According to his doctor, Douglas will undergo eight weeks of radiation combined with two rounds of chemotherapy. “Together, it has proven to give a good chance for a cure for the disease,” says Dr Kevin Cullen, director of the University of Maryland Greenebaum Cancer Center. Apparently Dr Cullen is unaware that chemotherapy and radiation never “cure” cancer — they only temporarily shrink tumors while increasing the risk of cancer throughout the body.

One of the most prominent side effects of chemotherapy is, in fact, cancer! The same is true for radiation. These are both cancer-causing interventions in human biology. Instead of boosting immune function, they compromise it. And while they may temporarily shrink cancer tumors, recent research reveals that they don’t eliminate cancer tumor stem cells that can easily re-grow the tumor once the treatments are finished.

That’s why so many cancer tumors grow back after chemotherapy and radiation — the tumor still exists! Merely shrinking it is not an accurate gauge of any real reduction in the risk of the tumor growing back.

The only sure way to stop a cancer tumor from growing back is to change its environment by altering your exercise, diet and intake of anti-cancer foods, superfoods and medicinal herbs. By flooding your body’s cells with anti-cancer nutrients such as vitamin D, selenium, vitamin C and plant-based nutrients, your risk of growing cancer tumors is greatly decreased (by as much as 77% from vitamin D alone, according to the scientific research). (http://www.naturalnews.com/021892.html)

Chemo is the wrong choice
Celebrities who choose chemotherapy and radiation are usually the ones quick to die from their cancers. Patrick Swayze died after receiving chemotherapy for pancreatic cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/027047_cancer_chemotherapy_industry.html); Farrah Fawcett died after chemotherapy for anal cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/026511_cancer_chemotherapy_doctors.html); Peter Jennings died after chemotherapy treatments for lung cancer; Tony Snow died after chemotherapy treatments for colon cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/023626_cancer_chemotherapy_colon_cancer.html).

But celebrities who choose a healthier, more holistic treatment plan seem to do much better. Perhaps most famously, Suzanne Somers overcame her own breast cancer by turning to natural remedies and a holistic lifestyle (http://www.naturalnews.com/027526_Suzanne_Somers_curing_cancer.html).

Sadly, Michael Douglas appears to be following in the footsteps o Patrick Swayze rather than Suzanne Somers. This is sad because Douglas is a phenomenal film actor and we’d all like to have him around a few more decades so that he can continue to contribute to his art. While chemotherapy isn’t guaranteed to take his life, it sets in motion an accelerated biological decline caused by the undeniable toxicity of chemo (not to mention the radiation).

Following these treatments, we are likely to see Michael Douglas age more quickly, suffer impaired cognitive function, show worsening skin health and experience increased fatigue. These are all things that may prevent him from pursuing his work, thereby denying us the joy of seeing him appear in more films.

What cancer docs won’t tell you
While it’s true that radiation and chemotherapy can shrink throat cancer tumors, that alone isn’t enough to restore a person to true health. Following any such cancer treatments, patient should be strongly encouraged to get more vitamin D, consume anti-cancer nutrients and even take nutritional supplements that can boost their immune function.

Sadly, oncologists are currently telling their patients none of these things. In fact, many cancer doctors insist that their patients avoid taking antioxidants, medicinal mushrooms or any source of antioxidants, claiming they might “interfere” with the chemotherapy.

In this way, oncologists doom their patients to pain, suffering and often death. That’s why chemotherapy is often called “physician-assisted suicide.” It’s a way to kill yourself while enriching the drug companies that manufacture chemotherapy agents.

What is chemotherapy?
Chemotherapy agents are derived from highly toxic mustard gas chemicals used as chemical weapons in World War I (http://www.naturalnews.com/029191_secondhand_chemotherapy_cancer.html).

They are so toxic that pharmacists are getting cancer just from handling them.

The No. 1 side effect of chemotherapy is cancer. But it also causes “chemo brain” (the destruction of brain cells) and damages the liver and kidneys.

In choosing chemotherapy and radiation, Michael Douglas has bet his life on the illusion that conventional medicine is telling the truth about cancer. But the industry is actually lying to the public. Cancer is a multi-billion-dollar industry that preys upon the nutritional ignorance of the public while turning human beings into profit machines by promising them “treatments” that only worsen their health.

And sadly, Michael Douglas is the latest victim to be targeted for cancer industry profits.

But it turns out there’s already a substance that could do all this. And it’s not a side effect-laden chemical. It’s a compound in grapefruit.

Bottom line: there’s extremely sweet breaking news about a compound hidden in the tangy flavor of grapefruits that may treat diabetes naturally and also bring some of the benefits of low carb dieting to the body, too — without dieting. Scientists from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), have discovered that naringenin, an antioxidant derived from the bitter flavor of grapefruits and other citrus fruits, triggers the liver to break down fat.

While the function of the pancreas is important to diabetics, the liver is the main organ responsible for the regulation of carbohydrates and blood levels of fat. After a meal, the blood is flushed with sugars, which activate LXR-alpha, a PPAR associated with inflammation. This triggers the liver to create fatty acids for long-term storage. But during periods of fasting (and low carb dieting) the process is reversed, fat cells release fatty acids and break them down to ketones. There’s an increased sensitivity to insulin, too. The new research, just published in the online journal PLoS ONE, shows that naringenin activates two kinds of PPARs (dubbed PPAR-alpha and PPARy) and blocks LXR-alpha — resulting in fasting-type benefits to the body.

“It is a process which is similar to the Atkins diet, without many of the side effects,” Martin L. Yarmush, MD, PhD, director of the MGH Center for Engineering in Medicine and one of the paper’s authors, said in a media statement. “The liver behaves as if fasting, breaking down fatty acids instead of carbohydrates.”

“It is a fascinating find,” Yaakov Nahmias, PhD, the paper’s senior author said in the press statement. He pointed out that the results of the research were what the pharmaceutical industry has long been seeking through drug research.

“But their (drug) development was plagued by safety concerns. Remarkably, naringenin is a dietary supplement with a clear safety record. Evidence suggests it might actually protect the liver from damage,” Dr. Nahmias added. If the results of the new study hold up in human patients, the research team believes the grapefruit compound could become a treatment for high cholesterol, type-2 diabetes, and metabolic syndrome.

For more information:

http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0012399

AquAdvantage salmon is genetically engineered to grow twice as fast as real Atlantic salmon. Company officials insist the GM fish is safe, sterile and identical to real salmon. It also insists that the GM fish poses no threat to the environment.

But since no safety studies have verified any of this to be true, such claims are entirely baseless. And since the company’s entire existence depends on AquAdvantage getting approved, the claims deserve further scrutiny and legitimate scientific testing.

The FDA is apparently taking Aqua Bounty’s word for it, however, by declaring the GM salmon to be “as safe to eat as food from other Atlantic salmon.” The agency also insists that the fish are “highly unlikely” to cause significant environmental harm, even though it has provided no rationale or evidence to back up this claim.

“The FDA is basically just assuming these fish are okay to eat,” stated Jaydee Hanson, a policy analyst at the Center for Food Safety, a nonprofit environmental and public health organization.

Contrary to claims by both Aqua Bounty and the FDA, the GM salmon will not necessarily remain sterile. It is also highly likely the fish will escape into the wild and eventually destroy native salmon populations–and potentially other fish species as well.

The FDA will accept comments and advice from various experts and from the public during the three-day panel. You can sign up to attend the meeting and express your thoughts on the matter at the following link:
https://www.fedmeetings.net/common/registration.cfm?mid=3210

You can also write the FDA at:
Division of Dockets Management
Food and Drug Administration
5630 Fishers Lane, Room 1061
Rockville, MD 20852

Be sure to reference Docket No. FDA-2010-N-0385.

Sources for this story include:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68231Q20100903

Typically, high cholesterol is treated with a second chemical intervention — statin drugs. Statins can produce devastating side effects including kidney and liver damage (http://naturalnews.com/statins.html), muscle weakness and eye problems. So now we have a situation where people ingesting PFOA chemicals may be inaccurately diagnosed with cholesterol problems and be prescribed dangerous chemical medications that cause even more health problems.

This study looked at 12,000 children who were exposed to PFOA through their local water supply which was contaminated with PFOA. It does not prove a link between non-stick cookware and cholesterol, although it suggests a possible link that should probably be researched further.

PFOA is on more than just cooking pans
PFOA isn’t merely found on cooking pans, by the way: Nearly all cooking surfaces for electric consumer food prep appliances are made with it: Sandwich toasters, griddles and even popular cooking devices such as George Foreman Grills.

You’ll also get PFOA from most restaurants because non-stick cooking surfaces are commonly used to prepare your omelets, pancakes, pasta sauces and many other menu items. Avoiding PFOA is nearly impossible unless you prepare all your own food at home, and even then, you must be extremely careful with what food prep devices you use.

Even Swiss Diamond pans which claim that you’re “cooking on diamonds” are actually made with PFOA chemicals (http://www.naturalnews.com/021059.html).

I have avoided non-stick cookware for many years and wouldn’t dare prepare any food on such an item made with dangerous chemicals, but most consumers don’t know about the dangers of PFOA, and they continue to cook their food with non-stick pans. It gets really dangerous when people use forks or metal spatulas to stir their food in such pans because this action scrapes off microscopic bits of PFOA chemicals that then become lodged in their food and swallowed.

My advice is to avoid all non-stick cookware. Buy stainless steel cookware with copper plating on the bottom, which helps disperse heat and prevent burning. Better yet, eat more raw foods and superfood smoothies which require no cooking whatsoever.

The mere act of cooking food in a pan, after all, creates carcinogens in the food. The only “safely” cooked food is steamed or boiled. Anything that subjects foods to very high temperatures — frying, broiling, grilling, etc. — results in the creation of cancer-causing chemicals in the food itself. And that’s true whether you’re using a PFOA pan or not.

Sources for this story include:
BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-11201956

According to a Yahoo! India news report, the team’s fuel cells utilize a compound in urine called urea, which is an organic chemical waste product that results when the body metabolizes protein. And unlike current hydrogen gas and methanol fuel cell technologies, both of which can be problematic to the environment, urea is non-toxic, rich in useful nitrogen and readily available for use.

Also known as carbamide, urea does not require expensive catalysts like platinum to operate, either. The team was able to develop a simple and relatively inexpensive method with which to convert urea into water, nitrogen, carbon dioxide and electricity — all at the same time.

The “Carbamide Power System” prototype, as it is being called, has the potential to reduce waste water treatment costs as well because many municipal water systems already spend big bucks removing urea from waste water. So by integrating the technology into existing water systems for the purpose of extracting urea, the fuel cells are a win-win prospect because they have the potential to generate large amounts of electricity cheaply as well as reduce overall costs for utilities.

The project was made possible by a $203,000 grant from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, with the goal of one day utilizing urine fuel cells on remote islands and in deserts and submarines where energy can be difficult to generate. But the potential uses are limitless, if and when such technology is publicly unveiled.

Sources for this story include:

http://in.news.yahoo.com/139/20100827/981/tsc-urine-powered-fuel-cells-to-offer-pe_1.html

Atrazine is an herbicide widely sprayed on corn fields in the Midwest, and one of the most widely detected groundwater contaminants in the country. According to an analysis of state and federal records by the Chicago Tribune, atrazine has been detected in the drinking water of a million people in 60 Illinois communities over the past four years. Yet the EPA requires testing for the chemical only four times a year, meaning that short-term spikes of the toxin go undetected — and unregulated.

Special agreements between the EPA and Syngenta, the top manufacturer of the atrazine used in the U.S., have led to limited weekly or biweekly testing for the chemical by 130 water utilities in 10 different states. In 2008, nearly half of these communities in the Midwest alone experienced atrazine levels in their water above the federally imposed limit of 3 ppb (parts per billion) at least once. In Flora, Illinois, levels spiked as high as 30 ppb at one point.

In nine Midwestern communities, atrazine levels averaged higher than 3 ppb for the full year. Yet unless levels higher than 3 ppb are detected during one of the EPA’s four official yearly tests, the agency is helpless to take action. Likewise, contamination detected at other times need not, under the Safe Water Drinking Act, be reported to the public. This has led to a situation where citizens are not only unaware that their water is contaminated, they are never told that an inexpensive home filter could remove the toxin from their water.

Even the EPA’s “safe” level of 3 ppb, however, may be far too high; studies suggest that atrazine is biologically active in levels as low as 0.1 ppb, mimicking the action of hormones in the body. A recent meta-analysis of 125 studies by researchers from the University of South Florida found that the chemical causes developmental and reproductive defects in amphibians and fish. Another study, conducted by University of California-Berkeley researchers and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that small amounts of atrazine lowered testosterone levels and fertility in male frogs. Many of the frogs were chemically castrated or even turned into females.

Prenatal exposure to low levels of atrazine has also been shown to predispose rats to cancer as adults. And according to a 2009 study by researchers from Indiana University, human children conceived between the months of April and July, when atrazine levels in water are highest, were more likely to suffer from nine different kinds of birth defects than children conceived in other months.

“Atrazine … appears to have effects during critical stages of fetal development,” said Suzanne Fenton of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, a former EPA researcher.

Atrazine has been banned in Europe for its contaminating effects on groundwater, and a handful of U.S. states prohibit spraying in certain contamination-prone areas. Yet the EPA’s most recent ruling on the chemical, issued in 2006, endorses its use. The Bush-era ruling was based on a 2003 review heavily funded by Syngenta. Bush administration officials are known to have met with officials from the company at least 50 times before issuing their ruling, including at two industry-dominated panels.

The EPA’s position has drawn the ire of states that have been stuck with regulating the atrazine problem on their own. In 2009, 44 water utilities in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Mississippi and Ohio sued the federal government to reimburse them for the costs of atrazine cleanup.

Since the 2003 EPA review, a further 100 studies have been published showing health risks from atrazine exposure. The Obama administration is now conducting a review of the EPA’s stance on the chemical.

Sources for this story include: http://www.chicagotribune.com/health/ct-met-atrazine-water-20100417,0,2193737.story.

The hysteria over last year’s supposed swine flu pandemic led to the development of millions of vaccines that were never used. By the time drug companies finished producing the vaccines, flu season was virtually over, leaving millions of leftover doses to rot in warehouses.

So this year, officials are doing everything they can to speed up the production process so the vaccines will be ready when the scare campaigns begin this fall. Except this time, officials are planning to target virtually everyone over the age of six months, including healthy, young adults.

This year’s shot contains strains of last year’s H1N1 virus, as well as strains of H3N2 and influenza B. Officials are aiming to have manufacturers produce up to 165 million doses of this combo vaccine, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says will be more than have ever been produced for a single flu season.

According to reports, the CDC is soon planing to launch a full ad campaign to promote the new shot, and is even encouraging people who already got the H1N1 vaccine last year to get it again this year.

Seasonal flu vaccines, however, typically do not even contain the strains that ends up infecting the population at large that year. These same vaccines also contain harmful adjuvants, preservatives, and other toxic chemicals that are implicated in causing autoimmune disorders, reproductive problems and even cancer.

The best ways to prevent yourself from getting the flu includes getting plenty of vitamin D, drinking lots of clean water, getting plenty of rest and loading up on powerful superfoods every day.

Sources for this story include:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704125604575449951130700056.html

Everyone’s talking about it, you see signs for it everywhere, but you don’t really know what the heck it means to be gluten-free. Well, you kinda get it – you know that bread has gluten in it and that certain people are unable to eat it due to allergies…or something like that. A few of your friends have given it up and are raving about how good they feel, and you have to admit they are looking better than ever. Is this just a fad, or something that might really benefit you? Here are some facts and tips that may help you decide.

“Unfortunately much of the shrimp we eat are a cocktail of chemicals, harvested at the expense of one of the world’s productive ecosystems,” Richardson writes on Alternet.org. “Worse, guidelines for finding some kind of ‘sustainable shrimp’ are so far nonexistent.”

Like all seafood, shrimp are wild animals, and many are still caught in the wild. Nearly all shrimp fishing in the world, however, is performed with the highly destructive technique known as trawling: Fishermen attach weighted nets the size of football fields to their boats, then drag them along the ocean floor scooping up all life in their path.

This method produces pounds of so-called “bycatch” for every pound of shrimp caught, killing non-commercial (and often endangered) species such as sharks, rays, sea turtles and juvenile red snapper in massive numbers. In fact, although only 2 percent of the world’s fish catch is composed of shrimp, one-third of its bycatch comes from shrimp fishing.

Trawling also devastates marine habitats such as coral reefs and the ocean floor — where 98 percent of all ocean life lives. The mud plumes stirred up by trawling are large enough to be visible from space.

“Trawling is comparable to bulldozing an entire section of rainforest in order to catch one species of bird,” Richardson writes.

Even farmed shrimp are not bycatch free, since they are fed primarily from wild fish — roughly 1.4 pounds per pound of farmed shrimp. Thus, even the most sustainably farmed shrimp from closed, inland pools still come with a hefty ecological cost.

Most farmed shrimp, of course, do not come from the above best case scenario. Shrimp farms are responsible for the destruction of 38 percent of the world’s unique and crucial mangrove habitats. For example, fully 70 percent of all Ecuadorian mangroves have been destroyed for shrimp farming.

Ninety-three percent of Ecuadorian shrimp is exported to the United States.

Coastal mangroves are highly diverse ecosystems that play critical roles in carbon sequestration and protecting inland habitats and communities from storm and tsunami damage. Because of their productivity and location, mangroves make ideal shrimp farming territory. As a consequence, many shrimp farmers simply clear-cut a section of mangroves and close it off from the ocean with nets.

“In this scenario, the entire mangrove ecosystem is destroyed and turned into a small dead zone for short-term gain,” Richardson writes. “Even after the shrimp farm leaves, the mangroves do not come back.”

Shrimp consumers may also pay a more personal cost: Shrimp ponds are regularly treated with toxic chemicals such as with urea, superphosphate, and diesel, in addition to pesticides and piscicides such as chlorine and retenone. In many farms, the shrimp are treated before sale with Borax, caustic soda and the suspected neurotoxin sodium tripolyphosphate.

It’s not just chemicals that consumers have to worry about. Widespread antibiotic use in fish farming produces, paradoxically, shrimp with high concentrations of bacteria. A recent test of imported ready-to-eat shrimp found it to be contaminated with 162 different species of bacteria that were collectively resistant to a total of 10 different antibiotics.

Richardson has few suggestions to make for those who wish to consume sustainably produced shrimp. Because of the prevalence of trawling, she suggests avoiding all wild-caught shrimp. Yet no certification process exists to ensure the sustainability of farmed shrimp.

“Given this disturbing picture, how can an American know how to find responsibly farmed or fished shrimp?” she asks.

“Currently, it’s near impossible.”

Sources for this story include: www.alternet.org/food/145369/shrimp’s_dirty_secrets:_why_america’s_favorite_seafood_is_a_health_and_environmental_nightmare.