The Kevin Trudeau Show: 7-14-11
Today, Kevin explains how the Casey Anthony controversy has just been a diversion from what is really happening in America and is more proof that there is no longer presumption of innocence in this country. Plus, find out what the government is doing to dumb down its citizens and keep them from succeeding!
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Indiana Latest State To Drop Handwriting Requirement
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Many Sunscreens Increase Skin Cancer Risk, FDA Has Known For A Decade But Done Nothing
July 14th, 2011
Natural News
By: Ethan A. Huff
A new report issued by the consumer protection organization Environmental Working Group (EWG) reveals that many popular sunscreens contain ingredients known to spur the growth and spread of skin cancer cells, which defeats their stated purpose of preventing skin cancer.
Data indicates that the sun’s rays combine with certain sunscreen ingredients in the skin and damage skin cells, which can lead to lesions and tumors — and worst of all, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has allegedly been aware of this critical information for the past ten years, but has done absolutely nothing to warn people about it.
According to a report by AOL News, about half of the sunscreens tested contained vitamin A ingredients and derivatives like retinol and retinyl palmitate, which FDA’s own studies have shown are photocarcinogenic, meaning they become toxic when exposed to sunlight. In fact, an older FDA report explains that sunscreens containing vitamin A ingredients cause tumors and lesions to develop and spread 21 percent faster than sunscreens that do not contain vitamin A ingredients.
Not to be confused with the vitamin A found in food and supplements that is absolutely essential for good health, vitamin A additives in sunscreen are different — their interactions with ultraviolet sun rays actually produce carcinogens in the skin.
And yet the FDA continues to remain silent about the dangers of vitamin A in sunscreen, including in its recent updated sunscreen guidelines that make no mention of them.
“There was enough evidence ten years ago for FDA to caution consumers against the use of vitamin A in sunscreens,” said Jane Houlihan, EWG’s senior vice president for research, to AOL News. “FDA launched this one-year study, completed their research and now ten years later, they say nothing about it, just silence.”
When questioned by AOL News about the matter, an FDA spokeswoman responded by claiming the agency “thoroughly checked” its records and could not find any evidence of such a study. Apparently the agency did not look hard enough, though, because a report issued in 2000 by the US National Toxicology Program (NTP) cites the same FDA research which found that vitamin A derivatives are both phototoxic and photocarcinogenic.
Vitamin A derivatives, of course, are not the only toxic ingredients in sunscreens either. According to the EWG report, hormone-disrupting chemicals like oxybenzone are prominent in many popular sunscreen brands. These same sunscreens also contain a slew of other mystery chemicals, many of which have never been proven safe or effective for use, and are likely carcinogenic as well.
In total, a mere 7.8 percent of the sunscreens tested by EWG as part of its annual analysis turned out to be “safe and effective” according to the group’s safety standards. The other 92.2 percent, which represent hundreds of sunscreens on the market today, contain one or more ingredients known to be harmful to health, a shocking figure when considering their widespread use.
As far as safe sunscreens go, EWG also recently released its fifth annual “Sunscreen Guide,” a database of more than 1,700 sun products from 292 brands that the group recognizes as having safe, non-toxic ingredients. You can access that database here: http://breakingnews.ewg.org/2011sunscreen/
For ideal health, however, regular exposure to sunlight without the use of sunscreen is vital for obtaining and maintaining healthy levels of vitamin D. Most sunscreens block the ultraviolet B (UVB) sun rays responsible for producing the vitamin D hormone in the skin — and without unfettered exposure to these beneficial rays, it is virtually impossible to maintain optimal vitamin D levels apart from supplementation.
By gradually exposing your skin to the sun on a regular, limited basis, you will eventually develop tolerance to it, even if you are prone to burning. And by supplementing with the antioxidant astaxanthin, which functions as a type of natural “sunscreen” that protects your skin from the oxidative damage caused by too much sun exposure, you will increase your sun tolerance even further, to the point that you may even stop burning under moderate exposure conditions.
The Vitamin D Council, a non-profit group dedicated to raising awareness about the importance of vitamin D for health, recommends that all individuals use the sun as their primary source of gaining vitamin D. Depending on your skin type, you will need anywhere from 15 minutes to over an hour of daily sunlight exposure in order to achieve and maintain optimal levels.
If natural sunlight exposure is not feasible on a daily basis, which is common for most people during the wintertime when the sun’s decreased angle prevents an adequate amount of UVB rays from reaching the skin, daily supplementation with vitamin D3 is the next best option. The Council suggests taking anywhere between 1,000 and 6,000 international units (IU) of vitamin D3 a day, depending on your age.
To learn more about vitamin D, including which other vitamins and nutrients are its necessary cofactors, and which diseases and conditions can be treated and prevented simply by maintaining optimal levels, visit: http://www.vitamindcouncil.org
Click here for the full report from Natural News
U.S. National Debt: Dancing On The Brink Of A World Crisis
July 14, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
July 14th, 2011
Ria Novosti
By: Andrei Fedyashin
Budget and debt problems are once again racking America. Barack Obama has failed to persuade the Republican majority in Congress to raise the national debt ceiling. That much is nothing new, and similar attempts will be unlikely to succeed in the future. Since July 10, the White House has been holding daily consultations on raising the ceiling. The current ceiling of $14.3 trillion must be raised by several hundred billion, or the Department of the Treasury will run out of money by August 2.
Looming crisis
The Americans raise their debt ceiling on a regular basis. Since 1993, they have come close to defaulting 16 times. In 1995, the government even shut down for a week. In the past, the world perceived these exercises as a matter of course, whereas now the unwritten rule of the U.S. budget is increasingly becoming a sore subject.
The times have changed, and the national debt and deficit have become too astronomical to be treated as an American eccentricity, especially considering the U.S.-bred financial crisis of 2008 and the backdrop of failing finances in Greece, Ireland, and Portugal (likely to be followed by Spain and Italy) and the patently pre-crisis condition of the Euro.
The U.S. Department of the Treasury has not yet announced who will be the hardest hit if worst comes to worst – the secretaries of departments, other officials, congressmen, senators, the Pentagon, intelligence, teachers, transportation workers, the IRS, NASA, museums, or janitors. That much, at least, is of little concern to Europe.
The problem is not salary cuts for specific agencies but U.S. solvency. Nobody is saying that the United States will immediately default on its entire sovereign debt – it remains the most reliable debtor in the world.
The trouble lies elsewhere:
a) The national debt continues to swell (in reality, it exceeded the ceiling of $14.3 trillion in May).
b) The federal government has come too close to being unable to pay interest on its debt too often.
c) Due to the uncertainty surrounding American debt and financial upheaval in parts of Europe, interest rates are growing on all financial markets;
d) Insurance rates on credit are growing.
e) The stock exchanges are getting nervous.
Put together, these factors may constitute a volatile mixture that could flare into another global financial crisis. It may start with minor market convulsions that erupt into something much larger.
The extent of European frustration with American debt is aptly expressed in one telling commentary. The British journal The Economist, a well-known guru of the free market, free trade, and sound conservatism, supports Obama’s position and calls Republican grievances with the budget proposals of a Democratic president “a gamble where you bet your country’s good name.” It considers such conduct shameful and absurd for Republicans who advocate reductions in government spending.
Cuts in social spending and higher taxes are still the only way of reducing budget expenditures and a country’s sovereign debt. This is exactly what Obama suggests, but the Republicans object to any such tax increases. Meanwhile, they are ready to reduce the budget by only $2 trillion instead of the $4 trillion that Obama suggests.
To cut is to heal
In European eyes, these developments in the White House are a farce rather than a tragedy. It is something akin to taking the world’s financial and economic players hostage and making them the captive audience to an American soap opera that has evoked little but bewilderment and confusion.
It is clear that the Republicans do not want to come to Obama’s aid on the eve of the 2012 presidential elections, but it is unclear why they insist on keeping the rest of the world in suspense.
America is far from being a champion of the ratio between its GDP and national debt. That debt amounts to 65% of its GDP and ranks 37th on the list of major global debtors. Yet many European countries fare worse: Greece (144%), Iceland (123%), France (83%), Germany (78%), and Britain (77%).
A look at the information provided by the CIA (or IMF – they are only slightly different) makes it clear that Japan is worst off in terms of debt: 226% of the GDP! Only St. Kitts and Nevis come close with 186%.
The debt section of the CIA’s yearly periodical is the only economic publication in which we are pleased to see Russia in 123rd place (out of 132). We seem to have left everyone behind with a debt of only 9.5% of our GDP.
In fact, we are among the leading creditors of the U.S. government, although we cannot yet afford to talk to Washington or ignore its opinion like China, its biggest creditor. Washington owes $1.154 trillion to Beijing, amounting to 25.8% of U.S. external debt. Japan is the runner-up with $890.3 billion in U.S. treasury bonds. Put together, Tokyo and Beijing account for 45.7% of total U.S. debt. Russia’s share is some $130.5 billion or a mere 2.9%.
American debts are still considered the most reliable in the world. U.S. bonds have almost the same liquidity as dollars on the debt security markets. But Moody’s has already hinted that if the United States delays payment on its debt, there will be consequences for its credit rating. Moody’s Spokesman Steven A. Hess put it succinctly when he said that if a debtor delays interest payments once, it may do so again, adding that it will automatically remove the debtor from the top category of the credit rankings.
There is still hope that these problems will dissipate by the August 2 deadline. The world is counting on the fact that a new and massive “Greek dilemma” is not on the horizon. But the longer this situation lasts, the greater the risk that America’s debt problems will cause a chain reaction. If so, the storm clouds of a new crisis will form again in earnest and on an unprecedented scale.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
Click here for the full report from Ria Novosti
Should Parents Lose Obese Kids?
July 14th, 2011
ABC News
By: Dan Harris
Harvard University child obesity expert Dr. David Ludwig’s recent claim that some parents should lose custody of their severely obese children has sparked outrage among families and professionals across the country.
The national outcry led one family to share how its personal experience with the matter damaged their lives.
Ludwig, an obesity expert at Children’s Hospital Boston and associate professor at the Harvard School of Public Health, shared his divisive idea in an opinion piece that ran in the Journal of the American Medical Association Wednesday: that state intervention can serve in the best interest of extremely obese children, of which there’re about 2 million across the United States.
“In severe instances of childhood obesity, removal from the home may be justifiable, from a legal standpoint, because of imminent health risks and the parents’ chronic failure to address medical problems,” Ludwig co-wrote with Lindsey Murtagh, a lawyer and researcher at Harvard’s School of Public Health.
The topic has quickly generated controversy, and the majority of experts contacted by ABC News disagreed with Ludwig and Murtagh’s ideas.
Dr. David Katz, founder of the Yale Prevention Center, said that there was no evidence that the state would do a better job of feeding children than their parents.
Dr. David Orentlicher, co-director of Hall Center for Law and Health at Indiana University of School Law, also disagreed, saying that based on past instances, child protective service agencies might be far too quick to place overweight children in foster care.
A family in Albuquerque, N.M., disagreed with the idea, based not on any medical expertise but on a painful personal experience that they say tore the family apart more than a decade ago.
In a case that shocked many people across the country, 3-year-old Anamarie Regino, weighing 90 pounds, was taken from her outraged parents by government officials and placed in foster care.
“Literally, it was two months of hell. It seemed like the longest two months of my life,” mother Adela Martinez said.
As it turned out, it was two unnecessary months of hell. Anamarie didn’t improve at all in foster care, and she was returned to her parents. The young girl was later diagnosed with a genetic predisposition.
“They say it’s for the well-being of the child, but it did more damage that any money or therapy could ever to do to fix it,” Martinez said.
Anamarie, who is now 14, agreed.
“It’s not right, what [Dr. Ludwig] is doing, because to get better you need to be with your family, instead of being surrounded by doctors,” she said.
When told of the Regino case, Ludwig said his solution of state intervention did not always work.
“Well, state intervention is no guarantee of a good outcome, but to do nothing is also not an answer,” Ludwif said.
Ludwig said he believes that children should only be removed in the most extreme cases, and that state officials should first offer counseling and education to parents.
“It should only be used as a last resort,” he said. “It’s also no guarantee of success, but when we have a 400-pound child with life threatening complications, there may not be any great choices.”
Click here for the full report from ABC News
Westerners ‘Programmed to Eat Junk Food’
July 14th, 2011
The Telegraph
By: Stephen Adams
Scientists at Aberdeen University have discovered that those of European origin are more likely to have genes which urge them to gorge on fatty foods, beer and wine, than Asians.
Dr Alasdair MacKenzie explained that the genes controlled the strength of a “switch” that helped determine appetite.
He said: “The switch controls the areas of the brain which allows us to select which foods we would like to eat and if it is turned on too strongly we are more likely to crave fatty foods and alcohol.”
He went on: “The fact that the weaker switch is found more frequently in Asians compared to Europeans suggests they are less inclined to select such options.”
Dr MacKenzie believed the fact that Europeans in the past had to survive through long cold winter by relying on brewed drinks and fat-rich foods, meant they became genetically predisposed through natural selection to like them.
He said: “These results give us a glimpse into early European life where brewing and dairy produce were important sources of calories during the winter months.
“Thus, a preference for food with a higher fat and alcohol content would have been important for survival.
“The negative effects of fat and alcohol we see today would not have mattered so much then as life expectancies were between 30 to 40 years.”
However, Dr MacKenzie said that those of Asian origin who moved to Western countries were not immune from obesity or heavy drinking habits, and that physiology was only a small part of the picture.
Galanin is a brain chemical called a neuropeptide, which previous research has identified as crucial to determining appetite for carbohydrate and fat-rich food.
Click here for the full report from The Telegraph
The Secret History of Monsanto, Agent Orange and the Mutilation of Innocent Vietnamese
July 14, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
July 14th, 2011
Natural News
By: Daniel Erickson
We still find it difficult to completely forget one of the uglier and far-reaching atrocities of the Vietnam War – the dissemination of a deadly herbicide, Agent Orange. But where we only have movies like Apocalypse Now and a host of war novels to remind us of the majority of the unpalatable actions that took place in the 60s, the repercussions of Agent Orange are still rising and expanding – through the world and media.
No matter how difficult it is to stop and listen to the stories of US military veterans who served in Vietnam, we cannot discount the myriad of first-person accounts of the damage that was caused and the cover-ups that have taken place since.
One recent story was unveiled earlier this year by KPHO, a news station in Phoenix, which showcased a number of Vietnam veterans’ who suggested the US military had ordered them to bury barrels upon barrels of Agent Orange in Camp Carroll, an army base in South Korea. Veteran Steve House, who continues to suffer from a number of the diseases that have been commonly linked to Agent Orange exposure, describes digging a two-acre ditch and then filling it with barrels fitting the description of those containing Agent Orange.
House suffers from Neuropathy, a fairly uncommon disease for anyone to develop without the help of poison or sustained use of the affected nerve group. Carpal Tunnel is one of the more commonly known, and minor, types of neuropathy. The disease occurs when damage is done to a group of nerve cells, resulting in loss of sensation, tingling or burning sensations in the affected nerve group, weakness, or even paralysis in extreme cases.
A fellow soldier who served with House, Robert Travis, has corroborated the story: “There was approximately 25 drums, all OD green… On the barrels it said “chemicals type Agent Orange.” It had a stripe around the barrel dated 1967 for the Republic of Vietnam.” Travis currently experiences extreme weakness in his hands and feet, as well as arthritis in his neck and back.
A number of US military personnel who traversed territory that had been bombed with Agent Orange reported severe neuropathy in their feet in the weeks following. They had been walking all over the herbicide for a relatively brief period, and to this day, the compound has been raging through their bodies, since, still limiting their ability to function.
The majority of Vietnam veterans suffering from exposure to Agent Orange are given federal aid to contend with the consequences of exposure. To sufferers of ailments commonly associated with the noxious herbicide, the US government is projected to mete out up to $67 billion over the next ten years.
As veterans in the US still combat and fall to the effects of the herbicide, children with genetic defects continue to remind Vietnamese citizens of the potency and far-reaching effects of the chemical of this terrifying poison, which has affected three generations of offspring, so far. The US has spent $43 million on these affected populations, to date, or under one-tenth what they have spent on veterans.
But Agent Orange hotspots in Vietnam must be cleaned up if they are to stop causing more diseases and genetic defects. In 2010, a ten-year plan was proposed to clear the Agent Orange hotspots in Vietnam, the areas that still contain hazardous levels of the compound.
The $300 million plan has yet to be fully funded by the US; however, it has found a number of valuable contributors, which has helped provide some more necessary momentum. Having already spent $37 million on cleaning efforts, the US has shown some amount of responsibility for its actions of the past, but it has yet to deal with the full extent of the damage, at the source.
When Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, visited Vietnam late last year, she connected the project to heal some of the worst damage done to Vietnam to the strengthening of an alliance between Vietnam and the US, referring to the compound still prevalent in the ground as: “… a legacy of the painful past we share, but the project we will undertake here, as our two nations work hand-in-hand to clean up this site, is a sign of the hopeful future we are building together.” Meanwhile, the herbicide continues to produce untreatable deformities in Vietnamese youth.
Yet, despite these obvious and disturbing signs that herbicides can be extremely harmful and difficult to dislodge, the companies that produced Agent Orange still grow and develop, increasing their product lines, their bottom lines, and revenue, not only in the US but across the world. A quick glance on the Monsanto web page on June 20 of 2011 portrays the company has grown by over 8% per year, on average, since 2007. Monsanto, along with Dow Chemicals, were the two companies, which produced the approximately 12 million gallons of Agent Orange that the US military used to destroy about 14% of Vietnam’s natural environment.
The companies have easily batted away all protests and claims against them, passing the buck to the US government as the culprit. Perhaps they are well within their legal rights. After all, they simply filled the orders given them, much like a firearms producer. Can we blame them for how the US military dispersed their product?
Perhaps not. However, there is still plenty of room for suspicion of foul play. If Monsanto and Dow Chemicals knew exactly how dangerous their product was, then it would have been their responsibility to inform the government of the long-term and catastrophic effects of mass dissemination. If they did not know these basic facts about the dangers of their own product, then it is a case of rampant negligence, the kind of which they can only be expected to reproduce, without significant consequences for their irresponsibility.
At least these companies should acknowledge the part they did play in what people are too afraid to label, genocide.
Len Aldis, founder of the UK-Vietnam Friendship Association, who has contributed a large amount of his own funds and time in support of the effort to clean up Agent Orange in Vietnam, does level sincere blame on the heads of Monsanto and Dow Chemicals. In a letter addressed to Monsanto’s Board of Directors, Mr. Aldis writes: “You may not be aware of the part played by your company in this criminal act, but there have been many protests here in the UK and many other countries at the use of Agent Orange on Vietnam… I have seen the results of your product in jars containing unborn babies, a sight not many people could stomach seeing.”
To this date, Mr. Aldis has received no reply, a stance that is upheld on Monsanto and Dow Chemicals’ websites. These URLs make no mention of Agent Orange, by name, by policy change, etc. If they are content to sweep this product under the rug, how can they be trusted today, as they produce genetically-enhanced seeds, herbicides, and other product lines? What impetus is there to thoroughly test these lab-controlled mutations?
When we play with a fire that has already burnt us, can we expect anything less than to be burnt again?
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Scandal-Plagued North Carolina Crime Lab Sued By Exonerated Man
July 14, 2011 by Andrew
Filed under Government
July 14th, 2011
The Huffington Post
By: John Rudolf
North Carolina’s criminal justice system remains beset by scandal almost a year after an independent audit revealed that state crime lab technicians provided false or misleading test results in 190 cases of murder and other major crimes.
Two men convicted of murder have been freed so far as a result of the misconduct revelations, and dozens of other cases are still under review by prosecutors and defense attorneys.
Greg Taylor, the first prisoner freed after the revelations of tainted evidence, filed suit on Tuesday against a state crime lab technician and his supervisors, including the crime lab’s former director.
The complaint charges the technician, Duane Deaver, with deliberately withholding evidence crucial for his defense, and accuses his supervisors of sanctioning his behavior.
Taylor was arrested and charged with killing a prostitute in 1991 after he admitted spending the night smoking crack cocaine in a car near where the woman’s body was found.
Prosecutors in the case leaned heavily on a report from the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation crime lab that indicated a substance found on the bumper of Taylor’s car was human blood. He was found guilty and sentenced to life in prison.
Yet in testimony last year before the North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission, the country’s only state-mandated panel expressly charged with weighing claims of innocence by convicted felons, Deaver admitted that a second, more sophisticated test of the substance found on Taylor’s car had produced a negative result for blood. That test was never disclosed to the defense.
In its first-ever official exoneration, the panel voted unanimously to free Taylor after 17 years in prison, declaring there was “clear and convincing evidence” of his innocence.
Taylor’s attorney in the suit, Burton Craige, declined to comment on the complaint. “I think it speaks for itself,” he said.
Noelle Talley, a spokeswoman with the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation, also declined to comment. “We don’t generally comment on pending legal matters,” she said.
Mike Klinkosum, a Raleigh attorney who represented Taylor in his appeal to the innocence commission, said Taylor had a devastating case to present to a jury. “It is an overwhelming miscarriage of justice, what happened to Greg,” Klinkosum said. “It’s unforgivable.”
The lawsuit could not only cost North Carolina millions of dollars; it could also result in even more embarrassing disclosures from the state’s crime lab, as technicians and their supervisors are deposed and documents are produced through the discovery process.
None of the state employees named in the suit are still employed by the crime lab, but the state remains liable for actions taken in the course of their official duties.
Charges of systemic abuse at the lab have already been largely substantiated by an independent audit ordered by the state attorney general, which reported last August that negative or inconclusive results on suspected blood samples had been omitted from lab reports in at least 190 cases that went to trial or resulted in a conviction.
Of those convicted, the audit found that 80 were still incarcerated, five died in prison and three were executed. Four remain on death row.
Last year, tainted blood evidence from the state crime lab produced another exoneration: Derrick M. Allen, serving 44 years behind bars for the sexual assault and murder of a 2-year-old girl.
After initially declaring his innocence, Allen, 19-years-old at the time of the alleged crime, pled guilty without accepting responsibility for the charges, a so-called Alford plea, as part of a deal with prosecutors to avoid the possibility of a death sentence.
Allen subsequently tried to withdraw his guilty plea and sought legal assistance appealing the case. He was freed last September after his attorneys demonstrated that key evidence had been mishandled by the state crime lab. In a ruling this March, the judge in the case declared that lab reports in Allen’s case “were intentionally prepared in an inaccurate, incomplete and intentionally misleading manner.”
With the possibility of other innocents behind bars, defense attorneys and prosecutors in the state continue to pore over decades-old cases in search of other potential miscarriages of justice.
“We’ve by no means closed our files on all these cases,” said Mary Pollard, director of North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, a non-profit legal assistance center.
Click here for the full report from The Huffington Post
Olive Oil May Reduce Stroke Risk
July 14th, 2011
Natural News
By: Mary West
A new study suggests consuming large quantities of olive oil through heavy use in cooking and dressings may significantly reduce your stroke risk. Investigators in France discovered that older adults who used olive oil extensively had a 41% lower stroke probability than those who did not use it at all: ABC News reports. As stroke is the third leading cause of death in the United States, these results may have very important implications.
The research published in the June 15 online issue of Neurology studied the effects of different amounts of olive oil consumption in 7600 elderly adults. The authors observed that those who consumed moderate to high quantities of olive oil had lower stroke risk factors in the areas of weight, triglycerides and certain cholesterol parameters. This group was also more likely to engage in regular exercise and eat healthy foods, such as fish, fruits and vegetables. After the investigators adjusted the results to accommodate these lowered risk factors, dietary variables and activity levels, adults with a high olive oil use were found to have a 41% lower incidence of stroke.
These findings led the chief author, Dr. Cecelia Samieri of the University of Bordeaux, and her colleagues to indicate that recommendations for liberal use of this oil may be added to the advisory – of eating more fruits and vegetables – in dietary prevention guidelines for stroke. They state that since the study factored out other dietary variables and stroke risks, olive oil may be deemed a major protective part of the Mediterranean diet for this disease.
Anyone interested in incorporating olive oil into his or her diet to reduce stroke risk may wonder what type of olive oil to buy and exactly how much to use. Although the study did not specify the type of oil used, the author notes that nearly all olive oil sold in France is the extra virgin variety. In regard to quantity, more research is required to determine the best range.
According to Health Day, it is not clear which aspect of olive oil use prevented the strokes. One postulation is the substitution effect of replacing saturated fat with this mono-unsaturated oil. Another theory is that polyphenols, antioxidant nutrients contained in olive oil, exert an anti-inflammatory action in the vascular system.
Although the results are promising, the authors caution against drawing definitive conclusions, contending that further research is needed. They note that other potentially health enhancing effects of olive oil, not considered in the research, might be influencing the link to reduced stroke risk. Furthermore, they point out that the oil is normally consumed in tandem with other healthy foods. Due to the complexity involved in ruling out factors that could have affected the results, it is too early to prove the existence of the link.
Since olive oil has been associated with benefits for other medical conditions, such as obesity, hypertension and coronary artery disease, the link with reduced stroke risk is plausible despite the current lack of proof.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
Baby Products Contain Toxic Flame Retardant Chemicals
July 14th, 2011
Natural News
By: Sally Oaken
Potentially toxic flame retardants, many of them containing compounds known as penta brominated diphenyl ethers, are a common component of many household products containing polyurethane foam.
Originally intended to increase product safety by decreasing fire risk, these compounds have come under increasing scrutiny since the early 1990s due to growing evidence of their damaging health effects.
But even though these chemicals have been banned in 172 countries and 12 U.S. states, they continue to make their way into a wide variety of products found in U.S. households, including toys and upholstered furniture.
In an especially disconcerting study conducted by researchers at Duke University earlier this year, potentially toxic flame retardants were found in 80 percent of samples of polyurethane foam collected from baby products commonly and legally sold in the U.S.. Samples were taken from car seats, high chairs, strollers, nursing pillows and bassinet mattresses.
The results of the study were published in 2011 by the American Chemical Society journal Environmental Science and Technology, and suggest that additional research is warranted “to specifically measure infants exposure to these flame retardants from intimate contact with these products, and to determine if there are any associated health concerns.”
Penta brominated diphenyl ethers, also known PBDEs, are known to bio-accumulate in fatty tissue, breast milk and blood after being inhaled or ingested with food.
The highest and most dangerous concentrations of ingestible and inhalable PBDEs occur in plants that repair and recycle products containing these chemicals, and also in domestic environments, since they persistently show up in household products containing polyurethane foam.
Recent studies show that in the U.S., blood concentrations of PBDEs are much higher in children than in adults. These chemicals are known to have damaging effects on nervous system development and can also disrupt the function of estrogen and thyroid hormones.
When children are exposed to these chemicals early in life, either through inhalation or ingestion with breast milk, their damaging effects have been known to persist into adulthood and may include reduced performance on intelligence tests and behavioral changes like hyperactivity.
The Duke University study suggests that even though the manufacture and distribution of PBDEs is subject to increasing restrictions in the U.S. and Europe, these dangerous flame retardants are still finding their way into our homes and the body tissues of developing infants. It may be wise to check labels carefully and investigate PBDE levels before exposing infants to polyurethane foam products.
Click here for the full report from Natural News
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 7-13-11
Today, Kevin gives you tips on how to start your own business without a lot of skill, time, money, or education. Plus, get the inside story on the Rupert Murdoch scandal and why the economy is only getting worse.
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