Ban Plastic Bottles

Bottled water is typically considered to be a healthy alternative to drinking plain tap water. In fact, Americans drink approximately eight million gallons of bottled water every year. While bottled water is definitely a better choice than soft drinks or sports drinks that contain high fructose corn syrup, bottled water is not a good choice for the wellbeing of the earth. Here are some of the health and environmental issues associated with consuming bottled water.1.It takes three to five times more water to manufacture the plastic water bottle than actually is contained in the water bottle itself. Because each bottle should only be used one time (so as not to contaminate water with phthalates) this seems to be an inordinate amount of water utilized in the manufacturing process.2.Plastic is a petroleum product so using plastic water bottles depletes this non-renewable resource. The Pacific Institute has calculated that the manufacturing process for making plastic water bottles used in the US consumes roughly 17 million barrels of oil every year.3.Plastic water bottles are not recycled the way they should be. It is estimated that in 2005 only about 12% of plastic water bottles were recycled. This is partly because water bottles are many times not included in local recycling plans. Another factor is that bottled water is often consumed away from home and so is disposed of in mixed-trash containers instead of being recycled. In a 2002 study by Scenic Hudson it was reported that 18 percent by volume of recovered litter from the Hudson River was beverage containers. In landfills, water bottles will remain biodegrading for approximately 1,000 years. Incinerating used water bottles produces toxic byproducts including chlorine gas and ash that contains heavy metals.4.Roughly 94 % of the bottled water in the U.S. is bottled domestically. Of this percentage, approximately 25 percent sold is just reprocessed municipal water according to a 1999 study by the National Resources Defense Council.5.Using plastic bottles that contain Bisphenol A is detrimental to human health. Bisphenol A behaves similarly to estrogen. This means that when enough of this accumulates in the body there will be negative health effects. Bisphenol A has been linked to obesity, diabetes, breast cancer, and hyperactivity.Alternatives to Plastic Bottles: Stainless steel, glass, and aluminum water bottles are safer and more earth-friendly. There are also many companies manufacturing BPA-free and phthalate-free plastic water bottles.Whatever kind of plastic is used, it is important to hand wash any plastic food and beverage items in warm (not hot) water. Washing plastic items at the high and sustained temperatures of an automatic dishwasher is detrimental to human health and should be avoided at all costs.Source: http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071014/NEWS/710140325/-1/NEWShttp://www.pacinst.org/

Daily Health Defense

Exercising every day and filling up on calcium-rich foods could shield you from metabolic syndrome. In surveying 5,077 adults, researchers found that those who got little or no daily exercise or ate low-calcium diets were at least 1.5 times as likely to develop metabolic syndrome, a cluster of conditions (including high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and excess belly fat) that up your risk for heart disease and diabetes.

Working out regularly helps trim abdominal fat and lower blood pressure, while calcium-packed foods may help keep blood pressure in check and curb fat production, says Jennifer Tremmel, M.D., clinical director of Stanford Hospital's Women's Heart Health Clinic. Tremmel recommends eating calcium-rich foods such as low-fat yogurt, dark-green leafy vegetables, almonds, and salmon.

What Really Causes Autism?

California's sevenfold increase in autism is most likely due to environmental exposures, according to scientists. A new study advocates a nationwide shift in autism research to focus on environmental factors such as pesticides, viruses and chemicals in household products.Throughout the U.S., the numbers of autistic children have increased dramatically over the past 15 years. More than 3,000 new cases of autism were reported in California in 2006, compared with 205 in 1990.Many medical officials argued that the rise was due to changes in diagnoses or migration patterns rather than a real rise in the disorder. But the new study concludes that those factors cannot explain most of the increase in autism.Researchers analyzed 17 years of state data that tracks developmental disabilities. Migration to the state had no effect, and changes in how and when doctors diagnose the disorder can explain less than half of the increase.It is possible that a pregnant woman's exposure to chemical pollutants, particularly metals and pesticides, could be altering a developing baby's brain structure, triggering autism. Many parent groups also believe that childhood vaccines could be responsible.
Sources:
Scientific American January 9, 2009
Epidemiology January 2009, Volume 20(1) pp 84-90

Sea Vegetables: Why You Should Eat More of This Delicious Asian Supefood

Sea vegetables, better known as seaweed, are the leafy greens of the sea. Though not technically a vegetable (they're actually classified as algae), seaweed is loaded with nutrition and has a unique, slightly salty flavor that’s been a staple in Japanese cuisine for more than 10,000 years!
In the U.S. seaweed is most widely known for its roll as a sushi wrapper, but it has many other culinary uses as well.
In ancient China, meanwhile, sea vegetables were a delicacy reserved for honored guests and royalty. In fact, numerous cultures that live near their coasts have been enjoying sea vegetables for quite some time. This includes not only parts of Asia but also Iceland, Norway, New Zealand, coastal South America, Scotland, Ireland, and the Pacific Islands.
In the Western world, you can find sea vegetables in health food stores, Asian markets and even some local grocery stores, in a variety of ocean and freshwater varieties such as kelp, wakame, arame and dulse. Some of the most popular varieties are:
Nori: The deep purple type used to make sushi rolls
Kelp: Light brown to dark green, often in flake form
Hijiki: Small, black wiry strands
Kombu: Sometimes used as a flavoring for soups, often sold in strips or sheets
Wakame: Most often used to make miso soup
Arame: A lacy, wiry shape and mild flavor
Dulse: Reddish brown with a soft, chewy texture
Why might you want to think about adding sea vegetables to your family’s dinner table?
Seaweed contains the broadest range of minerals of any food -- the same minerals found in the ocean and in human blood. For instance, seaweed is rich in:
Pantothenic acid and riboflavin -- two B-vitamins needed for your body to produce energy
Iodine
Vitamin K
Lignans, which have cancer-fighting properties
The Health Benefits of Sea Vegetables
Sea vegetables contain a unique blend of potent nutrients for your health.
Protect Against Cancer
The lignans in seaweed inhibit blood cell growth, which can nourish tumors and spread cancer cells. They have also been shown to fight breast cancer and other hormone-related cancers. Meanwhile, sea vegetables contain folic acid, which may help reduce your risk of colon cancer.
Promote Healthy Thyroid Function
Seaweed is rich in iodine, which is essential for the proper functioning of your thyroid glands. In short, it helps your thyroid to synthesize the amino acid tyrosine to create hormones.
Prevent Heart Disease and Birth Defects
Folic acid in seaweed is not only essential for protecting against birth defects, it is also needed to breakdown a dangerous chemical called homocysteine. Homocysteine can damage blood vessel walls and increase your risk of heart disease and stroke. Sea vegetables also contain magnesium, which helps reduce high blood pressure and prevent heart attacks.
Relieve Menopausal Symptoms
The magnesium in sea vegetables can help relieve sleep trouble due to menopause. Further, the lignans are phytoestrogens, which can help to relieve menopausal symptoms such as hot flashes.
Why Choosing Organic Sea Vegetables is Important
Sea vegetables actively take up minerals from the water in which they grow. Unfortunately, they can also pick up pollutants in the surrounding waters, including heavy metals such as arsenic, lead and cadmium. In fact, sea vegetables are so efficient at absorbing contaminants that some marine ecologists use them as a monitor to determine levels of heavy metal pollution in water.
Sea vegetables come in a variety of forms, such as fresh, powdered, flakes, and sheets.
Because many waters are now polluted, it’s recommended that you eat only organic varieties of sea vegetables to avoid these risks.

Flu Shot "Totally Worthless" at Reducing Death Rate in Elderly

Influenza vaccination has no significant effect on death rates among the elderly, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Alberta, Canada.Previous studies have concluded that getting a flu shot reduces an elderly person's risk of dying from any cause by 50 percent, a claim that other scientists have challenged as unlikely."Over the last two decades in the United Sates, even while [flu] vaccination rates among the elderly have increased from 15 to 65 percent, there has been no commensurate decrease in hospital admissions or all-cause mortality," researcher Dean T. Eurich said. "Further, only about 10 percent of winter-time deaths in the United States are attributable to influenza, thus to suggest that the vaccine can reduce 50 percent of deaths from all causes is implausible in our opinion."Researchers compared rates of influenza, pneumonia and death among 700 people, 85 percent of them over the age of 64. Half the participants were given a flu shot, while half were not.The researchers found that prior to adjusting for any confounding factors, 15 percent of those in the unvaccinated group died, compared with only 8 percent of those in the unvaccinated group - consistent with the previously reported 50 percent mortality reduction. However, once researchers adjusted for other predictors of mortality such as overall health and socioeconomic status, the difference between the two groups disappeared.This suggests, the researchers said, that the previously observed decreases in mortality from flu vaccination merely come from the so-called "healthy-user effect" and have nothing to do with the vaccine itself."The healthy-user effect," said lead researcher Sumit Majumdar, "is seen in what doctors often refer to as their 'good' patients - patients who are well-informed about their health, who exercise regularly, do not smoke or have quit, drink only in moderation, watch what they eat, come in regularly for health maintenance visits and disease screenings, take their medications exactly as prescribed, and quite religiously get vaccinated each year so as to stay healthy."It is thus the healthy habits that reduce the risk of death, the researchers suggested, and not the flu vaccine.

Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/.

HPV Vaccine Shot Causes 500 Percent Increase in Allergic Reactions Compared to Other Vaccines

The "cervical cancer" vaccine against the human papillomavirus (HPV) is between 5 and 26 times more likely to cause severe, potentially fatal allergic reactions in young women than other vaccines, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia, and published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.Researchers compared the occurrence of severe allergic reactions among 114,000 young women who had received Merck's Gardasil vaccine in 2007 with the rate among women of similar age who had received other vaccines.Gardasil protects against four HPV strains associated with cervical cancer and genital warts. The researchers found eight confirmed and four suspected cases of anaphylaxis among women who had received Gardasil, which translated into 2.6 cases per 100,000 vaccines. In contrast, there were only 0.1 anaphylaxis cases per 100,000 women who received a meningitis vaccine in 2003.Anaphylaxis is a severe allergic reaction that can cause rash, nausea and breathing problems, and can be fatal in the most extreme cases.HPV vaccines have come under increased scrutiny recently, with a recent article in the New England Journal of Medicine calling their effectiveness into question. The authors noted that while the vaccines have only ever been tested on women between the ages of 15 and 24, they are regularly given to younger girls - even though there is no knowledge of how those patients might be affected. In addition, because the vaccines are so new, it is also impossible to know how long their protective effects will last, or how they might affect women's natural defenses against other strains of HPV. The authors concluded that HPV vaccination is not cost-effective for women over the age of 17.Because HPV vaccines do not protect against all strains of the virus that cause cervical cancer and because a woman who has previously been exposed to the virus receives no protection from the vaccine, even vaccinated women are advised to continue receiving regular Pap smear tests.Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/.

Olives Are Awesome

Truly raw olives can be a little hard to come by, though the processed and heated kind are found everywhere. This doesn`t help those of us on a raw food diet very much, as the heated kind can wreak havoc on a body that is accustomed to eating raw. So should you make the effort to procure the raw kind? Is it worth it? Decide for yourself...here are some benefits which the inclusion of raw olives into your diet can bring to you.The taste factorFirstly, adding olives to a salad, with a few Italian herbs, can make what was a simple tomato and lettuce salad into a really tasty meal. If you are having people over for dinner who do not subscribe to the raw lifestyle, the addition of olives will go down very well. As most people are accustomed to strong flavors, they might find a more simple salad boring. Also, olives make excellent raw snacks; because of their high oil content they are very satiating and make great substitute for traditional `movie` snack foods such as popcorn and potato chips.Good fatOlives have a high fat content. Most people are now over the idea that all fat is bad, and that fat leads to flab (no rhyme intended). We know now that there are good and bad fats, and olives have plenty of the good ones, as they have a high content of monounsaturated fats. These types of fats are quite stable, meaning that they provide good protection for our body. They are not as easily damaged as polyunsaturated fats, and so, if we have them in our cells, we are better protected. People of the Mediterranean countries are thought to be as healthy as they are due to their high consumption of olive oil.Weight lossStudies have shown that the consumption of foods high in monounsaturated fats may lead to weight loss. This could be due to its satiating affects, just a handful of olives will ward off hunger, or it may also be that these fats increase the metabolism. Furthermore, other studies have shown that monounsaturated fats, such as those found in olives, can decrease the amount of fat held around the stomach area, when compared to diets high in carbohydrates.Excellent source of Vitamin EOlives have high levels of Vitamin E, in fact, a cup of olives will give you twenty percent of your recommended daily amount. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant which neutralizes free radicals in the body. Tests have shown that Vitamin E may protect the body against cardiovascular disease and it may also enhance the immune system.Olives make excellent snacks, and they also really make a salad a lot more interesting. Another favorite is olive tapenade, which makes a delicious dip for chopped vegetables.

Sources:http://www.whfoods.com/genpage.php?tname=foodspice&dbid=46http://www.annecollins.com/dietary-fat/monounsaturated.htm