David Sbarra, Rita Law, and Robert Portley from the University of Arizona recently published a study to summarize the evidence on the link between divorce and early death. They gathered data from 32 studies involving more than 6.5 million people in 11 countries that included 755,000 divorces and 160,000 deaths.

In general, the researchers found that adults who were divorced were 23% more likely to die younger than their married counterparts. Men had almost twice as high a risk of early death compared to women. People younger than 65 years of age were more at risk following divorce than older people. This pattern was consistent regardless of what country people lived in.

Full Story Here: Robert Hughes, Jr.: Will Divorce Increase Your Chances of Dying?.

Weaver Shepperson has been blind for nearly 50 years. He’s lived alone since his wife died in 1999 and needs transportation several times a month to visit his doctors.

Yet he doesn’t plan to move out of the rowhouse in Washington’s historic Capitol Hill neighborhood where he’s lived since 1955.

The 80-year-old is part of a burgeoning movement among senior citizens determined to stay in their homes as long as possible. With the help of nonprofit groups known as “villages,” they’re enjoying many of the perks that residents of retirement or assisted-living communities receive, at a fraction of the cost.

Shepperson pays $530 annually for membership in Capitol Hill Village. It enables him to receive a ride to the doctor’s office from the village’s network of volunteers. The village also takes care of his grocery shopping. Without it, he says he might have had to move into assisted living.

Full Story Here: Aging Americans Stay Home with Aid of ‘Villages’ | Common Dreams.

Not all diet plans are nutritious and safe. A new U.S. News ranking rates diets’ healthiness.

Weight lost doesn’t always equal health gained. That new diet that took inches off your waistline could be harming your health if it locks out or severely restricts entire food groups, like carbs, or relies on supplements with little scientific backing, or clamps down on calories to an extreme.

“People are so desperate to lose weight that it’s really weight loss at any cost,” says Madelyn Fernstrom, founding director of the UPMC-University of Pittsburgh Medical Center Weight Management Center and author of The Real You Diet. And when that desperation sets in, says Fernstrom, “normal thinking goes out the window.” Who cares if the forbidden-foods list is longer than War and Peace? Pounds are coming off. You’re happy. But your body might not be.

Full Story Here: U.S. News Releases Ranking Of Best Diets For Healthy Eating.

Is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported that antidepressant use in the United States has increased nearly 400 percent in the last two decades, making antidepressants the most frequently used class of medications by Americans ages 18-44. Among Americans 12 years and older, 11 percent were taking antidepressants by 2005-2008 (the most recently reported study period), and 23 percent of women ages 40–59 years were taking them.

Why has U.S. antidepressant use skyrocketed? Are the symptoms of what is commonly called depression—helplessness, hopelessness, and immobilization—always evidence of a medical condition? Or is it time to repoliticize a great deal of our despair, and reconsider the old-fashioned antidepressant of political activism?

Full Story Here: 400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use: Americans Are Disempowered — Can the OWS Uprising Shake Us Out of Our Depression? | Drugs | AlterNet.

As a new report predicts a rise in infidelity, we take a look at contradictory economy-related sexual predictions.

Our enduring recession is going to make men cheat more, if you believe the conclusions of a new study making the rounds this week. Omri Gillath, a social psychology professor at the University of Kansas, found that after exposing men to visuals meant to make them contemplate their own mortality, they were more responsive to sexual imagery. By superimposing mating strategies from our days on the savannah onto modern times, he concludes that as the economy continues to give us “signs that we have lower chances of survival,” we can expect men to be more inclined to stray. It’s a short-term mating strategy, Gillath says, that optimizes a man’s chance of successfully passing on his genes.

The study serves as a reminder not only of how overreaching evolutionary psychology can be, but also how many contradictory economic-related predictions have been made in recent years about our sexual behavior. It started in 2008 with reports that the popularity of sex-related items had gone up. At the start of the recession, sales of lubricants grew by 32 percent, Durex condoms reported 6 percent growth and sex toy retailer Babeland announced a 25 percent increase in business. Sex-related services also got a boost: Dating sites like Match.com reported a rise in traffic and hookup services like Manhunt saw membership boom. This caused business blogger Penelope Trunk to conclude, “So the deeper the recession, the more sex people are having.”

Full Story Here: What Does the Recession Mean for Our Sex Lives? | | AlterNet.

Dr. Andrew Kramer, a urologist and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Maryland Medical Center, studied 16 cases of penile fracture between 2004 and 2011 that required surgery. Half the patients admitted to fracturing their penises during an extramarital affair.

According to the study, which was published last month, penile fracture occurs when the “tunica albuginea” — the fibrous membrane surrounding the tissue in the center of the penis — is torn during the bending or buckling of an erect penis. It can result in erectile dysfunction if not surgically repaired.

We talked to Dr. Kramer to learn more about his unusual findings.

(Warning: Graphic content ahead)

Full Story Here: Penile Fracture: Study Links Broken Penises To Infidelity.

Community wellness centers used to have bipartisan support — that is, until they were included in the Affordable Care Act

The Mary Howard Health Center sits on the first floor of a ten-story, low-rise office building a few blocks from the heart of downtown Philadelphia. The center serves the city’s homeless residents, providing everything from wound care to mental-health services. Like all community health centers, Mary Howard provides health care without regard for income or insurance status.

“They’re doing a good job, giving me all the attention I need,” says James Brown (“like the soul singer”), a 71-year-old Mary Howard patient with a painful abscess on his back the size of a fist. “It’s just like a regular hospital.”

The center saw 1,760 patients last year, a capacity increased by funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’s (ARRA) $2 billion earmark for community health centers. Most of the $636,000 ARRA grant Mary Howard received went to expanding the center’s capacity from four to ten patient rooms.

Without Mary Howard, Brown says, “I would have just gone to emergency care … but I trust [the health center] just as much as emergency care.”

Full Story Here: Death Watch for Health Clinics.

The American Academy of Pediatrics this weekend expanded its guidelines for diagnosing and treating kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, recommending that doctors evaluate all patients aged four to 18 who show signs of the condition.

The new guidelines update decade-old recommendations that focused on diagnosing and managing ADHD in kids aged six to 12. But behavior problems, over-activity and trouble paying attention can show up earlier, researchers said, and ADHD often persists into adolescence or even adulthood.

Pediatricians should also look out for learning disabilities, anxiety and other issues that can go hand-in-hand with ADHD. And, they should tailor treatment with behavior therapy and medication based on kids’ age and severity of symptoms, says a statement published in Pediatrics.

Full Story Here: Doctors recommend evaluating children for ADHD at age four | The Raw Story.

A new study from the Women’s Health Initiative has found that, contrary to popular belief, older women are generally satisfied with their sex lives — and if they do have a problem, it’s because they’d like to be having more sex.

The study, released this month and featured in the Menopause journal, asked 27,347 women aged 50 to 79 a series of questions about how they perceive sexual activity and their own sex lives. Results from the study indicated sexual activity among 50 to 59-, 60 to 69-, and 70 to 79-year-old age groups to be 60.7 percent, 44.9 percent and 28.2 percent, respectively.

Most of the study’s participants were satisfied with their current sex lives (63.2 percent). Of those dissatisfied, 57 percent responded that they would like to be having more sex, not less. The most common reasons sited by participants who said they were not sexually active were poor health, depression and loss of a partner.

“This is the first study that indicates that [older] women would actually like to have more sex,” Gisele Wolf-Klein, MD, director of geriatric education at the North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y., told WebMD. Though she was not involved in the study, she went on to note, “We know sexual activity decreases with age, and we do attribute that to lack of a partner, but we thought that women were kind of happy with this. That it didn’t represent a major problem. Well, that does not seem to be the case.”

Full Story Here: Women Over 50 Enjoying Healthy, Active Sex Lives: Study.

Working fewer hours could save our economy, save our sanity, and help save our planet.

Millions of Americans have lost control over the basic rhythm of their daily lives. They work too much, eat too quickly, socialize too little, drive and sit in traffic for too many hours, don’t get enough sleep, and feel harried too much of the time. It’s a way of life that undermines basic sources of wealth and well-being—such as strong family and community ties, a deep sense of meaning, and physical health.

Imagining a world in which jobs take up much less of our time may seem utopian, especially now, when a scarcity mentality dominates the economic conversation. People who are employed often find it difficult to scale back their jobs. Costs of medical care, education, and child care are rising. It may be hard to find new sources of income when U.S. companies have been laying people off at a dizzying rate.

But fewer work hours for people with jobs is a key step toward solving the unemployment crisis—while giving Americans healthier lives. Fewer hours means more jobs are available to people who need them. Living on less pay usually means consuming less, making more of the things one needs at home, and living lighter, whether by design or by accident.

Full Story Here: Less Work, More Living by Juliet Schor — YES! Magazine.

Uncle Sam wants you to know more about what you’re eating.

The Food and Drug Administration wants to revise the nutrition facts label – that breakdown of fats, salts, sugars and nutrients on packaging – to give consumers more useful information and help fight the national obesity epidemic.

A proposal is in the works to change several parts of the label, including more accurate serving sizes, a greater emphasis on calories and a diminished role in the daily percent values for substances like fat, sodium and carbohydrates.

It’s the latest attempt to improve the way Americans view food and make choices about what they eat, and comes in the wake of major advances in nutrition regulations by the Obama administration.

Calorie counts are popping up on menus of chain restaurants across the country and the longstanding food pyramid was toppled this year by the U.S. government in favor of a plate that gives a picture of what a healthy daily diet looks like.

Full Story Here: FDA Creating New Nutrition Facts Label.

The research examined the sex lives of women between the ages of 60 and 89 and found those who enjoyed an active sex life had a better quality of life and were happier, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Though sexual activity was lower in older woman — “seventy per cent of women in their sixties reported some sexual activity in the previous six months, a figure which dropped to 57 per cent among women in their seventies and 31 per cent among those in their eighties,” according to the report — and the women studied were less likely than younger women to become aroused or climax, the results showed a majority of the women ranked their sex lives between moderately satisfied and very satisfied, according to the Telegraph.

Full Story Here: Women Age Better If They Have Active Sex Lives: Study.

“What do you do when you feel sad?” people often ask me. (Some even ask, “Do you ever get sad?”)

Yes, of course my kids and I both feel sadness, anger, anxiety — sometimes downright misery — just like everyone else. Leading a joyful life does not mean always trying to be happy.

At the same time, I’m not really one for rumination. Meaning: My kids and I feel our feelings — often deeply — and then, if the feelings are negative, we try to move on. If the feelings are positive, we try to savor them, to hang on to them.

When people hear that I encourage my kids to move on from unpleasant feelings, many of them worry. “Well, make sure you aren’t denying their negative emotions,” I’ve been warned, “or sending the message that bad feelings are bad and should be avoided.”

Full Story Here: Christine Carter, PhD: How to Feel Better When You’re Feeling Down.

You don’t have to act your age. And you definitely don’t have to look it: After all, 50 is the new 30. (Hello, have you seen Madonna lately?)

But when it comes to nutrition, eating the best foods for your age is the secret to conquering the changes going on in your body — and to fueling up for the challenges in your life. That’s why we created this guide to what you need most, and why, when you’re in your 30s, 40s and 50s.

Full Story Here: Nutrition Needs In Your 30s, 40s and 50s.

Many of us love some spice in our meals. Spicy food, curry, spices, hot sauce and other hot food can really add some pizazz to a meal (and your taste buds), but afterwards you may end up with a case of halitosis, heartburn and indigestion. Does that mean lay off the spicy foods all together? No! In fact, according to a recent article, there are dozens of spicy food challenges all over the United States.

This year at the Fiery Food Challenge Awards in Irving, Texas, a Tampa native took first place for her chipotle sauce (reports Tampa Bay Online). Her other entries that were awarded prizes include her Chai Chipotle Cocktail, Chai Chipotle Chup, Chai Curry Chup and Garlic Goodness hot sauce. How do spicy foods lead to bad breath? The immediate effect is that they leave a film of spices on the tongue whose odors are exhaled with every breath. An after-effect could be caused by capsaicin in peppers. Capsaicin is the chemical compound that gives spicy food its “hot” taste and feel.

Full Story Here: Dr. Harold Katz: Foods That Might Be Causing Bad Breath.

Yes, it’s true, through regular meditation practice, you might become so profoundly peaceful that you will never again have trouble sleeping. Or you might become so radiant and light-filled that you won’t need much sleep at all. But although that might be an exciting goal for some people, it’s surely not very helpful if you are having trouble falling asleep right now.

I learned a lot about this one night… at about four in the morning. I was lying in bed, wide awake, not having slept, getting more and more agitated by the minute. The possibility of having a good night’s sleep — or even just enough sleep — was long gone. By this point, it was just a matter of grabbing what little sleep I could.

Full Story Here: Martin Boroson: The One-Moment Insomnia Cure.

Talk about myth-busters.

In their new book, “The Longevity Project,” researchers Howard S. Friedman and Leslie R. Martin present the results of their 20-year study on the key predictors of longevity. The results are fascinating! The researchers re-examined data first collected by Lewis Terman. In that study, which started in 1921, Terman followed up a group of high-I.Q. children from childhood to death. To find clues as to the key predictors of longevity, a team of graduate and undergraduate students associated with Friedman and Martin over the course of 20 years searched for death certificates, evaluated interviews and analyzed thousand of pages of information about the Terman participants.

What clues did they find in Terman’s rich dataset? Overall, they found that personality and social relations in childhood significantly predicted risk of mortality many years later. The findings were not what you may expect, though.

Full Story Here: Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.: Revealed: The Secret to Long Life and Happiness.

After the Show: The Many Faces of the Performer

Recounting his recording sessions with the young Michael Jackson, famed record producer Quincy Jones remembers that “Michael was so shy, he’d sit down and sing behind the couch with his back to me while I sat with my hands over my eyes — and the lights off.” What a contrast from his onstage extroverted, charismatic and bold performance!

In the CNN.com article “The confusing legacy of Michael Jackson,” Todd Leopold discusses the perplexing combination of seemingly contradictory traits displayed by Michael Jackson. In explaining his many sides, Jackson biographer J. Randy Taraborelli essentially throws his hands up in the air in exasperation as he tries to make sense of the apparent contradictions:

I think that when you’re talking about Michael Jackson and you try to analyze him, it’s like analyzing electricity, you know? It exists, but you don’t have a clue as to how it works.

Full Story Here: Scott Barry Kaufman, Ph.D.: After the Show: The Many Faces of the Performer.

But the psychiatrist, Dr. Donald Levin, stopped him and said: “Hold it. I’m not your therapist. I could adjust your medications, but I don’t think that’s appropriate.”

Like many of the nation’s 48,000 psychiatrists, Dr. Levin, in large part because of changes in how much insurance will pay, no longer provides talk therapy, the form of psychiatry popularized by Sigmund Freud that dominated the profession for decades. Instead, he prescribes medication, usually after a brief consultation with each patient. So Dr. Levin sent the man away with a referral to a less costly therapist and a personal crisis unexplored and unresolved.

Full Story Here: Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy – NYTimes.com.

Or does she? Is it possible that having a supportive partner might have the opposite and paradoxical effect, actually undermining effort and commitment to health and fitness goals over the long haul? Perhaps we conserve our limited supply of self-control, “outsourcing” our effort when we know that a close friend of partner is in the wings, helping us achieve a goal.

Two psychological scientists have been exploring this novel idea in the laboratory. Grainne Fitzsimons of Duke University and Eli Finkel of Northwestern suspected that moral support might have a flip-side, namely emotional dependence. If we know someone has our back, isn’t it possible that we unconsciously rely on that support to help us reach our goals — and thus slack off? Here’s how they tested this idea in a couple different studies.

Full Story Here: Wray Herbert: The Partner Paradox: ‘Outsourcing’ Self-Discipline.

Women Want to Talk About Things and Men Want to Have Sex

Peter and Melinda were divorced in 2000. Because they had two children together, and had to co-parent, they were in contact on a daily basis. Their relationship dynamic transformed from a somewhat contentious snippy interchange to one in which they were actually great friends.

From a place of friendship, the couple was actually able to go back in time and review past hurts and dashed expectations. They were able to heal many of the wounds they had each inflicted on the other, but most importantly, they were able to find a way to resolve their present day problems quickly.

Why hadn’t they been able to do that in their first marriage together?

Full Story Here: Susan Pease Gadoua: The Anatomy of the Divorced Couple’s Disconnect: Women Want to Talk About Things and Men Want to Have Sex.

Worry has a mind of its own.

A negative thought pops into your head, you pay attention to it, you feel you need the answer right now, you think you have a responsibility to do something about it and you can’t do anything else until you finally answer the thought that just showed up.

You have been hijacked by your worries.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Full Story Here: Robert Leahy, Ph.D.: Are You a Worrier? 5 Tips to Turn Worry on Its Head.

Americans are fat and getting fatter by the year. Recent data reported in medical journal Lancet showed that BMI (Body Mass Index), a recognized measurement of obesity, is higher on average in America than in any other nation.

The obesity problem, however, is international. The report in Lancet states that “In 2008, 9.8 percent of the world’s male population were obese, as were 13.8 percent of women. In 1980, these rates were 4.8 percent and 7.9 percent.” US eating habits and diets have been exported, many experts say. Nations which before had relatively lean diets which were high in grains and fruits now consume many more soft drinks and hamburgers.

Full Story Here: The States With The Worst Eating Habits: 24/7 Wall Street.

Republican policy always seems to depend on numerous thinking errors, misinformed attitudes that result in antisocial behavior. One common one is the concrete thinking error, the belief all things occur in black or white, that there is no middle ground for compromise. In my volunteer work, I help prisoners and former prisoners learn to recognize and avoid a couple dozen of these thinking errors. People often develop thinking errors as a response to fear. The Republican leadership recognizes this and bombards their base with lies specifically designed to invoke fear. Within the human brain is a structure called the amygdala that triggers the fight or flight reaction as a response to fear by dumping a hormone cocktail into the bloodstream, one of whose effects is interference with rational thought. I have often wondered why Republicans, especially the InsaniTEA wing of the party, seem so vulnerable to the obvious propaganda from the likes of Beck, Limbaugh and Palin, and science just may have an answer.

Political opinions are considered choices, and in Western democracies the right to choose one’s opinions — freedom of conscience — is considered sacrosanct.

But recent studies suggest that our brains and genes may be a major determining factor in the views we hold.

via Is Being Republican a Brain Defect? » Politics Plus.

Life in the 21st century can certainly derail our longevity plans! Lack of sleep, poor nutrition, too little physical activity, unhappiness and daily stress are five major rapid-aging culprits that wreak havoc on our health and shorten our lifespan. Follow these tips to boost your longevity and stop those crow’s feet from creeping up on you too soon:

1) Don’t Worry, Be Happy

A smile a day can zap those wrinkles away! Did you know that it takes more muscles to create a frown than it does a smile? When was the last time you laughed so hard that you hunched over from a bellyache? Watch a comedy, tell a joke or have a fun game night with your friends. Several studies demonstrate how laughter can reduce inflammation and blood pressure, boost immunity and even burn calories. A study conducted in Vanderbilt University measured the amount of 50 calories burned in just 10 to 15 minutes of laughter. Turn that frown upside down and smile your way to health!

Full Story: Dr. Maoshing Ni: The Top 5 Ways to Live Longer, Stronger and Happier.

“Grumpy” loved spending the weekend touring the Texas Hill Country with his pals — the Seven Dwarfs Motorcycle Club. His Harley was his pride and joy and nothing gave him a greater sense of freedom than riding on a crisp, cool, fall day with his ponytail flapping in the breeze behind him. He never had time to see the sheep on the road, as his bike slipped out from under him, his unprotected head first bounced on the pavement and then into a culvert next to the road. Comatose and severely brain injured, he was transported by helicopter to the trauma center.

Cheryl couldn’t wait to get home from school, feed her dog and hop onto her fluorescent pink bicycle. With her friends, they made a quick stop at the convenience store and decided to race to their favorite spot in the woods behind their neighborhood. For the first time she was in the lead as they careened down the big hill. Then, suddenly her front wheel struck a pothole in the road and she was headed over the handlebars. No helmet on her head, she suffered a terrible brain injury and lies motionless in her bed, staring as if awake, but in a deep coma.

Full Story: Richard C. Senelick, M.D.: Head Injuries: Why Motorcycle and Bicycle Helmets Should Be Mandatory.

Most people assume that positive thinking is just something that we do to help achieve our goals, or even to get through difficult times. But a host of exciting research has shown that attitude affects our health — so much so, in fact, that a positive attitude can add years to our lives.

Take the following study performed at Carnegie Mellon University, for instance. In the study, each of 193 healthy volunteers between the ages of 18 and 55 was given nasal drops containing a cold or flu virus.

Participants were also assessed for their emotional style — whether they tended to experience positive emotions, like happiness, liveliness and calmness, or whether they tended to experience negative emotions, like anxiousness, hostility, and depressive tendencies. Each person’s health was then monitored in quarantine.

Full Story: David R. Hamilton, Ph.D.: Do Positive People Live Longer?.

What’s the antidote? Simple: use your body the way it’s built. If you want your brain to work well, you first want to know how your brain works. Hint: it’s not a machine. It is a living, wondrously inventive, rapidly renewing organ. You see your hair grow, your nails grow, but do you see your brain grow? That’s what your brain does during rest, your body’s rebuild-and-renew program. To get your brain to work better, here’s rule number one: rest for success.

Full Story: Matthew Edlund, M.D.: No Time For Downtime? 8 Tips for Improving Cognitive Function.

Doctors are trained to identify diseases by where they are located. If you have asthma, it’s considered a lung problem; if you have rheumatoid arthritis, it must be a joint problem; if you have acne, doctors see it as a skin problem; if you are overweight, you must have a metabolism problem; if you have allergies, immune imbalance is blamed. Doctors who understand health this way are both right and wrong. Sometimes the causes of your symptoms do have some relationship to their location, but that’s far from the whole story.

As we come to understand disease in the 21st century, our old ways of defining illness based on symptoms is not very useful. Instead by understanding the origins of disease and the way in which the body operates as one whole, integrated ecosystem we now know that symptoms appearing in one area of the body may be caused by imbalances in an entirely different system.

If your skin is bad or you have allergies, can’t seem to lose weight, suffer from an autoimmune disease or allergies, struggle with fibromyalgia, or have recurring headaches, the real reason may be that your gut is unhealthy. This may be true even if you have NEVER had any digestive complaints.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: 5 Steps to Kill Hidden Bugs in Your Gut That Make You Sick.

In 2008 49 million Americans–including 16.7 million children–lived in a home at risk of not having enough food on the table every day. After working in Haiti, the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, I learned that one in two Haitians wake up every day not knowing where their next meal will come from. But right here in the wealthiest nation in the world, one in five children live in poverty, one in four children live on food stamps, and one in 10 people don’t know where their next meal will come from.

The Census Bureau recently reported that the nation’s poverty rate increased to 14.3 percent in 2009–the highest level we’ve seen since 1994. 43.6 million Americans lived below the poverty line in 2009, earning less than $21,954 per year for a family of four or $10,956 for an individual. We now have the highest number of people living on the threshold of poverty in the history of government record keeping.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: The Link Between Poverty, Obesity and Diabetes.

Casual sex is often presented as damaging. But it could be a good path to discovering important things about your sexuality

Casual sex and one-night stands are almost always framed as damaging to women, particularly young women. In recent years, writers like Laura Sessions Stepp and Wendy Shalit have issued dire warnings about the alleged dangers of sex outside of committed relationships.

Let’s call this rhetoric what it is: a tired repeat of the sexist double standards that have haunted women for centuries. (The subtitle of Shalit’s second book, “It’s Not Bad To Be Good,” clearly articulates the regressive notion that chastity and sexual restraint renders one “good.”)

The idea that women are so fragile that a bad one night stand leaves them scarred —or “in turmoil” as Laura Sessions Stepp puts it—is destructive. (So is the common belief that men are incapable of feeling empty or sad after a similar encounter; Sessions Stepp absurdly claims that when it comes to being in turmoil, “boys are not.”)

Full Story: 6 Reasons to Have Casual Sex | Sex & Relationships | AlterNet.

I know what it’s like to live on very little. In college and medical school, I lived on $300 a month (for rent, food, and entertainment). And in residency, I lived on $27,000 a year while supporting a wife and two children. Even though that was 20 years ago, it still wasn’t much for a family of four.

These days, I understand more than ever what it’s like to have very little free time. My days are full, seeing patients, teaching other doctors, acting as Chairman of the Institute for Functional Medicine, working as editor of a medical journal, writing books (and blogs), giving lectures, being a volunteer for Partners in Health in Haiti, spending time with my friends and wife, being the father of four children who have their own busy lives, all while trying to fit in exercise and sleep, too.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: How to Eat Healthy for Less.

How many people can’t stand the texture of fish, can only stomach grilled chicken or refuse to eat their vegetables?

Scientists at Duke University in North Carolina are compiling the first global registry of “picky eaters” in the hope of discovering why some people have trouble with food.

They believe it may help find a genetic reason for some eaters’ intense dislike of certain foods, like broccoli, or beans with a “fuzzy” texture.

They note some eaters’ pickiness is so deep-seated it interferes with their jobs, their relationships and their social lives.

“This is an area that is vastly under-explored,” says Dr Nancy Zucker, director of the Duke University Center for Eating Disorders.

Full Story: BBC News – Hate fish? Can’t eat veg? Doctors study picky eaters.

The food industry sees huge dollar signs in erasing the border between medicine and meals.

Cinnamon is no longer just the spunky spice on cinnamon toast. Turmeric is no longer just the bitter yellow dust that colors curry.

These days, both are hailed as superpowered disease-fighting “nutraceuticals” — part nutrient, part pharmaceutical. Along with many other once-humble substances (think pomegranates, fish oil and flax seeds), they’re key ingredients in “functional foods,” which comprise a booming $30-billion-a-year industry bent on erasing the border between medicine and meals.

When is candy not candy? When are potato chips not potato chips? When are crisp salty discs and dark-chocolate balls not mere hedonistic treats? When they’re functional foods, in this case Corazonas chips and foil-wrapped Frutels — bought in hopes of lowering cholesterol and curing acne.

Full Story: Chocolate That Cures Acne, Potato Chips That Lower Cholesterol — Here Come the Nutraceuticals to a Store Near You | Food | AlterNet.

One afternoon not long ago, my body mocked my pretensions, toppled my carefully constructed persona, and forced me to rethink who I am.

I was lounging at the dining room table late on a Sunday afternoon, perusing the local newspaper and wearing my favorite home-alone attire — faded linen capris, a baggy yellow T-shirt, and ancient bedroom slippers. I had a cup of ginger tea going; somewhere in the background, NPR’s American Routes played a bluesy riff by John Prine. As far as I was concerned, life didn’t get much better than this.

Just then, I heard slapping footsteps on the stairs leading up to our front porch. The screen door whined open. Voices. Muffled laughter. Youthful. Female. More than one.

Full Story: Do Our Personalities Pilot the Way We Live Our Lives? | Personal Health | AlterNet.

In January 2010, another study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) confirms these findings. The newest study also evaluated another class of antidepressants, tricyclic antidepressants. Again, researchers determined that the typical patient, one with mild to moderate depression, gets the same amount of relief from a placebo as from an antidepressant. [3][4] The first author of the study, Jay C. Fournier, MA, told Medscape, “I think the most surprising part of the findings was how severe depression has to be in order to see this clinically meaningful difference emerge between medication and placebo, and that the majority of depressed patients presenting for treatment do not fall into that very severe category.”

Full Story: Christiane Northrup, MD: The Limits of Antidepressants: Exploring the Alternatives.

Piece by piece, you begin to establish your location: Bed. Yes. Home. Middle of the night. Wednesday. No, Thursday, now. Early. Chilly. Fall.

Even as, half-asleep, you’re reassembling yourself, part of you wakes up to the fact that you’ve just come from a dream: your body—abuzz, refreshed—is still in the feeling-state the dream created. Where you are, though, matters less than where you’ve been. Your body, still half-slumbering, is eager to return to the exotic land you’ve just left, but your mind can’t make out where to go or how . . . . Wait, there’s something. A boat. Your father, rowing . . . . No, not your father; some other male. You were coming from . . . a movie theater?!? Someone was there with you—to your right? Behind you? You can feel the absence of her presence. You turn back to the boat, but the guy is no longer there. Did he disappear in the dream, or did he disappear because you can’t remember the dream? And was that a boat he was in or a pickup truck?

You keep searching, as if inching your way through some unexplored cave—arms, hands, fingers, fingertips outstretched—and whenever you feel you’ve almost got a handle on something—a picture, a notion—damn, it slips away, escaping deeper into the blackness. It was right there, just a minute ago. You were living it; asleep, yes, but your body is still feeling it, yet you can’t connect the feeling to anything in particular, and you’re losing your grip on the few pieces you’ve managed to grab. They’re going. And now—wait . .

Full Story: The Non-Remembrance of Things Past.

Some carcinogens you already know and fear: cigarettes, asbestos, smoked meat.

But what about the ones you’ve never even heard of? That’s the crux of a new report from the American Cancer Society (ACS), which rounds up 20 “suspected carcinogens” the organization would like to see studied more extensively.

Of course, that research, if it happens, will come after the chemicals, ingredients — and even lifestyle choices — are already embedded into the bedrock of our 24/7 economy.

“The objectives of this report are to identify research gaps and needs for 20 agents prioritized for review based on evidence of widespread human exposures and potential carcinogenicity in animals or humans,” Elizabeth Ward, the co-author of the report, said.

So just what are these potential cancer causers lurking in our everyday environs? Surge Desk runs down five (not so awesome) favorites.

Full Story: Top 5 Suspected Everyday Carcinogens in American Cancer Society’s Scary New Report.

There’s no doubt that air-conditioning can save your life, but as heat waves increase in the future, should we all be armed with A/C?

Eddie Slautas turned down his neighbors’ repeated offers to install a window air conditioner in his Chicago apartment. Even when they said they’d help him pay the difference in his utility bill, the 74-year-old demurred. “Why should I make my electric bill higher?” he asked. “The fan is good enough.” Then came a fierce midsummer heat wave. On the night of July 30, 1999, the neighbors found Slautas dead. The fan was running, blowing hot air across his body. He was one of 103 Chicagoans killed by the heat that week.

On the last night of July 2006, a Commonwealth Edison power cable running beneath the city of Chicago failed, putting 3,400 customers in the dark. The next day, as temperatures reached 100 degrees on the fifth day of a blistering heat wave, 1,300 people had to be evacuated from high-rise residential buildings in the area. Their apartments had become saunas, so they took refuge in air-conditioned shelters. Resident Lutricia Somerville, who had resorted to spending much of the night in her parked truck with the air conditioner running, told a reporter, “It’s just like Hurricane Katrina.” Those trapped in the heat must indeed have felt some of the desperation that had hit New Orleans residents 11 months earlier. But the outage was short-lived, and this time no one died or suffered serious medical problems.

Full Story: Surviving the Great Indoors: The Pros and Cons of Living in an A/C World | Environment | AlterNet.

Despite the common observation that obesity runs in families, genetic research shows that the habits you inherit from your family are more important than the genes you inherit. Obesity genes account for only five percent of all weight problems. Then, we have to wonder, what causes the other 95 percent of weight problems?

We are seeing an epidemic of obesity in America today. It is the single most important public health issue facing us. If genes do not account for obesity, perhaps it is our high-fat diet that is to blame. That has been the common belief in our society since nutritional low fat guidelines were pushed upon us in the 1970′s. It seems logical that eating fat makes you fat. Fat contains nine calories per gram, so it would seem that eating more fat (and more calories) would make you gain weight. But that’s not what the science reveals.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: Why Eating a Low-Fat Diet Doesn’t Lead to Weight Loss.

We all have habitual, negative thinking, feeling and doing patterns that sabotage our success, happiness and well-being. They become so ingrained that we think we have no power to change them. They simply become part of our daily life.

Being passionate about Greek mythology and archetypes, I thought of how the myth of Sisyphus might relate to our lives. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the myth, let me tell you about it.

Sisyphus — a crafty and arrogant man — was condemned by Zeus for his bad deeds to roll a rock up a hill, only to have it roll right back down before he could get it to the top. He would have to repeat this task day after day for eternity — a punishment you might not wish on your worst enemy, unless perhaps he was an ex-husband, wife or lover who left you for your best friend.

Full Story: Agapi Stassinopoulos: Breaking the Spell of Sisyphus: How to Let Go of Negative Patterns.

As you will know if you have been following these columns, I am of the mind that just about anyone can improve both their life circumstances as well as the quality of how they experience their life. I have taken numerous approaches, attempting to share ideas that I have found useful in my own life and that others seem to have found beneficial as well.

A common theme running through these articles includes the notion that how you frame the problem is the problem coupled with it’s not what happens to you but what you choose to do about it.

The dialogue has been rich, comical, supportive, derogatory and sometimes just downright spiteful. I appreciate the exchanges, even the most vitriolic, because no matter the point of view, at least the commenter is engaged.

Full Story: Russell Bishop: Are You Fighting Against Your Own Upliftment?.

Protein is essential to life; it builds and maintains muscles, bones and skin, and regulates metabolism and digestion. But the question remains, whether you look at it from the perspective of personal health, or environmental degradation, or cost savings, or animal rights, or veggie activism, or whatever else floats your boat: do we really need to eat all that meat?

I went to the top, to the nation's most influential nutritionist, Dr. Marion Nestle, professor in the Department of Nutrition, Food Studies, and Public Health at New York University, to get her take. “All proteins are made up of the same amino acids. ALL. No exceptions,” she reasons. “The difference between animal and vegetable proteins is in the content of certain amino acids. If vegetable proteins are mixed, the differences get made up. Even if they aren't mixed, all you need to do to get the right amount of low amino acids is to eat more of that food. There is no 'need' for animal proteins at all.”

So, when it comes to protein…if we don't need animal protein all the time, what other options do we have? It turns out that beans, legumes, whole grains, greens, nuts and seeds are excellent sources of protein — plus they offer the added benefit of fiber (not found in meat), vitamins and minerals. Here's some examples of protein found in readily available foods:

Full Story: Chris Elam: Meatless Monday: The Protein Principle (RECIPES, PHOTOS).

Stress seems inevitable, and takes its toll on our health and well-being. Do you recognize any of these signs?

Stress Check

• Do you have difficulty relaxing?

• Do you feel irritable?

• Do you have a dry mouth and sweaty palms?

• Do you worry about little events of the day and are unable to shut your mind off?

• Do you take on too much?

• Do you eat quickly?

• Do you have problems sleeping?

A “yes” to any of these is a sign that you are under stress, and at risk for stress-related health problems.

Fight or Flight — The Stress Response

We need a certain amount of stress to keep us motivated, but too much can seriously affect our health. It mobilizes the body's “fight-or-flight response”, which prepares us to cope with emergencies. Triggering the release of stress hormones adrenalin and cortisol from our adrenal glands, it increases our respiration and heart rate, elevates blood pressure, and raises blood sugar levels.

Full Story: Hyla Cass, M.D.: Nutrients to Unplug and Recharge Your Body and Mind.

Welcome to the crazy credo that many of us now live by, encouraged by the companies that employ us, in a world that’s been wildly accelerated by technology.

It’s also completely contrary to everything we know about what makes it possible for human beings to perform at the highest level.

The human body is hard-wired to pulse. To operate at our best, we need to renew our energy at 90-minute intervals — not just physically, but also mentally and emotionally.

Full Story: Tony Schwartz: The-90 Minute Solution: How Building in Periods of Renewal Can Change Your Work and Your Life (POLL) (VIDEO).

Writing in the Journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology, U.S. researchers explain that babies born in the fall or winter have lower rates of food allergies than their spring and summer-born counterparts. They believe this trend is due to the lack of vitamin D, aka the sunshine vitamin, that fall and winter babies are more likely to be deprived of in their early months.

Dr Milo Vassallo of Massachusetts General Hospital, and lead author of the study, explains:

Vitamin D helps the body fight infection and suppresses its allergy cells.

“When the body is faced with a molecule of food it has to decide if it's a friend or a foe. Vitamin D contributes to tolerance but reduced levels of vitamin D triggers intolerance in the body,” he said.

The researchers discovered nearly a 20% higher instance of hospital-necessitating food allergy conditions among fall and winter babies.

Full Story: Food Allergies: Fall, Winter Babies More Prone.

Sex fantasies are a healthy — and essential — part of a satisfying sex life.

The beauty of fantasy is that we can tap this wellspring of creativity at any time, in any place, with no one else privy to our thoughts. ‘‘A major advantage of fantasy as an aid to physical sexual stimulation,’’ wrote Lonnie Barbach, Ph.D., in For Yourself, her 1976 classic about female sexuality, ‘‘is that it requires no equipment and is always available.’’ Temporarily and vicariously, fantasy allows us to sample highly charged sexual scenarios that exist in a world beyond what real life allows. Not surprisingly, women use fantasy most often to increase sexual desire and to facilitate sexual functioning, especially orgasm.

Besides being effective in turning up sexual heat, fantasies also have an amazing ability to help us cope with the emotional stresses of sex. They offer a way to immediately reduce the biggest block to sexual pleasure: anxiety. Looking more closely at how certain fantasies work, we can discover how they soothe our worries or distract us from concerns that would otherwise get in the way of enjoying sex. By focusing on the steamy images and stories in our minds, we can feel less inhibited and more inspired to be sexually open and expressive. Thus, fantasies often work to increase sexual stimulation while simultaneously decreasing emotional anxiety. When women consider when and why they turn to fantasy, they often mention both sexual and emotional issues.

Full Story: 9 Reasons Sex Fantasies Are Good For You | Sex & Relationships | AlterNet.

For some people the feeling of gloominess or depression is due to neuro-chemical or hormonal imbalance and for others it’s the daily stress or upsetting events that wear down one’s emotional reserves. Studies show that people who are depressed or melancholic are twice as likely to develop cancer, heart disease and are a lot more susceptible to colds and flu. While psychotropic medications can be helpful for people who suffer from mood disorders, many patients are finding help from natural solutions. Here are some suggestions to lift your mood, your spirit, and your health.

Full Story: Dr. Maoshing Ni: Mood Elevators: 5 Natural Ways to Uplift Your Mood.

Many people interested in staying healthy have switched to agave as a safer “natural” sweetener. They want to avoid well documented dangerous sweeteners like HFCS (high fructose corn syrup) but are unaware that most agave is actually WORSE than HFCS.

This expose will offend many hard core natural health advocates because they have been convinced of the agave hype by companies that are promoting it.

Some have even criticized me for having “ulterior” motives. But nothing could be further from the truth. Although I do offer natural health products for sale on this site, I sell no competing products to agave.

Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: This Sweetener Is Far Worse Than High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Activate Your Health In my 25 years of clinical practice and research on centenarians, I have never met a healthy person or centenarian that lived a physically inactive life. Exercise brings with it numerous benefits, from boosting your energy and reducing stress hormones to lowering your risk for heart disease, stroke, cancer depression, and diabetes.

Exercise also helps burn off excess blood sugar, preventing it from getting stored as body fat – good news for your waistline. Moderate load-bearing exercises are essential for bone density and muscle strength, and this is especially important as we age. Cardiovascular exercises increase heart rate and provide stimulation for the heart muscles, helping maintain proper endurance. Every way you look at it, exercise will make you happier, sexier, and more vivacious!

Full Story: Dr. Maoshing Ni: Want Increased Longevity? Spring Into Shape With Smart Exercise.

What is it? I’m talking about the mother of all antioxidants, the master detoxifier and maestro of the immune system: GLUTATHIONE (pronounced “gloota-thigh-own”).

The good news is that your body produces its own glutathione. The bad news is that poor diet, pollution, toxins, medications, stress, trauma, aging, infections and radiation all deplete your glutathione.

This leaves you susceptible to unrestrained cell disintegration from oxidative stress, free radicals, infections and cancer. And your liver gets overloaded and damaged, making it unable to do its job of detoxification.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: Glutathione: The Mother of All Antioxidants.

After two months, kids hated the new meals, milk consumption plummeted, and many students dropped out of the school lunch program altogether.

You’ve never seen a school lunch like this one, made with hydroponic vegetables and free-range chicken by a brash British superchef. Not that the elementary schoolchildren care. Most sing-song “Pizza!” when given a choice between the gourmet grub and the reheated factory-made frozen pizza. At the end of the lunch period, a mound of chicken sits untouched, and even more is dumped into the trash after a few wary nibbles.

That much we do know from watching Jamie Oliver’s “Food Revolution” reality TV series now airing on ABC. But we’re not supposed to know that Jamie is substituting high-end foodstuffs that normally grace three-star restaurants for the cheap, institutional fare dished out in public schools like West Virginia’s Central City Elementary School, the setting for the first two episodes.

At the end of one episode, we hear Rhonda McCoy, director of food services for the local county, tell Jamie that he’s over budget and did not meet the fat content and calorie guidelines, but she’s going to let him continue with the “revolution” as long as he addresses these issues. What is not revealed is that the “meal cost at Central City Elementary during television production more than doubled with ABC Productions paying the excess expense,” according to a document obtained by AlterNet from the West Virginia Department of Education.

Full Story: How TV Superchef Jamie Oliver’s ‘Food Revolution’ Flunked Out | Food | AlterNet.

Migraines are severe, disabling headaches that affect up to 17 percent of women and six percent of men. The disorder has many variants, often making diagnosis difficult. Migraines can be excruciating for patients, incapacitating them for hours or days at a time. They are also frustrating for doctors, who often find that the condition resists their best efforts at treatment.

Fortunately, conventional management of migraines has improved dramatically over the past 10 years. An integrative approach – combining the best of these conventional techniques with evidence-based natural approaches — can make a tremendous difference in reducing frequency and severity of attacks.

What are the symptoms of migraine headaches?

The classic, “textbook” migraine is a one-sided severe, throbbing headache, which can be preceded by some sort of “aura” (visual disturbances), and accompanied by nausea and vomiting, along with sensitivity to light and sound. Headache pain worsens with physical activity and usually interferes with normal functioning. Frequency can vary from several times a month to once a year; intensity varies as well. If left untreated, a migraine can last from a couple of hours to several days.

Full Story: Dr. Andrew Weil: A Better Route to Migraine Relief.

Anne Wojcicki Of 23AndMe Discusses Consumer Genomics At TED MED 2009 (VIDEO)

It’s an age-old question: If you could know you were likely to acquire a life-altering disease like Alzheimer’s or breast cancer, would you want to know?

The mere thought is enough to terrify some. Yet this is precisely the question Anne Wojcicki’s innovative start-up, 23andMe, is interested in. Utilizing the latest genetic mapping technologies, Wojcicki and her team of scientists have created the one of the first successful Consumer Genome companies in history.

Sound impressive? There’s more: In the last two years, 23andMe has been able to create one of the largest databases of genetic information in the world — with “over 30,000 active genomes of people who are participating.” The process is simple: Consumers sign up for a $400 genetic self-test kit, provide a saliva sample and — boom — they receive a full breakdown of their genetic history, including their disease risk factors.

Full Story: TED Talks: Anne Wojcicki Of 23AndMe Discusses Consumer Genomics At TED MED 2009 (VIDEO).

Xerostomia is not to be confused with halitosis, or bad breath, which is typically caused by systemic diseases, gastrointestinal and/or upper respiratory tract disorders, and microbial metabolism from your tongue, saliva or dental plaque.

Common Causes of Dry Mouth and Bad Breath (Xerostomia)

First of all, it’

s important to realize that xerostomia is NOT a disease in and of itself. Rather it is a common side effect of prescription- and OTC drugs.

Full Story: Dr. Joseph Mercola: How to Lick Bad Breath Fast — as Easy as 1, 2, 3….

German researchers followed nearly 20,000 people over eight years, sending them several questionnaires about their diet and exercise habits.

They found people who had an average of six grams of chocolate per day — or about one square of a chocolate bar — had a 39 percent lower risk of either a heart attack or stroke. The study is scheduled to be published Wednesday in the European Heart Journal.

Full Story: Study: A small dose of chocolate could cut heart attack or stroke risk by almost 40 percent.

These popular beverages today may have New Age-sounding names but in reality both kombucha and kefirs, and similarly fermentation — the process used to make them all — have long, strong histories of consumption around the world. What’s new: these bottled beverages come in numerous flavors, are made from different bases, and have different health benefits (kombucha is even “on tap” at some Whole Foods stores).

Full Story: Ashley Koff: Kombucha and Kefirs: Hype or Healthy?.

Generally speaking, our food animals are not eating what they were naturally meant to eat. As more animals are raised by the thousands and packed into concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), their natural diets of roots and grasses, grubs and bugs has been replaced by a standard factory farm fare of grains, soybeans, King Corn and a sundry array of advanced pharmaceutical products.

But sound science has emerged to demonstrate that eating meat, milk and eggs from grass-fed and pastured animals will provide your body with more health-enhancing, disease fighting materials than industrial-grade CAFO-raised protein.

Full Story: David Kirby: The Nutritional Superiority of Pasture Raised Animals.

Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Premiere (VIDEO)

Jamie Oliver’s much anticipated show, ‘Food Revolution’ premiered on Friday, where he attempts to transform the eating habits of the residents of Huntington, West Virginia, the most unhealthy city in America. In this clip, Jamie shows kids how chicken nuggets are actually made with the goal of turning them away from processed foods. Watch their shocking reaction.

Full Story: Jamie Oliver Food Revolution Premiere (VIDEO).

According to a lawsuit filed this month, Ron and Sarah Bowers bought their son a Subway sandwich in Lombard, Illinois on February 27. After eating it, he had agonizing cramps and diarrhea. According to the suit, what the couple really bought was a shit sandwich.

It had been contaminated with Shigella sonnei, a bacteria transmitted via the fecal-oral route and can cause vomiting, dysentery and death. Over 100 people claim to have been sickened at Lombard’s Subway, according to attorney Drew Falkenstein, whose firm has filed suit on behalf of Ron and Sarah Bowers and two other customers.

We don’t want to think about excrement. We don’t want to see it, smell it or touch it. We definitely don’t want to eat it with chicken teriyaki, on toast. Yet intestinal goings-on are in our faces everywhere these days, whether the news is about probiotics and prebiotics appearing in new food products or yet another outbreak of norovirus — the painful gastroenteritis that is spread via fecally contaminated food, water and surfaces and has sickened thousands of cruise-ship passengers in eight unprecedentedly massive outbreaks so far this year.

Full Story: Poop Is the Most Important Indicator of Your Health | Food | AlterNet.

Meanwhile, right in my own backyard, real sophomores (and other high schoolers) have successfully organized to change the way more than 400,000 individual stomachs are treated each day.

Thanks to the actions of student protesters at a Chicago Public School (CPS) Board meeting this week, “a major nutritional overhaul of menus” is planned, according to the Chicago Tribune. The students who are forced to feed themselves from these “menus” were quoted as calling the current food available “sickening.”

Now, I’m glad to see the Chicago Tribune covering education whenever it deems the subject worthy enough. But their article published today is replete with the egotistical trumpet sounds of undeserved accolades. Just take a look (emphasis mine):

Full Story: Chicago Public School Students Stand up for Healthy Eating, Become Role Models for Adult Activism | BuzzFlash.org.

Like just about everyone in America, I was hankering to go on a slimming detox diet after New Year’s. But based on previous experiences with just about every form of cleanse, I knew I wanted a food-based diet. Eliminating everything but organic, natural foods seemed like the clear choice. Mission: Eat exclusively vegan for a month.

This diet wasn’t all that new to me. I was raised vegan—yes, really—and have followed some version of a vegetarian diet for most of my life. But I had been a happy fish-and-poultry eater for a few years and just felt like I needed a break. I yearned for a “cleaner” diet; something that made me feel good rather than too-full after each meal.

The initial motivation of an internal cleanse quickly turned into a mission to experience responsible eating at its finest. Even though I’ve always been a conscious consumer—organic, free-range, pasteurized only, thanks, and NO, don’t you dare put it in a plastic bag!—as I researched vegan cuisine, I was reminded of the personal and political reasons why so many choose to eat this way all the time. Then I watched this “Oprah,” read these books and watched this movie. The mission was so go for launch.

Full Story: Lessons Learned from a Vegan Diet | Sirens Magazine.

The AP Reports:

More than 200,000 fast food and other chain restaurants will have to include calorie counts on menus, menu boards and even drive-throughs.

The new law, which applies to any restaurant with 20 or more locations, directs the Food and Drug Administration to create a new national standard for menu labeling, superseding a growing number of state and city laws. President Barack Obama signed the health care legislation Tuesday.

The idea is to make sure that customers process the calorie information as they are ordering. Many restaurants currently post nutritional information in a hallway, on a hamburger wrapper or on their Web site. The new law will make calories immediately available for most items.

Full Story: Calorie Count Disclosure And The Health Care Bill: Will This Lead To A Food Revolution?.

Officials at the Natural Products Association (NPA), the leading U.S. trade organization for manufacturers, retailers and distributors of natural products, are “pleased” with the recent agreement between industry proponents Sens. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Byron Dorgan (D- ND) regarding McCain and Dorgan’s recently co-sponsored Dietary Safety Supplement Act (S.3002).

“The NPA is pleased that industry champions Hatch and Harkin have reached an agreement with McCain and Dorgan on reasonable measures to strengthen the regulation of dietary supplements without opening up DSHEA,” said John Gay, NPA’s CEO and executive director. “The original McCain-Dorgan bill would have radically altered the existing regulatory framework [in the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act], and threatened an entire industry in an ineffective attempt to combat a relatively few bad actors.”

Full Story: Natural Products Association – NPA Welcomes Senate Deal on S.3002.

A receding hairline can be a good thing, according to US scientists, who say men who go bald by 30 appear to be less likely to develop prostate cancer.

Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine studied 2,000 men aged between 40 and 47.

They were able to link high levels of the male hormone testosterone in those who lose their hair earlier with a lower risk of tumours.

The findings are published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology.

Half of the men in this study had suffered prostate cancer.

Researchers compared the rate of tumours in those who said their hair had thinned by the age of 30 with those who did not suffer hair loss.

Full Story: BBC News – Baldness ‘could be good for your health’ say scientists.

OPS: Life’s full of trade-offs and compromise

Do you have sore muscles, fatigue, and brain fog?

If so, you might have metabolic burnout!

Imagine if you could find a way to tune up your metabolism, increase your energy levels, think clearly, and feel less achy.

Imagine if you could prevent diabetes, heart disease, Parkinson’s disease, and dementia.

Imagine if you could heal fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome.

Imagine if you could get to the roots of aging, slow the whole process, and eliminate most age-related diseases.

These aren’t just fantasies.

All these things are possible–if you give yourself a metabolic tune-up.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: How to Give Yourself a Metabolic Tune-Up.

While anti-choicers focus only on preventing access to a single procedure, women across the country are dying pointless deaths due to lack of access to proper care.

A damning new report from Amnesty International castigates the U.S. for dismal maternal mortality rates and a double standard of care that leaves racial minorities and lower-income women out in the cold. The report notes that nearly two women a day die from complications related to pregnancy or childbirth–and many of these deaths could be prevented.

“Mothers die not because the United States can’t provide good care, but because it lacks the political will to make sure good care is available to all women,” Amnesty International America’s Executive Director Larry Cox said when the report’s findings were released. Somehow this miserable trend hasn’t gotten much attention from the anti-choicers who claim to only care about the preciousness of human life.

Pro-Life Only Until Birth

In the United States, where supposedly “pro-life” people make up around half the population, we’re not very good at securing either end of the spectrum–looking out for women seeking family planning or those women about to start a family. And the political allies of the folks exhorting women to “choose life” have been fighting tooth and nail against health reform that would improve access to insurance and care for pregnant women and young children.

Full Story: Two Women a Day Die Giving Birth in America — and Many of These Deaths Can Be Prevented | Reproductive Justice | AlterNet.

But the good news is I will provide you with a clear, three-step plan to help your body detoxify from mercury and other heavy metals and recover your health. I have used this same plan successfully and safely with hundreds and hundreds of patients over the last 10 years — and it’s the same process I used myself to overcome mercury toxicity!

But first, let’s look at the data presented at “The Impact of Mercury on Human Health and the Environment” conference.

Full Story: Mark Hyman, MD: How to Rid Your Body of Mercury and Other Heavy Metals: A 3-Step Plan to Recover Your Health.

It could take months for some food companies to figure out whether a popular flavouring ingredient contaminated with salmonella found its way into their products, industry experts say.

In the past five days, a batch of the flavour enhancer hydrolyzed vegetable protein (HVP) that was found last month to be contaminated with salmonella has already resulted in the recall of 94 items in the U.S. and nine in Canada, with another five items added to the list late Monday.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency warned people Monday not to consume Quaker Crispy Minis rice cakes in tomato and basil, Family’s Best smokey bacon potato chips, Compliments onion soup mix, and two No Name brands of soup mix — onion recipe and cream of leek.

And the CFIA warns there will be more. The Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. says the contaminated HVP, manufactured by Nevada company Basic Food Flavors Inc., could balloon into one of the largest-ever food recalls in North America.

Full Story: Scope of salmonella-tainted flavouring recall will continue to grow, CFIA warns.

Among the reasons:

• * * People are more likely to mull over their material purchases than they are experiential ones, second-guessing themselves about whether they really made the best choice.
• * * We tend to think of experiences more on their own terms, rather than in comparison with other things.
• * * It’s easier for us to decide on an experiential purchase than a material one.
• * * We’re more upset if we learn that someone else got a better deal, or that a better option exists, for a material purchase than for an experience-related one.

Satisfaction with a purchase could also come down to mindset. When participants in one study thought of material purchases, such as a music CD, as an experience (many hours of enjoyable listening), they were more satisfied than those who viewed the purchase as just a material item.

Full Story: Make A History.

5 Ways to Stay Inspired.

Full Story: Tara Stiles: 5 Easy Ways to Stay Inspired (Video).

And despite homeopathy’s impressive popularity in Europe, it is actually even more popular in India where over 100 million people depend solely on this form of medical care (2). Further, according to an A.C. Neilsen survey in India, 62 percent of current homeopathy users have never tried conventional medicines and 82 percent of homeopathy users would not switch to conventional treatments (3).

Full Story: Dana Ullman: Homeopathic Medicine: Europe’s #1 Alternative for Doctors.

So WalletPop sat down with registered dietician Susan Burke March, MS, RD, LD/N, CDE, author of Making Weight Control Second Nature: Living Thin Naturally to find out what so-called “healthy” foods parents should be wary of buying for their children.

Kid’s yogurt

March says this is the equivalent of sprinkling lots of sugar and candy on top of a cup of steamed broccoli. “All the sugar that’s in many brands turns something that’s full of calcium, protein, vitamin D, and magnesium into dessert.” The biggest offenders: yogurt “fun foods.”

Full Story: 10 surprisingly unhealthy kids’ foods, and their healthier alternatives.

Looking for a new weight loss plan? Try living on top of a mountain. Twenty obese men spent a week near the top of Germany’s highest peak and saw their metabolism speed up, their appetite diminish, and more pounds melt off than they likely would have had they stayed at home, a new study reports. However, the study lacked a control group, so firm conclusions are tough to draw, other researchers say.

Mountain air contains less oxygen than air at lower altitudes, so breathing it causes the heart to beat faster and the body to burn more energy. A handful of studies have found that athletes training at high altitudes tend to lose weight. Gastroenterologist Florian Lippl of the University Hospital of Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich in Germany wondered how the mountain air would affect obese individuals if they weren’t doing any more physical activity than usual. “We know from our outpatient unit that it’s hard to motivate our obese patients” to exercise, says Lippl. “We thought if we bring them up there, the higher metabolic rate will do most of the work for them.”

Lippl and his colleagues invited 20 obese men to an environmental research station about 300 meters below the summit of Zugspitze, a mountain near the Austrian border. This was no hiking expedition. The subjects reached the outpost at 2650 meters altitude almost effortlessly, by cog railway and cable car, and once there could only take the same number of steps each day that they were accustomed to taking at home, as monitored with a pedometer. They were allowed to eat as much as they liked. The men also gave blood so that researchers could test for hormones linked to appetite and obesity, such as leptin and ghrelin.

Full Story: Can Thin Mountain Air Make You Slim? – ScienceNOW.

That’s right, having your own vegetable garden is now trendy. In fact according to the 2009 Edibles Gardening Trends Research Report conducted by the Garden Writer’s Association (GWA) Foundation, over 41 million U.S. households, or 38 percent planted a vegetable garden in 2009. And, more than 19.5 million households (18 percent) grew an herb garden and 16.5 million households (15 percent) grew fruits during the same period.

The study found that there was a growth in edible gardening from both experienced gardeners and from an influx of new gardeners: 92 percent of respondents had previous experience and 7 percent (7.7 million households) were new edible gardeners.

Full Story: 7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Your Own Food : Planet Green.

In these uncertain economic times we really need to look at our food costs and start to spend more wisely. Here are seven recipes that will cover your dinners for a week, with some leftovers for your lunch. They are as quick as takeout, as easy as many processed dinners, and more economical and nutritious than both.

Chickpea Curry

My son eats a lot of tofu and I'm always encouraging him to add more legumes to his diet, so I decided on something with chickpeas. I had in my mind a recipe from Julie Sahni's cookbook Classic Indian Cooking as a starting point and we made up our own version. I had some dried Mexican chilies that Hugh had brought from his store. I've always rehydrated chilies, but Hugh put them in the bottom of a dry pan until they were fragrant, chopped them finely added a bit of olive oil and then crushed them with a mortar and pestle until they made a paste. We had some leftover rice and carrots from the night before and tossed them in as well. You could add vegetables such as zucchini or cauliflower as well. Get the full Chickpea Curry recipe at Planet Green.

Full Story: 7 Cheap and Easy Vegetarian Meals : TreeHugger.

Eating disorders are the silent scourge of college campuses. They affect men and women. They cause people to overeat, undereat and/or follow strictly moderated diets. They can cause osteoporosis, heart problems and death. And they are largely misunderstood.

Schools across the country are dedicating time to this sensitive issue in honor of National Eating Disorders Awareness Week and shedding light on the causes and facets of the afflictions.

According to a column in the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Daily Cardinal:

EDs are sometimes viewed as conditions perpetuated by vanity; however, the prevalent feelings of self-disgust and the low self-confidence exhibited by sufferers of EDs clearly demonstrate the incredible error of this notion. Eating disorders are true manifestations of mental health difficulties and should be treated as such: with kindness, support and proper counseling.

The Daily Free Press, at Boston University, reports on a newer eating disorder, orthorexia, in which sufferers eat as healthfully as possible out of a desire for bodily purity. While not officially recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, orthorexia is characterized by the same symptoms as anorexia and bulimia.

As BU and Fitness Center nutritionist Sarah Butler told the paper:

Full Story: Eating Disorders: Colleges Highlight Quiet Problem.

The Obamas are taking on childhood obesity by tackling problems with the National School Lunch Program. But will their fixes be enough?

Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign to fight obesity with a flood of media attention and a Presidential Memorandum, signed by her husband, establishing a new Task Force on Childhood Obesity. But how does the rhetoric of the Let’s Move campaign stack up against what President Obama’s administration is actually doing to address childhood obesity? While many of the president’s priorities have lost steam in Congress, tackling childhood obesity is thankfully not one of them. But are the administration’s efforts on the right track?

While the First Lady has been a champion for healthy, sustainable food since the creation of her historic garden in her first days in the White House, the title of her campaign, Let’s Move, rings of food industry influence.

Full Story: Are School Lunches Setting Kids Up for Obesity and Poor Nutrition? | Food | AlterNet.

For some Americans, the world’s happiest headline is “You may be entitled to cash.” Luckily for them, that sentence crowns a press release that went out this week which also includes the phrase “You could receive up to $100,” and describes “a $35,000,000 fund,” then boosts its cred with: “A federal court authorized this notice.”

And all because a California woman ate yogurt thinking it would regulate her digestion, but — according to the lawsuit she filed — it didn’t.

A statement released February 16 by the San Diego, California-based law firm Blood, Hurst & O’Reardon announced that the claim period has just opened in a class-action lawsuit against Dannon. Two years in the making, the suit claims the yogurt company “falsely advertised the health benefits of its Activia and DanActive branded products.”

Dannon, which promoted these yogurts as being probiotic and digestion-friendly, has pledged to refund every eligible claimant professing to have bought Activia or DanActive since these products were first introduced in 2006 and 2007. If so many forms are filed as to exhaust the initially-agreed-upon $35 million, the fund goes up another $10 million.

Full Story: Are Priobiotics Really the Secret to Good Health (Or Just the Latest Crackpot Supplement Fad?) | Food | AlterNet.

CABERNET and chocolate are potent medicine for killing cancer, according to new research.

Red grapes and dark chocolate join blueberries, garlic, soy, and teas as ingredients that starve cancer while feeding bodies, Angiogenesis Foundation head William Li said at the Technology Entertainment Design Conference in Long Beach, California.

“We are rating foods based on their cancer-fighting qualities,” Li said. “What we eat is really our chemotherapy three times a day.”

The Massachusetts-based foundation is identifying foods containing chemicals that evidently

Full Story: Red wine, chocolate among foods that fight cancer | The Australian.

OPS:  you have to make sure that your chocolate isn’t laced with High Fructose Corn Syrup

Being a physician and scientist is no protection from getting cancer. But it allowed me to dig deeply into the medical and scientific literature to find out everything I could do to help my body resist the disease most efficiently and try to beat the median survival of a few years.

The first thing I learned is that we all carry cancer cells in us. But I also learned we all have natural defenses that generally prevent these cells from turning into an aggressive disease. These include our immune system, the part of our biology that controls and reduces inflammation, and the foods that reduce the growth of new blood vessels needed by developing tumors.

Full Story: David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.: We Can All Fight Cancer Better.

I mean heavy with heavy metals — like mercury!

Unfortunately, toxic mercury problems are common. Along with polar bears, beluga whales, ducks, otters, panthers, and all river fish as well as most large ocean fish, we humans are poisoning ourselves with mercury at ever increasing rates.

There’s no doubt about it, mercury is the most alarming, disease-causing source of environmental toxicity that I see daily in my practice. Many of patients have toxic levels of mercury — and they’re not alone. I personally suffered from mercury toxicity and chronic fatigue syndrome –which I cured myself from, in part by getting rid of the mercury in my body. So I know about this first hand.

Full Story Mark Hyman, MD: Mercury: How To Get This Lethal Poison Out Of Your Body.

This excerpt originally appeared in Political Awakenings: Conversations with History, published by The New Press. Reprinted here with permission. Copyright © 2010 by Harry Kreisler.

Harry Kreisler: Where were you born and raised?

Michael Pollan: I was born on Long Island in the town of Hempstead and grew up the first five years in Farmingdale, on the South Shore, and then in a town called Woodbury on the North Shore.

HK: And looking back, how do you think your parents shaped your thinking about the world?

MP: Oh, in many ways, my parents and my grandparents. I got very serious about gardening as a young boy. I had a grandfather who had been in the produce business, and he was a passionate gardener–this is the late ’60s–and he was very kind of reactionary, and there was not too much we connected on except plants.

I put in a garden at our house, too, in imitation of his garden, but I didn’t call it a garden. I called it a farm stand, and every time I could get six strawberries together in a Dixie cup, I’d sell them to my mother. She was the only customer.

Full Story Michael Pollan: Forget Nutrition Charts, Eat What Grandma Said Is Good for You | Food | AlterNet.

Countries around the world are beginning to apply the science of well-being to the decisions they make. News from the 5th International Conference on Gross National Happiness.

The study of happiness is experiencing a boom. Its practitioners include economists who believe that gross domestic product (GDP) is too limited a tool to measure the success of societies, psychologists and sociologists who feel that their disciplines have focused too much on neuroses and social problems and not enough on determining what kind of activities and policies actually contribute to happier societies, and political leaders who want to know how to make use of their findings.

During the 5th International Gross National Happiness Conference, held last week in Brazil, happiness proponents from around the world were able to come together and compare notes about the practical application of “happiness science.”

The Science of Happiness

Not surprisingly, that science has found that beyond a certain minimum level of income, greater happiness comes from strong and plentiful human connections, a sense of control over one’s life and employment, meaningful work, good health, basic economic security, trust in others and in government, and other factors less directly connected with monetary remuneration.

Full Story John de Graaf :: News from the 5th International Conference on Gross National Happiness.

I won’t lie: Sex has saved me. From myself especially. From going so deep into the spirals of my own brain which could drive me crazy. But when everything is perfect, there is no mind in sex. There is just feeling; just the body, moving, stretching, pulling, reaching, opening, pulsing, listening, taking, giving; just sensation.

Sex Saves

And that’s precisely what I need on days where my mind is racing and I’ve spent one or two or eight too many hours in front of the computer screen, the only sensations being my ass going numb, my eyes getting tired and sticky with lack of lubricant, and my fingertips tip-tapping away at these little lettered keys. I live in my mind. Don’t most of us, these days? Most of us, anyway, who would be readers of a sexy intelligent site like this one.

Sex has saved me from that inward spinning. Palming the responsibility of someone else’s bruises jolts me up and out of my brain and reminds me that I am connecting; I am pounding out ripples with everything that I touch.

But it hasn’t always been this way. I struggled for too long to figure out what I wanted. I knew the sex I was having wasn’t enough, but what would be enough? How to paint myself a cobblestone path from here to there?

Full Story Five Ways to Improve Your Sex Life « Sex positivity « Society.

The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) makes conventional U.S. livestock farmers downright, wet-hen, cat-in-a-blender, spittin’ mad. When HSUS manages to alter state constitutions to ban battery cages and gestation crates, well, you better start bringing guns to your knife fights, vegans.

To wit: Yellowtail Wine of Australia decided to pony up $100,000 for HSUS this week, and the pushback has been conducted at lightning speed. From Big Beef’s Drovers Magazine:

Yesterday we reported about Yellow Tail wine’s new promotion (http://tinyurl.com/yderv3g) to contribute $100,000 to the Humane Society of the United States“to support us and our programs to help animals, including our Spay Day Online Pet Photo Contest,” according to HSUS. Though it’s not known to what extent, Yellow Tail admits its customers are taking issue with this collaboration.

Full Story Big Ag Takes on Yellowtail Wine | Fair Food Fight.

The Historical and Scientific Evidence

A lot of people today are confused about what homeopathy is (and isn’t), and this situation is not helped by the skeptics of homeopathy who go to incredible extents to exaggerate and misconstrue what homeopathic medicine is and who commonly provide misinformation about it. It is more than a tad ironic that these “skeptics” who hold themselves out as “defenders of medical science” have exhibited an embarrassingly poor scientific attitude when evaluating what homeopathy is and what the scientific evidence does and doesn’t say about it.

Because many skeptics of homeopathy today indulge in spreading misinformation about homeopathy, this blog is addressed at setting the record straight and is packed with references to confirm the veracity of what is being asserted here.

First, to clarify, advocating for or using homeopathic medicines does not preclude appreciation for or use of selective conventional medical treatment. Advocates of homeopathy simply honor the Hippocratic tradition of “First, do no harm” and therefore seek to explore and utilize safer methods before resorting to more risky treatments. This perspective has historical and international roots, and it is thus no surprise that American health care which has been so resistant to homeopathic and natural therapies in its mainstream institutions is presently ranked 37th in the world in the performance of its health care system.(1) In comparison, the number one ranked country in the world is France, a country in which around 40 percent of the population uses homeopathic medicines and around 30 percent of its family physicians prescribe them (2).

Full Story Dana Ullman: The Case FOR Homeopathic Medicine: The Historical and Scientific Evidence.

A new study finds that children are more likely to have an intense sweet tooth if they have a family history of alcoholism, or if they’ve suffered from depression themselves.

The research was conducted by scientists at the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia, and published online in the journal Addiction.

Sugary foods and alcohol trigger many of the same reward circuits in the brain, so scientists in this case decided to test the sweet tooth of children with a family history of alcohol dependence. They also hypothesized that children who suffer from depression might be more likely to crave sweets, because they make them feel better.

Full Story Study Links Children’s Sweet Tooth to Alcoholism, Depression – AOL News.

On a personal note, I’ve been eating about 85% veg for a few years now and it works for me…my body, my budget, and my beliefs.

Conventional livestock production uses tons of grain, water, and petroleum. It’s extremely inefficient, has huge environmental impacts, and is cruel to animals. For a detailed picture, read this now classic piece on The Meat Guzzler by Mark Bittman of the New York Times.

Full Story 7 Fun and Easy Ways to Lower Your Meat Consumption | EcoSalon.

The cost to society is also enormous. Migraine headaches add $13 billion to $17 billion to our healthcare costs each year. These costs include medications, emergency room visits, hospitalization, physician services (primary care and specialty), laboratory and diagnostic services, and managing the side effects of treatment.

Migraines have indirect costs too. A headache is the most frequent pain-related complaint among workers. Focusing specifically on migraines, one study found that the annual cost to employers exceeded $14.5 billion, of which $7.9 billion was due to absenteeism and $5.4 billion to diminished productivity.(ii)

Full Story Mark Hyman, MD: How To Eliminate Migraines And Headaches In Less Than A Week.

Michael Pollan’s recent little gem of a book Food Rules inspired me to compile my own “rules” about what I’d like every person to know about how they can help avoid cancer – or slow it down if they have it. Here’s my best attempt at the exercise…

FOOD RULES

1. Eat like the war never happened: Make your main course what it was like before WW II: 80 percent vegetables, 20 percent animal protein at each meal. Choose the opposite of the quarter pounder tagged with a — let’s say leaf of iceberg lettuce and an anemic slice of tomato. Meat should be used as a condiment for taste, as in the old days when it was scarce, not the core of the dish.

2. Mix your vegetables: vary the vegetables you eat from one meal to the next, or mix them together — broccoli is a powerful anticancer food, but much more powerful yet in the company of tomato sauce, onions or garlic. Get in the habit of adding onions, garlic or leeks to all the dishes you cook (caution: do not try this with dessert)

Full Story David Servan-Schreiber, M.D., Ph.D.: 20 New Anticancer Rules.

Scientists can tell us how to be happy. Really. Here are 10 ways, with the research to prove it.

In the last few years, psychologists and researchers have been digging up hard data on a question previously left to philosophers: What makes us happy? Researchers like the father-son team Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener, Stanford psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, and ethicist Stephen Post have studied people all over the world to find out how things like money, attitude, culture, memory, health, altruism, and our day-to-day habits affect our well-being. The emerging field of positive psychology is bursting with new findings that suggest your actions can have a significant effect on your happiness and satisfaction with life. Here are 10 scientifically proven strategies for getting happy.

Full Story 10 Things Science Says Will Make You Happy by Jen Angel — YES! Magazine.

By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK  -

I’m not surprised when politicians, religious leaders, military chiefs, mafia bosses, corporate CEOs or media pundits make ignorant, misleading statements with great and somber certainty. But when people who call themselves “scientists” spout toxic stupidities with similar conviction, it is rather more unnerving. One current case in point: a team of British “scientists” at King’s College London claims to have determined “fairly conclusively” that the G-spot does not exist.

Even before I finished reading about Dr. Andrea Virginia Burri (I’m not kidding; that’s her given middle name) and Dr. Tim Spector’s “G-Spot: Fiction or Friction” study, my personal Malarkey Meter was careening off the charts. Burri and Spector’s study is ill-conceived, poorly analyzed, illogically interpreted and—dare I say—just plain wrong.

Nonetheless, that “scientist” label must have gotten to me because, the first chance I had, there I was, licking my middle finger and hooking it about an inch or so into my vagina in the “come here” gesture, pressing that sensitive, spongy, bean-shaped area on the anterior wall, just to make sure it hadn’t somehow vanished overnight. Then, before I could say “bogus findings,” I was enjoying a nice, pulsating G-spot orgasm. Well, at least there are some silver linings in this black cloud of bad science. Could we say that Burri and Spector’s anti-G-spot report stimulated my G-spot orgasm that day? Regardless, it was a case of friction, not fiction.

Full Story Dr. Susan Block: Defending the G-Spot.

For those who want to know what the big deal is about raw milk, in two words it’s good bacteria, killed off by pasteurization. People drink raw milk because they seek good bacteria. (Raw milk dairies are tested for diseases so this issue should not be confused with diseases.)

For those who are curious about raw milk, you might find this video delightful, and a good place to begin dispelling false assumptions. http://www.moojesus.com/

While people have been taught to believe bacteria is dangerous and so drinking milk with live bacteria in it would be risky, they are not distinguishing between good and bad bacteria and most importantly, not understanding that their own life depends on bacteria which make up 70-80% of their immune system.

Yet many continue to erroneously believe that route to safe food is through sterilizing it.

Full Story The tiny, squiggly dividing line between safe and unsafe food « Food Freedom.

My daughter opened up my pantry the other day and said that all the canned soups I eat every day for lunch have the chemical BPA in them. Is this true? What else has BPA in it that I don’t know about?   -Eve

For those concerned about serious health conditions (breast and prostate cancer, sexual development abnormalities, and now heart disease) linked to packaging additive bisphenol A (BPA), there's promising news: Earlier this month, the FDA reversed its stance on the chemical, saying it is now “taking reasonable steps to reduce human exposure to BPA in the food supply.” It's a monumental first step, as is the move by cities and states around the country to ban the suspected endocrine disruptor from baby products like formula cans and sippy cups. It could still be years, though, before we see BPA removed from thousands of other products on the market — including those canned soups that you enjoy every day for lunch (more on that later).

What has upset me most about the BPA issue is that we consumers haven't been granted the knowledge to decide for ourselves whether or not we want to buy products that are packaged with it. As with genetically modified foods, it's a consumer guessing game: To date, there are still no labeling requirements for thousands of industrial chemicals like BPA that turn up in our food stuffs and packaging. Of course, there's calorie, fat, and sodium information clearly printed on the package of every last Keebler cookie, but say you want to know if there's a toxic chemical in your can of bean soup that could to lead to breast cancer? Forget it folks, you're on your own.

Well, not any longer. Stick to these tips, and eliminate even the sneakiest sources of BPA from your diet.

Full Story Jennifer Grayson: Eco Etiquette: How Do I Avoid The Sneakiest Sources Of BPA?.

The AP is reporting about a new study that concludes that sitting, yep, just sitting, is deadly. WTF?

I’m guessing there are a lot of occupations that are dangerous — professional sports, vocations involving heavy machinery, toxic chemicals, grueling labor conditions, precarious heights. I know there are some jobs I simply could never do — repairing bridges, laying asphalt, wrestling ferocious animals to the ground .. and there’s probably a few others.

But I always thought that my job as a writer, which involves sitting in front of a computer all day, was a pretty good gig when compared to so many other people — the folks picking crops in pesticide dusted fields with little water and poor sanitation probably about 100 or so miles from my home, for starters.

Sure, I get some neck and back pain, but not to worry right? Well, apparently not. Now the AP is reporting about a new study that concludes that sitting, yep, just sitting, is deadly.

Full Story Sitting Deemed Dangerous for Your Health: What’s Next? | PEEK | AlterNet.

When you became a vegetarian, you quickly learned it wasn’t just about skipping pepperoni on that pizza. You had to start scanning labels for ingredients like capric acid, tallow, rennet, glycerin, whey, suet, stereate and emulsifiers – because eating animal fat by any other name would be just as carnivorous. What you may not know is that plenty of common foods widely considered to be veg-friendly (or perhaps we should say veg-adjacent) actually contain animal fat, not just dairy fat. That means flesh. Read on to learn more.

Ice Cream

Ice cream is the one comfort food that temporarily heals all wounds. Unfortunately, you may be noshing on Bessie under all that chocolate sauce. Many brands of ice cream contain capric acid, a fatty acid that’s obtained from animal fats. Check the label!

Chocolate

I hate to break it to you – I really do – but that chocolate sauce your pour over your sundaes may not be any better than the ice cream underneath it. Emulsifiers are present in chocolate, which may or may not be derived from animal fat. The problem is that most labels don’t specify the difference, so you’re better off sticking to ones that do.

Full Story Animal Fats in Food | EcoSalon.

The kids are finally down, and you look at the clock. Hmmm… just about 2 hours before I am supposed to get in bed. What can I get done before total exhaustion hits?

Sleep is a very strange behavior. Many people think of it as a battery re-charge, some as a vacation, and still others as a waste of time. Which one are you? How do you value your sleep? When it is not on your list of priorities that can increase your health, energy, and well being, why would you bother with it? Many people value sleep, but they have such a hard time getting it, they just give up and accept that they will be sleep deprived forever.

I would argue that great sleep starts with a reasonable attitude toward sleep. How much do you think you need, and how do you think you may be able to get it? Some nights you will get more, and some less. There are many mysteries to sleep but here are a few things that are known that we can all use to our advantage to get better rest:

Full Story Dr. Michael J. Breus: Sleep Rituals: Training The Body And The Mind.

They say it smooths cellulite and cures cancer. It tastes pickled, sparkly and faintly alive. Sometimes it contains slimy lumps that slither down your throat.

They say it cures cancer. They—and by “they” I mean the nameless, faceless but seemingly unlimited horde of strangers on the Internet—also say it cures diabetes, migraines, asthma, acne, AIDS, hangovers, psoriasis, insomnia, fatigue, bronchitis, arteriosclerosis, bad eyesight, cold sores and erectile dysfunction. They say it reverses the aging process, smoothing out wrinkles, growing hair on formerly bald scalps and transforming gray heads back into brown, black, red and blonde. They say it soothes menstrual cramps, smoothes cellulite and cures cancer. They’re talking about kombucha, a fermented tea drink containing probiotics, polyphenols, amino acids, enzymes, minerals and more. It tastes pickled, sparkly and faintly alive. Sometimes it contains small, slimy lumps that slither down your throat. But, hey.

I’m a hypochondriac. Not the cartoon kind who haunts doctors offices demanding daily MRIs and colonoscopies for nonexistent heart murmurs and rare tropical parasites. My hypochondria is more selective, more refined. I fear only one ailment: cancer. The moment I detect the slightest spot or twitch, I am convinced it can mean only one thing, and that it’s terminal. My mind arrives at this conclusion automatically and instantly. I’ve never had cancer, nor have any known relatives. I’m physically fit, a vegetarian for 20 years, and have never smoked or worked in hazardous industries. Yet by the time I even start to marshal a rational thought, it’s too late and I’m having a panic attack. I’m working on this issue now, addressing fear as an addiction, but all my life I have been its slave, quivering on its spike.

Full Story Is the Fermented Tea Kombucha Really the Healing Wonder Drink It’s Cracked Up to Be? | Food | AlterNet.

“I believe that if people can get more laughter in their lives, they are a lot better off,” says Steve Wilson, MA, CSP, a psychologist and laugh therapist. “They might be healthier too.”

Yet researchers aren't sure if it's actually the act of laughing that makes people feel better. A good sense of humor, a positive attitude, and the support of friends and family might play a role, too.

Full Story Is Laughter the Best Medicine? by R. Morgan Griffin — YES! Magazine.