Eye Floaters and Spots

By Judith Lee and Gretchyn Bailey; reviewed by Vance Thompson, MD

You may sometimes see small specks or clouds moving in your field of vision; they are called floaters. You can often see them when looking at a plain background, like a blank wall or blue sky.

Floaters are actually tiny clumps of gel or cells inside the vitreous, the clear jelly-like fluid that fills the inside of your eye.



Floaters may look like specks, strands, webs or other shapes. Actually, what you are seeing are the shadows of floaters cast on the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye.
Eye Floaters and Spots: Symptoms and Signs

If a spot or shadowy shape passes in front of your field of vision or to the side, you are seeing a floater. Because they are inside your eye, floaters move with your eyes when you try to see them.

You may also see flashes of light. These flashes occur more often in older people and usually are caused by mechanical stimulation of photoreceptors when the gel-like vitreous occasionally tugs on the light-sensitive retina. They may be a warning sign of a detached retina.

Flashes also occur after a blow to the head, often called "seeing stars."

Some people experience flashes of light that appear as jagged lines or "heat waves" in both eyes, often lasting 10-20 minutes. These types of flashes are usually caused by a spasm of blood vessels in the brain, which is called a migraine.

If a headache follows the flashes, it is called a migraine headache. However, jagged lines or "heat waves" can occur without a headache. In this case, the light flashes are called an ophthalmic migraine, or a migraine without a headache.
Vitreous detachment
Clumps can occur when the vitreous gel begins to liquefy or shrink, usually with aging, and detaches from the retina.



Spots and eye floaters
If you have floaters, they'll likely look like this when you peer up at a bright, blue sky. What you see is actually the shadows cast by clumps of vitreous gel when light shines past them onto the retina, where vision processing occurs.

What Causes Eye Floaters and Spots?
When people reach middle age, the gel-like vitreous begins to liquefy and contract. Some parts of the vitreous form clumps or strands inside the eye.

The vitreous gel pulls away from the back wall of the eye, causing a posterior vitreous detachment.

It is a common cause of floaters, and it is more common for people who:

* have had inflammation inside the eye;
* are nearsighted;
* have undergone cataract surgery;
* have had YAG laser surgery of the eye.

Treatment for Spots and Floaters
Most spots and floaters in the eye are harmless and merely annoying. Many will fade over time and become less bothersome.

Sometimes people are interested in surgery to remove floaters, but doctors are willing to perform such surgery only in rare instances.

However, the sudden appearance of a significant number of floaters, especially if they are accompanied by flashes of light or other vision disturbances, could indicate a retinal detachment or other serious problem in the eye.

If you suddenly see new floaters, visit your eye doctor immediately.

Source: All About Vision

Soy Protein Used in "Natural" Foods Bathed in Toxic Solvent Hexane

by: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

Virtually all "protein bars" on the market today are made with soy protein. Many infant formula products are also made with soy protein, and thousands of vegetarian products (veggie burgers, veggie cheese, "natural" food bars, etc.) are made with soy protein. That soy protein is almost always described as safe and "natural" by the companies using it. But there's a dirty little secret the soy product industry doesn't want you to know: Much of the "natural" soy protein used in foods today is bathed in a toxic, explosive chemical solvent known as hexane.

To determine the true extent of this hexane contamination, NaturalNews joined forces with the Cornucopia Institute (www.Cornucopia.org) to conduct testing of hexane residues in soy meal and soy grits using FDA-approved and USDA-approved laboratories. The Cornucopia Institute performed the bulk of this effort, and NaturalNews provided funding to help cover laboratory costs.

The results proved to be worrisome: Hexane residues of 21ppm were discovered in soy meal commonly used to produce soy protein for infant formula, protein bars and vegetarian food products.

These laboratory results appear to indicate that consumers who purchase common soy products might be exposing themselves (and their children) to residues of the toxic chemical HEXANE -- a neurotoxic substance produced as a byproduct of gasoline refining.

But how dangerous is hexane, exactly? Is it something that could be dangerous at a few parts per million? And which soy-based products on the market right now might be contaminated with hexane?

To answer these questions, NaturalNews looked into public documents surrounding Martek Biosciences Corporation, a company that manufactures DHA for infant formula, using hexane for extraction.

We found disturbing details about Martek, including a documented explosion in the wastewater treatment system downstream from the manufacturing plant. This explosion was caused by hexane pollution.

We also found documents revealing Martek's application for permission to pollute hexane into the environment, as well as a planned emission cap that would put the company just under the limit for being considered a "major polluter" of Hazardous Air Pollutants.

Additional documents reveal concerning information about the safety of Martek's oils used in infant formula. All this information is being released in tomorrow's feature story on NaturalNews, so be sure to check back to read that. The remainder of this story focuses on the use of hexane in soy products.

What you probably never knew about Hexane extraction
To learn more about the use of hexane in the health industry -- and in soy products in particular -- we turn to the Cornucopia Institute's recently-published report called Behind the Bean (http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/s...)

This report contains some of the most shocking information you've probably ever read about the possible dangers of this chemical solvent used in the processing of soy. Here are some highlights of what it explains about hexane: (Quotation marks indicate exact verbiage from the Behind the Bean report.)

• Hexane is a petroleum chemical produced as a by-product of gasoline refining.

• "Hexane is used to process nearly all conventional soy protein ingredients and edible oils and is prohibited when processing organic foods."

• Soybeans are bathed in hexane as part of their processing by food manufacturers.

• "Hexane is a neurotoxic chemical that poses serious occupational hazards to workers, is an environmental air pollutant, and can contaminate food."

• Hexane has been detected as a chemical contaminant in soy-based foods.

• There is no requirement that food companies test their products for hexane residues (including soy-based infant formula).

• Soy protein isolate and texturized soy protein (TVP) are made using hexane baths.

• "The soy protein ingredients in most nonorganic foods such as vegetarian burgers and nutrition bars are processed with the use of hexane."

• Shocker: "Products such as Clif Bars with the label "made with organic oats and soybeans" are required by law to have 70% organic ingredients -- the remaining 30%, however, can legally be hexane extracted."

Soybean processing releases hexane into the environment
Perhaps one of the most shocking realizations in all this is that soybean processing facilities release huge amounts of hexane chemicals into the environment. It is an unavoidable part of the hexane extraction process, and right now tens of millions of pounds of hexane are being released into the atmosphere each year by soy processing companies like Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill.

Here are more startling facts about the release of hexane chemicals by soybean processing facilities: (cited from Behind the Bean by the Cornucopia Institute) (http://www.cornucopia.org/2009/05/s...) (Quotation marks indicate a direct quotation from the Cornucopia Institute's report. Non-quotation marks indicate paraphrasing of this source.)

• Soybean processing plants release hexane into both the air and water.

• Hexane is considered by the EPA to be a hazardous air pollutant. It defines this as airborne compounds "that cause or may cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental and ecological effects."

• "In 2007, the last year for which data is available from the EPA Toxics Release Inventory, grain processors were responsible for more than two-thirds of all hexane emissions in the United States, releasing 21 million pounds of this hazardous air pollutants."

• A soy processing facility owned by Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) in Decatur Illinois reportedly released almost 2 million pounds of hexane into the environment in a single year! Each year in Illinois, ADM, Cargill, Bunge and other companies release nearly 5 million pounds of hexane into the environment.

• "Solae, a major supplier of soy protein ingredients found in vegetarian burgers, energy bars, and other "all-natural" foods, emitted nearly one million pounds of hexane, as a pollutant, from its factories in Ohio and Illinois. Its plant in Bellevue, Ohio, is the nation's seventh largest emitter of hexane, releasing more of this hazardous air pollutant than other major sources such as Exxon Mobil's oil refinery plant in Baytow, Texas, and Firestone's tire factory in Orange, Texas."

• "On August 29, 2003, two workers died when hexane gas in a Sioux City, Iowa, soybean processing plant ignited."

• Hexane explosions have occurred in Italy, Mexico (200 dead) and South Africa, often killing or injuring chemical plant workers.

• In 2001, a truck carrying 4,500 gallons of hexane caught fire and exploded, injuring the truck driver and setting fire to nearby homes.

• Hexane also poses a serious health danger to workers: "Workers who come in dermal (skin) contact with hexane experience immediate irritation characterized by erythema and hyperemia, and they develop blisters after several hours."

• According to The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the permissible exposure level of hexane is 500 parts per million (ppm) for workers with 8-hour exposures. Exposures of 800 ppm for 15 minutes can cause respiratory tract and eye irritation, as well as symptoms of carnosis. At higher exposure levels, workers can develop symptoms of nausea, vertigo and headaches.

• "Workers who are chronically exposed to hexane levels ranging from 400 to 600 ppm, with occasional exposures of up to 2,500 ppm, have developed polyneuropathy, a neurological disorder. In these cases, distal symmetrical muscle weakness is common, and nerve biopsies show nerve damage. A recently published peer-reviewed article in Environmental Health Perspectives hypothesizes that occupational exposure to hexane may contribute to the development of Leber hereditary optic neuropathy, a disease that causes loss of vision. Chronic exposure may also lead to blurred vision, restricted visual field, and optic nerve atrophy."

• Almost no research has been done to test the toxicity of hexane residues in foods -- not on adults, nor infants.

• "According to EPA reports, small quantities of solvent (up to 0.2 percent by volume of oil) can be present in oil after extraction, even after solvent recovery by film evaporators and a distillation stripper. A Swiss team of scientists tested various oils and found hexane residues in some of the tested oils."

• Test results from the Cornucopia Institute's lab tests (funded in part by NaturalNews): < 10 ppm hexane residues in soy oil. Soy meal: 21 ppm hexane residues. Soy grits: 14 ppm hexane residues.

• "Most soy-based infant formulas contain ingredients that have been hexane extracted. In fact, nearly every major ingredient in conventional soy-based infant formula is hexane extracted."

How can you protect yourself and your children from hexane?
As these laboratory tests reveal, hexane residues may be alarmingly widespread across the "natural" foods industry. In fact, as the Cornucopia Institute reports:

"...hexane-extracted soy protein is found in the vast majority of nonorganic foods with soy ingredients that appeal to health-conscious, environmentally conscious, and vegetarian consumers. For example, Gardein™ is a Canadian company that produces meat analogs -- soy-based "chicken" and soy-based "beef" -- for brands and private labels including Yves Cuisine®, Morningstar Farms®, Trader Joe's, and It's All Good Foods®, and for grocery store prepared foods departments such as Whole Foods. While the company describe its process for making these meat analogs as "pure and simple," it does not mention that it starts with hexane-extracted soy protein."

In the United States, there is currently only one way of knowing for sure that the soy-based foods you purchase is free of hexane contaminants: Look for the green USDA Organic seal on the package:

• Beware of claims of "natural" soy -- Even hexane-extracted soy can be called "natural."

• Beware of claims of "made with organic soy" -- Such products may still contain non-organic soy-based ingredients extracted with hexane.

• Beware of "veggie" products containing texturized vegetable protein. Many of these products not only likely contain hexane chemical residues; they also are usually made with yeast extract, a flavoring ingredient that contains MSG, a neurotoxin. (Imagine the impact of these two neurotoxins in combination...)

• Don't feed your infant soy protein. Instead, opt for human breast milk (the best option), or goat's milk formulas such as Genesis Organics (www.GenesisOrganics.com).

The bottom line - the Health Ranger's opinion
From my point of view, these highly disturbing findings about hexane residues appearing in processed soy products just confirm what we've known about these food conglomerates for a long time: Big food companies are serving up poison to infants, teens, adults and senior citizens.

Not only are these food companies bathing their soy products in a neurotoxic chemical, the FDA is once again asleep at the wheel, allowing dangerous chemicals to remain prevalent in the food supply while doing virtually nothing to warn consumers or ban the toxic chemical from soy product processing.

Thus, We the People once again find ourselves in the position of being poisoned by the food companies and betrayed by the FDA. If that sounds familiar, it's because this has happened again and again with toxic ingredients ranging from monosodium glutamate and aspartame to sodium nitrite and petrochemical food colorings.

Big Food and the FDA, in fact, almost appear to be conspiring to poison the population... which just happens to create a windfall of profits for Big Pharma -- the other corporate master of the FDA.

It's a clever scam: Poison the people with hidden chemicals in the food supply, then when their organs start to fail, drug them on monopoly-priced pharmaceuticals. Meanwhile, the FDA enforces the whole thing by outlawing real food (like raw almonds or raw organic cow's milk), thereby forcing people to eat chemically-contaminated processed food.

To put icing on the (processed) cake, the FDA allows these companies using toxic chemicals to claim their products are "natural." They even allow some health claims for companies using soy in their formulas -- even when that soy has been bathed in hexane!

Protect yourself from the toxicity of processed foods
There is no limit to the insanity of what goes into the food supply when profits are at stake, it seems. And this use of the toxic solvent hexane to process soy that's used in infant formula, protein bars and "veggie" products is yet another example of why it's smart to avoid nearly ALL factory-made foods, regardless of their health claims.

When you grow your own food (or just buy fresh produce and food staples) and prepare it in your own kitchen, you know what goes into it. You also know what's NOT in it (such as hexane or melamine). It's the only sure way to protect yourself and your family from the dangers of processed foods made by food commodity giants that are motivated by money, not concern for your health. In fact, the attitude about chemical contaminants by many U.S. food giants mirrors the attitude about melamine in infant formula as demonstrated by China's powdered milk manufacturers: "Ah, what's a little melamine gonna hurt anyway?"

But it does hurt. It hurts your health and harms your children. There are 10,000 children on dialysis machines in China who can prove it to you. And that's why, in my opinion, these companies using hexane-contaminated soy protein in their products deserve to be publicly exposed, heavily fined and perhaps even shut down and run out of business.

Why modern society looks the other way on chemical contamination of foods
Why are companies run out of business when salmonella is found in their peanut butter (for example), but when toxic chemical solvents are found in their soy proteins, the mainstream media says nothing, the FDA does nothing, and the whole world pretends it's all just business as usual?

I'll tell you why. There is an irrational, false belief that continues to permeate society today, and it's founded in the lies of Scientism and the reductionist approach to western thinking. That false belief is that chemicals are good for you, but bacteria are bad for you.

This is the whole thinking behind the widespread use of antibiotics (which actually promote hospital superbugs) and the mass fumigation of California almonds (just to make sure they're no longer RAW). It's the reason why raw milk is outlawed, but chemically-contaminated soy milk is legal. It's the reason why the FDA views the food supply as safe only if it's sterile. It's the big lie about food safety, and virtually every mainstream newspaper, TV station and journalist buys into it.

They think salmonella is deadly dangerous, but MSG, aspartame and sodium nitrite are just fine. They believe in the lie that chemicals are safe as long as the FDA doesn't say anything against them!

But it's hogwash. A sterile food supply is a dead food supply. And dead foods don't keep people alive for very long. Hence the slow, torturous death of our aging population. Our people are not living longer; they're dying longer!

In the mean time, avoid all soy products that are not labeled USDA Organic, and don't feed yourself or your babies processed soy protein bathed in toxic hexane.

Source: Natural News

Dry Eye Syndrome

Tears keep your eyes moist, lubricate the surface of the eye for eyelid closure and guard against infection. They also wash away allergens and protect the eye. Without tears, good vision is impossible. Dry eye syndrome is a group of disorders affecting the film of tears over the eye. In the United States, nearly five million people age 50 or older have dry eye syndrome. Of these, more than three million are women and more than one and a half million are men. In addition, tens of millions of Americans experience less severe symptoms of dry eye.

Dry eye syndrome is one of the most common reasons people visit an eye health professional. It occurs most often in the elderly.

The cause of dry eye syndrome is unknown. External factors may aggravate dry eye symptoms, including conditions common in many workplace environments such as prolonged computer use and exposure to air conditioning, heating, dust and allergens. But dry eye syndrome should not be confused with eye allergies, an even more pervasive problem that affects an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. population. Eye allergies are reactions to substances in the environment that can result in some of the same types of discomforts associated with eye dryness.

When you have dry eye syndrome, either you don't produce enough tears, or you have unstable tears or excessive tear evaporation. Both problems cause your eyes to sting or burn, feel scratchy, become irritated and tear excessively. It most commonly occurs in both eyes, but may affect one eye more than the other. People with dry eyes have difficulty wearing contact lenses. They also may develop mucus in or around their eyes. There can be pain and redness in the eye, a feeling of heavy eyelids or blurred, changing or decreased vision. People with more severe cases of dry eye often are also sensitive to light.

Although eye infections are more common in people with dry eye syndrome, irreversible vision loss from dry eye is rare. More commonly, people with dry eye have fluctuating vision and experience problems with tasks requiring visual concentration such as reading, using a computer and driving. Most people with dry eye find the condition to be an uncomfortable nuisance, with many characteristics of a "chronic pain" type of syndrome.

The tear film on your eyes actually consists of the following three major components:

• Lipid. The outer layer of the tear film is covered by an oily layer produced by meibomian glands in the lower and upper eyelids. This layer smoothes the eye's surface and keeps tears from evaporating too fast and helps them stay on the eye.

• Aqueous. The aqueous component is a watery layer that is produced by the lacrimal glands. This layer makes up most of what we normally consider tears. It nourishes the cornea (the clear tissue of the outer protective layer of the eye that transmits light) and the conjunctiva (a thin, clear layer of tissue that covers the white outer surface of the eye). This tear layer also cleanses the eye and washes away foreign particles or irritants that are wrapped up by the other major component—mucin.

• Mucin. The goblet cells of the conjunctiva, as well as the surface cells of the cornea and the conjunctiva, produce this protective lubricant of tears. It helps spread the watery layer of tears across the eye to keep the eye wet, and it traps and wraps up foreign pathogens and debris so they do not damage the ocular surface.

As we age, the eyes naturally produce fewer tears. However, sometimes, the lipid and mucin layers produced by the eye are so unstable that tears can't remain on the eye long enough to keep it lubricated. Consequently, some people with dry eye may actually have tears running down their cheeks! Dry eye syndrome, also called keratoconjunctivitis sicca or dysfunctional tear syndrome, is the result. In some people, dry eyes result from an imbalance in the composition of their tears or an inability to produce enough tears to keep their eyes sufficiently lubricated. In addition, eyelid problems, environmental factors, certain medications and other causes can lead to dry eyes.

Dry eye occurs most often in older women. Information gathered from the Women's Health Study, a large cohort study in which 25,665 postmenopausal women provided information about the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), suggests that those who use HRT, particularly estrogen alone, are at increased risk of dry eye syndrome. A relatively uncommon but often more serious form of the disorder is associated with rheumatoid arthritis or dry mouth and is called Sjögren's syndrome. Sjögren's syndrome is an autoimmune disease that attacks the body's lubricating glands, such as the tear and salivary glands. Allergies can also contribute to eye dryness, causing additional eye discomforts such as itchiness, redness, swelling and wateriness.

Although dry eye syndrome has no cure, its symptoms can be treated. Over-the-counter artificial tears that lubricate the eye are the main treatment. Other treatments include eye ointments, antibiotics (both oral and drops) and avoiding environmental triggers such as hair dryers and rooms with low humidity. And in 2002, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first prescription treatment for dry eyes, called Restasis (cyclosporine ophthalmic emulsion 0.5%). This treatment increases the body's ability to produce its own natural tears by treating one of the underlying causes of the disease—inflammation.

In cases of moderate to severe dry eye, tears can be conserved by placement of a temporary or permanent punctal plug into the channel at the inner corner of the eyelid where tears drain into the nose and the back of the throat. And in some cases, a surgical procedure to close the tear ducts is in order.

Source: Healthy Woman

10 Things You Can Do for Vision Health

I am constantly amazed by the links between how we live and every aspect of our health. While it's no surprise that your diet and levels of exercise can affect the health of your heart, it probably comes as a shock to learn those factors can also affect the health of your eyes.
In fact, many of the same things that lead to common chronic conditions like diabetes, atherosclerosis and even dementia also play a role in the health of your eyes.
That's why I've come up with the 10-point Eye Health Plan. I'm no eye care expert, but I am a healthy lifestyle expert. Here's what I recommend for protecting your eyes:

1. Quit smoking. If you smoke, you're much more likely to develop age-related macular degeneration, or AMD, than nonsmokers. AMD is the most common cause of blindness in those over 65. And while there are some ways to slow its progression, there is no cure.
2. Wear sunglasses and a wide-brimmed hat when you're in the sun. These two simple steps can reduce your exposure to eye-damaging UV rays up to 18-fold! And, if you wear contacts, ask your eye care specialist about contact lenses with UV protection.
3. Watch your weight. What's weight got to do with your eyes? A lot. Being overweight is a major risk factor for developing Type 2 diabetes. And diabetic retinopathy is the leading cause of blindness in those under 65. Not only that, but the Nurses' Health Study from Harvard Medical School found women with a body mass index of 30 or more (considered obese) were 36 percent more likely to develop cataracts, possibly because of some relation to high blood glucose levels.
4. Take fish oil supplements daily, or eat fish two or three times a week. There's some evidence that the omega-3 fatty acids found in fish and other foods may reduce your risk of AMD. Conversely, limit the amount of vegetable oil in your diet; there's some evidence it can increase your risk.
5. Eat three or more servings of fruit a day. In one study, women who did this reduced their risk of AMD by 36 percent compared to those who ate less than 1.5 servings.
6. Eat your spinach. What Popeye didn't know was that spinach is a rich source of lutein and zeaxanthin, powerful antioxidants that can reduce the risk of certain eye diseases, like AMD. Other good sources include any kind of leafy green vegetable such as collards and kale, as well as eggs and orange-colored fruits.
7. See your eye care professional for a full vision examination at least once every two years. Go more often if you have diabetes or any other eye-related condition.
8. Get a 30-minute walk in every day. There's some evidence that regular exercise can reduce the intraocular pressure in people with glaucoma. In one study, glaucoma patients who walked briskly four times per week for 40 minutes lowered the pressure within their eyes enough so they could stop taking their glaucoma medication.
9. Change your eye makeup every three to six months. That means new mascara, liner and powder. The makeup becomes contaminated with bacteria from your lashes and lids and can infect your eye.
10. Don't fall asleep in your daily-wear contact lenses. In fact, don't ever wear them longer than they're designed to be worn. If you want contacts that you can wear overnight, talk to your eye care professional about whether they are appropriate for you.

Pamela M. Peeke MD, MPH, Pew Foundation Scholar in Nutrition and Metabolism, is Medical Advisor to the NWHRC; she also is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore, and author of "Fit to Live: The 5-Point Plan to be Lean, Strong, and Fearless for Life" (Rodale Books, 2007) and the best selling book Fight Fat After Forty (Viking Press, 2000).

Source: Healty Woman

Ten Osteoporosis Facts to Know

Osteoporosis Fact 1.
As many as eight million American women have osteoporosis, and almost 22 million have low bone density, putting them at risk for developing the disease. Half of all women over age 50 will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in the years ahead. Significant risk has been reported in people of all ethnic backgrounds.

Osteoporosis Fact 2.
Three out of four women have not discussed bone health with their health care professional or been screened for osteoporosis. Seventy-one percent of women with osteoporosis don't even know they have it, and 86 percent with the disease are not being treated. Make an appointment today to discuss your personal health risks for osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis Fact 3.
Smoking, abusing alcohol and excessive thinness increase your risk for developing osteoporosis. Likewise, if you don't exercise, or if you exercise too much, your risk for developing osteoporosis increases.

Osteoporosis Fact 4.
Bones that are calcium rich are less likely to break. Be sure your diet provides at least 1,000 to 1,200 mg of calcium daily to help keep your bones strong. Drinking or eating three dairy products a day provides the recommended daily intake of calcium, but most women fall short of this requirement.

Osteoporosis Fact 5.
Menopause increases your risk for developing osteoporosis because your body's natural production of the hormone estrogen declines. Estrogen helps keep bones strong. However, new studies have shown that postmenopausal hormone therapy, available as a combination of estrogen and progestin (a synthetic form of the hormone progesterone) or estrogen therapy alone, poses serious health risks. While these same studies also showed conclusively that postmenopausal hormone therapy helps prevent fracture risk, researchers concluded that this benefit outweighed the increased risk for breast cancer, heart attack, stroke and blood clots.

In January 2003, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced that it would require a new, highlighted and boxed warning on all estrogen products for use by postmenopausal women. The so-called "black box" is the strongest step the FDA can take to warn consumers of potential risks from a medication.

The "black-box" warning also advises health care professionals to prescribe estrogen products at the lowest dose and for the shortest possible length of time. Women taking estrogen products are cautioned to have yearly breast exams, perform monthly breast self-exams and receive periodic mammograms.

New, lower-dose versions of the hormone therapies used to treat symptoms of menopause are currently being developed. The FDA recently approved a low-dose version of the combination estrogen-progestin treatment sold as Prempro, which is expected to be available in the summer of 2003

Osteoporosis Fact 6.
Several types of medications, including calcitonin (Miacalcin), raloxifene (Evista) and bisphosphonates (Actonel, Fosomax), are effective in preventing and treating osteoporosis. A side effect of Raloxifene is that it may temporarily worsen hot flashes; bisphosphonates can cause stomach upset. Teriparatide (Forteo), a new drug approved by the FDA in 2002, is the first medication that actually stimulates bone formation instead of slowing the breakdown of bone.

Osteoporosis Fact 7.
Without treatment, women lose the most bone mass — as much as 25 percent to 30 percent — in the first five to seven years following menopause. Because of declining estrogen levels after menopause, a woman's ability to naturally maintain bone structure is seriously depleted. However, not everyone needs to seek treatment. Bone density testing helps target those at greatest risk.

Osteoporosis Fact 8.
A bone density test measures the strength of your bones to determine your risk of developing osteoporosis. This test is not usually performed until after menopause, unless you have an unusual clinical situation or are at high risk for osteoporosis. It is quick, painless and non-invasive. Medicare and many commercial insurers pay for testing for individuals at risk and those with osteoporosis.

Osteoporosis Fact 9.
Bone-loss rates can be slowed by regular weight-bearing and muscle-strengthening exercises. Activities such as walking, gardening, jogging, and playing tennis help to strengthen bones and connective tissue.

Osteoporosis Fact 10.
There is no cure for osteoporosis. However, it is preventable and treatable. You can help prevent bone loss and fractures from osteoporosis with proper diet, exercise and medications, when necessary.

Calcium: The "Miracle" Mineral

By Annette Kornblum

For years, women have been told to bone up on calcium to prevent osteoporosis, a gradual thinning of the bones, but now this so-called miracle mineral is also being touted for its potential to promote weight loss, relieve depression and anxiety associated with premenstrual syndrome, control high blood pressure, and ward off strokes.

As new evidence points to the elevated role of calcium in preventing disease, it makes sense to get enough of this vital nutrient each day, especially as mid-life approaches. Experts say there is literally no body system that doesn't benefit from a healthy dose. Here's how it stacks up:

Calcium and Weight Loss:
When Dr. Robert Heaney, a calcium expert at Creighton University in Omaha, recently examined the health records of 575 women, he was astonished at the results. "We were looking at mid-life weight gain and found that women with the highest calcium intakes didn't gain weight and those with the lowest did," Dr. Heaney said.

Similarly, at the University of Tennessee, Michael Zemel, Ph.D., reported that because calcium plays a key role in metabolic disorders linked to obesity and insulin resistance, a diet low in calcium literally stockpiles fat cells while higher calcium diets depletes them. Dr. Zemel discovered that a high calcium diet released a hormone which sends signals that are read by the body's fat cells to lose weight.

A two-year Purdue University study in West Lafayette, Ind. that involved 54 women ages 18 to 31, found that women with a daily intake of at least 780 milligrams of calcium showed no increase in body fat or lost body fat mass during a two-year period. Women who averaged less than 780 milligrams of calcium gained weight during the same period.

Both exercisers and couch potatoes seemed to benefit unless they consumed more than 1,900 calories daily. All researchers said that dining on calcium-rich dairy products such as milk, cheese and yogurt achieved greater weight loss than leafy green vegetables, nuts, beans and supplements.

Calcium and Premenstrual Syndrome:
Susan Thys-Jacobs, an endocrinologist at St. Luke-Roosevelt Hospital's, has found that calcium supplementation can relieve the physical and emotional toll of PMS by almost 50%. At least half of the 497 women she studied who took 1,200 mg. of calcium supplements experienced fewer mood swings, depression/sadness, anxiety/nervousness; breast tenderness, bloating and other aches and pains. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D. reported similar results after studying 10 women with PMS who spent half the study period on a daily diet containing 600 mg. of calcium, the other half upped to1300 mg. Women on the high calcium diet were less irritable, weepy, and depressed and averted backaches, cramping, and bloating.

Calcium and Blood Pressure:
In some people, an increase in calcium consumption can help control blood pressure without anti-hypertensive medication. A 13-year study by James Dwyer at the University of Southern California School of Medicine found that consuming 1300 milligrams of calcium a day reduced hypertension risk by 12 percent compared to only 300 mg. a day, while subjects under age 40 reduced their risk by up to 25 percent. Dr. Lawrence Resnick, a professor of medicine at Cornell University Medical Center Hypertension Center, emphasizes that the benefits are most pronounced in hypertensives who are salt-sensitive, such as African Americans.

Calcium and Cholesterol:
Dr. Margo Denke, associate professor of internal medicine at the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas found that a high-calcium regimen reduced levels of total cholesterol by six percent and slashed "bad" LDL cholesterol by 11 percent. So-called "good" HDL cholesterol levels remained unchanged.

Calcium and Stroke Prevention:
A 1999 Harvard study reported that calcium supplementation protects against stroke in middle-aged women. In the ongoing Nurses' Health Study, 85,764 women, ages 35 to 59, reported that the mineral was tied to a 32% lower risk of stroke among those with the highest intake of the mineral. Women taking at least 400 mg of calcium supplements had a 12% lower risk of ischemic stroke (the type caused by plaque buildup in blood vessel walls). Dietary calcium, especially in dairy foods, reportedly reduced stroke risk, as did potassium.

Calcium and Osteoporosis:
Osteoporosis strikes more than seven million Americans, mostly women, with another 17 million at serious risk of developing fragile bones that easily collapse, a crippling curving of the spine, and hip fractures. Research shows that boosting calcium intake can halt bone loss, especially when combined with vitamin D, which enhances its absorption.

Calcium and Colon Cancer:
Calcium may protect against growths that become malignant in those prone to colorectal cancer. Dr. Martin Lipkin, a professor of medicine at Cornell University, who first discovered the link between calcium and colorectal cancer, stresses that both calcium-rich foods and calcium supplements will produce the same beneficial effects.

Calcium and Pregnancy:
According to Barbara Levine, director of the human nutrition program at the Rockefeller University, calcium supplements can help ensure the health of the fetus and improve bone mass of the mother. In a study of hypertensive women, Levine found that adequate calcium levels and Vitamin D improved pregnancy outcomes.

“ We were looking at mid-life weight gain and found that women with the highest calcium intakes didn't gain weight and those with the lowest did—Dr. Robert Heaney, Creighton University ”

Source: Discovery

Acupuncture Beats Western Medicine for Treating Low Back Pain

By S. L. Baker, features writer

The results of the largest randomized back pain trial of its kind shows acupuncture clearly helps people with chronic low back pain more than standard medical care. But the results of the SPINE (Stimulating Points to Investigate Needling Efficacy) study, just published in the May 11, 2009 Archives of Internal Medicine, has some researchers scratching their heads over the remarkable findings. The reason the study's results are so intriguing? Not just one but three different forms of acupuncture beat out western medicine in helping relieve low back pain.

The SPINE trial included 638 adults with chronic low back pain who were patients at two nonprofit health plans, Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, Washington, and Northern California Kaiser Permanente in Oakland. All the research subjects ranked their pain as a minimum of three on a scale of zero to 10 of "bothersome" discomfort.

None of the participants had ever experienced acupuncture before participating in the study. They were randomly put into one of four groups for different kinds of treatment. All received standard medical care but three groups of patients also were treated with varying forms of acupuncture -- needle puncture at points individualized for each case, standardized acupuncture that used a single prescription of needle punctures at points on the back and back of the legs and what the researchers called "simulated acupuncture" that involved pressing on points with a toothpick without penetrating the skin.

All the research subjects in the three acupuncture groups were treated twice a week for three weeks and then had weekly treatments for another month. At eight weeks, six months and 12 months, the researchers retested back-related dysfunction and measured improvements in the patients' symptoms.

The SPINE investigators found that at eight weeks all three acupuncture groups were functioning far better with less pain than the group getting only standard medical care. What's more, additional follow-ups found the benefits of acupuncture lasted for a year for many of these people.

"We found that simulated acupuncture, without penetrating the skin, produced as much benefit as needle acupuncture -- and that raises questions about how acupuncture works," SPINE trial leader Daniel C. Cherkin, PhD, a senior investigator at Group Health Center for Health Studies in Seattle, said in a statement to the media.

However, the idea the non-skin penetrating acupuncture was not the real deal, and was, instead, "simulated acupuncture" is disingenuous. Here's why: while most forms of acupuncture studied by Western researchers do involve piercing the skin, the ancient healing therapy also includes non-piercing types of acupuncture. In fact, the web site for the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM), part of the National Institutes of Health, which funded the SPINE trial, notes that acupuncture "describes a family of procedures involving the stimulation of anatomical points on the body using a variety of techniques." And "stimulation" does not necessarily equal "skin piercing."

Cherkin's co-author, Karen J. Sherman, PhD, MPH, a senior investigator at Group Health Center for Health Studies, specifically pointed this out in the media statement: "Historically, some types of acupuncture have used non-penetrating needles. Such treatments may involve physiological effects that make a clinical difference."

Source: Natural News

More Pills Means Diminished Quality of Life for Kidney Patients

By: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

Around 26 million Americans have chronic kidney disease (CKD), according to the National Kidney Foundation. And some 200,000 of them have such limited or failed kidney function they have to go through dialysis, a several-times-a-week procedure that filters waste from the blood. CKD patients on dialysis also are subjected to more prescription medications than most other people with chronic diseases. In fact, they often are given a mind-boggling number of pills to take daily. And while these drugs are prescribed to help control kidney disease, a new study in the Clinical Journal of the American Society Nephrology (CJASN) concludes the more pills dialysis patients take each day, the worse their health-related quality of life becomes , including the ability to simply enjoy daily activities.

Rajnish Mehrotra, MD and Yi-Wen Chiu, MD, of the Los Angeles Biomedical Research Institute, headed a team of researchers who studied 233 chronic dialysis patients from three clinics in different geographic areas in the U.S. They wanted to see how the enormous "pill burden" of these research subjects affected their lives. They found that, on average, kidney disease patients took 19 pills daily -- with a quarter of them downing more than 25 pills a day.

So did patients on more medications have better perceived health? The scientists found just the opposite was true: the more pills the CKD patients popped to help their disease, the worse most of them felt, both physically and mentally.

One particular class of drugs called phosphate binders accounted for about half of the daily pills taken by the kidney disease patients. Phosphate binders reduce toxic levels of phosphorous in the blood that build up when kidneys can't do their job. However, the study found that 62 percent of the patients didn't take these drugs like they were told to. In fact, the more phosphate binders that were prescribed for patients, the less likely the CKD sufferers were to take their drugs as directed. That meant they were less to have their blood phosphorous levels under control.

In a statement to the media, the researchers said their findings indicate that increasing the number of prescribed pills not only doesn't improve control of phosphorous levels but may also result in a poorer health-related quality of life for CKD patients, including experiencing unpleasant side effects. Phosphate binders, specifically, are known to cause a host of unpleasant reactions including constipation, diarrhea, a general feeling of being sick, potential memory problems and a chalky taste in the mouth. The authors of the study also emphasized that any attempts to reduce the pill burden of dialysis patients must take into consideration the large number of phosphate binder pills kidney diseae patients are often told they must take on a daily basis.

Meanwhile, other researchers are looking for safer ways to reduce blood levels of phosphorous in CKD. Last year, scientists from the Nephrological Department at Rigshospitalet in Copenhagen, Denmark, published a study in the Danish Medical Bulletin suggesting that a form of vitamin D could be beneficial for kidney disease patients who need phosphorous levels lowered.

Source: Natural News

Natural Vitamin E Slashes Lung Cancer Risk by 55 Percent

by: David Gutierrez, staff writer

A higher intake of vitamin E can cut the risk of lung cancer by more than half, researchers from the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has found.

In a new study published in the International Journal of Cancer, researchers used the National Cancer Institute's Health Habits and History Questionnaire and Food Frequency Questionnaire to assess the dietary intakes of 1,088 lung cancer patients and 1,414 healthy participants. Participants were further surveyed about various lifestyle factors, including smoking.

The average age of the healthy participants was 60.8, while the average age of the lung cancer participants was 61.7.

Vitamin E occurs in two main groups, the tocopherols and tocotrienols. Each of these groups, in turn, contains four varieties, named alpha, beta, gamma and delta. For the current study, the researchers analyzed participants' dietary tocopherol intake, dividing it up based on which form it occurred in.

"To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study to compare dietary intakes of the different forms of tocopherols (alpha-, beta-, gamma and delta-tocopherol) and lung cancer risk," the researchers wrote.

The researchers divided participants into groups based on intake of tocopherols in general and the four different varieties individually, then compared the rate of lung cancer between the groups.

Participants with the highest tocopherol intake were found to have a 55 percent lower risk of lung cancer than participants with the lowest intakes. The average intakes of the two groups were more than 12.95 milligrams per day and less than 6.68 milligrams per day, respectively.

A powerful protective correlation also showed up for alpha-tocopherol, with those consuming the most having a 53 percent lower risk of lung cancer than those with the lowest intake. The highest alpha-tocopherol intake averaged more than 7.73 milligrams per day, while the lowest averaged less than 4.13 milligrams per day.

Higher consumption of beta-, gamma- or delta-tocopherol alone, however, appeared to have no influence on cancer risk.

"We found consistent independent associations for increased dietary alpha-tocopherol intake and risk reduction but did not find independent associations for gamma-, beta- and delta-tocopherol in lung cancer risk," the researchers wrote.

The European diet typically contains vitamin E in the form of alpha-tocopherol, while the U.S. diet tends to contain it in the form of gamma-tocopherol. Vitamin pills contain mostly alpha-tocopherol.

The study was not designed to analyze by what mechanism tocopherols in general or alpha-tocopherol in particular might act to reduce cancer risk.

"Our data should be useful in stimulating additional epidemiologic and basic science research in the relationship of different forms of vitamin E and cancer," the researchers wrote.

Foods high in vitamin E include asparagus, avocado, green leafy vegetables, nuts, olives, seeds and wheat germ. A variety of vegetable oils, including canola, corn, cottonseed, red palm, sunflower and soybean are also high in the vitamin.

The new study is not the first to link vitamin E with cancer protection. The vitamin is well known to function as an antioxidant, meaning that it plays an important role in removing particles known as free radicals from the body. These electrically charged molecules are believed to be responsible for some of the cell damage that leads to cancer, other diseases, and the symptoms of aging.

Research has also suggested that vitamin E may help prevent or slow age-related decline. Elderly people with higher blood levels of the vitamin tend to be in better physical shape, while another study found that taking a vitamin E pill with a high-fat meal can stave off the memory decline that such foods tend to trigger in older adults.

Lung cancer is the world's most common cancer, and is responsible for more deaths than any other kind. In the Western world, it is the second most common cancer, but still the deadliest. Only 25 percent of cancer patients are still alive a year after diagnosis.

Source: Natural News

Interview with Dr. Russell Blaylock on devastating health effects of MSG, aspartame and excitotoxins

By: Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor

Mike: I'm here with Dr. Russell Blaylock, and I'd like to explore some of the more advanced aspects of some of the things you are working on. Dr. Blaylock, I think readers know the basics of both MSG and aspartame, but can you review what you've already written about excitotoxins?

Dr. Russell Blaylock: I have three books. The first one is the excitotoxin book, "Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills," and the latest one is "Health and Nutrition Secrets That Can Save Your Life." The third one is "Natural Strategies for Cancer Patients," which is directed at nutritional treatments for cancer. It contains some material about aspartame and MSG.

Excitotoxins have been found to dramatically promote cancer growth and metastasis. In fact, one aspartame researcher noticed that, when cancer cells were exposed to aspartame, they became more mobile, and you see the same effect with MSG. It also causes a cancer cell to become more mobile, and that enhances metastasis, or spread. These MSG-exposed cancer cells developed all of these pseudopodians and started moving through tissues, which is one of the earlier observations from cancer.

When you increase the glutamate level, cancer just grows like wildfire, and then when you block glutamate, it dramatically slows the growth of the cancer. Researchers have done some experiments in which they looked at using glutamate blockers in combination with conventional drugs, like chemotherapy, and it worked very well. It significantly enhanced the effectiveness of these cancer drugs.

Mike: Wasn't there some research that came out recently that supports all this by establishing a correlation between leukemia and aspartame?

Dr. Blaylock: Yes. This Italian study was very well done. It was a lifetime study, which is very important with these toxins. They fed animals aspartame throughout their lives and let them die a natural death. They found a dramatic and statistically significant increase in the related cancers of lymphoma and leukemia, along with several histological types of lymphomas, which is of interest because H.J. Roberts had written an article saying that there was a significant increase in the primary lymphoma of the brain.

When you look it up in the neurosurgical literature, there is a rather significant rise in the incidents of what used to be a rare tumor. We're seeing a lot more of the primary lymphoma of the brain, which is a little different than lymphomas you see elsewhere. When you look back at the original studies done by the G.D. Searle company, they found lymphomas as well as primary brain tumors and tumors of multiple organs. All of this correlation shows that we've got a powerful carcinogenic substance here. It is either acting as a co-carcinogen or a primary carcinogen. Most likely, it's the formaldehyde breakdown product.

What the Italian study found is that if you take these same animals and expose them to formaldehyde in the same doses, they developed the same leukemias and lymphomas. If you look back at the Troker Study conducted in Spain a couple of years ago, what they found was when they radiolabeled the aspartame, they could actually see formaldehyde binding to the DNA, and it produced both single and double strand DNA breakage.

We know that when formaldehyde binds to DNA, it's very difficult to remove it. It will stay there for long periods of time. What that means is if you just drink a single diet cola today, or sweeten something with NutraSweet, you're accumulating damage every day. Eventually, you're going to produce this necessary pattern of DNA damage to initiate the cancer, and once you develop the cancer, the aspartic acid component of aspartame will make the cancer grow very rapidly. You've got a double effect; it's causing the cancer, and it's making the cancer move very rapidly.

Mike: Given all this evidence, how has the industry managed to suppress this information and keep this chemical legal in the food supply?

Dr. Blaylock: Donald Rumsfeld was the one who pushed a lot of this through, when he was in the chairmanship of the G.D. Searle company, NutraSweet. He got it approved through the regulatory process, but once it was approved, the government didn't want to admit that they had made a mistake. They just continued to cover it up, like the fluoride thing and the milk industry.

You're not going to criticize milk in the media, because they are smart enough to advertise in newspapers, magazines, health magazines and journals. They have all the media outlets covered. The only place that they don't have covered is talk radio and the internet. The health blogs can tell the truth.

No matter how much a newspaper wants to tell the truth, they're not going to do it. This is the kind of pressure these people are under. Even if you have a good writer who wants to write the story, his editor is going to override him and prevent it or water it down considerably. You see this in journals like the Journal of Clinical Nutrition or College Nutrition. Look at who funds them: The Monsanto Company, and they used to be sponsored by G.D. Searle. They're not going to want to put articles in their journal that will infuriate their primary source of income. Even medical and nutrition journals are controlled by these people.

Mike: It's the unholy alliance between the scientific community and big business.

Dr. Blaylock: Right. Another big scandal concerning the research is something new we found. We discovered that outside of the brain, there are numerous glutamate receptors in all organs and tissues. The entire GI tract, from the esophagus to the colon, has numerous glutamate receptors. The entire electrical conducting system of a heart is replete with all sorts of glutamate receptors. The lungs, the ovaries, all the reproductive systems and sperm itself, adrenal glands, bones and even calcification are all controlled by glutamate receptors. They act and operate exactly like the glutamate receptors in the brain.

So, when you're consuming MSG, the level of glutamate in the blood can rise as high as 20-fold. You get very high glutamate levels in the blood after eating a meal containing MSG. You're stimulating all of the glutamate receptors. That's why some people get explosive diarrhea, because it stimulates the receptors in the esophagus and small bowel. Others may develop irritable bowel, or if they have irritable bowel, it makes it a lot worse. If they have reflux, it makes that a lot worse. The thing about the cardiac conduction system glutamate receptors is this may explain the rise in sudden cardiac death.

What you see in almost all these cases is low magnesium. When the magnesium level is low, the glutamate receptors become hypersensitive, and so people -- athletes in particular, if they are not supplementing with magnesium -- are prone to sudden cardiac death, because of the glutamate receptors. If they eat a meal or something that contains glutamate or drink a diet cola before practice, it will produce such intense cardiac irritability, they'll die of sudden cardiac death. We know the sudden cardiac death is due to two things: Most commonly arrhythmia and cardio artery spasm. Both of which can be produced by glutamate.

Mike: Of course, that death certificate doesn't say they died from MSG.

Dr. Blaylock: No, and it's not going to, because the admitting physician doesn't know the first thing about any of this research. They've never heard of it. In fact, most cardiologists I've spoken with have never heard of this. They didn't know there were glutamate receptors throughout the electrical conduction system and in the heart muscle itself. You have a million patients in this country with arrhythmias that are life-threatening, and no one's telling them to avoid MSG and aspartame, yet it's a major source of cardiac irritability.

Mike: It's absolutely astounding. Now, didn't baby food manufacturers voluntarily remove this ingredient in the '70s?

Dr. Blaylock: They said they would, but they didn't. What they did is take out pure MSG and substitute it with hydrolyzed protein and caseinate. If you look at most toddler foods, they all have caseinate hydrolyzed protein broth, a significant source of glutamate.

Mike: We're destroying the nervous systems of these babies.

Dr. Blaylock: Exactly. Now, one of the things we're hearing a lot about is childhood obesity. One early observation with exitotoxicity is it makes animals grossly obese.

Mike: If they banned MSG, the drug companies would lose billions. Think about how much money they make treating all of these symptoms.

Dr. Blaylock: Here the government has all these big plans for controlling carbohydrate intake and controlling cereals and sugar and all that. Those things add to the problem, because what we find in MSG-exposed animals is that they prefer carbohydrates and sugars over protein-rich foods. That was one of the characteristics of this type of obesity. It's very difficult to exercise the weight off and almost impossible to diet it off. The appetite is out of control, but the metabolism is also out of control. They have metabolic syndrome on top of obesity, and so then you have a leptin insensitivity. In terms of obesity, they have a leptin insensitivity. It has been shown that you can produce leptin insensitivity very easily with MSG.

Mike: Is there any hope, in your view, that the world may wake up to this, and some day these ingredients may be banned?

Dr. Blaylock: It's possible, but you know, it's only going to be by public exposure, through the blogs and sites like yours. Once the public gets wind of it and is convinced that this is real, then there'll be an uproar over it. There's just a deception. The average consumer looks at it and goes, "Well, it says that it contains no MSG, so it must be okay."

Mike: I find a lot of the vegetarian foods, or so-called health foods, use yeast extracts.

Dr. Blaylock: The worst of the things they're doing are the soy extracts. Soybeans, naturally, have one of the highest glutamate levels of any of the plant products. When you hydrolyze it, you release the glutamate, and the soy protein isolates. The glutamate levels are higher than a lot of what you'll find in MSG products, yet the vegetarians are just eating it like it's the healthiest thing in the world. There was a 25-year study done, which looked at people who consumed the most soy products, and they followed them for 25 years and did serial CT scans. They found out that the people who consumed the most soybean products had the greatest incidence of dementia and brain atrophy.

These people are destroying their nervous system, and I talked to a lot of them who complained of severe migraine headaches. I said, "Get off the soy," and they do, and that migraine headache goes away. In addition, you have very high manganese levels, which is toxic to the very same part of the brain that produces Parkinson's. You've got a mixture of toxins with soy products, and the people think they are eating a healthy, nutritious product. It's destroying their nervous system, as well as other organs.

Mike: In this whole debate of soy versus cow's milk, we find misinformation in both camps.

Dr. Blaylock: I wouldn't recommend either one. If you're obsessed with milk, use goat's milk. It's closer to human milk, but I wouldn't recommend cow's milk or soy milk. I think people ought to avoid soy products as if they were poison.

Mike: Have you taken a lot of heat from NutraSweet or any of these other companies? I mean, have you been threatened with lawsuits or anything for going public with this information?

Dr. Blaylock: No, they leave me alone. I know too much. They've never bothered me. When I wrote the book, George Schwartz warned me, "Are you sure you want to write this book? If you do, they're just going to hound you to death." I said, "Yes, I want to write the book." So, I wrote it with one thing in mind: that they would not be able to refute it.

I researched every kind of way you can research and proved the toxicity of glutamate. They know I know that, because I had exchanged this in writing letters to some of their biggest defenders. They all realized that they couldn't answer my arguments. So they leave me alone. They're afraid that if it comes to a big standoff between me and them, they're going to lose.

Mike: They don't want this information going on the public record.

Dr. Blaylock: No, they don't want that. What they're doing is the old ploy of just ignoring and hoping it will go away. Of course, they put pressure on magazines, journals and newspapers not to interview me. They are trying to keep me in the shadows where they hope most people don't hear anything I have to say. It only works for so long.

Since I first wrote the book in 1995, proof supporting my viewpoint has increased enormously. The new material on peripheral glutamate receptors absolutely killed these people. They have no defense against that. The new information on the dramatic increase in cancer aggressiveness is something that they are terrified of.

Mike: Now you find these receptors outside the brain.

Dr. Blaylock: Right. Now, see, I proved it can enter the brain and that all that was a lie. What they've shown is that there are glutamate receptors on both sides of the blood brain barrier and that when you expose these receptors to glutamate, it opens up the blood brain barrier. So, the glutamate itself can open the barrier, and I list all these conditions. For instance, as you get older, your barrier becomes less competent. Almost all Alzheimer's patients have incompetent barriers. Heat stroke, seizures, autoimmune disorder and multiple sclerosis all are related with this active blood brain barrier.

You're talking about tens of millions of people, and they are out there gobbling up aspartame, MSG and other excitotoxins, and no one is telling them they are making their neurological conditions infinitely worse. I don't know how many seizure patients I've gotten off their medicines by just getting them off MSG and giving them magnesium. They quit having seizures. They were on maximum dosages of medications and still having seizures. Most neurologists and neurosurgeons that treat seizures are not aware of this.

Mike: It's not profitable to teach people how to avoid these ingredients.

Dr. Blaylock: If you look at the neuroscience literature, you can't pick up an article that's not about excitotoxicity. The hottest topic in neurosciences is glutamate receptors and excitotoxins.

Mike: Are they talking about it in the food or just as a chemical?

Dr. Blaylock: They won't mention food, but they talk about the glutamate receptor and what happens when you activate it.

Mike: What about the argument from food companies? I actually got into a debate with a veggie burger manufacturer, because I wrote an article that said their product had yeast extract in it, and yet the front label said, "100 percent all-natural ingredients." They said, "Well, glutamate appears naturally in other foods, like tomatoes and seaweed." What's your answer to that kind of defense?

Dr. Blaylock: Sure, but you see, all of these types of glutamate are bound. They're in oligosaccharides, polysaccharides. They are bound in amino acids groupings. They're not free amino acids. If you have it as a complex protein, you absorb it in your GI tract. In the GI tract, there are almost no free amino acids if you eat foods such as tomatoes. The level of free amino acids is nil; it's almost all absorbed as combined amino acids, and then it's only broken down in the liver, where it's released in very low concentrations that the body can deal with. It was never meant to have free amino acids in such high concentrations.

Well, when you hydrolyze them -- or you use yeast extract or enzymes to break down these various proteins into their free, released amino acids -- they're not natural any longer. What you've done is artificially release the amino acids in an unnatural way, and when they enter your GI tract, they are absorbed as free amino acids, then your blood level of that glutamic acid goes up significantly. As I said, it can go up as high as 20-fold, in some cases 40-fold. Your blood brain barrier is not constructed to handle such high levels of glutamate, because it doesn't naturally occur that way. It can handle the lower levels, but it can't handle these very high levels. So this argument, "Oh, it's natural," is just a lot of nonsense.

Mike: I do find that many manufacturers claim to be natural health companies, or health food companies, as a cover. They don't really follow that philosophy, because they'll use these ingredients.

Dr. Blaylock: Sure, and they use all kinds of backhanded ways.

Mike: Here's a practical question that's actually been burning in my head for about eight years: Is there anything that a person can take to block the absorption of MSG or glutamate as a defensive supplement?

Dr. Blaylock: Well, not necessarily to block it. You have other amino acids that can't compete for glutamic acid absorption. So that may be one way to help reduce the rate at which it would be absorbed.

Mike: Which aminos would those be?

Dr. Blaylock: Those would include leucine, isoleucine and lysine. They would compete for the same carrier system, so that would slow down absorption. There are a lot of things that act as glutamate blockers. You know, like silimarin, curcumin and ginkgo biloba. These things are known to directly block glutamate receptors and reduce excitotoxicity. Curcumin is very potent. Most of your flavonoids.

Magnesium is particularly important, because magnesium can block the MNDA glutamate type receptor. That's its natural function, so it significantly reduces toxicity. Vitamin E succinate is powerful at inhibiting excitotoxicity, as are all of your antioxidants. They found combinations of B vitamins also block excitotoxicity.

Mike: Let's talk about restaurants. I can't even eat at restaurants anymore at all, even those natural restaurants. They don't know they have MSG, because it's in one of the sauces or something.

Dr. Blaylock: I talked to them, and they said, "We get our food in these big crates, so there's no ingredients listed." It's the same thing for hospitals. I talked to a hospital dietitian and she said, "We can't tell because it comes in a crate, and they won't put the ingredients on it. It just says Salisbury steak or whatever."

They don't know, so it's hard for them to come out and tell their customers, "It's free of MSG." What they mean when they do say that is, "We didn't put any in there." Their white sauces are particularly high, as are their salad dressings, especially the ones that are pure oil. They all contain MSG.

Mike: Gravy mixes almost always have it, right?

Dr. Blaylock: Yes, they'll put hydrolyzed protein in it. They're selling taste. I mean, that's why a person prefers one restaurant to another. The food tastes better. Then they go home and feel sick and don't understand why.

One of the things that has been noticed about sudden cardiac death is that most that have it, other than athletes, die after eating a meal in a restaurant. I suspect it's because these people have low magnesium. They eat the meal, the glutamate stimulates the glutamate receptor in the cardiac conduction system as well as the hypothalamus, and they have a sudden cardiac death.

I was in a bookstore in Oxford, Miss. This young guy was there, and he just dropped and died. We took him to the hospital and tried to resuscitate him, and we couldn't. He was only 26 years old, and he had just eaten a big bowl of soup at one of the restaurants. Well, I talked to the person that was there, and he said they use a lot of hydrolyzed protein and MSG. People will eat a meal, have a soup before the meal, get this huge dose of MSG, and drop dead from the arrhythmia.

Mike: Could this explain some sudden infant deaths as well, you think?

Dr. Blaylock: Oh yeah. I mean, look at the popularity of these soy infant formulas. Mothers are crazy to give their kids soy formula. There is a lot of concern about it. There's concern about the fluoride level, the manganese level, and the glutamate levels in these soy infant formulas.

Mike: At Wal-Mart, I saw bottled water with added sodium fluoride. It's fluoride water.

Dr. Blaylock: Oh yes, it's for babies. They have a picture of a baby on it.

Mike: So, is there a website or a newsletter that people can visit or sign-up for?

Dr. Blaylock: I have a newsletter. It's www.BlaylockReport.com. It's by subscription, but you can buy individual newsletters. You don't have to get the whole year. It's issued monthly, for $3.98 a piece. It covers everything.

I try to cover a lot of common subjects and bring people up to date on the new thinking and research. I go through all the medical research. Usually I'll go through everything that conventional medicine has to offer. A lot of times they have good physiology, a good pathophysiology, but then, they switch over and start talking about drugs. I'll go through all the good pathophysiology material they have, and then I'll look up all the nutritional research that's been done that can correct those problems.

Mike: I see. Here's an off-the-wall question: If MSG and all its different versions, as well as aspartame, were outlawed tomorrow, what changes would we see in the next five years in terms of public health?

Dr. Blaylock: I think you'd see a significant drop in obesity and metabolic syndrome. You'd see a tremendous drop in certain cancers. You would certainly see a tremendous drop in the neurodegenerative diseases, and all of these diseases that are increasing expeditiously.

The neurodegenerative diseases are just exploding. Things that used to be rare, we're seeing all the time now. It's just frightening. And when you look through the neurosciences literature, they have no explanation. They don't know why it's increasing so rapidly, but it's because we have such a large combination of toxins. For instance, we know that cellular neurodegenerative diseases are connected to mercury, aluminum, pesticides and herbicides, and the way they produce brain damage is through an excitotoxic mechanism.

So, we are all exposed to those toxins, and then when you add MSG and excitotoxins to the food, you tremendously accelerate this toxicity. That's why we're seeing this explosion in neurodegenerative diseases; Alzheimer's and autism and ADD and Parkinson's -- all these things are increasing so enormously because we are exposed to carcinogenic toxicity from all these different things and this huge exposure to excitotoxins, which is the central mechanism.

This is what no one's been able to claim. You look at one person's report and they'll say, "Alzheimer's is related to mercury exposure," and then another one says, "No, it's related to pesticides," and yet another one says it something else, but they're all operating through the same mechanism. All of these things operate by increasing brain immune activity, and that activates excitotoxicity. So that's why all of them seem to be related, because they're all doing the same thing to the brain.

Mike: What about the American Diabetes Association? Given that aspartame actually promotes obesity, based a lot of the work you've uncovered, I find it curious that the ADA so strongly supports aspartame.

Dr. Blaylock: I don't, considering they receive huge amounts of money from the makers of aspartame. They fund their walk-a-thon and all that kind of stuff, so they get tremendous amounts of money from the makers of aspartame, and money talks.

Whether they're just deluding themselves and choosing not to believe it's toxic, refusing to look at the evidence, or they're just concerned about the money and could care less, I don't know, but when you look at the pathophysiology of diabetes and the effect of aspartame, it's absolute nonsense for anybody who has diabetes to be on aspartame. Particularly in a neurological aspect, it's going to make it a lot worse.

Mike: What about other popular chemical sweeteners like sucralose in Splenda?

Dr. Blaylock: There's really not a lot of research in those areas. They have some basic research, like with Splenda, showing thalamus suppression. If that holds up in other research, it's a major concern. If you're suppressing the thalamus gland in a child, that's the future of their immune function. You can increase everything from autoimmunity to producing immune-related diseases, to infections and cancers. The implications of thalamus gland suppression are enormous.

There have been reports of miscarriages associated with Splenda in experimental animals. The problem is, we don't have a lot of well-conducted studies on Splenda to ferret these things out, and they're not going to do them. The best way to protect your product is to never test it, or just to set up some phony test and report it in a journal that's friendly to your point of view.

That's what they did with certain vaccines. They did thousands of phony studies and waved them around, claiming nothing was found. You can design any study to find whatever you want. Particularly, you can design it to have negative results. That's the easiest thing to do.

Mike: We've got government health officials telling us mercury is safe and we've got big business telling us both aspartame and MSG are safe. It sounds like every poison in the food supply or in organized medicine is perfectly safe.

Dr. Blaylock: We did that with lead. When they first started questioning the safety of lead, the levels they said were safe were just enormously high, and then a mere 10 years later, suddenly we're finding out that lead is toxic at 10 micrograms. In the '60s, they were fighting over the same thing. The defenders of gasoline-added lead were saying lead wasn't toxic, except in extremely high doses. Then neuroscience literature was contradicting them, but nobody would listen. Finally, the weight of the evidence was so overwhelming that they found out extremely low concentrations of lead were toxic and accumulate in the brain.

It's the same thing with mercury. Mercury is even more poisonous than lead. An infant is getting 150 times the dose of mercury than the EPA safety limits. A hundred times higher than the FDA safety limits. Here's a little baby that's getting 150 times higher a dose than the FDA says is safe for an adult.

Mike: What are the big points readers to take away? What do you think they need to remember in order to protect themselves?

Dr. Blaylock: You need to abstain from all of these things. Aspartame is not a necessary nutrient, and neither is MSG. The weight of the evidence is overwhelming. If you want to avoid obesity, metabolic syndrome and cancer, and if you don't want to make your cancer more aggressive, then you need to stay away from these products.

The damage affects pregnant women, unborn babies and newborns. It produces changes in the brain that are irreversible. What we've found is that it reprograms the wiring of the brain, particularly the hypothalamus, so it doesn't function normally. These children are abnormal for the rest of their lives in terms of their physiological function.

Mike: Well, hopefully the weight of this evidence will someday become overwhelming, and government regulators will listen to you.

Dr. Blaylock: The pressure on researchers is so enormous. Larry Troker came out with his research about the DNA damage by aspartame. Then his career was damaged by the makers of aspartame. He said he would never do another research project concerning aspartame. Well, a number of researchers have said the same thing. Once they published their results, the full weight of these companies come down on their head. NutraSweet will contribute millions to a university and threaten to pull their donations if someone isn't quieted.

Mike: So there's blatant scientific censorship at work here.

Dr. Blaylock: There's blatant, and then there's just understood. You have NutraSweet manufacturers donating several million dollars to your university. The director of that laboratory, or the president of the university, will just quietly let them know that they'd really like to see research come to a stop.

The editor-in-chief of The Chemical News went through that with fluoride. They fired him because he refused to be quiet about fluoride toxicity, and they had just received this huge grant from Colgate-Palmolive. They said, "We'll lose our grant if you don't get quiet about fluoride." He wouldn't, and they fired him. Researchers know this.

Mike: I want to commend you for being willing to stand up and tell the truth about all of this. I think you're doing a great, positive service to public-health.

Dr. Blaylock: You're the one doing the service, because you're putting the word out there. Without you, I would just be sitting in a room fussing. It's people like you that get this word out and let people know what's going on in the world.

Mike: I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to pass a bill to outlaw health talk on the internet.

Dr. Blaylock: They're trying to do it. You know, they passed a law at one time in several states that no one but dietitians could speak on the subject of nutrition. Several states had that law passed. This meant Ph.D. biochemists couldn't talk about health. It was ridiculous. I'm sure that one day they're going to have an internet bill saying there's just too much dangerous material coming over the internet on health issues, and we need to regulate it.

Mike: Well, I want to thank you very much for all your time.

Dr. Blaylock: Thank you. I appreciate you giving me this opportunity.

Source: Natural News

MSG Now Used to Spray Crops

By Paul Fassa, citizen journalist

Just when many concerned, health conscious citizens have become aware of the dangers of MSG enough to avoid it, a large agricultural fertilizer and pesticide company, Emerald BioAgriculture, has an MSG tainted "growth enhancer," Auxigro, that has been used to spray on crops since the late 1990`s.

Emerald BioAgriclture`s sales and influence is spreading, and governmental protection agencies are simply stepping aside. Though the Emerald BioAgriculture`s PR promotes that their products are environmentally sound and safe, there is opposition and concern over that. Especially since a main ingredient is the essence of MSG itself.

So it seems to be another sneaky attempt at getting the human race dosed on MSG. Those sneaky attempts have included disguising MSG with labels on packaged foods that use terms like natural flavors, artificial flavorings, sodium caseinate, yeast extract, spices, plant protein, and several forms of hydrolyzed protein (to mention just a few of the forty or so euphemistic terms used to pass MSG our way).

According to labeling legislation, if any additive containing the essential active ingredient of MSG, glutamic acid or free glutamate, is less than 78%, it doesn`t have to be labeled MSG! This is a deceptive technicality, because the product known as MSG contains over 78% free glutamate. But free glutamate itself is the danger. Whether there is 70% or 80% glutamate in any given ingredient, one is consuming a dangerous chemical.

An MSG Summary of Horrors
Manufactured free glutamate, or glutamic acid, is a dangerous excitotoxin. Ironically, bound glutamate, which is still attached to protein, is benign in small quantities. But that benign glutamate is a minor byproduct of a body`s or plant`s metabolism. Synthetic glutamic acid or free glutamate is an excitotoxin that appears in larger, more difficult to metabolize quantities when used as a food additive. Additionally, sometimes carcinogenic chemicals are used in the process of manufacturing synthetic free glutamate.

According to Doctor Russel Blaylock MD, author of Excitotoxins: The Taste That Kills, excitotoxins literally excite brain cells to death! He has found that in addition to obesity, several neurological disorders come about as a result of long term aspartame or MSG excitotoxin consumption. The constant increase of MSG, or its essential active ingredient, over the past 60 years in our food chain has corresponded with the surge of type 2 diabetes, obesity, Alzheimer`s, Parkinson`s Disease, and other forms of neurological disorders. Even dementia, which is usually attributed to old age, can be traced to long term excitoxin exposure.

MSG is used liberally in all fast food places as well as in many better sit-down restaurants. All the snack foods and most packaged foods, even those found in health food stores, contain at least one form of disguised free glutamate - in other words, MSG with another name. So the wise, wary, and dedicated to preserving their health simply avoid processed foods and eating out too much. And they read labels carefully while buying organic vegetables, fruits, and bulk grains and beans as much as possible. Free at last from MSG? Not quite.

Spraying Crops With MSG
The agricultural and food industry has returned with another ploy to keep MSG in our food chain. And it`s completely sanctioned and endorsed by so-called protective governmental agencies. According to Truth In Labeling, an ambitious company called Auxein, now Emerald BioAgriculture, created the product called AuxiGro. It contains glutamate. It won`t go into processed and packaged foods. It simply goes into the plants that yield our fruits, vegetables, and nuts. It has been called a crop "growth enhancer" that increases plants` "natural defense systems" against insect infestation, according to Emerald BioAgriculture`s website.

AuxiGro is sprayed onto plants with excitotoxin glutamate or glutamic acid as a major ingredient. And Emerald BioAgriculture has managed to bully and buy its way. Beginning from the year 1999, it used AuxiGro on several types of vegetable, fruit, and nut crops. They are registered with the EPA for using AuxiGro in most states. They have even finagled their way into California crop spraying, a state that had originally restricted the use of AuxiGro on its crops. Oh those revolving big business/government doors!

And now it is beginning to get even worse. Emerald BioAgriculture is requesting permission to use AuxiGro on organic crops in all states! The fact that the USDA has lowered its standards for organic certification in the past few years gives Emerald BioAgriculture an opening to begin using AuxiGro on organic crops. USDA organic certification is already suspect. It may get worse. So trusting USDA certification as the sole criteria for organic foods may not be so wise.

There are other organic certifications to look for that have more integrity. Local farmers who are organic but not certified are worthy of health conscious consumer business. The Organic Consumers Association website has more information on true organic sources - www.organicconsumers.org. Truth In Labeling has challenged the EPA on several valid issues. But the EPA has been deceptive while avoiding the queries directly from Truth In Labeling . If you want to be active on this issue, start by visiting their website at www.truthinlabeling.org.

Source: Natural News

About the author
Paul Fassa has morphed from eating processed foods and popping vitamin pills to becoming a vegetarian who goes organic as much as possible. He now relies on right foods, juicing, herbs, and super foods for maximum nutrition and health.

Promise For Non-Drug Treatment Of Migraine From New Therapy Based On Magnetic Stimulation

IA new UCSF study examining the mechanism of a novel therapy that uses magnetic pulses to treat chronic migraine sufferers showed the treatment to be a promising alternative to medication.

The therapy is called transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS. Study findings were presented April 29, 2009 during the annual American Academy of Neurology scientific meeting in Seattle.

In a previous randomized controlled clinical study by Ohio State University Medical Center, TMS was used to treat patients who suffer from migraine with aura, a condition in which a variety of mostly visual sensations come before or accompany the pain of a migraine attack. The study showed that TMS treatment was superior to the placebo given to the control group. Patients were pain-free at follow-up intervals of 2, 24 and 48 hours.

In the new study, conducted in rats, UCSF researchers focused on understanding the mechanism of action of TMS therapy -- how the treatment interacted with the brain to produce the pain-free outcomes of patients in the previous study.

The UCSF research identified potential opportunities to enhance treatment strategies in patients. One example, the study team noted, was that factors such as time and peak intensity of stimulation may be important components in the brain's response to TMS.

"The data demonstrate a biological rationale for the use of TMS to treat migraine aura," said Peter Goadsby, MD, PhD, lead investigator of the study, professor and director of the UCSF Headache Center. "We found that cortical spreading depression, known as CSD and the animal correlate of migraine aura, was susceptible to TMS therapy, with the wave of neuronal excitation blocked on over 50 percent of occasions."

The study findings showed that migraine aura responds to magnetic stimulation because TMS therapy blocks the wave of neuronal excitation, which is a biological system through which neurons become stimulated to fire. TMS creates a focused magnetic pulse that passes noninvasively through the skull, inducing an electric current to disrupt the abnormal brain waves believed to be associated with migraine, including CSD. CSD in humans precedes migraine with aura.

The American Academy of Neurology estimates that over 30 million Americans suffer from migraine, a syndrome characterized by recurrent, often excruciating headaches. The National Headache Foundation estimates that migraine causes 157 million lost workdays each year due to pain and associated migraine symptoms, resulting in a $13 billion burden to American employers.

Further research is needed, the UCSF team said, but the findings give neurologists a potential new treatment option for migraine sufferers unable to tolerate medication, which can cause stomach bleeding and other painful side effects.

Additional study investigators were Philip R. Holland, PhD, UCSF; Carol T. Schembri and Joe P. Fredrick, Neuralieve, Sunnyvale, Calif.

The research was funded by Neuralieve, Inc., of Sunnyvale, Calif., which provided the TMS technology for the study. Goadsby has served as an advisor to Neuralieve for which he received an honorarium.

Source: Lauren Hammit, University of California - San Francisco

Extracts from Apples Reduce Toxicity of Cooked Meat

By: David Gutierrez

Extracts from apples and grape seeds reduce the formation of a toxic chemical in fried meat, according to the results of a study conducted by researchers from the University of Hong Kong and Rutgers University and published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Chemicals called heterocyclic amines (HCAs) form when meat from mammals, fish or fowl is cooked at high temperatures. Many of these HCAs have been shown to have genotoxic and carcinogenic effects, and may be partially responsible for the connection between meat consumption and many cancers, including of the breast, colon, stomach and pancreas.

Researchers tested the effect of extracts from apples, elderberries, grape seeds and pineapples on the formation of two varieties of HCAs in fried beef patties. The apple and grapeseed extracts were found to be most effective, reducing HCA formation by approximately 70 percent.

More specifically, apple extract reduced the formation of MeIQx HCAs by 69 percent and the formation of PhIP HCAs by 59 percent. Grapeseed extract reduced the formation of the same HCAs by 72 and 67 percent, respectively.

"This is the first report showing the inhibitory activities of apple phenolics on the formation of HCAs," the researchers wrote. "The findings provide valuable information for the development of effective strategies to minimize the HCA content of cooked meats and to identify several new natural products that may have new applications in the food industry."

"Incubation of beef with selected natural extracts (0.1 percent by weight) before frying can reduce the formation of HCAs," they suggested.

The researchers attributed the effectiveness of the extracts to three active components: proanthocyanidins, phloridzin and chlorogenic acid. Proanthocyanidins proved most effective, reducing the formation of both MeIQx and PhIP HCAs. In contrast, phloridzin reduced only the formation of PhIP, while chlorogenic acid reduced the formation of MeIQx but actually stimulated the production of PhIP.

Source : Natural News

Tick Bite Link To Meat Allergy, Medical Journal Of Australia

A Sydney allergy practice has found an 'overwhelming majority' of a group of patients who developed a rare allergy to red meat had previously had an adverse reaction to tick bites.

Clinical Immunologists, Drs Sheryl van Nunen and Suran Fernando and colleagues, of Royal North Shore Hospital, found that 24 of 25 patients who presented with a history of allergic reaction to red meat also reported large local reactions to tick bites.

"Seventeen of the 25 had a severe reaction to the bite, such as tongue swelling, throat constriction or shortness of breath," Dr Fernando said.

Patients then reported that they had previously been bitten by a tick, resulting in a painful, itchy lesion greater than 50mm that lasted at least a week.

"All of the patients lived in Sydney's northern beaches area, which is endemically infested with several tick species.

They all described the culprit as a hard-bodied tick shaped like a human fingernail ranging in size from 3 to 10 mm. This is most likely to be Ixodes holocyclus, commonly known as the paralysis tick, which is "not only the most commonly found species that affects humans in the area, but is also the species most associated with hypersensitivity reactions in humans".

The researchers set up a retrospective control, contacting 29 patients from the clinic with allergies to foods other than red meat residing in the same region. All 29 reported a history of tick bites without subsequent reaction.

"The findings suggest that, in our patient population, the overwhelming majority of people with the relatively rare condition of red meat allergy are preceded by sensitisation to tick bites," Dr Fernando said.

Further research is needed, but it could be that "individuals are sensitised to tick salivary proteins that are cross-reactive with proteins found in various red meats".

"To determine the true prevalence of this cross-reactivity, a prospective study could examine consecutive patients who are bitten by ticks (with and without reactions) for the subsequent development of red meat allergy."

Source: Medical Journal of Australia