The healing power of water

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‘Drink at least two litres a day and you will soon see the difference – glowing skin, weight loss, less cellulite, better immunity and a huge boost to your energy levels’

Water is one of the most basic things on Earth and essential to good health, yet we thoughtlessly throw away gallons every day. Used properly, water can revolutionise our lives.

We need the liquid for day-to-day survival, yet we often ignore our body’s cries for more water, at a grave cost to health and well-being.

It is estimated that 90 per cent of us are chronically dehydrated. Drink just five glasses of water per day and you will cut your risk of developing breast cancer by 79 per cent. The same amount of water will make you 45 per cent less likely to develop cancer of the colon.

Many of the common complaints which plague most people’s lives, such as tiredness, headaches, dry skin, low immunity, cellulite, indigestion and weight gain, are caused by day-to-day dehydration.

If you suffer from one or more of these conditions, you may change the quality of your life immeasurably simply by ensuring you drink two litres of water a day.

Being properly hydrated will help to keep you in peak health. Our bodies are 75 per cent water, but if this level drops by just 2 per cent then we become dehydrated. As soon as this happens, our bodies slow down and begin to operate less efficiently.

A detox give the body a chance to rest so it can cleanse itself. In just 18 days on the Water Detox programme, your body can effectively start again with a clean slate, feeling fabulous.

The Water Detox will help you to tackle health problems – from niggling persistent tiredness or wrinkled skin to more long-term concerns such as weight gain and high blood pressure.

The secret of the detox is simply in the quantity of water you consume. As well as drinking two litres a day, you get an additional litre from food on a nutritional plan which contains at least 50 per cent water.

Once you begin to drink the correct amount of water, you will soon notice improved levels of energy, glowing skin, weight loss, reduction in cellulite and an improved immune system.

It does not matter whether you drink bottle or tap water, but bottle flavoured waters are not permitted on the Water Detox because they almost certainly will be full of sugar and artificial flavours.

It should take you only two or three days to get used to drinking the correct amount of water. To get the best results, you will need to follow a few simple rules:

· Drink at least two litres of water a day.
· On a hot day, increase the daily amount by at least half a litre. Make sure at least one-and-a-half litres of the water is still (not sparkling) water.
· The water should be fresh and, ideally at room temperature.
· Spread your water intake over a day, ideally drinking a glass an hour.
· When you exercise, drink throughout the workout and afterwards. This extra water is in addition to your two daily litres.
· Coffee, tea, alcohol and fruit cordials do not count as water.
· As soon as you get up, drink a glass of water to rehydrate you from the night before.
· Drink a glass of water before lunch and supper to dampen your appetite and to stop you from drinking water with your food, which decreases the absorption of nutrients.
· Make sure you have had at least 1½ litres of water before 6pm.

The 18-day Water Detox Programme

It is vital to drink enough water and to eat the right foods to get the most benefit from the detox.

Certain food types contain up to 50 per cent water, and in some cases up to 95 per cent. Concentrating on these foods will lead to the best nutrition and hydration, though you still need to drink at least two litres of water a day.

You should not eat anything that is not on the programme because this may slow the process or even reverse it. You should particularly avoid diuretics, as they could cause you to lose the same volume of water and more. These include alcohol and drinks containing caffeine, such as colas, coffee and tea.

Exercise is important because it speeds up the cleansing process – but drink throughout your workout and consume at least an extra litre of water per hour of exercise.

When we sleep, we lose water through sweating and the normal metabolic processes. So start the day with a large glass of water, followed by a breakfast which is high in water content. Yoghurt and fruit are excellent. Make the first meal of the day ‘high hydration’.

It is also advisable to exclude certain herbs, such as juniper, dandelions and nettle teas, which encourage the body to expel fluids.

Also avoid foods such as curries and spices which increase body heat and use more fluids than normal.

During the 18-day water detox, you can eat oily fish, oils, yoghurts, potatoes, beans and pulses, vegetables, fruits, rice and salads.

For each of the 18 days, you should drink at least two litres of plain water and eat at least three full meals or five small meals a day. You must eat at least five portions of fruit, five portions of fish, beans or pulses, one portion of rice, and one portion of oil or cheese per day.

You can eat as much as you like of any food which is permitted, but this is the minimum that you should consume.

The cheeses and oils do not always have a 50 per cent water content, but I have included them to ensure that you get a balanced diet. I recommend sheep’s and goat’s products rather than those made from cow’s milk because they are much more easily digested by the human body and much easier to tolerate.

Eating raw foods will maintain fluid levels and help to preserve the nutrients. Aim to eat half of your foods each day raw.

To keep food succulent and with the right level of water, you must use the right cooking methods. Always try to use any of the juices, essences or fluids that come out of the foods for dressings, sauces or gravy to pour back over them. Steaming will also leave your food moist and juicy.

The best way to ensure you don’t lose fluids during cooking is to add them. Choose stews, soups, smoothes and long drinks. Select the foods which you like best and find easier to prepare.

Eat your main meal during the day and not late in the evening. It is better to have four or five light meals a day than to have a huge plate of food three times a day, which can cause big surges and drops in energy and blood sugar.

If you are tempted to snack, remember that 75 per cent of hunger pangs are requests from our bodies for water. Each time you feel hungry, have a glass of water. If, after 20 minutes, you are still peckish, then eat something, as long as your snack is one of the food allowed. Yoghurt, hummus and crudités are a good idea.
The Water Detox diet is not a diet, but a healthy way to cleanse your body. It will also help you to lose any excess weight.
Extracted from Water Detox: Total Health and Beauty in 8 Easy Steps by Jane Scrivener

THE FACTS ABOUT H20

· 75 per cent of our hunger pangs are signals of thirst
· Our brain is 75 per cent water
· Blood is 92 per cent water
· Bones are 22 per cent water
· Muscles are 75 per cent water
· Brain cells are 82 per cent water
· Moderate dehydration can cause headaches and even dizziness
· On hot days, sweating can cause you to lose up to 16 glasses of water a day
· The body loses as much water when asleep as when awake
· Mild dehydration slows the metabolism by as much as 3 per cent
· A 2 per cent drop in hydration can slow mental recall

HOW IT CAN EFFECT YOUR BODY

Drinking water improves the efficiency of all major body organs. The liver, lungs, skin, kidneys and intestines all use water as a vehicle for cleansing. Inadequate quantities of water slow the system down and can causes you to suffer from constipation, grey skin, infections and swollen glands.

Dehydration
Simple day-to-day dehydration can cause tiredness, bad circulation, high blood pressure, headaches, dizziness, aching joints, dry skin, urinary infections, slow metabolism, low immunity, stress, cellulite, weight gain and indigestion.

The Liver
The largest internal organ, the liver works to detoxify the body by taking in ‘poisons’ such as additives and alcohol. A severely overtaxed liver can lead to lethargy and, in extreme cases, jaundice.

The Kidneys
The kidneys cleanse the blood and regulate potassium and sodium levels. Overworked kidneys can cause tiredness, or, more seriously, kidney infections and kidney stones.

The Intestines
Food passes through the stomach into the intestines. The goodness is absorbed and waste eliminated. Digestion takes about eight hours from consumption to elimination in a healthy body, but more than 24 in a dehydrated one.

The Lymph System
Lymph, absorbs dead cells, excess fluids and other waste products and takes them to the lymph nodes, which are under your armpits and in the areas of your groin and knees. Here, the waste is filtered and eventually fed to the eliminatory organs – skin, liver or kidneys – to be passed out.

The Lungs
The lungs filter pollution and toxins, including cigarette fumes and chemicals from the air we breathe. The lungs are full of little air sacs which fill with inhaled air. The lungs then expel carbon dioxide and waste water.

The Skin
The skin sweats out waste products such as salt, uric acid, ammonia and urea. Its condition is an excellent indicator of the condition of internal organs. Spots and a pale skin can be one of the first signs that we have not been taking care of ourselves.

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Reference:http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/170402/healingpowerofwater.htm

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MP3 player headphones may hinder pacemakers

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON, Nov 9 (Reuters) – Headphones used with MP3 digital music players like the iPod may interfere with heart pacemakers and implantable defibrillators, U.S. researchers said on Sunday.

The MP3 players themselves posed no threat to pacemakers and defibrillators, used to normalize heart rhythm. But strong little magnets inside the headphones can foul up the devices if placed within 1.2 inches (3 cm) of them, the researchers told an American Heart Association meeting in New Orleans.

Dr. William Maisel of the Medical Device Safety Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in Boston led a team that tested eight models of MP3 player headphones, including clip-on and earbud types, in 60 defibrillator and pacemaker patients.

They placed the headphones on the patients’ chests, directly over the devices. The headphones interfered with the heart devices in about a quarter of the patients — 14 of the 60 — and interference was twice as likely in those with a defibrillator than with a pacemaker.

Another study presented at the meeting showed that cellular phones equipped with wireless technology known as Bluetooth are unlikely to interfere with pacemakers.

A pacemaker sends electrical impulses to the heart to speed up or slow cardiac rhythm. The magnet, however, could make it deliver a signal no matter what the heart rate is, possibly leading to palpitations or arrhythmia, the researchers said.

An implantable cardioverter defibrillator signals the heart to normalize its rhythm if it gets too fast or slow. A magnet could de-activate it, making it ignore an abnormal heart rhythm instead of delivering an electrical shock to normalize it.

The devices usually go back to working the right way after the headphones are removed, the researchers said.

“The main message here is: it’s fine for patients to use their headphones normally, meaning they can listen to music and keep the headphones in their ears. But what they should not do is put the headphones near their device,” Maisel said in a telephone interview.

So that means people with pacemakers or defibrillators should not place the headphones in a shirt pocket or coat pocket near the chest when they are not being used, drape them over their chest or have others who are wearing headphones rest their head on the patient’s chest, Maisel said.

Most of the headphones had magnetic field strengths more than 20 times higher than the threshold for interfering with pacemakers or defibrillators, he said. They were made by Sony Corp (6758.T: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), Philips Electronics (PHG.AS: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and others.

MP3 players like Apple Inc’s (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) iPod are popular consumer electronic devices. In January, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration researcher said the iPod is unlikely to interfere with pacemakers because it does not produce enough of an electromagnetic field to interfere with the devices.

Brian Markwalter of the Consumer Electronics Association industry group urged consumers to inform themselves about proper use of products with magnets, and encouraged people with pacemakers to understand how headphones can be used safely.

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Reference:http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN0632639220081109

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A cancer patient’s genome decoded for first time

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists for the first time have decoded the entire genome of a cancer patient, identifying a series of genes never before linked to the type of white blood cell cancer that ultimately killed the woman.

The study, published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, represents a new approach to grasp the genetic underpinning of cancer and pave the way for better treatments, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said.

The patient was a woman in her 50s who died 23 months after she was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, according to Dr. Timothy Ley, who led the study. Only one in five patients who get this disease, also called AML or acute myelogenous leukemia, live more than five years after diagnosis.

Ley and colleagues aimed to find genetic mutations that might initiate the development of AML. They sequenced the genes in a sample of normal skin tissue from the woman as well as the genes in her tumor cells taken from bone marrow.

The technique is called high-throughput sequencing.

By comparing tumor tissue to normal tissue, they pinpointed 10 mutated genes in the cancerous tissue apparently involved in triggering AML. Previous research had linked two of them to AML, but the rest never before had been implicated.

“The other eight were all things that caught us off guard. They’re all new. And they are all in genes that we didn’t really have on our radar for this particular kind of cancer. In retrospect, they all make sense,” Ley said.

Three of them normally act to suppress tumor growth, four are involved in promoting cell growth and the final one may affect how drugs enter a cell, the researchers said.

“This is the only way we would have found these mutations. There’s no other path to get this information. I think it really has begun to tell us how little we know about cancer,” Ley added in a telephone interview.

The treatment of AML has changed little in the past two decades because most of the genetic events behind the disease had remained unknown, the researchers said.

“This is the first human cancer genome that’s been sequenced. In the past, we’ve always looked at parts of the genome for mutations. But this is the first time that we’ve been able to look at everything,” Ley said.

A deeper genetic understanding of cancer — now possible with speedier, cheaper DNA sequencing technology — can serve as the foundation for developing more effective ways to diagnose and treat cancer, the researchers said.

“There are probably many, many ways to mutate a small number of genes to get the same result, and we’re only looking at the tip of the iceberg in terms of identifying the combinations of genetic mutations that can lead to AML,” Richard Wilson, one of the researchers, said in a statement.

AML, a common kind of leukemia in adults, begins inside bone marrow, tissue inside bones that helps form blood cells. Each year in the United States, about 13,000 people are diagnosed with AML — usually in people age 60 and older — and it kills about 8,800 people.

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Reference:http://www.reuters.com/

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Heart attack risk shifted by daylight saving time

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By Gene Emery

BOSTON (Reuters Life!) – Clocks spring ahead and fall back when adjusting in and out of daylight saving time. A study published on Wednesday finds that heart attack rates do the same.

The research, based on heart attacks in Sweden, concluded that the chance of a heart attack goes up during the first three weekdays after the springtime shift to daylight saving time, possibly because of sleep deprivation.

But on the autumn Monday after clocks go back and people can get an extra hour of shuteye, the heart attack risk declines.

“Our data suggest that vulnerable people might benefit from avoiding sudden changes in their biologic rhythms,” said Drs. Imre Janszky of the Karolinska Institute and Rickard Ljung of the National Board of Health and Welfare, both in Stockholm.

In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, they said the culprit may be the one hour of sleep lost in the spring, when the clocks are shifted ahead.

“The earlier wake-up times on the first workday of the week and the consequent minor sleep deprivation can be hypothesized to have an adverse cardiovascular effect on some people. This effect would be less pronounced with the transition out of daylight saving time, since it allows for additional sleep,” they wrote.

The protective effect in the fall may last for just one day because, “Monday is the day when most of us will use this extra hour,” Janszky said by e-mail.

During the shift to daylight saving time, women seemed more vulnerable to heart attacks than men. Men were more likely to be protected during the Monday in the autumn, the researchers said.

They also found that the effect was more pronounced in people under age 65.

Janszky said younger people may be affected more because they tend to be working and their schedules are not as flexible.

“Retired people are more independent from the official time,” the researcher said.

More than 1.5 billion people worldwide live in countries that use daylight saving time.

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Reference:http://www.reuters.com/

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Old blood ‘boosts infection risk’

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Storing donated blood too long increases the chance of an infection, US researchers claim.

The risk of blood poisoning or pneumonia doubled once the 29-day mark passed, Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey found.

The study, presented at a US conference, calls for increased care over the way blood is used and stored.

UK authorities said blood took 10 days on average to reach hospitals and daily deliveries meant it was not stockpiled.

The US does not allow the use of blood stored for longer than 42 days – in the UK this is lower, at 35 days.

After two weeks in storage, red blood cells start to undergo changes which lead to the release of chemicals called “cytokines”.

These are known to hinder immune function, and in high levels could possibly make patients more susceptible to infection.

Researchers looked at the rate of hospital infections in 422 patients against the age of the blood transfusion they received.

They found that the average age of the blood was 26 days, and 70 percent of patients had received blood older than 21 days.

Blood shortage fears

In total, 57 patients developed an infection – and these patients had received older blood than the others – on average it had been stored for three and a half days longer.

Patients who had received blood older than 28 days were twice as likely to develop an infection, and the more units of blood given, the higher was the chance of infection.

Dr David Gerber, who led the research, and presented the results at the American College of Chest Physicians conference in Philadelphia, said that any change to the time limit could lead to a blood shortage.

“More cautious utilisation of blood might help to alleviate, at in least part, a diminished blood supply that might result from such a change in policy.” about

A spokesman for the National Blood Service said that UK hospitals were not as reliant on using older blood stocks.

“The shelf life of blood in the UK is shorter than in the US.”

She said that the average age of blood arriving at hospitals was just over 10 days, and daily deliveries meant that hospitals were less inclined to stockpile blood.

She said: “We continue to work hard with hospitals to improve blood stocks management and ensure a safe, sufficient supply of blood to meet patients’ needs.”

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reference:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7697234.stm

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Fast food, as addictive as heroin

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Can you really get addicted to fast food? The evidence is piling up, and the lawyers are rubbing their hands. Diane Martindale reports .

MIDDLE-AGED janitors rarely make their mark on science. But Caesar Barber looks like breaking the mould. Last July, Barber, a 56-year-old diabetic and double heart-attack victim from Brooklyn, sued McDonald’s, Burger King, KFC and Wendy’s, claiming that his illnesses were partly their fault. He had
eaten in their restaurants for years, he said, without ever being told that the food was damaging his health.

Barber’s class-action lawsuit was the first volley in a long-awaited legal assault against the fast-food industry and its role in the obesity epidemic that is swamping the US health-care system.

Inspired by the success of Big Tobacco, the lawyers behind it believe they can force fast-food chains to meet their fair share of the enormous cost of caring for obesity. Pulling the strings is John Banzhaf, of George Washington University Law School in Washington DC, who masterminded the Big Tobacco
crusade.

That campaign won him plaudits all over the world. But “Big Fat” is a different matter. To many – including a federal judge who last month dismissed a similar lawsuit against McDonald’s – it seems blatantly absurd.
Surely people who become fat and ill because they have eaten too much fast food only have themselves to blame?

Perhaps not. New and potentially explosive findings on the biological effects of fast food suggest that eating yourself into obesity isn’t simply down to a lack of self-control. Some scientists are starting to believe that bingeing on foods that are excessively high in fat and sugar can cause changes to your brain and body that make it hard to say no. A few even believe that the foods can trigger changes that are similar to full-blown addiction. The research is still at a very early stage, but thanks to Caesar
Barber it is about to be thrust firmly into the limelight.

Taking on the fast-food industry was always going to be a much tougher assignment than beating the cigarette barons. Tobacco is obviously addictive. Nobody needs to smoke. And the tobacco companies knew their products were addictive yet covered it up. None of these accusations can be
levelled at food.

Banzhaf maintains that he can win regardless. He points out that he doesn’t have to prove that the fast-food chains are entirely responsible for obesity. All he has to do is convince a jury that his clients’ health
problems were not entirely their own fault – that the fast-food companies share the blame. Perhaps, for example, they should have labelled the food to inform customers of its high calorific value.

Any hint that the food is addictive, though, would make Banzhaf’s job a great deal easier. And he knows it. Banzhaf already says he believes that fast food has “addictive-like” properties. “We might even discover that it’s possible to become addicted to the all-American meal of burgers and fries,”
he says.

But how can something you need for survival be addictive? The answer could be in the food itself. The difference between a fast-food meal and a home-cooked one is the sheer quantity of calories and fat it delivers in one go. The US Department of Agriculture’s recommended daily intake for a normal
adult male is 2800 kilocalories (11,723 kilojoules) and a maximum of 93 grams of fat. A meal at a fast-food outlet – burger, fries, drink and dessert – can deliver almost all of that in a single sitting (see Diagram).
Biologists are now starting to realise that a binge of these proportions can trigger physiological changes which mute the hormonal signals that normally tell you to put down the fork.

In the past decade, researchers have discovered myriad hormones that play a role in regulating appetite. Under normal conditions these hormones control eating and help maintain a stable body weight. Leptin, for example, is continuously secreted by fat cells and its level in the bloodstream indicates the status of the body’s fat reserves. This signal is read by the hypothalamus, the brain region that coordinates eating behaviour, and taken as a guideline for keeping reserves stable.

The problem is, people who gain weight develop resistance to leptin’s power, explains Michael Schwartz, an endocrinologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. “Their brain loses its ability to respond to these hormones as body fat increases,” he says. The fatter they get, and the more
leptin they make, the more insensitive the hypothalamus becomes. Eventually the hypothalamus interprets the elevated level as normal – and forever after misreads the drops in leptin caused by weight loss as a starvation warning.

But you don’t need to become overweight to perturb your leptin system. The latest research suggests that it only takes a few fatty meals. In a study published in December, physiologist Luciano Rossetti of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City fed rats a high-fat diet and found that
after just 72 hours the animals had already lost almost all of their ability to respond to leptin (Diabetes, vol 50, p 2786). The good news, says Rossetti, is that these changes are reversible. “But the fatter a person becomes the more resistant they will be to the effects of leptin and the
harder it is to reverse those effects.”

Sarah Leibowitz, a neurobiologist at Rockefeller University in New York City, has more evidence that eating fast food is self-reinforcing. Her experiments show that exposure to fatty foods may quickly reconfigure the body’s hormonal system to want yet more fat. She has shown that levels of galanin, a brain peptide that stimulates eating and slows down energy expenditure, increase in rats when they eat a high-fat diet.

In fact, Leibowitz has found that it only takes one high-fat meal to stimulate galanin expression in the hypothalamus. When the effects of galanin are blocked, the animals eat much less fat. “The peptide is itself responsive to the consumption of fat, which then creates the basis for a vicious cycle,” she says.

What’s more, early exposure to fatty food could reconfigure children’s bodies so that they always choose fatty foods. Leibowitz found that when she fed young rats a high-fat diet, they invariably became obese later in life. She is still investigating what’s going on, but her theory is that an
elevated level of fats called triglycerides in the bloodstream turns on genes for neuropeptides such as galanin that promote overeating. This suggests that children fed kids’ meals at fast-food restaurants are more likely to grow up to be burger-scoffing adults. Rossetti’s most recent studies have also found a connection between triglycerides and food intake. Using a catheter implanted in the brain, Rossetti delivered lipids directly into the arcuate nucleus – a region of the hypothalamus – to either normally fed rats or overfed rats, and then measured their food intake for three days. In the normally fed group the
excess fats curbed food intake by up to 60 per cent. But the overfed rats just carried on scoffing. What’s more, Rossetti discovered that this effect is not dependent on the composition of the diet, whether high-fat or high-sugar, but instead depends on the total amount of calories.

Hormonal changes may remove some element of free will, but on its own that hardly means that fast food is addictive. However, there is another strand of research that suggests gorging on fat and sugar causes brain changes normally associated with addictive drugs such as heroin.

It is already well established that food and addiction are closely linked. Many addiction researchers believe that addictive drugs such as cocaine and nicotine exert their irresistible pull by hijacking “reward” circuits in the brain. These circuits evolved to motivate humans to seek healthy rewards
such as food and sex. Eating energy-dense food, for example, triggers the release of endorphins and enkephalins, the brain’s natural opioids, which stimulate a squirt of dopamine into a structure called the nucleus accumbens, a tiny cluster of cells in the midbrain. Exactly how this generates a feeling of reward isn’t understood, but it is clear that addictive substances provide a short cut to it – they all seem to increase levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens. Repeated use of addictive substances is thought to alter the circuitry in as yet unknown ways.

Sugar junkies

Most of this research has been done with the aim of understanding drug addiction. But a few researchers are now asking whether the brain’s reward circuits can also be hot-wired by mega-doses of fat and sugar. John Hoebel, a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, is interested in whether it is possible to become dependent on the natural opioids released when you eat a large amount of sugar. Along with a team of physiologists from the University of the Andes in Mérida, Venezuela, Hoebel recently showed that rats fed a diet containing 25 per cent sugar are thrown into a state of anxiety when the sugar is removed. Their symptoms included chattering teeth and the shakes – similar, he says, to those seen in people withdrawing from nicotine or morphine. What’s more, when Hoebel gave the rats naloxone, a drug that blocks opioid receptors, he saw a drop in dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens, plus an increase in acetylcholine release. This is the same neurochemical pattern shown by heroin addicts as they go into opioid withdrawal (Obesity Research, vol 10, p 478). “The implication is that some animals – and by extension some people – can become overly dependent on sweet food,” says Hoebel. “The brain is getting addicted to its own opioids as it would morphine or heroin. Drugs give a bigger effect, but it’s essentially the same process.”

As yet no one knows how a big hit of fat and sugar compares with a dose of, say, heroin. But Hoebel says: “Highly palatable foods and highly potent sexual stimuli are the only stimuli capable of activating the dopamine system with anywhere near the potency of addictive drugs.”

Ann Kelley, a neuroscientist at the University of Wisconsin Medical School in Madison, has uncovered more evidence that the release of opioids in the nucleus accumbens tells your brain to keep eating. She found that if rats’ opioid receptors are overstimulated with a synthetic enkephalin, the rats eat up to six times the amount of fat they normally consume. They also raise their intake of sweet, salty and alcohol-containing solutions, even when they are not hungry.

Kelley has also discovered that rats that overindulge in tasty foods show marked, long-lasting changes in their brain chemistry similar to those caused by extended use of morphine or heroin. When she looked at the brains of rats that received highly palatable food for two weeks, she saw a decrease in gene expression for enkephalin in the nucleus accumbens. “This says that mere exposure to pleasurable, tasty foods is enough to change gene expression, and that suggests that you could be addicted to food,” says
Kelley. However, the idea that food is addictive is far from mainstream. And while many nutritionists think it is a plausible idea that deserves more research, others are sceptical. Michael Jacobson, executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, a Washington DC lobby group that focuses on nutrition, doesn’t think the argument will fly. So far, the CSPI has not seen any evidence that fast food is addictive.”Considering the paucity of evidence, I think the burden is on advocates of the addiction argument to provide evidence of addictiveness,” Jacobson says.

Some practitioners also dispute the idea. There is no reliable evidence that addiction can account for bingeing and obesity, says Jeanne Randolph, a psychiatrist at the University of Toronto who specialises exclusively in treating obese patients. Randolph admits that the behaviour of many of her patients is remarkably similar to drug cravings: at predictable times of day, in predictable circumstances, they describe an increasingly intense drive to obtain their preferred sugary snack or junk food, and afterwards feel immediate relief and calm. But, she says, you can explain this without invoking addiction. Fast food, sweets and snacks in which simple sugars predominate can set up a cycle of instant satiation followed by a plunge in blood sugar, which leads to a natural desire for another snack.”It’s a
set-up for a late-afternoon binge rather than an addiction.”

The argument has a long way to go. But chances are it won’t get the chance to mature naturally. Some time soon the allegation that fast food is addictive will be made in court, and once that happens the terms of the debate are out of the scientists’ hands. It won’t make for a scholarly discussion. But it is still a debate worth having.

What constitutes an addiction?

Addictiveness has proved surprisingly hard to define, and there are several different ways of judging whether a substance is addictive. One of the most widely used is known as the DSM-IV criteria, devised by the American Psychiatric Association. To be addictive, a substance has to meet at least three of the following criteria:

* Taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than intended
* Persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to cut down or control use
* A great deal of time spent seeking the substance out, using it or recovering from its effects
* Important social, occupational or recreational activities given up or reduced because of substance use
* Continued use despite knowledge of harmful consequences
* Increased tolerance with use
* Withdrawal symptoms

Fat facts

* More than 60 per cent of American adults and 13 per cent of children and adolescents are classified as overweight or obese. The adult figure has doubled since 1980; for children and adolescents it has trebled
* In 2000, the US healthcare system spent $61 billion on the diagnosis, care and prevention of obesity
* Last year, Americans spent about $115 billion on fast food, more than on higher education or personal computers or new cars
* Americans spend about half of their food budget on meals and drinks consumed outside the home, and consume about a third of their daily energy this way

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reference:http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/fastfood032103.cfm

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Bottled Water No Purer Than Tap Water

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A study by an environmental group of 10 leading brands of bottled water sold in the United States found they contained many of the same chemical and biological impurities as tap water, but an industry body said their bottled water was within regulation standards.

The two-year study was conducted by the non profit, Washington-based, Environmental Working Group (EWG) and was released on their website on Wednesday 15th October.

Study co-author Jane Houlihan, an environmental engineer and Vice President for Research at EWG said in a statement that consumers “can’t trust that what’s in the bottle is anything more than processed, pricey tap water”. They should expect better, she said, explaining that:

“The bottled water industry promotes its products as pure and healthy but our tests show that pollutants in some popular brands match the levels found in some of the nation’s most polluted big city tap water systems.”

The water quality analysis was carried out by the University of Iowa Hygienic Laboratory. Researchers found 38 impurities in the 10 brands of bottled water they analysed. This included disinfection byproducts, fertilizer residue, traces of pain medication, solvents, chemicals used in the plastics industry, bacteria, and radioactive strontium. Across the 10 brands, the researchers found an average of 8 pollutants in each.

All the bottled water brands they tested were within federal standards for drinking water quality, but two of them fell outside Californian state standards in that their chlorine content was too high. These were: Wal-Mart’s Sam’s Choice and Giant Food’s Acadia.

The study authors said that:

“Cancer-causing contaminants in bottled water purchased in 5 states (North Carolina, California, Virginia, Delaware and Maryland) and the District of Columbia substantially exceeded the voluntary standards established by the bottled water industry.”

The authors did not disclose the identity of all the brands, saying this was normal practice for a study of this kind.

The president of the International Bottled Water Association said the study was “alarmist”, because there was an implied assumption that because the water contained contaminants it was unsafe, “even if it does not exceed the established regulatory limit”, he told the Associated Press.

The Association said bottled water wasn’t just tap water in a bottle. Some companies source their water from municipal supplies but they purify it using reverse osmosis and distillation. Such products will be labelled as “reverse osmosis water” or “purified water”, said a UPI report.

Municipal water suppliers have to tell customers what impurities are present in their tap water, and in most states they also have to say where the water came from and how it’s cleaned. Bottled water is not covered by the same rules, although in California, the companies are required to say whether the water came from a municipal supply and whether it contains chemicals that could be hazardous to health.

As well as the water quality lab tests on the 10 popular brands, EWG carried out a survey of 228 brands of bottled water. They reviewed websites, labels and marketing materials and found that fewer than half the brands described their water source (ie whether it was municipal or natural), or gave any information about how the water was treated.

The authors wrote that:

“In the absence of complete disclosure on the label, consumers are left in the dark, making it difficult for shoppers to know if they are getting what they expect for the price.”

The study’s recommendations call for improved regulation of bottled water, and also stronger environmental protection of all water sources:

• Bottled water should be regulated by the same “right to know” standards as municipal water.
• To bring bottled water up to the same standards as tap water, companies should be required to disclose all test results for all contaminants, all treatment methods, and the exact source of the water.
• Federal, state and local policymakers must strengthen protection for rivers, streams and groundwater, from which America’s drinking water is sourced.
• Source water protection programs must be improved, implemented, and enforced across the nation.
• Consumers should drink filtered tap water instead of bottled water.

Annual sales of bottled water in the US exceed 12 billion dollars, and Americans today drink twice as much bottled water as they did 10 years ago.

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reference:http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/125610.php

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