by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
February 24, 2013
Monosodium glutamate is a food additive used in many foods to enhance taste, but this additive is also toxic. Known as an excitotoxin – which ‘excites’ the cells of the body into overproducing a particular chemical, thus burning them out prematurely – MSG is thrown in everything from Ramen noodles to potato chips, all to “enhance” the flavors in these quasi-foods. But while MSG is said to improve taste, it has many—more sinister—effects. Many people know that MSG can sometimes be blamed for headaches and possibly even ADHD, but the link to obesity often goes unrecognized.
From animal research to studies in humans, scientists have consistently demonstrated that there is a link between the consumption of MSG and obesity.
In Spain, researchers found that rats who eat MSG experience an increase in appetite of 40%. This is dramatic. And because the food’s flavors are enhanced, there’s a good chance that humans are eating more of them too.
But more than just tasting good, some scientists have suggested that MSG actually interferes with leptin, responsible for controlling our appetites. One study showed that those people who eat the most MSG also have the most leptin, perhaps creating an environment of leptin resistance, or one where the appetite becomes more or less uncontrollable.
Interestingly, MSG could be causing obesity even without increased food consumption. The link between MSG and weight gain or obesity holds true even when excess calories are accounted for.
In the United States, it’s estimated that the average person consumes about a half a gram of MSG daily, and for many sensitive people, this is enough to trigger a migraine. But, it’s minimal when compared with the amount consumed in some Asian countries. It’s estimated in countries like Japan that MSG consumption is anywhere from 1.5 to 10 grams per day.
Studies in these countries have found a similar link between MSG and obesity. The reason we don’t see Asian countries with obesity rates comparable to ours, scientists surmise, is because they are more active and have a (generally) better diet.
Sicne producers aren’t always transparent with MSG’s inclusion in food products (shocker, I know), it may be tricky to reduce MSG consumption. Check the ingredients for inclusions like: glutamate, glutamic acid, gelatin, calcium caseinate, hydrolyzed vegetable protein, whey protein, textured protein, yeast extract, autolyzed yeast, and more. Better yet, to ensure you aren’t getting MSG, don’t eat processed foods at all.
Additional Sources:
Reuters
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
Voxxi
EuroResidentes.com
February 27, 2013 | Categories: food, health, news, science, studies | Leave a comment
Activist Post
February 23, 2013
Two powerful dairy organizations, The International Dairy Foods Association (IDFA) and the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), are petitioning the Food and Drug Administration to allow aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to be added milk and other dairy products without a label.
The FDA currently allows the dairy industry to use “nutritive sweeteners” including sugar and high fructose corn syrup in many of their products. Nutritive sweeteners are defined as sweeteners with calories.
This petition officially seeks to amend the standard of identification for milk, cream, and 17 other dairy products like yogurt, sweetened condensed milk, sour cream, and others to provide for the use of any “safe and suitable sweetener” on the market.
They claim that aspartame and other artificial sweeteners would promote healthy eating and is good for school children.
According to the FDA notice issued this week:
IDFA and NMPF state that the proposed amendments would promote more healthful eating practices and reduce childhood obesity by providing for lower-calorie flavored milk products. They state that lower-calorie flavored milk would particularly benefit school children who, according to IDFA and NMPF, are more inclined to drink flavored milk than unflavored milk at school.
Although the FDA considers aspartame to be a “safe and suitable” sweetener, a recent Yale University study appears to directly challenge the claim that aspartame would reduce obesity. In fact, the study concluded just the opposite, that artificial sweeteners actually contributed to obesity and Type 2 diabetes.
The IDFA and NMPF argue “that the proposed amendments to the milk standard of identity would promote honesty and fair dealing in the marketplace” yet they don’t want changes to the labels on dairy products.
Accordingly, the petitioners state that milk flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners should be labeled as milk without further claims so that consumers can “more easily identify its overall nutritional value.”
It’s unclear how consumers can more easily identify the overall nutritional value of milk products that are flavored with non-nutritive sweeteners without labels.
Quoting Section 130.10 of the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, the dairy giants claim a new label is not required because sugar is added to milk without labeling it, and “the modified food is not inferior in performance” and “‘reduced calorie’ (labels) are not attractive to children” so marketing as such is of no benefit or detriment.
The FDA has opened public comments until May 21 for anyone interested to “submit comments, data, and information concerning the need for, and the appropriateness of, amending the standard of identity for milk and the additional dairy standards.”
To submit a formal comment or send data to the FDA concerning adding aspartame and other artificial sweeteners to milk products CLICK HERE.
Read other articles from Activist Post Here.
February 23, 2013 | Categories: action alerts / announcements / solutions, health, news, science, studies, tyranny | 1 Comment
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
February 22, 2013
When the industry found consumers getting hip to BPA and its hormone disrupting qualities, they started looking at alternatives. While that was nice and all, the alternatives aren’t much better. In fact, some research found that mot plastics, even those that are BPA-free, still leach hormone-mimicking chemicals when exposed to normal conditions. While the research took play a couple years ago, it reminds us to think twice when using and purchasing plastics.
Despite that the industry would like you to think “BPA-Free” labels make foods safe from hormone disrupters, researchers say that simply isn’t the case. They tested more than 450 different plastic containers from stores like Walmart and Whole Foods. More than 70% of them released estrogen-like chemicals.
The containers they tested included those most likely to come in contact with food. Plastic bags, baby bottles, deli containers, and reusable plastic food containers were all tested. Because they knew BPA-containers would emit hormone-disrupters, they focused on those plastics that claimed to be “BPA-free”.
When exposed to saltwater and alcohol, the majority of the plastics released hormone disrupting chemicals. The number increased when they were put in the dishwasher, exposed to sunlight, or used in the microwave. These exposures are just the type that these plastics would undergo if used in your home.
Related: What do plastic recycling symbols mean? Find out which plastics are safest and which you should not use.
“Then, you greatly increase the probability that you’re going to get chemicals having estrogenic activity released,” said Professor of Biology George Bittner, adding that they increased the number of containers emitting hormone disrupters to 90%.
The study didn’t focus on health effects as much as the chemicals that the containers produced. Some scientists would argue that these disrupters aren’t proven to do any damage to humans, only mice and rats. Others say Bittner’s research isn’t completely reliable. But iIf a chemical causes infertility and cancer in rats, I don’t want to touch it.
However, those that have questioned BPA-effects before are welcoming the study.
“This is really helpful because they took a look at very common products,” says Sonya Lunder of the Environmental Working Group.
It seems when the scientific world is presented with studies like this, we are encouraged to continue on with business as usual until they know, without a doubt, that something is 100% likely to cause cancer, illness, death, or the like. While they may be convinced our retail habits are more important than our health, I’d like to think our informed readers know otherwise.
Additional Sources:
ScienceDaily
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3222987/
Other Important Stories
February 23, 2013 | Categories: health, news, science, studies | Leave a comment
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
February 11, 2013
The human body is a complex system of interrelated parts. You can’t have an imbalance in one area of the body and not have that imbalance affect the entire whole. And researchers have demonstrated that your gut health, way down in your stomach, may play a role in your behavior and even your risk of depression or anxiety, further demonstrating why whole-body health is so vitally important.
The gut, or digestive system, is home to a complex balance of trillions of bacteria. They live in harmony, for the most part. But illness, disease, or antibiotics can all throw this fine balance off. And when your gut bacteria are not finely tuned, the effects include digestive problems including irritable bowel syndrome, to mental health problems like depression. Some research has even indicated late onset autism is related to gut health.
The most recent research, however, suggests that an imbalance caused by antibiotics could have profound effects on our behavior and mood.
As published in Gastroenterology, the researchers disrupted the gut bacteria of otherwise healthy mice by injecting them with antibiotics. They found the resulting imbalance to cause the mice to become less cautious and anxious. It also resulted in an increase in something called brain derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is linked to depression and anxiety.
Then, to further their findings, they took healthy mice who exhibited passive behavior and injected them with bacteria from mice with a “higher exploratory” behavior. They found those passive mice became far more active. In other words, the change in gut bacteria again had a significant impact on behavior.
Interestingly, the changes weren’t permanent—the mice returned to their normal selves when the antibiotics were discontinued and the gut bacteria once again became balanced.
So, what does this mean for us. Well, in science-speak, it’s important to note that the same findings have yet to be tested in humans. However, the research indicates that things like depression and mood or behavioral changes could be due to an upset in gut bacteria. Actually, the imbalance of gut microbiota is even directly linked to chronic illness, including obesity and inflammation.
In addition, a disruption in the bacteria of the gut can lead to serious digestive problems and candida. You can prevent all of this by avoiding antibiotics whenever possible, but also by consuming foods with probiotics to help restore and maintain the delicate bacterial balance. These foods include fermented ones like sauerkraut, kefir, miso, and tempeh.
Additional Sources:
MedicalXpress.com
February 12, 2013 | Categories: food, health, news, science, studies | Leave a comment
by geobear7
Food Freedom News
February 4, 2013
By WorldTruthTV
As few as one diet soda daily may increase the risk for leukemia in men and women, and for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma in men, according to new results from the longest-ever running study on aspartame as a carcinogen in humans. Importantly, this is the most comprehensive, long-term study ever completed on this topic, so it holds more weight than other past studies which appeared to show no risk. And disturbingly, it may also open the door for further similar findings on other cancers in future studies.
The most thorough study yet on aspartame – Over two million person-years
For this study, researchers prospectively analyzed data from the Nurses’ Health Study and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study for a 22-year period. A total of 77,218 women and 47,810 men were included in the analysis, for a total of 2,278,396 person-years of data. Apart from sheer size, what makes this study superior to other past studies is the thoroughness with which aspartame intake was assessed. Every two years, participants were given a detailed dietary questionnaire, and their diets were reassessed every four years. Previous studies which found no link to cancer only ever assessed participants’ aspartame intake at one point in time, which could be a major weakness affecting their accuracy.
One diet soda a day increases leukemia, multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphomas
The combined results of this new study showed that just one 12-fl oz. can (355 ml) of diet soda daily leads to:
- 42 percent higher leukemia risk in men and women (pooled analysis)
- 102 percent higher multiple myeloma risk (in men only)
- 31 percent higher non-Hodgkin lymphoma risk (in men only)
These results were based on multi-variable relative risk models, all in comparison to participants who drank no diet soda. It is unknown why only men drinking higher amounts of diet soda showed increased risk for multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Note that diet soda is the largest dietary source of aspartame (by far) in the U.S. Every year, Americans consume about 5,250 tons of aspartame in total, of which about 86 percent (4,500 tons) is found in diet sodas.
This new study shows the importance of the quality of research. Most of the past studies showing no link between aspartame and cancer have been criticized for being too short in duration and too inaccurate in assessing long-term aspartame intake. This new study solves both of those issues. The fact that it also shows a positive link to cancer should come as no surprise, because a previous best-in-class research study done on animals (900 rats over their entire natural lifetimes) showed strikingly similar results back in 2006: aspartame significantly increased the risk for lymphomas and leukemia in both males and females.
More worrying is the follow on mega-study, which started aspartame exposure of the rats at the fetal stage. Increased lymphoma and leukemia risks were confirmed, and this time the female rats also showed significantly increased breast (mammary) cancer rates. This raises a critical question: will future, high-quality studies uncover links to the other cancers in which aspartame has been implicated (brain, breast, prostate, etc.)?
There is now more reason than ever to completely avoid aspartame in our daily diet. For those who are tempted to go back to sugary sodas as a “healthy” alternative, this study had a surprise finding: men consuming one or more sugar-sweetened sodas daily saw a 66 percent increase in non-Hodgkin lymphoma (even worse than for diet soda). Perhaps the healthiest soda is NO SODA AT ALL.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.naturalnews.com
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23097267
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16507461
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17805418
February 6, 2013 | Categories: food, health, news, science, studies | Leave a comment
by Sarka-Jonae Miller
NaturalNews
May 6, 2012
(NaturalNews) Nearly half of the meat sold in the United States has been found to contain methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MSRA), a strain that causes a staph infection but is resistant to antibiotic drugs. Antibiotic resistance caused by overusing antibiotics in people and animals creates superbugs, germs that cannot be killed with regular antibiotics. To combat antibiotic resistance, doctors try stronger meds. However, essential oils, garlic and vinegar can work as a natural MRSA treatment. These and other natural remedies for infections can not only combat a staph infection, but also the growing cycle of antibiotic resistance.
What is a MRSA infection?
The majority of antibiotics sold in the U.S. are given to animals in their feed to reduce spreading infections among livestock. The abundance of antibiotics in feed creates antibiotic resistance. In the case of the MRSA superbug, a staph strain went from humans into pigs where it was transformed into a germ with an antibiotic resistance, according to a study published in the mBio journal. The new antibiotic-resistant germ was then transmitted back into humans.
Around 25 percent of MRSA cases in humans are caused by this livestock-derived strain in the Netherlands. Failing to cook meat thoroughly and handling meat improperly create a greater risk of staph infection from MRSA in people, but a safer alternative is to avoid meat from conventionally raised animals. Organic farms do not use antibiotics.
What is antibiotic resistance?
People who get exposed to too many antibiotics can develop a resistance. Eating meat flesh containing antibiotics is one cause of antibiotic resistance. Doctors over-prescribing antibiotics is another. MRSA is a type of superbug called a gram-positive bacteria. The other type of superbug, gram-negative bacteria, are even more sophisticated and tougher organisms. K. pneumoniae (KPC), a germ linked to thousands of deaths, is an example of a gram-negative bacteria.
KPC is a pneumonia-causing superbug that has spread through the U.S., Hungary, Cyrpus, Austria and Italy. In early 20120, it was responsible for hundreds of deaths at a hospital in Greece. However, KPC is not the only superbug responsible for killing people. Around 25,000 people die in Europe every year because of antibiotic-resistant infections.
Natural remedies for MRSA treatment and other infections
How are doctors treating the infections caused by antibiotic resistant drugs? With more drugs. Greek doctors tried some of the strongest antibiotics available, from Merrem to Doribax, to fight KPC with little success. Instead of trying natural cures, many doctors turned to a 50-year-old medication called colistin, a drug so potent it can lead to kidney damage.
Natural infection remedies are less expensive and less damaging. They are likely more effective. An antibiotic comprises a single chemical component, usually, whereas essential oils comprise sometimes thousands of chemical components. These multiple components are challenging for bacteria to develop a resistance to and therefore a better choice for MRSA treatment and combating other superbugs.
Tea tree oil has a proven ability to fight a staph infection because it quickly kills staph bacteria. Tea tree oil is used as a topical application, going directly onto infected skin.
Another topical treatment for a staph infection is mixture of apple cider vinegar and baking soda. The two substances combine to make a paste that can be applied to a skin infection.
Garlic is another smart choice because it has a complex makeup, comprising 27 known active ingredients as well as dozens of other ingredients. Garlic is an effective MRSA treatment and helps fight other infections by boosting the body’s ability to kill off invading bacteria.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.ehow.com/about_5057374_natural-cures-staph-infection.html
http://www.businessweek.com
http://www.npr.org
http://mbio.asm.org/content/3/1/e00305-11
http://www.staph-infection-resources.com/mrsa-natural-remedies.html
http://www.staph-infection-resources.com
About the author:
Sarka-Jonae Miller is a former personal trainer and massage therapist. Get more health and wellness tips on Sarka’s blog, www.NaturalHealingTipsBlog.com, or join her on Facebook, https://www.facebook.com/pages/Sarka-Jonae-Miller/168691386526181
January 26, 2013 | Categories: health, news, science, studies | 1 Comment
Wiki Image
by Anna Hunt, Contributor
Activist Post
November 30, 2012
New research suggests it may be possible to learn high-performance tasks with little or no conscious effort.
Conjuring up images of the hit film The Matrix, recent research indicates that it may be possible to program your brain to perform certain feats like playing instruments, sports and intellectual challenges.
Experiments conducted at Boston University (BU) and ATR Computational Neuroscience Laboratories in Kyoto, Japan, recently demonstrated that through a person’s visual cortex, researchers could use decoded functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to induce brain activity patterns to match a previously known target state and thereby improve performance on visual tasks.” (National Science Foundation)
Imagine being “downloaded” with a certain skill set just by watching a high-performing athlete or musician execute these skills on a computer screen. Possibilities like this may exist in the future as the singularity draws near. Researchers believe that adult early visual areas are capable of stimulating visual perceptual learning.
‘Some previous research confirmed a correlation between improving visual performance and changes in early visual areas, while other researchers found correlations in higher visual and decision areas,’ said [Takeo] Watanabe, director of BU’s Visual Science Laboratory. ‘However, none of these studies directly addressed the question of whether early visual areas are sufficiently plastic to cause visual perceptual learning.’ Until now. (National Science Foundation)
BU’s Watanabe and post-doctoral fellow Kazuhisa Shibata, as well as Mitsuo Kawato, director of ATR Lab, and Yuka Sasaki, an assistant in neuroscience at Massachusetts General Hospital, have been involved in testing a method of using decoded fMRI neurofeedback on targeted visual areas to improve visual performance of specific visual features in the brain. This research has led them to deduct that the approach may be capable of inducing long-lasting improvement in tasks that necessitate visual performance, even without the subject’s awareness of what he or she is learning.
The most surprising thing in this study is that mere inductions of neural activation patterns corresponding to a specific visual feature led to visual performance improvement on the visual feature, without presenting the feature or subjects’ awareness of what was to be learned, said Watanabe. (National Science Foundation)
The decoded neurofeedback method may eventually present doctors, therapists and clinicians with a new approach to automated learning, which may be useful with rehabilitation of motor skills, as well as with memory loss.
‘In theory, hypnosis or a type of automated learning is a potential outcome,’ said Kawato. ‘However, in this study we confirmed the validity of our method only in visual perceptual learning. So we have to test if the method works in other types of learning in the future. At the same time, we have to be careful so that this method is not used in an unethical way.’ (National Science Foundation)
Below is a short video that offers the researchers’ explanation of the decoded neurofeedback method.
VIDEO
Sources: National Science Foundation
Anna Hunt is a writer and entrepreneur with over a decade of experience in research and editorial writing. She and her husband run a preparedness e-store outlet at www.offgridoutpost.com, offering GMO-free storable food and emergency kits. Anna is also a certified Hatha yoga instructor. She enjoys raising her children and being a voice for optimal human health and wellness. Read more of her excellent articles here.
January 12, 2013 | Categories: education, news, science, studies | Leave a comment
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