Is What You Eat Your Personal Business?

A society that keeps cures a secret so they can continue to sell medication for huge profits is not a real society but a huge mental asylum.
( Alfredo Bowman )

Beef Burgers Contaminated With Bugs.
Just before Christmas 2017, Sainsbury’s cleared their shelves of ‘Taste the Difference’ Aberdeen Angus beef burgers amid fears they were contaminated with killer bug E.coli.
Twelve people had already fallen ill after eating them.
Watchdog The Food Standards Agency warned shoppers, “If you have bought any of the batches, do not eat them.”.
Symptoms include blood in diarrhoea, abdominal pain, and can cause a condition that results in kidney failure.

Intensive and industrial animal farming results in less nutritious food.
Six intensively reared chickens today have the same amount of omega-3 as found in just one chicken in the 1970s.
( WWF, October 2017 )

Most Human Infections With Zoonoses Come From Farm Animals.
Diseases that can be transmitted between animals and humans, such as bird flu and tuberculosis, can wreak havoc on the health of both organisms.
Now researchers have found 13 so-called zoonoses are responsible for 2.2 million human deaths every year.
The new global zoonosis map, an update of one published in the journal Nature in 2008, also revealed the northeastern United States, Western Europe (particularly the United Kingdom), Brazil and parts of Southeast Asia may be hotspots of “emerging zoonoses.”
An emerging zoonosis is a disease that is newly infecting humans, has just become virulent, or has just become drug-resistant.
About 60% of all human diseases and 75% of all emerging infectious diseases are zoonotic, according to the researchers.
Most human infections with zoonoses come from livestock, including pigs, chickens, cattle, goats, sheep and camels.
Out of 56 zoonoses studied, the researchers found 13 that were most important in terms of their impact on human deaths, the livestock sector and the severity of disease in people, along with their amenability to agriculture-based control.
( Jeanna Bryner, Live Science Editor-in-Chief, July 06, 2012 )

I am not biased because I am vegan.
I am vegan because after extensive research I have learned that besides being the most ethical decision, a plant-based diet is the best diet for my health and the health of the environment.
( Dr. Garth Davis )

When your body is hungry, it wants nutrients, not calories.

A Worrying Shortage Of NHS Staff In England.
One in 11 posts in the NHS is vacant with the situation particularly bad among the nursing workforce.
The latest figures published by the regulator, NHS Improvement, for the April 2018 to June 2018 period, showed: 11.8% of nurse posts were not filled – a shortage of nearly 42,000.
9.3% of doctor posts were vacant – a shortage of 11,500.
Overall, 9.2% of all posts were not filled – a shortage of nearly 108,000.

Being a vegan is a way of living which seeks to exclude, as far as possible, all forms of exploitation and cruelty to animals.
( Rose Winfold )

When It Comes To Nurses, May And Her Ministers Know The Value Of None.
It’s always good to know what others think of you – especially those who decide how much you’re paid.
So how informative for those nurses, invited from their protest outside Westminster into the Commons gallery on Wednesday, to hear Theresa May say when Jeremy Corbyn urged her to scrap the public sector pay cap, that all he ever does is “ask for more money to be spent on this, that and the other”.
Ah yes, those people who do so little for society they aren’t really worthy of a name.
Nurse This who greets you from an ambulance after you’ve been scraped off a motorway, puts you on a drip, keeps you warm and talks to you to keep you alive.
Nurse That, who stays on after her shift to tend to you because she’s worried about your temperature and won’t leave until a doctor comes.
And Nurse Other, so-called as she’s thinking of joining the thousands of other colleagues who have quit the job after suffering a 14% pay cut in the past seven years and generally being treated like the contents of a dysentery sufferer’s bed pan.
It’s quite a damning phrase “this, that and the other”.
It’s generally said with a waved hand and a frown, as though the subject is too irrelevant to bother the speaker, who has more important this, that and the others on their mind.
And May certainly has.
This £50billion she wants to give the EU to save her crap, sorry crack, team of Brexiteer ministers from a crushing humiliation.
That £7billion she’ll find to do up Westminster and the Other £1billion she managed to shake from her Magic Money Tree to bribe the DUP into keeping her clinging on to power.
When it comes to public sector workers, May and her ministers know the price of all of them but, despite platitudes, the value of none.
They’re so tribally opposed to state involvement that they can’t see the worth to the economy of training and rewarding a dedicated NHS staff.
The truth is, it’s the This, That and the Others who keep this country living, earning and creating wealth.
It’s the ones who view them as an afterthought, and don’t believe they deserve their fair share of that wealth, who are killing it.
( Brian Reade, 09.09.2017 )

Exercise is a celebration of what your body can do.
It’s not a punishment for what you eat.

A New Cure To Treat Arthritis?
Costing from £5,000, but not available on the NHS, the London Regenerative Clinic are offering a cure to treat arthritis.
A new treatment called Lipogems uses the natural healing properties found in your own fat cells to treat arthritic joints and potentially even avoid the need for invasive options, such as knee replacement surgery.
Your own fat is harvested via liposuction, then the juicy stuff, precursor stem cells, is extracted, prepared and injected directly into arthritic areas.
The cells then home in on the arthritic damage, and start regrowing tissue.

Those who think they have no time for healthy eating will sooner or later have to find time for illness.
( Len Firswood )

Patients Waiting More Than Four Hours On Trolleys.
When someone runs an organisation into the ground, the boss usually gets sacked.
But the Tories keep them in the job.
Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt genuinely believes the NHS is better and safer.
Tell that to the 45,000 patients waiting more than four hours on trolleys.
Or the four million on waiting lists, the nurses at food banks and the chiefs who say staffing levels are so unsafe patients will die.
When Nye Bevan launched Labour’s NHS in 1948 he promised a healthcare system ‘based upon need and not the ability to pay’.
Hunt has changed that to treatment ‘free at the point of use’, if you’re prepared to wait up to 44 months for it.
This week the Department of Health admitted that we have a shortage of 50,000 doctors and nurses.
The growth of the private health service has led to a massive increase in firms’ profits from desperate patients.
Or they queue jump by paying for a private consultation and a fast-track to NHS treatment.
( John Prescott, 12.11.2017 )

Tory Neglect Coming Home To Roost.
For the Tories to abolish A&E waiting time targets that are regularly missed is crass dishonesty on a dangerous scale.
The dilution, sidelining and abolition of National Health Service goals is the political equivalent of chopping down the mast in the hope nobody spots the white flag.
Because the Tories are surrendering in the battle to improve the NHS.
Instead they starve hospitals and doctors of precious funds while privatising chunks of the service to line the pockets of fat cats.
A&E units, at times, resemble war zones due to chronic underfunding and staff shortages – years of Tory neglect coming home to roost.
( Daily Mirror, 03.02.2018 )

Is What You Eat Your Personal Business?
When your choice of food relies on the forced, unnatural breeding and slaughter of billions of animals, which pollutes our rivers, lakes, streams, the soil, and even the air we breathe, and kills millions of our wild animals and plants, and is a threat to all future life on our planet.
What you eat is EVERYONE’S business.

Health is not just what you’re eating, it’s also what you are thinking and saying.
( Rose Winfold )

Is Mobile Phone Use Linked To Cancer?
A health boss who used his Blackberry phone for six hours a day has died of a brain tumour.
Ian Phillips, 44, spent his last months warning about the risks of long exposure to radiation from mobiles.
The hospital diagnostics chief claimed his tumour developed because his high-pressure job meant he spent more than 100 hours a month on his cellphone.
( Martin Fricker, 21.05.2016 )
There is no solid evidence to suggest a link between cancer and mobiles.
The problem is they are now so widely used that if someone develops a brain tumour it’s almost certain they have been using a mobile.
That’s not to say that the phone caused it.
Very large studies around the world have not proved a link.
However, the flip-side of this is that there is no evidence there is not a link.
( Professor Malcolm Sperrin, 21.05.2016 )

Taking Statins May Help Cancer Survival.
Taking statins to cut cholesterol may slash the risk of dying from four common cancers, a study claims.
Scientists discovered ‘striking’ reductions in death rates among cancer patients who also had a high cholesterol diagnosis.
They think treatment with statins is the most likely explanation.
The study found high cholesterol was associated with a 43% lower risk of dying of breast cancer, 47% from prostate cancer, 30% from bowel cancer and 22% from lung cancer.
Dr Paul Carter, of Aston University, Birmingham, who presented the study at a conference in Florence, Italy, said, “We think there’s a very strong possibly that statins are producing this effect.”
Researchers analysed the health records of almost a million cancer patients admitted to UK hospitals between 2000 and 2013.
( Andrew Gregory, 09.07.2016 )

Advantage Lentil-Munchers.
For the past few years I’ve been a veggie, leading to raised eyebrows from some carnivores, and abuse from others, who think you are trying to claim moral superiority.
Even though you’re not.
And then there’s the taunts: “Don’t you think carrots feel pain” is a favourite, often followed with “If not eating meat is so good for your body, how come you never see a top sports star living off only vegetables?”
To which I’ve just discovered the perfect two-word riposte: Serena Williams.
Not just a veggie but a vegan.
And clearly the weakest, sickest-looking tennis player ever to batter her way to 22 Grand Slam titles.
Advantage lentil-munchers.
( Brian Reade, 16.07.2016 )

Every vegan seems to have their own lightbulb moment when something clicked and they stopped eating animal products.
( Cambridge University )

Insulin Pill May Be Available Soon.
An insulin pill for diabetics could be on the market within a few years.
The capsule, set to do away with daily injections, is the first oral insulin treatment to reach the last stage of trials before being granted a licence.
Delivering insulin in tablet form is considered ‘the holy grail of diabetes research’.
Experts from Israel and the U.S. have developed a coating to protect the pill from digestive juices in the stomach and mouth together with an ‘acid neutralising’ chemical released once the pill hits the intestines.
Insulin is then absorbed into the bloodstream directly.
Injected insulin takes a more roundabout route through the blood stream making blood sugar difficult to control for some.
( Martyn Halle, 01.08.2016 )

Chickens today are bred exclusively for weight gain and fed a diet of grain, soya and chemical additives they would never have encountered in the wild.
Eating chickens, or any ‘meat’, is a serious risk to our health.

Sprouts Can Stave Off Heart Disease And Cancer.
Seven brussels sprouts a day could stave off arthritis, heart disease and cancer.
Sprouts, broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower protect against stomach ailments such as leaky gut and colitis that can lead to more serious illnesses, scientists say.
The greens contain compounds that break down to produce substances including indolocarbazile, which has anti-ageing properties and helps keep the gut healthy.
Just 5oz of broccoli or 3.5oz of sprouts would help, said Professor Gary Perdew, of Pennsylvania State University the U.S.
( Daily Mirror, 14.10.2017 )

Some people seem to imagine that a burger made from plants is “unnatural” where as one made from a cow’s butt couldn’t be more pure.
They seem to dismiss the suffering and the brutal slaughter, and the antibiotics, hormones and drugs that are pumped into them and that rage inside them, and then finish up in meat burgers.

Germs In Refillable Water Bottles.
Refillable water bottles are crawling with so many germs they are a worse risk than licking your dog’s toy, a study has found.
Tests on four types of bottles used for a week without being washed found those with slide tops had the highest bacteria count – more than 900,000 per square centimetre.
And half the bugs had the potential to harm.
Squeeze tops had 162,000 units and screw tops just under 160,000.
Some held germs known to cause pneumonia, blood infections and antibiotic resistance.
The authors said drinking from refillable bottles can be ‘worse than licking your dog’s toy’ or ‘eating a meal from your pet’s dish’.
Straw tops fared far better at 25 units, with most bacteria harmless.
Researchers said: “Water drips to the bottom of the straw rather than sticking around to attract moisture-loving germs.”
After the tests – on athletes’ bottles – Treadmill Reviews suggested washing them every time in a mild bleach solution.
( Nicola Bartlett, 12.08.2016 )

Which vegetable has 77% of the recommended daily dose of vitamin C, is a good source of vitamin K, protein, thiamin, riboflavin, niacin, magnesium, fibre, vitamin B6, the list goes on?
The answer:  Cauliflower.
( Saira Khan, 14.01.2018 )

No disease, including cancer, can exist in an alkaline environment.
( Dr. Otto Warburg, Nobel Prize Winner in 1931 for proving that cancer can’t survive in an alkaline, oxygen rich environment, but thrives in an acidic, low oxygen environment )

Call For An Ambulance And You May Get A Fire Engine.
The ambulance service is so over-stretched the Fire Brigade is being called out to more medical emergencies.
Latest figures show a 14% increase in the number of callouts with no blazes involved.
And deaths in those incidents where fire officers attended rather than paramedics have more than doubled in the past five years – rising by nearly two thirds last year alone.
The shock-data emerged as it was revealed how police had to take a heart attack victim to hospital because there were no ambulances available.
The Fire and Rescue service attended 173,759 non-fire incidents in 2016/2017 – 14% up on the previous year.
They included 5,088 fatalities, a 64% rise on 2015/16 and up 211% compared to five years ago.
The number of other casualties the brigade shipped to hospital last year from medical incidents where there was no ambulance was 32,928, a 21% increase on the previous year and 59% up on 2012.
( Keir Mudie, 28.01.2018 )

Owning A Dog Could Cut The Risk Of Early Death.
Owning a dog after middle age could cut the risk of early death by 33%, a study claims.
Singletons aged 40 to 80 who had a pooch were also 11% less likely to suffer from heart disease.
And researchers, who studied 3.4 million people over 12 years, found dog owners in the age group were 36% less likely to die from a heart attack, circulation problems or strokes.
Senior author Tove Fall, of Uppsala University in Sweden, said, “We know that dog owners in general have a higher level of physical activity, which could be one explanation. Other explanations include an increased well-being and social contacts or effects of the dog on the bacterial microbiome in the owner.”
The findings come after Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, chair of the Royal College of GPs, warned that loneliness is killing millions and is as dangerous as high blood pressure, diabetes and depression.
( Martin Bagot, 18.11.2017 )

Teeth Are The Gateway To Our Bodily Health.
Decent dental care in the UK has, for the past couple of decades, scandalously, been mainly available to sore-mouthed people with large salaries.
Teeth are not merely cosmetic additions to our face, they’re a vital part of our digestive systems and the gateway to our bodily health.
Poor dental health is associated with dementia, diabetes, kidney disease and some cancers.
Tooth extractions are among the most frequently carried out hospital operations.
We should be chomping at the bit for the return of proper affordable high street NHS dental surgeries.
( Fiona Phillips, 06.01.2018 )

The Caribbean Exile Would Be Chuffed To See The NHS Go Bankrupt.
Your NHS had to pay £1.7billion to settle negligence claims last year, double what it paid in 2010, with £700million going to lawyers.
That’s money being sucked out of an already cash-strapped service, ratcheting up the strain on doctors and nurses, thus making errors even more likely and hastening the death of our greatest institution.
I’m not saying everyone who sues is wrong.
There are clearly examples, like a child left disabled through negligence where compensation is due to settle future care costs.
And although I don’t approve, I don’t blame people with little cash being seduced by no-fee lawyers after slipping in a hospital corridor.
What makes me want to go to A&E with slashed wrists though, is seeing rich businessmen sue the NHS for vast sums, knowing that if they win, the knock-on effect will be cancelled operations, pain and death.
Then claiming they have right on their side.
Businessmen like Richard Branson whose company Virgin Care sued the NHS after failing to win a contract to provide children’s health services in Surrey.
When that county felt care would be better provided by a partnership of NHS organisations, Virgin claimed the bidding system was flawed and took legal action.
The NHS has had to pay at least £328,000 to settle the dispute.
Outraged locals have started a petition, signed by almost 90,000 people, which points out that cuddly old Beardie, with an estimated wealth of £3.5billion, doesn’t need this money but their hospitals do.
The petition asks “Richard Branson to apologise and make a personal commitment that Virgin Care will never again sue the NHS after losing out on a contract”.
I wish them luck because they’ll need it.
I believe Branson, who has already been awarded NHS contracts worth more than £2billion since 2010, would be chuffed to see the NHS go bankrupt because Virgin Care has positioned itself to be one of the privatised companies allowed to fill their boots if it happens.
He knows, thanks to the billion-pound taxpayer subsidies he’s been handed through railway contracts, that our public services are big, fat cash cows primed to be sucked dry by private profiteers.
And unlike you and me, when Branson sues the NHS he’s not suing himself because the Caribbean exile no longer pays his taxes here.
So he’s laughing all the way to the bank.
( Brian Reade, 16.12.2017 )

Care Home Patients Are Dying Due To Under-Funding By Government.
Deaths from septicaemia among elderly care home patients have soared by 46% in just two years.
Figures released by the Lib Dems show 182 deaths were caused by the blood infection in 2016 – the highest level since comparable records began in 2001.
Deaths where septicaemia was an underlying cause also reached a record high of 1,202.
Campaigners fear vulnerable people are being put at risk due to a funding crisis in the care sector.
Lib Dem MP Stephen Lloyd said it should be a “wake-up call to the Government”.
He added: “It’s a sign our cash-strapped care homes are in crisis and many struggle to provide the care older people deserve”.
The National Pensioners Convention added: “Corners are being cut at the expense of care and elderly patients”.
( Keir Mudie, 19.11.2017 )