Gardening Provides Many Health Benefits

By Dr. Mercola
Mercola.com
Vegetable, herb, and seed sales are booming, courtesy of a new wave of consumers who are not only concerned about the quality of their food, but who also recognize the physical, mental, and even spiritual benefits of connecting with nature.

Modern living has driven a concrete wedge between us and the natural world, and many are starting to connect the dots, recognizing that a connection with the land is important for health, fitness, happiness, and overall wellbeing.

A previous CNN Health article lists a number of the health benefits associated with gardening, spanning from stress relief to improved brain health, better nutrition and, of course, exercise.

The Fitness Benefits of Gardening

As you'll see, there are numerous reasons why gardening is good for you. One is related to the fact that your body needs perpetual motion to function optimally, and gardening is one way to stay active at times when you might otherwise be sitting still. 

Research published in 2012 also found that those who engage in community gardening projects have considerably lower body mass index (BMI) than non-gardeners, suggesting an active lifestyle indeed translates into improved weight management.

Male and female community gardeners were 62 percent and 46 percent less likely to be overweight or obese respectively than their non-gardening neighbors.

Fitness researchers have also found that when you exercise outdoors, you exercise harder but perceive it as being easier than when exercising indoors, which can have significant health benefits as it will encourage you to work out harder than you might otherwise.   

Young get sex health web warning

Young people account for more than half of all new sex infections Rise in UK sex infections Many young people worried about sexual health problems shun traditional health services for potentially untrustworthy websites, a poll suggests.

The Information Standard - a government-backed scheme to improve the reliability of health information - surveyed 1,200 18-24-year-olds.

The research showed eight in 10 relied on the internet for help without being aware of the authenticity of the sites.

Experts said it was essential the young sought help from official channels.

Nearly two-thirds of participants reported never having had a sexual health screening.

Their reluctance to use official NHS services was blamed on embarrassment and a lack of awareness about the seriousness of conditions.

Informed advice

Where young people do rely on the internet, the Information Standard said it was important to use reliable sites, such as those produced by the NHS, local authorities or leading charities.

Official and authenticated sites carry the Information Standard brand.

Ann Robinson, director of public awareness at the Information Standard, said: "We want all young people to understand how to spot a trustworthy site.

"Just because it ranks high in the search engine, for example, does not mean that it will provide informed advice."

Dominic Edwardes, of the Terrence Higgins Trust charity, said: "Sexually transmitted infection rates are worryingly high amongst young people, accounting for more than half of all new diagnoses in England in 2010.

"To reduce these figures we need to make sure that young people are equipped with trustworthy advice and understand how to have safe protected sex."

Child health

Ali and Battul Agha and their youngest son Rayan are taking part in the project

"There is particular interest in the first origins of early development of disease - in the womb and the first couple of years of life - and these seem to predict who gets sick later on in life."

The Born in Bradford families reflect the city's ethnic diversity and around half of them are from an Asian background, a community that has some distinct health problems.

For example, around a quarter of Asian adults in Bradford are diabetic, while another quarter are pre-diabetic, putting them at high risk of developing the disease.

Battul Agha is one mother for whom diabetes is a serious worry.

Her son Rayan is one of the Born in Bradford children, but his mum says diabetes has already affected the family.

"I had gestational diabetes while I was pregnant but generations have got it - my children's grandparents, my own grandparents, my mum, some uncles have even developed it.

"So therefore we are particularly cautious about the children's health and what we feed them. We try and give them as much exercise as we can - lots of outdoor time and a healthy lifestyle."

So now the last families have been recruited, the hard work for the researchers begins.

Over the coming years they will track lives of thousands of children across Bradford and hope to provide some clues about the illnesses that affect many more millions of adults.

Secondhand Smoke Tied To Mental Health Problems In Kids: Study

By Catherine Pearson
Estimates suggest that anywhere between 4.8 and 5.5 million children in the U.S. live in households where they are exposed to secondhand smoke, putting them at greater risk for multiple health problems. Now, new research suggests that secondhand smoke exposure can increase the odds of developing certain mental and behavioral disorders by 50 percent.

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health looked at the data generated by a 2007 national health survey, analyzing the responses of the parents of guardians of more than 55,000 children ages 11 and younger from throughout the U.S. They found that children who were exposed to secondhand smoke were twice as likely to develop so-called neurobehavioral disorders -- including learning disabilities, ADD or ADHD, and conduct or behavior disorders -- than were children who lived in smoke-free homes.

"We estimate that 274,000 cases of the most common neurobehavioral disorders could have been prevented with smoke-free homes," said Hillel Alpert, ScM, a senior research associate at Harvard and one of the study's authors.

Alpert added that the study, which was published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, did not find that secondhand smoke directly caused any of these mental health issues. However, he argued that the "strong evidence of association" between secondhand smoke exposure and the incidence of certain disorders might underline a causal relationship that could be discovered with future longterm investigations.

Indeed, a growing body of research is focused on the link between secondhand smoke and mental health problems.

Health warning

Nye Bevan's NHS legacy is both cherished and fiercely fought over

The coalition wouldn't be the first government to come to grief trying to reform the health service. Jonathan Harvey, Political Producer for BBC Radio 4's PM, looks at the problems past governments have encountered.

Much may have changed since the NHS was first launched in 1948 and yet fast forward to today and what would its founder Nye Bevan make of the modern health service?

Lord Warner, who served as minister for health under Tony Blair, says his Labour predecessor would be surprised.

"I think Nye, who was a great reformer, would have actually wondered why we couldn't get on our bikes and reform it."

But he believes it is the public's attitude towards the NHS which is the real road block to reform.

"I think the people have got very attached to their local district general hospitals," he believes.

"People have got it into their heads that if we tamper with some of these local services they're somehow going to be disadvantaged and we've not done a very good job at explaining to them that the world does move on."

In Canada they had a very radical approach to combating public resistance to change.

When the Canadian government deemed Calgary General Hospital no longer financially viable they simply blew it up.

Political will

It's doubtful such an approach would be acceptable here. Which begs the question do politicians lack the nerve to reform the NHS?

Continue reading the main story“Start QuoteNigel Lawson famously said that the NHS is the closest thing we now have to an established church”

End QuoteStephen DorrellConservative MP NHS reforms may change - Lansley NHS overhaul: What next? Former Conservative Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell thinks it's easy for people to portray politicians as "spineless" but that's not really the point.

"Nigel Lawson famously said that the NHS is the closest thing we now have to an established church, and anyone who wants to change it has to take people with them. You can't simply ask them to believe you know what you're doing."

There's also the problem of imposing change on a workforce of more than a million.

Nick Seddon, from the think tank Reform, says staff have a very powerful vested interest in resisting change.

"Our GPs are the highest paid in the world, no wonder they don't want the system to change".

It's a claim hotly disputed by the doctors themselves, who insist the real problem is the politicians who try to change the NHS too much to often.

"Every time the new reforms come along it's taken about three of four years for the next government, or sometimes even the same government, to abolish that reform and start another one." Dr Mark Porter, from the British Medical Association, suggests.

Rhetoric

And then there's the rhetoric around the NHS.

Successive prime ministers have used the health service to gain political advantage.

Margaret Thatcher once said the NHS "is safe in our hands". In 1997 Tony Blair claimed that only by electing him would the public be able to "save the NHS" and recently David Cameron said "it is because I love the NHS so much that I want to change it".

Does the overblown rhetoric make the consensus required for reform almost impossible?

One former government minister thinks so.

"It certainly needs people in the different political parties not to turn the NHS into a political football." Lord Warner says.

All of which doesn't mean reform of the NHS is impossible - but it does rather suggest that despite Mr Lansley's immediate political problems - history too would not appear to be on his side.

Good News in Nevada on Health Freedom

Good News In Nevada

AB289 (Dietitian Licensing Bill) was successfully amended

SB412 (Complementary Integrative Medicine Bill) did not move out of Committee.

Thank you to Nevada Assemblyman John C. Ellison for advocating for a last minute successful health freedom amendment that makes it clear that the Nevada Dietitian licensing bill AB289 will not apply to a person "who furnishes nutrition information, provides recommendations or advice concerning nutrition, or markets food, food materials or dietary supplements and provides nutrition information, recommendations or advice related to that marketing, if the person does not represent that he or she is a licensed dietitian or registered dietitian .".

On May 30 th, AB289 passed both House and Senate and was enrolled. (Click Here to read the enrolled bill) The health freedom amendment was an important addition in the last committee. Assemblyman Ellison and his staff as well as Committee Chair Senator Schneider deserve congratulations on their work to listen to citizen concerns to the fast moving bill and find and accept a solution that would preserve and protect consumer access to so many nutrition practitioners who are currently practicing in the public domain and who do not intend to become Dietitians. Especially citizen Jim Jenks, herbalist and coordinator of Nevada Sunshine Health Freedom Foundation and Citizen Debbie Pawelek, owner of a local health food store, deserve our deepest thanks for their important lobbying and educational efforts on behalf of health freedom. 

With Huffington Post Sold to AOL, NaturalNews Invites top Alternative Health Authors to Join Truly Independent News Network

By Mike Adams

The Huffington Post was sold to AOL for $315 million yesterday, meaning the site, which was once the darling of independent media, is now clearly positioned as institutionalized media. As the editor of NaturalNews, I have, over the last several months, received several concerning emails from credentialed medical writers and natural health authors whose stories were dropped from consideration for publication at Huffington Post. There was a rising sense of frustration long before this sale that seemed to indicate HuffPost was headed in the direction of conventional media.

Yesterday's sale to AOL merely confirms this. AOL, of course, is the recent spin-off of Time Warner, which also owns CNN, Warner Bros., TIME, HBO, Fortune, People, and a long list of other mainstream media giants (http://www.cjr.org/resources/index....). There is a tremendous amount of concern reverberating across the 'net that the HuffPost acquisition by AOL will turn the site into just another conformist, watered-down corporate mouthpiece.

Many of the site's best writers are wondering where they can go to get their alternative medicine stories published. It certainly isn't WebMD, which even the New York Times just called out as being a mouthpiece for the pharmaceutical industry, saying "WebMD is synonymous with Big Pharma Shilling". (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/m...) 

It's a good time to be truly independent

As it happens, NaturalNews is, just this month, launching a format change that will make NaturalNews.com more like what the Huffington Post used to be: A collection of stories from independent thinkers, grassroots authors and people who challenge the status quo. A site where intelligence takes precedence over conformity, and where authors and writers who question the status quo are welcomed... and even featured!

Beginning today, NaturalNews is actively welcoming credentialed writers and op-ed authors who wish to be featured on NaturalNews.com as part of our new format which places more emphasis on featured contributing writers. We especially welcome former Huffington Post writers who want to be part of a truly independent, yet well-established health news site that already reaches millions of readers each month.

WebMD, Not the Independent Health Source You Expected

In a shocking report published earlier this year, BNET exposed how WebMD's online test for depression is rigged for profit:

"Feeling depressed? Cheer yourself up by taking WebMD's comical new depression test.

It's sponsored by Eli Lilly (LLY) - maker of the antidepressant Cymbalta - so they must know what they're talking about, right?

In fact, no matter which of the 10 answers you choose on the test, the result comes out the same:

You may be at risk for major depression."

But that's just the beginning. A number of questions about just how 'independent' a source WebMD is have since surfaced, and the answers are not what you'd expect. Sources: BNET February 22, 2010 BNET February 26, 2010 Policy and Medicine February 24, 2010 Boston.com March 2, 2010

Dr. Mercola's Comments:

This entire story reminds me of the old adage, "with friends like that, who needs enemies?"

If you didn't already know this, WebMD is the second most visited health web site on the entire web. The general belief is that it's a first-rate, trustworthy source of "independent and objective" information about health.

In fact, the only health site more popular than WebMD is the National Institutes of Health (NIH). You also might not realize that earlier this year Mercola.com, moved up to the third most visited health site on the internet. Mercola.com has been the most visited natural health site in the world for the last five years. 

Mental health patients' big wait

One in five people diagnosed with mental illnesses have to wait over a year to get counselling therapy from their doctors. This is according to the mental health charity Mind.

The charity says that getting treatment within three months of going to the doctor can help get people back into work more quickly.

Jenny was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in the same week she discovered she was pregnant. She then developed post-traumatic stress disorder when her son was born. Despite being a high-risk patient, Jenny was told she would have to wait eight months for cognitive behaviour therapy.