Statins prove useless, ineffective in children with lupus
The push to expand the market for statin drugs has hit a major roadblock. A recent study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology has revealed that the "preventive" administration of statin drugs does nothing to prevent children with lupus from developing atherosclerosis, a buildup of fatty material in arteries that leads to heart attack and stroke.
It is assumed by many in mainstream medicine that statin drugs are the cure-all for preventing heart disease, with some having even gone so far as to suggest that the cholesterol-lowering drugs be handed out for free with fast food meals (http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=36&t=23830). But the new study out of Duke University Medical Center verifies that giving them to kids with lupus provides no benefit.
"We thought every child with lupus should routinely be put on statins http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=29&t=35789," said Laura Schanberg, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at Duke. "This study proves that's not the case."
For the study, researchers evaluated 221 participants with pediatric lupus http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/ll/lupus.php over the course of three years, giving one portion of the group atorvastatin (Lipitor) and the other a placebo. The team used ultrasound imaging to monitor the progression of arterial wall thickening, inflammation, blood lipid levels, and lupus disease status, and found that statins did not work as intended to prevent the onset of heart disease.
"There are rare long-term risks associated with statins that outweigh the risks of using them routinely without proof of clinically significant benefit," Schanberg went on to say. "[W]e showed that statins should not be routinely prescribed to children http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewforum.php?f=41 with lupus."
To learn more about the dangers and side effects of statin drugs, visit: http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=65&t=11471
Source of the story included:
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/dumc-sdp110510.php
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US meat and poultry widely contaminated with bacteria included
How would you like a big, juicy burger loaded with onions, mustard, ketchup -- and a big helping of drug-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (S. aureus), a bacteria linked to a wide range of human diseases?
If you find that dish stomach-churning instead of appetizing, then maybe you should think twice before eating not only meat but chicken and turkey, too, at least in the U.S.
According to a nationwide study just released by the Flagstaff, Arizona-based Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), meat and poultry from U.S. grocery stores have an unexpectedly high rate of dangerous disease-causing bacteria, including antibiotic resistant superbugs. In fact, almost half (47 percent) of all meat and poultry samples tests were contaminated with S. aureus.
What's more, 52 percent of these contaminated meats contained superbugs, meaning the bacteria were resistant to multiple classes of antibiotics.That adds up to multi-antibiotic resistant Staph germs being present in about one out of every 4 samples of meat, chicken or turkey.
"For the first time, we know how much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with antibiotic http://dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1356-resistant Staph, and it is substantial," Lance B. Price, Ph.D., senior author of the study and Director of TGen's Center for Food Microbiology and Environmental Health, said in a statement to the media.
The research, published today in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases, is the first national investigation of antibiotic resistant S. aureus in the U.S. food supply. The scientists collected and analyzed 136 samples of beef, chicken, pork and turkey sold under 80 brands in 26 retail grocery stores in Los Angeles, Chicago, Fort Lauderdale, Flagstaff and Washington, D.C.
So where does this downright nauseating contamination come from? The TGen researchers reported that DNA testing shows the food the animals themselves were fed is likely the major source of contamination.
"The fact that drug-resistant S. aureus was so prevalent, and likely came from the food animals themselves, is troubling, and demands attention to how antibiotics are used in food-animal production today," Dr. Price added.
The dirty truth many Americans -- especially meat http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=34685 eaters -- don't want to face is that conditions on so-called industrial farms are not only often inhumane but downright sickening. Animals raised for slaughter are packed together densely and steadily fed low doses of antibiotics in their food. The new report concludes these industrial farms are the ideal breeding grounds for drug-resistant bacteria that can move from animals to the human population.
"The emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria -- including Staph -- remains a major challenge in clinical medicine," Paul S. Keim, Ph.D., Director of TGen's Pathogen Genomics Division and Director of the Center for Microbial Genetics and Genomics at Northern Arizona University (NAU), emphasized in a media statement.
"This study shows that much of our meat and poultry is contaminated with multidrug-resistant Staph. Now we need to determine what this means in terms of risk to the consumer," Dr. Keim, a co-author of the paper, added.
But doesn't the U.S. government routinely survey retail meat and poultry for drug-resistant bacteria? The study points out the feds only check for four types of superbugs -- but S. aureus is not among them. The paper urges a more comprehensive inspection program and points out S. aureus can cause devastating health problems.
While it's true Staph germs can usually be killed with proper cooking, the scientists pointed out Staph still poses a substantial health risk through improper food handling and cross-contamination in the kitchen. Infections with S. aureus can cause a range of illnesses from minor skin infections to life-threatening diseases, such as pneumonia, endocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and sepsis (infection in the bloodstream).
And should you get one of these antibiotic-resistant strains from meat or poultry, treatment can be difficult.
"Antibiotics are the most important drugs that we have to treat Staph infections; but when Staph are resistant to three, four, five or even nine different antibiotics --like we saw in this study -- that leaves physicians few options," Dr. Price stated.
For more information: http://www.tgen.org/
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Amino acids shown to be effective at treating brain injuries
Researchers from The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia have found in a lab study that amino acids (http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/creutzfeldjakobdisease/creutzfeld_jakob_disease_1.php) are highly effective at restoring cognitive function and balancing neurochemical levels in those who have undergone brain trauma (http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/concussion/concussion_1.php). Conducted on mice who had been inflicted with traumatic brain damage, the study holds promising potential for humans with similar injuries.
The study appeared in the online journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In it, researchers fed brain-injured mice leucine, isoleucine, and valine, three branched chain amino acids (BCAAs) that have been shown to heal severe brain injuries. The result was that the brain-injured mice demonstrated a full cognitive recovery, visibly responding the same as uninjured mice following their treatment.
The BCAAs used in the study are the precursors to two important neurotransmitters, glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) which jointly balance proper brain activity. Damage to the hippocampus, the portion of the brain that sustains memory and higher learning, is typical during a traumatic brain injury (TBI) and results in reduced BCAA levels. Supplementation with BCAAs has proven to rejuvenate the brain and restore it to normal function.
Intravenous nourishment with BCAAs has been done before, however in this study the BCAA mixture was added to the mice's drinking water. Dr. Akiva Cohen, Ph.D. and author of the study, recommends dietary supplementation with BCAAs for human TBI treatment. He believes oral rather than intravenous supplementation is preferable because, rather than flood the brain with too high a dose intravenously, drinking BCAAs will provide a more sustained dose with increased benefits.
Comments by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
This is interesting research because it shows how dietary supplements can give the brain the raw materials it needs to heal itself. The fact that this process exists at all is considered utterly impossible by the FDA, which maintains the ridiculous position that there is no such thing as a nutritional supplement that has any therapeutic effect on the human body whatsoever.
If BCAAs actually worked, the FDA says, they would be "drugs" instead of supplements. And they would be regulated and available only by prescription. The FDA cannot tolerate the existence of a nutritional supplement that actually works to accelerate healing while being freely available to anyone who wants to buy it.
Reality, however, stands in contrast to the FDA. In the real world, nutrients do help the brain heal. In the real world, food is medicine. The FDA, to its own embarrassment, continues to deny this simple fact of human physiology.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/with-amino-acid-diet-mice-improve-after-brain-injury-78772612.html
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/creutzfeldjakobdisease/creutzfeld_jakob_disease_1.php
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/concussion/concussion_1.php
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90 Percent of African American Children Deficient in Vitamin D
As many as 90 percent of all black children may be deficient in vitamin D, according to a new analysis conducted by researchers from Harvard Medical School, the University of Colorado-Denver and Massachusetts General Hospital, and published in the journal Pediatrics.
The American Academy of Pediatrics defines an adequate vitamin D blood level in children as 50 nanomoles per liter (nmol/L), but many researchers have begun to argue that 75 nmol/L are actually necessary for good health.
"There are a lot of studies demonstrating associations between low levels of vitamin D and a laundry list of poor health outcomes," lead researcher Jonathan Mansbach said.
Vitamin D plays a critical role in bone health and development, and guidelines for safe levels were originally set with those effects in mind. Yet new research suggests that higher levels may be necessary for the vitamin to help regulate the immune system and protect against cancer, heart disease, autoimmune disorders and infection.
In the current study, researchers used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, which measured vitamin D blood levels of approximately 5,000 children between 2001 and 2006. The study participants were designed to comprise a nationally representative sample.
The researchers found that if 75 nmol/L is taken as the cutoff point, 92 percent of black children, 80 percent of non-black Hispanic children and more than two-thirds of all children have insufficient levels of the vitamin. Mansbach called the numbers "astounding."
"If 75 nmol/L or higher is eventually demonstrated to be the healthy normal level of vitamin D http://dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=33865, then there is much more vitamin D deficiency http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=33872 in the U.S. than people realize," Mansbach said.
Even using the lower level of 50 nmol/L, a full 20 percent of children still had insufficient vitamin D levels http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=34451. Nationally, this would translate into six million people.
Sun exposure is still considered the best source for vitamin D http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=21&t=33869.
Sources for this story include:
http://www.sfgate.com; http://www.eurekalert.org
http://www.nlm.nih.gov
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/vitamins/Vitamin-D-Cholecalciferol.htm
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=3640
http://www.dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=94&t=12367.
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BPA found in virtually all canned foods
Bisphenol A (BPA), the endocrine-disrupting plastics compound that has garnered much attention for its prevalence in infant- and water bottles, is far more common in an even more widely used family of products: canned foods and beverages.
Almost 100 percent of canned food and beverage products on the market are lined with a resin made from BPA, and have been since the 1940s. These epoxy resins prevent the metal of the can from influencing the flavor of the food. More importantly, they prevent compounds in the food from reacting with the metal, causing spoilage and even causing cans to explode.
Exposure from this source is "far more extensive" than from plastic bottles, said Shanna Swan of the University of Rochester in New York. After all, BPA is known to leach from cans into food, the chemical is used in nearly all canned products, and nearly everyone consumes such products regularly.
BPA http://dreddyclinic.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=32616 is known to mimic estrogen and otherwise interfere with the hormonal system, and studies have linked it to elevated risks of cancer, diabetes http://dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/dd/diabetes.php and heart disease. In January, the FDA admitted for the first time that "some concern" exists over the chemical's effects.
More recent findings are even more troubling, suggesting that BPA can effect
"epigenetic changes," modifying the way that the body's genes are expressed in a way that can be passed on to an exposed person's children and grandchildren. One of these changes removes carbon groups that lock DNA from being affected by estrogens in the environment. According to Yale University researcher Hugh Taylor, this means that BPA can increase the impact of naturally occurring estrogens like those found in soy, increasing a person's risk of breast cancerhttp://dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/cc/breastcancer.php and other conditions.
"It has permanent, lasting effects," Taylor said. "The adult exposure is concerning, but I think the fetal exposure is worse."
"I tell my pregnant patients to avoid products containing it. Even a fleeting exposure in pregnancy can cause lasting damage."
Sources for this story include:
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE65824H20100609
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Sperm counts continue to plummet, say researchers
Environmental pollution, plastic chemicals, pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, unhealthy diets, radiation-emitting technologies -- these and many other factors are contributing to an epidemic decline in sperm counts among modern men, say researchers. According to reports, an estimated eight million US couples now have fertility problems, and about half of these cases involve men with poor sperm quality.
Today's men have much lower sperm counts than men did just 50 years ago. Before the days of agricultural chemicals, fluoride in water, and mobile phones, exposure to sperm-damaging elements and conditions was limited, hence the reason why men of old had better sperm quality than men today do. A steady increase in hormone-disrupting chemicals and other damaging factors continues to wreak havoc on male fertility, and the epidemic is only worsening.
Last year, a five-year study found that bisphenol-A (BPA), a chemical widely used in many plastic products, is responsible for destroying sperm. Another study presented at the 2006 conference of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine found that common selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant drugs can literally bring a man's sperm count to zero.
Researchers from the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio found that regular cell phone use leads to a significant decline in sperm count. And a recent study out of the University Hospital San Cecilio, Granda, Spain, found that common pesticides used on food crops lead to poor quality and lowered sperm counts.
Obesity, eating junk food and drinking sodas, using a laptop on your lap, and even taking too many hot baths can also destroy sperm. Read more
