There is little or no doubt that synthetic chemicals harm our health. Part of attaining good health thus entails minimizing our exposure to and consumption of such chemicals.
The bad news is that our potable water supplies which come right through to our taps at home have been found to contain these harmful substances, even after treatment. This makes it all the more crucial that we filter our drinking water before consumption. The following article reveals more. (more…)
The modern world we live in today is quite literally a minefield of dangerous toxins and chemicals, none more so than for a pregnant mother. Fetuses, together with infants and other young children, are especially susceptible to such harmful substances, partly because they are still in a developmental phase, and partly because of their relatively lower body weight (which increases the impact of the chemicals).
Recent research has linked pregnant ladies’ exposure to hairspray to an increased risk of hypospadias, a common genital birth defect in boys. (more…)
Is soy a healthy food?
Yes, according to many. In fact, soy and soy products form significant portions of the diets of many vegetarians, vegans and health-conscious people. There are tofu burgers, soy milk, and what not. (more…)
Almost every day or every other day, there is news on studies which link certain foods or environmental factors with cancer.
The great news is, more often than not, anything which prevents or fights cancer also promotes good health and vitality in other ways. On the flip side, whatever causes cancer would usually also be linked to other degenerative diseases. (more…)
Over the past few months, several studies have surfaced information on some possible causes and triggers of asthma. These factors could be lurking in our environment, or we could be unwittingly inhaling or consuming them.
Not surprisingly, the big culprits are household chemicals as well as pharmaceutical drugs. (more…)
Artificial or synthetic playing turfs are increasingly being installed and used in place of grass fields. But how safe exactly are they?
Philip J Landrigan, MD, MSc, Professor of Pediatrics, the Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, had quite recently written to the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection and raised some concerns. Prof Landrigan is also Chairman of the Department of Community & Preventive Medicine. (more…)
The role of food, diet and nutrition in the development of chronic and degenerative diseases, including cancer, cannot be overstated. As the saying goes, you are what you eat.
With specific regard to lung cancer, do you know someone, or heard of people, who got the disease despite not having smoked at all? (more…)
According to the California Air Resources Board (CARB), a long-term study has revealed that workers in the trucking industry who have been regularly exposed to diesel as well as other kinds of vehicle exhaust had heightened risk of getting lung cancer with more years of work.
The study was led by E. Garshick and published in the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences’ journal, Environmental Health Perspectives. It is titled “Lung Cancer and Vehicle Exhaust in Trucking Industry Workers” and examined lung cancer deaths from 1985 to 2000, according to job type in 31,135 Teamsters Union members. (more…)
In Dec 2008, an issue of the medical journal Nature published an article which gathered 7 scientists (two of them were on the payroll of the pharmaceutical companies). What did it say?
It said that doctors should be able to prescribe psychotropic drugs, for example the drugs given to children for ADHD, to healthy people. The purpose? To “improve brain function”. (more…)
The whole melamine and milk saga in China created quite a big hoo hah. But somehow, we believe that it happened in some faraway place, perhaps in a rather backward country, and we should be well sheltered from the problem.
The thing is, melamine was actually found in infant formulas in the US. That’s not the scariest part - the more frightening issue is that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the US actually hid the truth from the public. (more…)
According to recent research in Italy, being exposed to benzene, an industrial solvent, increases the risk of getting multiple myeloma. It also increased the risk of developing chronic lymphoid leukemia.
The risk of chronic lymphoid leukemia was also increased with exposure to two other oil-derived industrial chemicals, namely xylene and toluene. (more…)