Check this warning out:

(Of course I think they were thinking LARGE doses when they wrote it)  ?

We don't say this often: It's been a wild month at the FDA. Fresh off its e-cig regulations, the agency announced yesterday it's going to overhaul the procedure for approving most medical devices.

Critics have waited a long time for this. The FDA currently operates under a framework from 1976, which allows certain devices to get a speedy, TSA PreCheck-type approval if manufacturers show their products are similar to others that already exist on the market.

• The problem? Those comparable products (you can call them "predicates") are sometimes decades-old.
• The data: Nearly 20% of devices cleared through this process are based on predicates that have been around more than 10 years, per the FDA.

Zoom out: Just a few days ago, a team of over 50 media organizations published an investigation into medical device safety. What did they find? "More than 1.7 million injuries and nearly 83,000 deaths suspected of being linked to medical devices had been reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration over a 10-year period."

VIA Morning Brew

Good point! 

Maybe as people read about this and share it... more will vote with their wallets as you say.

I don't hold out a lot of hope though.

 

 

Nightmares and insomnia often accompany posttraumatic stress disorder and increase suicide risk.

A small study looking at whether the drug prazosin, best known for treating high blood pressure but also used to treat PTSD-related sleep problems, can reduce suicidal thoughts has yielded surprising results.

They indicate it may actually worsen nightmares and insomnia and doesn't reduce suicidal thinking, investigators report in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

"I think we have to view this as not the final word on this, but it raises questions," says Dr. W. Vaughn McCall, chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Health Behavior at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University.

McCall is currently seeking input from PTSD experts across the country but says a likely consensus could be that prazosin may help some, but may not be a good choice when suicide is an active concern.

Two larger studies in active and retired military personnel yielded mixed results as well, the first in active duty military showed it helped with nightmares and sleep quality and a follow-up study just published this year on military veterans with chronic PTSD indicated it was no better than placebo.

McCall's pilot study is the first in which all participants had suicidal thoughts or actions.

"It did not seem to do much for suicidal ideation and that was somewhat disappointing, but the thing what was mind-blowing was that is actually worsened nightmares," says McCall. "Maybe it's not for everybody." He notes that with PTSD, a patient's nightmares often focus on the trauma that produced their disorder.

Two study participants required emergency inpatient psychiatric care, but there were no suicide attempts or deaths over the study course.

"We need to reconcile how is it that we had 10 years of data saying prazosin is good for nightmares in PTSD, a big study this February indicating it has essentially no affect and now a smaller study showing it can worsen some aspects," McCall says. "We need to know what it all means."

The latest study led by McCall looked at a total of 20 seriously psychiatrically ill patients, two with wartime PTSD with the remainder mostly civilian females who experienced sexual assault. All had active suicidal thoughts, some had previous suicide attempts and most were taking antidepressants and/or had them prescribed as part of evaluation for the study. For eight weeks, they took bedtime doses of the short half-life prazosin with the idea of helping avoid nightmares and, by association, suicidal thoughts. They were assessed weekly for relevant factors such as severity of suicidal thoughts, nightmares, insomnia, depression and PTSD.

One reason for the unexpected findings of the study could be the severity of participants' PTSD as indicated by the their suicidal thoughts, McCall says of his study. The once daily dose may also have been problematic in impacting suicidal thoughts, McCall notes.

There was no significant impact on blood pressure, likely because of the drug's short half-life, and no suicide attempts or deaths.

A result of PTSD can be too much noradrenaline, also known as norepinephrine, a stress hormone and neurotransmitter that is key to the body's fight or flight response. Its increase ideally is a short-term reaction that constricts blood vessels so we can adeptly respond to some threat. Prazosin readily enters the central nervous system where it blocks the action of norepinephrine.

"What trauma does in part is put your brain on edge so you are always ready for the next bad thing," McCall says. "We use terms like hypervigilance, meaning you are always scanning the environment and PTSD patients often sit with their back to the wall so they can see the door. People who are over-diligent by day probably don't sleep well at night," he notes.

The work of McCall and others has delineated a clear association between insomnia, nightmares and suicidal thoughts and behavior.

McCall reconfirmed in 2013 in The Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine the link between insomnia and nightmares and how losing hope of ever getting another good night's sleep itself is a risk factor for suicide.

Earlier studies looking at prazosin's ability to help when PTSD appears responsible include a 26-week trial in 271 military veterans with chronic PTSD who had frequent nightmares. The study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Medical Association failed to show any benefit of prazosin over placebo in reducing the frequency and intensity of trauma-related nightmares. New or worsening suicidal thoughts occurred in about 8 percent of participants taking prazosin versus 15 percent taking placebo. The study, led by Dr. Murray A. Raskind, vice chair of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the University of Washington and director of the VA Northwest Network Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center at the VA Puget Sound Health Care System, took place at 13 VA medical centers.

Five years earlier, Raskind led another study of the drug in active duty soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with combat PTSD and nightmares. The drug, administered midmorning and at night for 15 weeks, showed it was actually effective compared with placebo in the 67 soldiers for combat nightmares, overall sleep quality, and generally reducing the impact of their PTSD.

McCall's study used the same dosing schedule as the previous larger studies but with only the nighttime dose. Six participants completed the entire course of the trial, and investigators suspected that the weekly visits required for the study may have been arduous for some.

Currently the antidepressants sertraline and paroxetine are the only PTSD drug therapies that have Food and Drug Administration approval and neither are widely effective, McCall says.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-11-drug-ptsd-worsen-nightmares-suicidal.html

 

 

Beyond Meat, a startup that makes plant-based meat products, has filed for an IPO. The size of the offering? $100 million, but that number's just a placeholder.

A quick appetizer of some financials: The company said that net revenue in the first nine months of 2018 came to $56.4 million, a 167% bump from the same period last year.

Now, it's true that not every IPO filing gets top billing in the Brew—no hard feelings, Glucose Biosensor Systems (Greater China) Holdings. But this isn't just any IPO filing.

It's got a buzzy product

While Beyond Meat sells a variety of plant-based products from beef to pork to poultry, its bread-and-butter is the Beyond Burger, which is designed in a lab "to look, cook and taste like traditional ground beef." Why couldn't that have been our Chem 332 final project?

Let's talk distribution.

Retail: It's sold in large supermarket chains including Albertsons, Kroger, Wegmans, and Whole Foods.

Restaurants: You can see the Beyond Burger on menus at Bareburger, TGI Fridays, and a few others.

It's in a buzzy industry

Consumers are increasingly shunning meat over concerns of environmental impact, health, and animal welfare. And the meat substitutes industry is poised to take advantage—it's estimated to grow to nearly $6.5 billion by 2023 (up from $4.6 billion this year).

So it shouldn't surprise you that Beyond Meat is locked in a bruising battle with competitors. Not only is it duking it out with the like-minded Morningstar Farms and Impossible Foods, but there's also the traditional giants of Big Meat (the animal variety) to worry about.

Finally, it's got high-profile backers

Leonardo DiCaprio is a brand ambassador, and Beyond Meat counts Bill Gates as one of its investors. These celeb endorsements show how plant-based protein has worked its way to center stage.

And there's no brighter spotlight than the one on the public markets.

The chemical industry perpetually uses devious tactics to con health-seeking people into poisoning themselves. The confusion existing around fats and oils is intentional, and it is designed to prevent us from making healthier choices.

 

The margarine scam of yesteryear presented margarine as a healthier alternative to butter. The medical establishment bought into the lie, and then it advantageously based an entirely new business segment upon eliminating cholesterol.

Thus began another lucrative partnership between the food industry and the petrochemical industry, which are conveniently owned by the same people. One group profits from doing the damage, and the other division profits by treating the resultant diseases perpetually.

The epidemic of heart disease began in the mid-twentieth century, after butter and traditional oils were replaced in our diets by the new “healthier” vegetable oils. Leading the health-destroying parade was researcher, Ancel Keys.

He is known as the father of the Lipid Hypothesis. Keys cherry-picked statistics to create an international study of heart disease, and presented it to medical publications to prove that natural saturated fats cause heart disease. For Keys’ research, the term “international” meant using only the results from the 7 countries which yielded the conclusions that he wanted. He even titled his original paper, “The Seven Countries Study”.

The data from the other dozen countries was stricken, because the data from everywhere else disproved the Lipid Hypothesis. Most of the data actually showed that there was no relationship between saturated fat and cholesterol, or even cholesterol and heart disease.

At the time, many other research scientists were appalled by Keys’ shoddy research, but the media and its top clients in the petrochemical industry embraced Keys’ findings.

Natural fats had to be replaced with chemically-altered fats and highly processed vegetable oils, of which the young biotechnology industry was in the process of streamlining. All of this very conveniently opened the door for industry giants to obtain monopoly patents concerning food preparation. The processes of obtaining naturally-occurring foods, such as butter, cannot be patented.

Keys’ scientific swindle was so masterful that the medical establishment is still direly warning us about how dangerous butter is. In reality, butter contains a uniquely beneficial spread of nutrients and fats that are critical to heart, brain, dental, bone, and nervous system health.

There is little wonder why the Bible foretold that the Christ would be raised on butter and honey, so that he would know the good. Most people now at least know of the dangers of hydrogenated oils, but these oils are still doctor recommended as the healthy alternative.

Deceptive Marketing about Cooking Oils

Soy oil is still being promoted at some retailers as the healthy choice (e.g. Whole Food’s Market), despite all of the revelations about it over the past decade. All soy sold is genetically engineered and highly processed.

The word “soy” sometimes appears inside the fine print on the back of the so-called healthy vegetable oil containers, as if companies are finally beginning to hide it. Even though soy is now known to be an unhealthy oil by most health-conscious people, companies are much more willing to alter their marketing than their unethical practices.

Some of the oil containers boldly list olive oil in huge text across the front of the bottles; implying that it is the main ingredient, but the labeling often reveals that olive oil is actually the last (least used) ingredient.

The real and main ingredients are toxic combinations of highly processed soy and canola oil. A few of the braver companies still emphasize that their product is canola oil, since not everyone knows about canola oil yet. When the dangers of canola become more widely known, we can be certain that it will be the marketing (not the ingredients) that is changed.

One toxic cooking oil product is even called Omega-3 Oil. This is despite the fact that it is virtually impossible to extract raw omega-3 oil without it immediately breaking down into something completely different, especially whenever heat (from processing) is added.

The resultant non-omega compounds are hazardous. The Omega-3 Oil product is actually just canola oil — which, by the way, loses all of its omega-3 and becomes toxic when heated. Bear in mind that it is an oil intended for cooking.

Pesticides are rarely used on soybean or canola plants, because both plants are so toxic that insects avoid them. Canola oil is officially an E.P.A. registered pesticide, and soy contains compounds that are designed specifically to disrupt hormones.

What The Soy Industry Never Told You

There is no such thing as an all-natural soy-based food, because soybeans are toxic in their natural state. Processing is essential for soy foods, because soy is poisonous in its natural organic state (containing natural insecticides), so there are never truly organic soy products for human consumption.

When you see a product that is claimed to have “healthy all-natural soy”, then make a mental note to never buy anything from that unethical company. It has proven that it will happily hurt you, and lie about it for profit.

Soy must be processed in some manner for it to be safe for human consumption, and even then, it is not truly safe. The fermentation processes that were historically used by Asian nations are no longer used today, and the overall health of modern-day Asians is rapidly declining.

Soy is now made safe by chemical engineering in large-scale food processing factories. Putting all of the toxic impurities and alterations from the processing aside, the soy itself retains many of its original poisonous compounds which directly attack the thyroid, such as hormones that are designed to disrupt fertility.

Women are especially prone to experiencing horrific hormonal disorders like endometriosis from soy intake. There is no way to accurately determine how many miscarriages and cases of infertility are the direct result of soy consumption.

Soy’s Effects on Human Health

• 250% increased risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease
• Cognitive impairment
• Brain shrinkage and premature deterioration
• Produces steroidal hormones
• Produces estrogen-like compounds
• Vascular dementia
• Decreases brain calcium-binding proteins
• Early puberty in girls and retarded physical maturation in boys
• Unnatural menstrual patterns in women
• Malnutrition – soybeans have potent enzyme inhibitors
• Reduced protein digestion
• Interference with tyrosine kinase-dependent mechanisms required for optimal hippocampal function, structure and plasticity
• Inhibits tyrosine kinase which impairs memory formation
• Inhibits dopamine
• Movement difficulties characteristic of Parkinson’s disease
• Depressed thyroid function
• Infants who receive soy formula are 200% more likely to develop diabetes
• Birth defects
• Due to suppression of the thyroid, fluoride becomes much more toxic
• Inhibits zinc absorption

Mayonnaise and Cold Pasteurization

All commercial mayonnaise is cold pasteurized, because the raw eggs that are necessary for mayonnaise could not be left unrefrigerated for months on store shelves otherwise. Cold pasteurization is the process of saturating a food with radiation to sterilize it.

Any “cold pasteurized” food is laced with cancer-inducing radiolytic compounds, in addition to benzene. It is very likely to still be radioactive at the time of sale. Radiolytic compounds and benzene formation are normal, expected occurrences whenever proteins are exposed to high levels of radiation.

In addition to its radioactivity, commercial mayonnaise is made primarily of genetically-engineered soy oil, which is heavily chemically processed. Furthermore, mayonnaise typically contains hydrogenated oils and chemically-engineered additives.

Since the toxins in mayonnaise are bound inside various fats, and since the human body protects itself by storing toxins inside fat cells, it is easy to deduce that a body will rapidly convert commercial mayonnaise to body fat.

Why Vegetarians and Vegans Should Consume Hemp Instead of Soy

Vegetarian and vegan diets leave individuals lacking in key nutrients, proteins, fats, and amino acids. Adults have a right to make such decisions for themselves, but parents who keep children on vegetarian diets are guilty of chronic child abuse. Vegetarian diets for children should be illegal, and this is doubly so for vegan diets.

When people choose to be vegetarian or vegan, they generally utilize soy-based products to compensate for their protein deficiency. Soy is horrendous to a body, and it is unfit for human consumption. Infants who are fed soy formulas are far more likely to develop hormonal diseases like endometriosis and thyroid disease later in life.

The estrogen-like compounds contained within soy hinder development by mimicking estrogen. They imbalance human hormones; especially in females. The ever-increasing use of soy in today’s processed foods is one of the reasons why young girls are starting puberty at younger ages than ever before.

Hemp-based alternatives have become widely available. Hemp does not contain THC, the active narcotic found in its close cousin, cannabis (marijuana). Therefore, hemp products come with no legal liabilities for its possession. It is a miraculous plant that contains similar amounts of protein to soy products, but it comes without any of soy’s risks. Shelled hemp seeds are about 31% protein, in comparison to 35% for soybeans.

Hemp protein is widely available in higher concentrations. It is produced naturally by simply sieving out the fiber. Hemp contains every important amino acid that science has been able to identify, and high amounts of omega-3, a substance that is lacking in almost every Western diet.

Vegetarians should take heed that hemp contains even more omega-3 than walnuts, the most highly acclaimed vegetarian source for it.

Vegetarians frequently have problems with stamina, which has been shown to be massively improved with hemp; especially when combined with iron. Hemp also helps those who are lacking fiber, and those who are embracing gluten-free diets.

Readers should be aware that this report does not imply that any vegetarian diet could be considered ideal, but merely that the introduction of hemp as a complete soy replacement would be a very wise health choice. An occasional steak to provide bio-usable iron that a human body can actually use would be wise too.

For useful iron, and the vastly superior form of vitamin A (retinol), there really is no good substitute for red meat.

Whole Foods Market Promotes Soy

Some years ago, we stumbled across a web page promoting the use of soybean-based foods at the web site of Whole Food’s Market. We knew that soy-based products were being sold at the company’s retail outlets for customers still embracing vegetarianism, but it was disturbing to witness the company openly promoting soy as a health food.

Anyone taking a moment to search the Internet for information about soy will immediately see the countless reports about soy-induced infertility, miscarriages, premature puberty, obesity, hypothyroidism, endometriosis, and let us not forget cancer.

Females can develop a permanent case of P.M.S. if soy is consumed regularly, or possibly something considerably worse. At least people consuming soy need not worry about pesticide residue, because soy plants kill off the insects. Virtually all soy is genetically modified too.

Whole Food’s admitted that its promoted health food removes calcium, iron, and zinc from the body to cause multiple mineral deficiencies. They neglected to mention that it also reduces the absorption of magnesium, copper, and vitamin B-12, which are all crucial for cardiovascular health.

Soy’s dangerous phytic acid may be reduced by the processing, but it is not gone. They furthermore neglected to mention that soy is no longer fermented with the traditional methods that were once used in Asia, and instead the company dishonestly implied that it still is.

The new ‘fermentation’ is done chemically and with genetically engineered bacteria to ironically make the genetically modified soy less toxic. It is the type of food preparation that requires an environmental protection suit.

Whole Food’s Market admits that one of its most promoted health products disrupts a body’s ability to absorb nutrition, which is the most common route to serious chronic diseases. It actually refers to the genetically engineered germs and yeasts in its soy products as “beneficial microoorganisms”.

Practically everyone who has read about soy in the last 10 years knows that soy has been proven to be extremely harmful to health, so one might wonder where Whole Food’s Market got its information.

According to their website, they found one source of information that was willing to publicly agree with them. It was an organization calling itself Stevens & Associates. Who or what is Stevens & Associates? This is a question for which no person seems to know the answer.

Their website (now defunct) at soyworld.com was registered to Roger H. Stevens, who appears to be a one-man public relations firm that works as damage control for the soybean industry. He has the prestige of appointing himself to write the soy F.A.Q.

Sources

Sources

Mutagens from heated.., Oxford Journals

Dietary canola oil alters…, Journal of Nutrition

Reduction of myocardial necrosis…, National Institutes of Health

Physicochemical and functional…, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry

Initial study of Hemp seeds …, National Institutes of Health

Soy and the Brain, Western A. Price Foundation

Soy by Roger H. Stevens, Faqs.org

Healthwyze

Source

Is this the same thing as the old "Gasahol"? Just curious about the differences

Was that a "real show" by Ike Turner? Or just a comedy routine somewhere?

This First Lady has grown up to be such a dignified lady.... she exudes confidence and control. Good for her.

This song became a mega hit seller for Roberta Flack, she sang it live at a Marvin Gaye concert in 1972 & the audience went wild, this was a year before she even recorded & then released it in 1973, Marvin Gaye then advised her saying 'Baby, don't ever do that song again live until you record it.'?

 

Lyrics

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I heard he sang a good song, I heard he had a style
And so I came to see him to listen for a while
And there he was this young boy, a stranger to my eyes

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

I felt all flushed with fever, embarrassed by the crowd
I felt he found my letters and read each one out loud
I prayed that he would finish but he just kept right on
Strumming my pain with his fingers

Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

He sang as if he knew me in all my dark despair
And then he looked right through me as if I wasn't there
But he just came to singing, singing clear and strong

Strumming my pain with his fingers
Singing my life with his words
Killing me softly with his song
Killing me softly with his song
Telling my whole life with his words
Killing me softly with his song

Songwriters: Norman GImbel / Charles Fox

Killing Me Softly lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Warner/Chappell Music, Inc

I guess the question is what else can it do?

Versus Alexa and Siri?

So we are STILL cleaning up after World War II in 2018. Amazing and incredible.

There has never been a war as large as that one.

And now I see it almost everywhere again. Ugh.

New target for Parkinson’s disease identified

Emory investigators have discovered a novel link between a protein called SV2C and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Prior work had suggested that the SV2C gene was associated with the curious ability of cigarette smoking to reduce PD risk. The new research published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) uncovers the connection.

The synaptic vesicle glycoprotein 2C (SV2C) is part of a family of proteins involved in regulating the release of neurotransmitters in the brain. Dopamine depletion is a well-known feature of Parkinson’s disease and the research shows that SV2C controls the release of dopamine in the brain.

The team generated mice lacking the protein SV2C, which resulted in less dopamine in the brain and reduced movement. The mice had a blunted response to nicotine, the chemical in cigarette smoke thought to protect people from PD. In addition, when brains from patients who had died of PD, Alzheimer’s disease, and several other neurodegenerative diseases were examined they found that SV2C was altered only in the PD brains.

“Our research reveals a connection between SV2C and dopamine and suggests that drug therapies aimed at SV2C may be beneficial in PD or other dopamine-related disorders.” says Gary W. Miller, PhD, professor and associate dean for research at the Rollins School of Public Health and senior author of the study.

Via

Listen to your emotions

Via

The Problem With For Profit Medicine Then ALL THAT MATTERS IS MONEY!

Via

Papantonio: Women Victimized Again With Mirena Contraceptive

There are currently 61 million American women in their childbearing years ranging in age from 15 to 44. 62% of these women regularly use a contraceptive method, with 6.4% choosing to use an intra-uterine device or IUD to prevent pregnancy. America’s Lawyer Mike Papantonio talks about pharmaceutical giant Bayer and their huge moneymaker IUD device, Mirena

Via

medresearch:

New Imaging Technique Aims to Ensure Surgeons Completely Remove Cancer     

Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, along with collaborators at the California Institute of Technology, have developed photoacoustic imaging, a new method to scan a tumor sample and produce images detailed and accurate enough to be used to check whether a tumor has been completely removed. This could replace the current method of determining whether or not all cancerous tissue has been removed, which takes a day or more. More work is needed before photoacoustic imaging is fast enough to be used during an operation.

The research is published in Science Advances.

“This is a proof of concept that we can use photoacoustic imaging on breast tissue and get images that look similar to traditional staining methods without any sort of tissue processing,” said Deborah Novack, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine, and of pathology and immunology, and a co-senior author on the study.

Read more

Funding: This work was supported by the National Institutes of Health, grant number DP1 EB016986 and R01 CA186567, and by Washington University’s Siteman Cancer Center’s 2014 Research Development Award.

Raise your voice in support of expanding federal funding for life-saving medical research by joining the AAMC’s advocacy community.

Via

bpod-mrc:

Wrong Wave

Whatever noise you can hear right now is thanks to tiny ‘hairs’ inside your ears, called stereocilia. They sense vibrations caused by sound waves coming into the ear, and send nerve signals into the brain which are then interpreted as speech, song or anything else. Stereocilia are normally arranged in clumps in a regular step-like pattern, short to tall – seen here in the inner ear of a healthy baby mouse (top). But the stereocilia in mice with a fault in a gene called SorCS2 look very different (bottom). Rather than growing in neatly arranged rows, they’re disorganised and chaotic, with longer hairs growing in the middle rather than at the back. As might be expected from such chaos, these animals are profoundly deaf. By studying the role of SorCS2 in the growth and development of stereocilia, scientists hope to find clues explaining why some human babies are born deaf too.

Deaf Awareness Week 2017 starts today

Written by Kat Arney

• Image adapted from work by Andrew Forge and colleagues
• UCL Ear Institute, University College London, London, UK
• Image originally published under a Creative Commons Licence (BY 4.0)
• Published in PLOS Genetics, March 2017

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