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Watch out for those Halloween treats! Eating too much black licorice can be bad for your heart, FDA warns

It's been a favourite of children for generations - and some sweet-toothed adults too - but now black licorice comes with a health warning.

The Food and Drug Administration says black licorice can lead to heart arrhythmias, irregular heartbeats, and other health problems when consumed by adults in large quantities.

The FDA issued the warning in its pre-Halloween alert about over-indulgence of candy.

Food experts says that eating two ounces of black licorice every day for two weeks can actually set the heart racing or pounding out of sync in some people.

The cause is the ingredient named glycyrrhizin, which is what gives licorice its sweet flavour.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow is a professor of cardiovascular medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, School of Medicine.

He said that glycyrrhizin causes the kidneys to excrete potassium.
Low levels of potassium can make the heart beat dangerously fast or irregular.

Glycyrrhizin also leads to salt and water retention which can be a problem for people with heart failure or high blood pressure, he added.

In certain parts of the world, the chewy stuff is prescribed to treat everything from heartburn to bronchitis to viral infections, msnbc.com reports.

But the FDA alert also noted that there has never been a study proving that licorice can cure anything.

No magic formula: Black licorice is revered in some cultures for its healing properties, but the FDA says there is no evidence it can cure anything

Licorice is a bioactive food, which means it can alter metabolic processes in the body.

Mr Fonarow said that you have to be careful mixing licorice with medications.

He said: 'Licorice can be a problem for people taking diuretics, digoxin and laxatives.'

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The combination of the candy with these medications can drive potassium down to dangerously low levels, he added.

Licorice can drive up blood pressure in women taking oral contraceptives because of the potassium effect, previous studies have shown.

While the health risks are more applicable to adults, the FDA says that young and old alike should be careful about how much black licorice they consume at one time.

If you do get an irregular heart rhythm or muscle weakness, 'stop eating it immediately and contact your healthcare provider,' the FDA says.

The new health ticking timebomb: Young adults who are ‘picture of health’ at risk of clogged arteries

A high proportion of 'apparently healthy' young adults are at risk of clogged arteries, a study shows.

Researchers at the University of Quebec have discovered that a build-up of fatty deposits in the walls of the arteries known as atherosclerosis, is fast becoming a 'ticking timebomb'.

The disorder, which often remains undetected, can eventually lead to serious health complications including heart disease, stroke, or even premature death.

A study has revealed that a build-up of fatty deposits in the walls of the arteries known as atherosclerosis, is fast becoming a 'ticking time bomb'

Researchers worked with 168 volunteers aged 18-35 for the study.

Those who took part had no known risk factors such as family history of premature heart disease, diabetes, obesity, smoking, high blood cholesterol, or high blood pressure.

Government Data Proves Raw Milk is Safe

Raw Milk Risk Extremely Small Compared to Risk of Other Foods

WASHINGTON, DC June 22, 2011: Data gleaned from U.S. government websites and government-sanctioned reports on foodborne illnesses show that the risk of contracting foodborne illness by consuming raw milk is much smaller than the risk of becoming ill from other foods, according to research by Dr. Ted Beals, MD, appearing in the Summer, 2011 issue of Wise Traditions, the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation.

“At last we have access to the numbers we need to determine the risk of consuming raw milk on a per-person basis,” says Sally Fallon Morell, president of the Weston A. Price Foundation, a non-profit nutrition education foundation that provides information on the health benefits of raw, whole milk from pastured cows.

The key figure that permits a calculation of raw milk illnesses on a per-person basis comes from a 2007 Centers for Disease Control (CDC) FoodNet survey, which found that 3.04 percent of the population consumes raw milk, or about 9.4 million people, based on the 2010 census. This number may in fact be larger in 2011 as raw milk is growing in popularity. For example, sales of raw milk increased 25 percent in California in 2010, while sales of pasteurized milk declined 3 percent. MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Experts: New Studies Bashing Supplements Are Flawed

Two widely reported studies claiming nutritional supplements may be harmful are based on flawed science and reach unsubstantiated conclusions, top research experts tell Newsmax Health.

Gross abnormalities in the way data was handled in both cases has some in the natural health community questioning whether the skewed results stem from sloppy research, or are part of a continuing government and corporate effort to discredit vitamins and supplements.

The separate, unrelated studies were released early last week and quickly made headlines around the world.

Read more: Experts: New Studies Bashing Supplements Are Flawed
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

Teen Night Workers at Risk of MS

Working night shifts as a teenager is not only exhausting; it also significantly increases the chance of developing multiple sclerosis later in life, a Swedish study published Tuesday showed.

"Our analysis revealed a significant association between working (night) shifts at a young age and occurrence of MS," Anna Hedstroem, who headed the team of Karolinska Institute researchers, said in a statement.

For the study, published in the Annals of Neurology, the researchers combed through data from two Swedish population-based studies:

Read more: Teen Night Workers at Risk of MS
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

Why High-Fructose Corn Syrup is killing you

Visit the Mercola Video Library

Story at-a-glance

Fifty percent of all Americans over the age of two consume sugary drinks on a daily basis
The metabolic effects of a calorie from fructose are completely different from a calorie from other nutrients, including other sugars, and these metabolic differences explain its devastating health effects
Fructose turns into fat much faster and more efficiently than other sugars

By Dr. Mercola

Fructose consumption rates continue to rise worldwide, despite the fact that a growing collection of studies clearly demonstrate that consuming excessive amounts of fructose (primarily in the form of high-fructose corn syrup) is the fastest way to destroy your health.

Half of the U.S. population over the age of two now consumes sugary drinks on a daily basis, and that's just the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Unnecessary calories from fructose-laden drinks and processed foods of all kinds can quickly add several pounds a year to your weight and rob you of your health. Over the last several years, fructose has been revealed as a major culprit or exacerbating factor in:

Elevated blood pressure, and nocturnal hypertension	Insulin resistance / Type 2 Diabetes	Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD)
Elevated uric acid levels, which can result in gout and/or metabolic syndrome	Accelerated progression of chronic kidney disease	Intracranial atherosclerosis (narrowing and hardening of the arteries in your skull)
Exacerbated cardiac abnormalities if you're deficient in copper	Genotoxic effect on the colon	Metastasis in breast cancer patients and pancreatic cancer growth
Tubulointerstitial injury (injury to the tubules and interstitial tissue of your kidney)	Obesity and related health problems and diseases	Arthritis

A Calorie is Not a Calorie...

Dr. Lustig, a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at UC San Francisco, has been on the forefront of the movement to educate people about the health hazards of sugar, and I highly recommend viewing his presentation, The Trouble with Fructose, above. He's a compelling speaker and does an excellent job of laying down the facts in an easy to understand manner.

One of the primary problems with fructose is that it is isocaloric but not isometabolic, meaning that while you can have the same amount of calories from fructose or any other nutrient, including glucose, the metabolic effect will be entirely different despite the identical calorie count. This explains why calorie counting doesn't work. You simply have to take the quality or source of the calories into account in order to successfully lose weight.

Fructose metabolism is quite different from glucose (dextrose) metabolism in that it places the entire burden on your liver, and this accounts for many of its devastating health effects. Furthermore, people consume fructose in enormous quantities these days, which has made the negative effects that much more profound. Without getting into the very complex biochemistry of carbohydrate metabolism, it is important to have a general understanding of how your body handles these sugars.

Below is a summary of the main differences between glucose and fructose metabolism, which explains why I keep repeating that fructose is by far the worst type of sugar there is:

After eating fructose, 100 percent of the metabolic burden rests on your liver. But with glucose, your liver has to break down only 20 percent.

Every cell in your body, including your brain, utilizes glucose. Therefore, much of it is "burned up" immediately after you consume it. By contrast, fructose is turned into free fatty acids (FFAs), VLDL (the damaging form of cholesterol), and triglycerides, which get stored as fat.

The fatty acids created during fructose metabolism accumulate as fat droplets in your liver and skeletal muscle tissues, causing insulin resistance and non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD). Insulin resistance progresses to metabolic syndrome and type II diabetes.

Fructose is the most lipophilic carbohydrate. In other words, fructose converts to activated glycerol (g-3-p), which is directly used to turn FFAs into triglycerides. The more g-3-p you have, the more fat you store. Glucose does not do this.

When you eat 120 calories of glucose, less than one calorie is stored as fat. 120 calories of fructose results in 40 calories being stored as fat. Consuming fructose is essentially consuming fat!

The metabolism of fructose by your liver creates a long list of waste products and toxins, including a large amount of uric acid, which drives up blood pressure and causes gout.

Glucose suppresses the hunger hormone ghrelin and stimulates leptin, which suppresses your appetite. Fructose has no effect on ghrelin and interferes with your brain's communication with leptin, resulting in overeating.

Interestingly enough, glucose has been found to further accelerate fructose absorption, so when you MIX glucose and fructose together, you absorb more fructose than if you consumed fructose alone! This is yet another important piece of information for those who want to make a better effort at controlling their weight.

Anyone who still tries to tell you that "sugar is sugar" in an effort to defend high fructose corn syrup is seriously unaware of the current research, which clearly demonstrates that there are major differences in how your body processes these sugars. The bottom line is: fructose leads to increased belly fat, insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome and diabetes, along with a long list of associated chronic diseases.

Should Fructose be Government Controlled?

The second video above is another presentation by Dr. Lustig called "How to Have a Sweet Ending," given at the UCSF Center for Obesity, Assessment, Study and Treatment. In it, he lays out his ideas for how to curb the consumption of sugar. ccording to Dr. Lustig, efforts at educating the public have failed, and he believes the government must intervene, and essentially force the people to change their ways. In response, De Coster, writing on LewRockwell states:

"He believes that a massive policy of taxation, regulation, and interdiction, at both a societal and an individual level, is necessary to force the reduction of sugar consumption. He has, in fact, called for a global policy to eradicate sugar addiction. Lustig is not calling for a few misplaced laws, here and there, to protect you from yourself. Rather, he is trying to justify a global crusade against freedom of food choice on the basis that "our toxic environment cannot be changed without government/societal intervention."

Among Lustig's suggested interventions are controls on advertising and marketing, government counter-campaigns (taxpayer-funded, government propaganda), and raising prices via actual price fixing and/or taxation. Moreover, he advocates a policy that mimics the iron law of alcohol policy – reducing the availability of sugar-based products by way of age limits for purchase ("carding kids for Coke"), licensing and zoning controls on sales outlets, and regulating the hours of operation and density of fast food outlets through a series of government-issued permits."

Is government intervention the solution to this problem? What do you think? I'd love to hear what you think on this issue, so please do share your thoughts and ideas in the Vital Votes forum below.

Personally, I have to agree with De Coster that Dr. Lustig's ideas sound a lot like the invocation of the new Food Safety Modernization Act, which stands poised to do far more harm than good. I think there's a real danger in trying to regulate or tax ANY kind of food out of existence. After all, it's not the sugar in and of itself that is toxic—it's the MASSIVE doses that people consume, and honestly... personal responsibility and educated choice needs to enter the picture sooner or later. Your diet, after all, is front and center when it comes to taking control of your health, which is something everyone needs to do if they truly want to live a long and healthy life.

I believe the current situation can change, but enough people need to understand the simple truths of healthy eating and refuse to buy sugar-laden processed foods and pass on the daily sodas. Earlier this year, Dr. David Ludwig, a Harvard-affiliated pediatrician wrote a commentary in JAMA, offering his suggestions on how to turn this disease-producing diet trend around. These are reasonable ideas, but I don't think we can sit around and wait for government to fix this mess. Instead, do what you can to help educate others

His suggestions include:

Restructuring agricultural subsidies

Regulating the marketing of food to children

Adequately funding school lunch programs

Using existing and future technologies to allow the food industry to retain profits while producing more healthful products

How to Reverse the Obesity- and Related Chronic Disease Trends

I believe there are two primary dietary recommendations that could make all the difference in the world for most people, leading to a swift reversal in the horrific disease trends we're currently facing:

Severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and

Increasing healthy fat consumption

I recently wrote about this recommendation in-depth, so for more details, please see This Substance Fools Your Metabolism - and Tricks Your Body into Gaining Pounds. If you want to shed excess pounds and maintain a healthy weight long-term, and RADICALLY reduce (and in many cases virtually eliminate) your risk of diabetes, heart disease and cancer, then get serious about restricting your consumption of fructose to no more than 25 grams per day, with a maximum of 15 grams a day from fresh fruit. If you're already overweight, or have any of these diseases or are at high risk of any of them, then you're probably better off cutting that down to 10-15 grams per day; fruit included.

That's the first step. My nutrition plan lays out the rest in a simple to follow, step-by-step manner. If you haven't taken the time to review it yet, I highly recommend doing so. You have nothing to lose, and everything to gain. And the information is free.

Source: Lew Rockwell July 23, 2011

Take Turmeric to Avoid Pancreatic Cancer that Killed Steve Jobs

The death of Steve Jobs last week added yet another name to the list of celebrities who have died from pancreatic cancer, a stellar group which includes Patrick Swayze, Michael Landon, Luciano Pavarotti, and Jack Benny. Pancreatic cancer is the fourth leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the United States and has the highest mortality rate of all cancers, killing 95 percent of its victims, according to the American Cancer Society.

"It's a dismal, deadly disease," surgical oncologist Dr. Robert Wascher tells Newsmax Health. "But like other forms of cancer, up to 65 percent can be prevented by relatively modest diet and lifestyle changes," says Wascher, author of "A Cancer Prevention Guide for the Human Race."

Read more: Take Turmeric to Avoid Pancreatic Cancer that Killed Steve Jobs
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

When Prostate Testing Does More Harm Than Good

Terry Dyroff's PSA blood test led to a prostate biopsy that didn't find cancer but gave him a life-threatening infection.

In the emergency room several days later, "I didn't sit, I just laid on the floor, I felt so bad," said Dyroff, 65, a retired professor from Silver Spring, Md. "I honestly thought I might be dying."

Donald Weaver was a healthy 74-year-old Kansas farmer until doctors went looking for prostate cancer. A PSA (prostate-specific antigen) test led to a biopsy and surgery, then a heart attack, organ failure, and a coma. His grief-stricken wife took him off life support.

"He died of unnecessary preventive medicine," said his nephew, Dr. Jay Siwek, vice chairman of family medicine at Georgetown University. "Blood tests can kill you."

Read more: When Prostate Testing Does More Harm Than Good
Important: At Risk For A Heart Attack? Find Out Now.

'Good' cholesterol reduces stroke risk in diabetes patients

Diabetes patients whose high-density lipoproteins (HDL) levels decrease have more heart attacks and strokes, according to researchers.

Researchers in the US have found that increasing levels of "good" cholesterol reduces the risk for heart attack and stroke among patients with diabetes.

Patients whose high-density lipoproteins (HDL) levels decreased had more heart attacks and strokes, according the researchers.

The observational study, one of the largest of its kind, examined the medical records of more than 30,000 patients with diabetes.

"Our study adds to the growing body of evidence that raising HDL levels may be an important strategy for reducing heart attack risk," said study lead author Gregory Nichols, PhD, senior investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Portland, Ore.

"This is promising news for patients with diabetes, who already have an increased risk for heart problems. Raising their good cholesterol may be one more way for these patients to reduce their risk," said Suma Vupputuri, PhD, co-author and investigator with the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research in Atlanta. MORE>>>>>>>>

Restless legs syndrome may raise high blood pressure risk

Study shows that middle-aged women with RLS, a sensory motor disorder characterized by intense leg sensations, have higher risk of developing high blood pressure.

New reseach from the US suggests that middle-aged women with Restless Legs Syndrome (RLS) have a higher risk of developing high blood pressure.

RLS is a common yet under-recognized sensory motor disorder characterized by intense, unpleasant leg sensations, and an irresistible urge to move the legs.

According to the report in Hypertension: Journal of the American Heart Association, women who reported five to 14 incidences of RLS each month had a 26 percent prevalence of high blood pressure.

Those who suffered more than 15 incidences of RLS had a 33 percent prevalence of high blood pressure.

This is compared to a 21.4 percent prevalence of high blood pressure among those women who had no RLS symptoms. MORE>>>>>