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(NaturalNews) Did you know that fluoride in our water supplies is the only chemical added for a specific medical purpose, i.e. to prevent tooth decay? All other chemicals are added for treatment purposes, to improve the quality and safety of tap water. And an expert has voiced his concerns over the potential negative impact of fluoride in drinking water on the health of fetuses and infants.

Dr Vyvyan Howard is a medical pathologist and toxicologist, and also President of the International Society of Doctors for the Environment. In a short video clip put together by the Fluoride Action Network, he expressed his concern over the use of fluoride in our water supplies.

About Dr Howard

Over the last two to three decades, Dr Howard's research has centered on the effects of toxic substances on the development of fetuses and infants. This, of course, is a period of life whereby one is particularly vulnerable to certain external effects.

So, how was Dr Howard's attention first drawn to fluoride? According to him, it was the "very very low levels" of the chemical found in human breast milk. This, he said, is due to a mechanism developed in the course of evolution, specifically for keeping the substance away from developing infants.

"Nature has devised a system for keeping fluoride away from the infant, and we are circumventing that by putting fluoride into drinking water, and I think there are consequences," he said.

What consequences? According to Dr Howard, fluoride is a developmental toxin. More specifically, it is a neurotoxin, and it may also affect the intelligence of the child. While the evidence may not yet be clear-cut, there do seem to be strong indications.

(NaturalNews) It takes a long wait to get a mammogram these days, sometimes up to a month. The waiting rooms are jammed despite the opening of new mammography centers. It is clear that more women than ever are operating under the delusion that mammograms reduce the risk of death from breast cancer, even in the face of overwhelming evidence that radiation causes all types of cancer including that of the breast. The more radiation a woman receives in her lifetime, whether it is during a dental exam, at an airport, or during her yearly mammogram, the more likely it is that she will develop breast cancer. In fact, the spiraling rates of breast cancer seen in the last 25 years may be directly tied to the increased use of mammography.

The American Cancer Society (ACS) and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) began to encourage the use of mammography in the early 1980's. Mammography fit right in with their financial objectives and even the advertising rhetoric at the time that urged "a checkup and a check". For the past 25 years, women have paid the price for compliance to a cancer industry that failed to have their best interests at heart.

The harmful effects of radiation and mammograms have been known for decades

In 1974, while mammography was in its infancy, the National Cancer Institute was warned by Professor Malcolm C. Pike at the University of Southern California School of Medicine that a number of specialists had concluded that "giving a women under age 50 a mammogram on a routine basis was close to unethical". This warning was ignored.

(NaturalNews) People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has exposed a U.S. Army practice of shooting live pigs so that soldiers can treat their gunshot wounds.

"Shooting and maiming pigs is as outdated as Civil War rifles," said Kathy Guillermo, director of PETA's Laboratory Investigations Department.

The Army says that it needs to maintain the practice in order to train soldiers to treat battlefield wounds in conditions where access to doctors or medical facilities is limited.

"It's to teach Army personnel how to manage critically injured patients within the first few hours of their injury," said Maj. Derrick Cheng, spokesperson for the 25th Infantry Division of the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, stationed at Schofield Barracks in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The practice was revealed when a soldier from the 25th Infantry became upset over plans to shoot live pigs with M16 rifles and M4 carbines, and tipped PETA off.

"There's absolutely no reason why they have to shoot live pigs," said PETA spokesperson Holly Beal.

PETA has called on the Army to stop using animals and its medical training, "as the overwhelming majority of North American medical schools have already done." Modern alternatives such as high-tech human simulators are easily available, the group said. But the Army has insisted that there is no substitute for "live-tissue training."

"What we're doing is unique to what the soldiers are going to actually experience," Cheng said.

In addition to objecting to the suffering and death undergone by the pigs themselves, PETA has noted that many of the soldiers being trained might also find the experience distressing, because the associate the pigs in their minds with their own pets.

The group has called on its members to call an e-mail the Army in objection to live- tissue training.

(NaturalNews) Inside chlorophyll is the lamp of life and that lamp is magnesium. The capture of light energy from the sun is magnesium dependent. Magnesium is bound as the central atom of the porphyrin ring of the green plant pigment chlorophyll. Magnesium is the element that causes plants to be able to convert light into energy and chlorophyll is identical to hemoglobin except the magnesium atom at the center has been taken out and iron put in. The whole basis of life and the food chain is seen in the sunlight-chlorophyll-magnesium chain. Since animals and humans obtain their food supply by eating plants, magnesium can be said to be the source of life for it is at the heart of chlorophyll and the process of photosynthesis.

A huge step forward for early life was the development of chlorophyll, a molecule that captures light energy from the sun in a process called photosynthesis. Chlorophyll systems convert energy from visible light into small energy-rich molecules easy for cells to use. The harnessing of the energy of visible light led to a vast expansion of early life-forms. Fossilized layers, three and half billion years old, have been found with evidence of blue-green algae that lived on top of tidal rocks.

Magnesium is needed by plants to form chlorophyll which is the substance that makes plants green. Without magnesium sitting inside the heart of chlorophyll, plants would not be able to take nutrition from the sun because the process of photosynthesis would not go on. When magnesium is deficient things begin to die. In reality one cannot take a breath, move a muscle, or think a thought without enough magnesium in our cells. Because magnesium is contained in chlorophyll it is considered an essential plant mineral salt.

Without chlorophyll, plants are unable to convert sunlight and carbon dioxide. There is no life without magnesium.

(NaturalNews) Pharmaceutical chemicals now contaminate the public water supplies of over fifty major U.S. cities. The rocket fuel perchlorate is also commonly found in the water, and byproducts of chlorine pose a very real danger to consumers. While chemical companies, drug companies and even the EPA argue that chemicals in the water are of no real concern, informed consumers know better: The contamination of your water is a serious threat to your health, and getting clean water is essential to avoiding cancer, Alzheimer's, infertility and other health conditions caused by chemical exposure.

But how do you get these chemicals out of your water? How do you handle PCBs, pesticide residues, heavy metals, fluoride and plastics chemicals like Bisphenol A? And how do you get these chemicals out of your water simply, reliably and affordably?

To answer those questions, acclaimed health author Kevin Gianni has completed an informative series of interviews with five health experts who reveal the most pressing information consumers need to know about what's really in their water and how to make clean, contaminant-free water at home. These experts include ecologist Jim McMahon, Ormus researcher Barry Carter, living foods pioneer David Wolfe, ocean minerals expert John Hartman and myself, the Health Ranger.

In a series of five interviews, we answer all the critical questions about how to get clean water; how to get the chemicals out of your water; and how to acquire a safe water supply starting right now. But this series is about much more than the typical water issues that might come to mind: It's also about experimental water technologies such as "imprinting" water with vibration (made famous by the work of Dr. Emoto), altering the physics of water (surface tension, conductivity, etc.), and the importance of salts and mineralization to the movement of water throughout your body.

(NaturalNews) Heavy users of mobile phones are 50 percent more likely to develop cancer of the salivary glands, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Tel Aviv University and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Researchers studied 500 Israelis who had tumors of the salivary gland, and compared their cell phone usage to 1300 Israelis who did not have such tumors. They found that those who use cellular phones several hours per day against the same side of the head had a 50 percent higher tumor risk than those who used phones less frequently.

Rural residents with heavy mobile phone use had an even higher tumor risk, compared with urban users. The researchers speculated that this could be due to the higher radiation dose needed for mobile phones to function in areas with fewer towers.

A number of studies have linked heavy mobile phone use the health problems such as sleep disruption and brain cancer. While the mobile phone industry often says that studies have proved the devices safe, the researchers noted that these studies tend to look only a short-term exposure, whereas radiation-related health problems may often take up to a decade before symptoms develop.

The researchers said that carrying out studies in Israel, where the level of mobile phone use (and thus radiation exposure) is very high, can give insight otherwise only available from a longer-term study.

"Compared to other studies, the amount of exposure to radiofrequency radiation we saw here was much higher," said lead researcher Siegal Sadetzki. "If you like, you're seeing what could happen elsewhere 'speeded-up' in Israel."

(NaturalNews) A combination of fish oil, red yeast rice and lifestyle changes can produce as great a decrease in cholesterol levels as prescription drugs, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania Health System and published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

"These results are intriguing and show a potential benefit of an alternative, or naturopathic, approach to a common medical condition," researcher David Becker said.

Researchers gave 74 people with high cholesterol a daily dose of either 40 milligrams of simvastatin (a generic cholesterol drug also marketed as Zocor) or a combination of fish oil, red yeast rice and a number of cardiovascular positive lifestyle changes. The fish oil contained 2,106 milligrams of EPA and 1,680 milligrams of DHA, while the red yeast rice contained 5.3 milligrams of monacolin, including 2.53 milligrams of monacolin K.

Monacolin K, also known as lovastatin, is the naturally occurring fungal compound from which the statin drugs were first derived.

After 12 weeks, levels of LDL ("bad") cholesterol decreased significantly in both groups. There was no significant difference between the groups, indicating that the yeast and fish oil combination was just as effective as the pharmaceutical drugs. In addition, the fish oil and red yeast rice decreased triglyceride levels by 29 percent, while the statins did not lead to any significant decrease.

"Lifestyle changes combined with ingestion of red yeast rice and fish oil reduced LDL-C in proportions similar to standard therapy with simvastatin," the researchers wrote. "Pending confirmation in larger trials, this multifactorial, alternative approach to lipid lowering has promise for a subset of patients unwilling or unable to take statins."

(NaturalNews) Putting black pepper on your food may be one of the easiest, most economical ways to boost your overall health status. Piperine, the main alkaloid from black pepper has been shown to substantially increase the bioavailability of the nutrients in foods and supplements. As the quality of food declines and the costs of food and supplements continue to skyrocket, it is increasingly important to your health that the nutrients you consume are able to be used to maximum efficiency by your body.

What is piperine?

Piperine is a pungent compound found in the fruit of the plants in the Piperaceae family, the most famous member of which is Piper nigrum, black pepper. It has a long history of use in Ayurvedic medicine as a restorative and treatment.

Piperine is able to increase bioavilability of many substances through a number of mechanisms. It inhibits several enzymes responsible for metabolizing nutritional substances, stimulates amino-acid transporters in the intestinal lining, inhibits removal of substances from cells so they continue to be available for use, and decreases the intestinal activity allowing more of the substances to enter the body in active form. The results of these actions are that substances reach, enter and remain within their target cells for longer periods of time than would normally be the case.

Piperine can turn a marginally effective therapeutic substance into a highly effective one by increasing its bioavailability and intracellular residency time. As an example, piperine can increase the bioavailability of the cancer, inflammation and infection fighter, curcumin, by twenty-fold.

(NaturalNews) Drugs like Avastin that are used to treat some cancers are supposed to work by blocking a vessel growth-promoting protein called vascular endothelial growth factor, or VEGF. With VEGF held in check, researchers have assumed tumors wouldn't generate blood vessels and that should keep malignancies from growing. In a sense, the cancerous growths would be "starved". But new research just published in the journal Nature shows this isn't true. Instead of weakening blood vessels so they won't "feed" malignant tumors, these cancer treatments, known as anti-angiogenesis drugs, actually normalize and strengthen blood vessels -- and that means they can spur tumors to grow larger.

For their study, researchers at the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in La Jolla, replicated the action of anti-angiogenesis drugs by genetically decreasing VEGF levels in mouse tumors and inflammatory cells in several types of cancers, including pancreatic cancer. The research team, headed by David Cheresh, Ph.D., professor and vice chair of pathology at UCSD, also used drugs to inhibit VEGF receptor activity. The results? In every single instance, blood vessels were not weakened but, instead, were made normal again. And in some cases, tumors increased in size..

In a prepared statement for the press, Dr. Cherish said: "We've discovered that when anti-angiogenesis drugs are used to lower the level of VEGF within a tumor, it's not so much a reduction in the endothelial cells and losing blood vessels as it is an activation of the tumor blood vessels supporting cells. It appears that the drugs, in shutting down VEGF activity, are actively maturing blood vessels, causing them to become stable and more normal, as opposed to reducing blood vessels."

(NaturalNews) In an immediately controversial document, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has recommended that children as young as eight be treated with cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.

The AAP's Committee on Nutrition released the guidelines as part of a clinical report on childhood cardiovascular health, published in the journal Pediatrics. It emphasized reducing the risk of lifetime cardiovascular disease by means of lifestyle interventions and cholesterol screening starting from a young age.

Currently, young children are only given statins if they suffer from genetic disorders such as familial hypercholesterolemia. But the report recommends that children as young as eight should be considered for treatment with cholesterol drugs if they have LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels of 190 milligrams per decaliter or higher. It also recommends that children who have a family history or more than two other cardiovascular risk factors should be considered for treatment if their levels are 160 milligrams per decaliter or higher, as should diabetic children with LDL levels of 130 milligrams per decaliter and up.

"We know that in adults, decreasing cholesterol and giving some of those drugs decreases risk of heart disease or death," said AAP panel member Dr Nicolas Stettler, of the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. "So there's really no reason to think that would be any different in children."

But critics have questioned this logic, saying that there is not enough data to know if statins are safe or effective in children.

The same drug often acts very differently among different age groups.