Have you ever noticed that your favorite pair of pants have become increasingly more snug and thought to yourself, Is my metabolism to blame? Metabolism is often viewed as fast or slow and associated with fluctuations we may attribute to our weight; however, our metabolism never sleeps and oftentimes isn’t given enough credit for all it does. Continue reading
Magicians are less prone to mental illness than other creative types, who tend to have higher rates than the general public, the BBC reports. Guess it helps to be able to disappear when you want.
In today’s Daily: What’s worse than fentanyl? Fentanyl + meth + THC + xylazine. The physician leading a team assisting newly released Israeli hostages talks about their needs. Eating disorders increased even more than we thought during the pandemic. And Teenspace will offer free mental health services, virtually, to 400,000 adolescents and teens in New York City.
Are all ultra-processed foods linked to cancer and diabetes?
The consumption of ultraprocessed foods has been linked to various individual chronic diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. Now, a large study confirms that they are also linked to comorbidities, or combinations of such diseases.
The study finds that there is a 9% increase in the likelihood of developing cardiovascular and cardiometabolic comorbidities for those whose diet consists of a significant amount of ultra-processed foods.
The greatest increase in risk, according to the study, was for animal-based products and artificially and sugar-sweetened beverages.
I do think that it is important to communicate to the public that certain subgroups of ultraprocessed foods should be preferred over others. For example, plant-based vs. animal-based products… (Continue to full article)
When insurers turned down patient’s request for cancer treatment, they didn’t know he was a top trial lawyer
In August 2018, Robert Salim and eight of his friends and relatives flew to the steamy heat of New York City to watch the U.S. Open.
The group — most of them lawyers who were old tennis buddies from college — gathered every few years to attend the championship. They raced from court to court to catch as many matches as possible. They hung out at bars, splurged on high-priced meals and caught up on each others’ lives.
But that year, Salim had trouble walking the half-mile from the subway station to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows without stopping two or three times to rest. Back in his hotel room, he was coughing badly, his phlegm speckled with spots of blood. Although he had kept fit for a 67-year-old, he felt ragged…
Many insurers won’t pay for certain specialized or expensive treatments unless a patient gets approval in advance. Blue Cross and other health plans often farm out those reviews to companies like AIM. The insurance industry maintains such companies keep health care costs down and help patients by rejecting unnecessary and unproven treatments.
Critics say the companies unfairly deny claims, noting that they market themselves to insurers by promising to slash costs… (Continue to full article)
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has said it “strongly disputes” criticism of the federal agency contained in a major new report, produced by the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), concerning an alleged secret biolab in Reedley, California.
According to the report, thousands of vials containing potentially dangerous or unknown substances, including some labeled “Ebola” and “HIV,” were uncovered during an inspection of what was initially thought to be a vacant warehouse. The facility was uncovered in December 2022 by Jesalyn Harper, a Reedley code enforcement official who spotted a green hose sticking out of the building, and then went in to investigate. Inside, Harper found an array of laboratory equipment, medical-grade freezers, mice for experiments and vials containing writing in English, Mandarin and an unknown code.
Several individuals wearing lab coats were also discovered who claimed to be Chinese nationals (Continue to full article)
Court orders Balance of Nature to stop sales of supplements after FDA lawsuits
A federal court ordered the brand Balance of Nature to stop producing and selling its dietary supplement products this week, after the Food and Drug Administration accused the two Utah-based companies behind it of repeatedly breaking the law in how they made and marketed their supplements.
The FDA says the company marketing Balance of Nature, Evig LLC, and its CEO Lex Howard had flouted years of federal warnings about overstepping limits in what they could claim about diseases their supplements could cure or prevent.
Meanwhile, those responsible for manufacturing the supplements, Premium Productions LLC and its CEO Ryan Petersen, were accused of not doing enough to ensure their products actually contained the ingredients they claimed to.
“We previously warned Evig LLC and Premium Production LLC, but they have demonstrated repeated violations of manufacturing requirements, and the public cannot have confidence that their products are what they purport to be,” Michael Rogers, FDA’s acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs… (Continue to full article)
Express Scripts has announced a new pharmacy network option that offers “cost plus” drug pricing for employers and health plans.
Clients pay the estimated acquisition cost that the pharmacy pays for the medication, plus a small markup for pharmacy dispensing and service costs.
The “cost plus” model option covers all brand, specialty and generic medications on the client’s formulary. Other models in the market offer pricing only on a select group of generics at a small group of pharmacies, Express Scripts said.
Express Scripts is the pharmacy benefits management business of Evernorth, a subsidiary of Cigna. The new pharmacy network option, ClearNetwork is for employers, government organizations and health plans… (Continue to full article)
Chocolate often carries a bad reputation – with people associating indulgence in the treat with weight gain and other negative health effects. The truth is that it’s the sugar that is questionable – but the cacao itself is a very healthful ingredient.
According to a video by Dr. Michael Greger – a physician, New York Times bestselling author, internationally recognized nutrition speaker, and founder of NutritionFacts.org – chocolate may be good for your health depending on the type and quantity you consume. In this article, we build on his suggestions and break down the research on chocolate and its association with stroke risk. Continue reading
Naomi Wolf was, until the covid era, “a well-known feminist nonfiction writer for thirty-five years . . . privileged to be part of the cultural ‘scene’ made up of influencers on the progressive Left.” With great courage, she rejected the masks, lockdowns, and vaccines urged upon us by the state, viewing them as totalitarian impositions upon us. Her heroic stance turned her into a “nonperson”: her friends and associates on the left shunned her.
As a result, she has rethought her political alliances and now finds herself in the company of conservatives and libertarians. In what follows, I’d like to discuss some of her insights about covid and then to focus on how she sees the world. Continue reading
Medicinal herbs and their phytocompounds are being increasingly considered to be helpful in alternative cancer treatments. Many clinical studies have reported the benefits of herbal medicines on cancer patients’ survival, immune modulation, and quality of life.
Some clinical trials used these herbal medicines in combination with conventional therapeutics. These studies investigated the use of herbal medicines for various cancers and the development of randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Continue reading
Certain ‘forever chemicals‘ may raise the risk of one of the fastest growing cancers in America, a study suggests.
Doctors from Mount Sinai hospital in New York tested blood samples from people with and without thyroid cancer and found patients with the disease were 56 percent more likely to have levels of PFAS chemicals in their system.
PFAS are dubbed ‘forever chemicals‘ because they are virtually impossible for the body to break down and have been used to make thousands of everyday products since the 1940s – from nonstick cookware to raincoats. Continue reading
Summary of potential factors and mechanisms linking ultra-processed food consumption with adverse cardio-metabolic outcomes. Credit: BMJ (2023)
A team led by researchers from the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord and Université Paris Cité, France, has summarized where we are in our understanding of the adverse health effects related to ultra-processed food with some suggestions of how to move forward with this information.
In their paper, “Ultra-processed foods and cardiometabolic health: public health policies to reduce consumption cannot wait,” published in BMJ, the authors point out that while there is convincing evidence that processed foods have adverse health risks, efforts to reduce, change or eliminate these food formulations lack sufficient support. Continue reading
The information for this article is sourced directly from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services..
On the heels of the Social Security announcement of a 3.2% cost of living adjustment comes the official Medicare rates for 2024. As always a degree in finance would be helpful in understanding them. Continue reading
I have believed for a long time that the American Medical Complex and the Consumer Food and Beverage Industrial Complex have little interest in the prevention of disease. It makes far better business sense to let the population eat, drink and smoke to their heart’s content and then offer seemingly high tech and expensive methods for cleaning up the aftermath. In the United States, the food industry alone generates 500 billion dollars in sales: Bacon, eggs, milk, fast food franchises, soft drinks, fried food, dead food, overcooked food, sweets, treats and canned goods.
We have gotten away from simple diets and become human garbage disposals. Sixty percent of the American public is overweight. Clearly the large food conglomerates are successfully marketing to an oblivious public. After feeding your body with dead and processed foods for 20, 30, 40 or more years, things begin to run less perfectly. We have overlooked the processing energy required to digest bacon and eggs each morning, that steak in the evening and the cocktails in between. The result is the current health crisis where one in three will have cancer in their lifetimes — not to mention heart disease. ~ Greg Stirling, Vancouver, British Columbia
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Photo by Myriam Zilles
Is your medication messing with your mood? More than 200 medications are linked to depression. Here are some of the most common.
If you are taking medication, you should be aware of the potential side effects, including depression. In fact, about a third of Americans are taking a prescription medication that could potentially cause depression or increase suicide risk. Older adults are more vulnerable to medication side effects, including depression. Continue reading
The following was originally posted on this site on December 8, 2015. ~ Editor
According to the conventional wisdom of mainstream medicine, the world’s leading health practitioners in alternative, complementary and integrative medicine have it all wrong and are misinforming millions in practice and on the internet with a barrage of myths and misconceptions they claim are causing more harm to cancer patients.
Could this initiative to sway opinion by leading cancer authorities possibly – just possibly – be related to the revolution that is happening around the world – highlighting the dangers and ineffectiveness of toxic chemotherapy and radiation, bringing cancer cures such as cannabis to the forefront, or the emerging mass markets now creating awareness on the reality of our food and the consequences of the cancer industry itself? Continue reading
Originally published on March 20, 2016 – While speaking to ABC News about the remission of his cancer, former President Jimmy Carter credited marijuana for killing of his cancer cells.
The Nobel winner thanked his doctors and family for their support through his brain cancer ordeal. He also thanked Terrance ‘Scooby’ Williams of Dr. Green’s Greenery, a pot dispensary in Oakland, CA, for helping him find the right strain of cannabis.
Carter told his medicinal regiment to Sawyer, “I smoke two joints in the morning, I smoke two joints at night, I smoke two joint in the afternoon, and it makes me feel all right.
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Some health experts say the public is headed into another winter bout with COVID, which means the CDC is pushing vaccines once again, but this time even babies are included in the newest push.
Pfizer and Moderna had new COVID vaccines ready for last week when the Centers for Disease Control urged Americans to start lining up for a second or third – or more – jab in the arm, including young children. Continue reading