Scientific Consensus on GM is an Illusion

The assumption is that a global scientific consensus has formed around the value of patent-protected transgenic crops, analogous to the general agreement around human-induced climate change. Yet that is clearly false.

Let’s start by looking at the International Assessment of Agricultural Knowledge, Science, and Technology for Development (IAASTD), a three-year project to assess the role of agricultural knowledge, science, and technology in reducing hunger and poverty, improving rural livelihoods, and facilitating environmentally, socially, and economically sustainable development.

Widely compared to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which definitively established a scientific consensus around climate change on its release in 2007, the IAASTD engaged 400 scientists from around the globe under the aegis of the World Bank and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization. According to the Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report, the effort was originally “stimulated by discussions at the World Bank with the private sector and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) on the state of scientific understanding of biotechnology and more specifically transgenics.”

If transgenic-crop technology had captured the broad approval of the global agricultural-science community, here was the place to show it. But what happened? According to the Executive Summary of the Synthesis Report:

   "Assessment of biotechnology is lagging behind development; information can be anecdotal and contradictory, and uncertainty on benefits and harms is unavoidable. There is a wide range of perspectives on the environmental, human health and economic risks and benefits of modern biotechnology; many of these risks are as yet unknown.

   The application of modern biotechnology outside containment, such as the use of genetically modified (GM) crops, is much more contentious [than biotechnology within containment, e.g., industrial enzymes]. For example, data based on some years and some GM crops indicate highly variable 10 to 33 percent yield gains in some places and yield declines in others."

The report goes on to call for a whole new framework for crop-biotechnology research—an implicit rebuke to the current one:

   "Biotechnologies should be used to maintain local expertise and germplasm so that the capacity for further research resides within the local community. Such R&D would put much needed emphasis onto participatory breeding projects and agroecology."

Thus, whereas the IPCC revealed broad agreement among the global scientific community around climate change, the IAASTD—arguably the "IPCC of agriculture"—showed deep ambivalence among scientists over transgenic crops.

The real question becomes: How can serious publications like Seed claim that skepticism toward GMOs reflects a “scientific flip-flop”? To be sure, the illusion of a broad consensus holds sway in the United States, and the IAASTD has clearly failed to correct it. The US media greeted its release with near-complete silence—in stark contrast to its reception in the European media.

So, how did this spectral scientific consensus for GMOs come into being? In a two-part article called ” The Genetic Engineering of Food and The Failure of Science,” recently published as a “work in progress” by the peer-reviewed International Journal of the Sociology of Food and Agriculture, the agroecologist Don Lotter ventures to answer this.

Lotter's paper traces the history of the rise of plant transgenics, convincingly arguing that political and economic power, not scientific rigor, have driven the technology’s ascent. He shows that the hyper-liberal US regulatory regime around GMOs stems not from an overwhelming weight of evidence, but rather from close, often revolving-door ties between the industry and US administrations dating back to Reagan. Take the assumption that transgenic foods have been proven to have no ill effects on human health. Far from being exhaustively studied, it turns out, that question has been largely ignored—left by US regulators to be sorted out by the industry itself.        When there have been long-term trials by independent researchers, the results have hardly been comforting.

For example, writes Lotter:

   "In a 2008 report (Velimirov et al., 2008) of research commissioned by the Austrian government, a long-term animal feeding experiment showed significant reproductive problems in transgenic corn-fed rats when all groups were subject to multiple birth cycles, a regimen that has not hitherto been examined in feeding studies comparing transgenic and non-transgenic foods."

Thus in the first-ever multi-generational study of the effects of GMO food, evidence of serious reproductive trouble comes to light: reduced birth weight and fertility. If the reproductive system can be viewed as a proxy for broad health, then the Austrian study raises serious questions about the effects of consuming foods derived from transgenic crops—i.e., upwards of 70 percent of the products found on U.S. supermarket shelves. Yet, as in the case of the IAASTD, the Austrian study dropped with a thud by the US media.

The Austrian results raise an obvious question: why did the first multigenerational study of the health effects of GMOs emerge more than a decade after their broad introduction in the United States? Lotter devotes the second half of his paper, "Academic Capitalism and the Loss of Scientific Integrity," to answering that question. 

Lotter traces the generally blasé approach to GMO research to "the restructuring of research university science programs in the past 25 years from a non-proprietary 'public goods' approach to one based on dependence on private industry." He teases out the following ramifications:

   • tolerance by the scientific community of bias against and mistreatment of non-compliant scientists whose work results in negative findings for transgenics, including editorial decisions by peer-reviewed journals, as well as tolerance of biotechnology industry manipulation of the information environment

   • monopolization of the make-up of expert scientific bodies on transgenics by pro-industry scientists with vested interests in transgenics

   • deficient scientific protocols, bias, and possible fraud in industry-sponsored and industry-conducted safety testing of transgenic foods

   • increasing politically and commercially driven manipulation of science within federal regulatory bodies such as the FDA

Lotter delivers well-documented examples to support each of those charges. He shows, for example, that the USDA dispersed $1.8 billion for crop biotechnology research to universities between 1992 and 2002, of which one percent ($18 million) went to "risk-related research.” He cites another peer-reviewed study showing that university biotech research has "'overwhelmingly been targeted at plants and traits that are of interest to the largest firms," and that "research on non-proprietary solutions which benefit the wider public has been lacking…This arena should be central to the mission of universities and other non-profit research institutions.”

It's worth noting that the IAASTD points out similar concerns in the industry-dominated research agendas at public universities:

   "An emphasis on modern biotechnology without ensuring adequate support for other agricultural research can alter education and training programs and reduce the number of professionals in other core agricultural sciences. This situation can be self-reinforcing since today’s students define tomorrow’s educational and training opportunities." 

A recent event reported by the New York Times illustrates the lack of independence—and thus, arguably, rigor—that surrounds too much GMO research. A group of 23 US scientists signed a letter to the EPA declaring that, “No truly independent research [on GMOs] can be legally conducted on many critical questions.” The Times reported that because of draconian intellectual property laws, scientists can’t grow GMO crops for research purposes without gaining permission from the corporations that own the germplasm—permission which is sometimes denied or granted only on condition that the companies can review findings before publication.

Stunningly, "The researchers … withheld their names [from the EPA letter] because they feared being cut off from research by the companies," The Times reports. 

So this is the sort of scientific consensus around GMOs that environmentalists should bow to—one literally based on fear among tenured faculty?

Ultimately, scientific responses to the advent of climate change and the rise of GMOs make a poor comparison. The consensus around climate change developed in spite of a multi-decade campaign by some of the globe's most powerful and lucrative industries—the petroleum and coal giants—to protect markets worth hundreds of billions of dollars. The consensus around GMOs—or at least the specter of one—arose through the lobbying and support of an industry desperate to protect its own multibillion-dollar investments. I predict this bought-and-paid-for consensus will prove short-lived. 

William Malaurie -- Yes, GMOs are poisonous!

*French researchers studied privately for two years, 200 rats fed GM corn. Tumors, serious diseases ... a massacre. And a bomb [for the] GMO industry. 

This is a real bomb that launches this September 19 to 15 hours, the very serious American journal "Food and Chemical Toxicology" - a benchmark for food toxicology - publishing the results of the experiment conducted by [the] team [of] French Gilles-Eric Seralini, professor of molecular biology at the University of Caen. A cluster bomb [for] scientific, medical, and industrial policy. It sprays indeed an official truth: the safety of genetically modified maize. 

Heavily toxic and often fatal

Even at low doses, the GM study proves heavily toxic and often lethal to rats. So much so that, if it were a drug, it should be suspended forthwith pending further investigations. Because it is the same GMO found on our plates through the meat, eggs or milk.

In 2006, this is a true thriller that begins this research, the project manager, Gilles-Eric Seralini discloses itself conclusions in a book to be published next week ("All guinea pigs", Flammarion, in bookstores September 26).
Codenamed Vivo

Until 2011, the researchers worked under conditions of quasi-underground. They have their encrypted emails and the Pentagon, have banned all phone conversation and even launched a study decoy as they feared a coup de Jarnac multinational seed.

The story of the operation - codenamed Vivo - [involves] the difficult recovery of GM maize seeds NK 603, owned [and] patented [by] Monsanto, through an agricultural college in Canada. Then harvested and the repatriation of "big jute bags" [via]the port of Le Havre in late 2007, before making croquettes in total secrecy and the selection of two hundred lab rats called "Sprague Dawley". [The result?] Chilling: "After less than a year of genetically modified maize menus differentiated says Professor Séralini, it was a slaughter among our rats, [of] which I had not imagined the magnitude." 

Serious diseases, mammary tumors

All groups of rats, whether fed with GM maize treated or untreated with Roundup herbicide, Monsanto, or fed with water containing low doses of herbicide found in GM fields are hit by a multitude of serious diseases in the 13th month of the experiment. In females, this is manifested by explosions chain mammary tumors that reach up to 25% of their weight. Males, are purifiers organs, liver and kidneys, which are marked with abnormalities or severe. With a frequency of two to five times greater than for rodents fed non-GM corn.

Comparison implacable rats GMO therefore trigger two to three times more tumors than non-GMO rats whatever their sex. At the beginning of the 24th month, that is to say at the end of their lives, 50% and 80% of females are affected GMOs against only 30% among non-GMO.

Above all, tumors occur much faster in rats GM: twenty months earlier in males, three months earlier in females. For an animal that has two years of life expectancy, the difference is considerable. For comparison, one year for a rodent is roughly the equivalent of forty years for a man ... 

Demand accountability

It is these strong conclusions Corinne Lepage , in a book that seems to Friday, September 21 ("The truth about GMOs, is our business", Editions Charles Léopold Mayer), intends to demand accountability from political and experts, French and European health agencies and the Brussels Commission, which have so long opposed by all means and the principle of a long-term study on the physiological impact of GMOs.

This battle, the former Minister of Ecology and First Vice-President of the Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety in Strasbourg, the leading fifteen years in the Criigen (Committee for Independent Research and Information on genetic engineering) with Joel Spiroux and Gilles-Eric Seralini. A simple association 1901 which has yet been able to meet end to end funding of this research (3.2 million euros) that neither INRA, CNRS neither, nor any public agency had judged advisable to undertake.
A study funded by Auchan and Carrefour

How? Another surprise by asking the Swiss Foundation Charles Léopold Mayer. But the owners of the supermarkets (Carrefour, Auchan ..), who gathered for the occasion together. Since the mad cow disease, in fact they want to protect themselves from any new food scandal. So much so that it is Gérard Mulliez, founder of the Auchan Group, which provided the initial funding. 

The study by Professor Séralini portend a new murderous war between pro and anti-GMO. Health agencies they require urgently similar studies to verify the findings of French scientists? It would be the least. Monsanto, the largest seed firm global transgenic leave she do? Unlikely: its survival would be at stake for a single plant GMOs, there are hundreds of varieties. Implying at least a dozen studies from 100 to 150 million euros each!
The time of truth

Except that in this new confrontation, the debate can no longer be bogged down by the past. September 26 dice, everyone can see the film in the cinema shock Jean-Paul Jaud, "All guinea pigs?", Adapted from the book by Gilles-Eric Seralini, and the terrible images of rats stuffy in their tumors. Images that will go around the world and the Internet, as it will be broadcast on Canal + (the "Grand Journal" September 19) and France 5 (October 16 in a documentary). For GM, the era of doubt ends. The time of truth begins.

Read more.. http://bit.ly/UngEH0

S. D. Wells -- The $3 billion Human Genome Project was supposed to find the root causes of all diseases, but turned out to be a scientific boondoggle

To ferret out the genetic roots of common diseases like cancer and Alzheimer's and then generate treatments" was the true goal of the 10-year, $3 billion human genome project, or was it? Geneticists who were paid a very pretty penny to study the genetics of disease are claiming they are "back to square one" in knowing where to look for the roots of these diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. But are any of them really diseases at all?

Most diseases are actually contagious, infectious and/or genetic defects, but the four leading causes of death in America, for the most part, are not. So what's the real deal? In June 2000, President Clinton announced that the genome project would "Revolutionize the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of most, IF NOT ALL, human diseases." He then added, "You will see a complete transformation in therapeutic medicine." Remember that Clinton is the man who balanced the national budget.

"Genomics is a way to do science, not medicine," said Harold Varmus, former president of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, who became director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI). Both organizations pay their presidents and CEO's massive salaries and bonuses, using up most of the public donated monies for administrative costs, all while burying cures for disease (http://just-say-no-to-chemo.blogspot.com). Varmus claims the findings have explained only a small part of the risk of getting a disease, and that scientists now fear even those could be "statistical illusions." (http://www.cancer.gov/aboutnci/director)

Read more.. http://www.naturalnews.com/037167_Human_Genome_Project_scientific_failure_disease.html

S. D. Wells -- True history: The AMA (American Medical Association) was built on racketeering and the pocketing of 'non-profit' profits

The year is 1847. Physicians in America are not enjoying competing with inexpensive, natural remedies, which are offered by Indians and skilled midwives. These are remedies which are very effective but are not profitable, nor patentable, so the physicians get together to form an alliance called the AMA, the American Medical Association. Only "regulars" were allowed to join this new, prestigious organization, which strictly excluded herbalists, homeopaths and Indian doctors.

The new bylaws enacted would ensure that any physician caught dealing with a "non-regular" would be cast out and his reputation ruined. There was only one problem, and it was a huge problem. Conventional medicine in America was based on philosophy, not science, because nothing had been tested. We know this as a cold hard fact today. The kind of medicine regarded as conventional then consisted of blood letting, mercury poisoning, and other methodology we laugh at today.

Word started getting out. Doctors from Europe who visited and then returned home told others of the ill health of the average American, whose skin was sallow, eyes sunken, and teeth and jaws crooked. Lo and behold, these are all symptoms of mercury poisoning. And so there you have it. United States healthcare started with mercury poisoning! That's why it's still in vaccines and flu shots, because they can get away with it.

Read more.. http://www.naturalnews.com/037152_AMA_racketeering_history.html

Jason Mark -- Whoa, Is Organic Food No Healthier Than Non-Organic? Controversy Erupts Over Study

I had barely drank my first cup of coffee when I heard the news yesterday morning on NPR [3] – organic food, it turns out, may not be that much healthier for you than industrial food.

The NPR story was based on a new study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine [4] which concluded, based on a review of existing studies, that there is no “strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods.” The study, written by researchers at the Stanford School of Medicine, also found that eating organic foods “may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.”

The interwebs were soon full of headlines talking down the benefits of organic foods. “Stanford Scientists Cast Doubt on Advantages of Organic Meat and Produce,” the NY Times [5] announced, as reporter Kenneth Chang pointed out that pesticide residues on industrially grown fruits and vegetables are “almost always under the allowed safety limits.”CBS news [6], running the AP story on the Stanford study, informed readers: “Organic food hardly healthier, study suggests.”

Organic agriculture advocates were quick with their rebuttals. The Environmental Working Group [7] put out a press release playing up the researchers’ findings that organic produce has less pesticide residue. Charles Benbrook, a professor of agriculture at Washington State University and former chief scientist at The Organic Center [8], wrote a detailed critique you can find here [9]. Benbrook noted that the Stanford study didn’t include data from the USDA and US EPA about pesticide residue levels. He also pointed out that the researchers’ definition of “significantly more nutritious” was a little squishy.

Is this the last word on the nutritional benefits of organic foods? Hardly. As Benbrook said, in the coming years improved measurement methods will hopefully allow for better comparisons of food nutritional quality. (You can find an Earth Island Journal cover story on this very issue here [10].)

I’ll leave it to the PhDs and MDs to fight this out among themselves. As they do, I’ll keep buying (and growing [11]) organic foods. Why? Because even if organic foods are not demonstrably better for my health than industrial foods, I know that organics are better for the health of other people – the people who grow our nation’s food.

To his credit, NPR’s new ag reporter, Dan Charles, was careful to note that organic agriculture “can bring environmental benefit[s].” One of the most important environmental benefits organic agriculture delivers is a boost to public health and safety.

Let’s say you’re not worried about the relatively small amounts of pesticides that end up on the industrial foods at the supermarket. (Though you should read this [12] Tom Philpott dissection of the Stanford report when considering your risk of eating pesticide residue.) Well, you should still be concerned about the huge amounts of pesticides that end up in the air and water of farming communities – chemicals that can lead to birth defects, endocrine disruption, and neurological and respiratory problems.

When pesticides are sprayed onto farm fields, they don’t just stay in that one place. They seep into the water and waft through the air and accumulate on the shoes and clothes of farm workers. In recent years in California (the country’s top ag producer) an average of 37 pesticide drift incidents [13] a year have made people sick. Pesticides also find their way into the homes of farm workers. A study by researchers at the University of Washington found that the children of farm workers have higher exposure to pesticides [14] than other children in the same community. When researchers in Mexico looked into pesticide exposure of farm workers there, they found that 20 percent of field hands “showed acute poisoning. [15]”

The health impacts on those workers were serious and included “diverse alterations of the digestive, neurological, respiratory, circulatory, dermatological, renal, and reproductive system.” The researchers concluded: “there exist health hazards for those farm workers exposed to pesticides, at organic and cellular levels.”

There are shelves’ worth of studies [16] documenting the health dangers of pesticide exposure. A study published last year found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides [17] – which are often sprayed on crops and in urban areas to control insects – can lower children’s IQ. A follow-up investigation into prenatal pesticide exposure concluded that boys’ developing brains appear to be more vulnerable [18] than girls’ brains. A study by Colorado State University epidemiologist Lori Cragin found that women who drink water containing low levels of the herbicide atrazine are more likely to have low estrogen levels [19] and irregular menstrual cycles; about three-quarters of all US corn fields are treated with atrazine annually. British scientists who examined the health effects of fungicides sprayed on fruits and vegetable crops discovered that 30 out of 37 chemicals studied altered males’ hormone production [20].

Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/food/whoa-organic-food-no-healthier-non-organic-controversy-erupts-over-study

Frances Moore Lappé -- Stanford Scientists Shockingly Reckless on Health Risk And Organics

I first heard about a new Stanford "study" downplaying the value of organics when this blog headline cried out from my inbox: "Expensive organic food isn't healthier and no safer than produce grown with pesticides, finds biggest study of its kind."

What?

Does the actual study say this?

No, but authors of the study -- "Are Organic Foods Safer or Healthier Than Conventional Alternatives? A Systematic Review" -- surely are responsible for its misinterpretation and more. Their study actually reports that ¨Consumption of organic foods may reduce exposure to pesticide residues and antibiotic-resistant bacteria."

The authors' tentative wording -- "may reduce" -- belies their own data: The report's opening statement says the tested organic produce carried a 30 percent lower risk of exposure to pesticide residues. And, the report itself also says that "detectable pesticide residues were found in 7% of organic produce samples...and 38% of conventional produce samples." Isn't that's a greater than 80% exposure reduction?

In any case, the Stanford report's unorthodox measure "makes little practical or clinical sense," notes Charles Benbrook -- formerly Executive Director, Board on Agriculture of the National Academy of Sciences: What people "should be concerned about [is]... not just the number of [pesticide] residues they are exposed to" but the "health risk they face." Benbrook notes "a 94% reduction in health risk" from pesticides when eating organic foods.

Assessing pesticide-driven health risks weighs the toxicity of the particular pesticide. For example the widely-used pesticide atrazine, banned in Europe, is known to be "a risk factor in endocrine disruption in wildlife and reproductive cancers in laboratory rodents and humans."

"Very few studies" included by the Stanford researchers, notes Benbrook, "are designed or conducted in a way that could isolate the impact or contribution of a switch to organic food from the many other factors that influence a given individual's health." They "would be very expensive, and to date, none have been carried out in the U.S." [emphasis added].

In other words, simple prudence should have prevented these scientists from using "evidence" not designed to capture what they wanted to know.

Moreover, buried in the Stanford study is this all-critical fact: It includes no long-term studies of people consuming organic compared to chemically produced food: The studies included ranged from just two days to two years. Yet, it is well established that chemical exposure often takes decades to show up, for example, in cancer or neurological disorders.

Consider these studies not included: The New York Times notes three 2011 studies by scientists at Columbia University, the University of California, Berkeley, and Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan that studied pregnant women exposed to higher amounts of an organophosphate pesticide. Once their children reached elementary school they "had, on average, I.Q.'s several points lower than those of their peers."

Thus, it is reprehensible for the authors of this overview to even leave open to possible interpretation that their compilation of short-term studies can determine anything about the human-health impact of pesticides.

What also disturbs me is that neither in their journal article nor in media interviews do the Stanford authors suggest that concern about "safer and healthier" might extend beyond consumers to the people who grow our food. They have health concerns, too!

Many choose organic to decrease chemicals in food production because of the horrific consequences farm workers and farmers suffer from pesticide exposure. U.S. farming communities are shown to be afflicted with, for example, higher rates of: "leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, multiple myeloma, and soft tissue sarcoma" -- in addition to skin, lip, stomach, brain and prostate cancers," reports the National Cancer Institute. And, at a global level, "an estimated 3 million acute pesticide poisonings occur worldwide each year," reports the World Health Organization. Another health hazard of pesticides, not hinted at in the report, comes from water contamination by pesticides. They have made the water supply for 4.3 million Americans unsafe for drinking.

Finally, are organic foods more nutritious?

In their report, Crystal Smith-Spangler, MD, and co-authors say only that "published literature lacks strong evidence that organic foods are significantly more nutritious than conventional foods." Yet, the most comprehensive meta-analysis comparing organic and non-organic, led by scientist Kirsten
Brandt, a Scientist at the Human Nutrition Research Center at the UK's Newcastle University found organic fruits and vegetables, to have on "average 12% higher nutrient levels."

Bottom line for me? What we do know is that the rates of critical illnesses, many food-related --from allergies to Crohn's Disease -- are spiking and no one knows why. What we do know is that pesticide poisoning is real and lethal -- and not just for humans. In such a world is it not the height of irresponsibility to downplay the risks of exposure to known toxins?

Rachel Carson would be crying. Or, I hope, shouting until -- finally -- we all listen. "Simple precaution! Is that not commonsense?"

Read more.. http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/09/06-12

Dr. Gary Null PHD & Jeremy Stillman -- Does Heart Rate Affect Longevity?

          Having spent my entire adult career working with tens of thousands of individuals as a scientist, clinician, and therapist in anti-aging research, it has been my observation that the higher one’s resting heart rate, the more susceptible one is to heart disease and premature death. Considering that we have added nearly ten years to the average lifespan over the last forty years, what can we point to that accounts for this change? A look at the evidence shows that it is multifactorial. 

When I was growing up, my parents, aunts and uncles, all smoked two to three packs of cigarettes a day. They drank a lot of alcohol- not to get drunk but to socialize- and they had high concentrations of animal protein, saturated fats and refined carbohydrates. They rarely exercised and more often than not, they internalized their distress. This lifestyle was typical among that generation of Americans.

Today, the last two generations have caused a renaissance in health awareness. Thanks to them, we now know the importance consuming a healthy vegan diet high in raw foods and fresh juices, using supplements, and abstaining from alcohol and smoking. We are aware of how indispensible exercise and more and more people are reaping the benefits of de-stress practices such as yoga and meditation.  The combination of all these factors has produced a quantitative change our life expectancy.

As a competitive athlete, having won more than 500 races and competed in more than 600, I have interacted with hundreds of professional athletes. Most of the athletes I have come to know have heart rates between 50 and 65. Most non-athletes, but those who still have a proper diet, have resting pulses between 70 and 80.  Those who are overweight, obese, or have diabetes, tend to have pulses between 75 and 85 and often suffer from heart disease and other serious medical conditions that inevitably shorten the lifespan. It is my experience that once they begin to exercise and bring their pulse down by more than 10 points or into the 60 to 70 range, that it increases their lifespan by approximately ten years. I’ve counseled many individuals who were given a very problematic prognosis (i.e., a shortened lifespan). By following the therapies listed above, many of them were able to significantly lower their blood pressure and heart rate. These people went on to live many years longer than what would have been expected and most of them survive today.  These experiences helped me arrive at my hypothesis that the lower the heart rate, the healthier the heart, and the longer the lifespan. A review of the scientific research on this subject shows that this hypothesis is well-founded. 

Examining the Evidence

In studies on both humans and animals, a clear relationship exists between high resting heart rate and shorter lifespan. In 2010, cardiologist Dr. Eva Lonn of McMaster University presented the results of a study that examined this connection in over 30,000 patients over the course of 4 years to the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress. Speaking before her colleagues, Lonn stated that "the higher the heart rate, the higher the risk of death from cardiovascular and all causes, even after adjusting for all risk factors that could confound our results," [1] The study found that individuals with heart rates above 78 beats per minute were 77% more likely to die from heart disease, and 65% more likely to die from all causes, than their counterparts who had a resting heart rate of 58 or below.  

These findings are corroborated by numerous other studies that connect an above-average resting heart rate with a significantly increased risk of death, especially from cardiovascular illness.[2] [3][4][5][6][7]   A study of more than 129,000 women published in the British Medical Journal found that women who had a heart rate of more than 76 ran a significantly higher risk of cardiac arrest and heart disease than those women whose pulse rate was lower than 62.[8] A recent paper out of France noted that “an increase in heart rate by 10 beats per minute was associated with an increase in the risk of cardiac death by at least 20%.”[9]

The connection between heart rate and longevity goes well beyond deaths related to cardiovascular illness. Using data collected during the 25-year-long Paris Prospective Study, which surveyed over 5,000 men aged 42-53, researchers at University Paris Descartes determined “resting and exercise heart rate had consistent, graded and highly significant associations with subsequent cancer mortality in men.”[10] Compared to the men with a resting heart rate below 60 beats per minute, those individuals with a heart rate of more than 73 beats per minute were 2.4 times more likely to die from cancer. The results are consistent with previous analyses showing a direct relationship between heart rate with cancer mortality.[11] A study out of Italy known as the MATISS Project investigated the possible association of pulse rate and mortality among Italian middle-aged males. The authors concluded that heart rate was a reliable independent predictor of total mortality.[12]  

Not only does a higher heart rate predict a shorter lifespan, but a body of evidence indicates that carrying out heart rate lowering activities such as exercise and meditation may help boost longevity.[13] In a paper from 2003, researchers at the European Society of Cardiology proposed the following explanation of why resting heart rate may be related to lifespan:

In mammals, the calculated number of heart beats in a lifetime is remarkably constant, despite a 40-fold difference in life expectancy. According to this view, a reduction in heart rate would increase life expectancy also in humans. The heart produces and utilizes approximately 30 kg adenosine triphosphate each day, and slowing its rate by 10 beats/min would result in a saving of about 5 kg in a day. Considering that heart rate is a major determinant of oxygen consumption and metabolic demand, heart rate reduction would be expected to diminish cardiac workload. Clinical studies with beta-blockers have already shown a reduction in mortality and improvement in outcome as a result of reduction in heart rate.[14]

The authors go on to recommend research into therapies designed to lower heart rate and in turn, potentially increase lifespan.  This suggestion is supported by a 2008 report in the Harvard Heart Letter which concluded that engaging in activities aimed at reducing heart rate such as exercise and de-stressing techniques may extend longevity.[15]

---

[1] Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada (2010, October 26). High resting heart linked to shorter life expectancy in stable heart disease patients, study suggests. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 4, 2012, from http://www.sciencedaily.com­/releases/2010/10/101026161239.htm

[2] J. Nauman, I. Janszky, L. J. Vatten, U. Wisloff. Temporal Changes in Resting Heart Rate and Deaths From Ischemic Heart Disease. JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association, 2011; 306 (23): 2579 

[3] Zhang, G., and W. Zhang. "Heart Rate, Lifespan, and Mortality Risk." Ageing Research Rev P. M. Okin, S. E. Kjeldsen, S. Julius, D. A. Hille, B. Dahlof, J. M. Edelman, R. B. Devereux. All-cause and cardiovascular mortality in relation to changing heart rate during treatment of hypertensive patients with electrocardiographic left ventricular hypertrophy.

[4] Palatini, Paolo. "Elevated Heart Rate: A “New” Cardiovascular Risk Factor?" Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases 52.1 (2009): 1-5. Pubmed.gov. Web. 5 Sept. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19615486>.

[5] Benetos, Athanase, Et Al. "Influence of Heart Rate on Mortality in a French Population."Hypertension 33 (1999): 44-52. Ahajournals.org. 1999. Web. 4 Sept. 2012. <http://hyper.ahajournals.org/content/33/1/44.short>.

[6] Ferrari, R. "Prognostic Benefits of Heart Rate Reduction in Cardiovascular Disease."European Heart Journal Supplements 5 (2003): G10-14. Print.

[7] European Heart Journal, 2010; DOI:iews 8.1 (2009): 52-60. Print.

[8] BMJ-British Medical Journal. "Resting Heart Rate Can Predict Heart Attacks In Women."ScienceDaily, 5 Feb. 2009. Web. 4 Sep. 2012.

[9] Perret-Guillaume, Christine, Laure Joly, and Athanase Benetos. "Heart Rate as a Risk Factor for Cardiovascular Disease." Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases 52.1 (2009): 6-10. Pubmed.gov. Web. 5 Sept. 2012. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19615487>.

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Ethical Dilemmas Contribute to 'Critical Weaknesses' in FDA Postmarket Oversight, Experts Say

 Ethical challenges are central to persistent "critical weaknesses" in the national system for ensuring drug safety, according to a commentary by former Institute of Medicine (IOM) committee members published August 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

With a caution against "reactive policymaking," committee co-chairs Ruth Faden, Ph.D., M.P.H., and Steven Goodman, M.D., M.H.S., Ph.D., with fellow committee member Michelle Mello, J.D., Ph.D., revisit the controversy over the antidiabetic drug Avandia that led to the formation of their IOM committee on monitoring drug safety after approval.

The Avandia postmarket trial, halted in September 2010, was "a lesson in how our current approach to the oversight of drug-safety and postmarketing research can fail both the public and the research participants," the authors write. With those lessons in mind, their independent commentary follows the May 2012 IOM report with a focus on the ethical challenges ahead.

The authors detail the IOM report's recommendations for maintaining the delicate balance of drug innovation and drug safety. Increased "fast-tracking" of drug approval for medical conditions with no effective treatment necessitates a counterbalance of increased postmarket oversight, the authors argue. They echo the IOM report's call for an independent ethics advisory board to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), focused on postmarket research and safety surveillance.

"As the pace of the translation of discoveries from bench to bedside continues to intensify, so too does the imperative for thoughtful ethical governance throughout the lifecycle of a drug," the authors write.

The authors also amplify one of the IOM report's key ethics points -- the responsibility of the FDA to participants in postmarket research, particularly in randomized trials that determine which treatment they receive. The FDA has a unique ethical obligation to the welfare of research participants when requiring a postmarket study, the authors assert, which "cannot be handed off to contractors or the industry sponsor."

Read more.. 

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/08/120822181226.htm

Stress May Cause Illness By Changing Genes

A new study suggests that acute psychological stress, which is known to increase the risk of physical and mental illness, may do so by altering the control of genes.

A report on the study, thought to be the first to show that stress alters the methylation of DNA and thus the activity of certain genes, appeared online in the journalTranslational Psychiatry on 14 August.

Researchers from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), together with colleagues from Basel, Trier and London, looked at gene segments that are known to be involved with the control of biological stress.

One of the most important discoveries in genetics is epigenetics, or the "second code" that regulates gene activity.

Research is beginning to show that epigenetic changes could be involved in the development of some chronic diseases such as cancer or depression.

While the genome, the genetic code or DNA, for making a human being is more or less fixed once the sperm fertilizes the egg, it is the epigenome that decides how the blueprint is interpreted.

Think of the genome as being the construction manual for making all the proteins the body needs, and the epigenome as the construction or maintenance guy reading the manual: sometimes he will have off days when he is tired and makes mistakes, or just interprets the instructions differently.

Cells function by making proteins. Which proteins they produce depends on the cell type, which is set by genes, and the environment, which influences how the epigenome reads the genes. One way this happens is via methyl groups (CH3) that attach to sections of DNA: these can remain in place for quite a while, even after the cell divides.

Previous studies have shown that psychological trauma in early life and highly stressful events are associated with long-term methylation changes to DNA.

But what the researchers in this study wanted to find out was whether this also happens after acute psychological stress: for instance such as that experienced during a job interview.

Read more.. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/249215.php

Kristen Gwynne -- Why Drug Dealers Are Now Competing with Doctors to Help Addicts

Twenty-three-year-old Joe*, a publicist living in New York City, doesn’t want to be buying his prescription drugs on the black market. It’s just that he doesn’t really have another choice.

As a recovering drug addict, Joe has spent almost three years successfully managing his former oxycontin addiction with suboxone, a prescription medication that reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms for drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers. He first began suboxone when he was in college and was able to receive free treatment and prescriptions. But since graduation, the cost of obtaining his treatment legally has become unaffordable—largely because of the American health care system.

“Recently, I paid $100 for 20 [dissolveable suboxone] strips. That will last me over a year,” said Joe, “Now, if I were to go to a doctor, it  would cost $300 cash just to walk in and see the doctor for the first time. If you can use your insurance, you can get it a little cheaper, but a lot of insurances don’t cover it,” he said. Legally, each strip can cost a whopping $15 dollars without coverage.

Forced to choose between obtaining his treatment illegally and seeing an expensive doctor, Joe is buying on the black market. And he isn’t alone. Addiction  is so taboo in this society that even the medical establishment shies away from it. Few physicians are willing to prescribe suboxone and regulations have significantly limited the patients that those few physicians are allowed to prescribe.  The social stigma of addiction has helped create a thriving black market for the drug—one that poses real dangers for addicts trying to stay clean.

Suboxone is a life-saver for opioid addicts risking the overdose associated with shifting heroin purity, or, typically, mixing prescription drugs with alcohol.  Buprenorphine (a generic name for suboxone) binds to opioid receptors and only partially activates them, while naloxone blocks some opioid receptors from activation and reduces the chances of overdose.  Suboxone patients can without heroin or oxys, and at the same time minimize or avoid withdrawal symptoms that include physical pain, severe nausea and vomiting.

Read more.. http://www.alternet.org/health-care-disaster-why-drug-dealers-are-now-competing-doctors-help-addicts