Top 10 Drugs: Violence and more Fluoride

Posted by admin | Posted in News | Posted on 15-01-2011

This of course to me is no surprise.  I have been writing about this issue since the Columbine shootings where some of these drugs were involved. Chantix has been covered at Natural Health News since 2008.  SSRIs/SNRIs are mentioned in 30+ posts. We’re providing this information so you can be aware.

10. Desvenlafaxine (Pristiq) An antidepressant which affects both serotonin and noradrenaline, this drug is 7.9 times more likely to be associated with violence than other drugs.
9. Venlafaxine (Effexor) A drug related to Pristiq in the same class of antidepressants, both are also used to treat anxiety disorders. Effexor is 8.3 times more likely than other drugs to be related to violent behavior.

8. Fluvoxamine (Luvox) An antidepressant that affects serotonin (SSRI), Luvox is 8.4 times more likely than other medications to be linked with violence
7. Triazolam (Halcion) A benzodiazepine which can be addictive, used to treat insomnia. Halcion is 8.7 times more likely to be linked with violence than other drugs, according to the study.
6) Atomoxetine (Strattera) Used to treat attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), Strattera affects the neurotransmitter noradrenaline and is 9 times more likely to be linked with violence compared to the average medication.
5) Mefoquine (Lariam) A treatment for malaria, Lariam has long been linked with reports of bizarre behavior. It is 9.5 times more likely to be linked with violence than other drugs.
4) Amphetamines: (Various) Amphetamines are used to treat ADHD and affect the brain’s dopamine and noradrenaline systems. They are 9.6 times more likely to be linked to violence, compared to other drugs.
3) Paroxetine (Paxil) An SSRI antidepressant, Paxil is also linked with more severe withdrawal symptoms and a greater risk of birth defects compared to other medications in that class. It is 10.3 times more likely to be linked with violence compared to other drugs.

2) Fluoxetine (Prozac) The first well-known SSRI antidepressant, Prozac is 10.9 times more likely to be linked with violence in comparison with other medications.
1) Varenicline (Chantix) The anti-smoking medication Chantix affects the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor, which helps reduce craving for smoking. Unfortunately, it’s 18 times more likely to be linked with violence compared to other drugs by comparison, that number for Xyban is 3.9 and just 1.9 for nicotine replacement. Because Chantix is slightly superior in terms of quit rates in comparison to other drugs, it shouldn’t necessarily be ruled out as an option for those trying to quit, however.
Source: http://healthland.time.com/2011/01/07/top-ten-legal-drugs-linked-to-violence/#ixzz1ApxzCzUg

Related information about fluoride is found here as well, and now you know mainstream media is finally suggesting you have been getting too much.  Here are the 8 top true “conspiracy theories”.  It is not just that fluoride harms your teeth, but it is wise to look at all the fluoride dental products you’ve been using in addition to your fluoridated water, drugs, foods, agriculture, home and garden products…

#1 High Levels Of Fluoride In Our Drinking Water Is Bad – Amazingly, the U.S. federal government has now come out and is lowering the “recommended amount” of fluoride in our drinking water for the first time in 50 years.  Of course it would be great if they just banned fluoride in our drinking water altogether, but for the government to even admit that high levels of fluoride could be a problem is a huge step.  In a recent article on CNN, it was reported that the federal government is now saying that high levels of fluoride in the water has now officially been linked with fluorosis….  Read the complete list here -

Good coverage of the Worst Pills of 2010 include more of the same as in the aforementioned articles.  Many of the drugs on this list have been reported here at Natural Health News in our effort to keep you educated and aware.

Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, SSRIs
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRIs) antidepressants like Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft and Lexapro probably did more to inflate drug industry profits than Viagra. But many say the drugs have also inflated police blotters. In addition to 4,200 published reports of SSRI-related violence, including the Columbine, Red Lake and NIU shootings, SSRIs can cause serotonin syndrome and gastrointestinal bleeding when taken with certain drugs. Paxil is linked to birth defects.
Effexor, Cymbalta, Pristiq, SNRIs
Selective norepinephrine reuptake inhibitors (SNRIs) are like their SSRIs chemical cousins except their norepinephrine effects can modulate pain, which has ushered in your-depression-is-really-pain, your-pain-is-really-depression and other crossover marketing. SNRI’s are also harder to quit than SSRIs. 739,000 web sites address “Effexor” and “withdrawal.” 
Seroquel, Zyprexa, Geodon, atypical antipsychotics
The antipsychotic Seroquel tops 71 drugs on the FDA’s January 2010 adverse event report and is linked to unexplained troop deaths and many research scandals. But it’s the fifth biggest-selling drug in the world. Atypical antipsychotics cause weight gain and diabetes, the tardive dyskinesia they are marketed to prevent and death in the demented elderly. Yet FDA approved Zyprexa and Seroquel for children last year and the new atypical antipsychotic, Latuda this year. Maybe the FDA is bipolar.
Chantix
After 397 FDA cases of possible psychosis, 227 domestic reports of suicidal behaviors and 28 actual suicides, the government banned pilots, air-traffic controllers and interstate truck and bus drivers from taking the antismoking drug Chantix in 2008. Its neuropsychiatric effects were immortalized when New Bohemians musician Carter Albrecht was shot to death in 2007 in Texas by a neighbor after acting aggressively on the Chantix.

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Winter’s Holiday

Posted by admin | Posted in News | Posted on 19-12-2010

At this time of year I take a winter holiday for rest and reflection. We truly thank you for all of your support over the many years we have been providing Natural Health News in its various forms. 
In 2011 we will begin the 8th year of the blog, and the 12th year of Natural Health News.  I hope you’ll join me when I return in January with the many new things planned to come from Creating Health Institute and The Oake Centre for natural health education, Simply4Health.

To borrow words from a friend:   
Sing Joy, Live Peace 
I wish you all, in whatever way you celebrate this season, 
the very best of everything. 

Peace & health in the coming New Year.
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Again: Statins Not Effective

Posted by admin | Posted in News | Posted on 22-11-2010

Statin drugs may be over-prescribed
So tell me what is new!
Not only are they over-prescribed, they have heart-risky side effects and many more problems like kidney failure secondary to rhabdomyolysis, just to highlight one (of too many). 
What, from this new report, bothers me is that when do you see mainstream media reporting on the history and a wider reference of facts, not excluding natural care to prevent and resolve the problem. 
Just who passed a law that allopathy is the last word on health and everyone must take only this brand of poison?
As an aside, the “deficit panel” could do a lot better if they got their heads out of the you know what and moved their brains out of the box.
Alas, when did you hear last that the beginning of milk homogenization was the start of atherosclerosis.  Well it was! And it was so because the fat was made so small through this process that it passed directly into the blood.
So if you switched to non-homogenized milk you could be much better off as the traditional naturopaths of the old days and old ways used to tell you.  And of course there were eggs and real butter too, but these days they;d like you to believe this is non-sense and these foods will kill you.
Lecithin any one?  Good non-soy lecithin reduces that calcium plaque that builds up in your body.  Since we can’t say it prevents or cures thanks to the PhRMA controlled FDA and now the co-opted FTC, you just have to so some research to find these studies that your doctor won’t read, much less know about.  Parathyroid hormone and vitamin D play a role.
Then there is magnesium that helps rebalance calcium, and then phosphorus too.  These days, thanks to Medicare you cannot get phosphorus levels on your chem panel as some one there decided you do not need that test.  But in reality you do so you can see the Ca-P ratio in your blood which should be 10-4.  Lots can happen when it isn’t!
And just remember all that calcium they push on you to keep your bones strong is often cheap carbonate form that does not absorb too well and leads to calcium build up in tissues and organs.
Calcium, take it in the morning and not with magnesium.  Use a high absorption type.
Take your good magnesium at night.
Of course there is more to this equation but I think this will do for starters.
And BTW, that phosphorus level runs about $118 a test depending on where you are and what lab you use.
WASHINGTON (AFP) Cholesterol-lowering statin medications, miracle drugs for those suffering from heart disease, may be over-prescribed as a preventative measure for healthy adults, a new study said Tuesday.
The study by cardiologists at Johns Hopkins University found that, among healthy adults, only those with measurable buildup of artery-hardening calcium would significantly benefit from the treatment.
“Our results tell us that only those with calcium buildup in their arteries have a clear benefit from statin therapy,” the study’s lead investigator Michael Blaha said in a statement.
“Those who are otherwise healthy and have no significant calcification should, with their physician, focus on aggressive lifestyle improvements instead of early initiation of statin medications,” he added.
The statin class of pharmaceuticals, including the popular cholesterol-lowering drugs Lipitor and Crestor, lowers cholesterol by blocking an enzyme in the liver.
The six-year study found that 75 percent of all heart attacks, strokes or heart-related deaths occurred in the 25 percent of participants who had the highest calcium buildup in their blood vessels.
The 47 percent of participants who had no detectable levels of calcium buildup meanwhile suffered just five percent of heart disease-related events, meaning the statin therapy would have offered little protection.
“It certainly is not the case that all adults should be taking (statin therapy) to prevent heart attack and stroke, because half are at negligible risk of a sudden coronary event in the next five to 10 years,” Blaha said.
Roger Blumenthal, another Johns Hopkins researcher who carried out the study, said the drugs “should not be approached like diet and exercise as a broadly based solution for preventing coronary heart disease.”
“These are lifelong medications with potential, although rare, side effects, and physicians should only consider their use for those patients at greatest risk, especially those with high coronary calcium scores.”
He added that as many as five percent of people on statins develop serious side effects, such as muscle pain, while one in 255 will develop diabetes.
The study of 950 healthy and ethnically diverse men and women was unveiled on Tuesday at an American Heart Association conference in Chicago.
The report is the latest in a series of studies questioning the widespread prescription of preventative heart medication for otherwise healthy adults.
A US meta-analysis of 11 studies published in June had already revealed that statin treatments do not reduce the death rate among patients with high cholesterol but no history of heart disease.
The two studies contrast the results of a 2008 clinical trial known as “JUPITER,” which found that a daily does of 20 milligrams of Crestor, a statin treatment marketed by the British pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca, halved the number of potentially fatal coronary blockages in 18,000 adults.
All of the adults in the JUPITER study had high levels of C-reactive protein (CRP), believed by some to predict coronary disease.
But BlahaCRP, which he said offered no predictive value.
Coronary heart disease remains the leading cause of death in the United States, responsible for one in five deaths among adults.
from Natural Health News, top articles on statins from 30+ on site
Natural Health News: STATINS LINKED TO DEPRESSION AND MEMORY LOSS
Jun 16, 2010
More than 6 millions adults are prescribed statins by their GPs will be told about five new ‘undesirable effects’ in leaflets issued with packets of the drugs. These include sleep disturbances, memory loss, sexual dysfunction, …
PhRMA GREED leads to statins for children
Jul 07, 2010
Statins for children 10 to 17 have been FDA approved since 2002. Now Pfizer seeks EU authorization. READ IT HERE FIRST: THE IMPORTANT ISSUES FACING YOU IN HEALTH CARE AT NATURAL HEALTH NEWS DAYS, AND OFTEN WEEKS OR MONTHS, …
Natural Health News: Cholesterol and Statins: Another physician …
Nov 14, 2008
It’s been going this way for a while: even healthy people should be on the cholesterol-reducing drugs known as statins. That, in a nutshell, is the verdict of a study published over the weekend which found that even in people deemed to …
Natural Health News: Yes, the bad news on statins is bad!
Feb 04, 2008
UPDATE: It seems always that the statins detractors focus on the depletion of Co Enzyme Q 10 when talking about the harm inflicted by these drugs. I have always contended that, in addition to COQ10,depletion of several B vitamins …
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The Healthy Side of Maple Syrup

Posted by admin | Posted in News | Posted on 26-10-2010


I use maple sugar granules because I am allergic to cane sugar. I have also used B grade maple syrup for years as it has the reputation of a healthy sweetener over many years.

I like it on sweet potatoes, my pumpkin pancakes, and on vanila ice cream served with warm waffles,  or as in the past – a split warm doughnut.

Now a new report tells us more -

 

Maple syrup reduces cancer, diabetes risk

SAN FRANCISCO, March 26 (UPI) — Maple syrup can substantially slow the growth of cancerous cells in several cancers and help reduce the risk of diabetes, U.S. researchers found. 

Navindra Seeram of the University of Rhode Island found 13 new antioxidant compounds that were not known to exist in syrup until now. Several of these antioxidants newly identified in maple syrup are reported to have anti-cancer, anti-bacterial and anti-diabetic properties.

Maple syrup contains substantial quantities of abscisic acid, a phytohormone known to stimulate insulin release through pancreatic cells and to increase sensitivity of fat cells to insulin, which makes it a potent weapon against metabolic syndrome and diabetes.

Seeram presented his findings on Canadian maple syrup at the American Chemical Society annual meeting in San Francisco.

A second study by researchers at the Universite du Quebec a Chicoutimi suggests maple syrup can substantially slow the growth of cancerous cells in the prostate and lungs and to a lesser extent in the breast, colon and brain more effectively than blueberries, broccoli, tomatoes and carrots. 

The study is published in the Journal of Medicinal Food.

2010 United Press International, Inc.

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What You Are Not Hearing About GMO Franken-Fish

Posted by admin | Posted in News | Posted on 29-09-2010

Are Genetically Engineered Foods (Including Salmon) More Allergenic?

By Kiera Butler | Mon Sep. 27, 2010 

ScienceDaily (2010-09-25) — An expert comments on potential FDA approval of the first genetically engineered animal for use as food.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100925105209.htm

You’ve probably heard that the FDA is considering whether to approve the first-ever genetically-engineered fish [1]. Developed by a Massachusetts-based company called AquaBounty Technologies [2], this new supersalmon is basically an Atlantic salmon with genes from Chinook salmon and a fish called the ocean pout [3]. In theory, this could be a good thing: The new genes allow the fish, called AquAdvantage, to grow twice as fast [4] as regular salmon, meaning more salmon for everyone, and less stress on wild stocks.
But a number of consumer, health, and environmental groups say that neither AquaBounty Technologies nor the FDA has enough evidence to ensure the public that the fishwhich wouldn’t have to be labeled as genetically engineered (GE) on supermarket shelvesis safe for people or the planet. Consumers Union senior scientist Michael Hansen called the company’s food safety tests “woefully incomplete [5],” and the group pointed out that the FDA approval panel is mostly comprised of GE cheerleaders [6], with no fish ecologists or allergists. Why’s an allergist important? Because the company’s own tests suggest that the new salmon could be much more allergenic than regular salmon.
In order to understand the allergy tests, a bit of backstory on how AquAdvantage salmon are made [7] is necessary. First, genetic engineers create a “diploid” fish, meaning like people, it has two sets of chromosomes. Then, to make the final market product, they add genetic material from other fish and breed a new salmon with three sets of chromosomesa “triploid” female that can’t reproduce. AquaBounty researchers compared the allergenicityor potential to cause an allergic reactionof a control group of salmon to both the genetically engineered diploids and triploids. They found (PDF [8], see page 102) that the diploid salmon were 40 percent more allergenic than the control, while the triploid group was 19 percent more allergenic.
AquaBounty says that the triploids’ allergenicity level wasn’t statistically significant, and although the diploids’ level is significant, it doesn’t matter because only triploids will be sold. But Hansen of the Consumers Union finds a few problems with this argument. For starters, the test wasn’t double blind, meaning the researchers knew which fish were part of which test group. Second, the sample size of triploid fish was tinyonly six fish in all. Third, although AquaBounty is going to try to turn all its market-bound fish into triploid sterile females, the process isn’t perfect, and some 5 percent could end up as the more allergenic diploid. Especially scary when you consider that unlike the triploids, the diploids aren’t sterile. So if they escaped, they could breed with wild salmon.
The FDA simply doesn’t have enough information to determine whether AquaBounty’s salmon are likely to cause more allergic reactions than their non-GE counterparts. But there is good reason to be concerned about the potential allergenicity of all GE foods, says Margaret Mellon, a senior scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientsts. “You have this technology that allows you to essentially move proteins around from food to food,” she says. “You can move a highly allergenic protein into a new food, and no one will know to avoid the new food.”
Indeed,

a 1996 study [9] published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that people who were allergic to Brazil nuts were also allergic to soy beans that had been implanted with a Brazil nut protein. There is also some evidence that even proteins don’t usually cause allergies can become allergenic when they are moved to a new food. A 2005 Australian study [10] found that mice who were fed peas containing a typically non-allergenic protein from kidney beans experienced allergic reactions.
Another worry is that potentially allergenic GE crops might “escape” into foods. In the late ’90s, the pharmaceutical giant Aventis introduced StarLink, a genetically engineered variety of corn. StarLink was approved for sale in the US, but only for non-food uses, since it contained a potentially allergenic protein. But then, traces of it started turning up in food (most famously, Taco Bell taco shells [11]), and 28 people claimed they had suffered allergic reactions to foods containing StarLink. Although the CDC later found no medical evidence [12] that any of those people had an allergy to the corn, an EPA advisory panel acknowledged that the CDC’s tests did “not eliminate StarLink…protein as a potential cause of allergic symptoms.”
The bottom line: It’s not that genetically engineered foods are inherently more allergenic than traditional foods, but transfering genes does make it more likely that allergens might pop up in unexpected places. “There can be a lot of unintended side effects when you do genetic modification, which means you have to test very carefully,” says Wenonah Hauter, executive director of the watchdog group Food and Water Watch [13]. “In the case of salmon, one test on six fish just seems very insufficient for something that will open the floodgates to other GE meat and fish.”

Source URL: http://motherjones.com/blue-marble/2010/09/genetically-engineered-salmon-allergies
Links:
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/21/business/energy-environment/21salmon.html
[2] http://www.aquabounty.com/
[3] http://www.stripersonline.com/ubb547/image_uploads6/oceanpout2.jpg
[4] http://www.aquabounty.com/products/aquadvantage-295.aspx
[5] http://www.consumersunion.org/pub/core_food_safety/016893.html
[6] http://www.grist.org/article/2010-09-20-why-is-the-fda-about-to-rubber-stamp-ge-salmon/
[7] http://www.alternet.org/food/148156/the_creepy_science_behind_genetically_engineered_%22frankenfish%22_about_to_enter_our_food_supply_unlabeled/
[8] http://www.fda.gov/downloads/AdvisoryCommittees/CommitteesMeetingMaterials/VeterinaryMedicineAdvisoryCommittee/UCM224762.pdf
[9] http://www.contentnejmorg.zuom.info/cgi/content/full/334/11/688
[10] http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn8347
[11] http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/23/business/kraft-recalls-taco-shells-with-bioengineered-corn.html
[12] http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/14/business/us-finds-no-allergies-to-altered-corn.html
[13] http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/fish/seafood/stop-frankenfish/
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