Natural Health News

Birth order might also affect a child's personality and intelligence, according to a new study. First-borns are typically smarter, although younger siblings get better grades and are more outgoing.

The results lend support to previous hypotheses, such as the eldest sibling tending to have higher aptitude. But they also contradict other proposed ideas, such as first-borns tending to be more extroverted.

According to MSNBC:

“In the current study, [researchers] surveyed 90 pairs of siblings in high school. Subjects were asked to report their grades and rank themselves as compared with their siblings on intelligence, work ethic and academic performance. The researchers also obtained academic tests scores and grades ... While the first-born tended to do better on measures of intelligence, the younger siblings had higher overall grade point averages.”

Dr. Samuel Milham has published an important new book: "Dirty Electricity: Electrification and the Diseases of Civilization". It is a call to action for the public health field, implicating electromagnetic fields in a wide range of health problems.

Dirty electricity — high frequency voltage transients on electrical wiring — is a potential universal carcinogen. For over a hundred years, it has been assumed that the higher incidence of diseases in urban areas was related to lifestyle. But according to Electromagnetic Health:

“Analyzing death records from electrified rural areas and non-electrified rural areas in the early part of the 1900s, Milham has shown higher incidence of 'diseases of civilization', such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes and suicide, were in fact strongly correlated with electrification”.

You can listen to an audio interview with Dr. Milham.

One of the most revealing documents from a drug company emerged during a trial over the schizophrenia drug Seroquel.  An email from John Tumas, publications manager at AstraZeneca, said: "There has been a precedent set regarding 'cherry picking' of data ... the recent ... presentations of cognitive function data from trial 15 (one of the buried trials)".

Cherry picking is when a company ignores any data it doesn’t like.  In trial 15, patients with schizophrenia who were in remission were randomly assigned to receive either Seroquel, or a cheap, old-fashioned drug. After a year, the patients on Seroquel were doing worse. These negative findings were left unpublished.

Writing in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre argues:

“The pharmaceutical industry's behavior has collapsed into farce ... I can't see why any company withholding data should be allowed to conduct further experiments on people. I can't see why the state doesn't impose crippling fines.”

Statins are the world's most-prescribed class of medications. About 24 million Americans take drugs such as Pravachol, Mevacor, Lipitor, Zocor and Crestor, largely to stave off heart attacks and strokes.

But in recent months, the drugs' medical reputation has come under tough scrutiny.  Today, a majority of people who use statins are doing so for primary prevention of heart attacks and strokes. It is this use of statins that has come under recent attack.

According to the Los Angeles Times:

“[M]edical researchers found that, contrary to widely held belief, statins do not drive down death rates among those who take them to prevent a first heart attack. A second article cast significant doubt on the influential findings of [the 2006 JUPITER] study ... that has driven the expansion of statins' use by healthy people ... A third article suggested potential ethical, clinical and financial conflicts of interest at work in the execution of the JUPITER study”.

At least a dozen major drug companies are under investigation by federal prosecutors in a broadening inquiry of bribery allegations.  The companies may have made payments to foreign doctors and health officials.

Such payments are made to encourage doctors to order their products. In the United States, these payments are often legal.  But in most of the rest of the world, doctors are government employees. Even consulting arrangements that would be considered routine in the United States might violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

According to the New York Times:

“Of even greater concern to prosecutors are unusually large payments made to foreign doctors who conduct the growing number of clinical trials that drug and device makers conduct abroad, ... More than 80 percent of the drugs approved for sale in 2008 had trials in foreign countries, and 78 percent of all subjects who participated in clinical trials were enrolled in foreign sites”.

A kid with brains, attitude AND guts...

A genetically modified (GM) crop has been found thriving in the wild for the first time in the United States. Transgenic canola is growing freely in parts of North Dakota, researchers told the Ecological Society of America conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, today. GM crops have broken free from cultivated land in several countries, but they have not previously been found in uncultivated land in the United States.

The scientists behind the discovery say this highlights a lack of proper monitoring and control of GM crops in the United States.

"The extent of the escape is unprecedented," says Cynthia Sagers, an ecologist at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, who led the research team that found the canola (Brassica napus, also known as rapeseed). Sagers says the discovery of plants that are resistant to tow major herbicides shows that "these feral populations of canola have been part of the landscape for several generations."

Antacids--drugs that are used to treat heartburn, acid reflux and ulcers-- are among the most widely prescribed medications in the world. And they don’t get much scrutiny from doctors or patients.

“When patients were admitted to our geriatric wards, a lot of them didn’t have clear indications for taking these drugs,” said Dr. Ian Logan, a Scottish physician. “And they’ve remained on them for a lot longer than they should have.” One of his patients had been taking an acid reducer for 15 years.

“They do have significant side effects, especially in older patients,” Dr. Logan said. Studies have linked antacids to an increased risk of pneumonia, gastrointestinal infections, antibiotic resistance, severe diarrhea, and possibly osteoporosis.“

A simple morning walk to school could reduce stress reactivity in children during the school day, curbing increases in heart rate and blood pressure that can lead to cardiovascular disease later in life, according to a new University at Buffalo study.

UB researchers report in the August 2010 issue of Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that children who took a simulated walk to school later experienced smaller elevations in systolic blood pressure, heart rate and perceived stress while taking a short exam than children who had gotten a simulated ride to school.

"The cardiovascular disease process begins in childhood, so if we can find some way of stopping or slowing that process, that would provide an important health benefit," says James Roemmich, UB associate professor of pediatrics and exercise and nutrition science and senior investigator on the study.

Young men who are obese may have a lower sperm count than their normal-weight counterparts, a new study suggests. The findings, reported in the journal Fertility and Sterility, add to evidence tying obesity to relatively poorer quality sperm.

A number of recent studies have found that compared with leaner men, obese men tend to have lower sperm counts, fewer rapidly mobile sperm and fewer progressively motile sperm, which refers to sperm that swim forward in a straight line rather than moving about aimlessly.

What all of this might mean for an obese younger man's chances of becoming a father is unclear. Studies have so far come to conflicting conclusions as to whether obesity actually impairs a man's fertility.

Enzyte, a popular dietary supplement marketed for "male enhancement," causes electrical abnormalities in the heart that could be potentially fatal in some people, new research suggests. The company states "over 5 million men worldwide" use the supplement.

Doctors should tell their patients not to use the product until more safety information is available, Dr. Brian F. McBride of Loyola University Chicago in Maywood, Illinois, and his colleagues conclude.

“Enzyte appears to have some of the properties of some of the most powerful heart rhythm controlling medications that we give by prescription," McBride told Reuters Health.

After being given the supplement, men in the study showed a prolongation of a section of the heart's electrical cycle known as the QT interval. For people with a condition called long QT syndrome, which may occur in as many as one in 2,000 people, further prolongation like that seen in the current study could lead to severe heart arrhythmia and sudden death.

BP doesn’t have to tell the EPA—or the public—what’s in its dispersants.

Why, you might ask, was BP able to pump the Gulf full of chemicals that have never been tested for their human and environmental safety?

The answer lies, in part, in the Toxic Substances Control Act, the 34-year-old law that governs the use of tens of thousands of hazardous chemicals. Under the act, companies don't have to prove that substances they release into the air or water are safe—or in most cases even reveal what's in their products.

Richard Denison, senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund, says: "We have a chemical policy that essentially has required very little testing and very little evidence of safety for pretty much all chemicals on the market, and that covers dispersants."

For now, the EPA has finally begun testing Corexit for toxicity. But that, notes Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, is "a little bit like closing the barn door after the horse is gone."

Antacid drugs like Zantac, Pepcid, Prevacid and Nexium are among the most widely prescribed medications in the world. However, physicians with Britain’s National Health Service are warning seniors of serious side effects associated with the drugs, especially as you get older.

Antacids are linked to an increased risk of gastrointestinal infections, while one category of the drugs, proton pump inhibitors (PPIs), increase the risk of pneumonia. PPIs are also associated with an increased risk of infection with the C. difficile bacterium, which is resistant to many antibiotics and can cause serious diarrheal illness.

The New York Times reported:

“Several studies also have shown an increased risk of bone fractures from osteoporosis in patients taking P.P.I.’s, though the results aren’t consistent. Possibly the change in stomach acidity reduces the body’s ability to absorb calcium.”

The latest hot diet trend to make headlines, including making an appearance at Chelsea Clinton’s recent wedding, may turn out to be surprisingly good for your health: gluten-free.

Caterers and specialty bakeries alike are serving up increasing numbers of gluten-free cakes and other goodies to meet a small, but steady and growing, demand. Many are also offering an increasingly sophisticated vegan variety, which was also featured at Clinton’s wedding.

Paula LeDuc, owner of Paula LeDuc Fine Catering, an event firm in San Francisco, told the Today Show that gluten-free requests have increased from roughly one a month last year to one a week this year.

“Three or four years ago, gluten-free wasn’t even part of the conversation,” she told Today.

Indeed, many people thrive on a low-carbohydrate, gluten-free diet, especially when they begin eating the right foods for their unique nutritional type.

A bill that would end an underhanded tactic that delays the introduction of generic drugs in the marketplace is pending in the Senate. The tactic, known as “pay for delay,” occurs when a brand-name drug makers pays a significant sum of money to a generic drug maker in exchange for delaying the marketing of the new generic drug.

This allows brand-name drug makers to keep earning profits without competition, while the generic drug maker gets a large sum of “easy, risk-free money.”

As the New York Times reported:

“Both companies profit. The consumer, unfortunately, loses — by paying high, brand-name drug prices instead of lower prices for a generic. The Federal Trade Commission, which has been campaigning to end the practice, estimates that pay-for-delay agreements cost consumers at least $3.5 billion a year.”

The use of video games, cell phones and computers late into the night can make it difficult for kids to stay awake and alert throughout the day. This is why avoiding late-night technology is one of the best techniques to ensure your child gets a good night’s sleep, especially now that the new school year is upon us.

Research presented at Sleep 2010, the 24th Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, also noted that children with a regular bedtime had higher scores on language, reading and math tests, and called a regular bedtime “the most consistent predictor of positive developmental outcomes in 4-year-olds.

ScienceDaily reported:

“Disrupting the normal sleep pattern, whether with technology or not, can reset the brain's circadian clock. A common problem, staying awake late and "sleeping-in" on the weekends, can make it difficult to fall asleep and wake-up during the week, so it is important to maintain a consistent schedule all week long.”

It’s widely known that exercise helps combat depression, but a new study of undergraduates at the University of Georgia suggests it may also help to control anger.

Sixteen men with a “very short fuse” were shown slides designed to induce anger, then either sat quietly or rode a stationary bike for 30 minutes while their brain patterns and verbal estimations of anger were recorded. They were then shown the slides a second time.

When the men didn’t exercise, they became significantly more angry during the second viewing of the slides than the first. After exercise, however, the men’s anger leveled out and they finished the session with anger levels similar to those of the previous session.

The New York Times reported:

“When the men did not exercise, they had considerable difficulty controlling their racing emotion. But after exercise, they handled what they saw with more aplomb. Their moods were under firmer control.”

Cold weather may increase your risk of a heart attack, according to new research from the UK. Each 1.8 degree Fahrenheit reduction in temperature on a single day was linked to about 200 additional heart attacks.

The greatest risk came within two weeks of cold-weather exposure, and those aged 75-84, along with those with coronary heart disease, were most vulnerable to the temperature changes.

LiveScience reported:

“Cold temperatures are known to raise blood pressure and also increase levels of certain proteins that could increase the risk for blood clots. Certain activities more commonly performed during cold weather, such as snow shoveling, might also contribute to the risk, the researchers say.”

This 7-year-old, born with cerebral palsy, shares his excitement at his latest accomplishment: learning to walk without crutches!