Letter: The Real Reason To Be Worried About cs

We live in an age where access to knowledge on virtually any topic is at our fingertips. Yet, we are bombarded by misinformation on a daily basis. Modern advancements in scientific research are often sensationalized or disputed, with findings rarely reported to the public with the appropriate contexts and caveats.

The term “GMO food” usually refers to an organism that has been modified in a laboratory setting or has had a direct transfer of genes into its DNA. Unfortunately, these foods are misunderstood. Due to the complexity of genetic research and the speed at which advancements are being made, there is an alarming lack of accessible, comprehensible resources by which to evaluate this topic from a public perspective.

As a result, the general public is directed toward sources masquerading as reliable outlets of scientific research. Media outlets, blog posts or opinion articles are written by seemingly trustworthy individuals often present the results of scientific literature in a way that is easily understood by those without formal education in the sciences but are usually riddled with errors or misinterpretations of scientific findings.

The process of genetically modifying an organism isn’t scary if you understand the science, but that doesn’t mean you should become complacent. You should be worried about GMOs, but for reasons, you may not have considered.

The copyright policies and corporate monopolies surrounding GMO production are worth worrying about. Corporations such as Monsanto have been repeatedly accused of biased research and fraudulent claims surrounding their products. For example, Monsanto has recently been accused of secretly influencing studies conducted by Health Canada — studies that were instrumental in the Government of Canada’s decision to approve the sale of Monsanto’s “safe” weed-killer, Roundup. Recent evidence shows that traces of the active ingredient in Roundup, glyphosate, are found in many food products. If Monsanto secretly guided studies claiming the safety of glyphosate, there is a justifiable cause for concern and an immediate need to re-evaluate these studies.

Full story at Western Gazette

What Is The Best Remedy For Sinus Drainage?

The sinuses are always draining mucus down the back of the throat and into the stomach. Some health issues can make this drainage more noticeable, and even painful or annoying. There are many home remedies, including essential oils, steam therapy, and nasal irrigation.

Natural remedies for sinus drainage

If sinus drainage is irritating, but not severe, home remedies can usually relieve the discomfort.

Treating underlying causes, by eliminating contact with allergens, for example, can also improve symptoms and prevent them from returning.

Essential oils

Aromatherapy can offer temporary relief when sinus drainage causes congestion and pressure.

Steam therapy

Thickened mucus often causes irritating sinus drainage. Steam can thin the mucus, allowing it to flow more easily, and help relieve coughing, pressure, and difficulty breathing.

Continue Reading at Medical News Today

Is There One True Diet That Guarantees Better Performance?

During the 1972 Olympics in Munich, as Frank Shorter prepared to race, he had a secret ingredient up his sleeve: flat Coca-Cola. The US athlete caffeinated his way over 42 kilometers to win gold in the marathon.

Bizarre as it may sound, decades later researchers discovered that consuming caffeine during endurance exercise could give an athlete the edge.

In a new review published in Science, Australian Institute of Sport’s head of sports nutrition Professor Louise Burke and the director of The Mary MacKillop Institute for Health Research, Professor John Hawley, explore nutritional approaches to performance in elite athletes.

They argue there is no “single, superior ‘athletic diet’”. Rather, different tactics benefit different people, forms of exercise and phases of training.

The great diet debate

The developing knowledge about how the body uses fuel helps to explain the high-carb/low-carb debate as well as the myth of the perfect “athlete’s diet”.

“The early sports nutrition guidelines were ‘let’s all eat high carbohydrate at all times because that’s what the muscles are using as fuel’,” Burke explains.

This explains the idea of energy gels during endurance races or the thought process of anyone who ever decided to skol a soft drink or eat a Mars bar right before an event.

Continue Reading at The Sydney Morning Herald

Kratom: The leafy green plant that could help with opiate withdrawals

There has recently been plenty of buzz over a plant-based drug that users take for recreational and medicinal reasons and it’s not marijuana – it’s Kratom.

Kratom is a leafy green plant that grows in Southeast Asia. Users grind it into a fine powder and then mix it into liquids to drink or sometimes capsules for convenience. It has received notoriety because of its reported aid for those suffering from opiate withdrawals.

According to the American Kratom Association, the herbal supplement can also be used to treat pain and depression. It is sold in parts of the United States and parts of San Diego County, but it remains illegal in the City of San Diego.

One of the many individuals using Kratom is Barbara Rago. Before she was constrained to hospitalization, Barbara was a nurse who, herself, visited patients. She loved her job, but a life-changing diagnosis put all of that on hold.

“Four years ago, I was diagnosed with spinal arthritis-sciatica – a bunch of degenerative diseases that left me unable to walk. Pretty much I was in bed for a whole year. It was excruciating. It left me unable to work. I couldn’t function,” she said.

Read more at CBS8.

Experts Recommend Natural Remedies to Curb Diabetes

Medical practitioners have recommended some natural remedies that could curb the increasing rate of diabetes in the country.

The practitioners offered the remedies in separate interviews with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.

They spoke against the backdrop of this year’s World Diabetes Day, which is celebrated globally on November 14.

“Diabetes usually is prevalent in middle-aged and older adults but now becoming common in children. Adults are still at the highest risk than children,’’ Dr. Iorwuese Charles said on phone.

Charles, a medical practitioner at Police Hospital Ado Ekiti, Ekiti State, said that diabetes is a group of diseases that usually end up in too much amount of sugar in the blood.

Another medical practitioner, Dr. Egbete Chimaobi, said that some of the most commonly suggested natural remedies can be used to curb diabetes.

“Remedies such as ginger and a mix of cinnamon as the anti-inflammatory properties help prevent certain diabetes complications; bitter leaf also helps to reduce the blood sugar and avoid heart and kidney failure.

Read the full article at This Day

Africa Doesn’t Need Genetically Modified Mosquitoes

Some scientists have proposed genetically modified (GM) mosquitoes as a solution to controlling malaria, a scourge that has been around for centuries and is spread by mosquitoes.

I am skeptical that this is the answer.

Through CRISPR technology, a gene that prevents procreation is inserted in the lab and is passed on to mosquitoes in the wild. In essence, it rapidly transmits a sterilizing mutation through other members of the mosquito’s species, eventually wiping out the insects.

Creating GM mosquitoes is a contentious topic. Supporters of the technology consider it a huge step forward in the war against mosquitoes and by extension, vector-borne diseases like malaria, dengue, yellow fever, and Zika. Critics of the idea, however, say it is dangerous to manipulate the DNA of any animal, and that experimentation could bring disastrous consequences that are yet unknown.

Africans should be included in these discussions. They should be allowed to have a say concerning a technology that could affect them and generations yet unborn if something should go wrong. Africans should have been consulted before the mosquitoes were created in the first place.

Read the full article at Scientific American

Can A Diet Rich In Fish Help Fight Childhood Asthma?

New research from La Trobe University in Australia suggests a diet rich in fish may help reduce asthma symptoms in children, a disease affecting one in 12 kids in the United States, according to the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

For the study, scientists conducted a trial involving 64 children from Athens, Greece, all of whom had mild asthma. The children, aged 5 to 12 years, were divided into two groups: the Greek Mediterranean diet group and the group that followed their healthy diet. Those in the Greek Mediterranean group ate two meals of cooked fatty fish (at least 150 grams) every week for six months.

Researchers found that at the end of the trial, the Mediterranean diet group experienced a significant reduction in bronchial inflammation.

According to the CDC, approximately 16 million American children have asthma, which can cause wheezing, difficulty breathing and coughing. If left untreated, asthma can cause permanent lung damage over time.

While yearly asthma hospitalizations have declined since 2003, experts warn that climate change may make matters worse.

“Climate change is a huge threat to respiratory health by directly causing or aggravating pre-existing respiratory diseases and increasing exposure to risk factors for respiratory diseases,” the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America wrote on its website.

Continue Reading at AJC

How to Treat and Prevent Cold Sores on Your Lips

If you’ve ever looked in the mirror and saw a pimple-looking dot on your mouth that hurts a lot, you’re not alone — but it’s not always something as simple as a blemish. The inflamed bump may be a cold sore, which is super familiar. (Right now, about 50 to 80 percent of Americans have been exposed to the virus.) And because there is currently no cure for the herpes simplex virus (HSV-1), once you are infected the virus remains in your system for life, says Sonia Batra, a board-certified dermatologist and co-host of the show The Doctors. We tapped the experts to find out how to soothe, treat, and prevent cold sore flare-ups.

How to Spot Them

Cold sores might get confused with pimples, ingrown hairs, and canker sores, but they’re easy to spot once you realize what the symptoms are and how they differ. A cold sore will often appear outside the mouth on the skin of the lip, rather than inside (like a canker sore), and it’ll resemble a small cluster of white blisters, rather than a singular dot, says Batra. And pimples tend to have a central white plug whereas cold sores do not, Agrawal adds.

How to Treat Them

Realize that cold sores are contagious until they are entirely gone. “It is thought that cold sores are less contagious once they scab over, but you are still contagious until they go away completely, which typically takes about two weeks,” says Batra.

How to Prevent Them

Cold sores tend to recur when the immune system is relatively weak, like when you have a terrible cold. “To reduce their frequency, support the immune system with healthy habits including adequate sleep, exercise, and stress minimization,” says Batra.

Allure

How To Manage Menopause Wth A Plant-Based Diet

“If you’re a healthy adult woman, by the time you’re in your 40s or 50s, you’ve already spent decades learning how to tackle the ups and downs of your menstruation cycle, mastering the fine art of period management.

The bad news is once menopause hits and your fertility game totally changes, you may have to start learning about your body and food-related needs all over again.

Dr Jillian Forer, GP at Bondi Road Women’s Health Centre, tells SBS that the year leading up to your last period (also known as ‘perimenopause’) can be fraught with physical and often confusing changes.

Dr Forer, who has specialised in the area of women’s health for over 30 years, explains that during menopause, the female body slowly produces less oestrogen. This is just one reason why many women will experience menopausal symptoms.

She advises females going ‘through the change’ to eat a plant-based diet or – as a minimum – increase their consumption of plant-based foods. This is because phytoestrogens – naturally occurring plant oestrogens – produce a similar chemical structure to our own body’s oestrogen, and are able to bind to the same receptors as our body’s own oestrogen does.

“Plant-based diets will usually feature a lot of phytoestrogen,” she says. “Traditional Asian-style diets – those that may be eaten in China, Singapore and Japan – are predominately plant-based diets that include a lot of tofu and soy.

Read the full article at SBS“

It May Be Carcinogenic, But Thank Goodness It’s Non-GMO

“Perhaps nowhere is that more apropos than the ongoing stampede of marketers to proclaim their products as non-GMO. We now have GMO-free salt, water, and literally thousands of products from foods to household cleaners, none of which contain ingredients derived from GMO crops. But scare sells.

A recent publicity barrage by Smirnoff, includes a slickly produced (and expensive, given the talent costs) TV commercial featuring actors Ted Danson, he of the in-forever-reruns “Cheers” series in which he played the jovial, but somewhat out to lunch bartender, and actress-author Jenna Fischer. They proudly announce that Smirnoff No. 21 Vodka is now made with non-GMO corn.

A press release notes that the commercial uses two “American treasures” to get the word out about No. 21’s new GMO-free status, pointing out, too, that it “has always been gluten-free” (whoop-de-do), and that because there will be no price increase “everyone can enjoy a quality vodka without having to break the bank.”

Continue Reading at Delta FarmPress“