Cell toxicity studies by Dr. Yinfa Ma, Curators’ Teaching Professor of chemistry at Missouri University of Science and Technology, and his graduate student Qingbo Yang, suggest that when exposed to sunlight, zinc oxide, a common ingredient in sunscreens, undergoes a chemical reaction that may release unstable molecules known as free radicals.

Free radicals seek to bond with other molecules, but in the process, they can damage cells or the DNA contained within those cells. This in turn could increase the risk of skin cancer.

Ma also found that the longer zinc oxide is exposed to sunlight, the greater the potential damage to human cells.

“Zinc oxide may generate free radicals when exposed to UV (ultraviolet) sunlight,” May said, “and those free radicals can kill cells.”

Ma studied how human lung cells immersed in a solution containing nano-particles of zinc oxide react when exposed to different types of light over numerous time frames.

Using a control group of cells that were not immersed in the zinc oxide solution, Ma compared the results of light exposure on the various groups of cells. He found that zinc oxide-exposed cells deteriorated more rapidly than those not immersed in the chemical compound.

Even when exposed to visible light only, the lung cells suspended in zinc oxide deteriorated. But for cells exposed to ultraviolet rays, Ma found that “cell viability decreases dramatically.”

When exposed to ultraviolet long-wave light (ultraviolet A or UVA) for 3 hours, half of the lung cells in the zinc oxide solution died. After 12 hours, 90 percent of the cells in that solution died, Ma found.

According to Ma, when the zinc oxide nano-particles in the solution absorb the UV rays, the reaction releases electrons, which in turn may produce unstable free radical molecules in the zinc oxide solution.

Those free radical molecules then bond with other molecules and act as parasites, damaging the other molecules in the process.

Ma’s research on zinc oxide’s effect on cells is still in the early stages, so he cautions people from drawing conclusions about the safety or dangers of sunscreen based on this preliminary research.

“More extensive study is still needed,” Ma said. “This is just the first step.”

In the meantime, Ma advises sunbathers to use sunscreen and to limit their exposure to the sun.

“I still would advise people to wear sunscreen,” he said. “Sunscreen is better than no protection at all,” Ma added.

Besides sunscreen, zinc oxide is used in many commercial products, including plastics, paints, ointments and sealants.

The study will be published in the journal Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology.

FIND OUT THE TRUTH!!!   LISTEN TO MEDICAL REWIND!!!

Thermography — a breast cancer detection method touted by some as a substitute for mammography — is an unreliable cancer screen, according to new research.

In a study of about 180 women, thermography missed about 50 percent of cancers and delivered too many false positives, said Dr. C.M. Guilfoyle, a researcher at Bryn Mawr Hospital in Pennsylvania.

The radiation-free screening method uses computer software to measure and compare thermal abnormalities in the breasts and create a breast “map” to look for signs of developing breast cancer. The thinking is that increased temperature is found in areas with increased blood flow, and that may indicate a tumor.

Researchers evaluated the technique, marketed as the No Touch Breast Scan, on the breasts of women undergoing biopsies after they had suspicious findings on other imaging exams.

“I think we are still trying to determine the role of thermography as a breast cancer screening tool,” Guilfoyle said. The technology she used was often not able to tell the difference between malignant and benign lesions, she said.

Guilfoyle is expected to present the findings Friday at the American Society of Breast Surgeons’ annual meeting in Phoenix.

The test, as its name suggests, involves no physical contact. It is available in the New York City area, and may expand to other locations soon, said Barbara Zimmerly, a company spokeswoman.

It costs about $150, and it is not covered by insurance at this time. “The test is 88 percent accurate, according to the latest study,” Zimmerly said.

Guilfoyle, however, found less accuracy in her evaluation of women with abnormal radiologic findings between October 2009 and May 2011.

For the study, each woman had a thermography test before a tissue biopsy, and Guilfoyle compared the final tissue pathology results with the thermography results. Each breast was interpreted as positive or negative for cancer based on the thermography results.

The healthy breast also was examined with thermography. Two models of the thermography scan were used. One focused on minimizing false negative results; the other focused on minimizing anxiety-provoking false positives.

Depending on which scan model was used, thermography missed about half of all cancers or had an unacceptably high number of false positives when compared to pathology reports on the abnormal breasts, according to the study.

The researchers also found that 47 percent of the normal breasts got a false positive reading on the thermography scan.

The role of thermography is still evolving, said Dr. Kimberly Lovett, attending physician at Southern California Permanente and an investigator at the University of California-San Diego Center for Patient Safety.

Lovett has written about the dangers of online ads that tout thermography as the sole method of breast cancer detection.

“I would tell women that thermography continues to be studied, and the technology will hopefully improve over time,” she said. “However, at this time, thermography should absolutely not be used as an alternative to screening mammogram or as an alternative to breast biopsy in the presence of a positive mammogram.”

If a woman has a suspicious lesion on a mammogram, the follow-up methods should be an ultrasound or biopsy, or both, Lovett said.

Mammography remains the gold standard for detecting breast cancer, Lovett said. The American Cancer Society agrees that thermography is not a substitute for mammography.

Data and conclusions presented at meetings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

More information

For more on breast imaging, visit the American Cancer Society

Be sure to listen to Medical Rewind with Dr. Rashid Buttar and Robert Scott Bell as they discuss the article below in detail.   www.medicalrewind.com   Listen to the Monday, May 7th show.    

FIND OUT THE TRUTH!!!   LISTEN TO MEDICAL REWIND!!!

Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire is tapping into emergency funds to help contain a whooping cough epidemic spreading throughout the state.

The $90,000 in crisis cash will be used to boost vaccination awareness.

“These actions will help state and local health leaders get vaccine into people’s arms so we can stem the tide,” Gregoire said Thursday in a statement.

Washington has seen more than 1,130 cases of whooping cough this year, up from 117 cases in the same stretch last year.

“I’ve been following the epidemic closely and the continued increase in cases has me very concerned about the health of our residents. I’m especially concerned about the vulnerable babies in our communities that are too young to be fully immunized,” Gregoire said.

Whooping cough is unofficial for pertussis, a contagious bacterial infection that causes uncontrollable coughing interrupted by whooping gasps for air. The infection is preventable with the dTap vaccine, a series of five shots that boost immunity against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

The first dose of dTap is given two months after birth, making infants particularly vulnerable to whooping cough from unvaccinated adults. About 75 percent of newborns who come down with whooping cough catch it from a family member, studies found.

“Pertussis is very serious, especially for babies. It’s vital that teens and adults are current on their immunizations because they’re often the ones who give whooping cough to babies,” state Secretary of Health Mary Selecky said in a statement.

The state Department of Health has pledged an additional $210,000 to the vaccine awareness effort.

“In my 13 years as secretary, this is the first time I’ve had to use the word ‘epidemic’ about disease in our state,” Selecky said. “We’re headed for unprecedented numbers of cases. We’ve got to keep spreading the word to help prevent the spread of illness.”

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has approved the redirection of federal funds designated for other immunizations to buy more than 27,000 doses of pertussis vaccine for adults who are uninsured or underinsured, Gregoire said.

The topics discussed on Monday’s Medical Rewind were:

• Ron Paul Campaign Update
• Federal Trade Commission Labeling Mandates
• Is the government telling us that diseases are gone but are just renaming the diseases?
• Washington state emergency! Whooping Cough is on the rise! What does the governor decide to do?
• Natural options for Whooping Cough.
• AHEAD Program update
• Scientists claim that mammography is better than thermography. There they go again, defending radiating breast tissue in the hopes of detecting that which they are causing…

Join Dr. Buttar and Robert Scott Bell every Monday at 2pm EST for Medical Rewind

What did they look at for their study? Folic acid, Vitamin D and Calcium. Explains a lot.    FIND OUT THE TRUTH!!!   LISTEN TO MEDICAL REWIND!!!

Government regulators and the scientific community should work to ensure that they give clear guidance to the public about dietary supplements and cancer risk, according to a commentary published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Evidence from animal, in vitro and observational studies has suggested that taking dietary supplements may lower cancer risk. However, the small number of randomized controlled studies, the gold standard in evidence-based medicine, has not confirmed this – and some studies have actually shown that supplements may increase cancer risk. Still, the supplement industry is booming, with estimated annual sales at $30 billion in the U.S.

To examine the potential role of dietary supplements and cancer risk, Maria Elena Martinez, Ph.D., of the University of California San Diego Moores Cancer Center and colleagues, looked at observational studies of several supplements, including anti-oxidants, folic acid, vitamin D, and calcium. Several observational studies found that diets high in fruits and vegetables were associated with lower risk of certain cancers, including respiratory and gastrointestinal. Specifically, with respect to anti-oxidant supplements, the authors found that: “The importance of oxidative stress for carcinogenesis does not establish that the administration of supplemental antioxidants will protect against the carcinogenesis that oxidative stress may induce.” Furthermore, they write, “Supplementation by exogenous antioxidants may well be a two-edged sword; these compounds could, in vivo, serve as pro-oxidants or interfere with any of a number of protective processes such as apoptosis induction.” Indeed, several antioxidant trials the researchers examined reported increased cancer risks with supplementation. They looked at trials with supplements using folic acid, vitamin D and calcium, among other compounds.

The researchers caution against taking dietary supplements for cancer prevention, adding that many expert committees and organizations have concluded that nutritional supplements have little or no benefit in cancer prevention. They say that more randomized control trials – spanning many years instead of just a few – are needed to verify the effect of nutritional supplementation in cancer risk.

Meanwhile, people continue to take supplements, spurred by manufacturers’ suggestions that supplements are healthy at best and harmless at worst. Furthermore, believers in supplements assume that they are well regulated, the authors write. “These beliefs underscore the need for efforts by scientists and government officials to encourage the public to make prudent decisions based on sound evidence with respect to use of dietary supplements for cancer prevention.”

Source:  www.medicalnewstoday.com 

Not only are doctors being advised to reject chelation therapy—they’re being asked to report on their colleagues who practice it.

The American College of Medical Toxicology held a conference at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) this past February about the “use and misuse” of chelation therapy—a misleading title suggesting some semblance of scientific objectivity, which was nowhere in evidence. The conference was more like a Salem witch hunt in which chelators played the role of the accused witches and warlocks.

Why is chelation so threatening to mainstream medicine? There is no disputing that heavy metals are extremely toxic. The human body is engineered to remove small amounts daily, but not the large amounts we often pick up from modern sources. One of those sources has of course been vaccines, which have used mercury as a preservative (it is still used in the US flu shot). Another source has been dental “silver” amalgam, which also contains mercury. This may be part of the reason for the hostility to chelation.

How does the therapy work? One method involves injecting into the patient’s bloodstream organic chemicals, which can bind and remove the heavy metals in the bloodstream (metals which are toxic to humans and interfere with various physiological functions). There are also oral or suppository supplements for chelation, and some foods are natural chelators (e.g., cilantro and chlorella).

Chelation therapy has been used by many physicians and administered to thousands of patients since 1952. An informal survey of our readers revealed that body detoxification—whether through chelation, or through sauna or special dietary methods—is among their top ten most popular integrative therapies. The National Institutes of Health is currently studying EDTA chelation for cardiovascular disease in the TACT trial. (EDTA is used for lead and other heavy metals but not for Mercury. Other chelators are used for that.) Many people have doubted whether a US government agency could be expected to produce a fair evaluation. The jury is still out on that.

Doctors attending the conference received continuing education credits for attending and hearing all the chelation-bashing. Various topics seemed designed to highlight the dangers of chelation—while attempting to dismiss the benefits.

A look at the PowerPoint slides (available as PDFs downloadable from the conference’s website) reveal the following:

• No hard data was presented on the supposed public health dangers of chelation—only three anecdotal case studies. Hardly a “scientific” analysis.
• The speakers were biased—they made no attempt to represent or provide information from doctors who actually administer chelation therapy to their patients.
• Their main basis for dismissing chelation therapy is the way lab results are interpreted. This detail, however, does not address any of the effects of the therapy itself.
• The conference targets two “advocacy sites” for spreading “misinformation”: the American College for the Advancement of Medicine (ACAM), and the American Academy of Anti-aging Medicine (A4M)—both of which are respected organizations that represent integrative doctors. ACAM offers training and certification in chelation therapy.

Equally revealing is who else was represented at the conference, either as attendees or as panelists: the FDA and the Federation of State Medical Boards!

In the FDA’s session (“Unapproved Chelation Products Available Over the Internet”), the agency tried to conflate unapproved chelation products with the supposed dangers of dietary supplements. But “unapproved” chelation products are already illegal, and FDA is already empowered to enforce against them. Moreover, these products have nothing to do with the regulatory status of dietary supplements.

The FDA has the power to regulate interstate commerce of drugs and devices, and has used that power to clamp down on the sale of chelation products. In 2008 the agency released a Public Health Advisory on EDTA—simply because inattentive hospital personnel mixed up the medications being administered! In 2010, the FDA ordered eight companies to stop marketing over-the-counter chelation products. Our sources told us FDA was aware that many integrative doctors were doing heart-related chelation, and hoped that by blocking one particular form of EDTA, these doctors might be put out of business.

The presence of the Federation of State Medical Boards (a private organization largely controlled by the AMA) is especially troubling, as they could take this misinformation, adopt anti-chelation policies in each state, and target doctors who practice chelation therapy. In Kentucky, for example, doctors cannot discuss chelation therapy with their patients lest they face revocation of their license. Indeed, almost all Kentucky physicians who use alternative therapies have been either forced out of state or forced to desist from using alternative therapies, especially chelation therapy, because it “departs from prevailing practice in the State of Kentucky.” This is all too common, to one degree or another, in most states.

As the central federal agency for providing information on disease and public health issues, the CDC (which led a session as well as hosting the event) is in a key position to spread bias and misinformation on chelation.

We were also told that “Quackbuster” Stephen Barrett was a key participant. The Quackbusters are a group of self-proclaimed skeptics of any medical or health modality that avoids drugs, surgery, or radiation; they attack almost all nonconventional healthcare practices as quackery—regardless of the scientific research to the contrary. Two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling is on their quack hit list, along with many well-known and respected doctors and scientists, including Deepak Chopra, Andrew Weil, and dozens of others. The Quackbusters run over seventy websites, so millions of people are exposed to their propaganda.

Unfortunately, integrative physicians who practice chelation therapy fear being vocal about it lest they be targeted by their state medical boards. Let us be clear: chelation is in no way a “public health danger.” If you want a real public health danger, you need look no further than many parts of conventional medicine. Gary Null points out that mainstream medicine kills nearly 800,000 people every year through physician mistakes, hospital-related illnesses, and reactions to FDA-approved medications. That’s the equivalent of six jumbo jets falling out of the sky each day, and more than the number of American casualties in the Civil War and World War I combined.

Source:  www.anh-usa.org 

 “An editorial published in the prestigious journal Environmental Health Perspectives calls for increased research to identify possible environmental causes of autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders in America’s children and presents a list of ten target chemicals including which are considered highly likely to contribute to these conditions.”

Philip Landrigan, MD, MSc, a leader in children’s environmental health and Director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center (CEHC) at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, co-authored the editorial, entitled “A Research Strategy to Discover the Environmental Causes of Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disabilities,” along with Luca Lambertini, PhD, MPH, MSc, Assistant Professor of Preventive Medicine at Mount Sinai and Linda Birnbaum, Director of the National Institute OF Environmental Health Sciences.

The editorial was published alongside four other papers — each suggesting a link between toxic chemicals and autism. Both the editorial and the papers originated at a conference hosted by CEHC in December 2010.

The National Academy of Sciences reports that 3 percent of all neurobehavioral disorders in children, such as autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), are caused by toxic exposures in the environment and that another 25 percent are caused by interactions between environmental factors and genetics. But the precise environmental causes are not yet known. While genetic research has demonstrated that ASD and certain other neurodevelopmental disorders have a strong hereditary component, many believe that environmental causes may also play a role — and Mount Sinai is leading an effort to understand the role of these toxins in a condition that now affects between 400,000 and 600,000 of the 4 million children born in the United States each year.

“A large number of the chemicals in widest use have not undergone even minimal assessment of potential toxicity and this is of great concern,” says Dr. Landrigan. “Knowledge of environmental causes of neurodevelopmental disorders is critically important because they are potentially preventable.”

CEHC developed the list of ten chemicals found in consumer products that are suspected to contribute to autism and learning disabilities to guide a research strategy to discover potentially preventable environmental causes. The top ten chemicals are:

1. Lead

2. Methylmercury

3. PCBs

4. Organophosphate pesticides

5. Organochlorine pesticides

6. Endocrine disruptors

7. Automotive exhaust

8. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons

9. Brominated flame retardants

10. Perfluorinated compounds

In addition to the editorial, the other four papers also call for increased research to identify the possible environmental causes of autism in America’s children. The first paper, written by a team at the University of Wisconsin — Milwaukee, found preliminary evidence linking smoking during pregnancy to Asperger’s disorder and other forms of high-functioning autism. Two papers, written by researchers at the University of California — Davis, show that PCBs disrupt early brain development. The final paper, also by a team at UC — Davis, suggests further exploring the link between pesticide exposure and autism.

The topics discussed on Monday’s Medical Rewind were:

• Cancer Conference in Texas recap
• How emotional issues affect Cancer
• The Top 10 environmental causes of autism and learning disabilities – Where is ethyl mercury on the list?
• Removing Heavy Metals from the Body Is It “Dangerous”?  Find out the Truth!

Join Dr. Buttar and Robert Scott Bell every Monday at 2pm EST for Medical Rewind

Given the duration of these wars and the length and frequency of deployments, when compared with other wars, perhaps such high rates of PTSD are not so surprising. Prolonged exposure to a perilous and uncertain combat environment might make trauma common.

But there is another factor that might be playing a role in the increasing rates of the disorder, one that has escaped attention: the military’s use of stimulant medications, like Ritalin and Adderall, in our troops.

There has been a significant increase in the use of stimulant medication. Documents that I obtained in late 2010 through the Freedom of Information Act, and have recently analyzed, show that annual spending on stimulants jumped to $39 million in 2010 from $7.5 million in 2001 — more than a fivefold increase. Additional data provided by Tricare Management Activity, the arm of the Department of Defense that manages health care services for the military, reveals that the number of Ritalin and Adderall prescriptions written for active-duty service members increased by nearly 1,000 percent in five years, to 32,000 from 3,000.

Stimulants are widely used in the civilian population to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder because they increase focus and attention. Short of an unlikely epidemic of that disorder among our soldiers, the military almost certainly uses the stimulants to help fatigued and sleep-deprived troops stay alert and awake. (A spokesman for Tricare attributed the sharp rise to “the increased recognition and diagnosis of A.D.H.D. by medical providers.” However, while there is greater recognition of the disorder, the diagnoses are concentrated in children and adolescents.)

Stimulants do much more than keep troops awake. They can also strengthen learning. By causing the direct release of norepinephrine — a close chemical relative of adrenaline — in the brain, stimulants facilitate memory formation. Not surprisingly, emotionally arousing experiences — both positive and negative — also cause a surge of norepinephrine, which helps to create vivid, long-lasting memories. That’s why we tend to remember events that stir our feelings and learn best when we are a little anxious.

Since PTSD is basically a pathological form of learning known as fear conditioning, stimulants could plausibly increase the risk of getting the disorder.

The role of norepinephrine in the enhancement of memory was demonstrated in an elegant experiment led by Larry Cahill at the University of California, Irvine. He randomly gave a group of subjects either propranolol, a drug that blocks the effect of norepinephrine, or a placebo just before they heard one of two stories: an emotionally arousing one or a neutral one. He then tested their memory of the stories a week later and found that propranolol selectively impaired recall of the emotionally arousing story but not the neutral story. The clear implication of this study is that emotion raises norepinephrine, which then enhances memory. Block norepinephrine and you can impair emotional memory. With PTSD, a shocking combat situation elicits a hard-wired fear response — the flight-or-fight reaction — with intense emotional arousal and a surge of norepinephrine in the brain. This burns in the memory of the traumatic experience. It also promotes fear conditioning, a form of learning in which previously neutral stimuli in the environment — sights, sounds and smells, for example — become linked with a trauma. So, for a soldier injured in a bomb blast, anything like the sound of an explosion or the odor of burning is now a potent conditioned stimulus that can evoke the trauma and trigger symptoms of PTSD, like a flashback or startle reaction.

Because norepinephrine enhances emotional memory, a soldier taking a stimulant medication, which releases norepinephrine in the brain, could be at higher risk of becoming fear-conditioned and getting PTSD in the setting of trauma.

This possibility is supported by both animal and human studies. In rats, tiny injections of norepinephrine into the amygdala, a region of the brain that encodes fear, can enhance fear conditioning. And Marieke Soeter at the University of Amsterdam recently conducted an experiment in which college students were shown a picture paired with a small electric shock. Before viewing the pictures, subjects were randomly given yohimbine, a drug that releases norepinephrine in the brain, or a placebo. When students were tested 48 hours later, those who had received yohimbine had greater fear-associated learning and had a harder time “unlearning” the fear — when presented with the picture in the absence of a shock — than those students who had taken the placebo.

The study implies that soldiers exposed to elevated norepinephrine levels from taking stimulants are also at risk of relapse when re-exposed to the initial stressor. And because the treatment of PTSD involves unlearning fear responses, soldiers exposed to stimulants during trauma could well be more resistant to treatment.

And in fact, blocking the effects of norepinephrine with beta blockers can stop fear-conditioning and possibly even prevent post-traumatic stress disorder.

Roger Pittman, a psychiatrist at Harvard Medical School, led a small study in 2002 in which he randomly assigned emergency-room patients to either the beta blocker propranolol or a placebo within six hours of their experiencing a traumatic event. After one month, subjects who took the propranolol had significantly fewer symptoms of PTSD than subjects who took the placebo.

Does all of this prove that stimulants promote the development of post-traumatic stress disorder?

No. Because two things are correlated doesn’t mean there is a causal link. There are other factors that might play an important role, like incurring a traumatic brain injury, which is a known risk factor for the disorder, and growing steadily during these wars.

Still, it is an open question whether the use of stimulants in combat does more good than harm. The next step should be a rigorous epidemiologic study of a possible link between stimulants and PTSD in our troops.

Source:  NewYorkTime.com

We hope that you take the time to thank the members of the House Agriculture Committee for their hard work on the bill. (you can see a list and find their contact information here.)

Since the public hearing, the Committee has been working on the bill to make sure that it addressed the many reasons why people have a right to know what they are eating. Unfortunately, before passing the bill, the committee added a “trigger clause” that would not allow the bill to go into effect until 365 days after a similar bill is passed by California, as well as two states in the Northeast.

The bill will now move to the House Judiciary Committee, where it will be examined before it can reach the floor. It is not likely that the Judiciary Committee will have time to consider the bill, because the legislative session is slated to end in less than two weeks.