All 4 Natural Health News

Our exposure to mass media today is immense, almost to a frightening level. And, without realizing it, we are being brainwashed every single day by these sources. After all, it’s very naive to think that the media presents objective views of information; the media is heavily influenced, even governed, by strong political and corporate interests.

The situation is worse for children and teenagers, because they are still at an impressionable age and are even more easily influenced by what they see and hear. With kids today spending so much time on the internet and in front of the television, we find that even their health is taking a hit. And why wouldn’t it? Such media not only promote sedentary lifestyles, they also inculcate poor values and undesirable living and eating habits. Read more in the following article. (more…)

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 role of stress and one’s working environment in the disease process cannot be understated or underestimated. Yet, little attention is often given to such factors in preventing as well as reversing health conditions.

Recent research has drawn an interesting link between one’s risk of heart disease (and death) and working for a poor boss. This connection is discussed in more detail in the following article. (more…)

Conventional medical wisdom says it’s fine to move your bowels only once in a couple of days, as long as your pattern is regular. Natural healers and alternative practitioners, however, know better - a minimum of once per day is necessary for good health and vitality.

Constipation may seem like a trivial and harmless problem, but the fact is that this seemingly little ailment can have far reaching and detrimental effects on various aspects of a person’s health. The following article discusses 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…)

Some of the main dangers of commercial meat and animal farming today is linked to the use of antibiotics. Such drugs are used to fight illness in the animals, which are almost always raised in unhygienic and overcrowded conditions.

Besides the fact that most of us consume such meats, the following article outlines another way in which the toxins resulting from such farming practices may be making their way into our lives. (more…)

Two to three centuries ago, the American population was quite healthy overall.

Fast forward two to three hundred years, and, despite being one of the technological leaders of the world and being the top national spenders on medical care (spending a very large proportion of its GDP on medical bills), th US today is very heavily diseased and chronically ill. What’s gone wrong? (more…)

When a cellphone or mobile phone is placed next to a computer monitor or a television and an incoming signal is received, either for an SMS or a call, the image on the screen gets all distorted and contorted. After using a cellphone for a number of minutes, it is not uncommon for one’s ears to hurt, and one’s side of the face to feel almost like it’s burning.

These are signs of the potential dangers of cellphone radiation. With these little contraptions becoming so common and so much a part of our daily lives (some of us even sleep with our cellphones next to us!), what detrimental effects on health are lurking and waiting to explode on the cellphone-using population? (more…)

Every day, as we go about our daily lives, there are probably hundreds of studies taking place on the subject of cancer and diet alone. What foods have anti-cancer effects? What foods protect against the disease? And what foods cause cancer? (more…)

No man is an island, and humans are social, emotional creatures. Here, an interesting study describes how caring for a sick spouse helps to boost one’s longevity.

Whether it is because it makes us feel useful, or it makes us happy, or it gives us a purpose in life, or some other reason, this gives us evidence of a very tangible health benefit of loving, sharing, caring and giving. (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…)

Do you have the habit of speaking to older folks, especially those who may be ill, in a simplistic and child-like manner, in much the same way you speak to a baby or little children?

If you do, you may want to reconsider having such a habit, as doing so may have a negative impact on the health of elderly folks, as revealed in research. (more…)

Want to increase your life expectancy?

Exercise certainly helps a great deal. And a Swedish study has found that golf is one specific activity which could help you achieve this goal. (more…)

The best strategy for the prevention of strokes must surely be to live a healthy lifestyle.

Stroke is pretty much the brain version of what happens to the heart in a heart attack. When an artery which brings blood to the brain is blocked, or when small vessels in the brain burst, then the brain is in big trouble. (more…)

The number of potential indoor health hazards in our homes and offices just seems to get more and more. A recent study carried out at the Queensland University of Technology has found that laser printers could produce tiny airborne particles which are potentially harmful to our health.

These particles are said to be produced by the bonding of toner to paper, and they could be hazardous to humans. (more…)

A study conducted at the University of Michigan has found that men who had previously suffered from gonorrhea have a higher risk of getting prostate cancer.

Another risk factor is having multiple sex partners - having had more than 25 sexual partners in a man’s lifetime also raises his risk of prostate cancer to over 2.5 times that of men who have had less than six sex partners. (more…)

We all know that smoking increases one’s likelihood of getting a host of serious diseases, and that it shortens lives. What a recent study has further revealed is that its negative effects impact people of all social classes.

In addition, it found that the adverse effects of smoking do not spare either females or rich people. (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…)

Recent research has shown that countries whose people bike, walk or take public transport more are less obese. Not exactly rocket science, is it?

The study had covered 17 industrialized nations in Europe, North America and Australia, and it used each nation’s own health and travel data. (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…)

Religion – there is possibly no other topic which can evoke as much discussion and debate as it. And a recent study, termed the “The relationship between religion and cardiovascular outcomes and all-cause mortality in the women’s health initiative observational study”, has found that people who attend religious services regularly for a sustained period were one-fifth less likely to die from any reason, as compared to those who did not.

The study, published in Psychology and Health, looked at the health status of over 90,000 women for a mean period of over 7 years. Data from the Women’s Health Initiative, a long-term study which followed women aged 50 to 79 years from 40 different locations in the United States, was used. (more…)

I have been seeing some stories lately about how colonoscopy is only effective for detecting cancer in the left side of the colon (i.e. the descending colon), and not the right side of it (i.e. the ascending colon).

What really alarms me is how I have seen several headlines which go ‘colonoscopies only prevents X% of colon cancer’, or something along those lines. (more…)

A recent study released last year supposedly found that vitamin D does NOT protect against getting breast cancer.

Unfortunately, this is yet another piece of misleading information revealed to the public. A statement from a vitamin D expert which was published on NewsWire.ca explains why. (more…)

Intuitively as well as scientifically, we have a feel of how stress and diet both play large roles in cancer development. A study published in August 2008 in the International Journal of Oncology has given us some clues of how these two factors may interact to affect cancer risk.

In gist – stress induces certain hormones which promote growth, and this in turn seems to promote the growth of cancer cells. The good news is that we can inhibit this process by eating cruciferous vegetables. (more…)

The use of mobile phones is getting more prevalent by the year. And recent research conducted at Tel Aviv University in Israel has found that heavy users of mobiles phones have a 50% higher risk of getting cancer of the salivary glands.

The study was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology and compared the cell phone use of 500 Israelis with salivary gland tumors to that of 1300 Israelis who did not suffer from the disease. (more…)

Smoking plays a huge part in causing lung cancer and other respiratory problems – this is common knowledge. But it also greatly raises the risk of getting bladder cancer, something which most of us are unaware of.

Research at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center looked at information from other studies in the MEDLINE database which had been carried out to find the link between smoking and bladder cancer. Those studies were conducted from 1975 to 2007. (more…)

A recent study at the University College London has found that stress raises the risk of heart problems, including heart attack, by steering people toward undesirable lifestyle habits.

Published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, the study had tracked 6,576 participants of the Scottish Health Study for a period of 7 years. (more…)