What you need to know about GMO "Franken-Foods" and where to get more information

Dees Illustration

Dr. Debra F. Hobbins

Unfiltered News

Genetically-modified foods (GMOs) have been commercially available since the first transgenic tomato was approved in 1994. It’s estimated that 70-75% of supermarket processed foods—soda, soup, corn chips, veggie burgers, pizza, baby food and infant formula—contain GMO ingredients of which we are completely unaware. GMOs approved for human consumption include: corn, rice, soy, wheat, alfalfa, flax, barley, apples, papaya, potatoes, peas, tomatoes, sweet peppers, peanuts, canola oil, cow, pig, cow’s milk. A cow was recently developed to produce human breast milk.

The WHO stated that Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs) are "organisms in which the genetic material (DNA) has been altered in such a way that does not occur naturally." Genetic engineering, biotechnology or recombinant DNA technology are other GMO terms. This technology consists of randomly inserting genetic fragments of DNA from one organism to another, usually from a different species, to modify plants, grains, and animals. These different species have included viruses, bacteria, parasites, grains, flowers, animals, and humans.

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Bedbugs with 'superbug' germ found

Bed Bugs Wikimedia Commons image

Mike Stobbe, Medical Writer
AP/USA Today

Canadian scientists detected drug-resistant MRSA bacteria in bedbugs from three hospital patients from a downtrodden Vancouver neighborhood.

Bedbugs have not been known to spread disease, and there's no clear evidence that the five bedbugs found on the patients or their belongings had spread MRSA or a second less dangerous drug-resistant germ.

However, bedbugs can cause itching that can lead to excessive scratching. That can cause breaks in the skin that make people more susceptible to these bacteria, noted Dr. Marc Romney, one of the study's authors.

The study is small and very preliminary, "But it's an intriguing finding" that needs to be further researched, said Romney, medical microbiologist at St. Paul's Hospital in Vancouver.

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5 Simple Ways to Eat Like a Human

Fresh Fruit and Vegetables Wiki image

Activist Post

What could be more important than what we put into our bodies? Yeah, yeah that's how all these preachy "health" posts begin. But really, stop and think about what you eat and absorb, and ask yourself on the most basic level if it is fit for a human being.

How many levels of processing is required from the food's raw materials to get it to the form that you call it food? Does it have engineered chemicals designed to glue it together? What do these chemicals do to the human body? Ask why do you eat what you eat? Is it for comfort, convenience, conformity, value, or genuine nutrition?

If we're honest with ourselves, we all have food vices or desires that may push us outside the realm of human food. It's also the nature of our society of unlimited colorful packaging and intense marketing -- not to mention the addictive quality of Doritos and Diet Coke.

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rBGH Milk Production: Animal Cruelty, Genetically Modified Hormones and E. Coli

Updated excerpt from Codex Alimentarius -- The End of Health Freedom

Brandon Turbeville

Activist Post

With the current controversy surrounding the government crackdown on wholesome, organic, and locally produced milk, it is important to understand the products we are being pushed toward, as well as those we are being pushed away from. While the benefits of organic and raw milk is largely undeniable when compared to the industrially produced substitute, the dangers of the latter are not discussed quite as frequently. Of these dangers, rBGH is a central figure.

Recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone (also known as Recombinant Bovine Somatotropin) is a genetically engineered hormone that is injected into cows for the purpose of increasing milk production.[1] It is derived from bovine somatotropin (bST) which is a hormone that is produced naturally in the cattle by the pituitary gland. This hormone is very important for growth and development, as well as other functions of the animal’s body.

Sometime in the 1930s it was discovered that injecting cattle with bST increased milk production. However, because bST is produced in the animal itself, the only source available was in the pituitary glands of the slaughtered cattle. Genetic engineering thus came into play.

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Coca-Cola Sides With Regulatory Agencies Over Consumer Concern About Bisphenol A

John Galt

Activist Post

Corporate-regulatory lockstep is a growing trend that has been made most obvious through the recent EPA cover-up of the ongoing impact of the Fukushima disaster. However, the nefarious connections between large corporations and regulatory agencies are patently obvious across the board.

The latest example of disregard for public health in the face of overwhelming scientific evidence of guaranteed harm comes from Coca-Cola. Despite concerns from 26 percent of its own shareholders, as well as shareholder advocacy groups and the world's largest pension fund, Coca-Cola chiefs said, "it backs the consensus among regulatory agencies across the globe that BPA in epoxy linings does not pose a human health risk."

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Each human has one of only three gut ecosystems

You're probably the member of a club you didn't even know existed. According to research published this week, we all have one of three ecosystems of bugs in our guts. New Scientist explores what this surprising discovery means, and how our internal fauna might affect our everyday lives.

Why might the types of bugs we carry be important?
We think of our bodies as our own, but actually only a tenth of our cells are human. The rest are all hitch-hikers, mainly harmless bacteria that have evolved with us.

There are 100,000 billion of these bacteria in our guts, where they play a crucial role in our health by helping to break down food and convert it into energy, and by excluding bacteria that are harmful to us. Some are even said to make us happier. In exchange, we provide shelter and a share of our food.

The types of bugs that call us home could explain differences in our ability to digest food and resist disease, and how we react to drugs.

Isn't it surprising that all humans share only three predominant gut-bug ecosystems, given our diverse diets, lifestyles and gene-profiles?
Yes, and even the researchers who made the discovery are mystified. "At the moment, it's purely an observation, but the signal is there, and it's strong and it's real," says Jeroen Raes of the Flanders Institute of Biology in Brussels, Belgium, a co-leader of the team in question. "We're still guessing the implications."

How did they find out?
Raes and his colleagues analysed DNA in faeces from 33 individuals from Japan, Denmark, the US, France and Spain. By comparing the DNA sequences with publicly available reference sequences for 1500 bacterial and other species, they excluded all human DNA and identified as many bacteria as they could.

What did they find?
To their amazement, they found that broadly, people's gut bugs segregated into three distinct "enterotypes", or ecosystems, not unlike the way that all humans share only a handful of blood types.

Isn't this a big conclusion for such a small sample?
Maybe, but they have gone on to confirm that the pattern is repeated in larger groups of people, including a study of 154 people from the US and 85 from Denmark.

Surely the type of ecosystem you have depends on what you eat?
Wrong, it seems. The other surprise was that the ecosystem you have doesn't seem to depend on how old you are, where you live in the world or your genetic make-up either. "We found that people from Japan and France, for example, might have ecosystems more similar to one another than to those of their compatriots, even though they have very different diets," says Raes.

So what are these three ecosystems?
The researchers have named them "bacteriode", "prevotella" and "ruminococcus", to reflect the species that dominate in each. People with a bacteriode ecosystem have a bias towards bacteria that get most of their energy from carbohydrates and proteins. Prevotellas specialise in digesting sugar-covered proteins in mucin, the mixture of viscous proteins in the gut – an ability shared by people with a ruminococcus ecosystem.

Does it matter which one you've got?
The only difference identified was in the vitamins produced. Bacteriodes had a higher proportion of bacteria that make high amounts of vitamins C, B2, B5 and H, and prevotellan guts had more bacteria that make vitamin B1 and folic acid. The implications for health are not yet clear, however.

Could this explain why some people may be more prone to obesity?
The researchers did find a correlation between obesity and the abundance of bacteria that extract energy rapidly from food for their own use. Raes is currently looking into this in greater detail in a study of 100 people, to see if any strong links emerge.

Why might there be only three ecosystems?
Raes admits he has no answer yet, but says one possibility is that our gut environment is governed by our immune system, by blood type or the "major histocompatibility complex", which dictates which blood type you are.

A second possibility is the length of time it takes for food to pass through our digestive system. If it goes slowly, it gives opportunities for a more diverse range of species to grow and thrive.

What about links between our health and gut bacteria – might the identification of the three ecosystems shed light on disease?
It has been suggested that eating sushi might help us to get energy from food, and taking probiotics could help babies who suffer from eczema. It has even been suggested that gut bacteria has a role in Crohn's disease and autism.

Raes says that there are plenty of studies in mice showing that diet can alter gut bacteria. The hope is that future research will reveal more about the possibility of links between our enterotype and conditions such as obesity and diabetes.

Journal reference: Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09944

The Health Dangers of Table Salt

Wiki Commons Image

By Dr. Edward Group
Global Healing Center

Salt is a wonderful thing. Whether from the far reaches of the Himalayan rock mountains, to the depths of the oceans floor, salt is a beautiful and necessary mineral. It’s an important element in keeping the proper mineral balance in practically all of the earth’s living creatures.

In fact, every cell in our body needs salt. Our bodies rely on salt to keep good bone density, proper circulation and stabilized blood sugar levels. But how could something so wonderful and natural become a poison? Here are a few common misconceptions and dangers of salt.

Salt vs. Naturally Occurring Sodium

“Table Salt” is a manufactured form of sodium called sodium chloride. While similar to naturally occurring rock, crystal, or sea salt, table salt merely mimics the taste of these elements.

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Trying to slim? Start the day with a seaweed shake that will suppress hunger pangs

Filling: Those who drank a chocolate milkshake with the seaweed extract felt almost a third less hungry by lunchtime that those who had a normal milkshake

A seaweed shake could help you lose weight – and not just because the thought of it is enough to put you off your food.

Scientists have found that adding the seaweed extract alginate to a chocolate milkshake suppresses hunger pangs.

Men and women who drank the alginate-based drink for breakfast felt almost a third less hungry by lunchtime than those who had a normal milkshake.

The finding, reported in the journal Obesity, paves the way for a range of foods that keep us feeling fuller for longer and make it easier to resist snacks between meals.

Researcher Harry Peters said: ‘Many different diets and diet programmes can be effective in reducing weight.

‘However, many subjects fail to adhere to these diets and the reduction in weight is therefore not achieved or maintained.

‘Delaying the return of hunger after consumption can potentially increase consumer satisfaction with weight control programmes and reduced-energy food products and encourage long-term compliance with a reduced-energy diet.’

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1379450/Trying-slim-Start-day-seaweed-shake.html#ixzz1KSPQunVN

Why Skinny Moms Sometimes Produce Fat Children

Obesity is on the rise in nations across the globe, and more than diet and genetics may be to blame. A new study suggests a third factor is at work: DNA-binding molecules that can be passed down from mother to child in the womb. The finding could explain why what a woman eats while pregnant can sometimes influence the weight of her child—even into adulthood.

Scientists first began to suspect that a mother’s diet could affect the weight of her offspring in 1976. Studying the Dutch famine of 1945, when the German army cut off food supplies to western Holland, researchers found that people born to mothers who were pregnant during the famine were more likely to be obese as adults. Rat studies at the University of Auckland in New Zealand bolstered the findings: mothers who were undernourished during pregnancy gave rise to obese adults. One possible explanation is that the moms are somehow programming their children to live in a food-scarce world by increasing their appetites and ability to store fat—and if the children grow up with plenty to eat, they become overweight.

In the past few years, researchers have begun to suspect that so-called epigenetic modifications are behind this programming. Often these are chemical tags called methyl groups that can bind to DNA, where they act a bit like a volume knob, turning up or down the activity of certain genes. In a 2005 study at the University of Auckland, for example, researchers found that they could prevent obesity in rats born to starved mothers by removing methyl tags from their DNA. A recent survey of methyl groups on the DNA of adult people has also suggested that these tags are linked to obesity. But in that study, the authors could not determine whether the epigenetic changes were a consequence of being overweight or the cause of the obesity in the first place.

To determine if epigenetic changes can trigger obesity in humans, researchers at the University of Southampton in the United Kingdom and colleagues analyzed the diets of 78 pregnant British women using diet questionnaires that were crosschecked by blood tests that detect the residues of certain foods. When the babies were born, the researchers extracted DNA from their umbilical cords. Nine years later, they measured the body fat of the children using a low-dose x-ray scan. Infants with more methylation of a gene known as retinoid X receptor-α (RXRα), which codes for a protein involved in the development of fat cells and fat metabolism, were more likely to be obese at age 9.

The team repeated the study on another 239 pregnant women in the United Kingdom, this time measuring the body fat of the children at the age of 6, the earliest age at which they expected to see major differences in obesity. The relationship held: Of the 78 genes the researchers examined for epigenetic marks, only the methylation of the RXRα gene showed a strong relationship with obesity. As the percentage of the RXRα genes that were methylated went from 40% to 80%, the children’s percentage of body fat crept up from 17% to 21%, the team reports this month in Diabetes. The authors suspect that methylation inhibits the ability of the RXRα protein to play its normal role in the development and metabolism of fat cells, resulting in obesity.

Overall, a statistical analysis showed the methylation of the RXRα gene explained about a quarter of the differences in the children’s fat levels. The team could not find any DNA sequence changes in the RXRα gene or other genetic differences in the children that could explain the result. And when the researchers examined the mothers’ diets during pregnancy, they found a link between low carbohydrate intake early in pregnancy and methylation of the RXRα gene.

It’s not uncommon for pregnant mothers in the United States and the United Kingdom to follow a low carbohydrate, Atkins-style diet, says epidemiologist and lead author Keith Godfrey. That may send a starvation-like signal to their fetuses, which puts the children out of sync with the high-calorie world into which they are born. The findings, he says, could also help explain the obesity epidemic in countries like China, where the children of poorly nourished mothers are now obese, middle-aged adults.

Still, the researchers can’t be certain that the mother’s diet caused the epigenetic changes. But the strong correlation has experts excited. “It’s a pivotal finding,” says Jeffrey Craig, a geneticist at the Murdoch Childrens Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia. “This is the first time an epigenetic change detected at birth has been shown to predict a clinically important finding,” he says.

“This suggests that even in normal pregnancies, the fetal environment has major effects on subsequent development,” adds fetal physiologist and co-author Peter Gluckman of the University of Auckland. Mark Hanson, a cardiovascular physiologist at the University of Southampton and a co-author of the study says: “Five to 10 years ago, we thought obesity would be controlled by genes and there was nothing we could do. The fact that these changes are epigenetic means we can do something about it, possibly by targeting these children for interventions early in life.” One possible intervention, he says, is administering micronutrients like folic acid that can alter epigenetic tags.

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Alzheimer's vaccine could be available in two years

Although the jab is not a cure it has been found to be able to halt the disease and even reverse the damage caused in some cases.

It is regarded as one of the biggest potential breakthroughs in the research for the disease.

The vaccine is now being tested on more than 10,000 patients around the world, including hundreds in the UK. Only two vaccines for the incurable condition have reached the final phase of testing, known as stage three.

The bapineuzumab jab prevents, and in some cases can reverse, the build up of amyloid, the toxic protein which can build up in the brain of dementia sufferers and is thought to be linked to the onset of symptoms such as memory loss and mental impairment.

The development of tests which detect Alzheimer’s early on would allow the vaccine to be administered as early as possible.

The vaccine could slow the progression of the disease in sufferers saving thousands from the most devastating effects which leaves sufferers unable to walk, talk and swallow.

Dr David Wilkinson, from Southampton University’s Memory Assessment and Research Centre, was involved in some of the earliest research into Alzheimer’s vaccines in the 1990s.

He told the Daily Mail: “Hopefully the vaccine will make a big difference to Alzheimer’s treatment. If we can give it early – before major brain impairment is seen – it may have an important part to play.

“If it can clear amyloid plaques from the brain and we can give it very early in the disease process, it may prevent some of the damage.”

Around £17billion is spent on Alzheimer’s treatment in Britain each year.

The Telegraph