Friday, Dec 05th
Last update07:50:16 AM GMT
Health Glance
Three months after the federal government urged most Americans to sharply cut their salt intake, a new study questions whether the recommendation will benefit those without high blood pressure.
The findings published yesterday in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicate that healthy people who eat the least amount of sodium don’t have any health advantage over those who eat the most. In fact, they had slightly higher death rates from heart disease.
Taking antidepressants may raise the risk of heart disease in men. They can thicken artery walls through an as yet unknown mechanism.
The drugs seem to accelerate atherosclerosis by increasing the thickness of the "intima media", the inner and middle layers of the arteries. They particularly affect the carotid arteries that feed blood to your brain.
Most people have heard the "chemical imbalance" theory and believe it is true. It is important to realize that there is no scientific evidence for this theory. There is no credible scientific lab test showing the presence or absence of mental disease.
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently issued a policy paper condemning the current Toxic Substances Control Act (TSC Act) for failing to properly regulate the tens of thousands of toxic chemicals used in various consumer products, many of which are especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children. Though correct in its identification of chemical use as a toxic threat to society's most vulnerable individuals, the AAP hypocritically continues to support the intramuscular poisoning of children through vaccinations, which are loaded with toxic chemicals that are directly injected into children's bodies.
Patients have lost access to hundreds of herbal medicines today, after European regulations came into force.
Sales of all herbal remedies, except for a small number of popular products for 'mild' illness such as echinacea for colds and St John's Wort for depression have been banned.
For seven years, the Food and Drug Administration has been trying to answer this question: What does it mean to be “gluten-free”? That is roughly the time it took to build a tunnel beneath the English Channel to connect Britain and France.
In the meantime, foodmakers have been deciding for themselves whether they can jump into a lucrative new niche and market their products as free from gluten, a protein found in wheat, rye and barley. As a result, some products labeled gluten-free contain no gluten, others might have a trace and still more could contain a sizable amount.
The nuclear power accidents at Fukushima this spring and at Chernobyl 25 years ago Tuesday show that radiation releases can endanger people and contaminate land many miles beyond evacuation zones.
The advocacy group Physicians for Nuclear Responsibility, which opposes nuclear power, said Tuesday that the U.S. 10-mile evacuation plan was inadequate and should be extended to 50 miles. One-third of the U.S. population lives within 50 miles of nuclear power plants.
The Food and Drug Administration said Monday it plans to regulate smokeless electronic cigarettes as tobacco products and won’t try to regulate them under stricter rules for drug-delivery devices.
The federal agency said in a letter to stakeholders Monday that it intends to propose rule changes to treat e-cigarettes the same traditional cigarettes and other tobacco products. The news is considered a victory for makers and distributors of the devices, which continue to gain popularity worldwide.
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