Scientists Introduce Edible Microchips That Track Medical Information

January 18, 2012

The Independent

By Steve Connor

An edible microchip that records the precise details of a patient’s pill regime will be available in Britain by the end of year following a commercial deal that opens the door to an era of digital medicines.

An American biomedical company has signed up with a British healthcare firm to sell digestible sensors, each smaller than a grain of sand, that can trigger the transmission of medical information from a patient’s body to the mobile phone of a relative or carer.

The aim is to develop a suite of “intelligent medicines” that can help patients and their carers keep track of which pills are taken at what time of day, in order to ensure that complex regimes of drugs are given the best possible chance of working effectively.

Ultimately, the plan is for every one of the many pills taken each day by some of the most chronically-ill patients, especially those with mental health problems, to be digitally time-stamped as they are digested within the body.

The healthcare company Lloyds- pharmacy said it intends to sell the edible microchips of Proteus Biomedical of California by the end of the year, as part of a trial to test whether NHS patients would be prepared to pay privately to ensure that they or their relatives take the right medicines at the right time.

“There is a huge problem with medicines not being taken correctly,” said Steve Gray, healthcare services director of Lloydspharmacy.

“Anyone taking several medications knows how easy it can be to lose track of whether or not you’ve taken the correct tablets that day,” he added.

“Add to that complex health issues and families caring for loved ones who many not live with them and you can appreciate the benefits of an information service that helps patients to get the most from their treatments and for families to help them to remain well.”

Click here for the full report from The Independent.

Natural, Herbal, and Alternative Treatments for ADD/ADHD

October 19, 2011

Off The Grid

By Sarah

Attention Deficit Disorder and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADD/ADHD) are behavioral conditions characterized by a short attention span, which may be accompanied by hyperactivity. Approximately 5 percent of Americans have ADD/ADHD and half to two thirds of children diagnosed with it will carry it into adulthood. Children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD may also have various learning disabilities and may be disruptive in school and other public places.

More boys than girls are afflicted with this disorder. Many are rightly diagnosed with these maladies, but there are those who have been so “branded” just because they are very active, rambunctious children—again boys more often than girls. Just because a school psychologist or other doctor has told you your child’s overactive behavior is ADD/ADHD, it may not be true. Some teachers and school administrators don’t want to have to deal with disciplining active children, so they have them diagnosed and medicated. For peace of mind, get more than one opinion. You may want to have two other doctors, who aren’t connected to the school district, check out your child(ren).

More than 2 million children with ADD/ADHD are being treated with drugs that are equivalent to “legal speed”— stimulant drugs by prescription. There are concerns with this type of treatment. The first is that stimulants can suppress their growth. Next, the side effects they carry and their addictive nature are troublesome. There is also the possibility that those that have these prescriptions may not be taking them, but passing them on to their friends for the “high” that most people get from stimulants.

Dietary Changes:

Once you have determined if you or your child has ADD/ADHD, you will want to choose how to treat it without drug therapy. The first thing to try is changes in diet. Some people are sensitive to refined white flours and sugars. Others are sensitive to chemical additives in food. Before making any dietary changes, talk with your healthcare provider. Among the usual dietary suspects are:

Any artificial flavorings
Any artificial colorings (yellow, green, and red are the worst offenders)
Chemical additives and preservatives (like BHA and BHT)
Milk
Chocolate
Eggs
Wheat
Bleached/Refined Sugar and Flour
Gluten
Foods containing salicylates (chili powder, apples and cider, cloves, grapes, oranges, peaches, peppers, tomatoes, plums, prunes, and all berries)

An elimination diet is the best option to start with. In brief, eliminate the above usual suspects from your diet. Continue this way for several weeks before adding them back in. If there are no behavioral changes, good or bad, you will want to try something else. If behavior improves, then you can begin adding allergens to the diet one at a time. Eat that one allergen, in small quantities, once a day for two or three days. If behavior doesn’t change, you may add another possible allergen and continue in this manner until you have found if any trigger the ADD/ADHD symptoms and behaviors.

Feingold Diet – A type of elimination diet that is well known for its use among ADD/ADHD patients. It eliminates all chemical additives and all foods containing salicylates. It requires vigilant control over the sufferer’s eating habits. It also prohibits aspirin, as it contains salicylates. There has been some successes reported by patients who have tried it, but it would be hard to compel one to stick to it. In any case, it is wise to avoid foods with artificial flavors, colors, and chemical additives in order to ensure a healthy, natural diet.

Essential Fatty Acids – Omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish (salmon, tuna, mackerel) and certain vegetable oils (flax seed, hemp seed) are essential to proper brain function. These may also be beneficial to those with ADD/ADHD. But it is not clear if docosahexaenoic (DHA) and eicosapentaneoic (EPA) are advantageous.

Zinc – This mineral is essential for proper metabolism of certain neurotransmitters that have a role in ADD/ADHD. Deficiencies have been found in some with this disorder. However, long-term use of zinc can cause anemia and other side effects in those without deficiencies. Zinc also has no effect on ADD/ADHD in those patients. But testing for trace minerals, like zinc, is not typical when assessing those who are suspected of having this disorder.

Feedback Approaches:

Biofeedback and auditory feedback have shown some success in increasing the attention of children with low academic performance levels.

Neurofeedback – An approach that uses electronic devices to help patients (usually children) control their own brainwave activity. Electrodes are pasted to the head and pick up signals from the brain. Patients watch images, like moving graphs, on a computer monitor reflecting patient’s brain wave activity. Patients are taught certain high-level mental activities when screen images show that they are fully concentrating. Treatment typically recurs in fifty-minute sessions twice a week. Some studies report significant improvement in attentiveness, response time and less impulsiveness.

Interactive Metronome/Musical Therapy – This therapy uses feedback from sound to improve the patients’ attention, motor control, and some academic skills. Patients wear headphones as well as sensors on the hand and feet. They perform various exercises to a rhythmic computer beat. Sessions continue for three to five weeks. Some studies report improvements. Also, parents of some with ADD/ADHD report those who learned to play musical instruments significantly helped.

Non-Drug Treatments:

Some with mild ADD/ADHD symptoms have tried daily massage therapy. This can improve mood and attentiveness and reduce hyperactivity. Some may find relief with relaxation training, prayer and meditation, and music therapy.

Herbs and Supplements – Some find relief with one or a combination of these herbal remedies instead of prescribed drug treatments. Check with your healthcare provider as some do not recommend these for children.

St. John’s Wort
Ginko Biloba
Panax Ginseng
Melatonin
Pine Bark Extract
Listol, a combination of:
Vitamin B6
Iron
Magnesium
Copper
Phosphatidlserine
Di-Methyl Glycine
Glycine
GABA Powder
DMAE Bitartatrate
Huperzine A Extract

As with all alternative health treatments, you should always check with your doctor or healthcare practitioner before starting treatment for any condition.

Click Here For The Full Report From Off The Grid

You Are Giving Yourself Cancer

Something caught my eye the other day and I wanted to share it with you because I know you aren’t hearing this information from the mainstream media. Here’s the headline: National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society Skewered in New Book by Leading Cancer Expert. A new book by a leading cancer expert, Dr. Samuel Epstein, basically blasts the hell out of the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society, and blames the organizations for America losing the war against cancer.  The book is called, National Cancer Institute and American Cancer Society Criminal Indifference to Cancer Prevention and Conflicts of Interests.  Epstein argues that the National Cancer Institute and the American Cancer Society have spent tens of billions of taxpayer dollars focusing on patentable treatments to the exclusion of spending any money on prevention, which has allowed cancer rates to skyrocket.

Now folks, I have to tell you something here about cancer. Right now there is a 50/50 chance you are going to get cancer. 50/50!  And there is a 50/50 chance you are going to have heart disease. That means you almost have a 100% chance of getting cancer or heart disease. Let’s just stop there.  Bottom line, you are going to get cancer, especially if you are 30-40 years old. The reason is, nobody is addressing the causes of cancer. Cancer doesn’t just magically appear in your body.

You have created a state in your body where cancer will proliferate.  So, what is causing cancer to grow in your body?

Click here to find out what is causing cancer in your body and how to eliminate it: http://bit.ly/no61RI

Yours in health…
KT

Prozac and Other Drugs Cause Thick Arteries, Raise Heart Risk

April 6th, 2011

Natural News

By: Sherry Baker

Millions of Americans take antidepressant drugs — most are Prozac and related antidepressant medications in the class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). A gigantic money maker for the drug giants, the SSRIs bring in billions to Big Pharma a year. They are promoted and prescribed as safe treatments for depression, anxiety and even premenstrual tension — despite a long list of possible side effects ranging from sexual dysfunction and headaches to dizziness and suicide.

Now you can add another reason to think twice before agreeing to take antidepressants. At the American College of Cardiology meeting in New Orleans, Emory University School of Medicine scientists have just announced they`ve discovered that the drugs are linked to thicker arteries. The significance? The findings strongly suggest Prozac and similar meds could raise the risk of heart disease and stroke.

Depression is sometimes listed as a risk for heart disease. But that was not the explanation for the Emory findings, according to Amit Shah, MD, a cardiology fellow at Emory University School of Medicine. Instead, Dr. Shah said in a press statement, the data indicates the effect of antidepressant use on arteries that was revealed by the study is separate and independent from depression.

Dr. Shah worked with Viola Vaccarino, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Epidemiology at Emory`s Rollins School of Public Health, on the groundbreaking study which involved 513 middle-aged male twins who both served in the U.S. military during the Vietnam War. Twins are genetically the same but may be different when it comes to other risk factors such as diet, smoking and exercise, so studying them is a good way to factor out the effects of genetics.

The Emory research team measured the thickness of the lining of the main arteries in the neck (carotid intima-media thickness, or IMT) by ultrasound. The results showed that among the 59 pairs of twins where only one brother took antidepressants, the one taking the medication had a significantly higher carotid IMT — even when heart disease risk factors such as smoking were taken into account. In fact, the thicker arteries were found in antidepressant users whether or not they had ever had a stroke or heart attack in the past.

In the new study, the scientists documented higher carotid IMT in research subjects who used SSRIs (60 percent of those who took antidepressants) as well as those who used other kinds of antidepressants. Curiously, higher levels of depressive symptoms were associated with thicker arteries only in those taking antidepressants — so the Big Pharma meds themselves seem to be the key to this disturbing change in the cardiovascular system.

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“One of the strongest and best-studied factors that thickens someone`s arteries is age, and that happens at around 10 microns per year,” Dr. Shah stated. “In our study, users of antidepressants see an average 40 micron increase in IMT, so their carotid arteries are in effect four years older.”

How could antidepressants have an effect on blood vessels? The Emory scientists think it may result from changes in serotonin. The SSRIs are the most commonly prescribed antidepressants and they are known to increase the level of serotonin in the brain. Other kinds of antidepressant drugs also impact serotonin levels. And, although serotonin is a chemical that helps some brain cells communicate, what is often ignored in the hyping of SSRIs is that serotonin functions outside the brain, too.

Actually, most of the body`s serotonin is found outside the brain, especially in the intestines, Dr. Shah stated in a media release. What`s more, serotonin is stored by platelets, the cells that promote blood clotting; the chemical is released when platelets bind to a clot. The chemical can, in fact, act in a variety of ways and either constrict or relax blood vessels, depending on whether the vessels are damaged or not.

“I think we have to keep an open mind about the effects of antidepressants on neurochemicals like serotonin in places outside the brain, such as the vasculature. The body often compensates over time for drugs` immediate effects,” Dr. Shah said.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Cancer Patients Exploited By High-Profit Screening Scams

October 13th, 2010

Natural News

By: Mike Adams

Want to know the disturbing truth about the greed-driven cancer industry? I’ve written about it using blunt language here on NaturalNews, and awareness is spreading. People are sick of pinkwashing nonsense, and they’re wising up to the fundraising “run for the cure” scams that only funnel more money into corrupt, Pharma-dominated cancer non-profits.

Now a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association sheds new light on just how cruel and greedy the cancer industry really is. It turns out that even when cancer patients are terminal — meaning they’re expected to die soon — the cancer industry herds them into yet more screening, mammograms, biopsies and lab tests in order to generate more profits from Medicare before the patient expires.

It turns out they’re still irradiating women with mammograms even though these women already have “incurable” cancers! (Incurable by conventional medicine, that is.)

Even according to cancer industry doctors, patients who have less than 10 years left to live receive no benefit from cancer screening. So why are such patients being subjected to a barrage of cancer screening tests? Because the tests make more money for the cancer industry!

Hurry, make more money before they die!
It’s almost as if they’re saying, “Gee, these patients are about to expire, and we can’t bill Medicare if they’re already dead, so hurry up and run some tests before they die!”

Never mind the fact that such tests don’t help the patient at all. In fact, these tests can be invasive, painful and psychologically damaging. They put patients through hell in order to rake in some additional profits in the last few days, weeks or months before the cancer patient dies.

That’s the truth about how the cancer industry really operates. To them, people are just profit machines to be exploited.

This is now evidenced by the cancer industry’s own actions, by the way. It’s one thing to accuse the cancer industry of being driven by greed (which I’ve done on many occasions), but it’s another thing entirely for the industry to be caught red handed in a study published in JAMA and funded by the National Cancer Institute that documents this systematic abuse of patients.

Turning a human being into sick profits
The sad, sick truth of the matter is that both cancer screening and cancer treatments are profit centers for hospitals and cancer clinics. The more people they can screen, diagnose and treat with toxic chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, the more money they can collect off that person before they die.

A dying cancer patient is a cash cow to the cancer industry because doctors can try almost anything and say they’re holding out for “hope” that something might work. It’s called “heroic medicine” but there are no heroes, really. Just cowards in the form of the cancer doctors exploiting patients for profit. Many conventional doctors have come to realize that a terminal cancer patient is like a blank check that they can cash in for huge financial gains.

I knew a cancer patient described as terminal by the doctors who was offered an “experimental” cancer drug which would involve a series of weekly injections. The only catch? The bill was $14,000 a month and you have to pay out of pocket since no insurance would cover it.

Drug companies and cancer doctors pressure cancer patients to try these useless “experimental” therapies not as a way to actually cure their cancers but as a way to extract their entire life savings before they die.

No one has ever been cured by chemotherapy
The conventional cancer industry, you see, has cured no one. There isn’t a single person who has ever been cured by chemotherapy because chemotherapy does not cure cancer, it only poisons the body. In fact, cancer doctors practicing today will tell you straight up that “there are no cures for cancer” which is they are “looking for the cure” by selling pink products and taking your donation money.

The cancer industry, you see, has a zero percent success rate at curing cancer. Think about it: After billions of dollars, three decades of research, and millions of cancer victims dead from chemotherapy and radiation, the cancer industry has not produced even a single success story of someone who was CURED of cancer. Not a single one!

How’s that for a failed approach to cancer? And they claim that if they only had a few billion more dollars, then they would be able to find the cure. Do you smell something fishy with that?

Meanwhile, in the world of natural medicine, people are cured of cancer every day. Well, technically they are not cured from the outside but rather are healed from the inside so that their cancer disappears and they regain full immune system health. It’s so common in the world of natural health that the really good cancer doctors don’t even consider cancer to be much of a challenge. I know of one cancer doctor who produces cancer cures every week at his clinic in Florida. But he has one rule: He will not see patients who have poisoned their bodies with chemotherapy. “They’re too far gone and cannot heal themselves,” he explains.

No wonder the conventional industry has zero success stories of people cured of cancer. Now, sure, they have some “remission” stories of people who temporarily “conquered” cancer, but guess what? Cancer always comes back in those people! And why? Because their body’s defenses have now been poisoned by chemotherapy, making them even more vulnerable to tumor growth.

Cancer patients come and go, you see, but the cancer industry keeps churning along, trading bodies for dollars, causing unimaginable human suffering just so it can keep itself alive with an infusion of new daily profits. Now, even the peer-reviewed medical journals are starting to see the ugly truth of just how profit-driven this industry really is.

I am confident that one day this present era of medicine will be characterized as a “Dark Ages” of medicine, driven by egos, profits and greed. Chemotherapy will be seen as utterly senseless, and radiation therapy as barbaric. Future generations will look back upon the pinkwashing, the “Run for the Cure” fundraising and the free mammogram drives and just shake their heads in disbelief, wondering, “How could they have all been so stupid?”

The answer to that is complex, of course. Some people aren’t stupid. They’re the ones reading NaturalNews and taking charge of their health to prevent cancer in the first place. There are lots of smart, informed people around who don’t buy into the cancer industry’s ridiculous propaganda and disease fear mongering. It’s the masses, however, that fall for the cancer industry quackery that has now become so routine that almost no one questions it.

And in understanding their stupidity, you have to remember that they’ve all been dosed with fluoride in the drinking water and injected with brain-harming seasonal flu vaccines. They’re also living on chemically-altered, genetically modified processed junk food. Thus, they probably don’t have their full mental faculties up and running, and it’s difficult for them to think clearly enough to resist cancer industry propaganda.

Click here for the full report from Natural News

Bizarre Naval Experiments Revealed

October 1, 2010
Daily Telegraph

SAMe Supplement Effective At Treating Depression

August 19, 2010

Natural News

By: Ethan A. Huff

Researchers recently completed a study revealing that the increasingly popular supplement S-Adenosyl Methionine (SAMe) is an effective treatment for people with depression. The substance, which occurs naturally in the body, exerts influence on the brain in ways that improve brain function, alleviate stress and feelings of depression and reduce inflammation.

For the study, scientists administered either 1,600 milligrams (mg) of SAMe or a placebo on top of participants’ existing medication regimens for six weeks. Following this period, the team found that those participants taking SAMe experienced better relief from depression that did those simply taking conventional antidepressants.

And since SAMe is naturally produced in the body, there are no negative side effects from taking it like there are from taking chemical antidepressant drugs.

According to Dr. George Papakostas, author of the study and psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, the results are “exciting because [SAMe] works differently than what we have now — it doesn’t seem to be associated with the kind of side effects that FDA-approved treatments for this niche have.”

And this is good news for many who have experienced devastating side effects from taking antidepressants. SAMe is not only a viable alternative to these pharmaceutical drugs, but it exerts many other positive changes within the body as well.

“SAMe is a naturally occurring molecule present in all living cells, and is made in the body by a reaction between methionine and another compound called adenosyntriphosphate (ATP). It has many incredible benefits, including a positive effect on depression and arthritis pain…it helps the liver to replenish important substances, notably the all-important glutathione,” explains Johny Bowden, Ph.D., C.N.S., in his book The Most Effective Natural Cures on Earth: The Surprising, Unbiased Truth about What Treatments Work and Why.

Click Here For Full Report

Heart Failure Can Be Cured With Acupuncture

August 5, 2010

Natural News

By: S.L. Baker

Heart failure is a progressive condition marked by a worsening of the heart’s ability to pump enough blood to supply the body’s needs. It is most often caused by a heart attack, years of high blood pressure or other injuries to the cardiovascular system and kills about 250,000 people in the U.S. each year, according to the Heart Failure Society of America. One of the most debilitating results of heart failure is shortness of breath and severe fatigue with exercise. But a new study by German scientists shows an ancient non-drug therapy — acupuncture — can dramatically improve exercise tolerance in patients suffering from chronic heart failure.

The new research, just published in the medical journal Heart, involved two groups of heart failure patients who were being treated with conventional medications and were in stable condition. Both groups of research subjects believed they were receiving ten authentic acupuncture treatments. However, only one group was given real acupuncture based on traditional Chinese medicine. These treatments focused on acupuncture points believed to boost general strength, influence the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and reduce inflammation markers. The other control group was treated with special placebo needles that only simulated acupuncture needle pricks but did not break the skin.

The results? After the real acupuncture treatments, the patients could walk far longer than those in the placebo group. What’s more, even though the measurable work capacity of the heart was found to be unchanged, the acupuncture treated heart patients recovered more quickly after exercise and reported they felt far less exhausted.

So what was the acupuncture actually doing to improve heart failure symptoms? The research team, headed by cardiologist Dr. Johannes Backs of Heidelberg University Hospital, pointed out in a press statement that previous studies have shown that the ability of heart failure patients to tolerate exercise is independent of the pumping function of the heart and appears to stem primarily from the muscles. Inflammation chemical messengers in the blood are increased in chronic heart failure and that’s what makes muscles tire easily, causing extreme fatigue.

“The blood level of a certain messenger, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF alpha) actually drops after the real acupuncture treatment. Since TNF alpha leads to a reduction of muscle mass and muscle strength among other things, this would explain the positive effect (of acupuncture) on skeletal muscle function,” Dr. Arnt Kristen, one of the authors of the study, said in a statement to the media.

The research team also noted that heart failure is much more complex than previously assumed and involves an imbalance of the autonomic nervous system and various nerve transmitters. “This is precisely where acupuncture may intervene, by bringing these processes back into balance — it influences the autonomic sympathetic nervous system (excitation), boosts the parasympathetic nervous system (relaxation), and also has an anti-inflammatory affect,” the researchers explained in the press statement.

click here to read full article

Adult Stem Cells Treat A Host Of Diseases

August 4, 2010

Natural News

By: Jonathan Benson

Doctors and researchers are hailing the successes of adult stem cell treatments, which are treating everything from heart disease and diabetes, to leukemia and blindness. Adult stem cells — the kind harvested from adult bone marrow and other tissues — can be injected into the body to help regrow and repair organs, tissues and skin.

Unlike controversial embryonic stem cells which are harvested from aborted, human embryos, adult stem cells are extracted from living, adult humans. And based on years of experience using innovative therapy treatments, adult stem cells are proving to be highly successful in treating otherwise “incurable” diseases.

Dr. Thomas Einhorn, chairman of orthopedic surgery at Boston University Medical Center, for example, successfully used a man’s pelvic bone stem cells to heal the same man’s broken ankle. By drawing bone marrow from the pelvis and condensing it into an injectable liquid, Einhorn was able to spur a complete ankle healing in four months.

Then, there is the case of a patient whose damaged vision was restored after receiving adult stem cell treatment.

A recent Denver Post article explains that adult stem cells are being used to treat people with leukemia, lymphoma, heart disease, multiple sclerosis and diabetes. The possibilities are endless with adult stem cells, say numerous doctors and medical experts.

Adult stem cells can literally turn into bones, blood vessels and tissues that are diseased or damaged, and they seem to adapt to whatever is needed by the body to heal a specific area.

“That gives adult stem cells really a very interesting and potent quality that embryonic stem cells don’t have,” explains Rocky Tuan from the University of Pittsburgh.

click here to read full article

Mainstream Media Slants Cancer Articles Towards Unrealistic Outcomes

July 30, 2010

Natural News

by David Gutierrez

“Very few news reports about cancer discuss death and dying, and even those that do generally do not mention palliative and hospice care,” the researchers wrote.

Palliative care is medical care designed to reduce suffering and improve quality of life but not to cure a disease. It is a major component of care for terminal or hard-to-cure cancers.

The researchers reviewed 436 articles that had appeared in the magazines Newsweek, Parade, People, Redbook and Time, as well as eight daily newspapers in Chicago, New York and Philadelphia. They found that while 32.1 percent of the articles focused on successful treatment of at least one patient, only 7.6 percent covered patients who died or were expected to. Only 2.2 percent addressed both positive and negative outcomes.

Of 216 people mentioned by name in the articles reviewed, 78.7 percent were survivors and only 21.3 percent died. Yet 50 percent of U.S. residents diagnosed with cancer do not survive the disease.

In addition, the researchers found that although many cancer treatments can have serious and even dangerous side effects, only 30 percent of the articles reviewed mentioned the possibility of adverse effects.

Fifty-seven percent of the articles covered only aggressive forms of cancer treatment, yet only 13.1 percent acknowledged that such treatments do not always result in improved survival. Only two of the articles (0.5 percent) mentioned end-of-life care, while only 11 (2.5 percent) mentioned both aggressive treatment and palliative care.

Such skewed coverage gives people a distorted image of their treatment options, the researchers warned.

“Unrealistic information may mislead the public about the trade-offs between attempts at heroic cures and hospice care,” they wrote.

Click here to read the full report

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