Watch the video.URL: https://youtu.be/cxs_yWlnwJo
http://www.infowars.com/cdc-vaccine-hoaxes-exposed/
From the desk of Zedie.
Moving immediately into the shade does not stop sun damage as UV rays can continue damaging skin cells hours after exposure.
Damage to skin cells continues for hours after spending time in the sun, according to research that uncovers a new link between sun exposure and cancer. The discovery that some of the most serious damage to skin cells may be occurring in the dark raises the prospect of new “evening after” lotions that would help limit the effect and reduce the risk of skin cancer.
The source of the “dark damage” was found to be melanin, the pigment in skin cells that normally acts as a shield against ultra-violet (UV) radiation.
The latest research at Yale University led by Prof. Douglas Brash reveals that UV light produces a cascade of chemical reactions that reacts with melanin causing one of its electrons to be “excited”. The melanin then deposits its extra energy in the surrounding tissue.
If a strand of DNA happens to be nearby, it can absorb the energy causing the double helix strand to bend and scramble the letters of the genetic code into mutations.
The more mutations skin cells accumulate over time, the higher the likelihood that one of them will turn out to be cancerous.
These deaths are not the consequences of poverty cycles or criminal gangs; they are a consequence of our country’s dysfunctional health system. This particular disease is almost unique to the US, with causes that lie in the very institutions that should have our best interests at heart.
Almost all the opioids taken recreationally originate from a legitimate prescription from a legitimate doctor. They are not bought on the street. They are, by and large, not bought online, either. They are not sourced from pharmacy heists or other criminal activity. Painkillers come from friends and family, legally in possession of them thanks to a culture that has normalized the use of powerful painkillers to the extent that 10.43% of 18-25 year olds have used prescription pain relievers recreationally.
The question is not so much why do kids use prescription drugs – kids have always experimented with drugs – but why prescription drugs in particular? How come they are so easily accessible?
Over-Prescription
How do kids get hold of Valium? Oxycontin? One way is by raiding their mother’s medicine cabinet. It starts with a legitimate prescription, and when the pain goes away, mom likes to keep a few around.
The truth is that doctors are over prescribing. The number of prescriptions for opioids has risen from around 76 million in 1991 to nearly 207 million in 2013. The US is easily the largest consumer globally, accounting for nearly 100% of total world hydrocodone (e.g. Vicodin) use and 81% for oxycodone.
Needless to say, not all doctors are at fault. It’s usually confined to a relative handful in an area. And there is a particularly high concentration of over prescription amongst doctors who work alone, whose work – including their prescriptions – is not peer reviewed. Over-prescription is permitted by an under-regulated health system.
But why are they so ready to hand them out? Escalation like this isn’t the result of a few overzealous doctors.
America is one of only two countries in the world to allow direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs. Other than New Zealand, you will never see an advert, in any form, anywhere else on Earth for drugs you can’t buy over the counter.
The result is patients going to their doctor, specifically asking for a particular drug. The industry defends the practice as one of giving information. But as Dr. Dee Mangin, associate professor at the Christchurch School of Medicine and Health Sciences, New Zealand, puts it: “The truth is direct-to-consumer advertising is used to drive choice rather than inform it.”
As with any advertising, it’s being used to create demand rather than simply aid consumers into making informed choices. Dr. Manging continues: “In an era of shared decision-making, it’s much more likely general practitioners will just do what the patient asks.”
The Business of Health
And why wouldn’t a doctor do as their patient asks? We have a medical system that treats healthcare as a business. When I go see my doctor, I go as a patient, yes, but also as a customer. And the customer is always right. If my doctor won’t give me what I want, maybe I’ll go to one that will. Even if not consciously, financial concern may trump medical concern.
Doctors are under pressure from suppliers as well. Pharmaceutical companies aren’t in the business of handing out drugs for those who need them. They are in the business of selling them, and they sell them through doctors, pressuring them to supply particular drugs – the drugs they’re advertising directly to consumers (patients).
When the FDA loosened regulations requiring a full listing of side effects in direct-to-consumer advertising in 1985, prescriptions began to skyrocket. And as they did, accidental drug deaths did too – having tripled since 1990. In 2013, there were 43,982 drug overdose deaths in the United States, 51.8% of those (22,767) were from pharmaceuticals.
Prescription Culture
The up-shot is this, by creating and allowing a loosely regulated healthcare system that treats medicine as a business and allows direct-to-consumer advertising, not only are prescription pills more readily available, but their use is normalized.
Of course this doesn’t only happen in America. But it happens all over the globe and a lot more countries. And only because we let it.
In its latest attempt to kick-start lady libidos with a pill, Sprout Pharmaceuticals announced this week that it will resubmit its female sex drug, flibanserin, for FDA approval. If it gets the okay, the drug would be the first prescription of its kind for women in the United States: a treatment for female hypoactive sexual disorder, or a low sex drive.
More than a dozen drugs that address some kind of sexual dysfunction already are available in the US. But since Viagra’s little blue pill hit the market, nearly all of the approved sex drugs have targeted men, despite the oft-cited statistic that nearly half of American women report some sexual dissatisfaction —notably more than their counterparts. While the FDA has approved medications for women that ease sex-related pain post-menopause, it hasn’t approved a more general sex aid, like the erectile dysfunction drugs available for men.
Patients, doctors, and activists have called this imbalance sexist, and the FDA has named female sexual dysfunction a top priority “disease area.” (To be clear, there are also no drugs for men that target perceived problems with the desire for sex, just the hydraulics that make erection possible.) But for Leonore Tiefer, an outspoken clinical associate professor of psychiatry at NYU, the lack of drugs isn’t the problem—we are.
After a lengthy career as a sex therapist, Tiefer has spent more than a decade arguing against the aggressive labeling of so-called sex disorders and the impulse to treat them with drugs. She blames the country’s medicalization of sex on a pharmaceutical industry hellbent on driving profit by stoking anxieties about “normal” sexual behavior—not to mention aggressive advertising campaigns, media, and news stories marginalizing diverse and individual desires.
Now, as companies like Sprout test dozens of products for women—pills, vaginal gels, even nasal sprays—in a race to sell the first “pink Viagra,” Tiefer asks us to question if we need it at all.
When did people start asking, “Okay, where’s the sex drug for women?”
Three months after Viagra was approved in 1998, The New York Times ran a front-page article about it. Nobody I knew was asking that question. I think the media wanted a different angle—the media kind of lost it entirely when Viagra was approved.
But 17 years later, we still don’t have one. Why?
No one really knows—for men or women—how desire and arousal work. There’s no research that tells you where a woman’s desire spot is. Except for the clitoris, and nobody’s working on that at all.
If there’s no medical foundation, how are researchers making these drugs?
Pharmaceutical companies first tried Viagra’s strategy: vasodilators, which they claim work to expand blood flow to the penis and other parts of the body. They caused tingling and enlargement of the clitoris and the labia—but women said it didn’t do anything for them. So they abandoned that.
After vasodilators failed, companies thought let’s try hormones—that’s always popular. So they did a million studies on testosterone and announced intrinsa, a testosterone patch, in 2004. But it didn’t pass the FDA’s tests. And then there was flibanserin, which targets neurotransmitters. That was originally rejected in 2010.
Flibanserin is now in the process of being refiled to the FDA, but it’s already been rejected twice. Why has the FDA rejected these kinds of drugs in the past?
They can have side effects—cardiovascular effects, cancer effects. They also have to be taken chronically—as opposed to Viagra, where’s it’s pop one and you’re out. And they weren’t better than the placebos. These drugs “work” for some women in the same way that Viagra “works” for some men. Every sex drug, including Viagra, has an inordinately high placebo rate. A lot of people hope it will work, expect it will work, and then they feel better. But—it’s a well-kept secret—the represcription rate for Viagra is less than half. It doesn’t work all that well, and the side effects are extremely annoying. We still don’t even know whether blood flow is really the main mechanism of action.
If it’s not that effective, how has Viagra become so popular?
Viagra was the first drug to really take advantage of direct-to-consumer advertising, especially on TV, after the FDA loosened restrictions in 1997. The pharmaceutical industry underwent a big change in the ’90s from focusing on diseases to focusing on lifestyle issues. But the lifestyle issues, like weight and sleep loss, had to be framed as medical conditions to fetch the high prices of medications.
So since the ’90s, conversations about sexuality have become much more focused on achieving “normal function,” the necessity of “normal functions,” the rewards of “normal functions.” Viagra has turned the public understanding of sexuality in a direction that I don’t think is beneficial. But, from the industry’s point of view, it’s all about profits. There’s nothing complicated about that.
Why isn’t there a normal function when it comes to sex?
There’s an assumption that sex is a built in thing, like digestion. And if something’s wrong with the body’s natural processes, we have this modern notion that you take something to fix it. But it’s not at all built in! An erection is built in, for the most part, but how you’re supposed to feel, or what you’re supposed to do about it, or how often, or with whom? None of that’s built in.
But isn’t sex an instinct?
Sex is like dancing. You’d never say dancing is the same in China as it is in Peru. You would never say the dancing that a 20 year old does is the same as the dancing a 60 year old does. I don’t think sex is a matter of health. If there is no normal healthy sex, then there can’t be diseases. There can’t be treatments.
Men have treatments. If women are unhappy with the sex they’re having, shouldn’t they have options, too?
I definitely think people should have what they want out of life, but I don’t think they should be misled about what kind of a thing it is. Most people are distressed about their sexual experience because we live in a culture that sets very high expectations and gives people very little preparation. They’re not having the quantity, or the quality, or the intensity that they think other people are having. So should they run to a doctor and say there’s something wrong with them? That’s where I part ways with the medical model.
To me, it seems like a fairness problem—men orgasm most of the time, women don’t. Men have access to drugs, women don’t.
Sure, but I don’t think what feminism has meant by equality is identicalness. I should have as many rights as my partner to say what we do, and when we do it, how often we do it, and I shouldn’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. But that has nothing to do with the equality of number of drugs or orgasms. Why would you want just one measure, especially something that’s not that easy and requires a certain kind of genital stimulation and a certain kind of mental attitude and it only lasts 10 seconds anyway?
Why not give people the option of having drugs if they want them? What do we lose?
Diversity and individuality. Sexuality is potentially an extremely diverse landscape of interests. You’re not allowed to have low interest anymore. Those people are now ill. Without drugs, sex wouldn’t be about intercourse or orgasms, but about physical intimacy, sharing things, the bodies involved. All of that is completely marginalized.
So, if we shouldn’t turn to drugs, how can people improve their sex lives?
There’s no way that I can answer that—if I could, I would put it on a 3×5 card and hand it out on the corner. It’s extremely individual. People think sexuality is something only an expert can help them with, but experts can only help in the way they know how. You take a car to a car repair shop, they deal with it in a mechanical way—they don’t pray over it. Doctors are happy to tell you about blood vessels, but they won’t talk to you about culture or love.
New research suggests that drinking just one can of caramel-coloured soft drink a day could expose you to unsafe levels of a possible carcinogen.
Soft drinks have never been the most nutritious dietary choice, but new research suggests that an unnecessary colouring ingredient may pose a cancer risk, even to people who consume an average amount of soda.
The chemical in question is a byproduct of caramel colour, a common ingredient that gives colas, root beers and iced teas their dark hue. During production of caramel colour type III and IV, a chemical known as 4-methylimidazole (4-MEI) can be produced.
And here’s where the problem lies, because 4-MEI has been classified as possibly carcinogenic to humans by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, as a result of “equivocal evidence of carcinogenic activity in female rats“, but no human studies.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the chemical definitely causes cancer, but the evidence was strong enough that, in 2011, California ordered that all drinks containing more than a safe level of 4-MEI, set as 29 μg/day, carry a warning label. The safe level of a chemical is determined by the amount that would cause less than one cancer case per 100,000 people exposed to it.
Now a team of researchers, led by the John Hopkins University Centre for a Liveable Future in the US, has assessed how much soft drink the average American drinks, and compared this to the levels of 4-MEI in cans of drink to assess whether the chemical really poses a risk to the average American consumer.
Publishing in PLOS ONE, they found that between 44 and 58 percent of people over the age of six in the US drink at least one can of soft drink every day on average. And given this rate of ‘average consumption’, they conclude that average soda drinkers could potentially be exposed to unsafe levels of 4-MEI over a lifetime.
“Soft drink consumers are being exposed to an avoidable and unnecessary cancer risk from an ingredient that is being added to these beverages simply for aesthetic purposes,” said Keeve Nachman, senior author of the study, in a press release. “This unnecessary exposure poses a threat to public health and raises questions about the continued use of caramel colouring in soda.”
Their research built on a previous study they’d done with Consumer Reports in 2013 and 2014. Over those two years, the team analysed 110 soft drinks bought in either California (where a warning label must be used above certain 4-MEI levels) or New York.
Altogether they looked at 11 different types of soft drinks, all in can form, except for Goya Malta, a carbonated and, according to the brand’s website, “nutritious”, malt drink, which is only sold in glass bottles.
The team admits that it didn’t look at enough soft drink samples to make any recommendations about which particular brands of soft drink have lower levels than others (you can see the full table in their paper, but keep in mind that these results definitely need to be replicated), but it did show that 4-MEI levels can vary greatly from can to can, even in the same type of soft drink.
“For example, for diet colas, certain samples had higher or more variable levels of the compound, while other samples had very low concentrations,” said Tyler Smith, another lead researcher, in the release.
The team has now submitted their results to the US Food and Drug Administration, in the hopes it will set some national limits for how much 4-MEI can be present in drinks.
“This new analysis underscores our belief that people consume significant amounts of soda that unnecessarily elevate their risk of cancer over the course of a lifetime,” said Urvashi Rangan, the executive director for Consumer Reports’ Food Safety and Sustainability Centre, in a press release. “We believe beverage makers and the government should take the steps needed to protect public health.”
Are you drinking beverages out of antifreeze containers and chewing on horse meat in your pre-packaged ‘hamburgers?’ As it turns out, new evidence from an Interpol investigation reveals that many ‘brand-name’ food items may actually be comprised of some very different ingredients than advertised. All in all, the food investigators seized a whopping 2,500 tons of fake food from wthin the food supply.
The reports are hitting the media from the UK to Thailand, which are two of the nations included in new operations through which government officials are cracking down on entire factories churning out phony food items. In the U.K., for example, there exists a major issue in which producers were selling fake ‘brand-name vodka’ in antifreeze containers that had been chemically treated to remove the repulsive smell. Unsurprisingly, alcohol was actually the most highly counterfeited substance of them all.
Others included:
Seafood
Mineral water
Dietary supplements
Mozzarella
Pharmaceutical drugs
Eggs
Dried fruit
Cooking oil
And that’s just a partial list of items seized from over 47 different countries by a joint operation conducted by Interpol and Europol over a two month period. And according to Time magazine’s take on the results, we are still dealing with several thousand tons of fake items on the market — ranging from common grocery items to extravagant imports.
Time author Mandy Oaklander writes:
“Adulterations cut across all kinds of categories. In Italy, 31 tons of seafood were labeled as “fresh” but had actually been previously frozen, then doused with a chemical containing citric acid and hydrogen peroxide to hide that it was rotting. At an Italian cheese factory, officers found expired dairy and chemicals used to make old cheese seem fresh. They also found that mozzarella was being smoked in the back of a van with burning trash as a heat source.
Egyptian authorities seized 35 tons of fake butter and shut down an entire factory producing that was sold as tea. In Thailand, officials destroyed 85 tons of meat that had made its way into the country without health and safety testing. And in the U.S., the FDA found that illegal dietary supplements were being sent through the mail.
All of that fraudulent food was seized in markets, airports, seaports and shops between December 2014 and January 2015. The crackdown, known as Operation Opson IV, is the largest effort of the agencies to target such inappropriately or mislabeled food and ultimately removed 2,500 tons of food and 275,000 liters of tainted drinks out of the food supply, Interpol says. Last year, Operation Opson III seized about 1,200 tons of fake food in 33 countries.”
What does this mean for you? This news is another reminder to purchase high quality products from your local vendors — and the simpler, the better. Even the experts on food regulation agree, eating organic and natural food items are the answer to truly knowing what you’re eating.
Markus Lipp, senior director for food standards at United States Pharmacopeia, told Time that eating such foods “will aid us in helping to prevent adulteration or buying adulterated products.”
There’s few things that people truly despise more than unknowingly eating concerning ingredients in their food, which is why McDonald’s is in sharp financial decline. Time and time again, we come back to the conclusion that it is now more essential than ever to know what you’re truly putting in your mouth — and what it’s going to do to your body.
Spider silk is famous for its amazing toughness, and until recently a tensile strength of 1.3 gigapascals (GPa) was enough to earn it the title of strongest natural material. However, researchers report online today in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface that the record books need to be updated to properly recognize the incredible strength of the limpet teeth. Marine snails known as limpets (Patella vulgata, pictured) spend most of their lives scraping a set of small teeth along rocks in shallow ocean waters, looking for food. The constant grinding would be enough to quickly reduce most natural materials to nubs, but the limpets’ teeth boast a tensile strength of between 3 and 6.5 GPa, researchers report. Scientists discovered that the teeth are made of a mixture of goethite (an iron-containing crystal) nanofibers encased in a protein matrix. In spite of their amazing strength, the teeth don’t quite best the strongest humanmade materials like graphene, but the new material’s upper range puts it far ahead of Kevlar and on par with the highest quality carbon fibers. Researchers speculate that the material’s durability may have practical applications in dentistry, but it’ll probably be a while before anyone is trading in their own teeth for some limpet chompers.
The next time you get the urge to stifle a window-rattling sneeze, you might want to reconsider. It could be harmful to your health.
Clamping your nostrils and mouth shut might avoid disturbing others. But it could damage your eardrums or sinuses or cause an ear infection.
Sneezes are surprisingly forceful. The sudden, powerful expulsion of air can propel mucous droplets at rates of up to 100 miles per hour.
Some people are starting to sneeze because of the arrival of warm weather and allergies. A hallmark of allergy-related sneezes is sneezing two to three times in a row.
Allergist Rachel Szekely MD says to let those serial ah-choos roll.
Some people sneeze because of colds. Colds may produce a yellowish nasal discharge that signals an infection.
It’s best for that discharge to move out of the body. Stifling a sneeze only keeps it in the body — and could move it further inside.
“By stifling a sneeze, you could push infected mucus through the eustachian tube and back into the middle ear,” Dr. Szekely says. “You can get middle ear infections because of that.”
Sneezing is a protective reflex. It means an irritant has gotten into your nose that your body wants to keep from getting to your sinuses or lungs. When you sneeze, your body is trying to rid itself of the intruder.
Some myths have grown up around stifling a violent sneeze. It won’t cause a stroke or blow out a kidney.
All the same, Dr. Szekely says, let your body do its thing and sneeze. Just cover your mouth and nose.
If you roll out of bed bleary-eyed each day, thinking, “Oh, my aching [insert painful joint here],” you’re not alone.
Research shows that between 50 and 90 percent of people with chronic joint pain don’t sleep well. And, that sleep deprivation can lead to other health issues, including low energy, mood disorders and eating problems.
If you have chronic pain in your hips, knees or shoulders, there are things you can do to limit how much the discomfort affects your nighttime rest, says Michael Schaefer, MD, Director of Musculoskeletal Physical Medicine & Rehabilitation at Cleveland Clinic.
“A healthy brain is a well-rested brain. It can deal better with pain, such as arthritis, on an ongoing basis,” he says. “Lack of sleep, on the other hand, can directly affect your mood, and a bad mood can make it harder to cope with pain. This can become a vicious cycle.”
When you need a doctor
women with neck back ache pain
Some problems with broken sleep patterns are normal as we age, Dr. Schaefer says, but you shouldn’t wake up and stay awake every night because of pain. If that’s your situation, consult your primary care physician.
“If the pain goes on for more than three or four days in a row or intermittently for two to three weeks, it’s time to get it addressed,” he says. “If the pain is so severe that you require alcohol or over-the-counter sleep aids to fall sleep, then it’s worth getting it looked at.”
See your doctor if you have joint pain and:
The pain isn’t in a typical spot for arthritis
You’re losing weight unexpectedly
Have a fever or chills
Experience night sweats
Have a history of cancer
Any of those problems can indicate a more serious condition in need of immediate medical attention, Dr. Schaefer says.
Get into a good sleep position
young female sleeping
Finding the right position can be the most crucial part of avoiding pain during sleep. Twisting and turning to find a comfortable spot is normal, Dr. Schaefer says, but even the slightest twinge of pain can disrupt your rest. He recommends you start out sleeping on your side – avoiding a sore shoulder if you have one – with a pillow between your legs. Try to avoid lying flat on your back.
Side-sleeping won’t work for all shoulder pain, though. Minimize that discomfort by wrapping your arm in a bandage or wearing a sling to bed. It will keep your arm immobile and prevent you from sleeping with your arm in an awkward position.
Other tips offer sleep relief for all
pills
There are additional, pain-specific steps you can take to decrease nighttime discomfort, Dr. Schaefer says. He also offers some general sleep recommendations to help nearly anyone, not only pain sufferers.
Find the right mattress. For back, hip and knee pain, Dr. Schaefer recommends a firm mattress. Add a foam pad on top if you need it to help evenly distribute your weight and keep your joints in alignment.
Take appropriate medication. If you’re using regular acetaminophen or ibuprofen and your pain breaks through the night, consider switching to a different pain reliever. Dr. Schaefer recommends pain killers that last between 12 and 24 hours, such as naproxen (Aleve®).
Maintain good sleep hygiene. Keep your sleep schedule as consistent as possible – turn off the television, put all electronics away, turn off lights and keep your room as quiet as you can.
Avoid substance aids. Alcohol might make you drowsy, but it won’t give you restful sleep. People often wake up after a few hours of drinking.
Minimize how often you use over-the-counter sleep aids. If you take them too long, you’ll need higher doses and may have trouble breaking this habit.
Do low-impact exercises. Regularly scheduled low-impact exercise, such as walking, bicycling or swimming, can help with both pain and sleep disorders.
Why sleep can hurt
Normal joint pain, especially in the hips, knees and shoulders, frequently worsens at night, he says. Your sleep position and the alignment of your body are responsible for most of the pain, but some comes from being so still at night.
“Joints swell at night, and motion gradually lubricates them and keeps the fluids moving round,” Dr. Schaefer says. “When you stop moving, they can swell more.” This can cause stiffness and pain, he says.
The idea of the universe as a ‘giant brain’ has been proposed by scientists – and science fiction writers – for decades. But now physicists say there may be some evidence that it’s actually true. In a sense. According to a study published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, the universe may be growing in the same way as a giant brain – with the electrical firing between brain cells ‘mirrored’ by the shape of expanding galaxies. The results of a computer simulation suggest that “natural growth dynamics” – the way that systems evolve – are the same for different kinds of networks – whether it’s the internet, the human brain or the universe as a whole. A co-author of the study, Dmitri Krioukov from the University of California San Diego, said that while such systems appear very different, they have evolved in very similar ways.
The result, they argue, is that the universe really does grow like a brain. The study raises profound questions about how the universe works, Krioukov said. “For a physicist it’s an immediate signal that there is some missing understanding of how nature works,” he told Space.com. The team’s simulation modeled the very early life of the universe, shortly after the big bang, by looking at how quantum units of space-time smaller than subatomic particles ‘networked’ with each other as the universe grew.
They found that the simulation mirrored that of other networks. Some links between similar nodes resulted in limited growth, while others acted as junctions for many different connections. For instance, some connections are limited and similar – like a person who likes sports visiting many other sports websites – and some are major and connect to many other parts of the network, like Google and Yahoo. No, it doesn’t quite mean that the universe is ‘thinking’ – but as has been previously pointed out online, it might just mean there’s more similarity between the very small and the very large than first appearances suggest.
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