Researchers Discover Papaya is Effective Against Certain Cancers
March 30, 2010
Natural News
By S. L. Baker
Originally native to southern Mexico and now cultivated in many tropical countries (including Brazil, India, Indonesia, South Africa, Vietnam and Sri Lanka), the papaya plant has been touted by traditional healers for centuries as a source of powerful medicine. Not only is papaya fruit delicious and loaded with vitamins and phytochemicals, but other parts of the plant have been used historically to treat health problems, too. Now University of Florida (UF) researcher Dr. Nam Dang and his colleagues in Japan have announced new evidence that the papaya fights cancer cells. In fact, they discovered that an extract made from dried papaya leaves produced a dramatic anti-cancer effect against a broad range of tumors grown in the laboratory — including cancers of the cervix, breast, liver, lung and pancreas.
The study, recently published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology, not only showed that papaya has a direct anti-tumor effect on a variety of malignancies, but it also documented for the first time that papaya leaf extract increases the production of key signaling molecules called Th1-type cytokines. That’s important because this regulation of the immune system raises the strong possibility that the use of papaya could help the body’s own immune system to overcome cancers. In addition, it suggests papaya could be helpful in treating or preventing other health problems such as inflammation and autoimmune diseases.
The research team found that papaya’s anti-cancer effects were strongest when cancer cells received larger doses of the papaya leaf extract — yet, unlike many mainstream cancer therapies, there were no toxic effects at all on normal cells. In a statement to the media, Dr. Dang pointed out that the ability of papaya extract to stop cancer without toxicity is consistent with reports from indigenous populations in Australia and in his native Vietnam.
“Based on what I have seen and heard in a clinical setting, nobody who takes this extract experiences demonstrable toxicity; it seems like you could take it for a long time — as long as it is effective,” stated Dr. Dang, who is a professor of medicine and the medical director of the UF Shands Cancer Center Clinical Trials Office.
In all, the UF scientists exposed 10 different types of cancer cell cultures to four strengths of papaya leaf extract. When they measured the effect of the extract after 24 hours, the papaya had slowed the growth of tumors in all the cultures.
What exactly does papaya do to halt malignancies? To find out, the researchers focused on a T-lymphoma cancer cell line. They discovered that at least one of the mechanisms that makes papaya extract a potent anti-cancer weapon is the natural compound’s ability to cause malignant cells — but not normal ones — to die.
The researchers hope to follow up these experiments by eventually testing the papaya cancer treatment in animal and human studies. Up next for Dr. Dang and his colleagues: they’ve applied to patent a process to distill the papaya extract through the University of Tokyo and they are working to identify all the specific compounds in the papaya extract that are active against cancer cells. To this end, Dr. Dang has partnered with Hendrik Luesch, a UF Shands Cancer Center professor of medicinal chemistry who is an expert in the identification and use of natural products for medical purposes. Dr. Luesch recently discovered yet another natural cancer fighter — a coral reef compound that blocks cancer cell growth in cell lines.
Click here for the full report.
Vitamin B3 Beats Big Pharma’s Cholesterol Drug
March 30, 2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
The utter worthlessness of Big Pharma’s cholesterol drugs was demonstrated recently by a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine which showed that niacin (a low-cost B vitamin) out-performs Merck’s drug Zetia for preventing the build-up of arterial plaque, a symptom of cardiovascular disease.
As the study reveals, Zetia failed miserably. Patients taking niacin showed a “significant shrinkage” in artery wall thickness, while those on Zetia showed no such improvement. At the same time, the rate of “cardiovascular events” in the niacin group was only one-fifth that in the Zetia group, demonstrating that niacin is far more effective at preventing heart attacks and other similar events than Zetia.
But curiously, as soon as niacin started to show a real benefit over Zetia, researchers cancelled the study. The premature ending of the clinical trial stopped the process by which even more useful information about the benefits of niacin might have been learned.
5,800% higher price than niacin
Merck, the maker of Zetia, was likely horrified to learn that a low-cost B vitamin out-performed its blockbuster drug. Sales of its Zetia drug are reportedly over $5 billion. It’s no wonder: Zetia sells for as much as $3.89 per pill.
Niacin, on the other hand, costs as little as 6.7 cents per pill, even in a “no-flush” time-release formula from a quality source like the NSI brand from Vitacost: http://www.vitacost.com/NSI-No-Flus…
These price differences make Zetia 5,800% more expensive than niacin. And yet niacin works better.
So if niacin works better, and if modern medicine claims to be serving patients instead of profits, why don’t doctors recommend B vitamins instead of expensive cholesterol drugs? As you have already guessed, the reason is because Zetia earns all kinds of ridiculous profits for Big Pharma and B vitamins don’t.
The fact that doctors continue to prescribe Zetia, in fact, demonstrates how thoroughly our modern medical system has failed to recognize and embrace things that work to help patients rather than things that make the most money for powerful drug companies. If our modern system were actually based on what works, doctors would be prescribing various vitamins, minerals, herbs, superfoods and nutritional supplements (including anti-cancer mushroms).
But no… our system isn’t based on what helps patients. It’s based on what makes the most money, and so patients are put on dangerous (even deadly) pharmaceuticals that can cost 5,800% more than low-cost natural remedies that actually work better!
The big question: Does modern medicine help society at all?
It really makes you wonder: Beyond emergency treatments and critical care, does modern medicine offer any net benefit to society at all? More and more people are now coming to the conclusion that no, modern medicine harms far more people than it helps.
The key question to ask is this: What if our medical system disappeared tomorrow? Would we be better off or worse off?
The startling (but true) answer is that we would be better off. Without cancer screening, for example, breast cancer rates would plummet (because screening causes cancer). Without cholesterol drugs, blood pressure drugs, diabetes drugs and chemotherapy, people would live far longer, with less liver damage, kidney damage and brain damage.
In all, pharmaceuticals do not save lives. They destroy lives while making huge profits for drug companies. And yet much of western medicine is based on the administration of these dangerous, over-priced chemicals.
There’s a fascinating book entitled What if Medicine Disappeared? by Gerald Markle and Frances McCrea. (http://www.amazon.com/What-Medicine…)
This book explains why modern medicine does far more harm than good. It doesn’t explain, however, why doctors who think they’re so smart continue to prescribe a patented medication that’s 5,800% more expensive than a nutritional solution that works better.
Click here for the full report.
Health Premiums Could Rise 17% for Young Adults
March 30, 2010
Breitbart.com
By Carla K. Johnson
Under the health care overhaul, young adults who buy their own insurance will carry a heavier burden of the medical costs of older Americans—a shift expected to raise insurance premiums for young people when the plan takes full effect.
Beginning in 2014, most Americans will be required to buy insurance or pay a tax penalty. That’s when premiums for young adults seeking coverage on the individual market would likely climb by 17 percent on average, or roughly $42 a month, according to an analysis of the plan conducted for The Associated Press. The analysis did not factor in tax credits to help offset the increase.
The higher costs will pinch many people in their 20s and early 30s who are struggling to start or advance their careers with the highest unemployment rate in 26 years.
Consider 24-year-old Nils Higdon. The self-employed percussionist and part-time teacher in Chicago pays $140 each month for health insurance. But he’s healthy and so far hasn’t needed it.
The law relies on Higdon and other young adults to shoulder more of the financial load in new health insurance risk pools. So under the new system, Higdon could expect to pay $300 to $500 a year more. Depending on his income, he might also qualify for tax credits.
At issue is the insurance industry’s practice of charging more for older customers, who are the costliest to insure. The new law restricts how much insurers can raise premium costs based on age alone.
Insurers typically charge six or seven times as much to older customers as to younger ones in states with no restrictions. The new law limits the ratio to 3-to-1, meaning a 50-year-old could be charged only three times as much as a 20-year-old.
The rest will be shouldered by young people in the form of higher premiums.
Higdon wonders how his peers, already scrambling to start careers during a recession, will react to paying more so older people can get cheaper coverage.
“I suppose it all depends on how much more people in my situation, who are already struggling for coverage, are expected to pay,” Higdon says. He’d prefer a single-payer health care system and calls age-based premiums part of the “broken morality” of for-profit health care.
To be sure, there are benefits that balance some of the downsides for young people:
_ In roughly six months, many young adults up to age 26 should be eligible for coverage under their parents’ insurance—if their parents have insurance that provides dependent coverage.
_ Tax credits will be available for individuals making up to four times the federal poverty level, $43,320 for a single person. The credits will vary based on income and premiums costs.
_ Low-income singles without children will be covered for the first time by Medicaid, which some estimate will insure 9 million more young adults.
But on average, people younger than 35 who are buying their own insurance on the individual market would pay $42 a month more, according to an analysis by Rand Health, a research division of the nonpartisan Rand Corp.
The analysis, conducted for The Associated Press, examined the effect of the law’s limits on age-based pricing, not other ways the legislation might affect premiums, said Elizabeth McGlynn of Rand Health.
Jim O’Connor, an actuary with the independent consulting firm Milliman Inc., came up with similar estimates of 10 to 30 percent increases for young males, averaging about 15 percent.
“Young males will be hit the hardest,” O’Connor says, because they have lower health care costs than young females and older people who go to doctors more often and use more medical services.
Predicting exactly how much any individual’s insurance premium would rise or fall is impossible, experts say, because so much is changing at once. But it is possible to isolate the effect of the law’s limits on age-based pricing.
Some groups predict even higher increases in premiums for younger individuals—as much as 50 percent, says Landon Gibbs of ShoutAmerica, a Tennessee-based nonprofit aimed at mobilizing young people on health care issues, particularly rising costs.
Gibbs, 27, a former White House aide under President George W. Bush, founded the bipartisan group with former hospital chain executive Clayton McWhorter, now chairman of a private equity firm. McWhorter finances the organization. The group did not oppose health care reform, but stressed issues like how health care inflation threatens the future of Medicare.
“We don’t want to make this a generational war, but we want to make sure young adults are informed,” Gibbs says.
To continue reading this report, click here.
General Bans Booze & Junk Food
March 30, 2010
TimesOnline.com
By Jerome Starkey
First he banned booze in his Kabul headquarters. Now the notoriously austere commander of US and Nato forces has a new target in his war on terror: ice cream and fast food.
General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of Special Forces in Iraq, who runs eight miles a day, eats one meal and sleeps for only four hours a night, has given orders to close the junk food concessions on Nato bases.
No longer will the fighter pilots at Bagram or Kandahar airfields be able to ring Pizza Hut to deliver. Once General McChrystal has his way, the Whoppers will be off the menu: Burger Kings at both locations are to close. Even the newly opened TGI Friday’s on the boardwalk in Kandahar is to close its doors once its contract expires.
“This is a war zone, not an amusement park,” wrote Command Sergeant-Major Michael T. Hall in a military blog.
The boardwalk area also has an Oakley sunglasses shop, a Subway sandwich bar and a Delice de France. The Harley-Davidson concession offering tax-free motorbikes delivered to soldiers’ homes is also going.
The decision is likely to appal the rear echelon soldiers stationed on bases the size of small cities but it has been welcomed by some of the frontline forces stuck in sparse combat outposts without fresh food or running water.
“From the moment [General] McChrystal and I arrived in Afghanistan last summer, we began looking for ways to do things more efficiently across the battlefield. This effort includes moving and reallocating resources to better accomplish our mission,” Sergeant-Major Hall wrote.
“What it comes down to is focus, and to using the resources we have in the most efficient and effective ways possible.
“Supplying non-essential luxuries to big bases like Bagram and Kandahar makes it harder to get essential items to combat outposts and forward operating bases, where troops who are in the fight each day need resupplying with ammunition, food and water.”
In September General McChrystal banned alcohol at his headquarters after complaining that too many staff had hangovers. Some troops dubbed it his “war on Stella”.
The changes are unlikely to have much effect on British troops. Camp Bastion has a Pizza Hut and a van outside the Naafi offering takeaway vindaloos. Alcohol is already banned.
Click here for the full report.
What’s In Season in Your Region?
March 31, 2010 by KT
Filed under Kevin's Blog
As I’ve always preached, the best type of produce is locally grown, in season fruits and vegetables. However, how do you know what’s in season and what isn’t in your state?
Well, today I found a great website with a state-by-state list of everything you need to know to purchase the best produce for your health!
Click here to change the way you eat today!
-KT
Fred Van Liew – The Water Doctor
Click the picture or link below to hear Kevin’s interview with The Water Doctor, Fred Van Liew and click here to save yourself from the toxins lurking in your water supply!
More on Fred…
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Fred Van Liew on The Kevin Trudeau Show 03/30/10
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 3-30-10
Today, Kevin hits back against the misinformed members of society and reveals the truth they don’t want you to know about!
Medicated Bath Products Worsening Water Pollution
Cuban Leader Endorses Obama Health Care Reform
Soldiers Take Psychiatric Meds for Stress
Personal Income Drops Across USA
Junk Food-Addicted Rats Chose to Starve Rather Than Eat Healthy Food
Johnson & Johnson Under Scrutiny for Illicit Drug Payoffs, Kickbacks
Plus, the water doctor, Fred Van Liew, stopped by to discuss John Stossel’s bunko assertions that plastic bottles don’t cause health problems and that tap water is healthy. Click here to save yourself from the toxins lurking in your water supply!
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!!!
Scripps Florida: Addicted rats ‘starved themselves’ rather than give up junk food in study
March 30, 2010
The Palm Beach Post
By Jeff Ostrowski
In a study that compares cupcakes and cookies to cocaine, scientists at Scripps Florida say rats fed a diet of junk food grew addicted to high-calorie, high-fat fare.
The fat rats became so hooked on junk food that when researchers took away the bad stuff and replaced it with healthy food, the rodents chose to starve themselves.
Scripps Florida scientists Paul Kenny and Paul Johnson say junk food changed the rats’ brain chemistry in the same way that chronic cocaine use alters an addict’s brain function. Their study, published Sunday in the journal Nature Neuroscience, bolsters the increasingly popular theory that Americans’ bulging waistlines can be blamed in part on the addictive attributes of unhealthy food.
As part of three years of experiments, Kenny, an associate professor, and Johnson, a graduate student, served one group of rats healthy, nutritionally balanced fare. Another group got unlimited access to the worst stuff Johnson could find at Publix, including bacon, sausage, cheesecake, pound cake, Ding Dongs and frosting.
Not surprisingly, the rats fed junk food put on weight and became less active.
More surprisingly, the fat rats exhibited the sort of self-destructive behavior associated with human junkies. The rats would eat junk food even if they knew doing so would result in a mild but distinctly uncomfortable electrical shock to their feet.
When Kenny and Johnson replaced the unhealthy food with the healthy diet the rats had been raised on, the animals refused to eat at all.
“They actually voluntarily starved themselves,” Kenny said.
Kenny blames the same culprit that afflicts cocaine addicts: the brain’s dopamine D2 receptor. The brain releases dopamine in response to enjoyable experiences such as eating cheesecake, having sex or snorting cocaine.
But, scientists believe, too much pleasure skews the brain’s reward pathways by overstimulating the D2 receptor and causing it to shut down. For the rats addicted to junk food, Kenny said, the only way to stimulate their pleasure centers was to eat more high-fat, high-calorie food.
“They’re not experiencing rewards the way they should,” Kenny said. “When you experience that, one way of feeling better is to go back to the junk food.”
As part of his research, Kenny used a virus to essentially block healthy rats’ D2 receptors. Those rats quickly developed compulsive eating habits.
Kenny hopes his research might lead to a drug or vaccine to treat overeating. The experiments were supported by a $250,000-a-year grant from the National Institutes of Health and smaller grants from Bank of America and The Margaret Q. Landenberger Research Foundation.
Intriguingly, nearly all the rats given junk food became obese. But despite the fact that Americans are faced with a smorgasbord of easily available junk food, most of us can handle the temptation.
Kenny says that’s because overeating is driven by not just the genetic factors that make us crave junk food but also by social pressures. Humans know junk food is bad for us, and we try to avoid it. But rats don’t find their impulses tempered by clothes that no longer fit or by books by Dr. Oz, TV shows like The Biggest Loser and movies such as Super Size Me.
“The rats don’t suffer from the same social pressures that we do,” Kenny said.
Nutrition experts aren’t surprised by the Scripps researchers’ conclusion that junk food is addictive. In last year’s best-selling book The End of Overeating, former FDA Commissioner David Kessler argued that salty, sugary, fatty food triggers dopamine production.
“Certainly, we see this addictive pattern in humans,” said Sandy Livingston, a licensed nutritionist in Palm Beach Gardens. “They know they shouldn’t overeat, but they do it anyway.”
Livingston hopes research like this helps overeaters better deal with their gluttony by realizing that the behavior is driven not by personal failings but by powerful chemical reactions in the brain.
“A lot of people blame themselves — ‘Why don’t I have any willpower?’” Livingston said. “It’s very hard to rely on willpower, because willpower will lose. If your body wants something enough, you’re always going to lose.”
Jordan Rubin, author of The Maker’s Diet and founder of nutritional supplements firm Garden of Life in West Palm Beach, said he’d like to see more research into exactly which types of food and food additives are addictive. For instance, foods such as beef and avocados are high in fat, but Rubin believes addiction is caused not by fat alone but by fat in combination with other foods, such as white flour or the additive MSG.
“Food can be highly addictive,” Rubin said. “When people describe overeating and weight loss as a battle, this is why.”
Click here for the full report.
Gonorrhea Becoming Drug-Resistant “Superbug”
March 30, 2010
Reuters
By: Kate Kelland
The sexually transmitted disease gonorrhea risks becoming a drug-resistant “superbug” if doctors do not devise new ways of treating it, a leading sexual health expert said.
Catherine Ison, a specialist on gonorrhea from Britain’s Health Protection Agency said a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Manila next week would be vital to efforts to try to stop the bug repeatedly adapting to and overcoming drugs.
“This is a very clever bacteria. If this problem isn’t addressed, there is a real possibility that gonorrhea will become a very difficult infection to treat,” she said in a telephone interview.
Gonorrhea is a common bacterial sexually-transmitted infection and if left untreated can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility in women.
Globally, the WHO estimates that there are at least 340 million new cases of curable sexually transmitted infections — including syphilis, gonorrhea, chlamydia and trichomoniasis — every year among people aged 15 to 49.
Ison said the highest incidences of gonorrhea were in south and southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, but as yet the WHO has no breakdown by individual infection type.
Current treatment for gonorrhea in most countries consists of a single antibiotic dose of either cefixime or ceftriaxone.
But Ison, who is due to speak on the issue at a Society for General Microbiology conference in Edinburgh on Tuesday, said strains of the Neisseria gonorrhea bacteria were starting to become resistant and could soon become impervious to all current antibiotic treatment options.
“Ceftriaxone and cefixime are still very effective but there are signs that resistance, particularly to cefixime is emerging and soon these drugs may not be a good choice,” she said.
Instances of gonorrhea being resistant to multiple drugs — the definition of a “superbug” — have started to appear in Japan, where health authorities had decided to up the dose to treat the disease, but stick with the same antibiotic, she said.
Other reports of rising gonorrhea drug resistance had also come from Hong Kong, China, Australia and parts of Asia.
Ison said the best way to try to reduce the risk now — beyond encouraging the use of condoms which halt the spread of sexually transmitted diseases — would be to treat gonorrhea with two different antibiotics at the same time.
This is a technique used in the treatment of some other diseases like tuberculosis and one that makes it more difficult for the bacteria to learn how to conquer the drugs.
“There are few new drugs available. So using more than one at the same time is probably what should happen in the first instance,” said Ison. “We also need to set up good lines of communication between countries so that we can all talk to each other about what’s happening in gonorrhea and make sure we change treatment strategies when we need to.”
A WHO spokeswoman said its experts would discuss drug-resistant gonorrhea at a meeting in the Philippine capital Manila next week.
Click here for the full report.
Beware! Agave Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup
March 30, 2010
Mercola
By: Dr. Mercola
Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer “natural” sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that agave is actually WORSE than HFCS.
So just what is agave?
Blue agave is an exotic plant growing in the rich volcanic soil of Mexico under a hot tropical sun, boasting a stately flower stem that blooms only once in its lifetime. “Agave” literally means “noble.” It’s generally recognized as a superstar of the herbal remedy world, claiming to offer relief for indigestion, bowel irregularity, and skin wounds.
Ferment it, and you have Mexico’s favorite adult beverage — tequila.
Just the name “agave” conjures up images of romantic tropical excursions and mysterious shamanic medicine.
These are the mental images agave “nectar” sellers want you to hold. They use agave’s royal pedigree to cover the truth that what they’re selling you is a bottle of high-fructose syrup, so highly processed and refined that it bears NO resemblance to the plant of its namesake.
What is the “Real” Truth about Agave?
If you knew the truth about what’s really in it, you’d be dumping it down the drain — and that would certainly be bad for sales.
Agave “nectar” or agave “syrup” is nothing more than a laboratory-generated super-condensed fructose syrup, devoid of virtually all nutrient value, offering you metabolic misfortune.
Unfortunately, masterful marketing has resulted in the astronomical popularity of agave syrup among people who believe they are doing their health a favor by avoiding refined sugars like high fructose corn syrup, and dangerous artificial sweeteners.
And if you’re diabetic, you’ve been especially targeted and told this is simply the best thing for you since locally grown organic lettuce, that it’s “diabetic friendly,” has a “low glycemic index” and doesn’t spike your blood sugar.
While agave syrup does have a low-glycemic index, so does antifreeze — that doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Agave syrup has the highest fructose content of any commercial sweetener — ranging from 70 to 97 percent, depending on the brand, which is FAR HIGHER than high fructose corn syrup (HFCS), which averages 55 percent.
This makes agave actually WORSE than HFCS.
It is important to understand that fructose does not increase insulin levels, which is not necessarily good as what it does do is radically increase insulin resistance, which is FAR more dangerous. You see, it’s okay for your insulin levels to rise, that is normal. You just don’t want these insulin levels to remain elevated, which is what insulin resistance causes.
That is why fasting insulin is such a powerful test, as it is a very powerful reflection of your insulin resistance.
In addition to insulin resistance, your risk of liver damage increases, along with triglycerides and a whole host of other health problems, as discussed in this CBC News video about the newly discovered dangers of high fructose corn syrup. The study discussed in this news report is about HFCS, however, it’s well worth remembering that agave contains MORE fructose than HFCS, and in all likelihood, it’s the FRUCTOSE that is causing these severe liver problems.
Click here to continue reading this report.
