Herbicide in Drinking Water May be Dangerous
March 1, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Contamination of drinking water by a common herbicide poses a greater health threat than previously believed, according to a report issued by the nonprofit environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors average yearly levels of the popular herbicide atrazine in drinking water supplies, based on four tests per year. But the NRDC notes that levels of the toxin in drinking water regularly spike after heavy rains or during the spring when it is being widely applied, and that the four yearly testings may miss these events. The organization’s researchers found several such spikes in its own testing of water supplies in towns in agricultural regions of the South and Midwest.
“Our biggest concern is early-life-stage development,” said Jennifer Sass of the NRDC. “If there’s a disruption during that time, it becomes hard-wired into the system. These endocrine disrupters act in the body at extremely low levels. These spikes matter.”
Because atrazine is compatible with no-till farming, it is popular among farmers seeking to acquire a “green” label by reducing their carbon footprint. It is known to disrupt the hormonal system, and may cause cancers and menstrual problems in adults. It is considered especially dangerous to the developing reproductive systems of fetuses and children. The chemical has been shown to kill aquatic microorganisms and suppress the immune systems of larger animals, and it can cause limb or reproductive deformities in amphibians at levels as low as 0.1 parts per billion.
The EPA has set a threshold of 3 billion parts per billion for permissible atrazine levels, which the NRDC says would be too high even without periodic spikes. The NRDC analysis of 139 different municipal water systems found that 54 of them had a one-time spike higher than 3 parts per billion at some point in 2003 or 2004.
Home or municipal carbon filters can remove atrazine from water, but many municipal treatment plants do not use such procedures.
Click here for the full report
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-3-10
Today, Kevin educates you on the scary facts behind MSG’s and how many excitotoxins you are putting in your body just by eating a can of soup!
The MSG Report
Cocaine Found in Water Supply
Rocket Fuel in Nation’s Drinking Water
World Economic Forum’s Security Chief Found Dead After ‘Suicide’
Doctors Are Addicted To Every Drug Under The Sun
Bill Gates in Vaccine Game
UK Hospitals Tried to Gag Whistleblowers
Man Boob Reduction Surgeries on the Rise
Take Trudeau on the Go! Click here to download this show to your iPod, mp3 player, or PC through iTunes!
Click HERE to listen to The Kevin Trudeau Show RIGHT NOW!!!
Now in Your Drinking Water: Cocaine, Spices, and Hormones
February 1, 2010
Natural News
By E. Huff
A University of Washington research team recently released the results of a study it conducted on contaminant residue in the waters of Puget Sound in Washington State. Various spices, flavorings and other substances are being identified as making their way out of water treatment plants and back into the world’s water supply.
Winter holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas bring extra amounts of cinnamon while chocolate and vanilla are especially popular on the weekends. Likewise, caramel corn residue and waffle-cone pieces are particularly excessive around the Independence Day. The most popular contaminant found in the sound is artificial vanilla flavor which is found at an average of 14 milligrams per liter of water.
Around the world, scientists are finding all sorts of things from pharmaceutical drugs to illegal drugs in water supplies despite rigorous efforts to remove them at water treatment facilities. Piggy-backing a report from last year that found trace levels of pharmaceutical drugs in most U.S. water supplies, this report highlights even further how easily water is being contaminated by various human elements.
While spices and flavorings may not inflict any noticeable harm, the concept that traces of everything flushed end up in the water is what researchers wish to convey. Contaminant byproducts, also known as metabolites, regularly make their way out of water treatment plants back into natural waters. Experts hope that awareness of this will encourage people to be cautious about what they flush and engaged in working toward a solution.
Illegal drugs have become a problem in many water supplies where the residue is toxic to both animals and other humans. A 2008 study found that 92 percent of water samples at a Spanish treatment plant contained trace elements of cocaine. Italy’s longest river, the Po River, is also said to carry daily noticeable levels of the narcotic through its waterways as well as 44 pounds of daily pharmaceutical drugs which are also highly problematic.
Of notable concern is water contaminated by perchlorate, a chemical used in rocket fuel and fireworks that inhibits the uptake of iodine. Iodine is vital for proper thyroid gland function, and without it serious diseases like hypothroidism run rampant. Perchlorate is currently unregulated by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Current EPA guidelines require that more than 90 known contaminants be removed from water supplies, but the introduction of new chemicals as well as the use of ones that are not completely filtered out are becoming troublesome. Awareness of the issue will hopefully drive the effort to remedy the problem.
Click here for the full report
Exercise May Aid Cognitive Function
January 12,2009
All Headline News
By David Goodhue
Seattle, Washington, United States (AHN) – Moderate exercise in middle aged and older people may lead to a reduced risk of mild cognitive impairment, and an intense, six-month aerobic exercise regimen may lead to improvement in people who already have the condition, according to University of Washington researchers.
Mild cognitive impairment is characterized by the researchers as the state between normal thinking, learning and memory changes that occur with age and dementia. About 10 to 15 percent of people with the condition progress to dementia every year, compared with 1 to 2 percent of the general population, the researchers said in a statement.
Out of a total of 29 participants in the study who were on average 70 years old, 23 were assigned high-intensity exercise for 45 to 60 minutes four days a week.
This group showed improved cognitive function compared to the control group, and the effects of exercise were more pronounced in women than in men.
The researchers said this difference may be related to the differences in the metabolic effects of exercise. Changes to the body’s use and production of insulin, glucose and the stress hormone cortisol differ in men and women, the researchers said.
The study is published in the January issue of Archives of Neurology.
Click here to read the full report
Statin Drugs Diminish Body’s Vitamin D
January 8, 2010
Natural News
By E. Huff
Many in the medical profession are beginning to recognize that people who take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs are becoming vitamin D-deficient. Cholesterol is required by the body to synthesize vitamin D and statin drugs are are responsible for eliminating it, leading many to speculate that statin drug users do not have enough cholesterol to process vitamin D.
Contrary to popular belief, cholesterol actually plays an important role in maintaining health. It regulates proper hormonal levels and is the precursor substance for the production of vitamin D. Cholesterol also works to digest and absorb fats, nutrients, and vitamins.
When converting sunlight into vitamin D, cholesterol in the skin acts as the catalyst for this important process. Vitamin D is crucial for mineral metabolization and is said to target over 2000 human genes. Deficiency is linked to over 17 varieties of cancer as well as heart disease, autoimmune diseases, muscle and bone problems, and other serious diseases.
In the study, researchers found a clear connection between vitamin D deficiency and muscle pain. Over 64 percent of patients with muscle pain who were taking statin drugs were also deficient in vitamin D. Those with muscle pain in general were found to be deficient in vitamin D.
When study participants who reported muscle pain were given 50,000 IU of vitamin D a week for 12 weeks, more than 92 percent of them were completely relieved of all muscle pain. The prescribed supplementation also raised blood levels of vitamin D to normal levels.
It is also known that statin drugs are responsible for depleting CoQ10 levels, a vital substance that metabolizes energy in the body. Both CoQ10 and vitamin D supplementation are recommended for anyone who takes statin drugs. A minimum of 2,000 IU of vitamin D and between 100 and 200 mg of CoQ10 daily are appropriate doses.
Studies have shown that taking CoQ10 by itself helps to maintain proper cholesterol levels without the need for statin drugs. While keeping bad cholesterol (LDL) levels low is beneficial, it is important to keep good cholesterol (HDL) levels high. CoQ10 works well at maintaining healthy levels of both.
Some other alternatives to keeping cholesterol levels in check include supplementation with niacin and policosanol. In conjunction with a healthy diet low in refined sugars and bad fats, these natural alternatives are both safe and effective. Exercise and a diet rich in omega-3 fatty acids are also good suggestions.
Click here for the full report
Smoking Raises Type 2 Diabetes Even After Quitting
January 5, 2010
Foodconsumer
By David Liu
Cigarette smoking is a known risk factor for type 2 diabetes. But a new study found that the increased risk could be seen years after smokers gave up the habit.
The study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found those who quit smoking were at 70 percent increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the first six years after cessation of their smoking habits compared to those who did not smoke.
The researchers found that study participants tended to gain weight after quitting smoking cigarettes, which they believe may be the cause for the increased risk of type 2 diabetes.
Hsin-Chieh “Jessica” Yeh, Ph.D. co-authers and colleagues, cautioned that smokers should not use the findings as an excuse to continue smoking, which increases risk for lung disease, heart disease, stroke and cancer.
Dr. Hsin-Chieh advised in a statement released by John Hopkins that if you don’t smoke, don’t even start to smoke and if you do, quit smoking and watch your weight.
The study published in the Jan 5 issue of Annals of Internal Medicine involved 10,892 middle-aged men and women who were free of diabetes when they were enrolled in the study between 1987 and 1989.
The participants were followed for up to 17 years and data on diabetes status, blood sugar, weight and other health parameters were collected regularly.
The researchers found the risk of diabetes was highest in the first three years after quitting, but it became normal 10 years later compared to those who did not smoke. At the end of the study, the risk was still 30 percent higher than that for those who never smoked.
A health observer cautioned warned that the findings can be misleading. He suggested that it is meaningless to compare quitters to non-smokers.
Type 2 diabetes affects an estimated 20 million men and women in the United States. Patients with this disease often can produce insulin, the hormone that is needed for blood sugar metabolism, but can’t use the hormone effectively.
Diabetes can lead serious consequences like blindness, kidney failure, nerve damage and heart disease.
It has been known that overweight people are at higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. In the study, during the first three years, the quitters gained about 8.4 pounds.
However, the press release by John Hopkins did not say how much weight the non-smokers gained during the 17-year follow-up. Other studies have found obesity and overweight have been on the rise steadily so the non-smokers might also increase their body weight. This means that it remains unknown whether weight gain is a cause for the increased diabetes risk.
It is possible, according to the health observer who did not want to be named, that what the researchers observed were simply the consequences resulting from the former smoking. The study did not seem to have compared the quitters to the non-quitters for their risks of diabetes. And it is possible that the non-quitters may have experienced an even higher risk during the study.
Smoking has been associated with increased risk for type 2 diabetes, according to a review published in the Dec 12 2007 issue of Journal of American Medical Association.
Carole Willi, M.D., of the University of Lausanne, Switzerland, and colleagues, authors of the review, found associations between active smoking and the incidence of diabetes or other glucose metabolism irregularities.
The review of 25 studies published between 1992 and 2006 which followed a total of 1.2 million participants for 5 to 30 years, found active smokers were at a 44 percent increased risk of type 2 diabetes compared to non-smokers.
The researchers were able to quantify a dose response relationship between smoking and diabetes. They found heavy smokers were at a 61 percent increased risk and lighter smokers at a 29 percent increased risk.
They found the former smokers were 23 presently less likely to develop diabetes compared to the active smokers.
Vitamin D has also been associated with vitamin D deficiency, according to Dr. John Cannell, direcotr of Vitamin D Council. Those who want to reduce the risk may consider taking high doses of this sunshine vitamin D.
Diet is also important. Trans fat has been associated with increased risk of diabetes.
Click here for the full report
Risk of Suicide and Heart Attacks Rise When Men Are Told They Have Prostate Cancer
December 29, 2009
Natural News
By S.L. Baker
Imagine you are a man who has just been told you have a disease that might kill you — prostate cancer. And the treatment may involve surgery, chemotherapy, radiation and/or hormones that could rob you of your virility, wreck your sex life and even interfere with your ability to urinate. Sound depressing and even terrifying? To some men, this disturbing news may actually be a lot more dangerous than their prostate cancer. A new study just published in PLoS Medicine has found that men newly diagnosed with prostate cancer have an increased risk of cardiovascular events and suicide — with the youngest men being the most vulnerable.
Researchers from the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and Harvard University used the Swedish Cancer Register to identify 168,584 men 30 years old or older who were diagnosed with prostate cancer between 1961 and 2004. The research team then turned to Sweden’s Causes of Death Register and Inpatient Register to compile information on how many of these men suffered from subsequent fatal or non-fatal cardiovascular events and suicides.
The results showed that prior to 1987, men were approximately 11 times more likely to have a fatal cardiovascular event during the first week after they were told they had prostate cancer than men without the disease. Throughout the first year after their diagnosis, men with prostate cancer were about twice as likely to have a heart attack as men without prostate cancer. After 1987, men diagnosed with prostate cancer were about three times as likely to have a cardiovascular event during the first week as undiagnosed men, and they had a persistent, slightly raised risk in the first year.
Although not many men in the study killed themselves (136 in all), the researchers did find a significant increase in suicides associated with a prostate cancer diagnosis, too. The relative risk of suicide throughout the study period was 8.4 during the first week and 2.6 during the first year after diagnosis.
What’s particularly tragic about men literally dying from the consequences of stress after being told they have prostate cancer is that many of them actually should have little to fear — they just haven’t been told the true facts about their disease. Although about one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime, only one in 35 will actually die from prostate cancer.
What’s more, many men who have been told they have prostate cancer probably had unnecessary screening for the disease in the first place. A study in the September 28, 2009, issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine concluded there’s no convincing scientific evidence that screening prevents deaths from prostate cancer. In fact, when men are found to have early-stage cancers, they are often told treatment is necessary when no treatment may be needed at all. Their cancers may never be life threatening but aggressively treating their disease may lead to a host of health problems and even life threatening complications.
To their credit, the authors of the new study mentioned these issues. “Treatments for prostate cancer (for example, surgical removal of the prostate) may be more effective if they are started early but they can cause impotence and urinary incontinence, so should men be treated whose cancer might otherwise never affect their health?” they wrote. “In addition, receiving a diagnosis of prostate cancer is stressful and there is growing evidence that stressful life events can increase an individual’s risk of becoming ill or dying from a heart attack, stroke, or other cardiovascular events and of becoming mentally ill.”
Click here for the full report.
Ice Cream and Burgers Can Control Your Brain
September 15, 2009
Reuters
By Belinda Goldsmith
A U.S. study by UT Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas has found that fat from certain foods such ice-cream and burgers heads to the brain.
Once there, the fat molecules trigger the brain to send messages to the body’s cells, warning them to ignore the appetite-suppressing signals from leptin and insulin, hormones involved in weight regulation — for up to three days.
“Normally, our body is primed to say when we’ve had enough, but that doesn’t always happen when we’re eating something good,” said researcher Deborah Clegg in a statement.
“What we’ve shown in this study is that someone’s entire brain chemistry can change in a very short period of time. Our findings suggest that when you eat something high in fat, your brain gets “hit” with the fatty acids, and you become resistant to insulin and leptin.
“Since you’re not being told by the brain to stop eating, you overeat.”
The researchers also found that one particular type of fat — palmitic acid which is found in beef, butter, cheese and milk, — is particularly effective at instigating this mechanism.
The study was performed on rats and mice but the scientists say their results, published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation, reinforced common dietary recommendations to limit saturated fat intake as “it causes you to eat more.”
The study was conducted by exposing rats and mice to fat in different ways — by injecting various types of fat directly into the brain, infusing fat through the carotid artery or feeding the animals through a stomach tube three times a day.
The animals received the same amount of calories and fat and only the type of fat differed. The types included palmitic acid, monounsaturated fatty acid and unsaturated oleic acid which is found in olive and grapeseed oils.
“The action was very specific to palmitic acid, which is very high in foods that are rich in saturated-fat,” said Clegg.
Click here for the full report
Pharmaceuticals in NYC Drinking Water
November 23, 2009
Environmental Working Group
By Olga V. Naidenko, Ph.D.
Mr. Chairman and distinguished Members of the Committee: My name is Olga Naidenko, and I am a Senior Scientist at Environmental Working Group (EWG), a nonprofit research and advocacy organization based in Washington, DC; Ames, Iowa; and Oakland, California. We focus much of our research on potential health risks from chemical contamination of food, water, consumer products and the environment.
With this testimony, we express our strong support for the proposed law to amend the administrative code of the city of New York that would require testing by the Department of Environmental Protection for the presence of pharmaceuticals and personal care products in the New York City drinking water supply and the effluent from wastewater treatment plants. We commend the Council for considering this important measure that will serve as an essential step toward protecting public health from potential adverse effects of life-long, cumulative exposure to mixtures of multiple pharmaceuticals and endocrine disrupting chemicals in drinking water.
The presence of hundreds of unregulated pharmaceuticals and other synthetic chemicals in the nation’s surface, ground, waste and drinking water has been documented in studies done by the U.S. Geological Survey, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA) and water utilities. Research demonstrates that although individual pharmaceuticals occur at relatively low levels, conventional wastewater treatment does not effectively remove them. This is cause for concern and a call for timely action.
Below, we highlight three key areas of concern around pharmaceuticals in drinking water:
The full spectrum of pharmaceuticals and related contaminants in the New York City drinking water supply is currently unknown; this gap must be urgently addressed by systematic, long-term water quality monitoring;
The results of the testing must be fully disclosed in order to maintain the public’s confidence in the health and safety of their drinking water;
The development of appropriate, economically feasible plans for the protection of drinking water and for ensuring the healthy survival of aquatic life requires a robust dataset on the occurrence of pharmaceutical contaminants in water sources.
Below we address these points in detail.
1. The full spectrum of pharmaceuticals and related contaminants in the New York City drinking water supply is currently unknown; this gap must be urgently addressed by annual water quality monitoring.
The Associated Press investigation (“AP Probe Finds Drugs in Drinking Water,” March 9, 2008) brought to the attention of the public what the scientific literature has been documenting for a decade – our waters are polluted with a mixture of synthetic chemicals that have been designed to have powerful effects at very low concentrations. Of especial concern are human and veterinary medicines such as steroids, antibiotics, anti-depressants and hormones, which find their way into wastewater due to pharmaceuticals excreted by the body; disposal of unused drugs; farm fields treated with biosolids (sewage sludge); manure from animals fed antibiotics that is used as fertilizer; and industrial discharge from pharmaceutical manufacturing (AP (Associated Press) 2008).
There are no federal or state standards or monitoring requirements for the vast majority of these contaminants in drinking water or wastewater. While the health effects of these pharmaceuticals at therapeutic doses are relatively well-known, their ecological and public health impacts, especially their side effects and potential for synergism with other pollutants, remain to be addressed and cannot be dismissed (Jones 2003; Pringle 2008).
Some studies have suggested that for individual pharmaceuticals, a person would have to drink hundreds of gallons of water to get anywhere near a medical dose (Caldwell 2009; Snyder 2008). However, no study has so far addressed the cumulative human health risk posed by the mixtures of pharmaceuticals that we may ingest on a daily basis (Benotti M.J. 2009; Focazio 2008; Kingsbury 2008; Kolpin 2002). Meanwhile, according to the U.S. EPA, many drug classes of concern are found in the nation’s water sources, including (U.S. EPA 2009b):
Antibiotics and antimicrobials that may lead to the development of drug-resistant bacteria;
Estrogenic steroids that may affect the reproductive system in wildlife and people;
Antidepressants and calcium-channel blockers, which have been associated with effects on spawning in shellfish and “dramatic inhibition of sperm activity in certain aquatic organisms” (U.S. EPA 2009b);
Antiepileptic drugs such as phenytoin, valproate, carbamazepine that may act as human neuroteratogens and trigger cell death in the developing brain, which leads to neurodegeneration.
Genotoxic drugs that are primarily used at hospitals and have a high acute toxicity.
Scientists do not yet understand what impact all of these water pollutants will have on human and environmental health.
Click here for the full report
Facts vs Assumptions in Prostate Cancer
November 23, 2009
Natural News
By Sherry Baker
This may well be remembered as the year medical “facts” about prostate cancer were shown to be riddled with wrong assumptions and downright myths. As readers of NaturalNews know, for example, recent studies have shown little if any benefit to regular prostate cancer screening tests with hundreds of thousands of men being over-diagnosed and over-treated with a potentially deadly malignancy when they actually have no lethal disease. Now comes even more startling news about the wrong-headedness of standard prostate cancer care.
It is common for men with elevated prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels to face biopsies. But scientists at Wake Forest University School of Medicine and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that elevated PSA measurements are not necessarily potential signs of prostate cancer at all. Instead, they can simply be caused by a hormone normally occurring in healthy bodies.
According to a study just published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, the researchers discovered that parathyroid hormone, which the body produces to regulate blood levels of calcium, can raise PSA levels in healthy men who do not have prostate cancer. Unfortunately, elevated PSA levels currently set off alarm bells in the mainline medical establishment, leading many men to be biopsied and then treated unnecessarily with surgery, chemo, radiation, and/or emasculating hormones.
“PSA picks up any prostate activity, not just cancer,” said lead investigator Gary G. Schwartz, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of cancer biology, epidemiology and prevention at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, in a statement to the press. “Inflammation and other factors can elevate PSA levels. If the levels are elevated, the man is usually sent for a biopsy. The problem is that, as men age, they often develop microscopic cancers in the prostate that are clinically insignificant. If it weren’t for the biopsy, these clinically insignificant cancers, which would never develop into fatal prostate cancer, would never be seen.”
The research team investigated data from 1,273 men who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 2005 to 2006. At the time of the survey, none of the research subjects reported any current infection or inflammation of the prostate gland, prostate biopsy in the past month, or history of prostate cancer. The scientists adjusted their findings for age, race and obesity because PSA levels rise with age, are higher in African-American men, and lower in overweight males.
The results? The higher the level of parathyroid hormone measured in the blood, the higher the PSA levels. And when men had parathyroid levels that were normal, but at the high end of the normal scale, their PSA measurements were increased by 43% — a range that, when seen by most urologists, would be used to justify immediate biopsies. The bottom line, according to Dr. Schwartz: “It’s likely that there are a lot of men out there with elevated PSAs that may be due to elevated parathyroid hormone rather than prostate cancer.”
The findings are especially important for black men, the researchers stated, because about 20% of them have high parathyroid hormone levels compared to about 10% of Caucasians. And that results in African-American men being placed at a higher risk for unnecessary biopsies and over-treatment.
Click here for the full report
