Popcorn a Hidden Source of Antioxidants, Study Says
August 19, 2009
ABC News
By Joseph Brownstein
Popcorn, the movie-accompanying favorite snack, can also be a good source of fiber and antioxidants, says a new study presented Tuesday.
In addition to the finding that cold, oat-based cereals provide the best source of morning milk-bowl-spoon-based antioxidants, the researchers found that popcorn provides more of the dietary fiber and antioxidants than any other snack food, according to findings presented at the meeting of the American Chemical Society.
“It’s a whole grain, people don’t think of it that way but it is,” said Keith-Thomas Ayoob, an associate professor of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York in response to the study’s findings. “It’s a different form of corn, but it’s definitely a whole grain.”
Joe Vinson, a professor of chemistry at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania and the study’s lead author, said there are a number of reasons for popcorn’s nutritional value.
“The more processed the grain is, you’re losing nutrients and antioxidants,” he said. “The closer you can get to the plant, the better off you are.”
In the case of popcorn, he explained, the antioxidants are protected from the sun in the drying process, and the corn loses only a little bit of them when it is popped. Additionally, through the whole process, the fiber provided by the whole grain is not removed.
“If you can air-pop your popcorn and then add a minimal amount of salt, you’d have the best popcorn,” Vinson said.
But while popcorn may have the potential to be a healthy addition to the diet, there are some obstacles.
“Eating plain popcorn is like eating cardboard, and therein lies the problem,” said Andrew F. Smith, author of “Popped Culture: A Social History of Popcorn in America.”
While popcorn could be healthy, he said, “It isn’t, because most of us, including myself, love salt, love butter, and love everything else about it. Most people don’t make it right.”
While he doesn’t feel popcorn presents a healthy snack option, Smith expressed disappointment that popcorn manufacturers haven’t created a healthy, yet tasty version of their snack.
“They haven’t done so. I wish they could. I like popcorn,” he said.
Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale University School of Medicine, confirmed Smith’s sentiments.
“The real issue with popcorn is what gets added to it, and frankly that’s often an issue with foods in the modern food supply,” he said. “If you add a lot of butter and salt to popcorn, it merely becomes the delivery vehicle for a lot of bad stuff.”
Problems in the Food Chain
“Whole grains are what you want to get from a snack or a cereal, so you’re looking for whole grains as the first ingredient,” Vinson said.
He noted, however, that the advisory doesn’t tend to match the reality on store shelves.
“We do consume what the government wants in terms of the amount of grains, but we’re only consuming a third of them as whole grains,” said Vinson.
He noted that of the grains people consume, at least half — and ideally all — should be whole grains. But for a product to be labeled “whole grain,” he said, a simple majority of the grains it contains need to be whole, not all of them.
When it comes to the nutrients themselves, he said, “They are somewhat removed when you refine grain.”
A similar problem to that of popcorn happens in tortilla chips.
“Tortilla chips, which are becoming very popular, that’s made with whole grain corn but it’s alkali-processed, so it destroys a lot of the antioxidants,” Vinson said.
Katz expressed some optimism that popcorn could be made to fit those standards.
“Like most other whole grains, it’s an excellent source of fiber, and fiber is typically deficient in the average American diet,” he said. “Essentially what you’re looking for … is either just popcorn that you can then lightly salt, or popcorn where the only additions to it are other healthy items. Some of the microwave popcorn has minimal additives to it. Lightly salted is fine.”
Katz said that a little olive or canola oil could also be added for taste.
Taking Back Snack Time
“One of the nice things about popcorn is that it’s a ‘fun food,’” said Katz, noting that it presents an enjoyable food that can also provide nutrition.
But both he and Ayoob noted that fruit — when served in a form where it is presented as finger food — can provide a healthier option.
“Any fresh fruit is going to trump most other things,” Ayoob said. “In the time it takes you to pop the popcorn in the microwave, you could also cut up some fruit instead.”
Ayoob noted that popcorn could also be used as a healthier snack because of its volume rather than just any nutrition it might provide.
“It’s one of those snacks that’s filling, and since it’s light … it’s going to take you a little longer to plow through seven and a half cups of popcorn,” he explained, referring to the volume provided by a bag of microwave popcorn from his desk.
“It’s got more fiber than most other snacks, and it’s going to take longer to eat. The time factor means you’re going to get full,” Ayoob said. “In the same time, you could consume a lot more calories in chips.”
Click here to continue reading the full report from ABC News
Buffett Says Federal Debt Poses Risks to Economy
August 19, 2009
Bloomberg.com
By Shamim Adam
The U.S. must address the massive amounts of “monetary medicine” that have been pumped into the financial system and now pose threats to the world’s largest economy and its currency, billionaire Warren Buffett said.
The “gusher of federal money” has rescued the financial system and the U.S. economy is now on a slow path to recovery, Buffett wrote in a New York Times commentary yesterday. While he applauds measures adopted by the Federal Reserve and officials from the Bush and Obama administrations, Buffett says the U.S. is fiscally in “uncharted territory.”
The government is trying to spark business and consumer spending through a $787 billion stimulus plan spanning tax cuts and infrastructure projects, while the Treasury and the Fed have spent billions more on separate programs to rescue financial institutions and resuscitate the banking system. The U.S. budget deficit is forecast to reach a record $1.841 trillion in the year that ends Sept. 30.
“Enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects,” Buffett, 78, said. “For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.”
The “greenback emissions” will swell the deficit to 13 percent of gross domestic product this fiscal year, while net debt will increase to 56 percent of GDP, Buffett said.
Record Deficit
The U.S. budget deficit reached a record for the first 10 months of the fiscal year and broke a monthly high for July. The excess of expenditure over revenue for July climbed to $180.7 billion compared with a $102.8 billion gap in July 2008 as the government spent more than in any month in U.S. history, the Treasury said Aug. 12.
Officials must still do “whatever it takes” to get the U.S. economy back on its growth momentum, Buffett wrote.
“Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-GDP ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources,” Buffett said. “With government expenditures now running 185 percent of receipts, truly major changes in both taxes and outlays will be required. A revived economy can’t come close to bridging that sort of gap.”
Dollar Index
Pacific Investment Management Co., which runs the world’s biggest bond fund, said in an Emerging Markets Watch report that the dollar will weaken as the swelling U.S. deficit erodes its status as a reserve currency. The Dollar Index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies, has fallen 12 percent from this year’s high in March.
“Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt,” Buffett said. “The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.”
Buffett is the chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Buffett built Berkshire into a $155 billion enterprise over four decades with dozens of acquisitions, buying companies that sell ice cream, lease private jets and operate power plants.
Berkshire has been buying securities issued by governments outside the U.S. The company held about $11.1 billion in foreign government bonds in its insurance units as of June 30, compared with $9.6 billion three months earlier, Berkshire said in a regulatory filing on Aug. 7.
The value of holdings in U.S. Treasuries and so-called government sponsored enterprises slipped 5.3 percent in the three months ended June 30 to about $2.5 billion.
Click here for the full report from Bloomberg.com
Chicago and Phoenix!
August 19, 2009 by Andrew
Filed under Radio Stations
August 19, 2009
The Kevin Trudeau Show has just been added to Phoenix’s KFNX-AM 1100 joining other notable persronalities, Don Imus, Laura Ingraham, Neal Boortz, Dr. Laura, and Lou Dobbs.
Listeners in Chicago have already gotten the chance to hear Kevin locally on WJJG-AM 1530.
More stations to come…..stay tuned!
KFNX-AM 1100 in Phoenix, Arizona
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 08-18-09
Today, Kevin broadcasts live from Budapest, Hungary! Don’t miss the details of his spa treatment and the truth about:
America’s Transformation into a Socialist Country
The Paralyzing Swine Flu Vaccine Symptoms
The Truth about MSG and Artificial Sweeteners
Plus, Kevin speaks to Dr. Rima Laibow about the government’s conspiracy to wipe-out 90% of the world’s population. Click here to learn more about Health Freedom USA’s campaign to protect you against the FDA & FTC, food fascism and mandatory Swine Flu vaccinations!
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click below to hear The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
I’m 100% Behind This Campaign & You Should Be Too…
August 18, 2009 by KT
Filed under Kevin's Blog
I told you it would come to this! Not only is Washington trying to mandate Swine Flu vaccinations, but Congress is getting ready to vote on a bill that would give the FDA totalitarian reign over YOUR food supply!
Get your voice heard and stop this from happening!! You only have THREE weeks to protect yourself against the FDA and FTC, food fascism and mandatory Swine Flu vaccinations!
Click here to join the Three for Liberty Campaign brought to you by Health Freedom USA!
Many Blessings!
KT
Ultra-Tiny ‘Bees’ Target Tumors
August 18, 2009
CNN
By Elizabeth Landau
They’re ready to sting, and they know where they’re going.
They’re called “nanobees,” and they’re not insects — they’re tiny particles designed to destroy cancer cells by delivering a synthesized version of toxin called melittin that is found in bees.
“Melittin, which would otherwise result in substantial destruction of your red blood cells and other normal tissues if it were delivered intravenously alone, is completely safe when it’s on a nanoparticle,” said Dr. Samuel Wickline, director of the Siteman Center of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri.
Nanobees are one of the latest examples of how nanotechnology may change the way diseases are treated.
Nanotechnology encompasses a wide array of innovations that make use of structures that are 100 nanometers or smaller. That means they generally cannot be seen under a regular microscope, but are larger than individual atoms. For example, a nanobee is less than 10 times diameter of a red blood cell, Wickline said.
Particles on the nanoscale are small enough to enter cells, but big enough to carry large doses of drugs, said Robert Langer, Institute professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in the nanotech field.
“We are gradually forming a pipeline of nanotechnology-based products,” said Piotr Grodzinski, director of the National Cancer Institute’s Alliance for Nanotechnology in Cancer, a program that funds eight Centers of Cancer Nanotechnology Excellence in the U.S., including Wickline’s and Langer’s research initiatives. “These things are happening as we speak.”
There have already been two approved cancer treatments on the market that make use of nanoparticles: ovarian cancer drug Doxil, approved in 1995, and breast cancer drug Abraxane, approved in 2005. Both of these involve medication bound with nanoparticles that circulate in the bloodstream for longer than conventional drugs and are expected to migrate to the tumor site, Grodzinski said. These drugs are being tested in some of the eight clinical trials associated with the NCI nano program.
Nanobees, by contrast, are engineered to travel directly to tumor cells without harming any others. They leave the healthy cells alone because the blood vessels around a tumor are like a “postal address” for the nanobees, Wickline said. These vessels express a particular protein to which a substance on the nanobees has a chemical affinity.
This principle of targeting harmful cells and leaving healthy cells intact is under development in many labs. It means efficient delivery of large concentrations of drugs, but with fewer side effects, experts say. One hundred trillion nanobees can be delivered in a single dose, and are not difficult to make, Wickline said. Also, scientists do not use real insects, so they’re “not decreasing the bee population,” he said.
So far nanobees have been tested only on mice, with promising results, researchers said. Wickline anticipates this therapy could become widely available in humans in about five years.
Dr. Ellen Vitetta, who also works on targeted nanotech cancer therapies at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, found the approach intriguing, but said it will be at least 10 years before something like this gets to the market. That’s because what works in mice doesn’t always work in humans, as she learned while developing a targeted antibody cancer treatment.
“People need to appreciate the time issues and the cost issues and just what sort of tests need to be done,” she said. “But it’s always fun and exciting to see a new approach, because who knows what’s going to end up at the finish line.”
Langer estimates that his group’s nanotechnology technique for prostate cancer could be in clinical trials by the middle of next year. The method involves putting an approved cancer drug, docetaxel, in a nanoparticle that has a homing device to take it directly to the tumor.
These nanoparticles are made out of some of the same materials often used for dissolvable sutures, Langer said. In addition to having an “affinity molecule,” which targets the tumor cells, these nanoparticles are coated with polyethylene glycol, which helps the particle get to its target without being “eaten” by white blood cells called macrophages.
Langer and colleagues have also been involved in a new treatment for ovarian cancer, as described in this month’s issue of the journal Cancer Research. The technique has shown success in mice, and could go into clinical trials within one to two years, said lead author Daniel Anderson at MIT. The group has published work on two methods, one using DNA and one using RNA. These particles do not have special targeting antibodies on them, but are injected straight into the abdominal cavity where the cancer cells are likely floating.
Other research groups are exploring the potential of carbon nanotubes, cylindrical carbon molecules that also have applications in electronics and other areas. Researchers led by Vitetta have developed a method of heating the nanotubes with infrared light, which then “cooked” and killed cancerous lymphoma cells.
Vitetta said she doesn’t want to move this treatment forward into humans until the researchers have resolved a number of issues about its potential toxicity.
Nanoparticles are also useful in medical diagnosis, researchers have found. Abigail Lytton-Jean, a postdoctoral fellow in Langer’s lab, worked at Northwestern University on showing that gold nanoparticles can help detect the presence of DNA. When the nanoparticles are coated with a DNA sequence, the solution changes color in the presence of the corresponding DNA. One possible application of this would be anthrax detection, she said.
While a lot of new research is ongoing with nano-sized materials, the particles themselves are not new, and therefore should not cause any more safety concerns than other materials used in medicine, experts say.
“There are going to be nanomaterials that are toxic for sure, but I definitely do not think that because something is nano there’s any more reason to have alarm,” Lytton-Jean said.
Many of the NCI-sponsored nano centers, located at universities across the country, have spun off small companies, Grodzinski said. Kerios, which will make the nanobees, and BIND, which will work on Langer’s group’s prostate cancer therapy, are two of the 25 companies that have arisen from the research.
The pharmaceutical giants, meanwhile, are watching what comes out of them, he said.
“They probably will acquire some of these companies,” he said.
Click here for the full report from CNN
Spacecraft May Give Early Heads-Up on Infection Trends
August 15, 2009
ABC News
By John Gever
Satellite technology could give public health officials advance warning of disease outbreaks likely to occur as a result of global climate change, researchers said.
Preliminary efforts have already produced models that predict spikes in diseases ranging from cholera to hantavirus on the basis of remote sensing data, according to Timothy Ford of the University of New England in Biddeford, Maine, and colleagues.
Writing in the September issue of the CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases, Ford and colleagues — including Rita Colwell, former director of the National Science Foundation — said novel patterns of infectious disease are likely to accompany the regional temperature and hydrological trends that add up to climate change.
“If climatologic data can be used to predict future disease outbreaks, public health interventions can be mobilized in a more timely and proactive manner,” they said.
“Successful predictive modeling of disease and the establishment of early warning systems have reached a critical junction in development. As we improve our understanding of the biology and ecology of the pathogen, vectors, and hosts, our ability to accurately link environmental variables, particularly those related to climate change, will improve.”
They added, “We cannot stress too strongly our belief that a strong global satellite program is essential for future disease prediction.”
They noted that the 2001 report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the average number of people exposed annually to storm surges — which frequently carry Salmonella, Vibrio, Cryptosporidium, and hepatitis pathogens — will probably rise from 50 million people worldwide today to 250 million in the 2080s.
Altered frequencies and tracks of storm systems are also likely to mean inland flooding of areas that aren’t exposed to it now. Ford and colleagues said areas of increasing drought may also be at risk for novel disease outbreaks. On example is meningococcal meningitis, which is endemic in sub-Saharan Africa during dry conditions and disappears at the start of the rainy season.
Climate Change May Bring on Disease
New patterns of vector-born diseases are another expected consequence of climate change.
Ford and colleagues pointed to several projects that have shown preliminary success in relating satellite data to disease:
Distribution of five out of six Anopheles gambiae mosquito species, vectors for the malaria parasite in Africa, has been modeled from remote sensing data on land use and climate parameters.
Remote sensing data in the southwestern U.S. correlated significantly with subsequent outbreaks of rodent-borne hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.
Eight of nine spikes in Bangladeshi cholera rates from 1998 to 2002 were successfully modeled on the basis of satellite data on sea surface height and temperature and chlorophyll A levels.
Ford and colleagues cautioned that the predictive power of these models is still weak. For example, 2005 Landsat imagery showing higher-than-normal rainfall in northern New Mexico and southern Colorado led health officials to warn of increased risk of hantavirus in those areas. The hypothesis was that rain promotes plant growth in the region, leading to a population boom in deer mice who carry the virus.
Cases indeed spiked in New Mexico during early 2006. But no increase occurred in Colorado, which actually saw fewer hantavirus infections than the previous year.
On the other hand, Ford and colleagues said, “these results are not necessarily a failure of prediction.” Instead, they suggested that people may have heeded the health warnings prompted by the prediction, avoiding deer mice habitats and hence the virus.
Public health officials would dearly love to be able to predict influenza outbreaks, and the seasonality of the disease has raised hopes that environmental data will somehow be used in predictive models, the researchers said. Unfortunately, scientists still don’t understand the specific factors underlying the flu’s seasonal nature.
Scientists Strive to Predict Outbreaks
If science can isolate the environmental drivers of seasonal diseases like influenza, better prediction will likely become a reality, they suggested.
“As we improve our understanding of the biology and ecology of the pathogen, vectors, and hosts, our ability to accurately link environmental variables, particularly those related to climate change, will improve,” Ford and colleagues wrote. “What has become clear over the past few years is that satellite imaging can play a critical role in disease prediction and, therefore, inform our response to future outbreaks.”
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Chlorella: The Superfood That Helps Fight Disease
August 17, 2009
Telegraph.co.uk
By Victoria Lambert
You wouldn’t exactly call chlorella an overnight success. The health benefits of the green algae that grows in freshwater ponds in the Far East have so far been limited to those in the know, and its progress to British medicine cabinets has been slow. Since it became available in tablet form in the UK three years ago, it has achieved an almost cultish appreciation as a superfood, but now scientific research could catapult it into the mainstream.
New research from Japan suggests that this green algae could be effective in fighting major lifestyle diseases. It has been shown to reduce body-fat percentage and blood-glucose levels and help those suffering from Type 2 diabetes, obesity or heart disease. Its benefits include boosting energy, aiding digestion and fighting depression.
What excited the scientists, including the notable Carnegie Institute in Washington DC, was that this green algae proved to be almost a dream food. It is packed with protein – twice as much as spinach – and about 38 times the quantity of soybeans, and 55 times that of rice. It also contains nine essential amino acids, as well as vitamins and minerals.
These are the latest in a long line of health claims – ranging from boosting the immune system in cancer patients to improving the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.
Chlorella is a tiny, unicellular green algae, three to eight micrometres in diameter, which when grown in large quantities in South East Asia and Australia gives lakes and rivers a green tint. Before being used as a supplement, it must be gathered, dried to a paste, crushed to a fine emerald green powder, and converted to tiny, soft, crumbly tablets, which smell vaguely of the sea.
Although chlorella was discovered by a Dutch microbiologist in 1890 and studied as a potential protein source by German scientists, it wasn’t until after the Second World War that the reality of food shortages, combined with the expectation of a population boom, led to bureaucrats globally examining chlorella in the hope that it could be used to feed the masses cheaply – this proved uneconomic. Later, NASA studied it with a view to feeding it to astronauts, and perhaps growing it on space stations.
It is currently being used in the UK to help cancer patients. Nadia Brydon, senior therapist in complementary medicine at Breast Cancer Haven, the charity that supplies integrated health care to support women with breast cancer, is convinced it is an important food source with many health benefits.
“So many of us eat a calorie-dense, nutrionally-deficient diet that it is no wonder we’re all getting sick and tired all the time,” she says.
Nadia says chlorella is a great way of taking on magnesium, which can be found in green vegetables. “Magnesium is one of nature’s antidepressants and helps us cope with stress. One of our best sources is from chlorophyll in green plants – and chlorella is bursting with that,” she says.
Nadia also believes chlorella is highly protective against toxins. “We are bombarded with chemicals in pesticides and fungicides; chlorella helps to get them out of the body. It is a fantastic detoxifier and deodorant.”
Tests have shown that chlorella stimulates the growth of probiotic or friendly bacteria, and its cell walls absorb toxins within the intestine and encourage peristalsis – the muscular contraction that moves material through the bowels – preventing constipation and toxic material in the stool being reabsorbed into the bloodstream.
As it is a natural food, chlorella is safe for most people to take; but one exception seems to be those who are prescribed warfarin. This is because chlorella contains vitamin K1, which is important in helping blood clotting – the very opposite of warfarin, which acts as an anticoagulant.
But it’s not just the alternative medicine fraternity who are fans. Prof Randall Merchant, professor of Neurosurgery and Anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University, in the US, has been involved in research into brain tumours, traumatic brain injury, and stroke. In 1986, he began clinical trials, funded by chlorella producer Sun Chlorella ‘A’, into whether the algae might boost a patient’s immune system.
“Fascinating,” is how he describes the results. “It didn’t make brain tumours go away or shrink, so it didn’t cure the cancer, but it did help the patients by boosting their immune system so that they resisted opportunistic infections.”
Since then, Prof Merchant has performed clinical trials to test whether chlorella could be useful in helping with chronic conditions such as fibromyalgia, ulcerative colitis and hypertension. In the first two trials, his team found that “patients’ symptoms diminished quite nicely”. For hypertension, the results were more dramatic; while it lowered blood pressure in about 50 per cent of cases, which was promising, the studies showed that it also significantly lowered serum cholesterol.
In 2008, he examined the effects chlorella has on those with metabolic syndrome – the collection of symptoms that often lead to the cells in our bodies becoming less sensitive to insulin, and therefore a precursor to diabetes.
Prof Merchant says: “It seems that chlorella turns on the genes that control the way insulin is normally used by the cells in the body. This research shows that chlorella could in theory help correct the problems of metabolic syndrome. It is not a magic bullet, but taking it is one other preventive thing you can do, like exercise or watching your diet.”
Click here for the full report from Telegraph.co.uk
One in Seven Scientists Say Colleagues Fake “Scientific” Study Results
August 17, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
One in seven scientists report that they have known colleagues to falsify or slant the findings of their research, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, and published in the journal PLoS One.
A number of scientific data falsification scandals have emerged in recent years, such as the case of a South Korean researcher who invented data on stem cell research. At the same time, increasing controversy over close industry ties to medical research has called into question whether researchers who take money from drug companies might be induced to falsify their data.
“Increasing evidence suggests that known frauds are just the tip of the iceberg and that many cases are never discovered,” said researcher Daniele Fanelli.
The researchers reviewed the results of 21 different scientific misconduct surveys that had been performed between 1985 and 2005. All respondents were asked whether they or anyone they knew of had taken part in either fabrication (outright invention of data) or “questionable practices.”
Questionable practices were any improper procedure short of fabrication, including failing to publish results contradicting one’s prior research, modifying data based on a “gut feeling,” changing conclusions after pressure from a funder or selectively choosing which data to include in an analysis.
One in seven scientists said that they were aware of colleagues who had engaged in fabrication, while nearly half — 46 percent — admitted to knowing of colleagues who had used questionable practices. Only two percent, however, admitted to fabricating results themselves.
While two percent is higher than previous estimates of the prevalence of data fabrication, researchers believe that the number is still too low. In all likelihood, it reflects both a reluctance by researchers to admit to serious misconduct and a tendency to interpret one’s behavior as favorably as possible — questionable instead of fabrication, or acceptable rather than questionable.
Researchers in the medical and pharmacalogical fields were the most likely to admit to misconduct than researchers in other fields.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Home Pesticides Linked to Childhood Cancers
August 18, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
Acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), a malignant disease of the bone marrow, is the most common cancer diagnosed in children. In fact, nearly one third of all pediatric cancers are cases of ALL. Although this form of cancer can be cured in many cases, in the worst case scenarios the cancer crowds out normal cells in the bone marrow, metastisizes to other organs and takes the lives of about 15 percent of the youngsters it attacks. What triggers so many kids, usually between the ages of three and seven, to develop this cancer in the first place? A new study just published in the August issue of the journal Therapeutic Drug Monitoring raises the suspicion that commonly used household pesticides are the cause.
Previous studies in agricultural areas of the US have shown strong associations between pesticides and childhood cancers but this is the first research conducted in a large, urban area to look at the connection. The study, conducted between January of 2005 and January of 2008, involved 41 pairs of children with ALL and their mothers and a control group of 41 matched pairs of healthy children and their mothers. The volunteer research subjects were all from Lombardi and Children’s National Medical Center and lived in the Washington metropolitan area.
Urine samples collected from the children and their mothers were analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to look for metabolites that provide evidence of household pesticide exposure. Specifically, the scientists were looking for metabolites associated with the pesticides known by their chemical name as organophosphates (OP). The researchers found evidence of the pesticides in the urine of more than half of all the participants, but levels of two common OP metabolites, diethylthiophosphate (DETP) and diethyldithiophosphate (DEDTP), were significantly higher in the children who suffered from cancer. What’s more, the mothers who participated in the study filled out questionnaires that revealed more moms whose kids had cancer used pesticides (33 percent) than did the mothers in the control group (14 percent) whose youngsters were cancer-free.
“We know pesticides — sprays, strips, or ‘bombs,’ are found in at least 85 percent of households, but obviously not all the children in these homes develop cancer. What this study suggests is an association between pesticide exposure and the development of childhood ALL, but this isn’t a cause-and-effect finding,” the study’s lead investigator, Offie Soldin, PhD, an epidemiologist at Lombardi, said in a statement to the media. “Future research would help us understand the exact role of pesticides in the development of cancer. We hypothesize that pre-natal exposure coupled with genetic susceptibility or an additional environmental insult after birth could be to blame.”
While the scientists aren’t ready to flat out say pesticides cause cancer, when you look at the big picture and see what is already known about the havoc pesticides appear to cause in the human body, it makes sense for parents and parents-to-be to ditch pesticides — for their own health and for the health of their children. For example, NaturalNews has previously reported on the link between residential pesticides and childhood brain cancer, and the strong association between a serious pre-cancerous blood condition and exposure to pesticides.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
