Bacteria-R-Us and The Myth of the Innocent Civilian - NewsGrabs 4 November 2007
CategoriesHealth 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 on weekends.
Here is another week's worth of interesting stories collected for you:We Are Human-Bacteria Hybrids -
Killing Germs May Be Hazardous -
Chemical stops cancer, heart disease -
Video: Time to Heal - Raw Food -
Folic acid fortification warning -
End Electroshock for Unruly Kids -
Kickbacks for Medical Devices -
Thumbs Down on Mercury Fillings -
No Evidence Iran Building Nuclear Weapons -
Humor: Closing the 'Collapse Gap' -
The Myth of the Innocent Civilian
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People Are Human-Bacteria Hybrid
Most of the cells in your body are not your own, nor are they even human. They are bacterial. From the invisible strands of fungi waiting to sprout between our toes, to the kilogram of bacterial matter in our guts, we are best viewed as walking "superorganisms," highly complex conglomerations of human cells, bacteria, fungi and viruses.Luckily for us, the bacteria are on the whole commensal, sharing our food but doing no real harm. (The word derives from the Latin meaning to share a table for dinner.) In fact, they are often beneficial: Our commensal bacteria protect us from potentially dangerous infections. They do this through close interaction with our immune systems.
As we are starting to find out, micro-organisms are not our enemies. The overwhelming majority of them is friendly, "commensal". This will mean we are looking at a change the direction in medicine from anti-bacterial to neutral or even pro-bacterial. When you have a great many allies, does it make sense to go out and slaughter them? Surely not. So why are we insisting on killing the maximum number of bacteria we possibly can?
Caution: Killing Germs May Be Hazardous to Your Health
Behold yourself, for a moment, as an organism. A trillion cells stuck together, arrayed into tissues and organs and harnessed by your DNA to the elemental goals of survival and propagation. But is that all? An electron microscope would reveal that you are teeming with other life-forms. Any part of your body that comes into contact with the outside world-your skin, mouth, nose and (especially) digestive tract-is home to bacteria, fungi and protozoa that outnumber the cells you call your own by 10, or perhaps a hundred, to one.
Official: organic really is better
The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain’s biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.
INTRAVENOUS VITAMIN C and CANCER
If large amounts of vitamin C are presented to cancer cells, large amounts will be absorbed. In these unusually large concentrations, the antioxidant vitamin C will start behaving as a pro-oxidant as it interacts with intracellular copper and iron. This chemical interaction produces small amounts of hydrogen peroxide.Because cancer cells are relatively low in an intracellular anti-oxidant enzyme called catalase, the high dose vitamin C induction of peroxide will continue to build up until it eventually lyses the cancer cell from the inside out! This effectively makes high dose IVC a non-toxic chemotherapeutic agent that can be given in conjunction with conventional cancer treatments. Based on the work of several vitamin C pioneers before him, Dr. Riordan was able to prove that vitamin C was selectively toxic to cancer cells if given intravenously. This research was recently reproduced and published by Dr. Mark Levine at the National Institutes of Health.
Doctors Say, Raise the RDAs Now
"Government-sponsored nutrient recommendations, such as the US RDA/DRIs, are not keeping pace with recent progress in nutrition research. While current official recommendations for vitamin A, iron, calcium, and some other nutrients are generally adequate, the public has been asked to consume far too little of many other key nutrients. Inadequate intake, and inadequate standards to judge intake, have resulted in widespread nutrient inadequacy, chronic disease, and an undernourished but overweight population."
Chemical in red wine, fruits and vegetables stops cancer, heart disease, depending on the dose
At relatively low doses, the French researchers found that the same polyphenols play a beneficial role for those with diseased hearts and circulatory systems by facilitating blood vessel growth. The amount of polyphenols necessary for this effect was found to be the equivalent of only one glass of red wine per day or simply sticking to a healthy diet of fruits and vegetables containing polyphenols. This diet is known as the “Mediterranean Diet.”According to the authors, the amount of polyphenols necessary to obtain an anti-cancer effect is the equivalent of drinking about a bottle of red wine each day. This amount of daily alcohol consumption obviously is unhealthy, but the research suggests that polyphenols extracted from plants or red wine could be converted into a pill that is highly likely to be safe.
Video: Time to Heal - Is Raw Food going to do it?
Maybe the old adage "you are what you eat" is really true and we shouldn't boil or fry our food, if we don't want to end up half dead and with all kinds of problems. Markus Rothkranz has become a very visible promoter of a world-wide and quite vigorous movement of people who want us all to get back to basics - at least in the way we prepare out food.
Folic acid fortification warning
Folic acid is a synthetic form of folate, a B vitamin found in a wide variety of foods including liver and green leafy vegetables. But while folates are broken down in the gut, the latest research shows that folic acid is metabolised in the liver. The researchers warn that the liver is an easily saturated system, and mandatory fortification could lead to significant unmetabolised folic acid entering the blood.
This article is interesting as it makes a point that there is a difference between a natural substance (folate) and a synthetic 'equivalent' (folic acid) in how the human body deals with it. The natural one is absorbed in the intestine, while the synthetic one necessitates intervention of the liver to transform it into something useful.It always seems to be the synthetic form of vitamins, not what we find in food, that is potentially problematic. An example is the scare over beta carotene, coming from one study that used synthetic beta carotene in association with synthetic vitamin A and found a slight increase in lung cancer in heavy smokers. Yet, health authorities have been stampeded into action and are limiting dosages of beta carotene in supplements - not just the synthetic kind but the natural one as well.
World Experts Demand End to Child Drugging in the US
"I never would have allowed my child to be placed on a drug with no proven efficacy and a history of possible harm," Ms Downing stated. She described how she tried to contact doctors at the FDA numerous times to express her concerns, and no one was ever available to speak to her. She filed a complaint with MedWatch on March 18, 2004, and, "I am still waiting for my reply," she stated."One would think that the FDA would support the needs of Amer
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