Health Crisis is man made - NewsGrabs 21 October 2007

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NewsGrabs

Health Supreme's NewsGrabs are a selection of alternative health and other underprivileged news. Find what you may have missed in your everyday reading - watch out for NewsGrabs every weekend.

In this issue:

Health benefits of garlic - Pycnogenol boosts nitric oxide - Calcium vitamin D cut fractures - Europe: Health claims - EU-U.S. Summit - An FDA-Created Health Crisis - New FDA Center's Risks - Video: Health Disaster - Death By Prescription - Side effects of antiretrovirals - Delusions in HIV and cancer treatment - Non-thermal bioelectromagnetic effects - Project Censored - Top 25 Censored Stories 2008

More information out there...

Of course there is much I cannot cover but other sources for this kind of information exist and are active.

You can subscribe to the Zeus Newsletter here. Appears twice monthly. If you would like to see some samples of Louise's collection of informative links, here are the archives.

The Alternative Medicine Yahoo Group is another great place to get information on what is happening in the world of nutrition and other natural health options.

For the influence of electromagnetic waves from radio, mobile phones and other radio emitting devices, check out the emfrefugee group on Yahoo.

If you are interested in a different take on the news that isn't health centered but is certainly fun, check out Robin Good TV News.

Some more sites to keep up to date with the other side of world affairs, the stuff you won't find on tv:

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com
http://www.commondreams.org
http://www.stratfor.com/
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
http://rawstory.com/
http://www.truthout.org/

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Scientists unravel health benefits of garlic
US researchers say they have figured out precisely why the pungent clove makes such a valuable health tonic: it boosts the body's own production of a compound that relaxes blood vessels, increases blood flow, and prevents blood clots and oxidative damage. In laboratory tests, the researchers at the University of Alabama found that it was this chemical messenger -- hydrogen sulphide (H2S) -- which is essential at low levels for cellular signaling, that appears to relax blood vessels, enhancing blood flow.

Pine bark extract boosts nitric oxide production
Nitric oxide, a key cardiovascular chemical produced by the body, increases blood flow that serves to deliver more nutrients and oxygen to the muscles, helping muscles to cope with increased physical activity and build when subjected to regular elevated labor. “This study suggests that when taking Pycnogenol, more NO is provided in response to neurotransmitters allowing for better expansion of arteries to carry more blood. This process serves to meet the enhanced oxygen demand of the performing muscle and avoid anaerobic metabolism,” said Dr. Yukihito Higashi, lead researcher of the study. “These results also lead me to determine that Pycnogenol will be a useful natural alternative therapy in various diseases in which oxidative stress is involved in the pathogenesis.”

Calcium and vitamin D linked to cutting fractures
Lead author Dr Benjamin Tang, from the University of Sydney in Australia, said: "Evidence supports the use of calcium, or calcium in combination with vitamin D supplementation, in the preventive treatment of osteoporosis in people aged 50 years or older. For best therapeutic effect, we recommend minimum doses of 1200 mg of calcium, and 800 IU of vitamin D (for combined calcium plus vitamin D supplementation)."

Europe: Time to get serious on health claims criteria
The European Food Safety Authority's task to assess thousands of health claims is a headache in anyone's book - and one made worse through vague instructions to industry. Guidelines as to what industry needs to do in order to get a health claim approved have, so far, been as clear as mud. Now, as the massive nature of the task dawns on the authority, both industry and consumers may find themselves the losers to a set of regulations originally conceived to help both.

EU-U.S. Summit Signals New Threats To Natural Health Therapies
(April 2007) - The European Union and the United States recently announced the signing of a Framework for Advancing Transatlantic Economic Integration at a summit in Washington. Describing the agreement as “a statement of the importance of trade”, President Bush, speaking at the post-summit press conference, claimed that it was “a commitment to eliminating barriers to trade” and “a recognition that the closer that the United States and the EU become, the better off our people become.”

While this is not a new article, it shows how well-entrenched the agenda to harmonize laws for the benefit of global integration has become, and how much influence industry - in this case pharma - has on the global playing field.

An FDA-Created Health Crisis Circles the Globe
How corporations engineered the non-regulation of dangerous genetically modified foods

Government officials around the globe have been coerced, infiltrated, and paid off by the agricultural biotech giants. In Indonesia, Monsanto gave bribes and questionable payments to at least 140 officials, attempting to get their genetically modified (GM) cotton approved.

On the basis of the manufactured and false notion of no meaningful differences, the FDA does not require GM food safety testing.

New FDA Center Rife With Risks
The Food and Drug Administration is moving with unprecedented speed to launch a drug research center to be paid for by companies it regulates. At a time when the FDA's reputation has been battered by perceptions that it is lax on some safety issues and too cozy with drug makers, consumer advocates say the loosely defined partnership increases the agency's vulnerability to industry clout despite its promise of groundbreaking success. It's an ambitious undertaking that puts regulators and companies in a relationship unlike that of any other industry.

Video: Mercola: Most Astonishing Health Disaster of the 20th Century

Death By Prescription: Treachery & Tragedy
Will tragedy continue to strike our people for more and more corporate dollars? Yes, unless and until the American people stop electing the same hookers who sold out to the big pharma houses and who refuse to stop the FDA from their reckless and dangerous decisions. Yes, until, in my personal opinion which is not medical advice, the American people learn that natural cures should always trump drugs whenever possible.

Study prompts concern about side effects of antiretrovirals
Metabolic abnormalities caused by side effects from antiretroviral drugs are becoming increasingly prevalent among Thais living with HIV/Aids, recent studies have found. According to a pilot study by Ramathibodi Hospital's Faculty of Medicine, published in the Journal of the Medical Association Thailand, the long-term toxicity of antiretroviral treatment has become more recognised through a variety of metabolic abnormalities including lipodystrophy, which affects body fat, and dyslipidemia, which affects the blood.

Delusions in HIV and cancer treatment
Delusional thinking is epidemic in the field of HIV and AIDS research and treatment. The October 12 news of a Kaposi Sarcoma outbreak in Dr. Marcus Conant's San Francisco patients refreshes the debate on what constitutes effective HIV care. If the fifteen patients afflicted by the (HHV-8) virally induced lesions are receiving highly active and radioactive therapy (or highly active antiretroviral thereapy as the AIDS industry calls it), and the