Impotence Drugs May Aid Brain Tumor Treatment

(HealthDay News) -- A drug already approved for the treatment of erectile dysfunction may actually help boost the effectiveness of treatments for brain tumors tied to both lung and breast cancer, research shows.

The finding stems from an animal study that indicated that leading erectile dysfunction medications sildenafil (Viagra) and vardenafil (Levitra) can enable the chemotherapy drug Herceptin to more easily penetrate the so-called blood-brain barrier that must be breached in order to successfully target cancer that has spread to the brain.

Although the blood-brain barrier is a naturally occurring mechanism designed to protect the brain from exposure to dangerous substances, in the case of cancer treatment it can significantly impede drug delivery, particularly of large-molecule drugs, such as Herceptin. However, erectile dysfunction drugs appear to increase the barrier's permeability. Read more...

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Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) recall leaves food consumers wondering: What is this stuff?

Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) is one of most common soy-based food "fillers" used to make literally thousands of processed food products. It's found in veggie burgers, gravy mixes, soups and many other grocery products. Last Thursday, one of the largest producers of HVP in the United States, Las Vegas-based Basic Food Flavors Inc., was the subject of an FDA consumer safety warning announcement. Salmonella had been found contaminating the company's HVP production equipment, the FDA said, and a nationwide recall was initiated.

Most Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein isn't purchased directly by consumers; it's used by food production companies as an ingredient in mainstream processed foods. So it shows up in thousands of grocery products -- and most consumers are not aware they're eating this ingredient. In fact, many consumers are, for the first time, asking, "What is HVP?" Read more...

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Protect yourself from Alzheimer's disease with cinnamon

Degenerative mental diseases like Alzheimer's and dementia continue to ravish the lives of millions around the world. And to make matters worse, the financial burden of caring for dementia patients now tops one percent of the entire world's gross domestic product (GDP). But there are ways to help prevent and treat serious mental decline, including simply eating lots of cinnamon.

Dr. Richard Anderson, a diabetes expert from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, discovered several years ago that cinnamon helps to stabilize blood sugar levels by improving the quality of insulin in the body. But more recently, he found that cinnamon also helps to stop the formation of Alzheimer's disease, the sixth-leading cause of death in the U.S.

When eaten with food or taken in extract form, cinnamon helps block the formation of "tau filaments" that are associated with the development of Alzheimer's disease. In tests, cinnamon actually disassembled and eliminated these filaments from within cells, effectively reversing the effects of the disease. Read more...

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Horrifying environmental impact of non-Gulf shrimp

Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the United States, with the average resident consuming 4.1 pounds per year. But this food comes at a serious cost for the planet and for human health, warns Jill Richardson, author of Recipe for America: Why Our Food System Is Broken and What We Can Do to Fix It.

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

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

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Rheumatoid arthritis

The earliest signs of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) are tiny injuries to the synovial membrane and an increase in the number of synovial cells. At this point, long before symptoms are experienced, there is evidence of immune cell penetration into the synovial membrane. Over time, the immune response continues to gain momentum and inflict damage on the synovial membrane.

The exact mechanism of bone and cartilage destruction during RA is not completely understood. One theory suggests that the pro-inflammatory cytokines interleukin-1 and tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-alpha) stimulate the production of enzymes that degrade cartilage and inhibit the production of new cartilage and also contribute to the local demineralization of bone by activating osteoclasts (cells that break down bone) (Kasper DL et al 2005). Read more...

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Hydrogen Peroxide Cures Disease

THE ANTIDOTE
Bioweapons, Health, and the Individual
by Doc Holliday
from the Laissez Faire City Times

Ever read one of those Internet articles on biowarfare? Have you seen the TV tabloid terror shows about government incompetence/malfeasance with the handling of biological agents of horrifyingly destructive power? Did you read the Hot Zone by Richard Preston or see his article in the New Yorker this week called "The Bioengineers"?

I have seen all of the above, and I'm shocked. I am shocked at the insanity of blindly believing "national interests" are at stake and governments should "do something" to protect "the people." I am repulsed by the stupidity of immediately turning to government for solutions to problems that are in fact a consequence of the world-wide growth in nation-state power over the individual during the last three centuries. Read more...

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