Kevin Adds Station in West Virginia

March 25, 2010  - CHICAGO, IL – The Kevin Trudeau show is proud to announce that starting March 27th, 2010, it will be airing on WCST in Berkeley Springs,WV!

The show will air on WCST 1010AM every Saturday from 9am to 11am!

Listeners have compared Kevin Trudeau’s radio show to the best parts of Michael Savage, Howard Stern, Art Bell, John Tesh and Rush Limbaugh.

Mr. Trudeau is one of the most read authors of all time. His books have all been best sellers and have sold over 30 million copies globally. Mr. Trudeau’s most controversial book, Natural Cures “They” Don’t Want You to Know About was number 1 on the New York Times best sellers list for 26 weeks in a row becoming the best selling health book of all time.

The Kevin Trudeau Radio Show originates from studios at Trudeau’s World Headquarters in Chicago. For information regarding affiliate relations visit www.KevinOnAir.com

Non-Smokers Lung Cancer Gene Clue

March 23, 2010

BBC News

A gene that could help explain why some non-smokers develop lung cancer has been pinpointed by US researchers.

It is hoped that further research into the GPC5 gene could open the way for new targeted treatments as well as picking out those at high risk.

But Cancer Research UK said more work was needed to work out the exact reason for the link.

A quarter of lung cancers globally occur in people who have never smoked, The Lancet Oncology reports.

“ Smoking causes 90% of lung cancers, but there is still a significant number of non-smokers who develop the disease ”
Dr Kat Arney, Cancer Research UK

In the UK, 10% of lung cancers develop in people who do not smoke.

The researchers said lung cancer in non-smokers was an increasing problem but the causes were not well understood.

DNA samples from 754 people who had smoked fewer than 100 cigarettes in their lifetime were scanned to find the genetic differences that seemed most likely to affect the risk of lung cancer.

When chronic respiratory disease, exposure to second-hand smoke and family history of lung cancer were taken into account, two sections of the genome seemed to be key.

Confirmation

The team then took the 44 most common genetic alterations seen in the first part of the study and studied them in two other groups of non-smokers – half of whom had been diagnosed with lung cancer.

The same two genetic marks were significant.

A third study of 530 patients confirmed the result.

Closer analysis showed that these two bits of the genome were responsible for switching on and off the GPC5 gene.

Further tests showed that activity of the GPC5 gene was 50% lower in adenocarcinoma – the most common form of lung cancer – than in normal lung tissue.

The researchers believe that this lower activity of the gene could contribute to the development of cancer in people who do not smoke.

In a comment piece published alongside the study, Dr Ramaswamy Govindan, from Washington University School of Medicine, said “it is far from clear” how the finding could predispose people to lung cancer.

“More studies are needed to confirm these preliminary observations in the tumour samples from those with no history of tobacco smoking.”

Dr Kat Arney, Cancer Research UK’s science information manager, said: “Smoking causes 90% of lung cancers, but there is still a significant number of non-smokers who develop the disease.

“These new results could help to explain why, but much more work needs to be done to understand exactly how these gene variations are linked to lung cancer risk.”

Click here for the full report.

Doctors Urge Full Car Smoking Ban

March 24, 2010

BBC News

By Clare Murphy

The Royal College of Physicians wants England’s imminent review of anti-smoking laws to consider such measures to protect the young.

It says passive smoking results in 300,000 extra child visits to GPs in the UK every year for problems such as asthma and bacterial meningitis.

But driving and smoking lobby groups say cars are a “private space”.

Wheezing

A number of medical bodies have supported a ban on smoking in cars transporting children, but the RCP goes a significant step further, urging a blanket ban on anyone lighting up in a vehicle – regardless of whether children or indeed any other passengers are inside.

It is calling for a two-pronged approach which would see children protected from second-hand smoke and shielded from the sight of adults smoking – whether in the playground or on the TV.

The RCP’s report – Passive Smoking and Children – is being released ahead of the three-year review of the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces in England. Similar bans have been introduced across the UK, with Scotland having led the way.

Drawing on a series of studies, the report suggests that in the UK, tens of thousands of youngsters are falling ill as a result of exposure to cigarette smoke.

Exclusion zones

These calculations include 20,000 chest infections, some 22,000 new cases of asthma and wheezing, as well as 200 cases of bacterial meningitis and 40 cases of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – or cot death.

Each year it claims these account for more than 300,000 visits to a GP – some of which end up in hospital – costing the NHS £23.3m.

The report does concede that these figures are only estimates, but says it is confident they give an “indication” of the number of children who become ill.

The doctors acknowledge that a ban on smoking in the home, however desirable it believes this to be, would be neither politically or practically possible, but sees the car as an intervention in the private sphere which the public would tolerate.

But it argues that the only way to make it practically enforceable would be to introduce it as a blanket ban on all private vehicles – regardless of their passengers, as exemptions would prove too complex.

In addition, it wants to see smoking banned in places frequented by children, such as parks and outdoor swimming pools – and exclusion zones outside school gates.

Campaigns to explain to parents the importance of a smoke-free home, price hikes and generic cigarette packaging are also among the recommendations issued.

“This report isn’t just about protecting children from passive smoking, it’s about taking smoking completely out of children’s lives,” says Professor John Britton, head of the college’s Tobacco Advisory Group and lead author of the report.

Click here for the full report

Absenteeism Decline For Students Starting School One Hour Later

March 23, 2010

BBC  News

By: Margaret Ryan

A school that has allowed its pupils to start the day an hour later says it has seen absenteeism decline.

At Monkseaton High School, in North Tyneside, 800 pupils aged 13-19 have started lessons at 10am since October.

Early results indicates that general absence has dropped by 8% and persistent absenteeism by 27%.

Head teacher Paul Kelley said that changing the school day could help towards creating “happier, better educated teenagers”.

Mr Kelley said it was now medically established that it was better for teenagers to start their school day later in terms of their mental and physical health and how they learn better in the afternoon.

“ We can help them be less stressed by simply changing the time of the school day ”
Paul Kelley

“It is a question of do schools fit the medical reality of teenagers?” he said.

The experiment of starting the school an hour later is being overseen by scientists, including an Oxford neuroscience professor Russell Foster.

He performed memory tests on pupils at the school which suggested the more difficult lessons should take place in the afternoon.

He said young people’s body clocks may shift as they reach their teenage years – meaning they want to get up later not because they are lazy but because they are biologically programmed to do.

Prof Till Roenneberg, who is an expert on studying sleep, said it was “nonsense” to start the school day early.

He said: “It is about the way our biological clock settles into light and dark cycles. This clearly becomes later and later in adolescence.”

Prof Roenneberg said if teenagers are woken up too early they miss out on the most essential part of their sleep.

“Sleep is essential to consolidate what you learn,” he said.

Exam results

Mr Kelley said GCSE results from his school in January and February also seemed “hopeful” but it was too soon to say for definite whether changing the school hours had affected grades.

The final results of the study at the school are due to be published in an academic journal, probably next year.

Mr Kelley said: “We can help them learn better. We can help them be less stressed by simply changing the time of the school day.”

He said that this in turn could change ideas about young people in general.

“This is one of the things society has imposed on teens because it feels right for us [adults],” he said.

But now we know the implications of this situation, he said: “We can change provision for teenagers and we are going to have happier, better educated teenagers.”

He said starting the school day later had not caused any particular problems as the school is still open 8am-5pm, with lessons running 10am-3.40pm.

The school will decide before the next timetable is finalised whether or not to continue with the later start.

Click here for the full report.

Vitamin E May Be Cure for Glaucoma

March 24, 2010

CNET News

By Elizabeth Armstrong Moore

The eye condition glaucoma, which afflicts some 67 million people and is second only to cataracts as the world’s leading cause of blindness, is often treated with eye drops that relieve the unusually high pressure inside the eye.

Contact lenses with vitamin E, however, just might deliver more medication to treat glaucoma almost 100 times longer than current lenses, says Anuj Chauhan, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Florida in Gainesville who helmed the research team investigating this new treatment:

“The problem is within about 2 to 5 minutes of putting drops in the eye, tears carry the drug away and it doesn’t reach the targeted tissue,” said Chauhan. “Much of the medicine gets absorbed into the bloodstream, which carries it throughout the body where it could cause side effects. Only about 1 to 5 percent of drugs in eye drops actually reach the cornea of the eye,” Chauhan explained.

The team’s new, medicated contact lenses are loaded with vitamin E, which is proving to be far more successful at keeping the glaucoma medicine near the eye, the research team announced at a meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Francisco this week.

The tiny aggregates of vitamin E molecules form what the researchers call “transport barriers,” thereby slowing the transfer of medication from the contact lens to the eye. This extended-release delivery causes the drug to have eye contact for far longer than the 2-5 minutes typical with the more standard eye drop method.

“These vitamin structures are like ‘nanobricks,’” Chauhan said in the news release. “The drug molecules can’t go through the vitamin E–they must go around it. Because the nanobricks are so much bigger than the drug molecules–we believe about a few hundred times bigger–the molecules get diverted and must travel a longer path. This increases the duration of the drug release from the lenses.”

In the team’s animal testing, the drug was administered up to 100 times longer than is typical with current commercial lenses. Chauhan says the lenses might be able to be worn nonstop for up to a month, and could even treat cataracts and dry eyes.

The team expects to initiate human clinical trials in the next year or two.

Click here for the full report

One Third of Breast Cancer Cases Could Be Avoidable

March 23, 2010

Breitbart

By: Maria Cheng

Up to a third of breast cancer cases in Western countries could be avoided if women ate less and exercised more, researchers at a conference on breast cancer said Thursday.

While better treatments, early diagnosis and mammogram screenings have dramatically slowed the disease, experts said the focus should now shift to changing behaviours like diet and physical activity.

“What can be achieved with screening has been achieved. We can’t do much more,” Carlo La Vecchia, head of epidemiology at the University of Milan, told The Associated Press. “It’s time to move onto other things.”

La Vecchia spoke Thursday on the influence of lifestyle factors at a European breast cancer conference in Barcelona.

Breast cancer is the most common cancer in women. In Europe, there were about 421,000 new cases and nearly 90,000 deaths in 2008, the latest available figures. The United States last year saw more than 190,000 new cases and 40,000 deaths. A woman’s lifetime chance of getting breast cancer is about one in eight.

Many breast cancers are fueled by estrogen, a hormone produced in fat tissue. So experts suspect that the fatter a woman is, the more estrogen she’s likely to produce, which could in turn spark breast cancer. Even in slim women, exercise can help reduce the cancer risk by converting more of the body’s fat into muscle.

La Vecchia cited figures from the International Agency for Research on Cancer, which estimated that 25 to 30 per cent of breast cancer cases could be avoided if women were thinner and exercised more.

That means staying slim and never becoming overweight in the first place. Robert Baan, an IARC cancer expert, said it wasn’t clear if women who lose weight have a lower cancer risk or if the damage was already done from when they were heavy.

Drinking less alcohol could also help. Experts estimate that having more than a couple of drinks a day can boost a woman’s risk of getting breast cancer by four to 10 per cent.

After studies several years ago linked hormone replacement therapy to cancer, millions of women abandoned the treatment, leading to a sharp drop in breast cancer rates. Experts said a similar reduction might be seen if women ate better – consuming less fat and more vegetables – and exercised more.

Michelle Holmes, a cancer expert at Harvard University, said changing things like diet and nutrition is arguably easier than tackling other breast cancer risk factors.

“Women who have early pregnancies are protected against breast cancer, but teenage pregnancy is a social disaster so it’s not something we want to encourage,” she said in a phone interview. “But there’s no downside to reducing obesity and increasing physical activity.”

She also said people may mistakenly think their chances of getting cancer are more dependent on their genes than their lifestyle.

“The genes have been there for thousands of years, but if cancer rates are changing in a lifetime, that doesn’t have much to do with genes,” she said.

In the 1980s and 1990s, breast cancer rates steadily increased, in parallel with the rise in obesity and the use of hormone replacement therapy, which involves estrogen.

La Vecchia said countries like Italy and France – where obesity rates have been stable for the past two decades – show that weight can be controlled at a population level.

“It’s hard to lose weight, but it’s not impossible,” he said. “The potential benefit of preventing cancer is worth it.”

Click here for the full report.

Calorie Data to Be Posted at Most Chains

March 24, 2010

CNN

By Madison Park

The health care bill signed into law Tuesday by President Obama is the nation’s most sweeping social legislation in four decades. But it also includes some smaller changes that will directly affect consumers.

These include taxes on indoor tanning services, requirements for restaurants to post calorie information and changes to flexible spending accounts.

Restaurants

There are 540 calories in a Big Mac and 670 calories in a Whopper. Nutritional information will be unavoidable when customers step up to the counter to order.

The health care law requires chain restaurants that have more than 20 locations to display calorie information next to the food item on the standard menu.

The Food and Drug Administration has the task of establishing more specific regulations and determining when these changes go into effect.

The health care law requires “succinct statement concerning suggested daily caloric intake” that are “posted prominently on the menu and designed to enable the public to understand, in the context of a total daily diet, the significance of the caloric information that is provided on the menu.”

Dr. Kelly Brownell, a Yale University psychology professor at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, conducted research that found that consumers choose lower-calorie food when their menus contained caloric information and a statement that said “an average person consumes 2,000 calories a day.”

“A lot of people don’t know what it means to have 600 calories,” he said. “They have no context and the legislation requires that anchor statement.”

Nutrition facts would also be required to be posted on vending machine products and drive-thru menus. Temporary specials appearing on the menu for less than 60 days, condiments and test market foods are exempt.

“Consumers have the right to this info whether or not it makes a difference on the diet,” Brownell said. “But I believe the data will ultimately show that it does.”

The National Restaurant Association called the passage of the provision “a win for consumers and restaurateurs.” The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a nonprofit health advocacy group, praised its passage, calling it a “one of dozens of things we will need to do to reduce rates of obesity and diet-related disease in this country.”

In recent years, New York City and California have passed laws requiring nutritional information on menus.

Earlier this month, Panera Bread announced it voluntarily will post calorie information in all its locations by the end of 2010.

Click here for the full report

Mother’s Love Keeps Boys on Straight & Narrow

March 23, 2010

Telegraph

By: Murray Wardrop

Researchers found that sons are less likely to get into trouble later in life if they enjoy a warm relationship with their mother during childhood.

Those who cannot turn to their parents in times of need face a greater chance of developing behavioral problems later in life.

Experts, who analyzed data provided by around 6,000 youngsters aged 12 and under, found that boys who never forge close relationships with their mothers are more likely to be aggressive and suffer mental health problems.

By contrast, boys grow up to be calmer, more self confident, and more empathetic if they have been able to seek comfort from their mothers as children.

Relationships between mothers and sons break down from a young age if children are repeatedly dismissed when trying to turn to their parents for help, the study found.

Pasco Fearon, associate professor of psychology at the University of Reading, who led the study, said: “Secure children have had repeated experiences of a caregiver who is responsive when support and proximity are needed and expect the caregiver(s) to be available and comforting when called upon.

“In contrast, children with insecure attachment relationships may have had experiences in which bids for proximity have been discouraged, rejected or inconsistently responded to.

“They rely more heavily on secondary coping processes to deal with stress and challenge.

“More specifically, children who seem unable to maintain a coherent strategy for coping with separation are at greatest risk for later behavior problems and aggression.”

The study, published in the journal Child Development, reviewed 69 different studies comparing child/parent relationships and the effects on youngsters’ behavior.

Click here for the full report.

Hormones in U.S. Beef Linked to Cancer Risk

March 25, 2010

Natural News

By: David Gutierrez

Beef produced in the United States contains dangerously high levels of natural and synthetic hormones, warns Dr. Samuel S. Epstein of the Cancer Prevention Coalition.

According to Epstein, more than half of all beef cows slaughtered in the United States each year have been treated with either the natural hormones estrogen, progesterone or testosterone, or the synthetic hormones melengesterol, trenbolone or zeranol. Hormone-emitting pellets are implanted under each cow’s ear when it enters the feedlot, then again 50 days later. After another 50 days, the cow is slaughtered.

The hormones cause the cows to rapidly put on weight, leading to approximately $80 more profit per animal.

“Not surprisingly, but contrary to longstanding claims by the [FDA] and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), residues of these hormones in meat are up to 20-fold higher than normal,” Epstein said in a press release. “Still higher residues result from the not uncommon illegal practice of implantation directly into muscle. Furthermore, contrary to misleading assurances, meat is still not monitored for hormone residues.”

The FDA insists that hormone levels in U.S. beef are safe and normal, but does not require any testing to back up this claim.

According to Epstein, however, tests reveal that an eight-year-old boy eating two hamburgers in one day would be exposed to enough estradiol to increase his body’s levels of the hormone by 10 percent.

Exposure to external hormones is well known to increase the risk of cancer, reproductive dysfunction and other health problems.

“Increased levels of sex hormones are linked to the escalating incidence of reproductive cancers in the United States since 1975 – 60 percent for prostate, 59 percent for testis and 10 percent for breast,” Epstein said.

Women in the United States are five times more likely to get breast cancer than women in the European Community or other countries that have banned the production or importation of hormonal beef.

Click here for the full report.

Swine Flu Virus Not So New, Study Finds

March 24, 2010

businessweek

The 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” virus shares remarkable similarities with strains that were rampant early in the 20th century, two teams of scientists report.

These structural similarities help explain why older people seemed to be less affected by H1N1 during the latest pandemic, researchers say, and they also point the way to better vaccines against the strain.

In one report, published in the March 25 online edition of Science, a team at The Scripps Research Institute and elsewhere say that the structure of the hemagglutinin (the influenza virus envelope protein) found on H1N1 is very similar to that of strains seen almost 100 years ago.

“Parts of the 2009 virus are remarkably similar to human H1N1 viruses circulating in the early 20th century,” study senior author and Scripps professor Ian Wilson said in an institute news release. “Our findings provide strong evidence that exposure to earlier viruses has helped to provide some people with immunity to the recent influenza pandemic.”

One area of hemagglutinin, especially, known as antigenic site Sa, appears highly similar between the 2009 and 1918 strains of influenza. The 1918 flu pandemic killed millions worldwide.

In a separate report, scientists have discovered that the 1918 and 2009 pandemic influenza viruses share a key structural detail — both lack a cap of sugar molecules in a certain area — that makes them susceptible to the same antibodies.

It may be possible to exploit this vulnerability to design new vaccines, according to a team led by Dr. Gary J. Nabel of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the U.S. National Institutes of Health.

The discovery was made in a series of experiments with mice and computer modeling studies.

“This study defines an unexpected similarity between two pandemic-causing strains of influenza. It gives us a new understanding of how pandemic viruses evolve into seasonal strains and, importantly, provides direction for developing vaccines to slow or prevent that transformation,” Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of NIAID, said in an agency news release.

Click here for the full report

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