RoundUp Herbicide found to cause Cancer, new study says.

Breaking news has been cycling regarding the carcinogenic effects of RoundUp Pesticides as well as an apparent cover-up of it's side effects. 

As if the health hazards of genetically altered food crops weren't bad enough, glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, has also been deemed a major health hazard both to the environment, and to animal and human health. It is toxic to human cells, and according to a French research team, it is also carcinogenic. The team has studied the herbicide extensively, and published at least five articles on glysphosate's potential for wide-ranging environmental and human harmⁱ. Their research shows that glyphosate:

• Causes cell cycle dysregulation, which is a hallmark of tumor cells and human cancers
• Inhibits DNA synthesis in certain parts of the cell cycle—the process by which cells reproduce that underlies the growth and development of all living organisms

Impedes the hatchings of sea urchins. (Sea urchins were used because they constitute an appropriate model for the identification of undesirable cellular and molecular targets of pollutants.) The delay was found to be dose dependent on the concentration of Roundup. The surfactant polyoxyethylene amine (POEA), another major component of Roundup, was also found to be highly toxic to the embryos when tested alone, and could therefore be a contributing factor

for the entire article read here: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2012/06/09/monsanto-roundup-found-to-be-carcinogenic.aspx

Soft Drinks: Public Health Enemy #1 with links to obesity and more.

In stories we ran some time ago, we noted various studies that link soft drinks containing high Fructose Corn Syrup to Obesity, and many of the numbers are staggering. Additionally, Diet sodas have a corrolation with other health issues. While it's easy to opine that it's just better to drink water or juice (it is), remember that originally most soft drinks were served in small cups, often no more than a couple ounces over ice, or occasionaly as an apertif. This development of drinking liters of cola is a recent thing, and the links to health woes are too prevalent to ignore. 

CNN- NY TIMES 

(CNN) -- Pushing her meal cart into the hospital room, a research assistant hands out tall glasses of reddish-pink liquid, along with a gentle warning: "Remember, you guys have to finish all your Kool-Aid."

One by one, young volunteers chug down their drinks, each carefully calibrated to contain a mix of water, flavoring and a precisely calibrated solution of high fructose corn syrup: 55% fructose, 45% glucose.

The participants are part of an ongoing study run by Kimber Stanhope, a nutritional biologist at the University of California, Davis. Volunteers agree to spend several weeks as lab rats: their food carefully measured, their bodies subjected to a steady dose of scans and blood tests. At first, each volunteer receives meals with no added sugars. But then, the sweetened drinks start showing up.

For the final two weeks of the study, volunteers drank three of the sweet concoctions daily -- about 500 calories of added sugar, or 25% of all calories for the adult women in the study. Within just two weeks, their blood chemistry was out of whack. In one striking change, the volunteers had elevated levels of LDL cholesterol, a risk factor for heart disease.

While force-feeding junk food may sound extreme, this controlled diet is not so far from the real world. A 20-ounce regular soda contains 227 calories, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). That single drink is more than 10% of the total calories an adult woman needs to maintain a healthy weight, according to USDA diet guidelines. Meanwhile, about 1 in 4 Americans gets at least 200 calories a day from sugary drinks. These numbers, along with work like Stanhope's, gives ammunition to doctors and public health officials who say soda should be treated as public health enemy No. 1.

"Soft drinks and sugar-containing beverages are the low hanging fruit in public health today," says Dr. David Ludwig, director of the New Balance Foundation Obesity Prevention Center, at Children's Hospital in Boston. "Many children are consuming 300 calories per day or more, just in sugar-containing beverages. Compare the challenge of giving up three glasses of sugary beverages, versus getting them to do two hours of moderate physical activity."

"If you switch from Coke to water, that's easy," says Elizabeth Mayer-Davis, a professor at the University of North Carolina and a recent president of the American Diabetes Association. "You don't have to make big complicated changes in how you cook, and shop, and all that. And the number of calories you can save, can be substantial."

Related story: Are sugar substitutes worse than the real thing?

Some in the soft drink business say their product has been unfairly singled out. "Consumption of added sugars is going down," says Karen Hanretty, Vice-President of Public Affairs for the American Beverage Association. "Soda consumption has declined, even as obesity has increased. To say that sugar is solely responsible for obesity, doesn't make sense."

Coca-Cola has adapted to meet consumer demand, says Rhona Applebaum, the company's Vice President and Chief Scientific Regulatory Officer. More than ever, she says, those consumers choose low-sugar products. Today, Diet Coke and Coke Zero make up 41% of Coke's North American soda sales, up from 32% a decade ago. "Our products are part of a balanced, sensible diet, and they can be enjoyed as a valuable part of any meal, including snacks," says Applebaum.

Buried in the flood of horror stories about America's obesity crisis, are a few hopeful signs. Not only is sugar consumption going down, but obesity rates among girls and women have actually stayed flat since 1999, according to Cynthia Ogden, a scientist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). For boys and men, those levels have increased only modestly since around 2006, Ogden says.

Coincidentally or not, the leveling off of obesity coincides with a drop in the amount of soda that Americans consume. Consumption of soda -- both regular and diet -- has fallen by 17.3% since 1998, according to Beverage Digest.

Read the original Story here: http://us.cnn.com/2012/04/27/health/soda-obesity/index.html?c=homepage-t

FDA Neglect on acetaminophen poisoning

You might be surprised to know that the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States is not alcohol abuse, nor viral hepatitis.

The number one reason Americans suffer acute liver failure is a drug the FDA has allowed to be sold for decades after its lethal toxicities were known.1

This drug is available over-the-counter and in prescription combinations. In many cases, those ingesting this toxic drug (under various brand names) don’t even know they are taking it.

The FDA has bent over backwards to protect billions of dollars of profits earned annually by pharmaceutical companies who sell this deadly drug.

As the body count mounted in 2009, the FDA was forced to mandate a lower dosage and remove it from prescription combinations that were particularly lethal.

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