Sugar and Salt Infiltrate “Healthy” Snacks
March 15, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Many children’s snacks marketed as healthy alternatives are actually full of unhealthy ingredients like sugar, salt and fat, according to an analysis conducted by the consumer watchdog organization Which?.
“Parents should be able to pick out healthy products for their kids’ lunchboxes, but what you see isn’t always what you get,” said the group’s Martyn Hocking.
“Many [products] declare that they don’t contain additives, but don’t mention they’re also full of salt or sugar – giving the impression they’re healthier than they are,” the report reads.
For example, while Dairylea Lunchables Ham ‘n’ Cheese Crackers are advertised as providing half of the recommended daily calcium for a child, nowhere on the label or in promotional materials does the company acknowledge that the product is high in fat, saturated fat and salt — containing 1.8 grams of the maximum daily recommended 3 grams of the latter.
The report also singles out Kellogg’s Frosties Cereal and Milk bars, which the company promotes by saying, “”Fortified with vitamins, iron and calcium, now you can give your kids a great tasting snack that you can be sure won’t come back from school in the lunchbox!” Yet the company does not explain that the bars contain seven different sugar ingredients and thus are nearly one-third sugar by weight.
Other supposedly healthy products that are actually high in sugar include Robinson’s Fruit Shoot orange juice drinks, with nearly five teaspoons (23 grams) or sugar in a single 200 milliliter bottle; Fruit Factory fruit strings, with 13.7 grams of sugar in a 24 gram product; and Munch Bunch Double Up fromage frais, which contain only 2.25 grams of fruit puree but more than two teaspoons (12.4 grams) of sugar.
“The best way to beat the lunchbox baddies is by checking the nutrition and ingredient information,” Hocking said. “We’d also like to see the rules on health and nutrition claims made tougher, so there’s less confusion on the supermarket shelves.”
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McCain Wants Feds to Regulate Vitamins and Supplements
February 26, 2010 by JP
Filed under Government
February 26, 2010
JBS.org
By Ann Shibler
Most are familiar with those commercials on television promoting prescription drugs that supposedly offer relief from a variety of ailments, if one would only pressure one’s doctor to obtain them. They have become a source of great entertainment and amusement to some, the kicker coming at the end of each commercial when the FDA-approved medication’s obligatory litany of warnings and dangerous side effects is recited: “Tell your doctor if….” and “Side effects may include…..” Some of the warnings are mild like diarrhea and constipation, some list serious effects like cancer or tuberculosis, and others admit that sometimes even death can result.
The point here is that these are all FDA-approved drugs being advertised and used extensively. Drugs that can cause serious diseases like lymphoma. Drugs that can kill. The FDA’s dismal safety record is well documented; even PBS ran a Frontline special that investigated and exposed the FDA’s unsafe drug record, the influence of Big Pharma inside the FDA, and lack of long-term testing and medical review of many, many dangerous drugs. The FDA seldom removes a drug from the market even after it proves to be harmful or deadly, however they do post quarterly reports with details of the latest potentially dangerous side effects of drugs currently under investigation.
Nonetheless, Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants this same FDA, with its dismal safety record, to regulate dietary supplements. The Dietary Supplement Safety Act (DSSA), S. 3002 (text of this bill posted on Senator McCain’s website), that McCain has introduced with one cosponsor, would repeal key provisions of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) to “more effectively regulate dietary supplements that may pose safety risks unknown to consumers.”
Under attack by the DSSA is the once-protected field of supplements, as they have always been considered food. Potencies would have to be reduced to comply with what appears to be a plan modeled after the European Food Safety Authority. A new list of “Accepted Dietary Ingredients” would be “prepared, published, and maintained by the Secretary,” in the future. That’s a bit like being handed a blank check and told to fill it out later as one wishes. It could certainly be used to severely limit access to, and even production of, hundreds of life-sustaining and essential mineral, herb, and vitamin products.
All ingredients contained in each supplement would have to be disclosed at the time the company registers all of its “manufactured, packaged, held, distributed, labeled or licensed,” products with the FDA. An onerous burden would be placed on the shoulders of suppliers and retailers of dietary supplements, as they would have to “obtain written evidence” from the seller that the product is registered as required by law, and keep that documentation on file. Monetary penalties for non-compliance “may, in addition to other penalties imposed in this section, be fined not more than twice the gross profits or other proceeds derived from the manufacture, packaging, holding, distribution, labeling, or license of such dietary supplement.” Those are very broad dictates and most likely subject to even broader interpretation.
The McCain bill would change existing mandatory serious adverse reporting regulations, requiring minor adverse effects to be reported as well so that the FDA could arbitrarily pull supplements off the shelves or reclassify them as drugs. This immediate recall authority would be granted to the “Secretary upon determination,” that there is a “reasonable probability” that the product is “adulterated” or “misbranded.” Adulterated in this bill takes on a whole new expanded definition: “A dietary supplement which contains a new dietary ingredient shall be deemed adulterated under section 402(f) unless there is a history of use or other evidence of safety.” The development of new products that contain newly discovered nutritional components may be entirely quashed.
The hypocritical contrast between the regulation of drugs that can kill and the proposed hyper-regulation for food products — vitamins, minerals, herbs — is as plain as the nose on everyone’s face.
A Pandora’s box of intended and unintended legal complications and government harassment of nutritional supplement manufacturers and sellers could very well be unleashed if this bill is passed. There are already existing laws on the books that protect consumers from misbranded, fraudulent, or contaminated products. Granting the FDA additional regulatory authority over nutritional supplements seems a bit suspicious, especially considering the influence the enormous pharmaceutical industry has wielded over the research, development, and approval process inside the FDA. Let’s face it, the FDA has been no friend and often has been positively antagonistic toward the nutritional supplement industry. Therefore one wouldn’t set the wolf to guarding the sheep without dire consequences.
In this perverted overly-regulated country, food is now toxic, and drugs and chemicals are safe for ingestion, no matter the harm that results. This inversion should remind us that those who best have the consumers health and safety interests at heart are the consumers themselves. It is big government that has a proven track record of not protecting the public. And it is big government that is seeking to take away yet another individual freedom, the right to choose one’s own treatment. (Where is the pro-choice crowd on this one; the ones that claim, “my body, my choice?”)
Contact your federal legislators and urge them not to cosponsor, support, or vote for such a power-grabbing, bill. Let them know Americans want unrestricted access to nutritional supplements, and the government out of their health choices.
Sen. McCain described his bill as a “no brainer.” For constitutionalists it’s a “no brainer” that it should be rejected for the dictatorial, power-grabbing, choice-limiting attack on the nutritional marketplace and individual freedoms that it is.
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 2-10-10
Today, Kevin passes on the wisdom of a member of Bilderberg. Find out what is in store for 2010 and when the economic version of hurricane Katrina will hit America. Kevin also investigates how hard federal employees really work for your well-being and how much of your money is being thrown away.
The Near Extinction of Social Security
The Wages of Recession
Terrorists Now Required To Register
Airport Body Scan Radiation Risk
Nicotine Drugs Overhyped
Longer Needles Needed For Obese
Prescription Drugs are the New Crack Cocaine
Natural Health Remedies Removed From Canadian Shelves
GQ Has Jumped on The ‘Hazards of Cell Phones’ Wagon
Plus, professional astrologer and author, Sioux Rose, gives you her predictions for the world in 2010 and explains how the ‘Moon Dance’ affects your body and soul. Click here for more information on how to purchase her books and how to get your personal astrology reading today!
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The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-27-10
Today, Kevin explains how the government is using the mind as its biggest weapon and how the CIA is embedded within every aspect of your life!
Glacier Scientists Knew Data Wasn’t Verified
That New-Car Smell May Be Toxic
Zero Deaths Caused By Vitamins & Herbs
Alex Jones & KT Join Forces To Expose Corruption
Plus, Eddie Freeman of eXfuze stopped by to explain how you, too, can become wealthy from the comfort of your own home. Click here to get rich today!
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The Debate Over Vitamin and Supplement Regulations
January 21,2010
Natural News
By Mike Adams
To hear opponents of natural medicine say it, vitamins and herbs are extremely dangerous for your health. They should be regulated, we’re told, because they’re so dangerous!
Statistics from the U.S. National Poison Data System prove otherwise. According to a 174-page report just published, the number of people killed in 2009 across America by vitamins, minerals, amino acids or herbal supplements is exactly zero.
Compare that to the 100,000 (or so) Americans killed each year by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals — and that’s even according to studies published in JAMA. Also consider the thousands of women harmed or killed by medically-unjustified cancer treatments following false positives from faulty mammograms. And don’t forget about the more than 16,500 Americans killed each year from internal bleeding caused by NSAIDs (over-the-counter painkillers).
As the July 1998 issue of The American Journal of Medicine explains:
“Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone.” (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)
So if NSAIDs alone are killing 16,500 people a year (or likely much more now, as use of these drugs has risen significantly since 1998), and nutritional supplements are killing zero people a year, why do health regulators try to scare everybody about vitamins being so “dangerous?”
Pharmaceuticals, meanwhile, are openly allowed to be prescribed for off-label use, meaning that doctors can prescribe them for diseases and health conditions for which they’ve never even been tested!
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s clearly a war against nutrition — a war against natural medicine — being waged by the health regulators of the world who are conspiring with Big Pharma to keep the people trapped in a state of malnutrition (all while profiting from their disease by selling them more patented pharmaceuticals).
The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service published a full article on this issue. Here’s what they had to say about the safety of nutritional supplements and the misguided attempts by world governments to limit or outlaw many supplements.
Dr. Bob Marshall – Quantum Nutrition Center
Click the picture or link below to hear Kevin’s interview Dr. Bob Marshall, the founder of the Quantum Nutrition Center.
The Kevin Trudeau Show: 1-19-10
Today, Kevin is back LIVE!!! Find out why Kindles might possibly be the scariest things he’s ever seen and why people are starting to get violent over a lack of fast food.
Get the news you won’t hear from the mainstream media!
FDA Warns Drug Companies for Misleading Public
FDA Will Not Regulate BPA
7 Foods You Should Never Eat
This is What Schools Are Serving Your Children
Putin Bans U.S. Imported Chickens
Popular Drugs Recalled For Mold
Side-Effects of Pfizer’s Quit-Smoking Drug
Psychiatrist Wrote 1,000 Prescriptions Per Week
Plus, Dr. Bob Marshall of Quantum Nutrition Center stopped by to explain why vitamins and mineral supplements from health stores are so toxic to your body.
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Pomegranate Reduces Risks of Breast Cancer
January 8, 2010
Reuters
By Xavier Briand
An acid found in pomegranates appears to block aromatase, an enzyme that converts androgen to estrogen, a hormone that plays a role in the development of breast cancer, the researchers wrote in the journal Cancer Prevention Research.
“We identified some of these chemicals in pomegranates that actually have properties that can suppress aromatase,” researcher Shiuan Chen, of the City of Hope cancer research and treatment center in Duarte, California, said in a telephone interview.
Many women who have had breast cancer take medicines called aromatase inhibitors — such as Pfizer’s Aromasin, Novartis’ Femara and AstraZeneca Plc’s Arimidex — to keep estrogen from feeding tumors.
Chen and colleagues studied whether compounds, or phytochemicals, in pomegranates can suppress aromatase and ultimately block cancer growth. They found that 10 natural compounds in the fruit may potentially prevent estrogen-related breast cancer.
Chen said the compounds would not be a replacement for aromatase inhibitors.
“We do not recommend people start taking this as a replacement for the AI’s,” Chen said. “They (pomegranate compounds) are not as potent as the real drugs so we think that the interest probably is more on the prevention end rather than in a therapeutic purpose.”
Other researchers not associated with the study told the journal that the results are promising, and suggested more studies involving animals and humans were needed to confirm the findings.
“It’s not clear that these levels could be achieved in animals or in humans because the (compounds) are not well absorbed into blood when provided in the diet,” said Gary Stoner of Ohio State University.
Dr. Powel Brown, an oncologist at the University of Texas, said in a statement that future studies should focus on testing pomegranate juice for its effect on estrogen levels, menopausal symptoms, breast density or even as a cancer preventive agent.
More than 400,000 women die from breast cancer globally every year. About 75 percent of breast cancers are estrogen-receptor positive, meaning they are fed by estrogen.
Previous research has shown that pomegranate juice is rich in antioxidants — vitamins and other substances — that may help prevent diseases such as cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s disease.
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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.
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Meditation Helps Reduce Heart Disease Deaths
December 28, 2009
Natural News
By E. Huff
The Medical College of Wisconsin in conjunction with Maharishi University in Iowa funded a study about the effects of transcendental meditation on health. Researchers discovered that over the course of nine years, the group assigned to meditate saw a 47 percent reduction in strokes, heart attacks and deaths.
Two groups of African-Americans were assigned either to meditate or to make certain lifestyle changes. The group told to meditate was instructed to do so twice a day for 20 minutes. The other group was given instruction on traditional methods to reduce the risk of heart disease. After nine years, 20 incidences of stroke, heart attack, or death occurred in the meditation group while 31 incidences occurred in the health education group.
Dr. Robert Schneider, lead author of the study and the director of the Centre for Natural Medicine and Prevention at Maharishi University, stated that the meditation group experienced an overall reduction in blood pressure as well as a significant reduction in psychological stress. Supporters of transcendental meditation claim that the study proves the long-term positive effects of the practice on those who participate in it.
Researchers noted, however, that among those in the health education group, very few followed the instructions and made any sort of significant changes in their lifestyles. Such lifestyle changes may have proven more effective if group participants would have followed the instructions in the same way as those in the meditation group did. For this reason, the study does not accurately capture the positive benefits of lifestyle changes apart from meditation.
Because transcendental meditation involves spiritual practices that conflict with the beliefs of various other faiths, some may wish to pursue other avenues of achieving better health and preventing the onset of heart disease without violating their convictions.
CoQ10, omega-3 essential fatty acids (EFAs), vitamin C, B vitamins, and vitamin D are a few of the many vitamins and nutrients that work to maintain heart health. Blueberries are an excellent source of pterostilebene, a compound identified by the U.S Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help prevent heart disease and type-2 diabetes.
Resveratrol, another powerful antioxidant found in the skins of both grapes and blueberries has received a lot of attention recently for its powerful effects in bolstering cardiovascular health. A Harvard Medical School study showed that high doses of resveratrol given to obese mice allowed them to live long, healthy lives despite eating diets high in fat.
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