Study: Antidepressant drugs actually cause many people to have worse depression
by Jonathan Benson
Natural News
December 20, 2011
(NaturalNews) A recent industry-funded study on antidepressant drugs has revealed that the medications can cause roughly 20 percent of patients to get worse depression symptoms than if they simply took nothing. Published in the journal Archives of General Psychiatry, the study, which was largely controlled by drug giant Eli Lilly, is an eye-opener for those who still put their faith in antidepressants like Cymbalta (duloxetine), which carry with them life-altering side effects.
Ralitza Gueorguieva, lead author of the study from the Yale University School of Health, and her colleagues conducted trials on 2,500 people, all of whom were given either Cymbalta, various other antidepressant drugs, or a drug-free placebo for two months. At the conclusion of the study, most of those who received the placebo saw a gradual improvement in their depression symptoms, while nearly 20 percent of those taking antidepressants saw a worsening of their symptoms.
Those taking antidepressants rather than a placebo were grouped into one of two groups — “responders” or “non-responders.” Responders allegedly saw some improvement from the drugs, while non-responders saw no improvement at all. Eighty-four percent of all patients in the drug groups reportedly saw some improvement, while 16 percent saw no improvement at all — and this 16 percent actually saw a worsening of symptoms, as well as various other harmful side effects.
According to Reuters Health one of the study’s three authors is an employee of Eli Lilly, the company that makes Cymbalta, while another is on the company’s scientific advisory board.
What this all means is that patients who choose to use antidepressants, despite the numerous studies showing that they really do not work and can cause tremendous harm (http://www.naturalnews.com/antidepr…), as well as their doctors, need to pay close attention to what effect the drugs are having. If no improvement is seen, it is perhaps best to stop using the drugs completely and turn to alternatives.
Several recent studies have found, for instance, that S-adenosyl-L-methionine, also known as “SAMe,” is more effective in relieving depression than antidepressant drugs, and without all the harmful side effects. SAMe is a natural compound produced in the liver, and that is found throughout the body in areas like the brain and adrenal glands (http://www.naturalnews.com/029867_a…).
Sources for this article include:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011…
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14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied To Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout
by Zen Gardner
Before It’s News
December 20, 2011
An estimated 14,000 excess deaths in the United States are linked to the radioactive fallout from the disaster at the Fukushima nuclear reactors in Japan, according to a major new article in the December 2011 edition of the International Journal of Health Services. This is the first peer-reviewed study published in a medical journal documenting the health hazards of Fukushima.
Authors Joseph Mangano and Janette Sherman note that their estimate of 14,000 excess U.S. deaths in the 14 weeks after the Fukushima meltdowns is comparable to the 16,500 excess deaths in the 17 weeks after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986. The rise in reported deaths after Fukushima was largest among U.S. infants under age one. The 2010-2011 increase for infant deaths in the spring was 1.8 percent, compared to a decrease of 8.37 percent in the preceding 14 weeks.
The IJHS article will be published Tuesday and will be available online as of 11 a.m. EST at www.radiation.org.
Just six days after the disastrous meltdowns struck four reactors at Fukushima on March 11, scientists detected the plume of toxic fallout had arrived over American shores. Subsequent measurements by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) found levels of radiation in air, water, and milk hundreds of times above normal across the U.S. The highest detected levels of Iodine-131 in precipitation in the U.S. were as follows (normal is about 2 picocuries I-131 per liter of water): Boise, ID (390); Kansas City (200); Salt Lake City (190); Jacksonville, FL (150); Olympia, WA (125); and Boston, MA (92).
Epidemiologist Joseph Mangano, MPH MBA, said: “This study of Fukushima health hazards is the first to be published in a scientific journal. It raises concerns, and strongly suggests that health studies continue, to understand the true impact of Fukushima in Japan and around the world. Findings are important to the current debate of whether to build new reactors, and how long to keep aging ones in operation.”
Mangano is executive director, Radiation and Public Health Project, and the author of 27 peer-reviewed medical journal articles and letters.
Internist and toxicologist Janette Sherman, MD, said: “Based on our continuing research, the actual death count here may be as high as 18,000, with influenza and pneumonia, which were up five-fold in the period in question as a cause of death. Deaths are seen across all ages, but we continue to find that infants are hardest hit because their tissues are rapidly multiplying, they have undeveloped immune systems, and the doses of radioisotopes are proportionally greater than for adults.”
Read more: 14,000 U.S. Deaths Tied to Fukushima Reactor Disaster Fallout
EPA report concludes that natural gas ‘fracking’ causes groundwater contamination
by Jonathan Benson
Natural News
December 23, 2011
(NaturalNews) For the first time, a federal report has verified that chemicals used in natural gas hydraulic fracturing, also known as “fracking,” can, and do, cause groundwater contamination. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently issued a 121-page draft report on the issue that contain evidence linking water contamination in Pavillion, Wyo., to fracking chemicals from nearby gas wells.
For years, the natural gas industry has denied that fracking contaminates groundwater, insisting that hydraulic pressure forces fracking fluids so far down into the ground that they cannot travel back up into water supplies. The industry also claims that layers in the earth’s crust prevent chemicals from moving towards the surface by acting as a watertight barrier.
But none of this is panning out to be true, as the EPA report has exposed ten different compounds found in the Pavillion water supply, all of which are known to be used in fracking fluid. The report explains that “glycol ethers and the assortment of other organic components (found in the water) is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field.”
Back in 2008, the EPA took water samples from around Pavillion after residents complained about water contamination. The agency found hydrocarbons and other contaminants that appeared to have come from nearby gas wells, but that could not be definitively linked. But in 2010, the EPA took more water samples which, in that case, confirmed that the chemicals found were linked to the drilling.
In order to release oil and gas from reserves in shale rock, fracturing equipment forces a fluid mixture of water, sand, and proprietary chemicals into the ground at incredible force, which breaks up the rock and releases the fuel. But in the process, all those tons of chemicals, the names of which have mostly been kept hidden from the public to allegedly protect trade secrets, have to disperse somewhere — and this somewhere appears to be both groundwater and the environment at large.
The biggest problem in linking contamination to fracking is the proprietary nature of fracking chemicals — as NaturalNews has reported previously, federal law does not require natural gas drillers to disclose the chemical contents of their fracking formulas. However some individual states, including Texas (http://www.kansascity.com/2011/12/1…), and Colorado (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4565808…), are now requiring their full disclosure.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.businessinsider.com/fede…
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Is This Humble Plant Capable of Alleviating Most Human Suffering?
by Sayer Ji
Activist Post
December 22, 2011
Ancient Indians believed that turmeric contained the energy of the Divine Mother. Modern science now confirms that it has therapeutic properties relevant to well over 500 health conditions and may bestow on those who take it protection from many common causes of suffering.
The author has personally reviewed the majority of 4,000+ biomedical citations on turmeric and its primary polyphenol curcumin, available to view on the National Library of Medicine’s bibliographic reference database known as MEDLINE (and searchable through engines like Pubmed.gov), and has been awed by how diverse, powerful and seemingly ideally suited this spice is for addressing the broad range of diseases and/or disease symptoms that commonly afflict our species.
key video located below
One of the novel findings that emerged in the author’s comprehensive review of turmeric is that it expresses over 150 distinct beneficial actions, describable in terms of traditional pharmacological pathways, e.g. interleukin-6 down-regulator, apoptotic, cyclooxygenase inhibitor, etc. During the indexing process the image emerged of a many-armed Goddess, due to how diverse, intelligent and simultaneous are this spice’s healing gifts.
In fact, from the perspective of monochemical-oriented pharmacology, a drug with more than 10 simultaneously therapeutic actions, and without the vast array of adverse, unintended side effects commonly associated with novel, patentable chemicals, turmeric would represent an impossible, miraculous entity, which if patentable, would generate more revenue than all the blockbuster drugs on the market put together.
After some reflection on the mass of data that accumulated on turmeric’s ability to alleviate suffering, the question emerged: are these many “evidence-based,” scientific studies really just exoteric descriptions of “compassion” and “intelligence”?
Are we now rediscovering through the optic of modern science — albeit through the reductionist and inherently animal sacrifice-based methodology of empirical science — the “spirit” of herbs like turmeric, whose very existence represent a kind of surplus of benevolent, regenerative energy that permeates the universe, bestowing its grace upon its inhabitants/creations? Is this not what the ancients meant, or saw, when they described the spice in Sanskrit as “Gauri” (“The One Whose Face is Light and Shining”) and “Kanchani” (“Golden Goddess”)?
Our turmeric database on GreenMedInfo.com (and by “our” I mean yours, as well, as this is an open source project) now contains the world’s largest archive of biomedical data on the subject of turmeric’s medical value, and includes voluminous research on turmeric’s potential to prevent and/or treat multi-drug resistant cancers, chronic degenerative conditions, neurological problems, depression, serious infections, as well as hundreds of other diseases.
Please share this information with others, especially those who need an “evidence-bridge” connecting ancient healing wisdom with the modern scientific approach.
Please visit GreenMedInfo to access their vast database of articles and the latest information in natural health.
Did you know? Microwave popcorn gives off a toxic, lung-damaging gas when cooked
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Natural News
December 12
(NaturalNews) You might be reassured to learn that the buttery flavor in microwave popcorn typically comes from a chemical actually found in butter, but you shouldn’t be. This chemical, called diacetyl, is so toxic that it commonly destroys the lungs of workers in microwave popcorn factories, afflicting them with the crippling and irreversible disease known as bronchiolitis obliterans. Bronchiolitis obliterans is so rare outside of this context that it has become more commonly known as “popcorn lung,” after the primary cause of the disease.
Regulators and health professionals have known of this risk for decades, but always assumed that it would only affect people breathing in especially high concentrations in factory settings. Then in 2007, a man who regularly ate two bags of microwave popcorn every day was diagnosed with popcorn lung, indicating that diacetyl enters the air and lungs when microwave popcorn is cooked. Anxious to reassure consumers, most microwave popcorn companies phased out diacetyl — only to replace it with chemicals that have the same effects.
Today, you can still find diacetyl in many flavored snack foods and even in some so-called “natural” foods. Make sure you read the ingredients of any food you intend to consume, and make sure it contains no diacetyl (and no “yeast extract” for that matter, either).
Sources:
http://www.naturalnews.com/024460_p…
http://www.naturalnews.com/023771_p…
http://www.aolnews.com/nation/artic…
Source: 25 Amazing Facts About Food, authored by Mike Adams and David Guiterrez. This report reveals surprising things about where your food comes from and what’s really in it! Download the full report (FREE) by clicking here. Inside, you’ll learn 24 more amazing but true facts about foods, beverages and food ingredients. Instant download of the complete PDF. All 25 facts are documented and true.
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ALL the Vaccines Are Contaminated – Every Last One of Them
by S. Edmonson
Salem-News.com
November 29, 2011
“The chief, if not the sole, cause of the monstrous increase in cancer has been vaccination” – Dr. Robert Bell, once Vice President International Society for Cancer Research at the British Cancer Hospital
Vaccines Experts say families need to take a critical look at vaccines.
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – Have you been rushing out to get a yearly flu vaccine or diligently taking your children for the 40 or so mandated childhood vaccines?
That’s really a shame because you have unwittingly been trading a run-of-the-mill flu or just the measles, for loading up your or your children’s bodies with cancer and other deadly viruses, a destructive bacteria, a chemical selected to damage fertility, and with synthetic DNA that threatens to damage your own DNA – the biologic code for your existence.
Who is saying the vaccines are contaminated?
None other than the (now deceased) head of vaccines at Merck, Dr. Maurice Hillerman, who on camera admitted that Merck’s Hepatitis B vaccines, contaminated with a virus, caused the AIDS epidemic in the US. He went on to say that all of Merck’s vaccines are contaminated with cancer and other viruses. (The US government has conceded the HEB B vaccine causes Lupus. That vaccine is mandated for every infant in the US on the day of birth, and is associated with MS as well.)
That vaccine is mandated for every infant in the US on the day of birth, and is associated with MS as well.)
CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE…
(hat tip: The Invisible Opportunity)
Avocado nutrition facts – six things about this amazingly healthy superfood
by Tara Green
Natural News
December 10, 2011
(NaturalNews) Beware of popular health myths. For instance, throughout the 1990s and into the first few years of this century, popular health “experts” often warned against eating coconut oil or coconut milk, causing many people to eschew a food now known to offer many health benefits. Another lingering popular health myth warns against avocadoes, which wrongly labels them as a dietary culprit because of their caloric and fat content. Yet, the truth is avocadoes can boost health in at least 5 ways:
1. Protein
Avocadoes provide all 18 essential amino acids necessary for the body to form a complete protein. Unlike the protein in steak, which is difficult for most people to digest, avocado protein is readily absorbed by the body because avocadoes also contain fiber. If you are trying to cut down on animal sources of protein in your diet, or if you are a vegetarian, vegan or raw foodist seeking more protein, avocadoes are a great nutritional ally to include not merely as an occasional treat, but as a regular part of your diet.
2. Beneficial Fats
Avocadoes provide the healthy kind of fat that your body needs. Like olive oil, avocadoes boost levels of HDL (the “good” cholesterol). HDL cholesterol can help protect against the damage caused by free radicals. This type of cholesterol also helps regulate triglyceride levels, preventing diabetes. A study published early this year in the Canadian Medical Association Journal found that a vegetarian diet, which includes HDL fats, can reduce levels of LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) as effectively as statin drugs.
3. Carotenoids
Avocadoes are an excellent source of carotenoids. Although many people associate carotenoids only with red and orange produce, avocadoes are also an excellent source of this phytonutrient. Avocadoes, also known as alligator pears, offer a diverse range of carotenoids including not only the better known ones such as beta-carotene, alpha-carotene and lutein, but also lesser known varieties of this type of phytonutrient such as neoxanthin, zeaxanthin, chrysanthemaxanthin, neochrome, beta-cryptoxanthin and violaxanthin. Every time you consume foods rich in carotenoids, you deliver high quality vitamin A to your body, thereby protecting eye health. Carotenoids also enhance the functioning of the immune system and promote healthy functioning of the reproductive system. Since carotenoids are fat soluble, eating avocadoes optimizes the absorption of these nutrients.
4.Anti-Inflammatory
The combined effect of the deluxe package of nutrients contained in avocadoes offers powerful anti-inflammatory benefits. Avocadoes’ unique combination of Vitamins C and E, carotenoids, selenium, zinc, phytosterols and omega-3 fatty acids helps guard against inflammation. This means avocadoes can help prevent or mitigate against both osteo- and rheumatoid arthritis.
5. Heart Health
The fat content, which causes some uninformed health “experts” to deem avocadoes as unhealthy, actually provides protection against heart diseases. Studies have shown that oleic acid improves cardiovascular health. Oleic acid is the primary fatty acid in avocadoes. Many people now take supplements in order to consume more omega-3 fatty acids to lower their risk of heart disease. Avocadoes are rich in omega-3, delivering 160 milligrams per cup of alpha-linolenic acid.
6. Choosing and Eating
To get the most nutritional value from avocadoes, avoid those which have become over-ripe. You can identify these at the store because they will have dents and feel overly soft when you hold them. A ripe avocado should have no dents in its skin and will feel slightly soft when squeezed. You can also buy unripe avocadoes, which feel very hard when gripped, and permit them to ripen at home. The portion of the avocado closest to the skin is the most dense in nutrients, so be sure to scrape the skin clean before discarding it.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?…
http://www.naturalnews.com/031081_a…
http://www.naturalnews.com/027509_a…
http://www.naturalnews.com/029864_a…
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