UnSymmetrical

THE biggest study into organic food has found that it is more nutritious than ordinary produce and may help to lengthen people's lives.

The evidence from the £12m four-year project will end years of debate and is likely to overturn government advice that eating organic food is no more than a lifestyle choice.

The study found that organic fruit and vegetables contained as much as 40% more antioxidants, which scientists believe can cut the risk of cancer and heart disease, Britain’s biggest killers. They also had higher levels of beneficial minerals such as iron and zinc.

Professor Carlo Leifert, the co-ordinator of the European Union-funded project, said the differences were so marked that organic produce would help to increase the nutrient intake of people not eating the recommended five portions a day of fruit and vegetables. “If you have just 20% more antioxidants and you can’t get your kids to do five a day, then you might just be okay with four a day,” he said.

This weekend the Food Standards Agency confirmed that it was reviewing the evidence before deciding whether to change its advice. Ministers and the agency have said there are no significant differences between organic and ordinary produce.

Continue reading "Official: Organic Really is Better" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:55 PM | Permalink

What's wrong with being shy, and just when and how did bashfulness and other ordinary human behaviors in children and adults become psychiatric disorders treatable with powerful, potentially dangerous drugs, asks a Northwestern University scholar in a new book that already is creating waves in the mental health community.

In “Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness” (Yale University Press, October 2007), Northwestern's Christopher Lane chronicles the “highly unscientific and often arbitrary way” in which widespread revisions were made to “The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (DSM), a publication known as the bible of psychiatry that is consulted daily by insurance companies, courts, prisons and schools as well as by physicians and mental health workers.

“The number of mental disorders that children and adults in the general population might exhibit leaped from 180 in 1968 to more than 350 in 1994,” notes Lane, Northwestern's Herman and Beulah Pearce Miller Research Professor. In a book that calls in doubt the facade of objective research behind psychiatry's revolution, Lane questions the rationale for the changes, and whether all of them were necessary and suitably precise.

By labeling shyness and other human traits as dysfunctions with a biological cause, the doors were opened wide to a pharmaceutical industry ready to provide a pill for every alleged chemical imbalance or biological problem, he adds.

Continue reading "How Shyness Became a Mental Illness" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 10:21 AM | Permalink

French clay that kills several kinds of disease-causing bacteria is at the forefront of new research into age-old, nearly forgotten, but surprisingly potent cures. Among the malevolent bacteria that a French clay has been shown to fight is a "flesh-eating" bug (M. ulcerans) on the rise in Africa and the germ called MRSA, which was blamed for the recent deaths of two children in Virginia and Mississippi.

"There are very compelling reports of clay treating infections, but that's anecdotal evidence, not science," said Lynda Williams, an associate research professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University, Tempe. Williams is coordinating three teams of U.S. researchers (at ASU, USGS, and SUNY-Buffalo) studying healing clays under a two-year, $440,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health-National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine. Her ASU colleague Shelley Haydel is lending her expertise in clinical medicine to perform the microbiological research.

For thousands of years, people have used clay to heal wounds, soothe indigestion, and kill intestinal worms. Though the practice has declined in modern times, the recent rise of drug-resistant germs has scientists looking more closely at these ancient remedies to learn exactly what they can do and how they do it.

Continue reading "French Clay Can Kill MRSA And 'Flesh-Eating' Bacteria" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 10:19 AM | Permalink

Don't assume that your complicated medical bill is correct. Errors on bills for doctors, medical tests or hospitals can result in overcharges that run from a few dollars to tens of thousands of dollars.

Husband and wife Ron and Marilyn Hess, from Homer, Alaska, were left facing a bill of about $10,000 from a hospital after Marilyn needed an appendectomy. The hospital bill was about $45,000, of which her insurer agreed to pay $35,000.

After obtaining an itemized bill and with the help of a medical-billing advocate, the couple uncovered procedures billed that weren't performed.

And on her appendectomy and the second clean-up surgery, Marilyn was charged separately for each item used rather than a set fee for a surgical packet.

"We were outraged when we saw the itemized statement from the hospital," Ron said.

Nora Johnson, director of education and hospital billing compliance for Medical Billing Advocates of America, who advocated for Marilyn Hess, estimates "eight out of every 10" hospital bills she scrutinizes contain multiple errors. And while bills from doctors' offices and labs tend to contain fewer mistakes, consumers can still end up paying unnecessarily.

Continue reading " Medical-Bill Errors Increasingly Common" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 09:44 AM | Permalink

Switching to organic is tough for many families who don’t want to pay higher prices or give up their favorite foods. But by choosing organic versions of just a few foods that you eat often, you can increase the percentage of organic food in your diet without big changes to your shopping cart or your spending.

The key is to be strategic in your organic purchases. Opting for organic produce, for instance, doesn’t necessarily have a big impact, depending on what you eat. According to the Environmental Working Group, commercially-farmed fruits and vegetables vary in their levels of pesticide residue. Some vegetables, like broccoli, asparagus and onions, as well as foods with peels, such as avocados, bananas and oranges, have relatively low levels compared to other fruits and vegetables.

So how do you make your organic choices count? Pediatrician Dr. Alan Greene, whose new book “Raising Baby Green” explains how to raise a child in an environmentally-friendly way, has identified a few “strategic” organic foods that he says can make the biggest impact on the family diet.

Continue reading "Five Easy Ways to Go Organic" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:49 PM | Permalink

Women can reduce their risk of breast cancer by breast-feeding, even if they have their first child later in life, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles.

Researchers analyzed data on women who had participated in the Women's Contraceptive and Reproductive Experiences (CARE) Study, the results of which were published in 2003. In the current study, researchers looked at the data for women over the age of 54, 995 of whom had breast cancer and 1,498 of whom did not. They compared the women's risk of acquiring breast cancer with their history of breastfeeding and their age at first birth.

There are 200,000 new cases of breast cancer in the United States every year, and it is the third most common cause of cancer death in the country. There are two main types of breast tumors: those that contain hormone receptors, and those that do not.

Researchers have previously found that having a first child after the age of 25 increases a woman's chance of acquiring hormone-receptor-positive breast cancer. Among women who have their first child before the age of 25, those who have many children have an even lower breast cancer risk.

Continue reading "Breastfeeding Reduces Breast Cancer Risk for Older Moms" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:27 PM | Permalink