Health lifestyle changes are being used by many parents as first-line ADHD treatment

A new study conducted at the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center found that parents are relying more and more on natural therapies and healthy lifestyle options to improve their child’s attention and behavior. The research results were published in the January issue of…

Scientist deliberately ‘militarizes’ flu strain in deadly bioterrorism experiment

(NaturalNews) For years, health officials from around the world have been warning that the H5N1 avian flu virus, which is currently not a threat, will one day mutate into a deadly, pandemic strain. But now their predictions — or warnings, depending on how you look at it — could come true, as a European scientist has genetically altered H5N1 to effectively spread between mammals. NPR reports that Dr. Ron Fouchier from Erasmus Medical Centre in the Netherlands announced at a recent flu conference in Malta that he had discovered a way to make the avian flu virus more contagious. By deliberately modifying the virus’ genes, Dr. Fouchier was able to induce H5N1 transmission between ferrets, which represent the animal model typically used to study flu transmission between humans. So in case you missed it, a virologist has deliberately altered the deadly H5N1 avian flu virus to become more transmissible between mammals — and he has done so in the name of studying the nature of the virus and, according to NPR, “what it is capable of.” Never mind that in its native state, H5N1 is incapable of doing much at all on a global scale. Now that it has been purposely altered, the virus could eventually have devastating global consequences should it ever be released into the wild. “It’s just a bad idea for scientists to turn a lethal virus into a lethal and highly contagious virus,” said Dr. Thomas Inglesby, a bioterrorism expert and director of the Center for Biosecurity at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, concerning the experiment. “And it’s a second bad idea for them to publish how they did it so others can copy it.” Though Dr. Fouchier has not yet published his findings in a scientific journal, he very well could in the near future. In response to an NPR inquiry as to whether or not he intends to publish the study, Dr. Fouchier allegedly told NPR via email that he refused to comment until a National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity committee decides whether or not to recommend that the study be published. In defense of publishing sensitive studies of this nature, Lynn Enquist, editor in chief of the Journal of Virology , told NPR that it is necessary in order to “be prepared” for how the virus might evolve and spread. Sources for this article include: http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/11/17/142453447/bird-flu-research-rattles-bioterrorism-field

In ‘universal’ flu shot push, medical industry admits current flu shots are useless

(NaturalNews) The medical community is in the process of unveiling a “universal” influenza vaccine that it claims will prevent all flu strains with a single jab. The only problem is that, in the process, the system has inadvertently admitted that current flu shots are medically useless because they fail to target the correct flu strain in many cases, and they do not stimulate a natural flu-fighting immune response even when the strain is a match. A recent report by CBS 11 News in Dallas / Fort Worth explains that researchers from the University of Texas (UT) Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas have identified a compound they say spurs the growth of a key protein known as REDD-1, which prevents cells from becoming infected. By injecting this compound into patients, REDD-1 will increase, say the researchers, and thus effectively prevent any strain of flu from taking hold. But what about current flu vaccines? Dr. Beatrice Fontoura, one of the head researchers involved with the new universal flu shot, explained to CBS 11 that it works differently than current flu shots because it “stimulates our own (immune) response which is already there and boost[s] it to fight an infection.” In other words, flu shots being sold today at pharmacies across the country do not actually promote natural immunity at all, which begs an important question. If current flu shots do not boost the immune response, then what, exactly, are they good for? Not much, according to a recent study published in The Lancet . Though the mainstream media widely reported that the study’s findings showed an effectiveness rate of 60 percent for flu shots, actual data in the study reveal that flu shots help about 1.5 out of every 100 adults. This, of course, translates into a measly 1.5 percent effectiveness rate (http://www.naturalnews.com/033998_influenza_vaccines_effectiveness.html). And yet, for years, medical professionals everywhere have been hounding the public to get their flu shots or else face horrific sickness and even death. And those who continue to avoid the flu shot based on concerns about its safety and effectiveness have been routinely dubbed “anti-science,” or worse. Ironically, the CBS 11 piece about the universal flu shot also contains an interview with a woman who admits that she stopped getting the flu shot because it made her sick every single year. Once she stopped getting flu shots, she stopped getting the flu . So why, again, do we even need a universal flu shot? Sources for this article include: http://dfw.cbslocal.com/2011/11/04/north-texas-researchers-creating-ultimate-flu-shot/

Study: Homeopathic remedy helps treat migraine headaches naturally

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the journal Headache has found that a homeopathic preparation of ginger and the medicinal herb feverfew is effective at treating migraine headaches. Based on their findings, researchers found that 63 percent of those who took the remedy at the first signs of a migraine experienced pain relief, while only 39 percent of those taking a placebo experienced any perceived relief. Funded by PuraMed Bioscience, the study assigned 45 participants the homeopathic treatment, and 15 the placebo. None of the participants knew which treatment they had been assigned. At the first sign of a migraine, participants were instructed to place the preparation under their tongue for sublingual absorption. Roughly one-third of those taking the homeopathic remedy experienced complete relief within two hours. “The results are really intriguing, but definitely preliminary,” said Dr. Rebecca Erwin Wells, an instructor at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Massachusetts, concerning the findings. And although the study was funded by the company producing the remedy, she and others still consider its findings to be relevant and important for the development of complementary and alternative medicines. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, feverfew has long been used as a European folk medicine to treat headaches, arthritis, and fevers. In fact, the name “feverfew” was first hatched after it was discovered that the herb effectively treated fever symptoms. For treating migraines, the center says adults can take 100-300 milligrams (mg) of the standardized extract up to four times daily. “We found that 50 percent of adults with migraine or severe headaches, which is 13.5 million Americans, used complementary and alternative medicine in the previous year,” added Wells. “We need more research to understand the mechanisms, benefits, side effects and risks of complementary and alternative therapies.” Sources for this story include: http://www.foxnews.com/health/2011/06/17/migraines-eased-after-ginger-and-herb-treatment

Natural cure discovered for debilitating heart syndrome POTS

(NaturalNews) Imagine simply standing up and feeling your heart speed up more than 30 beats a minute — sometimes it races well over 120 beats a minutes. You also have heart palpitations out the blue and low stroke volume (the amount of blood your heart pumps with each blood). Even the amount of blood in your body is too low. These are the symptoms of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS) — dubbed “The Grinch Syndrome” because the majority of patients have a heart that is literally, to use Dr. Seuss’ description of the Grinch’s heart, “two sizes too small.” POTS affects about 500,000 people in the U.S., primarily young women. And while it isn’t life-threatening, it can destroy the quality of a person’s life and cause substantial disability by bringing on symptoms such as dizziness, lightheadedness, fatigue, inability to stand for prolonged periods of time (chronic orthostatic intolerance) and fainting. But now there’s evidence POTS can be cured without drugs or surgery, according to research just published in Hypertension: Journal of the American Medical Association . It isn’t the easiest “prescription” for many POTS sufferers but knowing they can be cured may be enough to get them started on this natural path to total healing. The treatment? Regular exercise. “The exercise training program is a resounding success in the treatment of POTS,” Benjamin Levine, M.D., senior study author and director at the Institute for Exercise and Environmental Medicine at Texas Health Presbyterian Dallas, said in a statement to the media. As anyone with POTS knows, the condition can cause such dizziness and fatigue that exercise can seem downright impossible. But the researchers figured out a way to help POTS sufferers begin exercising safely. “The unique component is to start training in a recumbent (semi-reclining) position, which is important to those who can’t tolerant standing. This strategy avoids the upright position that produces symptoms. We don’t even let patients stand up to exercise for one or even two months,” explained Levine who is also professor of medicine and cardiology and distinguished professorship in exercise science at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. “However, to maintain the benefits these patients will need to incorporate the training program into their everyday lives indefinitely.” There are a variety of recumbent or sitting exercises include cycling with a recumbent bike, rowing and swimming. Dr. Levine and his research team recommend exercise training for POTS patients that progressively increases in intensity, frequency and duration. The training regime, they said, should start with 30 to 45 minute sessions, two to four times per week. Eventually, patients work up to exercising five to six hours each week and they are encouraged to exercise upright when they are able to. For the recent study, the scientists worked with 18 women (average age 27) and one man who completed a double-blind drug trial. The POTS sufferers were randomized to receive either the beta blocker propranolol, commonly prescribed for their heart condition, or a placebo for four weeks. After that time period, the research subjects participated three months of exercise training. There was also a control group of 15 non-POTS healthy participants who participated in the study. The results of the study showed that all POTS patients who completed the exercise training showed improvement in physical function scores. What’s more 95 percent of them showed improvement in their ability to function socially. Every single POTS patient who completed the exercise regime showed an improvement in heart rate responses and over half – 53 percent – were actually “cured” of their POTS. That means their change in heart rate with standing no longer met the diagnostic criteria for the syndrome. More good news for POTS sufferers: aldosterone-to-renin ratio (the regulation of sodium balance, fluid volume and blood pressure) has long been known to be low in people with POTS and the standard drug therapy given these people does nothing to help. But not so with the all-natural exercise regime — the aldosterone-to-renin ration, which plays a critical role in how the body handles changes to blood circulation during prolonged standing, showed a dramatic increase in the POTS patients who worked out regularly. The researchers’ analyses also showed the group receiving beta blocker drugs showed no change in social function scores and very few patients taking the drugs improved their physical function scores at all. “Exercise training is superior to the beta blocker in restoring upright blood circulation, improving kidney function and dramatically improving quality of life,” Qi Fu, M.D., Ph.D., study first-author and assistant professor of internal medicine and cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, concluded in the statement to the media. For more information: www.heart.org/news

DPT vaccine causes permanent brain damage, 150 seizures a day in young girl

(NaturalNews) The father of a 29-year-old woman who was permanently injured as a young child by the DPT vaccine, a combination vaccine for diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus, says if he had to do it all over again, he would still get his daughter vaccinated. The girl, who prior to her second dose of DPT was described as a bright young toddler with the vocabulary of a fifth grader, was diagnosed with mental retardation and stopped speaking entirely after receiving the vaccine. She is now permanently disabled. “It was a bad lot,” said the girl’s father to My FOX Houston , concerning the damage caused by the vaccine. “A week after (the shot), we noticed Kristen, at 18-months or two years old, her eyes started rolling in the back of her head.” In addition to losing her ability to speak, Kristen also began having up to 150 seizures a day, many of which are the serious “grand mal” or “tonic-clonic” type that affects the entire brain. According to Dr. Randall Wright, medical director of the Neurovascular Institute at Conroe Regional Medical Center near Houston, Tex., and neurologist at Sadler Clinic in the same area, because such seizures affect the whole brain rather than just portions, they can cause jerking responses throughout the entire body. The Texas state legislature requires that all school-age children receive multiple doses of the DPT vaccine throughout their school years, unless their parents file proper exemptions. Three- and four-year-olds, for instance, are required to receive four doses of DPT before entering school, in addition to 14 other vaccines. The DPT vaccine is known to cause neurological and brain damage, as well as sudden infant death syndrome and even death in older children. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other government agencies insist that the risk is small, but numerous children have died as a result of getting the shot, including the case of Lee Ann Manley, a young girl who died just hours after receiving her first DPT vaccine. Manley was one of the first cases to be acknowledged by the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program as having died directly as a result of the DPT. Sources for this story include: http://www.myfoxhouston.com/dpp/health/110125-vagus-nerve-stimulation http://thewellzone.org/2010/09/08/dpt-vaccine-has-been-known-to-kill-children/ http://www.ageofautism.com/2011/01/cbs-covers-court-award-for-dtap-whooping-cough-vaccine-death.html

Popular cancer drugs increase risk of death, study finds

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association has revealed that the popular cancer drug Avastin (bevacizumab) raises patients’ risk of death by up to 350 percent when combined with chemotherapy. Designed to stop the production of new blood vessels in the body, and thus the spread of cancer cells, Avastin is also responsible for causing blood clots in legs and lungs when used as directed. Vishal Ranpura and doctors from Stony Brook University Medical Center in New York analyzed a series of 16 previously published randomized controlled trials involving more than 10,000 patients with tumors to see how Avastin was related to fatal adverse events (FAE). Depending on the combination of treatments, Avastin was linked with a significantly higher risk of FAEs, especially when combined with other conventional cancer treatments. “Compared with chemotherapy alone, the addition of bevacizumab was associated with a 1.5 times increased risk of FAEs,” states the study. “Bevacizumab was associated with a 3.5 times increased risk of FAEs in patients receiving taxanes or platinum agents (two specific forms of chemotherapy).” Previous studies have identified other types of serious harm caused by Avastin, including one study published in the journal The Lancet Oncology that found that the drug literally punctures a hole in the wall of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, which can lead to death (http://www.naturalnews.com/026549_cancer_drug_patients.html). And in 2006, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that Avastin can cause a rare form of brain bleeding that leads to serious headaches, seizures, blindness, and severe neurological disorders (http://www.naturalnews.com/020558_Avastin_Genentech.html). Even without Avastin, chemotherapy itself kills thousands of people every year, while providing little if any benefit in actually eliminating cancer. Various studies have found that chemotherapy destroys brain tissue and cognitive function, as well as the entirety of a person’s immune system. And chemotherapy does not even work to eliminate cancer in most cases, as the cancer it supposedly eliminated typically returns within a few years and becomes even more deadly (http://www.naturalnews.com/chemotherapy.html). Sources for this story include: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110202/hl_afp/healthuscancerresearchpharmacompanyroche

Arsenic shows promise as treatment for deadly brain tumors

(NaturalNews) Arsenic and its related compounds are mostly thought of as killers — and these natural substances can be just that. Notoriously poisonous to myriad forms of life, arsenic is often used in pesticides. And water supplies in many parts of the world that are contaminated by the natural occurrence of arsenic compounds can cause serious health problems. But despite it’s reputation as a dangerous chemical, arsenic has been used in tiny amounts in medicine for over 2,000 years. Sound crazy? Not any more. Mainstream science has learned that traditional healers were on to something when they treated certain cancers and other difficult-to-treat problems with remedies containing arsenic. It turns out that while a high level of arsenic is known to be carcinogenic, low doses can be an anti-cancer therapy in some cases. For example, a Dutch population study found low levels of arsenic concentrations in drinking water not only didn’t increase cancer incidence in people who drank it, but resulted in a decrease in skin cancers. What’s more, starting in the 17th century, arsenic was the primary therapy for treating a type of leukemia known as chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). Today the arsenic compound arsenic trioxide (ATO) is FDA approved for the treatment of acute promyelocytic leukemia. And now there’s more remarkably good news about normally feared arsenic. A team of researchers, led by Aykut Uren of Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington, D.C., has found evidence that arsenic might be a therapy for hard-or-impossible-to-treat types of brain tumors as well as connective tissue tumors. Specifically, years of research have revealed a common pathway (the hedgehog/GLI1 signaling pathway) that is activated in tumors called medulloblastomas and connective tissue tumors known as Ewing sarcoma (ES). This activation causes cancer tumors to grow and spread. In research just published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation , the Georgetown scientists described how they used the arsenic trioxide compound to shut down that pathway in mice models of ES and medulloblastoma. The result? The growth of cancer cells was dramatically suppressed. According to a media statement, Dr. Uren explained that this pathway is also commonly activated in other cancers, including colon, pancreatic, and basal cell skin cancer. That means the arsenic compound can and should be tested immediately on these other malignancies. For more information : http://www.jci.org/articles/view/42874?key=b4953e0cf3401fb57e38 http://www.jci.org/articles/view/45692?key=d168085cd96838efb43b

Ovarian cancer screenings are essentially useless

(NaturalNews) A new study published in the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS) Cancer has found that current ovarian cancer screening technologies do virtually nothing to decrease the overall death rate from the disease. Laura Havrilesky, MD, MHSc, and her team from Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina, discovered that in many cases, ovarian cancer progresses so fast that screenings are unable to detect a problem until it is too late. “If we assume ovarian cancers grow and spread at different rates, the best screening strategy available will only reduce the number of women dying from this cancer by 11 percent,” Havrilesky is quoted as saying. “This is partially because the slower growing cancers are more likely to be caught by a screening test.” So the team has concluded that the best way to deal with ovarian cancer is to try harder to prevent it, and develop better methods of treating it. Because there is really one no way to determine the nature of ovarian cancer from patient to patient, there is also no single conventional method that effectively recognizes each unique type and its eventual progression rate. Fortunately, there are many natural ways to fight ovarian cancer, and prevent it from occurring in the first place. The Agaricus Blazei Murrill mushroom (ABM mushroom), for instance, is a powerful cancer-fighting mushroom that studies out of both the U.K. and Japan have identified as such. The ABM mushroom contains high levels of powerful beta glucans that stimulate the immune system and promote the mechanisms that fight and prevent cancer cells from being able to take hold (http://www.naturalnews.com/025402_cancer_ovarian_natural.html). Other ovarian cancer fighters include bindweed (convolulus arvensis), selenium, turmeric (curcumin), vitamin K, quercetin, astragalus, espinheira santa, green tea and carotenoids. Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-12/w-ocs120810.php

Statins prove useless, ineffective in children with lupus

(NaturalNews) The push to expand the market for statin drugs has hit a major roadblock. A recent study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Rheumatology has revealed that the “preventive” administration of statin drugs does nothing to prevent children with lupus from developing atherosclerosis, a buildup of fatty material in arteries that leads to heart attack and stroke. It is assumed by many in mainstream medicine that statin drugs are the cure-all for preventing heart disease, with some having even gone so far as to suggest that the cholesterol-lowering drugs be handed out for free with fast food meals (http://www.naturalnews.com/029590_statin_drugs_fast_food.html). But the new study out of Duke University Medical Center verifies that giving them to kids with lupus provides no benefit. “We thought every child with lupus should routinely be put on statins,” said Laura Schanberg, M.D., a professor of pediatrics at Duke. “This study proves that’s not the case.” For the study, researchers evaluated 221 participants with pediatric lupus over the course of three years, giving one portion of the group atorvastatin (Lipitor) and the other a placebo. The team used ultrasound imaging to monitor the progression of arterial wall thickening, inflammation, blood lipid levels, and lupus disease status, and found that statins did not work as intended to prevent the onset of heart disease. “There are rare long-term risks associated with statins that outweigh the risks of using them routinely without proof of clinically significant benefit,” Schanberg went on to say. “[W]e showed that statins should not be routinely prescribed to children with lupus.” To learn more about the dangers and side effects of statin drugs, visit: http://www.naturalnews.com/statin_drugs.html Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-11/dumc-sdp110510.php

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