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Should our national heart agency partner with Coke?

Should our national heart agency partner with Coke?.

Five Ways to Help Beat Depression Without Antidepressants

Twenty-plus years of research on antidepressants, from the old tricyclics to the newer selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) show that their benefit is hardly more than what patients get when they take a placebo.

More and more scientists who study depression and the drugs that treat it are concluding that antidepressants are basically expensive Tic Tacs.

Research has found that patients do improve, often substantially, on SSRIs, tricyclics, and even MAO inhibitors. This improvement is the basis for the ubiquitous claim that antidepressants work.

But when researchers compare the improvement in patients taking the drugs with the improvement in those taking dummy pills, they find that the difference is minuscule.

Nonetheless, the number of Americans taking antidepressants doubled in a decade, from 13.3 million in 1996 to 27 million in 2005.

This is a very important point, folks.  In many cases, your beliefs are as or more effective than pills when it comes to achieving health.

The second article linked below frowns on the notion of homeopathy, because some people think it may work as a placebo.  But the article shouldn’t be so dismissive.  The placebo effect is very powerful.  Thousands of clinical studies have found that the placebo effect can aid in healing or even cure disease.

What it comes down to is the crucial mind-body connection.  Those who have hope and belief in the solutions they try will likely find them working.  That’s why it is so key to keep your health freedom, and pay attention to the huge corporations that continually discredit alternative methods.

Typically, more natural healing techniques won’t harm you, and many of the drugs will.  In time, energy medicine will be better understood, and perhaps this placebo element will be utilized in such a way that no pill will ever be necessary — your mind will be stimulated to heal on its own.  Similarly, those who pray or meditate for healing should not be ridiculed either.

Simply labeling something as a placebo and not pursuing it any further misses a key point.  The so-called “placebo effect” may very well point the way to the future or medicine.

Sources:

  Newsweek January 29, 2010

  New Scientist February 1, 2010

  The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) January 6, 2010; 303(1):47-53

PLEASE CLICK BELOW FOR THE FULL STORY….

Five Ways to Help Beat Depression Without Antidepressants.

Winter Training: Faster and Safer Indoors?

By GINA KOLATA

PAUL THOMPSON, a fast marathon runner and cardiologist at Hartford Hospital in Connecticut, finally broke down this year and bought a treadmill. At age 62, he had had it with running on icy mornings when temperatures were in the single digits.

But Dr. Thompson is training for the Boston Marathon, which he ran last year in just 3 hours and 26 minutes. Will it help, or hurt, to do some of his runs on a treadmill?

In North Carolina, Michael Berry, a competitive cyclist and exercise physiologist at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., finds himself reluctantly driven inside by the cold weather, consigned to ride his road bike on a device that turns it into an indoor stationary machine. Helpful for training or not?

For complete Article…..

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/04/fashion/04best.html?ref=nutrition

After Cancer, Removing a Healthy Breast

By TARA PARKER-POPE

For decades, advocates have fought to protect women from disfiguring breast cancer surgery, arguing that it was just as effective to remove only the cancerous tissue rather than the whole breast.

But today, a growing number of women with breast cancer are pushing surgeons in a startling new direction. Not only do they want the cancerous breast removed, but they also want the healthy breast cut off.

“I just didn’t want to worry about it,” explained Liliana Holtzman, 50, an art director in Ann Arbor, Mich., who had both breasts removed after a cancer diagnosis five years ago. “It was for my own peace of mind. I wanted to do everything I could.”

The percentage of women asking to remove both breasts after a cancer diagnosis has more than doubled in recent years. Over all, about 6 percent of women undergoing surgery for breast cancer in 2006 opted for the procedure, formally known as contralateral prophylactic mastectomy. Among women in their 40s who underwent breast cancer surgery, one in 10 opted to have both breasts removed, according to a University of Minnesota study presented last week in St. Louis at the annual meeting of the Society of Surgical Oncology.

Surprisingly, the practice is also more popular among women with the earliest, most curable forms of cancer. Among women who had surgery for ductal carcinoma in situ, sometimes called Stage 0 cancer or precancer, the rate of double mastectomy rose to 5.2 percent in 2005, from 2.1 percent in 1998, according to a 2009 study in The Journal of Clinical Oncology.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/after-cancer-women-remove-healthy-breast/?ref=science

Do Not Take This Deadly Diabetes Drug — Two Reasons Why

Hundreds of people taking Avandia, a controversial diabetes medicine, needlessly suffer heart attacks and heart failure each month.

Confidential government reports say that about 500 heart attacks and 300 cases of heart failure would be averted every month if patients switched away from Avandia.

One report, by Dr. David Graham and Dr. Kate Gelperin of the FDA, argued that Avandia should be withdrawn from the market.

Sources:

  New York Times February 19, 2010

  Senate Finance Committee January, 2010 (PDF)

Click below to read the full story…..

Do Not Take This Deadly Diabetes Drug — Two Reasons Why.

Why Women Should Not Be Afraid of Gaining Muscle

Why Women Should Not Be Afraid of Gaining Muscle

by Charles Poliquin
Increasing your muscle mass and bone mass has a myriad of health benefits.

Here is what you should know before you frown upon on gaining a few kilos of muscle mass:

1. The more muscle and bone mass you have, the greater the acid buffering power you create. That is, you now have more protein, potassium, magnesium and calcium to buffer the acidity in your body. The more alkaline you are:
- the greater the endurance potential of the body
- the greater your immune power is, the better your chances at surviving cancer or the swine flu.

2. According to Tufts University, the greater your muscle mass the greater the longevity potential. It is, in fact, the number one biomarker of longevity. It is a far better predictor of longevity than total cholesterol or blood pressure.

3. The more muscle you have, the more insulin receptor sites you have, and the more sensitive they will be. Increased muscle prevents diabetes and metabolic syndrome. Translation: the more muscle you have, the easier it is to have low body fat.

Please read the complete story.

Why Women Should Not Be Afraid of Gaining Muscle

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First lady Michelle Obama launched her “Let’s Move” campaign the second week of February to highlight, and hopefully help remedy the current childhood obesity epidemic.

If you think epidemic sounds a little too dramatic, then consider this: It is estimated that one out of every three children in the United States is obese.

The American Academy of Pediatrics has a simple formula for helping prevent childhood obesity.

It’s 5-2-1-0, and it breaks down like this:

5: Eat five vegetables and fruits a day (the majority of this should be vegetables). I would also add that you limit your fructose consumption from fruits to under 15 grams per day. You can use the table lower on this page to help you determine the fructose content of common fruits.

2: Limit screen time — TV in particular — to 2 hours or less a day. (The AAP says to avoid any screen time for children under the age of 2. Another interesting variation of this comes from Robert Lustig, MD who is a pediatric endocrinologist at the University of California who specializes in weight loss. He integrates this into the next one in that for every minute of screen time (TV or video games) a minute of exercise is required.

1: Do one hour of physical activity a day.

0: Have zero sugar-sweetened drinks This is an easy one that EVERY child would benefit from following.

Additional suggestions are: Be persistent in offering your child new foods, don’t berate your child about his weight, involve him in food preparation, and be a dietary role model.

In the video above, British chef Jamie Oliver delivers an impassioned plea for America (and the world) to embrace a healthy food movement. He was recently given the $100,000 TED prize.

Sources:
Signon San Diego News February 13, 2010

This Berry Can Help Counteract Intestinal Diseases

Blueberries are rich in antioxidants and vitamins. But new research shows that blueberry fiber is also important and can alleviate and protect against intestinal inflammations, such as ulcerative colitis.

The protective effect is even better if the blueberries are eaten together with probiotics.

Blueberries are rich in polyphenols, which have an antimicrobial and antioxidative effect. The combination of blueberries and probiotics reduced inflammation-inducing bacteria in the intestine at the same time as the number of health-promoting lactobacilla increased.

Sources:

  Science Daily February 9, 2010

  Scandinavian Journal of Gastroenterology 2009;44(10):1213-25

Read the whole story…This Berry Can Help Counteract Intestinal Diseases.

HarmonysWell Online Yoga Studios: Yoga With Beth

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HarmonysWell Online Yoga Studios: Yoga With Beth.

The Truth About Adrenal Fatigue

The Truth About Adrenal Fatigue.