due to weakened leg muscles. The authors encourage future studies that look into the effects of increasing overall intake of foods that metabolize to alkaline residues on muscle mass and functionality.The study was published in the March issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.Source:U.S. Department of Agriculture (2008, May 31) (http://www.usda.gov/wps/portal/usdahome)About the authorLeslee Dru Browning is a 6th generation Medical Herbalist and Nutritionist from the ancestral line of Patty Bartlett Sessions; Pioneer Mid-Wife and Herbalist. Leslee practiced Medical Herbalism and Nutritional Healing for over 25 years and specialized in Cancer Wellness along with Chronic Illness. She now devotes her career to teaching people, through her writing, about Natural Healing from An Herbal Perspective. (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Review: sunwarrior protein wins editor's choice award for raw, vegan, brown rice protein concentrate

NaturalNews.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) If you're into a plant-based diet and all the health and performance benefits that come from eating plants, it's difficult to find a high-quality source of supplemental protein. Until now, traditional sources have been soy protein, yellow pea protein, hemp seed protein, brown rice protein and mesquite flour. But each of these has problems. Isolated soy protein, for example, is a cheap, low-end protein "filler" protein that's often extracted with chemical solvents (and can even be made from genetically-modified soybeans!). This is why it's the No. 1 protein used in all those cheap, low-end protein bars found at the grocery store.Hemp protein, on the other hand, is nutritionally very rich, but it often has an annoyingly high "grit" factor, and the taste is not very pleasing to many consumers (I still eat lots of hemp protein, though, due to its outstanding nutritional profile). Brown rice protein also seems to have a high grit factor, and it never seemed to offer sufficient assimilation to provide all the protein I needed in my diet. That's why, until now, I had never found a source of brown rice protein that I really liked.All that changed when I received a phone call from Brent Hauver at SunWarrior (www.SunWarrior.com). He had gotten my phone number from David Wolfe at Sunfood Nutrition (www.SunFood.com), who was convinced that I needed to know about this new "silky smooth" brown rice protein that was about to be launched. He said it was both raw and vegan, and that it trounced every other plant-based protein product on the market today in terms of assimilation and performance. Strong claims, yes. But could they be true?In this article, you'll hear my full review of this breakthrough SunWarrior brown rice protein concentrate. I'll reveal why I've come to the conclusion almost everyone can benefit from this supplemental protein (including women, children and senior citizens), and how it helped me break through a strength plateau in my own training at the gym. Better yet, you'll also learn about an exclusive, time-limited discount offered only to NaturalNews readers. Feel free to just skip right to the discount code, below, if you're ready to try SunWarrior protein for yourself. (Note: I earn nothing from the sales of this product. This is a 100% independent, non-commercial product review.)You can watch my video review of SunWarrior Protein here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtk3pNfQddUYou can also listen to my audio interview with Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html#36My introduction to SunWarrior ProteinWhen Brent enthusiastically described SunWarrior protein to me, I was naturally skeptical. I've got a lot of products showing up at my door every day, and some are described with some fairly outrageous claims, but knowing the integrity of David Wolfe and Sunfood, I decided to go visit Brent Hauver in person and find out for myself if this protein product lived up to its claims.I got that chance at the Expo West gathering in Anaheim, California, where over 3,000 natural living product vendors get together to show off their latest products to buyers like Whole Foods, Vitacost, and individual health food chains from around the world.On the first morning, just after the exposition doors opened, I darted over to the SunWarrior booth and introduced myself to Brent Hauver, the founder of SunWarrior. Brent is really tall, with a wide smile and a level of enthusiasm for natural living that's ridiculously contagious. Within minutes we were talking about global transformation through the pursuit of a plant-based diet, and why animal-based protein products are being increasingly replaced with plant-based protein supplements by discerning consumers.Brent tells me his new SunWarrior protein product is raw, GMO-free, vegan, fermented brown rice protein, and that what's in the canister is 85% pure protein! He also says it's silky smooth, without any of the grit usually associated with brown rice protein products. This is accomplished, Brent explains, through a high-tech microfiltration process conducted at very low temperatures (room temperature, essentially), which keeps the product raw. No chemical solvents whatsoever are used in the processing of this brown rice protein concentrate.I interrupted Brent to remind him that I still hadn't tasted the product to see for myself what it was like. He chuckled, reached under the booth table, pulled out a 2.2 lb. container of SunWarrior "Natural" Protein, and with a magician's flourish, whipped back a curtain, revealing a Vita-Mix blender. (Score! A Vita-Mix on the road is worth its weight in gold, I've discovered...)I scooped up three or four heaping spoons of SunWarrior protein, chucked it into the Vita-Mix, then poured in a container of unsweetened hemp milk I'd scored the night before. After a 15-second blend, I poured the resulting brown rice protein milk into a cup and chugged it.Wow... Brent was right. No grit! This stuff was not only exquisitely delicious, it was also silky smooth. As smooth as the best whey protein powders, yet it was made from brown rice! This made it easy to swallow, and the taste was phenomenal: Just a hint of natural sweetness, with absolutely none of the sharp taste overtones you might find in hemp protein or soy protein. I instantly knew I could blend this into any smoothie -- fruit, chocolate, tropical, whatever! -- and the taste would fit right in.On top of that, this product had no chemical sweeteners, no refined sugars, no dairy, no soy, no genetically-modified ingredients... this looked like the plant-based protein product I was searching for!Why a professional bodybuilder switched to SunWarrior ProteinI won't go into all the rest of the technical details of what Brent described to me: How the product is fermented, for example, to make the amino acids far more bioavailable, and why this greatly enhances absorption, making it superior to any other plant-based protein source he'd ever seen. I agreed this was a big benefit, because as a person who works out at the gym quite a bit, I'm usually disappointed with plant-based protein products. They usually don't provide the absorption I'm looking for, and they leave me feeling hungry and under-nourished.That's when superstar bodybuilder Wade McNutt stopped by the booth. He's a champion bodybuilder with a freakishly ripped physique. I slapped a microphone on Wade and pressed record on my portable audio recorder as he talked about why whey protein caused him bloating and gas, but after finding SunWarrior protein, his waist slimmed down, all the bloating went away, and he was getting some crazy-good results at the gym... all from SunWarrior brown rice protein! (You can check out Wade McNutt's "natural bodybuilding" site, if you're curious, at: www.WadeBodySystems.com )Listen to my full interview with Wade McNutt and Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html#36With all this enthusiasm about the SunWarrior product, I told Brent I would give it the Health Ranger test: I would take it home, work out with it for 2-3 months as my primary protein source and find out what it did for me personally. So I bought several large canisters from Brent, stacked them into the back of my van, and drove back to Tucson after the show, ready to start the test.You can get your own SunWarrior protein right now, by the way, with an exclusive discount for NaturalNews readers, at: http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=iUse coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th). After July 10th, it's the regular price, which is still a really fantastic price, by the way, as I've seen competing products sell for $60 - $70 for similar quantities. (Don't compare SunWarrior Protein to cheap soy-based protein products. There's simply no comparison...)You can also order by phone at: 800-205-2350 (U.S. only)Who Needs Supplemental ProteinYou don't have to be working out in the gym, of course, to benefit from supplemental protein. A lot of natural health consumers are eating and drinking so many plants that they don't get the level of protein they would need for optimum performance. This is even true of women; especially those who are pregnant.High-quality protein, I've discovered, is absolutely crucial for maintaining a healthy heart and healthy digestive system. Often, people suffering from Crohn's disease or irritable bowel syndrome see their symptoms completely disappear when they shift to a high-assimilation plant-based protein product. I've even heard of asthma and arthritis vanishing! (Because animal products cause inflammation, of course...)Getting off of animal products and onto a plant-based diet, in fact, is likely the single most beneficial decision you can make in your own diet. And usually, when people do that, they're concerned about getting enough protein because they aren't eating meat anymore. Well guess what? SunWarrior Protein solves that. (Plus, you can eat quinoa, kale juice, spinach juice, nuts, seeds and lots of other plant-based protein sources.) Also, as Dr. Gabriel Cousens points out, cooking food destroys about half its protein, so eating RAW plants will also boost your protein intake substantially!Children especially need high-quality plant-based proteins, and this SunWarrior product is the perfect way to deliver that in a tasty, sweet superfood smoothie that has absolutely no grit and no chemical additives. If you've got children and you want to feed them right, I encourage you to experiment with adding SunWarrior protein to their smoothies. Just blend it up with lots of fruits and superfoods, then sweeten with stevia, agave nectar or even raw honey! It's delicious!! (I also recommend Sunfood's raw cacao powder in those smoothies to turn them into raw chocolate powerhouse smoothies! You can find that at www.Sunfood.com )For anyone who exercises -- even just walking a few times a week -- I can't say enough about this: SunWarrior Protein could very well be the product that helps you break through that performance plateau and get to the next level of strength, endurance, fitness or just pure cosmetic beauty in your own life.People who look fit, lean and athletic are sexy! But it's only truly sexy from the inside out if they're doing it naturally, without chemicals, additives or junk protein products. That's why SunWarrior makes so much sense: It helps build an athletic physique while staying 100% natural, raw and plant-based!By the way, I do want to interject here and say that becoming athletic also requires lots of exercise. You cannot eat your way to an athletic body. Food is crucial, but exercise is still required, no matter what. Lots of it. Fortunately, SunWarrior is exactly the kind of product that gives you the strength, endurance and adaptability that helps you pursue and enjoy far more exercise than what you might have done in the past; and that's what will give you the results you're looking for! (Weight loss, slim waist, radiant skin, better posture, ripped abs, whatever...)How to get SunWarrior Protein: Go to: http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=iUse coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th) on as many bottles as you want. The discount is also good on SunWarrior's Activated Barley product, which is also outstanding!You can also order by phone at 800-205-2350 (then choose option #1). (U.S. only)How SunWarrior performs in the gymEverybody who has seen my fitness pictures knows I'm not a super bulky muscle guy (www.HealthRanger.org/stats.html). At over six feet tall, I just don't have the proportions to look like a Wade McNutt, but I do pack a lot of strength and endurance into my much smaller muscles. In fact, I've steadily built strength over the last eight years to the point where I'm much stronger at age 38 than I was at age 30, and I'm doing things now with Capoeira, Pilates and martial arts that I could never do in my 20's (because I was eating a junk food diet then, of course).But the big question was now: Would SunWarrior protein support significant strength and endurance gains in my own training routine?To conduct this test, I stopped eating fish. As NaturalNews readers know, I used to eat fish from time to time as a last resort animal-based protein source. I always felt I needed the fish protein to avoid feeling hungry all the time, and even though I disliked sacrificing any living creature to feed myself, I reasoned that fish were the simplest life forms providing such protein, and thus any bad karma would be minimized. (Funny how we rationalize things like that, huh?)Well, I'm happy to announce that SunWarrior protein worked to keep me off all animal products, period! After a few days, it became obvious to me that SunWarrior protein was providing the same high-density protein assimilation as fish meat, and I no longer needed to eat fish at all.From that day, I have been on a 100% vegan diet! It's exciting, because as an "O" blood type, and someone who used to be prediabetic, I had always felt the need to consume a lot of protein, but suddenly, something truly magical was happening with SunWarrior Protein that completely shifted my biology and got me off fish protein for life!But how about the training in the gym? Would SunWarrior make me weak and thin, or strong and functional?Getting fit, lean and trim with SunWarrior ProteinIt's not difficult to notice that a lot of raw foodists don't have much muscle mass. Although I completely respect the Ghandi approach to minimizing calories (and extending life), I personally do not choose to live my life in a state of hunger. I like to eat a lot of food, and I enjoy the physical freedom and athletic expression that comes from being able to do handstands, poi spinning, weight lifting and other similar functions that require significant muscle strength.So I enjoy being strong, lean and muscular, regardless of whether it's a bit of a diversion from the usual raw foodie physique. Because I'm so serious about strength gains, I track the results of all my workouts. I know exactly how much weight I can push for how many reps, for each muscle group. Since I've kept logs for the past three years, this gave me an ideal way to test the effectiveness of SunWarrior Protein.After blending SunWarrior Protein into my smoothies twice each day (for a week or so), I hit the gym and began the workouts. The first workout was really just a way to wake up the muscles and get them to adapt with more strength over time, so I wasn't really concerned about the strength performance on the first workout. Rather, I was more interested in how my muscles would adapt to the workout when I was on the SunWarrior Protein product!It didn't take long for that answer to become clear. After two weeks, nearly every one of my strength exercises was UP by anywhere from 5% - 10%. One leg exercise went up by 20%! (Leg press.)If these gains seems small, consider that I'm not some newbie to the gym. I've been working out for years, and sometimes I'll go six months with no gains whatsoever for a particular muscle group. To see a 10% strength gain in two weeks is phenomenal for a person who's already training on a regular basis.After a few more weeks of tracking the results of over 25 exercises, the results were clear: I was gaining significant strength on this raw, vegan protein, even without the fish protein in my diet. SunWarrior was working!And yet, it didn't make me bloated or gassy. It didn't make my muscles look bulky, either; it just help me keep them looking lean and functional -- even while I was getting stronger!Team WarriorThis made me an instant convert to the SunWarrior brown rice protein. I was astonished at the performance gains on this product, and knowing that it was 100% GMO-free, chemical free, sweetener free and made entirely from raw plants drove this point home even further: SunWarrior is the best plant-based protein concentrate product available today, anywhere in the world!David Wolfe feels the same way about it. He provided this quote for this article:"For years I have been looking for a pure, natural, superfood, protein source that tastes great, is easy to assimilate, burns fat and tones muscle. That's when I discovered Sun Warrior. At 85% protein, this is the best meal replacement strategy ever. When used with nutrient dense superfoods like my Maca Extreme, Goji Berries, Cacao Powder and Yacon Syrup you can pack more nutrition into a single smoothie than many people get in a month. From moms on the go to extreme athletes, Sun Warrior provides a quick and delicious way to get the energy and nutrition your body needs to make every day the best day ever!" - David Wolfe, founder www.sunfood.com, author of The Sunfood Diet Success System, Eating For Beauty, Amazing Grace, Naked ChocolateSo now, David Wolfe, Wade McNutt and myself have all joined "Team SunWarrior," which is a group of natural living warriors who are using this product to fuel our muscles as we pursue our work in the world. You can read more about Team Warrior at: http://store.sunwarrior.com/Articles.asp?ID=134Be part of Team SunWarrior yourself by getting SunWarrior Protein at: www.SunWarrior.comUse coupon code natnews to get the 10% discount (good only through July 10th) on any SunWarrior product.SunWarrior Protein powers elite athletes who are embracing a plant-based dietIt also turns out that Brent Hauver, the founder of SunWarrior, is turning on all kinds of MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) athletes to this product, and in doing so, he's getting an increasing number of those guys off the animal products and onto plant-based diets that are fine-tuned for athletic performance! Is that exciting, or what?!I love the fact that elite athletes are now starting to ditch the animal products and discover the seemingly superhuman performance attributes of eating superfoods, raw foods, and plant-based protein concentrates. This could really change the tide for mainstream America and show all those kids who look up to MMA athletes that eating McDonald's hamburgers and drinking Pepsi is NOT going to make you fit and healthy!Brent Hauver at SunWarrior is leading the charge to introduce this plant-based protein to the very top athletes in the MMA industry. I personally believe, without a doubt, that the top athletes who switch to superfoods, raw foods and plant-based diets will greatly out-perform those who don't.I think that a plant-based diet may turn out to be the single most important factor in determining an athlete's strength, endurance, adaptability and resiliency. In fact, be sure to read my $10,000 athletic challenge, where I've personally challenged Big Pharma to produce a single person on their prescription drugs who can beat me in a physical contest. You can read that $10,000 challenge here: http://www.naturalnews.com/023476.htmlWhat can SunWarrior protein do for you?Regardless of what SunWarrior protein does for anybody else, the real question is: What can it do for you?Based on my considerable research and experience in this area, here are the main benefits of SunWarrior brown rice protein:• Builds functional strength without unnecessary bulk caused by the hormones found in meat products.• Helps create a lean, athletic body with a thin waist (no gas, no bloating, no putrified meat products sitting in your gut...)• Accelerates strength gains due to the outstanding assimilation of amino acids (probably due to the fermentation process).• Tastes truly fantastic: Can be used in ANY smoothie!• Does not contain ANY garbage additives: No chemical sweeteners, no chemical solvents, no refined sugars, no dairy, no soy, no animal byproducts, nothing artificial!• Seems to be remarkably alkaline for a protein product. Animal-based proteins are highly acidic and have a huge insulin load over time, but this SunWarrior Protein has never made me acidic, even when consumed in large quantities!• Allows you to follow more of a high-protein diet without turning to animal products. Please remember to also drink lots of fresh vegetable juices, eat fruits, superfoods, nuts and seeds, too.• Is available at an almost ridiculously low price, considering the quality of what's in it (and the time-limited coupon code, see below).How to get SunWarrior for yourselfI'm happy to announce that I've prearranged with the SunWarrior company to not only provide a healthy discount to NaturalNews readers, but I've also made sure they have 10,000 bottles on hand so that they don't run out of inventory (as has happened a lot in the past when I reviewed a great product like this!).So here's the deal: For 10 days only, you can save 10% on the already-low price of SunWarrior, which is normally $48.95 for a huge, 2.2-lb. canister.1. Go to http://store.sunwarrior.com/SearchResults.asp?Search=i2. Add SunWarrior protein and Activated Barley products to your shopping cart. (There is no quantity limit on this offer. I recommending stocking up a bit, because this introductory discount will NOT be repeated. You will never be able to get this product at this low price again...)3. In the shopping cart, enter natnews as the discount code. You will see an instant 10% discount reflected in your total.4. Click the yellow "Proceed to Checkout" button at the bottom of the shopping cart page, and finish the checkout process.You're done! Enjoy the SunWarrior protein!How to order by phoneIf you want to order by phone, just call Sunfood at: 800-205-2350 (then press option #1). Be sure to ask for the 10% discount from NaturalNews.This introductory discount expires July 10th, and it's good on:• SunWarrior Chocolate Protein • SunWarrior Vanilla Protein • SunWarrior Natural Flavor Protein • SunWarrior Activated Barley (both sizes)SunWarrior receives Editor's Choice AwardBecause of the extremely impressive nutritional profile of this product -- and the remarkable leadership and enthusiasm of its founder Brent Hauver -- I've given SunWarrior protein our Editor's Choice Award for Best New Protein Product. You'll see this award on the label of each bottle.Financial disclaimer: Please note that I have absolutely NO financial relationship with the SunWarrior company or Brent. I earn nothing on product sales, and I have never received even a single dime of compensation for writing about this product. As always, I offer a truly independent, objective and trusted review of products that are the very best in the world, then I negotiate the best discounts for my readers. NaturalNews does not sell these products, nor do we earn anything from their sale.Other notable protein productsSince we're talking about high-quality protein products here, I also wanted to mention three others that are also receiving my Editor's Choice awards. They are:Living Protein from www.LivingFuel.com (a plant-based protein with added enzymes, probiotics, and some natural sweeteners).Raw Hemp Protein Powder with E3 Live and Maca from Ruth's Hemp Foods (www.RuthsHempFoods.com) This is an outstanding hemp protein product, from the best of the best in the world of hemp. Ruth rocks. And the E3 Live addition to this recipe just blows my mind...In the world of animal-based protein products, I still strongly advocate Jay Robb's whey protein powders (www.JayRobb.com) as the most natural and most ethical in the industry. Another good whey protein source is Natural Factors (www.NaturalFactors.com). But I'm personally using plant-based proteins for the foreseeable future.Nutritional profile of SunWarrior ProteinServing size: 21g Total Fat: 1g Total Carbohydrate: 3g Dietary Fiber: 1g Protein 16gWatch my video review of SunWarrior Protein here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dtk3pNfQddUListen to my audio interview with Brent Hauver here: http://www.naturalnews.com/Index-Podcasts.html#36Enjoy! - Mike (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Working the night shift promotes cancer

NaturalNews.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0100

(NaturalNews) The World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) is adding working the night shift to a list of possible carcinogens, after conducting an analysis of the existing research on the topic.The IARC reviewed studies on night workers, primarily nurses and airline crews, and found that those who worked overnight were more likely to develop cancer than those who worked during the day."There was enough of a pattern in people who do shift work to recognize that there's an increase in cancer," said IARC carcinogen classifications unit head Vincent Cogliano.Animal studies have shown that animals forced to stay awake at night and sleep in the light develop more malignant tumors and die sooner than animals with normal sleep cycles. Research on humans has also linked years of overnight work among women to higher breast cancer rates, with a similar effect on prostate cancer in men.Once factor behind the link may be melatonin, which a hormone that the body produces primarily at night. Melatonin has a role in regulating the body's internal clock, and also plays a role in the immune system. Because melatonin breaks down when the body is exposed to light, workers who sleep during the day and are active in well-lit places at night may have an excess of melatonin. In addition, overnight workers tend to be sleep deprived, because it is impossible to fully reverse the body's internal clock."Night shift people tend to be day shift people who are trying to stay awake at night," said Mark Rea, director of the Light Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.Sleep deprivation has been linked to a variety of negative health effects, including suppression of the immune system.According to Aaron Blair of the National Cancer Institute, switching between day and night work is even harder on the body than only working at night. Blair recommends that anyone who has to work at night make an effort to sleep in a darkened room after work."The balance between light and dark is very important for your body," Blair said. "Just get a dark night's sleep." (Source: NaturalNews.com)

Live webcast: laparoscopic feeding tube

What's New on MedlinePlus — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 04:31:54 +0100

Watch a live webcast of a laparoscopic feeding tube procedure for children on July 1 at 12:00 p.m. EST. Also, browse through links to prerecorded webcasts of surgical procedures. These are actual procedures performed at medical centers in the United States. (Source: What's New on MedlinePlus)

Bcbsa announces winners of sixth annual walkingworks® capitol hill challenge

BCBS.com: Blue News — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 13:00:05 +0100

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association (BCBSA) today announced that the offices of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Rep. John M. Spratt (D-SC) are the winners of the sixth annual WalkingWorks® Capitol Hill Challenge, which drew more than 3,500 Hill staff participants. (Source: BCBS.com: Blue News)

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Smart knee brace

Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Video — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 12:53:36 +0100

Forty years ago Army Staff Sergeant Walt Myers was exposed to the herbicide Agent Orange in Vietnam. Now he suffers profound muscle weakness in his legs. He was facing the possibility of spending the rest of his life in a wheelchair. But thanks to a special knee brace developed at Mayo Clinic, Walt is walking tall. (Source: Mayo Clinic - Medical Edge Video)

Seniors and sleep problems

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