Swine Flu in Japan May 18, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in Infectious Disease.Tags: health, japan, news, swine flu
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May 19 (Bloomberg) — Dozens of swine flu cases in Japan may prompt the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic, a former WHO adviser said, spurring demand for vaccines to fight the contagion.
Japan reported its first locally-transmitted case on May 16, and the number of people infected with the virus, formally known as A/H1N1, has jumped to 135 from 4 in less than two weeks. Evidence of human-to-human transmission in a region outside North America may prompt the WHO to raise its pandemic alert to the highest level, said Hitoshi Oshitani, the former head of the agency’s Western Pacific region.
“Japan is definitely having human-to-human transmission,” Oshitani said yesterday in a telephone interview. “The WHO will have to take the Japanese cases into consideration when deciding whether to raise the pandemic alert.”
Margaret Chan, the WHO’s director-general, and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon are scheduled to broker an accord with executives from drugmakers such as Sanofi-Aventis SA and GlaxoSmithKline Plc in Geneva today to ensure developing countries can gain access to pandemic vaccines.
The outbreak worldwide extended to 8,829 infections in 40 nations as health officials from more than 190 countries began a meeting yesterday of the World Health Assembly in Geneva to debate whether swine flu is spreading widely enough to upgrade the threat to level 6, and declare it the first pandemic since 1968…read rest of story…
100,000 Americans Have Swine Flu? May 17, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in health.Tags: family, health, swine flu, vitamin d, vitamins, Wellness
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NEW BOOK: Vitamin D Prescription- The Healing Power of the Sun. Learn how vitamin D can protect you and your family from the Swine Flu.
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(NaturalNews) H1N1 influenza (swine flu) has spread beyond the ability of the CDC to track it, leading one of its health authorities (Daniel Jernigan) to admit that 100,000 Americans are likely already infected by the swine flu.
The CDC has only “confirmed” 4,714 cases of the flu so far, but by its own admission, the CDC’s testing lab is so hopelessly overloaded that it has all but abandoned trying to identify every case of swine flu. All it can do now is estimate the likely number of infections through statistical modeling.
That modeling essentially says that swine flu is already at a pandemic stage, and it will eventually infect anywhere from one-third to one-half of the world population, depending on whose figures you believe.
So if swine flu is infecting so many people, why aren’t more people dying?
Some people are dying from it, of course. The latest is an assistant principal of a NYC school, who just passed away yesterday (http://www.nypost.com/seven/0516200…).
Beware of the Flu Influenza During Winter of 2009
But the lack of deaths from the swine flu at the moment doesn’t mean the danger is over. In fact, the western world is right now experiencing the health benefits of Spring, which brings sunlight and vitamin D (a natural anti-viral vitamin) to the people.
Historically, influenza strikes in the Fall and Winter months when vitamin D levels are low. Winter, of course, means December – February in the Northern hemisphere, and June – July in the Southern hemisphere. So even if a pandemic strikes North America during the winter of 2009, it is unlikely to be as dangerous in Australia at the same time (because that’s Australia’s summer)…read more here….
NEW BOOK: Vitamin D Prescription- The Healing Power of the Sun. Learn how vitamin D can protect you and your family from the Swine Flu.
H1N1 Flu Cases Rise- 72 Now Dead May 17, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in Infectious Disease.Tags: family, flu, h1n1, infection, news, swine
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H1N1 is on the move. The 1918 Flu epidemic was a Swine Flu which is known to have killed between 20 million to 100 million people worldwide. The 1918 flu started in the spring, was fairly calm during the summer and then took off with a vengeance during the fall and winter. Until recently, few understood the seasonal variation of the flu. However, recent evidence by Dr. John Cannell suggests that vitamin D deficiency plays a role. Let me explain. Vitamin D blood levels start trending downwards during the fall and winter. Studies show that vitamin D increases immunity by making White Blood Cells more effective. Since vitamin D blood levels tend to be higher during the summer, when people spend more time in the sun, they are less likely to become susceptible to the virus when exposed. To read more about vitamin D and influenza, check out the new book, Vitamin D Presciption- The Healing Power of the Sun by Eric Madrid MD.
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ZURICH (Reuters) – The number of confirmed cases of the new Influenza A (H1N1) flu has climbed to 8,480 and the death toll has remained static at 72, the World Health Organization said in its latest update on Sunday.
The confirmation of cases in India, Malaysia and Turkey brought the number of countries with confirmed cases of H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, to 39, the WHO said.
The vast majority of cases have been in Mexico and the United States. The spread of the disease has led the WHO to declare a pandemic is imminent. On April 29 it raised its pandemic alert to 5 on a 6-level scale.
The virus is behaving much like a seasonal influenza strain, which kills 500,000 annually, by spreading rapidly and causing mainly mild disease, but severe illness in some people.…read more here…
First Face Transplant Reviewed May 5, 2009
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CLEVELAND – Five years ago, a shotgun blast left a ghastly hole where the middle of her face had been. Five months ago, she received a new face from a dead woman.
Connie Culp stepped forward Tuesday to show off the results of the nation’s first face transplant, and her new look was a far cry from the puckered, noseless sight that made children run away in horror.
Culp’s expressions are still a bit wooden, but she can talk, smile, smell and taste her food again. Her speech is at times a little tough to understand. Her face is bloated and squarish, and her skin droops in big folds that doctors plan to pare away as her circulation improves and her nerves grow, animating her new muscles.…read more here…
Guten Free Diet and Symptoms of Celiac Disease- May 4, 2009
Posted by healthandsurvival in Diet and Nutrition.Tags: diet, gluten, gluten free, health, news, wheat
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Is your family ready for the next pandemic?
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Symptoms of celiac disease include: chronic diarrhea, muscle cramps, malabsorption of nutrients, iron deficient anemia, weight loss, excessive gas, fatigue, elevated liver enzymes and calcium/vitamin D deficiency. Talk to your doctor if you have any of these symptoms. Eating a gluten free diet can have many health benefits are seen below in the article from Natural News.
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(NaturalNews) Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) patients who eat a gluten-free vegan diet could be better protected against heart attacks and stroke. RA is a major risk factor for these cardiovascular diseases, but a gluten-free vegan diet was shown to lower cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and oxidized LDL (OxLDL), as well as raise the levels of natural antibodies against the damaging compounds in the body that cause symptoms of the chronic inflammatory disease rheumatoid arthritis, such as phosphorylcholine.
The idea that we can influence our health by changing our eating habits has become a fashionable idea among lifestyle and consumer magazines. There is evidence that dietary changes can bring about health benefits but specific results are not widespread. Now, Johan Frostegard of the Rheumatology Unit at the Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and colleagues divided sixty-six RA patients randomly into two groups.
They randomly assigned 38 of the volunteers to eat a gluten-free vegan diet, and the other 28 a well-balanced but non-vegan diet for one year. They analyzed the levels of fatty, lipid molecules in blood samples using routine analytical methods at regular periods. They also measured oxLDL and anti-phosphorylcholine (antiPC) factor at the beginning of the experiment, at 3 months and again at 12 months. The researchers found that the gluten-free vegan diet not only reduced LDL and oxLDL levels and raised antiPC antibodies but lowered the body-mass index (BMI) of the volunteers in that group. Levels of other fatty molecules, including triglycerides and high-density lipoprotein (HDL) stayed the same. In contrast, none of the indicators differed significantly for the control groups on the conventional healthy diet.
AntiPC antibodies are studied within CVDIMMUNE, a European consortium led by Dr. Frostegard with the hypothesis that such antibodies can protect against cardiovascular disease and can be used as diagnostic and therapeutic factors. Frostegard and colleagues have now shown that diet could be used to improve the long-term health of people with rheumatoid arthritis. They concede that a bigger study group will be needed to discern which particular aspects of the diet help the most…read more here…
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