Potent Honey Used as Antibiotic

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose. After all the supposed progress science made in the twentieth century by developing antibiotics, it turns out that a 4,000-year-old remedy may be just as effective.

Amid growing concern over drug-resistant superbugs and nonhealing wounds that endanger diabetes patients, nature's original antibiotic — honey — is making a comeback.

More than 4,000 years after Egyptians began applying honey to wounds, Derma Sciences Inc., a New Jersey company that makes medicated and other advanced wound care products, began selling the first honey-based dressing this fall after it was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Read more

High Intensity Interval Training for Cardio and Fat Loss

Is it possible that low-intensity aerobics for "fat-burning" is finally going the way of the dodo bird? More and more trainers are recommending intensity over volume as the key to fitness and fat loss. One of the best ways to up the intensity of your workout is with interval training. Nick Nilsson explains what interval training is and how to do it.

Without question, High Intensity Interval Training is one of the most effective means available for rapidly losing bodyfat and improving your cardiovascular conditioning. Not only do you burn many more calories while you're performing the training, you also stimulate your metabolism to a far greater degree than with lower intensity training, which is traditionally hailed for fat loss. Read more

Medical Myths Exposed as Untrue

"What gets us into trouble is not what we don't know. It's what we know for sure that just ain't so."--Mark Twain

Unfortunately, for those who worship at the feet of "experts," experts can be wrong. For example, medical professionals are not that less likely to believe medical myths than ordinary people are.

Some claim drinking eight glasses of water a day leads to good health, while reading in dim light damages eyesight.

Others believe we only use 10% of our brains or that shaving legs causes hair to grow back thicker.

But a review of evidence by US researchers surrounding seven commonly-hold beliefs suggests they are actually "medical myths". Read more

Don't accept the opinion of experts as the last word on a subject. Do your own research and make your own judgments.

Burning Calories through Exercise Harder Than You Think

Many people hope to burn enough calories through exercise so that they don't have to change their eating habits. However, burning calories through exercise is harder than you think.

THE Spinning class at our local gym was winding down. People were wiping off their bikes, gathering their towels and water bottles, and walking out the door when a woman shouted to the instructor, “How many calories did we burn?”

“About 900,” the instructor replied.

My husband and I rolled our eyes. We looked around the room. Most people had hardly broken a sweat. I did a quick calculation in my head.

We were cycling for 45 minutes. Suppose someone was running and that the rule of thumb, 100 calories a mile, was correct.

To burn 900 calories, we would have had to work as hard as someone who ran a five-minute mile for the entire distance of nine miles. Read more

The only people who could burn significant calories through exercise are people who are already lean and fit. Otherwise, to lose weight, you're going to have to modify your diet.

The 20 Worst Foods in America

Men's Health reveals its list of the worst foods in America. How many do you eat?

Sure, a turkey burger sounds healthy. But is it, really? Not if you order the Bella from Ruby Tuesday, which packs a whopping 1,145 calories. (And yes, that's before a side of fries.)

To further enlighten you on the prevalence of preposterous portions, we spent months analyzing menus, nutrition labels, and ingredient lists to identify the food industry's worst offenders. Our primary criterion? Sheer caloric impact. After all, it's the top cause of weight gain and the health problems that accompany it. (As you read, keep in mind that 2,500 calories a day is a reasonable intake for the average guy.) We also factored in other key nutritional data, such as excessive carbohydrates and fat, added sugars, trans fats, and sodium. The result is our first annual list of the worst foods in America.

Eat at your own risk. Read more

20 Minute Dumbbell Workout

This video presents a full-body dumbbell workout that you can follow along with.

Did the Smallpox Vaccine Actually Eradicate Smallpox?

With governments herding children like cattle to be vaccinated at gunpoint, you would think that the effectiveness of mandatory vaccination was an indisputable fact, but is it?

The first vaccine mandated by governments was the small pox vaccine. Today, you’ll hear any number of medical professionals refer to the vaccine as proof of Western military medicine’s superiority over any other discipline. The World Health Organization proclaims proudly to anyone who will listen that the vaccine has eradicated smallpox (yet for a disease "indistinguishable from smallpox," apply the same vaccine used to protect against smallpox).

However, the record of mandatory vaccination is mixed at best.

For instance, one of the most stunning antidotes to the idea that smallpox was eradicated due to mandatory vaccination is the Japanese example. The practice of "revaccination" was prevalent there (and in the British Navy) until their vaccination rate exceeded 100%! In spite of this, Japan faced huge smallpox epidemics. All told, the Japanese lost 48,000 people to smallpox, most of them vaccinated at least once. When the government stopped the mandatory vaccinations, the epidemics were finally arrested. Were the smallpox vaccination truly effective as a prophylactic, such an example could not exist. Unfortunately, there are dozens just like it all over the world.

In 1904, the U.S. Army decided to forcibly vaccinate the Philippine population ostensibly to improve health conditions but more likely intended to protect military personnel. They touted its success when in the following two years smallpox appeared to be under control. However, from 1917 to 1919, in a population of 11 million that had a reported 100% vaccination rate, smallpox epidemics claimed over 70,000 lives out of 163,000 reported infections.

By contrast, Australia, from 1900 to 1915, which never instituted a mandatory vaccine program, reported 3 deaths due to smallpox over the entire period. Read more

Real World Fitness Cuts Stroke Risk

If you can perform ordinary daily activities, such as climbing stairs, carrying groceries, and kneeling and bending, your stroke risk may be 50% of those who can't perform those activities.

... New research shows that men and women over 40 who can climb stairs, carry groceries, kneel, bend, and lift may be 50% less likely to suffer a stroke than those who can't do those things.

That news, published in Neurology, comes from a study of some 13,600 adults in the U.K.

The study started in 1993. Back then, participants were 40-79 years old; none had a history of stroke, heart attack, or cancer.

Participants got their height, weight, and blood pressure checked. They also reported their history of smoking and later rated their ability to climb stairs, carry groceries, bend, kneel, and lift. Read more

What the study doesn't prove is if that there is a cause and effect relationship between strength and lower risk of stroke, but why wait for the study results to come in? The correlation between functional fitness and lower stroke risk has been demonstrated. That ought to motivate you to keep up your strength training, however much or little you do.

Why and How to Measure Your Bodyfat Percentage

The body mass index (BMI) seems to be the preferred method for determining obesity for health professionals, but in my opinion, the BMI is probably the worst way possible to decide whether someone is overweight. For one thing, it makes no distinction between being muscular or overfat for one thing. Most collegiate and professional football players would be considered obese according to their BMI. Nor does it does it distinguish between someone who is lean and muscular and someone who is skinny because of little muscle mass but who still carries too much fat. There is a much better method than the BMI.

Your body fat percentage is one of the best indicators of your fitness and nutrition program. Many people weigh themselves and judge their results on the bathroom scale. However there is one major problem with using the scale to determine your progress.

The best way to illustrate this is by using an example. Let's say you have been working out for a month now. You initially weighed 160 pounds. You weigh yourself this morning and you are 157 pounds. Your cannot believe that you've only lost three pounds! You become frustrated and want to give up.

The scale shows that you lost three pounds, but it does not tell you if you lost fat or muscle. Testing your body fat percentage will tell you how much fat you lost and how much muscle you've gained. You see even though the scale says you lost three pounds, you could have lost 8 pounds of fat and gained 5 pounds of muscle. That would equal a net loss of 3 pounds.

As a trainer, I always test my clients body fat percentage. There are three main ways to measure body fat. They are calipers, bio-impedance devices and hydrostatic testing. Hydrostatic testing can be done at universities or hospitals, but tend to be more expensive than most people are willing to pay for a body fat test. Read more

Chocolate, Sex, and Cold Meat Good for the Brain

Good news on the anti-aging front: dark chocolate, sex, and cold meat for breakfast are good for the brain.

Forget crosswords. If you really want to boost your brain power, eat dark chocolate, consume cold meat and have plenty of sex, if possible everyday.

A team of international researchers has carried out a study and found that while dark chocolate and plenty of cold meat for breakfast boost grey matter, sex keeps the brain fit in later life, the Daily Mail reported here on Monday.

According to the study, those wishing to improve their mental ability should also avoid smoking cannabis, watching soap operas and hanging out with those who moan. Instead, cuddling a baby, cheating at homework, reading out loud and doing a business degree can boost their mind power. Read more

Natural Homemade Hair Loss Tips

Rogaine, Procerin, and other pharmaceuticals are advertised as treatments for hair loss. Even if these treatments do work for you (and there is no guarantee that they will), you're going to be spending $500 a year at least for the rest of your life for these drugs. Wouldn't it be worthwhile to give natural hair loss treatments a trial before spending a lot of money on medications that may or may not work?

Natural homemade hairloss tips explained here includes herbal remedies and herbal treatments. It is a natural way to stop hairloss. Naturals are safe. As it is homemade it is profitable also.

The reasons for hairloss may varry from physical to mendal. Hair loss causes and natural home-made tips to remedies. Read more

How to Make Your Bodyweight Workout More Challenging

Most trainers know how to make a weight training workout more challenging: add more weight or reps. Since you can't or don't want to add more bodyweight, is adding more reps the only way to make a bodyweight workout more challenging? Not at all. There are several variables that you can adjust to keep progressing.

We recently received a note from a few folks looking to make their bodyweight workouts more challenging. It seems that what they are currently doing just isn't getting it done so today I will go into a few techniques on how to do so.

You see, the nature of progressive resistance training is just that -- progression -- you must keep progressing for it to work and if it isnt "challenging enough" simply pick a variable and build from there. Read more

Milk Thistle Herb Has Anti-Cancer Benefits

The milk thistle herb has long been used to protect the liver from the effects of alcohol. A recent study demonstrated that milk thistle also has anti-cancer benefits.

Recently, scientists demonstrated the anti-cancer effects of silibinin, a major biologically active compound of milk thistle. Being widely used as a folk remedy for liver diseases, milk thistle is safe and well-tolerated, and it protects the liver from drug or alcohol-related injury. Silibinin is highly purified from milk thistle, with a defined chemical structure and molecular weight (C₂₅H₂₂O₁₀, MW: 482.44).

The study was carried out by Dr. Ke-Qin Hu and his research team at the University of California, Irvine. Dr. Hu is a well-experienced research scientist and physician in the field of hepatology. He has published over 70 scientific articles in various medical professional journals. Many of his scientific research publications are focused on viral hepatitis B and C, cirrhosis, and liver cancer, all of which have significantly contributed to our better understanding of common liver diseases.

Dr. Hu and his colleagues' discovery of silibilin's anti-liver cancer effects was recently published.*

The researchers found that silibilin can significantly reduce the growth of several human hepatoma cell lines. In addition, they demonstrated that silibinin mediates anti-liver cancer effects by: Read more

Beating Colds and Flu the Natural Way

The best time to treat a cold or the flu is before you have it. Prevention is always easier than cure. It is possible to effectively ease the pain and discomfort of colds and flu naturally.

The purpose of my ten-page article, Beating Colds & Flu: The Natural Way is to educate about effective natural offenses and defenses that can be implemented before and during cold and flu season.

When implementing the preventative measures that I outline, chances of contracting cold and flu become minimal. I have found through clinical practice that the faster a person implements preventative measures, the better the chance of escaping an episode with the flu and/or cold.

By following the suggestions in Beating Colds & Flu: The Natural Way, you will be educating yourself on how to prepare, prevent and treat colds and flu, in a safe, natural manner--all from the comfort of your own home. Read more

Aging: Walking Faster and Outpacing Death

Researchers report that people who walk faster can outpace death, and faster walking appears to not only be a predictor, but also a prescription.

Researchers who followed the health of nearly 500 older people for almost a decade found that those who walked more quickly were less likely to die over the course of the study.

The findings, the researchers said, suggest that gait speed may be a good predictor of long-term survival, even in people who otherwise appear basically healthy. The study was presented at a conference of the Gerontological Society of America.

In a related study, appearing in the November issue of The Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, the researchers also found that people whose walking speed improved reduced their risk of death. Read more

Cannabis Compound Halts Cancer

A compound found in cannabis may stop brain cancer and breast cancer from spreading throughout the body.

The California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute team are hopeful that cannabidiol or CBD could be a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy.

[...]

Maria Leadbeater of Breast Cancer Care said: "Many people experience side-effects while having chemotherapy, such as nausea and an increased risk of infection, which can take both a physical and emotional toll.

"Any drug that has fewer side-effects will, of course, be of great interest." Read more

Cannabis is turning out to be the aspirin of the 21st century--a wonder drug capable of alleviating a wide variety of ailments.

Herbs and Diet Treat Hair Loss

Hair loss is a problem that afflicts a majority of men eventually. If you decide to do something about it, are pharmaceuticals, surgery, or hairpieces the only solutions? Not necessarily.

Did you know that some instances of hair loss are triggered and further aggravated by unhealthy dietary habits? Why, treating hair loss, do we habitually choose to use expensive medications, such as Rogaine or Minoxidil, or turn to surgical procedures like hair transplants, without considering natural solutions? Read more

Marijuana Is GOOD for Children

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann interviews a pediatrician from the University of Southern California who explains how medical cannabis can be used to treat ADD in children.

300 Training Method at Home

This 300 Workout is a full body circuit for people who want to keep it simple. All that is required is an inexpensive pull-up bar.

6-Year-Old Olga Does 15 Pull-ups

Olga does 10 pull-ups a day at the age of 6. This video shows shows her trying her best for the camera. If her performance shames you, check out my article Double Your Pull-ups in Six Weeks or Less.

Forget Gyms: Do Dumbbell Workouts at Home

For people who claim they have no time to exercise, having to go to a gym for their workout just adds another excuse for not exercising regularly. Having a set of dumbbells at home, on the other hand, makes strength training quick and convenient.

If you are really looking for a way to get fit without having to fork out large sums of cash for a gym membership or fancy exercise equipment then why not get yourself a good set of dumbbells instead. There are lots of different exercises that you can incorporate in to your dumbbell workouts that will help to tone up every part of your body and not just your arms as so many people think they do. Read more

Why Diet Sodas Are Fattening: The Cephalic Fat Spiral

Leading fitness experts, such as Matt Furey and Art De Vany, have long claimed that diet sodas were fattening even though they have no calories. Now science shows why they were right:

For as long as humans have lived on Earth, they have been eating foods that taste sweet, such as sugar cane and honey.

So, the brain has a conditioned response in reaction to eating something sweet.

It is called the Cephalic Phase Insulin Response (CPIR), and it’s responsible for the fat-storing effects of diet beverages, including diet sodas, diet tea, coffee, energy drinks, sports drinks, and flavored waters. Read more

Overtraining and Sudden Death

The recent death of top distance runner Ryan Shay during the U.S. men's Olympic marathon trials thrust the issue of sudden death in fit, highly trained athletes back into the news. Art De Vany attempts to find what the causes are, and how common it actually is.

I have searched for a good source on sudden death in athletes for some time now. Finally, I found an excellent one put up by the Minneapolis Heart Institute Foundation Sudden Death in Athletes.

The most common cause is Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM). That large, slow-beating "athletic" heart may kill you. So can alcohol, energy drinks, and steroids. Which activity is most dangerous? You may see why I play tennis now. Weight lifting didn't make the grade, but competitive lifting is such a small sport. In part, the sports with the most participation rank highest. Read more

Should You Be Concerned about H5N1 Bird Flu?

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace in a continual state of alarm (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing them with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
--H.L. Mencken

Since President Bush issued a directive allowing authorities to detain or isolate any passenger suspected of having avian flu when arriving in the United States aboard an international flight, does that mean you should add H5N1 bird flu to your list of concerns, or is it just more hype to justify increasing government power?

With all the hype surrounding the supposed detection of H5N1 bird flu in East Anglia (UK), you'd be forgiven for wondering how this affects you and what you should do about it.

Perhaps a little history would help.

First of all, where do you think H5N1 was first discovered?

Secondly, when do you think that was?

Did you answer "Asia", "China", "Korea", "Vietnam" or something similar?

And did you think it was first identified in 2004? How about 2005? or even 2006?

If you did, you'd be amongst the majority of the World's population, whose sole source of "information" is the box in the corner and whatever BBC / CNN / NBC / Whoever else decides is the news today. All (with the exception of BBC) owned by major conglomerates and multinationals who have corporate agendas to follow (have you seen the move "The Corporation"? If not, you should (the link will take you directly to where you can download it - it is FREE!) these organisations work hard to protect their owners from exposure. When you understand that the major food poducers are owned by virtually the same people, you might start to get a bit of the picture. Factor in the ownership of the major pharmaceutical companies that are racing each other to produce the first commercial "vaccine" or "treatment" for H5N1 and you are getting closer still. Read more

Natural Cures for Acid Reflux

Acid relux is either a very common or very profitable disease, judging by the plethora of TV commercials touting pharmaceuticals to treat it. Is there any alternative to turning over your hard-earned cash to Big Pharma?

There are quite a few natural cures for acid reflux but the best way to mitigate its affects is to eat a balanced diet that helps restrict the over production of gastric acids. If you suffer from acid reflux then you will come to know which foods tend to aggravate the condition so you can avoid those. Other things to avoid include fatty food, certain spices, caffeine and citrus fruits as these can cause episodes of acid reflux. Smoking has also been shown to increase the chances of acid reflux.

The known natural cures for acid reflux all have one thing in common. They calm the stomach and its production of gastric acids. Read more

Is Creatine For You?

Why is creatine such a big deal? Because creatine works. Lifters know this, professors know this, and the marketers who sell the stuff know this.But what are the side effects? Risks? Here's what you need to know about this muscle-building supplement before you put it into your body.

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Criminalizing Natural Health, Vitamins, and Herbs

(Part 1 of 4) Dr. Rima Laibow, M.D., speaks about a movement to place nutritional supplements under the control of the FDA and pharmaceutical industry. If this outrages you, contact your congressional representative and tell them you don't like "Docket: 2006D-0480" or ANY plans to have the FDA and drug companies controlling your nutritional supplements.

Top 10 Ways to Sleep Smarter and Better

There are lots of ways out there to beat insomnia, increase the quality of your sleep, and master the power nap. Lifehacker gives its top 10 favorite sleep techniques, tips and facts.

read more | digg story

Protecting the Aging Brain

The most effective technique for slowing the decline of the aging brain seems to be physical exercise. Exercise is known both to boost mood and maintain the blood supply network to the brain, both of which are known to be crucial to mental functioning.

Physical exercise is the best-proven prescription so far, the scientists agreed. Memory improved when 72-year-olds started a walking program three days a week, and sophisticated scans showed their brains' activity patterns started resembling those of younger people. Read more

Exercise is not just good for your muscles and your heart, but also for your brain.

My New Squidoo Lens: Bodyweight Exercise Workouts

Check out my new Squidoo lens Bodyweight Exercise Workouts. It has YouTube videos, articles, and links to bodyweight exercise information. Go to http://squidoo.com/bodyweightexercise.

The War on Drugs Is Over; Drugs Won: The Failure of Drug Prohibition

"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes at the very principles upon which our government was founded."- Abraham Lincoln

As Abraham Lincoln predicted, alcohol prohibition in the 1920s turned the cause of temperance into a national joke. Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume. Crime increased and became "organized." The court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point, and corruption of public officials was rampant. The only thing that Prohibition reduced was respect for the law.

Drug prohibition has not stopped the making, selling, buying, or using of recreational substances any more than alcohol prohibition in the 1920s reduced the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Federal, state, and local governments have spent hundreds of billions of dollars trying to make America “drug-free" and incarcerated nearly half a million people on drug charges--more than all of western Europe (with a bigger population) incarcerates for all offenses. Yet heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, and other illegal drugs are as widely available as ever, particularly to young people.

The side effects of the moralistic War on Drugs have been a disaster. Many of the problems that drug prohibition purports to resolve are, in fact, caused by prohibition itself. Drug prohibition helps drug dealers and drug lords make higher profits in the illegal drug black market because prohibition enforcement drives prices up. Illegal drugs are much more expensive than they would be if they were legal since the products themselves are either common plants-- cannabis (marijuana), poppies (heroin), coca (cocaine)--or the cheap pharmaceuticals and "precursors" used, for example, in the manufacture of methamphetamine.

Drug prohibition itself also causes most so-called “drug-related” crime. Drug violence is seldom caused by the drugs themselves, but rather by the criminal way in which drugs are sold. Nearly all drug-related murders involve one drug dealer shooting another. Just as Al Capone’s gang killed other bootleggers, drug dealers are violent because they have to be. How else can you run an illegal cash business with no police protection or recourse to the courts?

Leaving aside the failure of drug prohibition to accomplish its purported purpose, the worst aspect of the War on Drugs is its responsibility for a dramatic erosion of our basic freedoms and rights. Nearly every medium to large city now operates a paramilitary-style police unit that specializes in drug raids on homes. The standard of evidence necessary to obtain a warrant for such a raid is often nothing more than the word of an informant compelled to cooperate for his or her self-interest. Most of the techniques now used in the "War on Terror" were first developed for use in the Drug War. Warrantless searches, seizure of property upon arrest, wide-ranging wiretaps, and the general erosion of the assumption of innocence are all the result of the War on Drugs.

America was founded upon the ideals of freedom and individual liberty. The founding fathers envisioned a government that stayed out of the private lives of its citizens unless a citizen's action posed a danger to the welfare of his neighbor. Though government has a right and duty to protect us from harm by others, it should not interfere in bad decision making that puts no one else at risk. The very notion of protecting citizens from themselves is nothing more that the imposition of a religious moral code on everyone, regardless of his or her own beliefs. In this country, adults should be free to make choices that others disapprove of so long as the consequences of those decisions do not pose a direct or potential risk to the welfare of others.

Prohibition only creates crime and related social harms. This was the case with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, and it is the case now with drug prohibition. The War on Drugs has become a war on families, a war on public health, and a war on our constitutional rights. It only took our ancestors about 15 years to realize that alcohol prohibition was a failure and end it. After more than 30 years, the time has now come for contemporary Americans to end drug prohibition and regulate drugs just as we do alcohol and tobacco.

Stretching before Exercise May Be a Waste of Time

If you're trying to prevent muscle aches and stiffness, stretching before exercise may be a waste of time (and so is stretching afterwards), according to to a new study.

The elaborate limbering up routines favored by many athletes and gym-goers do little to prevent muscle aches and stiffness, researchers found.

Stretching muscles after exercise may be equally pointless, they say.

[...]

Dr Polly McGuigan, an expert in exercise and sport at Bath University, agreed there was no evidence that stretching muscles did any good before exercising 'In fact there is some evidence 'It could even do harm'

'There is no really good explanation out there for why stretching could reduce post-exercise aches and injuries, or improve performance. Read more

I couldn't agree more, especially on stretching before exercise, which reduces muscle power.

Merck HPV Vaccine Push Shot Down

Good news for freedom of choice and parental rights.

In the face of a growing parental backlash and amid new reports of adverse reactions to the new HPV vaccine, in a dramatic turnaround, the drug giant Merck has announced it will halt a coordinated multi-state lobbying push to have the HPV vaccine mandated for 11-12 year old girls. The vaccine requires three doses and is very expensive at a cost of about $400. The HPV vaccine campaign has been dubbed “Help Pay for Vioxx” by critics alarmed at the heavy hand of Merck in the push to mandate the vaccine across the country.

The quiet lobbying campaign hit the headlines when Texas Gov. Rick Perry issued an unprecedented executive order requiring all Texas girls entering the sixth grade the vaccine Gardasil by 2008. The order has resulted in a backlash from parents and legislators.

About 20 states are considering measures to mandate that girls have the vaccine to attend school, but none has passed so far.

The change by Merck comes as a new report of dangerous reactions to the vaccine was released by the National Vaccine Information Center. The report details several types of reported reactions. According to the report, adverse reactions are growing with 385 adverse event reports made for the vaccine with two-thirds of those having a reaction requiring additional medical care. The reports are most likely the tip of the ice berg because reporting adverse vaccine reactions is voluntary. Studies have estimated that as few as 1-in-10 adverse vaccine reactions are actually reported.
Read more

Like so much government regulation, this was corporate welfare, disguised, in this case, as disease prevention. Apparently though, mandating an unproven vaccine for a disease which can't be spread by casual contact was a little too much for even the normally docile, gullible American public.

By the way, authoritarian Texas Governor Rick Perry, who is also pushing the NAFTA Superhighway which will run through his state, is announcing is support today for, who else, Rudy Giuliani.

10 Embarrassingly Obvious Health Studies

Some health studies discover new information that we can use to stay healthy. These 10 studies do not. In fact, when you read the conclusions of these studies, you just have to say to yourself, "Duh! No kidding?"

Scientists are rational. They’re logical. They’re smart. That’s what makes all that science so readily believable, right? These folks are experts, and so we listen. But sometimes we run across a study that makes us wonder, “Why did anyone study that? It’s obvious.”

Among the earthshaking revelations we learn from these studies are that cigarettes cost money, cocaine and alcohol aren't good for your brain, and people are easier to recognize when they're close than when they're far away. To read more results of health studies which discovered what you already knew, click here.

Diet and Fat: A Scientific Consensus Gone Wrong

Everybody "knows" that fat is bad for you, just as they "know" that global warming is caused by human activity. The problem is that fat isn't bad for you, despite the fact that in the 1970s 92 percent of the world's leading doctors claimed it was. In 1988 Surgeon General C. Everett Koop even claimed that, “The depth of the science base underlying its [his report's] findings is even more impressive than that for tobacco and health in 1964.”

It may seem bizarre that a surgeon general could go so wrong. After all, wasn’t it his job to express the scientific consensus? But that was the problem. Dr. Koop was expressing the consensus. He, like the architects of the federal “food pyramid” telling Americans what to eat, went wrong by listening to everyone else. He was caught in what social scientists call a cascade.We like to think that people improve their judgment by putting their minds together, and sometimes they do. The studio audience at “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire” usually votes for the right answer. But suppose, instead of the audience members voting silently in unison, they voted out loud one after another. And suppose the first person gets it wrong.

If the second person isn’t sure of the answer, he’s liable to go along with the first person’s guess. By then, even if the third person suspects another answer is right, she’s more liable to go along just because she assumes the first two together know more than she does. Thus begins an “informational cascade” as one person after another assumes that the rest can’t all be wrong.

Because of this effect, groups are surprisingly prone to reach mistaken conclusions even when most of the people started out knowing better, according to the economists Sushil Bikhchandani, David Hirshleifer and Ivo Welch. If, say, 60 percent of a group’s members have been given information pointing them to the right answer (while the rest have information pointing to the wrong answer), there is still about a one-in-three chance that the group will cascade to a mistaken consensus. Read more

When the global warmers try to stampede the public with threats, intimidation, and claims that the science is "settled" into give them to power to control society, we need to remember that consensus can be wrong, particularly when it's arrived at publicly.

Is There an Anti-Acne Diet After All?

For years, teenagers were told that eating certain foods would make their acne worse. More recently they've been told that was wrong. Diet doesn't affect acne; it's all hormones. Now it turns out that diet can alleviate the condition.

A research team, led by Associate Professor Neil Mann from RMIT University’s School of Applied Sciences, has discovered a solid link between acne and diet.
"We think we've come across a way to alter your diet in a very healthy way that will alleviate the symptoms of acne and at the same time will make you a lot healthier," Associate Professor Mann said.

The study recruited 50 boys and divided them into two groups. One group consumed a typical teen diet of sugary snacks and processed foods, while the other group followed a more natural diet higher in protein and with low-glycemic index foods such as whole grain bread, pasta, and legumes. The study showed impressive results in just 12 weeks.

"The acne of the boys on the higher protein-low GI diet improved dramatically, by more than 50 per cent, which is more than what you see with topical acne solutions," said Associate Professor Mann. Read more

The traditional advice to avoid certain foods was partly right. Sweets, which have a high-glycemic index, were one category of foods that acne sufferers were told to avoid. Greasy foods, another prohibited category, apparently don't have any effect on the severity of acne though.

Folk medicine usually has generations of anecdotal evidence behind it. Though it may not be completely right, and the explanation of why it works may be partly or completely wrong, researchers would be wise to consider and test folk remedies rather than dismissing them out-of-hand as "old wives' tales."

300 Spartan Workout Training. Superset Style 8

Here are the rules for 300 Spartan Workout version 8: Perform one set from A1 and then one set of A2, rest for 45 sec, then repeat until you did 2 sets of each. Don't rest between these sets. For example, perform Staggered Push followed by Decline Press without any break in between this set.


300 Spartan Workout Training. Superset Style 8 - The funniest home videos are here