Nearly a Quarter of U.S. Teens Have Diabetes or Prediabetes

The prevalence of diabetes and prediabetes among teens is up from 9 percent in 1999-2000 to 23 percent in 2007-2008, according to a new study published in Pediatrics. Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, a continuous database analyzing the health and nutritional status of Americans, to find that children ages 12 to 19, about 34 percent of whom are overweight or obese, are at increased risk for several cardiovascular disease risk factors such as high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol levels, and diabetes. Prevalence of at least one cardiovascular disease risk factor was at 37, 49, and 61 percent for normal weight, overweight, and obese teens, respectively.

Read More:

http://www.pcrm.org/health/medNews/nearly-quarter-teens-have-diabetes-or-prediabetes

Chris Hellman and Mattea Kramer - War Pay

Recent months have seen a flurry of headlines about cuts (often called “threats”) to the U.S. defense budget. Last week, lawmakers in the House of Representatives even passed a bill that was meant to spare national security spending from future cuts by reducing school-lunch funding and other social programs.  

Here, then, is a simple question that, for some curious reason, no one bothers to ask, no less answer: How much are we spending on national security these days? With major wars winding down, has Washington already cut such spending so close to the bone that further reductions would be perilous to our safety?

In fact, with projected cuts added in, the national security budget in fiscal 2013 will be nearly $1 trillion -- a staggering enough sum that it’s worth taking a walk through the maze of the national security budget to see just where that money’s lodged.

If you’ve heard a number for how much the U.S. spends on the military, it’s probably in the neighborhood of $530 billion. That’s the Pentagon’s base budget for fiscal 2013, and represents a 2.5% cut from 2012. But that $530 billion is merely the beginning of what the U.S. spends on national security. Let’s dig a little deeper.

Read More:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175545/

Kendall likens GM activists to 1930s nazis

NFU President Peter Kendall has likened activists seeking to destroy the UK's first genetically modified (GM) wheat to Nazis in the 1930s.

A man who caused 'significant damage' at the trial site at the        Rothamsted Research institute on Sunday morning has been arrested by Hertfordshire police and charged with criminal damage.

In a statement Rothamsted said the man caused 'significant, random property damage but failed in his attempt to disrupt the experiment in this attack'.

In a speech to MPs at the House of Commons to launch the new NFU Farming Delivers for Britain campaign, Mr Kendall was expected to liken the damage to the Nazi book burners of the 1930’s.

He was due to say much of British agriculture was using cutting-edge technology and the application of science will determine our future.

“I have to condemn the scandalous attempts over the weekend to destroy the trials of GM wheat at Rothamsted. This is criminal, and must be dealt with as such. It’s worse than that. It is the wilful imposition of ignorance, directly comparable to Nazi book-burning in the 1930’s.

Read More:

http://www.farmersguardian.com/home/arable/kendall-likens-gm-activists-to-1930s-nazis/47112.article

Growing Body Of Research Shows Massage Therapy Effective For Prevalent Health Conditions

A growing body of evidence shows massage therapy can be effective for a variety of prevalent health conditions, including the pain of osteoarthritis of the knee, inflammation after exercise, chronic low back pain and fibromyalgia. Massage is rapidly becoming recognized as an important part of health and wellness, and research compiled by the American Massage Therapy Association (AMTA) indicates some of what takes place in the body during massage therapy.

The Pain of Osteoarthritis of the Knee

Research(1) supported by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine shows 60-minute sessions of Swedish massage once a week for those with osteoarthritis of the knee significantly reduced their pain. This study, which involved a total group of 125 subjects over an eight-week period, is the latest published research study indicating the benefits of massage therapy for those with osteoarthritis of the knee.

Inflammation After Exercise

Research(2) through the Buck Institute for Research on Aging and McMaster University in Hamilton, Ohio indicates massage therapy reduces inflammation of skeletal muscle acutely damaged through exercise. The study provides evidence for the benefits of massage therapy for those with musculoskeletal injuries and potentially for those with inflammatory disease. Specifically, evidence at the cellular level showed massage therapy may affect inflammation in a way similar to anti-inflammatory medications.

Read More:

http://www.lef.org/news/LefDailyNews.htm?NewsID=13413&Section=Aging

Max Planck Gesellschaft - Rare neurons discovered in monkey brains

Max Planck scientists discover brain cells in monkeys that may be linked to self-awareness and empathy in humans

The anterior insular cortex is a small brain region that plays a crucial role in human self-awareness and in related neuropsychiatric disorders. A unique cell type – the von Economo neuron (VEN) – is located there. For a long time, the VEN was assumed to be unique to humans, great apes, whales and elephants. Henry Evrard, neuroanatomist at the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tübingen, Germany, now discovered that the VEN occurs also in the insula of macaque monkeys. The morphology, size and distribution of the monkey VEN suggest that it is at least a primal anatomical homolog of the human VEN. This finding offers new and much-needed opportunities to examine in detail the connections and functions of a cell and brain region that could have a key role in human self-awareness and in mental disorders including autism and specific forms of dementia.

The insular cortex, or simply insula, is a hidden cortical region folded and tucked away deep in the brain – an island within the cortex. Within the last decade, the insula has emerged from darkness as having a key role in diverse functions usually linked to our internal bodily states, to our emotions, to our self-awareness, and to our social interactions. The very anterior part of the insula in particular is where humans consciously sense subjective emotions, such as love, hate, resentment, self-confidence or embarrassment. In relation to these feelings, the anterior insula is involved in various psychopathologies. Damage of the insula leads to apathy, and to the inability to tell what feelings we or our conversational partner experience. These inabilities and alteration of the insula are also encountered in autism and other highly detrimental neuropsychiatric disorders including the behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD).

Read More:

http://www.mpg.de/5808445/von_economo_neurons

Mural Found On Walls a First for a Maya Dwelling; Painted Numbers Reflect Calendar Reaching Well Beyond 2012

A vast city built by the ancient Maya and discovered nearly a century ago is finally starting to yield its secrets. Excavating for the first time in the sprawling complex of Xultún in Guatemala's Petén region, archaeologists have uncovered a structure that contains what appears to be a work space for the town's scribe, its walls adorned with unique paintings -- one depicting a lineup of men in black uniforms -- and hundreds of scrawled numbers. Many are calculations relating to the Maya calendar.

One wall of the structure, thought to be a house, is covered with tiny, millimeter-thick, red and black glyphs unlike any seen before at other Maya sites. Some appear to represent the various calendrical cycles charted by the Maya -- the 260-day ceremonial calendar, the 365-day solar calendar, the 584-day cycle of the planet Venus and the 780-day cycle of Mars, reports archaeologist William Saturno of Boston University, who led the exploration and excavation.

"For the first time we get to see what may be actual records kept by a scribe, whose job was to be official record keeper of a Maya community," Saturno said. "It's like an episode of TV's 'Big Bang Theory,' a geek math problem and they're painting it on the wall. They seem to be using it like a blackboard."

The discovery is reported in the June issue of National Geographic magazine and in the May 11 issue of the journal Science.

Read More:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/05/120510141953.htm

Sayer Ji - Coconut Water: Far More Than Just A Refreshing Beverage

Few beverages on this planet are as biocompatible to the human body and its hydration needs as coconut water.  Indeed, coconut water has been reported to have been used forintravenous hydration and resuscitation of critically ill patients in remote regions of the world for over half a century. [1]  It is also an excellent preserving medium for avulsed teeth (andsemen!), besting even Hank's balanced salt solution, a commonly used medical solution. [2]

While some are concerned about the sugar content of this slightly sweet beverage,  recent research shows it actually exhibits blood sugar lowering properties in an experimental model of diabetes.[3]  Additional animal research shows coconut water prevents and reverses high blood pressure associated with fructose feeding-induced hypertension, as well being able to reduce oxidative stress and insulin resistance. [4]   

Perhaps one of the most amazing properties of coconut water is its superior lipid modulating activity in the animal model vis-à-vis the cholesterol-lowering statin drug known as lovastatin.[5]  Which means we can, in clear conscience, modify Hippocrates’ famous saying to: "Let What You Drink Be Your Medicine."

Other medicinal properties of coconut water include:

Read More:

http://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/coconut-water-far-more-just-refreshing-beverage

Jon Rappoport - THE FDA IS A ROGUE CRIMINAL AGENCY

The day of the Smoking Gun has arrived.

The discovery of a page, on the FDA’s own website, proves the FDA is fully aware that:

the drugs it certifies as safe have been killing Americans, at the rate of 100,000 per year.

The FDA website page is currently available under the heading, “Why Learn About Adverse Drug Reactions,” and it can be Googled. (Click here to go directly to the FDA page.)

The implications of this Smoking Gun are hard to grasp in any rational way.

The FDA takes no blame, no responsibility for its actions, and yet it admits the death statistics are accurate.

As an investigative reporter, I have been tracking and writing about pharmaceutically-caused deaths for 10 years. I have, on numerous occasions, cited Dr. Barbara Starfield’s report in the July 26th, 2000, Journal of the American Medical Association, in which she presents the figure of 106,000 deaths per year, in America, as a result of these drugs. I have claimed that the federal government and, in particular, the FDA, are aware of these numbers.

And now the page on the FDA’s own website confirms the death toll. Yet, nowhere do we see the FDA taking one shred of responsibility for this ongoing holocaust.

Holocaust? Add up the figures. Medical drugs cause 100,000 deaths in America every year: that means a million Americans are killed every decade.

Understand this very clearly. No medical drug in America can be released for public use until and unless the FDA states it is safe. The FDA is the agency responsible for every such decision on every drug. The buck stops there.

Read More:

http://jonrappoport.wordpress.com/2012/05/17/hidden-in-plain-view-fda-murder/

Mike Bundrant - Give your psychiatrist a diagnosis of his own: Six disorders to choose from

Given the controversy over the legitimacy of the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (DSM) used for psychiatric diagnosis, I thought I'd clear things up by submitting the following revisions. These carefully considered and researched new labels should do the trick, as they are intended to make the DSM more balanced by offering the patient an opportunity to diagnose the doctor.

If you are a doctor and are offended by these proposed DSM additions, then they certainly apply to you. If you are a patient or concerned citizen and are ready to bust one of these onto an unsuspecting doc, you can follow it with the remedy at the end of this article. Here are my six proposed additions to the DSM (others are being researched).

CRD: Compassion repression disorder 

Symptoms: When the doc is in the presence of human suffering, he pretends nothing is happening. He could be watching a chess match for all we know. When a patient reaches emotional extremes (as in extraordinarily depressed) he realizes it is time to initiate electro-convulsive therapy and send electric shocks through her brain, possibly wiping out much of her memory. The doc is fine with this and proceeds to go out for a sandwich.

GNTFY: Got no time for you syndrome 

Symptoms: Due to concerns about making his yacht payment and country club dues, the doc obsessively packs in 4-5 patients every hour. When you ask a question that takes more than 7.5 seconds to answer, the doc quickly regurgitates several medical terms, hands you a brochure and dashes for the door.

PCSD: Pervasive communication skills disorder 

Symptoms: When the doc holds sensitive information and needs to break the news to the patient, he hits the patient over the head with it in the most dismissive way possible. If the patient has cancer, for example, the doctor might say, "You have cancer. We can't operate. You are going to die. The exit is to your left just down the hall."

Read More:

http://www.naturalnews.com/035934_psychiatry_disorders_mental_health.html

Barbara Ehrenreich - Preying on the Poor

Individually the poor are not too tempting to thieves, for obvious reasons. Mug a banker and you might score a wallet containing a month’s rent. Mug a janitor and you will be lucky to get away with bus fare to flee the crime scene. But as Business Week helpfully pointed out in 2007, the poor in aggregate provide a juicy target for anyone depraved enough to make a business of stealing from them.

The trick is to rob them in ways that are systematic, impersonal, and almost impossible to trace to individual perpetrators. Employers, for example, can simply program their computers to shave a few dollars off each paycheck, or they can require workers to show up 30 minutes or more before the time clock starts ticking.

Lenders, including major credit companies as well as payday lenders, have taken over the traditional role of the street-corner loan shark, charging the poor insanely high rates of interest. When supplemented with late fees (themselves subject to interest), the resulting effective interest rate can be as high as 600% a year, which is perfectly legal in many states.

It’s not just the private sector that’s preying on the poor. Local governments are discovering that they can partially make up for declining tax revenues through fines, fees, and other costs imposed on indigent defendants, often for crimes no more dastardly than driving with a suspended license. And if that seems like an inefficient way to make money, given the high cost of locking people up, a growing number of jurisdictions have taken to charging defendants for their court costs and even the price of occupying a jail cell.

Read More:

http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175543/