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Overweight Get More Radiation and Doctors Admit Ignorance to Damage Caused

July 31st, 2009

From NaturalNews.com:

Many people fall under the naive assumption that if a medical practitioner is recommending a drug, treatment or therapy for you, then it must be safe and effective. They assume it’s also been tested and that any negative effects are known and will be shared. But, in reality, that’s often not the case at all.

Recently, it was uncovered that obese patients are receiving up to 4000 percent more exposure to radiation with each X-ray – and in the ambitious medical world, the number of X-rays people receive is also increasing. The increase of radiation exposure appears to be done on the basis of logic: more radiation is needed to get an accurate exposure due to the excess fat getting in the way.

While more radiation might actually help get a usable x-ray, the question of what damage it’s causing the patient is one an MIT doctor admits hasn’t even been looked at. The question of it being an acceptable risk has also been neglected.

We know that radiation is dangerous. We know that radiation even from X-rays is dangerous. Years ago, when dentists were actually unaware of how dangerous radiation was, they didn’t use any protection and put their fingers in front of their imaging equipment while taking X-rays – until their fingers started turning black and falling off. This is how the medical world learned that radiation was dangerous. But apparently, that wasn’t enough to stop using it.

The medical world continues to use radiation in the name of a “cancer cure” and on a regular basis to look inside your body and see what illnesses have been created since the last time you were at their offices, since any real prevention is unknown by this industry. Patients are incredibly patient with this treatment by the drug world, but all of this ignores a larger, critical issue in our disease-ridden world.

Today it’s extremely common for medical and food industry folks to use chemicals, treatments, and processes that are known to be dangerous, toxic, and harmful — and sidestep the whole question of responsibility of causing danger to the population by saying, “It’s never been proven to cause whatever disease is in question,” and by claiming that the amounts used are too small to do the trick of creating disease.

Apparently, no one really considers that these “small” indiscretions of the body, and “small” amounts of toxic chemicals consistently added to most every body on the planet, actually add up inside the body. After a certain number of years, they are no longer in small amounts in the body, and they do become enough to do the disease creation trick. And this is when we see problems of the body, as we so consistently do.

Resources:
Obese Get Higher Doses of Radiation for X-Rays

http://news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/2009063…

Turmeric Shows Promise in Treatment of Alzheimer’s

July 30th, 2009

From News-NewAmericaMedia.org:

Turmeric, an indispensable ingredient of most spicy dishes of South Asia, has been used for generations for enhancing the flavor of curries and imparting them the characteristic rich, golden color. Besides its role as a food additive, the herb has found extensive application as an anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidative agent in the Ayurvedic and Unani systems of medicine. Some earlier evidence had indicated that it was helpful in the treatment of breast and prostate cancer. However, the multiple therapeutic properties assigned to turmeric have never been tested or proven in a well-designed scientific study.

Now, one of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, in its Feb. 18 issue, has reported some surprising findings about turmeric. Curcumin, chemically a polyphenol, is the active ingredient present in turmeric root powder which gives the herb its characteristic yellow color. Investigators at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studied curcumin in mice, found that it was highly effective against Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They are so impressed with their findings that they expect curcumin to eventually emerge as one of the most effective treatments for this devastating disease.

AD, named after a German doctor, Dr. Alois Alzheimer, is a progressive, disabling disease and is characterized by gradual memory loss and impaired cognitive function that robs the patients of their ability to communicate and sustain the thought process. AD is often described by the more common and non-specific general term, dementia, a condition often associated with the aging process. It is estimated that some 10 percent of people over the age of 65 in the United States suffer from AD; the numbers escalate to 50 percent among those 85 or older. As people live much longer than they used to, the incidence of AD is likely to mount even higher. Scientists worldwide are urgently focusing their efforts on finding the root cause of the disease and developing strategies to prevent and cure it. Yet, the success rate thus far has not been very encouraging.

While the question of what initiates the onset of AD remains unresolved, it is now clear that the symptoms are caused by the gradual accumulation in the brain of a protein, beta amyloid peptide. As the amount of this protein increases in the brain, so does the patient’s degree of dementia and consequent disability. Based on these observations, scientists have been exploring new approaches to prevent the initiation of beta amyloid formation in the brain, and remove it harmlessly once formed.

Since experiments cannot be conducted on the human brain, they have to be performed on animals first. Fortunately, mouse models can now be developed so that they carry the same gene that is responsible for the disease in humans. In time, the mice develop amyloid plaques, similar or identical to those seen in AD patients. These animals provide a unique model, enabling the scientists to evaluate the success or failure of any experimental treatment plan.

The researchers have found that when aged mice are fed or injected with curcumin solution, the accumulation of beta amyloid plaque is sharply diminished. Even more impressive, plaques that were already formed in the brain disintegrated and gradually disappeared. These experiments have opened remarkable leads for the development of new drugs and therapies to fight AD. The findings have been so persuasive that pilot trials at the Los Angeles Alzheimer’s Research Center have been initiated in which the effect of curcumin is being tested on real patients suffering with the AD. Besides its known beneficial role in the AD, curcumin is also being tested at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas, as a potential treatment for pancreatic cancer and multiple myeloma, a cancer of the immune system. The results of these human studies are still awaited.

Turmeric as well as its active agent, curcumin, offers some unique advantages. Both are non-toxic in ordinary culinary doses – they have been consumed by people in south Asia as part of their daily diet for millennia. Furthermore, recent experiments have shown that curcumin can readily cross into the brain from the blood stream, a prerequisite for the success of any drug designed to reach the amyloid aggregates present in the brain.

The question naturally arises: Is there any evidence that the consumption of turmeric has benefited the population of India, Pakistan or Bangladesh, by providing some measure of protection against AD? While no rigorous clinical trials have been undertaken, there is empirical and epidemiological evidence suggesting that the answer is yes. The incidence of AD among the elderly population in India is estimated to be less than one-quarter of that seen in the western countries, especially the United States. While other factors such as the beneficial effects of close family support cannot be ruled out, it seems logical to speculate that the daily intake of turmeric also has an important role in the observed low incidence of dementia.

In the medieval times, spices were scarce, and were highly prized. The frantic search to discover easy routes to countries where they grew in abundance sent European explorers, such as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama, on perilous voyages across the unknown oceans. As the sea journeys became more common, the supply of oriental spices became plentiful in the west. Their former mystique was lost. Now, as the unique curative properties of some of the common spices are being realized, they once again are becoming the focus of attention — not so much as food preservatives or flavor enhancers, as was the case in the olden days, but more for the many health benefits they might hold in store.

Why I am Using Actos (pioglitazone) in Treating Multiple Sclerosis

July 29th, 2009

From News-Medical.Net :

A drug currently FDA-approved for use in diabetes shows some protective effects in the brains of patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine report in a study currently available online in the Journal of Neuroimmunology.
In a small, double-blinded clinical trial, patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis were assigned to take pioglitazone (a drug commercially known as Actos used to treat type-2 diabetes) or a placebo. Patients continued their normal course of therapy during the trial.

Standard neurological tests were done initially, as were MRI scans to provide baseline values for lesions typically seen in MS patients. The patients were evaluated every two months, and blood samples were taken. Repeat MRI scans were done after five months and again after one year.

Patients taking pioglitazone showed significantly less loss of gray matter over the course of the one-year trial than patients taking placebo. Of the 21 patients who finished the study, patients taking pioglitazone had no adverse reactions and, further, found taking pioglitazone, which is administered in an oral tablet, easy.

“This is very encouraging,” said Douglas Feinstein, research professor of anesthesiology at UIC. “Gray matter in the brain is the part that is rich in neurons. These preliminary results suggest that the drug has important effects on neuronal survival.”

Feinstein’s lab has been interested in the class of drugs called thiazolidinediones, or TZDs. Several TZDs have been approved for use in the treatment of type-2 diabetes because of the drugs’ effect on the body’s response to insulin.

The researchers focused on pioglitazone because of its known anti-inflammatory effects, Feinstein said. They used primary cultures of brain cells to show that pioglitazone reduced the production of toxic chemicals called cytokines and reactive oxygen species. These molecules are believed to be important in the development of symptoms in MS.

Feinstein’s lab proceeded to test pioglitazone in an animal model of MS. They and others showed that pioglitazone and other TZDs “can significantly reduce the clinical signs in mice with an MS-type disease,” said Feinstein.

“More importantly, when mice who are already ill are treated with pioglitazone, the clinical signs of the disease go away,” he said. “We were able to induce almost complete remissions in a number of mice.”

“We are now working to determine the mechanisms to explain the protective effect on neurons that we see in our studies,” said Feinstein. “We hope to expand into a larger trial to confirm these preliminary results.”

ADHD Drugs May Pose Danger to Children with Heart Conditions

July 28th, 2009

From NaturalNews.com:

Children should get a heart exam before they start any drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), because those drugs may raise the risk of sudden cardiac death in children with preexisting heart conditions, the American Heart Association has said in the journal Circulation.

The recommendations came from a special panel that the association drafted to look into the connection between ADHD drugs and heart problems.

“There’s been concern that these drugs might be associated in a very small number of individuals’ sudden cardiac arrest or sudden cardiac death,” said panel leader Dr. Victoria Vetter of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

ADHD drugs such as methylphenidate, known more commonly by the brand name Ritalin, are central nervous system stimulants. In children with ADHD, they can have a calming and focusing effect. But such stimulants are also known to raise blood pressure and heart rate, which can be dangerous for people with preexisting heart conditions.

“There’s no registry in the country to determine how many young people are dying from sudden cardiac arrest and what they might have causing that – and similarly how many of those who die might be on these medications,” Vetter said.

Due to the lack of good data on the risk, the American Heart Association decided to take a cautious position and recommend electrocardiograms for all children before they start ADHD treatment with stimulants.

An electrocardiogram can detect the abnormalities in heart rhythm that can predispose people to sudden cardiac death.

“It won’t pick up every one. There will be some false positives,” Vetter said. “But it’s a relatively inexpensive and simple test that doesn’t hurt the children in any way and it will let us identify some of these children and know that they have heart conditions.”

The association recommended that children currently receiving ADHD drugs also undergo electrocardiogram screening.

Scientists learn how what you eat affects your brain — and those of your kids

July 27th, 2009

From Newsroom.UCLA.edu

In addition to helping protect us from heart disease and cancer, a balanced diet and regular exercise can also protect the brain and ward off mental disorders.

“Food is like a pharmaceutical compound that affects the brain,” said Fernando Gómez-Pinilla, a UCLA professor of neurosurgery and physiological science who has spent years studying the effects of food, exercise and sleep on the brain. “Diet, exercise and sleep have the potential to alter our brain health and mental function. This raises the exciting possibility that changes in diet are a viable strategy for enhancing cognitive abilities, protecting the brain from damage and counteracting the effects of aging.”

Gómez-Pinilla analyzed more than 160 studies about food’s affect on the brain; the results of his analysis appear in the July issue of the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience and are available online at www.nature.com/nrn/journal/v9/n7/abs/nrn2421.html.

Omega-3 fatty acids — found in salmon, walnuts and kiwi fruit — provide many benefits, including improving learning and memory and helping to fight against such mental disorders as depression and mood disorders, schizophrenia, and dementia, said Gómez-Pinilla, a member of UCLA’s Brain Research Institute and Brain Injury Research Center.

Synapses in the brain connect neurons and provide critical functions; much learning and memory occurs at the synapses, Gómez-Pinilla said.

“Omega-3 fatty acids support synaptic plasticity and seem to positively affect the expression of several molecules related to learning and memory that are found on synapses,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “Omega-3 fatty acids are essential for normal brain function.

“Dietary deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids in humans has been associated with increased risk of several mental disorders, including attention-deficit disorder, dyslexia, dementia, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia,” he said. “A deficiency of omega-3 fatty acids in rodents results in impaired learning and memory.”

Children who had increased amounts of omega-3 fatty acids performed better in school, in reading and in spelling and had fewer behavioral problems, he said.

Preliminary results from a study in England show that school performance improved among a group of students receiving omega-3 fatty acids. In an Australian study, 396 children between the ages 6 and 12 who were given a drink with omega-3 fatty acids and other nutrients (iron, zinc, folic acid and vitamins A, B6, B12 and C) showed higher scores on tests measuring verbal intelligence and learning and memory after six months and one year than a control group of students who did not receive the nutritional drink. This study was also conducted with 394 children in Indonesia. The results showed higher test scores for boys and girls in Australia, but only for girls in Indonesia.

Getting omega-3 fatty acids from food rather than from capsule supplements can be more beneficial, providing additional nutrients, Gómez-Pinilla said.

Scientists are learning which omega-3 fatty acids seem to be especially important. One is docosahexaenoic acid, or DHA, which is abundant in salmon. DHA, which reduces oxidative stress and enhances synaptic plasticity and learning and memory, is the most abundant omega-3 fatty acid in cell membranes in the brain.

“The brain and the body are deficient in the machinery to make DHA; it has to come through our diet,” said Gómez-Pinilla, who was born and raised in salmon-rich Chile and eats salmon three times a week, along with a balanced diet. “Omega-3 fatty acids are essential.”

A healthy diet and exercise can also reduce the effect of brain injury and lead to a better recovery, he said.

Recent research also supports the hypothesis that health can be passed down through generations, and a number of innovative studies point to the possibility that the effects of diet on mental health can be transmitted across generations, Gómez-Pinilla said.

A long-term study that included more than 100 years of birth, death, health and genealogical records for 300 Swedish families in an isolated village showed that an individual’s risk for diabetes and early death increased if his or her paternal grandparents grew up in times of food abundance rather than food shortage.

“Evidence indicates that what you eat can affect your grandchildren’s brain molecules and synapses,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “We are trying to find the molecular basis to explain this.”

Controlled meal-skipping or intermittent caloric restriction might provide health benefits, he said.

Excess calories can reduce the flexibility of synapses and increase the vulnerability of cells to damage by causing the formation of free radicals. Moderate caloric restriction could protect the brain by reducing oxidative damage to cellular proteins, lipids and nucleic acids, Gómez-Pinilla said.

The brain is highly susceptible to oxidative damage. Blueberries have been shown to have a strong antioxidant capacity, he noted.

In contrast to the healthy effects of diets that are rich in omega-3 fatty acids, diets high in trans fats and saturated fats adversely affect cognition, studies indicate.

Junk food and fast food negatively affect the brain’s synapses, said Gómez-Pinilla, who eats fast food less often since conducting this research. Brain synapses and several molecules related to learning and memory are adversely affected by unhealthy diets, he said.

Emerging research indicates that the effects of diet on the brain, combined with the effects of exercise and a good night’s sleep, can strengthen synapses and provide other cognitive benefits, he added.

In Okinawa, an island in Japan where people frequently eat fish and exercise, the lifespan is one of the world’s longest, and the population has a very low rate of mental disorders, Gómez-Pinilla noted.

Folic acid is found in various foods, including spinach, orange juice and yeast. Adequate levels of folic acid are essential for brain function, and folate deficiency can lead to neurological disorders such as depression and cognitive impairment. Folate supplementation, either by itself or in conjunction with other B vitamins, has been shown to be effective in preventing cognitive decline and dementia during aging and enhancing the effects of antidepressants. The results of a recent randomized clinical trial indicate that a three-year folic acid supplementation can help reduce the age-related decline in cognitive function.

In patients with major depression and schizophrenia, levels of a signaling molecule known as brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, are reduced. Antidepressants elevate BDNF levels, and most treatments for depression and schizophrenia stimulate BDNF. Here, too, omega-3 fatty acids are beneficial, as is the curry spice curcumin, which has been shown to reduce memory deficits in animal models of Alzheimer’s disease and brain trauma. BDNF is most abundant in the hippocampus and the hypothalamus — brain areas associated with cognitive and metabolic regulation.

The high consumption of curcumin in India may contribute to the low prevalence of Alzheimer’s disease on the subcontinent.

In humans, a mutation in a BDNF receptor has been linked to obesity and impairments in learning and memory.

“BDNF is reduced in the hippocampus, in various cortical areas and in the serum of patients with schizophrenia,” Gómez-Pinilla said. “BDNF levels are reduced in the plasma of patients with major depression.”

Smaller food portions with the appropriate nutrients seem to be beneficial for the brain’s molecules, such as BDNF, he said.

Gómez-Pinilla showed in 1995 that exercise can have an effect on the brain by elevating levels of BDNF.

He noted that while some people have extremely good genes, most of us are not so lucky and need a balanced diet, regular exercise and a good night’s sleep.