Homeopathic treatment slows progression of Alzheimer’s disease

A huge leap in the natural treatment of Alzheimer’s disease was recently reported at the Neuroscience Conference in Washington by the National Center for Homeopathy. Homeopathic manufacturer and research organization, Heel, presented studies on a multi-target, combination…

Medicare bankrupt by 2024, says government

(NaturalNews) – Almost every American who has read a newspaper, watched T.V. or signed onto the Internet in the past few years knows that Medicare, one of the government’s largest entitlement programs, is in financial dire straits and is heading for insolvency. What you may not know is that Medicare bankruptcy is closer than even the most pessimistic of previous estimates. An annual report issued last week by the trustees of Medicare said the program won’t have enough funds to pay full benefits by 2024, a full five years sooner than last year’s estimate and one that may yet be even rosier than reality. “Projected long-run program costs for both Medicare and Social Security are not sustainable under currently scheduled financing, and will require legislative corrections if disruptive consequences for beneficiaries and taxpayers are to be avoided,” a summary of the report said. Moreover, a statement issued with the annual report by Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said more must be done to boost financing for the program, such as “contain health-care costs,” lest Medicare – and the government’s other healthcare entitlement programs – become “unsustainable.” The truth is, the program has long since been “unsustainable,” because for years it’s been little more than a Ponzi scheme, as tax dollars from one generation are used to finance previous – and future – generations . Investigative journalist John Stossel says what’s really going on with Medicare is that the young are picking up the healthcare tab for senior citizens, even those who are financially well-off. And while today’s Medicare recipients did, in fact, contribute to the program from their own paychecks when they were still working, experts Stossel says “the average Medicare beneficiary today collects two to three times more money than he paid in.” “We locked up Bernie Madoff for running a Ponzi scheme. Medicare is a bigger one,” says Stossel. Worse, the unfunded portion of Medicare is bad and getting worse. A 2008 assessment by the program’s trustees found that Medicare’s unfunded liability portion is $74 trillion , five times more than Social Security’s unfunded liability. And the government only expects its healthcare outlays to grow. One of the reasons why Medicare – and any government-run healthcare system, for that matter – is so expensive and an impediment to better healthcare in the first place is because it is a system that is inherently inefficient. And that built-in inefficiency is why so much Medicare money is wasted on entire industries like Big Pharma . “While our health-care system has some of the most innovative treatments in the world, Medicare’s payment system imposes many barriers to innovations in using those treatments efficiently and effectively,” says John C. Goodman, president of the National Center for Policy Analysis. “In normal markets, cost efficiencies and quality improvements mean larger net revenues when an entrepreneur finds a better way to provide products or services. By contrast, entrepreneurial efforts under Medicare all too often find their greatest reward when they exploit the system by finding ways to bill more for more services, rather than improve it.” Goodman says studies show that patients – especially those who are chronically ill – “can often manage their own care as well as, or better than, conventional physician care, and at lower costs, when given the support they need.” Now that Medicare’s officially broke, what better time to implement real healthcare reform and let people pursue their own, natural , solutions?

New research: probiotic found in breast milk benefits nerves in gut, calms digestive disorders

(NaturalNews) Probiotics are beneficial microorganisms similar to the “friendly” bacteria found naturally in the body’s digestive system. According to the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), there’s evidence from a variety of studies that probiotic formulations can help treat diarrhea, urinary tract infections, irritable bowel syndrome and dermatitis (eczema) in children; probiotics may reduce the recurrence of bladder cancer, too. Now Canadian researchers have published research in the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) journal that explains why certain strains of probiotics are particularly soothing to indigestion related problems. It turns out the probiotic strain Lactobacillus reuteri , which occurs in the gut of many mammals and is found in human breast milk, immediately and directly affects nerves in the gut. For their study, scientist Wolfgang Kunze of the McMaster Brain-Body Institute and Department of Psychiatry at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Ontario, Canada, and his research team took isolated pieces of small intestine removed from healthy and previously untreated mice. Then they added Lactobacillus reuteri to a warm salt solution which was sent flowing through the lumen, or hollow part, of the intestine. The pressure caused by natural contractions in the intestine sections was measured before, during and after adding the probiotic-containing solution. The scientists tested the electrical activity of single intestinal sensory nerve cells, as well. The results? The researchers documented that the force of muscle contractions in the gut tissue decreased within minutes of exposure to the probiotic solution. This discovery explains why intake of probiotics can often alleviate symptoms of a whole host of digestive disorders such as irritable bowel syndrome, inflammatory bowel disease and constipation. “Scientifically and evidence-based approaches to nutrition to correct potential bacterial imbalance in the intestine and thereby promote better health could possibly restore health in diseases associated with these imbalances,” Kunze said in a statement to the media. This is the latest of a growing body of research backing up what many natural health advocates have said for decades — probiotics (which can be found in supplements and in many foods including yogurt, kefir, fermented and unfermented milk, miso and tempeh, as well as breast milk) can promote health and protect from illness. For example, as NaturalNews previously reported, researchers have found that taking probiotics may help people lose excess weight (http://www.naturalnews.com/028023_intestinal_bacteria_obesity.html). And a study published in the journal Postgraduate Medicine concluded that taking probiotics regularly boosts the immune system in a specific way which helps the body fight off flu infections (http://www.naturalnews.com/026265_probiotic_health_probiotics.html). Editor’s note: NaturalNews is opposed to the use of animals in medical experiments that expose them to harm. We present these findings in protest of the way in which they were acquired. For more information: http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/abstract/fj.09-153841v2 http://nccam.nih.gov/health/probiotics/