Study: Taking methadone can double risk of getting in car wreck

Former drug addicts trying to stay clean and individuals with severe pain are being prescribed methadone, a synthetic opioid, as supposed treatment. But a new study out of Norway suggests that men who take this powerful drug are twice as likely as those not taking it…

Butter shortage in Norway leads to $500 a pack price

An inexplicable butter shortage in Norway that authorities and the media are blaming on the growing popularity of low-carb, high-fat diets has left the wealthy Scandinavian country scrambling to find other sources of the precious cooking ingredient. After all, the Christmas…

Butter shortage in Norway leads to $500 a pack price

An inexplicable butter shortage in Norway that authorities and the media are blaming on the growing popularity of low-carb, high-fat diets has left the wealthy Scandinavian country scrambling to find other sources of the precious cooking ingredient. After all, the Christmas…

Study confirms benefits of tanning, sun exposure for the production of health-promoting vitamin D

(NaturalNews) Exposing your unprotected skin to natural sunlight and even using a tanning bed are not necessarily the highly dangerous, cancer promoting activities that many in the government and media would have you believe they are. A new study out of Oslo University Hospital (OUH) in Norway confirms what we here at NaturalNews have been saying for a long time — regular exposure to moderate levels of sunlight promotes good health through the healthy production of vitamin D in the body. Johan Moan, a scientist and researcher from the Department of Radiation Biology at OUH’s Institute for Cancer Research found that the benefits derived from exposure to vitamin D-producing UV rays far outweigh the miniscule risk of developing cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM). In fact, it is primarily overexposure in the form of sunburns that is responsible for UV-related cancer risk. “Sun exposure is commonly supposed to be the main cause of cutaneous malignant melanoma (CMM) in most populations. However, the matter is disputed,” said Moan and his research team in conjunction with their findings. “It can be estimated that increased sun exposure to the Norwegian population might at worst result in 200-300 more CMM deaths per year, but it would elevate the vitamin D status by about 25 nmol/l (nanomoles per liter) and might result in 4,000 fewer internal cancers and about 3,000 fewer cancer deaths overall.” But the risk of getting skin cancer from exposing skin to natural sunlight or a tanning bed, might even be less than that. Ivan Oransky, editor of Reuters Health and treasurer of the Association of Health Care Journalists (AHCJ), wrote last year in a blog that the actual risk of getting skin cancer from using a tanning bed is about 0.2 percent, and this risk likely only includes those that overexpose themselves (http://www.naturalnews.com/029895_skin_cancer_tanning_beds.html). Russian health authorities also recognize the benefits of tanning beds, as they last year installed tanning beds in Russian prisons to help improve inmate health (http://www.naturalnews.com/030416_tanning_beds_prisoners.html). Vitamin D deficiency is linked to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, endocrine dysfunction, infections, autoimmune disorders, kidney problems, neurological disease, respiratory illness, skin problems, and cancer, among other things (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/). Sources for this article include: http://www.voxy.co.nz/health/sunbed-cancer-risk-may-be-worth-it-study/5/106749

New EPA-approved DuPont herbicide linked to widespread killing of trees, authorities unconcerned

(NaturalNews) The DuPont chemical company recently received approval from the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) for its new herbicide Imprelis (aminocyclopyrachlor), which has been alleged as an “environmentally friendly” alternative to other herbicides. However, a recent New York Times (NYT) report implicates the herbicide in causing the widespread deaths of thousands of trees across the country, including Norway spruces, eastern white pines, willows, poplars, and conifers. DuPont originally designed Imprelis with the stated intent to kill lawn weeds like dandelion and clover — both of these “weeds” happen to be highly nutritious foods, by the way (http://www.naturalnews.com/dandelion.html) — because, frankly, most people want their lawns to be perfectly homogenous in every way. But the chemical, despite being marketed as safe for the environment, is killing off trees as well, which has caused quite an uproar. The NYT report indicates that DuPont, various local nurseries and garden supply stores that carry and sell Imprelis, and even authorities, are receiving hordes of complaints from the public that the herbicide is their killing trees en masse. And yet DuPont remains in denial that Imprelis is to blame, and has already come out claiming that customers might be at fault for improperly mixing or applying the chemical. And the EPA appears to be taking a similar approach, despite giving very unconvincing lip-service that it is taking the situation “very seriously.” “We’ve made 1,000 applications and had 350 complaints of dead trees, and it’s climbing,” lamented Matt Coats, services manager for Underwood Nursery in Adrian, Mich., to the NYT. “I’ve done nothing for the last three weeks but deal with angry customers. We’re seeing some tree doing OK, with just the tips getting brown, and others are completely dead and it looks like someone took a flamethrower to them.” Coats went on to say that while his nursery has liability insurance to replace the dead trees, each incident holds a $500 deductible. In other words, his company has already spent $150,000 out of pocket to pay for damages caused by Imprelis, and these costs are escalating. Many landscapers, however, have it far worse, as their insurance policies largely do not cover dead trees, many of which were mature and irreplaceable. The EPA deserves much of the blame for approving Imprelis in the first place The fact that DuPont markets Imprelis as having “low toxicity to mammals and low environmental impact” — all while the chemical cocktail is actually causing a real-life, utterly-devastating environmental impact as we speak — is despicable. And while it is easy to put all the blame on DuPont for selling a product that is mislabeled, at best, it is important not to forget that the EPA is actually responsible as well because the agency approved the herbicide in the first place. According to the NYT, the EPA spent 23 months investigating Imprelis prior to granting it approval. It is unclear what type of investigating the agency actually performed during this time, though, as one would think that a basic platform of product testing would include seeing how trees, plants, and other non-target shrubs respond to the herbicide — which it appears the agency did not do. The EPA either never performed any safety testing on Imprelis at all, in which case it has proven itself to be an utterly useless “protector” of the environment, or it performed tests and did not consider the findings to be of much concern. In either case, the EPA has demonstrated that it is unable to properly perform its job duties, and deserves to be stripped of all regulatory authority. Since pyralids, the class of herbicides to which Imprelis belongs, have been known to poison non-target plants as far back as 2008, the indictment of the EPA goes even deeper. Pyralids biodegrade so slowly that they can remain in soil for years and leech directly into groundwater supplies. And if the soil is ever composted, the herbicide can spread even further, causing extensive damage (http://www.motherearthnews.com/Organic-Gardening/2008-10-01/Aminopyralid-Garden-Threat.aspx). Such easily-accessed information must have come up during the EPA’s 23-month “investigation” of Imprelis, which suggests that the EPA was willfully complicit in approving a dangerous product that is mislabeled as being safe. And if this is the case, then the EPA must be immediately investigated and held liable for potential criminal activity. No synthetic chemical herbicide is truly safe, despite claims made by chemical companies What all of this really comes down to is the fact that no synthetic chemical formula is safe. No matter how creatively the chemical companies try to label their products as “safe” or “low impact,” such claims are patently false when the chemicals in question have been synthetically engineered to kill plants. The only effective and safe ways to deal with weeds is either to pull them out by hand, or learn to accept them and the many benefits they can actually provide, which include improving soil health and reducing the need for excess watering. There are also a variety of companies that produce truly-safe and natural lawn care products that will help with lawn management. To learn more, visit: http://www.safelawns.org Sources for this story include: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/15/science/earth/15herbicide.html

One in ten women regularly consumes organic food during pregnancy

(NaturalNews) The growth of the organic food and personal care product sectors over the past decade-or-so has been truly astounding, with reports indicating, for instance, that organic fruit and vegetable sales increased by almost 375 percent between 2000 and 2010 (http://www.naturalnews.com/028721_organics_food.html). And now, a new report out of Norway has found that one in ten pregnant Norwegian women has gone organic. Researchers from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health evaluated roughly 65,000 pregnant women from the Norwegian Mother and Child Cohort Study, assessing their organic buying habits in six categories: milk and dairy products, bread and cereals, eggs, vegetables, fruit, and meat. “We know little about the consumption of organic food during pregnancy, and the goal of this study was to find out what is consumed and the characteristics of women who choose organic food,” said Hanne Torjusen, a Ph.D. student who worked on the study. They found that women who chose organic during their pregnancies had varying nutritional habits and lifestyle preferences. Some of the women were low income, others were students, and some even smoked or drank during their pregnancies, which are considered to be generally unhealthy behaviors. In other words, it was not simply the well-to-do, health-guru women that recognized the value of consuming organic food. “We see that although there are several elements that are consistent with health recommendations, organic food consumption in pregnancy is not unambiguously associated with what is perceived as a healthy lifestyle — those with the highest education and income,” said Torjusen. “This shows that it is important to take into account other factors besides education and income in the further research of possible health effects of organic foods in the diet.” Research has indicated that organic food generally contains denser nutrient profiles and more vitamins and minerals than conventional food. This idea is supported by a study published in the Journal of Applied Nutrition that found that the nutritional value of food depends on how and in what conditions it is grown (http://www.naturalnews.com/026266_organic_foods_food.html). Sources for this story include: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-01/niop-ofi012711.php

Mammograms don’t really work, say researchers

(NaturalNews) You now have another good reason to skip that next mammogram, based on new research out of Norway. According to findings by Dr. Mette Kalager and his team from Oslo University Hospital, getting a mammogram appears to cut the risk of dying from breast cancer by meager two percent at best — a percentage that many consider to be statistically insignificant. For the study, women between the ages of 50 and 69 who were encouraged to get mammograms and were offered quality care from a team of specialists experienced a reduction in breast cancer deaths of about ten percent. But a similar group of women over age 70 who were offered the same care but were not encouraged to get mammograms saw an eight percent reduction, indicating that mammograms are largely useless. The findings also revealed that for every 2,500 women age 50 and older who get mammograms, only one will avoid dying from breast cancer due to the screening. Up to 1,000 of them, however, will be told that there may be a problem, resulting in 500 of them getting biopsies. In the end, 15 or so women will end up being unnecessarily treated for a disease they do not have. A study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine , a Journal of the American Medical Association, found that mammograms actually increase women’s risk of getting breast cancer. Four counties in Norway experienced increased breast cancer rates after mammography was introduced, and similar increases appeared across Europe as well. Other studies have found that the vast majority of tumors detected by mammography are not even malignant, which often leads to costly and unnecessary interventions. Sources for this story include: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68L5MN20100923

Promoting Healthy Eating, With 31 Other First Ladies

Michelle Obama and representatives from places as far-flung as Cameroon and Norway mingled with public school children on a Westchester County farm to encourage healthy habits.

Few Women Truly Understand the Risks of Mammograms

(NaturalNews) One in three breast cancers detected by mammograms would never have posed a threat to the patient’s life, making all the treatments that follow unnecessary, according to a study conducted by researchers from the Nordic Cochrane Center in Copenhagen, Denmark, and published in the British Medical Journal . “The question is no longer whether overdiagnosis occurs, but how should we react to it,” said H. Gilbert Welch of the Dartmouth Institute for Health Policy and Clinical Practice, author of an accompanying editorial. “It’s not an imperative to be screened; in fact, it’s a close call.” Overdiagnosis refers to the detection of a non-life threatening cancer. In general, breast cancers come in three types: aggressive cancers that spread before they can be detected, cancers that spread slowly enough to be detected and treated early, and cancers that spread so slowly they pose no threat. Unfortunately, mammograms are best at detecting cancers in the latter category and not in the first two, and there is no way to distinguish the cancers from each other without watching them progress. In the new study, researchers examined breast cancer rates in parts of Australia, Canada, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom both before and after national screening programs begin. If mammograms are actually saving lives, then there should have been an increase in the number of aggressive breast cancer cases being diagnosed. Yet while the rate of cancer diagnosis did increase, there was no increase in diagnosis of the dangerous kind. The researchers estimated that for 2,000 women who receive mammograms regularly over a 10-year period, one life will be saved and 10 women will be needlessly treated for cancer — including chemotherapy, radiation and even breast removal. “For too long, we’ve taken a brain-dead approach that says the best test is the one that finds the most cancers — but that’s wrong,” Welch said. “The best test is the one that finds the right cancers and nothing else.” Sources for this story include: bulletin.aarp.org.

Treatment with folic acid, vitamin B12 associated with increased risk of cancer, death

Patients with heart disease in Norway, a country with no fortification of foods with folic acid, had an associated increased risk of cancer and death from any cause if they had received treatment with folic acid and vitamin B12, according to a new study.