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November 30, 2006

Pressure at OSHA to Alter Warning

It took six years to get federal worker safety officials to issue warnings to auto mechanics that the brakes they're working on could contain lethal asbestos fibers. But it took only three weeks after the warnings were posted before a former top federal official with ties to the auto industry reportedly pushed to have them removed.

John Henshaw, a former head of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, called Aug. 15 for the agency to make changes to its warnings, according to documents obtained by The Sun.

But Ira Wainless, an OSHA scientist who wrote the advisory bulletin about asbestos in brakes, refused, according to agency documents. Wainless cited dozens of studies, including work at his own agency, to show that his presentation of the medical risk to mechanics was solid.

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Infants & Fluoride: New Warning from Dentists

In a little-noticed but dramatic turnaround, the nation's leading fluoride advocate, The American Dental Association (ADA), issued an alert on November 9th urging parents to avoid fluoridated water when reconstituting infant formula.

The dentists are worried that fluoride exposure at this age will permanently damage teeth, not protect them. A growing body of research also links fluoride to weakened bones, reduced thyroid activity, and possibly bone cancer in boys.

The advice, however, has gone largely unheeded. Nursery Water, the nation's leading fluoridated water for babies still markets its product nationwide at Wal*Mart and other major retailers.

Help us stop this unsafe practice. Sign our letter to Wal*Mart, asking them to stop selling this product.

Source

November 29, 2006

New Advice: Don't Sit Up Straight

The longstanding advice to "sit up straight" has been turned on its head by a new study that suggests leaning back is a much better posture.

Researchers analyzed different postures and concluded that the strain of sitting upright for long hours is a perpetrator of chronic back problems.

Using a new form of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), researchers studied 22 volunteers with no back pain history. The subjects assumed three different positions: slouching; sitting up straight at 90 degrees; and sitting back with a 135-degree posture—all while their spines were scanned.

"A 135-degree body-thigh sitting posture was demonstrated to be the best biomechanical sitting position, as opposed to a 90-degree posture, which most people consider normal," said study author, Waseem Amir Bashir, a researcher at the University of Alberta Hospital in Canada.

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November 28, 2006

Cutting Back on Smoking Won't Cut Death Risk

Less is not more when it comes to smokers' health, new research finds.

A Norwegian study found that merely cutting back on the number of cigarettes smoked per day did not lower a heavy smoker's risk of early death.

Reporting in the journal Tobacco Control, a team from the National Health Screening Service in Oslo found that limiting the daily amount of cigarettes may be useful as a temporary measure when a smoker is trying to quit, but kicking the habit is the only real way of reducing the risk of smoking-related health consequences and early death.

The team studied more than 51,000 men and women ranging in age from 20 to 34 at the start of the study, when they were first assessed for cardiovascular risk factors. The participants were screened again two more times over an average follow-up of 20 years.

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November 27, 2006

Aktivated Barley

Before we actually get into the details of Aktivated Barley, we need to look briefly at barley in general.

Research conducted in Canada, the United States, and Australia has shown that barley can play a significant role in lowering blood cholesterol in hypercholesterolemic subjects. Other studies have shown that non-insulin dependent diabetics (Type II) had improved blood glucose levels as a result of including barley in their diet. It should be noted that barley rates an astoundingly low 27 on the glycemic index. That's 22 percent less than skim milk! And yet which one is banned form the low carb no grain diets?

In addition, barley has high concentrations of tocotrienols, antitoxidant compounds that work to suppress the activity of the first rate-limiting enzyme (HMG-CoA Reductase) in the liver, thus reducing cholesterol synthesis.

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Say No To Antibacterial Soaps

If you are still using antibacterial soap that contains a compound called triclosan, I hope that a brilliant study published in the journal, Aquatic Toxicology will persuade you to consider switching to the plainest bar of soap that you can find.

Researchers have discovered that exposure to triclosan can cause significant disruption to the endocrine system, a finding that has countless and serious health implications.

The study found that triclosan - at concentrations found in North American streams - can disrupt thyroid hormone function in bullfrogs, which can lead to:

  * Elevated activity in the brain of genes linked with uncontrolled cell growth
  * Accelerated hind-limb development
  * Unhealthy weight loss

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