On March 6th theВ Bay Area Chapter of the American Red Cross partnered up with advertising company Publicis & Hal Riney for their latest campaign. The Prepare Bay Area project attempts to raise awareness on the importance of disaster preparedness.
According to the Red Cross, only 6-percent of people are prepared for a natural disaster in the Bay Area, which led to an aggressive push by the non-profit to literally show people what to expect when the big one hits.
Techniques developed by atomic physicists are being used to develop the first of what promises to be a new generation of cancer treatments in place of conventional radiotherapy. One day doctors could even be using anti-matter.
Announcements from the CERN laboratory in Geneva have aroused considerable interest in some medical circles.
Cancer cells were successfully targeted with anti-matter subatomic particles, causing intense biological damage leading to cell death.
There’s not a lot of evidence they do any good, but that doesn’t stop us. What we’re really buying is not protection from illness, but a sense of wellbeing – the illusion that we’re doing a bit extra over what nature can do, and that makes us feel satisfied. Health experts know it’s all a bit of a con, but they keep fairly quiet about it – mainly because the prevailing belief is they don’t do any harm, as long as the dosage is moderate, and if people want to buy the illusion of wellness in a capsule, well it’s their money.
But that’s about to be turned on its head after a sophisticated analysis of vitamin studies done by Danish researchers and published in the latest Journal of the American Medical Association.
These researchers looked at clinical trials involving the common antioxidant vitamins beta carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C (ascorbic acid), vitamin E, and selenium either singly or in combinations. They looked only at well-designed studies – ones that compared groups of people taking vitamins, single or in combinations with other vitamins – and compared them to similar groups taking a placebo or taking nothing. The researchers were looking for any evidence of an increase in death from any cause in those taking vitamins. There were 68 trials from all over the world, totalling 232,606 people – some healthy, others with specific health problems (but not seriously ill people).
They discarded some trials which they regarded as unreliable. Amongst the rest, they found there was a significantly increased risk of death in people taking some vitamins – alone or in combinations. Vitamin A increased mortality risk by 16 per cent. Vitamin E upped the risk by four per cent and beta carotene seven per cent. Selenium and vitamin C didn’t show any increased risk (and selenium actually seemed to lower the risk of death).
Slashdot writes:
“The New Scientist is reporting that researchers working at the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada have discovered that an existing drug called dichloroacetate (DCA) is effective in killing cancer cells, while leaving the host’s healthy cells unharmed. DCA has already been used for years to treat metabolic disorders, and is known to be fairly safe. Sounds like great news, is it too good to be true? Why is the mainstream news media failing to report on this potential breakthrough? The University of Alberta and the Alberta Cancer Board have set up a site with more info, where you can also donate to support future clinical trials.”
Howstuffworks.com explains drinking ice water does in fact burn calories