Thursday, Feb 05th
Last update08:43:35 AM GMT
Health Glance
New life expectancy figures show Americans some way behind countries like Canada, the UK and Australia. Why?
Living in the world's richest country comes at a price, and it's measured in life years.
"We weren't surprised that we had lower life expectancies than other countries, but we were surprised by the fact that we were falling further behind," says Dr Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
Marijuana has been approved by California, many other states and the nation's capital to treat a range of illnesses, but in a decision announced Friday the federal government ruled that it has no accepted medical use and should remain classified as a highly dangerous drug like heroin.
The decision comes almost nine years after medical marijuana supporters asked the government to reclassify cannabis to take into account a growing body of worldwide research that shows its effectiveness in treating certain diseases, such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis.
The food and advertising industries have launched a multi-pronged campaign to squash government efforts to create voluntary nutritional guidelines for foods marketed to children.
Calling themselves the Sensible Food Policy Coalition, the nation’s biggest foodmakers, fast-food chains and media companies, including Viacom and Time Warner, are trying to derail standards proposed by four federal agencies. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has also lent its lobbying muscle to the effort.
A patient will be discharged from a hospital in Sweden on Friday after his cancerous windpipe was removed and replaced by the world's first artificial trachea, made of his own stem cells grown on a man-made plastic matrix.
"This is the first permanent artificial organ ever," says Paolo Macchiarini, professor of regenerative surgery at the Karolinksa Institute in Stockholm, who led an international team of researchers.
The prolonged ingestion of fluoride may cause significant damage to health and particularly to the nervous system… It is important to be aware of this serious problem and avoid the use of toothpaste and items that contain fluoride, particularly in children as they are more susceptible to the toxic effects of fluoride. Fluoride can be toxic by ingesting one part per million (ppm), and the effects are not immediate, as they can take 20 years or more to become evident. Most fluoridating U.S. public drinking water suppliers add fluoride chemicals to deliver 1 ppm fluoride.
In 1994, after years of armed raids, oppression and censorship by the FDA, Congress passed a law known as DSHEA. This is the law that essentially forced the FDA to stop regulating dietary supplements out of existence, and groups such as the Life Extension Foundation (www.LEF.org) were instrumental in helping get this law passed in 1994.
Now, suddenly, the FDA has decided it wants to enforce NDI, and its enforcement of this technicality would essentially amount to the FDA denying permission to use nearly all dietary supplement ingredients introduced since 1994. So last Friday, the FDA proposed its new rules on NDI -- on the Friday before a long weekend, no less, which is a common tactic government uses when it wants to do something that nobody notices -- and these new rules run the risk of being adopted as active regulations, threatening virtually the entire dietary supplement industry with an eventual shutdown.
“WGA can pass through the blood brain barrier (BBB) through a process called ‘adsorptive endocytosis’ ... WGA may attach to the protective coating on the nerves known as the myelin sheathand is capable of inhibiting nerve growth factor which is important for the growth, maintenance, and survival of certain target neurons. WGA binds to N-Acetylglucosamine which is believed to function as an atypical neurotransmitter functioning in nocioceptive (pain) pathways.”
Most people believe that grains are a wholesome part of a healthy diet, particularly whole grains, such as whole wheat. Whole grains are also one of the relatively few foods that are allowed to make health claims on their labels, relating whole grains with a reduced risk of heart disease and certain cancers.
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