Repeal of ban on bare-hand contact with food OK'd

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California's chefs and bartenders can resume legally handling food with their bare hands under a bill headed to the governor's desk that would repeal an unpopular regulation.

The bill, AB2130, passed its final legislative hurdle Thursday with a 32-0 vote in the state Senate.

A law signed by Gov. Jerry Brown last year requires restaurant employees to use gloves or utensils to handle food going straight to diners' plates, from the rice in a sushi roll to the mint in a mojito. The prohibition, in place in 41 other states, has long been recommended by regulators to curb the spread of food-borne illness.

The original legislation attracted no opposition from lobbying groups or chain restaurants because the no-hands approach is a national norm. But independent and high-end chefs and bartenders who weren't familiar with the regulation in other states said they were caught off-guard by the new rule coming to California. They said the ban disrupts well-established hand-washing routines, generates unnecessary waste of disposable gloves and restricts them in their craft.

Sen. Kevin De Leon, D-Los Angeles, told lawmakers on Thursday that the ban would not have been approved had their concerns been raised earlier.

Assemblyman Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, introduced AB2130 to repeal the law he originally authored as part of an update to the state food code. Pan, who is chairman of the health committee and a pediatrician, said it became apparent that local health inspectors were more stringent in granting exceptions than lawmakers intended.

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FILE - In this March 12, 2014 file photo, Luis Escamilla puts on gloves before cutting prosciutto at …

Inspectors are not supposed to start slapping eateries with fines for bare-hand contact until July 1, which is when the bill would take effect. The governor's office didn't say if Brown supports the legislation.

Pan said he's not abandoning the regulation altogether. He wants to revisit the prohibition, but make it more flexible to meet the concerns of restaurateurs.

"It's not about whether you wear gloves or not," Pan said in an interview with The Associated Press. "It's about how clean the surfaces (touching food) are. We need to have the conversation go back to, 'This is about food safety.' "

Elsewhere in the U.S., Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, South Carolina and Wyoming encourage minimal contact but do not ban bare-hand contact outright. Tennessee is implementing its ban next year.

Chefs and bartenders in the remaining states that do have an outright prohibition on touching said they have found ways around it or learned to adjust.

"It just becomes common practice that you don't touch food as much," said Ravin Patel, a Sacramento chef who moved from New York in 2009. "When the health inspector comes, you slap on a bunch of gloves."

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that workers touching food provided the most common transmission pathway for food-originated norovirus outbreaks between 2001 and 2008, the most recent comprehensive review of data available.

Source:AP

The Social Psychology of Nerve Cells

UCSB researchers explore the genetic underpinnings of nerve-cell spacing

The functional organization of the central nervous system depends upon a precise architecture and connectivity of distinct types of neurons. Multiple cell types are present within any brain structure, but the rules governing their positioning, and the molecular mechanisms mediating those rules, have been relatively unexplored.

A new study by UC Santa Barbara researchers demonstrates that a particular neuron, the cholinergic amacrine cell, creates a “personal space” in much the same way that people distance themselves from one another in an elevator. In addition, the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that this feature is heritable and identifies a genetic contributor to it, pituitary tumor-transforming gene 1(Pttg1).  

Patrick Keeley, a postdoctoral scholar in Benjamin Reese’s laboratory at UCSB’s Neuroscience Research Institute, has been using the retina as a model system for exploring such principles of developmental neurobiology. The retina is ideal because this portion of the central nervous system lends itself to such spatial analysis. 

“Populations of neurons in the retina are laid out in single strata within this layered structure, lending themselves to accurate quantitation and statistical analysis,” explained Keeley. “Rather than being distributed as regular lattices of nerve cells, populations in the retina appear to abide by a simple rule, that of minimizing proximity to other cells of the same type. We would like to understand how such populations create and maintain such spacing behavior.”

To address this, Keeley and colleagues quantified the regularity in the population of a particular type of amacrine cell in the mouse retina. They did so in 26 genetically distinct strains of mice and found that every strain exhibited this same self-spacing behavior but that some strains did so more efficiently than others. Amacrine cells are retinal interneurons that form connections between other neurons and regulate bipolar cell output.

“The regularity in the patterning of these amacrine cells showed little variation within each strain, while showing conspicuous variation between the strains, indicating a heritable component to this trait,” said Keeley.

“This itself was something of a surprise, given that the patterning in such populations has an apparently stochastic quality to it,” said Reese, a professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. Stochastic systems are random and are analyzed, at least in part, using probability theory.

This strain variation in the regularity of this cellular patterning showed a significant linkage to a location in the genome on chromosome 11, where the researchers identified Pttg1, previously unknown to play any role in the retina.

Working in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis, Keeley’s team demonstrated that the expression of this gene varies across the 26 strains of mice and that there was a positive correlation between gene expression and regularity. They then identified a mutation in this gene that itself correlated with expression levels and with regularity. Working with colleagues at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the team also demonstrated directly that this mutation controlled gene expression.   

“Pttg1 has diverse functions, being an oncogene for pituitary tumors, and is known to have regulatory functions orchestrating gene expression elsewhere in the body,” explained Keeley. “Within this class of retinal neurons, it should be regulating the way in which cells integrate signals from their immediate neighbors, translating that information to position the cell farthest from those neighbors.” Future studies should decipher the genetic network controlled by Pttg1 that mediates such nerve-cell spacing.

Keeley, who completed his bachelor of science degree in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, went on to complete his Ph.D. in the Department of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology, both at UCSB. Each program has provided complementary training for his research interests. He acquired an appreciation for behavioral and systems neuroscience during his undergraduate training, then turned his attention to the molecular and genetic underpinnings of the nervous system.

 Courtesy:Julie Cohen

Source:UCSB 

Scientists Discover That Fasting Triggers Stem Cell Regeneration & Fights Cancer

A number of ancient health practices are proving to be effective in multiple ways. We recently posted an article about meditation, and how neuroscience can now explain what happens to the brain when we meditate. Now, scientists have discovered the first evidence of a natural intervention triggering stem cell-based regeneration of an organ or system. The study was published in the June 5 issue of Cell Stem Cell by researchers from the University of Southern California. The research shows that cycles of prolonged fasting protect against immune system damage and induce immune system regeneration. They concluded that fasting shifts stem cells from a dormant state to a state of self-renewal. (1)

Human clinical trials were conducted using patients who were receiving chemotherapy. For long periods of time, patients did not eat which significantly lowered their white blood cell counts. In mice, fasting cycles “flipped a regenerative switch, changing the signalling pathways for hematopoietic stem cells, which are responsible for the generation of blood and immune systems.”  (1)

“We could not predict that prolonged fasting would have such a remarkable effect in promoting stem cell-based regeneration of the heatopoietic system. When you starve, the system tries to save energy, and one of the things it can do to save energy is to recycle a lot of the immune cells that are not needed, especially those that may be damaged.  What we started noticing in both our human work and animal work is that the white blood cell count goes down with prolonged fasting. Then when you re-feed, the blood cells come back. ” - Valter Longo, corresponding author. (1)

Again, because fasting significantly lowers white blood cell counts, this triggers stem cell-based regeneration of new immune system cells.  More importantly, it reduces the PKA enzyme, which has been linked to aging, tumour progression and cancer.(1) It’s also noteworthy to mention that fasting protected against toxicity in a pilot clinical trial where patients fasted for 72 hours prior to chemotherapy.

“Chemotherapy causes significant collateral damage to the immune system. The results of this study suggest that fasting may mitigate some of the harmful effects of chemotherapy.” Co-Author Tanya Dorff   (1)

Fasting is a tradition that’s been incorporated into many ancient cultures, from Vedic to Buddhist and more, fasting should not be confused with starvation. It’s the process of restrain and control from the sensorial experience of eating and at the same time making sure you are doing it correctly. When I fast, I usually do water fasts and I have been doing them for almost eight years now and I always feel great and full of energy after doing so.

More Research

1. Fasting helps protect against brain disease:

Researchers at the National Institute on Aging in Baltimore have found evidence that fasting for one or two days a week can prevent the effects of Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease. Research also found that cutting the daily intake to 500 calories a day for two days out of the seven can show clear beneficial effects for the brain.

2. Fasting cuts your risk of heart disease and diabetes:

Regularly going a day without food reduces your risk of heart disease and diabetes. Studies show that fasting releases a significant surge in human growth hormone, which is associated with speeding up metabolism and burning off fat. Shedding fat is known to cut the risk of heart disease and diabetes. Doctors are even starting to consider fasting as a treatment.

3. Fasting effectively treats cancer in human cells:

A study from the scientific journal of aging found that cancer patients who included fasting into their therapy perceived fewer side effects from chemotherapy. All tests conducted so far show that fasting improves survival, slow tumor growth and limit the spread of tumors. The National Institute on Aging has also studied one type of breast cancer in detail to further understand the effects of fasting on cancer. As a result of fasting, the cancer cells tried to make new proteins and took other steps to keep growing and dividing. As a result of these steps, which in turn led to a number of other steps, damaging free radical molecules were created which broke down the cancer cells own DNA and caused their destruction! It’s cellular suicide, the cancer cell is trying to replace all of the stuff missing in the bloodstream that it needs to survive after a period of fasting, but can’t. In turn, it tries to create them and this leads to its own destruction

Again, make sure you do your research before trying this out. Hopefully this can kickstart you further into looking into it if you are truly interested.

 y

Sources:

(1) https://news.usc.edu/63669/fasting-triggers-stem-cell-regeneration-of-damaged-old-immune-system/

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=new-year-new-understanding

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120208152254.htm

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1373164/Regular-fasting-lower-risk-heart-disease-diabetes.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/feb/18/fasting-protect-brain-diseases-scientists

http://www.nia.nih.gov/newsroom/announcements/2011/07/study-finds-fasting-may-help-reduce-negative-side-effects

Altruism: An Ancient Cure For Our Modern World

The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others (opposed to egoism.)

Altruism or selflessness is the principle or practice of concern for the welfare of others. It is a traditional virtue in many cultures and a core aspect of various religious traditions and secular worldviews, though the concept of “others” toward whom concern should be directed can vary among cultures and religions. Altruism or selflessness is the opposite of selfishness.

Altruism is a word that is seldom heard of these days, if at all practiced. The modern world places demands on people that makes us as individuals very self-concerned with our own struggles, dreams and fulfillment without much thought for those of us who around or those who unfortunately have less. How often have you passed by a homeless person with no thought or care for their plight? Or even worse judging them for their predicament? Are you aware of the conditions that led to their demise? Maybe their all-to-human story would perhaps expose you to an ugly truth.

That there are legitimate humanitarian concerns would be intellectually acknowledged by most people. Issues like mental health disorders, drug addictions, sexual abuse and extreme poverty lead people to being homeless. These issues are issues that present homelessness as a victimization of individuals opposed to exclusively the personal failings of individuals. When presented in these terms as basic health problems or poverty, we see that they should be aided by government not hindered, marginalized or victimized.

 “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of creative altruism or in the darkness of destructive selfishness”.              Martin Luther King

 

Altruism isn’t just and issue for individuals but also for governments also. How many of the world’s government’s worry excessively about immigration into their country? Most immigrants only want for a better world to live in, a chance to raise their families in peace without threat of war, crippling poverty, disease and starvation.Yet these people are vilified for wanting to try and live the kind of life that we take for granted. Historically most citizens of the world have emigrated from one place to another in hope of a better life… yet this lesson in world history seems to have escaped the world we now live in.

Charity is a start and there are many ways that we all have given or suffered in the name of charity. But is it charitable to do deeds to raise money for a fantastic cause if there is some kind of self-benefit? How charitable is that act? Some may argue this point and say that charity despite the motivation is a worthwhile act and I would agree to a point… If there never was any benefit to anyone in carrying out acts of charity, would any causes be championed? What if your religious/political views prevent you from helping people who desperately need your kind of help? No matter where it comes from or what motivates that help. At that point self-indulgent charitable acts breakdown and Apathy’s dark spectre creeps into your soul.

 “Most men have always wanted as much as they could get; and possession has always blunted the fine edge of their altruism”  -Katharine Elizabeth Fullerton Gerould

Did you know pure altruistic acts of random kindness are a powerfully effective tool for elevating consciousness by re-establishing our inherent connection with each other and ultimately with ourselves? In the act of loving kindness and compassion you are passing on the message of hope and unity to all mankind through your selflessness and compassion. Like a bush wildfire your compassion for other’s acts as a tempest on the flames of understanding spreading the message of hope and loving kindness. In doing so you are sowing the seeds of empathy and altruism in the mind of the recipient.

 

So, let’s push things forward, next time you pass a homeless person or someone just needing help pause for a thought. If the roles were reversed would you expect a degree of human kindness? What about the basic necessities to survive? Do you really need that change in your pocket? Do you have some spare time to help somebody make their lives a little easier? Think carefully as to why your doing this.

Foster a kind heart and a gentle soul ,really feel and empathize the compassion and love that dwells within each and every one of us and most importantly lets consciously, collectively evolve !!

 “Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity. It is an act of justice. It is the protection of a fundamental human right, the right to dignity and a decent life…” -Nelson Mandela

 http://www.makepovertyhistory.org/takeaction/

http://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/the-medicine-of-altruism

httpvolution://www.randomactsofkindness.org/kindness-ideas

Source:Collective Evolution

Oz Researchers Develop New Test to Trace Food-Borne Illness to Source

Researchers at University of Melbourne may have found a new way to make it easier for public health investigators to find out whether a case of food poisoning is an isolated incident or part of a larger outbreak, a new study published in the Journal of Bacteriology reveals.
 

The study focuses on a test called multi-locus variable number tandem repeats variable analysis (MLVA). The test, which is increasingly used in the detection and investigation of foodborne outbreaks, analyzes specific sequences of DNA (called loci) that change rapidly enough over time to distinguish outbreak strains from other circulating strains of the bacteria but not so rapidly that connections could be masked by changes arising during the course of an outbreak. 

However, the rates at which MLVA profiles change have not been directly investigated for Salmonella, and thus it is sometimes unclear how these profiles should be interpreted in the context of outbreak detection and investigation. 

In the study, the investigators grew an isolate of Salmonella Typhimurium from an Australian food poisoning outbreak, and observed changes in its MLVA profile during more than 28,000 generations of growth in the laboratory. Then, using the same bacterial lineage, they observed changes in MLVA profile during 500 days of growth in mice. 

They estimated the rates of copy number change at each of the five loci that are commonly used for S. Typhimurium MLVA. Three of the loci saw changes in the DNA, but two did not. Based on these results, the researchers are recommending that isolates with zero or one variation in the three rapidly changing loci but no differences in the other two should be considered part of the same cluster. 

They also noted that the relative rates of change among the loci were the same in the Petri dish studies and in the mouse study. 

"This tells us we don't need to worry about where the bacteria were isolated from—humans or food," says Kathryn Holt, an author on the study. 

MLVA is used for investigations of food-borne illnesses besides Salmonella, including Listeria, and E. coli. It is the primary method for investigations of Salmonella outbreaks in Europe, the UK, Australia, and elsewhere, says Holt. 

"In the U.S., the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention uses another technique called PFGE for initial investigations and follows that with MLVA," she says. 

Source:University of Melbourne

Physical Fitness Level Affects Kidney Function in Type 2 Diabetes: Study

A new study finds type 2 diabetes adults who improve their physical fitness lower their chances of getting chronic kidney disease (CKD).

 Health care providers have long known that exercise has a beneficial impact on overall health and wellness in both the general public and people with Type 2 diabetes. This study, though, demonstrated the benefit of improved physical fitness on a common complication of diabetes—CKD—which in some people can lead to kidney failure and death. 

"It is essential for individuals with Type 2 diabetes to improve their physical fitness because it can improve kidney deterioration and reduce mortality," said the study's lead investigator, Shruti Gandhi, MD, an endocrinologist at Washington DC Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. 

The study had two parts. In the first part, the researchers looked at data for 2,007 patients (primarily men) with Type 2 diabetes who had normal kidney function when they completed an exercise stress test at the VA hospital in Washington, D.C. They had an average age of 61.Their fitness level, or peak exercise capacity, was scored using the number of metabolic equivalents (METs) they achieved during the test, which increases with exercise intensity. Patients who achieved less than 5.5 METs were classified as least fit; 5.5 to 7.5 METS, as low fit; 7.6 to 9.5 METS, as moderately fit; and more than 9.5 METs, as highly fit. 

During the follow-up period, which averaged seven years, 572 patients developed CKD or died of any cause. Because there were not enough data for separate analysis, the researchers combined cases of CKD and deaths, Gandhi explained. 

Their data analysis showed that the combined death rate and progression to CKD was much lower with an increased level of fitness. Compared with the least fit patients, the highly fit patients had a 68 percent lower combined CKD-death rate, and the moderately fit had a 51 percent lower rate of progression to CKD and death. Even the low-fit group had a 41 percent lower rate than that of the least fit, according to Gandhi. 

In the second part of the study, the researchers assessed the effect of a 12-week supervised exercise program on kidney function in 67 patients with Type 2 diabetes. The program combined aerobic exercise and resistance for at least 30 minutes twice a week. Patients could exercise at home on their own, and approximately 50 percent exercised on one more day, Gandhi said. Before and after the program, the patients had a test of their kidney function, the estimated glomerular filtration rate, or eGFR. 

After completing the exercise program, 15 individuals whose initial eGFR indicated stage 3 CKD, or moderate kidney damage, improved their exercise capacity from an average of 7.2 METS to nearly 8.6 METS, Gandhi reported. Their eGFR level decreased after the program, with 53 percent of patients improving their CKD to stage 2, indicating mildly reduced kidney function. 

Gandhi said 60 to 90 minutes of exercise weekly "is not a burdensome amount. Our study, while small, provides hope to patients with progressive kidney disease that there is something they can do to improve their kidney function and perhaps prevent or delay the need for dialysis." 
 Source: Washington DC Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. 

These Popular Antibiotics Are Prescribed To Millions Every Year & They Have Detrimental Effects. Everyone Needs To Be Aware Of This

It’s Worse Than You Know

In a May, 2014 letter to the U.S. Senate, Doctor Jay S. Cohen said of fluoroquinolones, “In my 40+ years in pharmacovigilance, FQs (fluoroquinolones) surpass Vioxx and Thalidomide in the degree of permanent harm done.”  Let that sink in for a bit.

Fluoroquinolones – cipro/ciprofloxacin, levaquin/levofloxacin, avelox/moxifloxacin and floxin/ofloxacin – drugs that are seen as simple antibiotics (though they do severe cellular harm and are more appropriate for use as chemotherapy drugs), that are prescribed more than 20 million times per year in the U.S. alone – are doing more harm than Vioxx – a drug that led to more than 140,000 American heart attacks, and Thalidomide – a drug that has caused birth-defects and deaths of thousands of children world-wide.

Vioxx has been removed from the market, and the use of Thalidomide is severely restricted.  Fluoroquinolones, on the other hand, are prescribed with abandon, despite the fact that hundreds of studies have shown that they do severe cellular damage and thousands of patients have filed reports with the FDA noting that a variety of severe health problems have been experienced after taking a fluoroquinolone.

Transgenerational Side-Effects

I have argued that fluoroquinolones have transgenerational ill effects and that children are suffering because of the epigenetic effects of fluoroquinolones (HERE and HERE).  I have never hoped to be wrong about anything more than my assertions that fluoroquinolones are related to autism, but the possibility exists – because we really don’t know what the transgenerational effects of microbiome destruction and depletion of mitochondrial DNA are – and fluoroquinolones do, indeed, both obliterate the microbiome and deplete the only non-redundant form of DNA that we have – mitochondrial DNA.  (1)

Direct Damage Done by Fluoroquinolones

There are certainly plenty of direct victims of fluoroquinolones, even if indirect/transgenerational effects are not considered.  As Doctor Cohen noted, the degree of permanent harm done by them is horrifying.  Fluoroquinolones destroy musculoskeletal tissue (tendons, cartilage, bone, muscle, etc.) throughout the body (2), damage the nervous systems (central, peripheral and autonomic), and more.  Fluoroquinolone toxicity syndrome mimics autoimmune diseases (including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, Sjögren’s syndrome, etc.), fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome / M.E., autonomic nervous system diseases (like POTS), leaky gut syndrome and even psychiatric disorders like bipolar disorder and severe depression.

If someone with some resources would do a proper epidemiological study that takes the tolerance thresholds for fluoroquinolones (people typically don’t react to their first dose – they only react once their threshold for mitochondrial damage is crossed) and delayed reactions (the “vicious cycle” of mitochondrial damage and oxidative stress makes it so that damage is accelerated as time goes on – and thus delayed severe reactions are common) into account, perhaps the connection would be made between fluoroquinolones – drugs that not only deplete mitochondrial DNA but also destroy the microbiome and lead to adverse gene expression – and the chronic “mysterious” diseases that have been on the rise since the introduction of cipro on the market by Bayer in 1983. (Of course, fluoroquinolones are not the only cause of these diseases – fluoroquinolones are just one category of pharmaceuticals that damage mitochondria and lead to oxidative stress.  Other pharmaceuticals do the same.  But the harm done by fluoroquinolones specifically and pharmaceuticals generally, and the role that they play in these diseases, is horribly under-recognized.)

When the Cellular Damage Done is Realized

Once people realize that a pharmaceutical, a popular antibiotic no less, has done damage to their mitochondrial DNA, and has led to harm in them and their children, I hope that all of the top executives at Bayer (makers of cipro and avelox) and Johnson & Johnson (makers of levaquin) are put on trial.  Causing people to be chronically ill is bad enough – but people seem to let pharmaceutical companies off the hook when they do it.  Damaging our DNA – DNA that has been adapted and perfected over billions of years – is trial-worthy.

When the top Bayer and J&J executives and scientists are confronted about the damage that their drugs did, they will likely say that they didn’t know – they had no idea that their “antibiotics” (they’re chemo drugs) were so harmful.

This is what should be said to them in return -

“What did you think was going to happen? What did you think would happen in a person’s body when the DNA of the bacteria in their microbiome was unraveled? (3)  

What did you think would happen when their mitochondrial DNA was depleted?  Did it not occur to you that mitochondria are ancient bacterium and that when you interfere with the replication process for bacterial DNA, you do the same thing to mitochondrial DNA? (4)

What did you think would happen when your drugs depleted magnesium and iron from a patient’s cells? (5 6) 

What did you think would happen when you killed all of the good bacteria in a patient’s gut?  What did you think would happen when your drugs triggered a massive amount of oxidative stress to be inflicted in your patient’s body? (7 8 9)

What did you think would happen when you depleted all of their antioxidants? (10)

 What did you think would happen when your drugs caused chromosomal aberrations in immune system cells? (11)

What did you think would happen when you gave chemo drugs to your patients who have a simple infection, not cancer? (12)

Did you think that it wouldn’t damage them?  Or did you know that fluoroquinolones would do severe cellular damage, but you just didn’t care?  Did you mistake a tolerance threshold for mitochondrial damage (13) for safety?  Or did you know that these were the perfect drugs – chemo drugs disguised as antibiotics that induce chronic, multi-symptom illness – and that with these drugs you could make customers for life?”

Willful Ignorance

At best, the top executives and scientists at Bayer and Johnson & Johnson didn’t think.  They didn’t consider the fact that fluoroquinolones are topoisomerase inhibitors – and that they work by dismantling and adducting to DNA – as opposed to disrupting cell walls like innocuous antibiotics such as penicillin or cephalosporins.  If one is to give them far more credit than they deserve, maybe there is the possibility that they didn’t make the connections.  Maybe they didn’t notice that many of the chronic diseases of modernity that fluoroquinolone toxicity mimics – fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, irritable bowel syndrome, etc. – have gone up along with the use of fluoroquinolones (and other mitochondria damaging drugs).  Maybe they let denial of mitochondrial damage, delayed reactions and tolerance thresholdsprotect their precious egos and shareholders.  But neither denial nor willful ignorance are legitimate excuses.  They never have been, and they never will be.  The top executives and scientists at Bayer and J&J, along with those at the FDA, should have known how dangerous and damaging fluoroquinolones are.

The Connections

The connection is not difficult to make.  Pharmaceuticals damage mitochondria (they’re vulnerable little organelles that also happen to be quite important).  Damaged mitochondria produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) which is also known as oxidative stress.  ROS / oxidative stress is associated with (by “associated with” I mean causes, but shhhh, you can’t say that while being scientific) every single chronic disease there is – including, but not limited to; Alzheimer’s (14) , Parkinson’s (15), chronic fatigue syndrome / M.E. (16), fibromyalgia (17), Gulf War Syndrome (18), autism (19), many psychiatric diseases (20), etc.  Of course, the details of how pharmaceuticals damage mitochondria and how oxidative stress leads to those diseases is incredibly complicated, but the top scientists and executives at Bayer and J&J, and the “regulators” at the FDA, should be smart enough to read the source documents listed below and to know that the drugs that they produce/approve are dangerous.

After all, it was stated in 1992 that:

“the interaction (of fluoroquinolones) with DNA is still of great concern because of the possible long-term genotoxicity of quinolone compounds, which are increasingly adopted as first-choice antibiotics for the treatment of many infections, and because it addresses the real mechanism of action of this class of molecules.” (5)

Paying attention to how pharmaceuticals interact with DNA is probably a good idea.

Many pharmaceuticals damage mitochondria.  Not all of them interrupt the production of enzymes that are vital for the replication and transcription of DNA though.  Fluoroquiolones do.  They also form poisonous metabolites (thanks carboxylic acid molecule!) (21) and leach all of the magnesium (22) and iron out of cells.  It’s not exactly fun to go through. Fluoroquinolones are damaging people – on a cellular level – severely – and because of delayed reactions, tolerance thresholds and ignorance of everyone in the medical system, victims have no idea what hit them.

People are Sick – Pharma Companies Should be Held Responsible for Their Role

People are sick. They are chronically ill and are suffering.  Neither doctors nor anyone in the pharmaceutical industry have any idea how to put them back together again.  Doctors have no idea how to help those suffering from Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome or any other chronic “mysterious” disease. They don’t even know how to administer the correct tests to give them an accurate diagnosis.  So they blame the patients – for their diet or lifestyle or pain. But the patients are not to blame.  The drugs are to blame.

The people who make, sell, and fail to regulate these drugs are to blame.  They should be held accountable.

A Brilliant TED Talk About Willful Blindness -

Numbered sources:

1. Molecular Pharmacology, “Delayed Cytotocicity and Cleavage of Mitochondrial DNA in Ciprofloxacin Treated Mammalian Cells”
2. Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (PM & R) “Musculoskeletal Complications of Fluoroquinolones: Guidelines and Precautions for Usage in the Athletic Population”
3. Mechanisms in Medicine, video, “Fluoroquinolones: Mechanisms of Action and Resistance”
4. PNAS, “Origin of mitochondria in relation to evolutionary history of eukaryotic alanyl-tRNA synthetase”
5. PNAS, Biochemistry, “Quinolone Binding to DNA Mediated by Magnesium Ions”
6. Turkish Journal of Hemotology, “Ciprofloxacin: A Novel Therapeutic Agent for Iron Overload?”
7. Science Translational Medicine, “Bactericidal Antibiotics Induce Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Oxidative Damage in Mammalian Cells”
8. Journal of Young Pharmacists, “Oxidative Stress Induced by Fluoroquinolones on Treatment for Complicated Urinary Tract Infections in Indian Patients”
9. Chemistry and Biology, “Trovofloxacin, a Fluoroquinolone Antibiotic with Hepototoxic Potential, Causes Mitochondrial Peroxinitrate Stress in a Mouse Model of Underlying Mitochondrial Dysfunction”
10. Molecular Neurobiology, “The Glutathione System: A New Drug Target in Neuroimmune Disorders.”
11. Nepal Medical College Journal, “Genotoxic and cytotoxic effects of antibacterial drug, ciprofloxacin, on human lymphocytes in vitro”
12. Current Medicinal Chemistry, “Recent Advances in the Discovery and Development of Quinolones and Analogs as Antitumor Agents”
13. Molecular Interventions, “Mechanisms of Pathogenesis in Drug Hepatoxicity Putting the Stress on Mitochondria”
14. Free Radical Biology and Medicine, “Oxidative Stress Hypothesis in Alzheimer’s Disease”
15. Neuroscience Bulletin, “Pathogenesis of Parkinson’s disease: oxidative stress, environmental impact factors and inflammatory processes”
16. International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, “Chronic fatigue syndrome and mitochondrial dysfunction”
17. Muscle & Nerve, “Mitochondrial myopathy mimicking fibromyalgia syndrome.”
18. Nature Preceedings, “Oxidative Stress and Mitochondrial Injury in Chronic Multisymptom Conditions: From Gulf War Illness to Autism Spectrum Disorder”
19. Frontiers in Physiology, “Evidence linking oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and inflammation in the brain of individuals with autism”
20. Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity, “Lipid Peroxidation in Psychiatric Illness: Overview of Clinical Evidence”
21. Expert opinion on Drug Metabolism & Toxicology, “Metabolic activation of carboxylic acids.”
22. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, “Magnesium deficiency induces joint cartilage lesions in juvenile rats which are identical to quinolone-induced arthropathy.”

More Information:  Information about Fluoroquinolones and Fluoroquinolone Toxicity Syndrome can be found on the author’s web sites, www.floxiehope.com and www.fqwallofpain.com.

Unhealthy Diets are Threatening Global Health: WHO

WHO Director-General Margaret Chan expressed her concern about the rising incidence of childhood obesity worldwide and announced the formation of a high-level Commission on Ending Childhood Obesity. Speaking on the eve of the Geneva event summit, the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier De Schutter, observed that "Unhealthy diets are now a greater threat to global health than tobacco. Just as the world came together to regulate the risks of tobacco, a bold framework convention on adequate diets must now be agreed."

 An estimated 65% of the world's population lives in countries where obesity leads to more deaths than underweight. In 2012, over 40 million children under the age of five were considered overweight or obese, 30 million of who were living in developing countries. Around 3.4 million adults die each year as a result of being overweight or obese. In addition, 44% of the diabetes burden, 23% of the ischaemic heart disease burden and between 7% and 41% of certain cancer burdens are attributable to overweight and obesity. 

In developing countries with emerging economies, economic development has resulted in unhealthy dietary habits and sedentary lifestyles fanning the flames of rising obesity and related illnesses. Thus, while many low- and middle-income countries continue to deal with the problems of infectious disease and under-nutrition, they are also is drawing global attention to a rapid upsurge in non-communicable disease risk factors of obesity and overweight. 

Urging governments to move fast to tax harmful food products, he called for a new global agreement to regulate unhealthy diets to address the obesity epidemic.

  Dr Anoop Misra, Chairman, Fortis-C-DOC (Centre of Excellence for Diabetes, Metabolic Diseases and Endocrinology, and Director, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases), Diabetes Foundation, India echoed similar sentiments in an interview given exclusively to CNS. He said that while health hazards of tobacco or alcohol are very much in black and white, in case of several food items there is a grey area as to what (or how much of it) qualifies to be unhealthy. But, "There are certain food items which are totally unhealthy—like anything cooked in trans- fat oil (what we call vanaspati oil in India) is extremely unhealthy. Another unhealthy food is sugar. If less than 5% of the total optimum caloric intake comes from sugar, it should be okay. But if sugar contributes to 10-15% of total calories taken, then it is a health risk and excess sugar intake effects are now being compared to those of alcohol. Excess sugar intake is directly linked to insulin resistance and is an independent risk factor for many diseases, including diabetes which in turn can lead to many ailments. 

Although sugar substitutes are safe when taken in moderation they do not make one metabolically healthy. They will cause as much of obesity as sugar will cause." Trans fats (or partially hydrogenated oils) are made by adding hydrogen to liquid vegetable oils and are solid at room temperature. Trans fats give food a desirable taste and texture, are easy to use, cheap to produce and have a long shelf life. Hence they are a very popular choice of the food industry. However, they also raise the bad (LDL) cholesterol levels and lower the good (HDL) cholesterol levels in our bodies.  

Eating trans fats increases risk of developing fatty liver, hypertension, heart disease and stroke and is also associated with a higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Some countries have already put restrictions on the use of trans fat and saturated fat oils.
 
WHAT IS THE WAY OUT? 

In Dr Misra's opinion, "We have to educate people to make informed choices—tell them what is bad and what is good for their wellbeing. Whereas it might be difficult to put a blanket ban on unhealthy food, some restrictions can surely be put in place. Legal and regulatory issues should be clearly outlined (and implemented) for the food industry. Regulations on oil and sweetened carbonated beverages must be drawn. 

It should at least be legally binding on established food industries to refrain from producing/selling food cooked in trans fat oils. So to begin with, they can at least make healthier snacks like chips, biscuits, pizzas, bakery items etc than what they are making right now. Of course it would be more difficult to rein in the roadside vendors in India, all of who use vanaspati oil. While regulations on use of trans fat oils should be made mandatory for hotel/restaurant/eatery industry, but, more importantly, there should be firm restrictions on marketing of trans-fat oils for cooking. The Health Ministry of India is very proactively working on the issue of trans-fat oils."
 
According to the WHO the food industry can play a significant role in promoting healthy diets by: reducing the fat, sugar and salt content of processed foods; and ensuring the availability of healthy and nutritious food choices that are affordable to all consumers.
 
Dr Misra also favoured imposing high taxes on sweetened and carbonated beverages. He cited a recent research which clearly shows that in India if taxation becomes high on beverages, then incidence of diabetes can come down by 3-4%, which will be a substantial decrease.
 
He appealed to the general public (especially the lower and lower-middle class who are now becoming more prone to diabetes) to be aware of the right life style and right food and follow healthy dietary practices in order to stay away from a host of life threatening diseases.

Reference: 

Shobha Shukla, Citizen News Service (CNS)