The Gary Null Show

Vegetarians have 14% lower cancer risk than meat-eaters, study finds

Oxford University, February 24, 2022

Vegetarians have a 14% lower chance of developing cancer than carnivores, according to a large study that links meat-eating to a heightened risk of the disease. A team of researchers from Oxford University analysed data on more than 470,000 Britons and found that pescatarians had a 10% reduced risk. Compared with people who eat meat regularly – defined as more than five times a week – those who consumed small amounts had a 2% lower risk of developing cancer, the study found.

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Dietary Lutein Modulates Growth and Survival Genes in Prostate Cancer Cells

Indiana University School of Medicine, February 26, 2022

Reports from Indiana University School of Medicine Provide New Insights that Dietary Lutein Modulates Growth and Survival Genes in Prostate Cancer Cells) According to news originating from Indianapolis, Indiana, research stated, "Lutein is a carotenoid pigment present in fruits and vegetables that has anti-inflammatory and antitumor properties. In this study, we examined the effect of lutein on proliferation and survival-associated genes in prostate cancer (PC-3) cells." Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from the Indiana University School of Medicine, "We found that in vitro culture of PC-3 cells with lutein induced mild decrease in proliferation that improved in combination treatment with peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma) agonists and other chemotherapeutic agents. Flow cytometry analyses showed that lutein improved drug-induced cell cycle arrest and apoptosis in prostate cancer. Gene array and quantitative reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction analyses showed that lutein altered the expression of growth and apoptosis-associated biomarker genes in PC-3 cells."

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Walnuts may support sperm health, according to new animal research

University of Delaware, Feb. 28, 2022 

New animal research suggests eating a walnut-enriched diet may improve sperm quality by reducing lipid peroxidation, a process that can damage sperm cells. This form of cell damage harms sperm membranes, which are primarily made up of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs). Walnuts are the only tree nut that are predominantly comprised of PUFAs (one ounce contains 13 grams of PUFAs out of 18 grams of total fat). Research on the health benefits of PUFAs has advanced and most recently the 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans has emphasized this type of fat as a replacement for saturated fats. As this is an animal study, there is no direct correlation to processes that occur in the human body. However, the findings support previous research suggesting that walnuts provide key nutrients that may be essential for sperm function.

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Broccoli and kale microgreens pack a nutritional punch that varies with growing conditions

American Chemical Society, February 15, 2022

Although microgreens were initially gourmet ingredients for upscale restaurants, they’ve become popular among gardeners and home cooks. Despite their “superfood” label, the levels of healthful compounds, such as phytonutrients, in most varieties of microgreens are unknown. Researchers in ACS Food Science & Technology now report that kale and broccoli microgreens grown in either windowsills or under commercial growing conditions are rich in phytonutrients, though the levels of some compounds varied considerably between the two environments.

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Sugar’s molecular link to Alzheimer’s: Study

University of Bath (UK), February 25, 2022

A "tipping point" molecular link between the blood sugar glucose and Alzheimer's disease has been established by scientists for the first time, who have shown that excess glucose damages a vital enzyme involved with inflammation response to the early stages of Alzheimer's. Abnormally high blood sugar levels, or hyperglycaemia, is well-known as a characteristic of diabetes and obesity, but its link to Alzheimer's disease is less familiar. Scientists already knew that glucose and its break-down products can damage proteins in cells via a reaction called glycation but the specific molecular link between glucose and Alzheimer's was not understood. But now scientists from the University of Bath Departments of Biology and Biochemistry, Chemistry and Pharmacy and Pharmacology, have unraveled that link.

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Adam Nagourney’s recent effort to cancel and condemn Robert Kennedy Jr. has registered another low in the New York Times’ registry of crank tabloid journalism.  Americans’ trust in our media is already at an all time low, down to 21 percent last year, and the lowest in the world. The Times’ propensity for fake reporting undoubtedly has contributed to American journalism’s steady decline. So if a journalist is clueless about the individual he is writing about, what better weapon to employ than Robert’s own family members and friends?  Fortunately Nagourney’s article is just a rambling, incoherent diatribe recycling earlier Times hit pieces by Roni Rabin and Robert’s niece Dr. Kerry Kennedy Meltzer. Its message is that Robert has turned his life away from being a conscientious advocate for the environment and jumped on the conspiratorial bandwagon. However, there are glaring flaws in Nagourney’s reasoning that his apparent ignorance about the subject matter would account for. Nowhere does Nagourney mention Robert’s international bestselling book The Real Anthony Fauci, which has caused such a stir worldwide. Did the author bother to read the book?  Highly doubtful. Nagourney’s writing seemingly focuses on Hollywood and LBGT issues.  Evidently he is not the ideal journalist for the Times’ editorial management to assign an article that otherwise requires many years of research into our nation’s federal health system and reams of legal documents and peer-reviewed studies about vaccine efficacy and safety. Robert is publicly on record inviting anyone who wishes to debate and challenge his book’s content and the over 2,100 references supporting its claims. Would any of the Times’ journalists, who hide behind their quills, have the courage to accept his invitation? To our knowledge nobody from the mainstream media has taken up Robert’s offer. We might challenge the Times’ editorial management to unearth a single instant where Robert has stated he was not pro-vaccine.  If the Times is so worried about Kennedy being on the wrong side of history and science, then why not review The Real Anthony Fauci with reliable, independent fact checkers to debunk any misstatements and untruths? The fact that the Times and the mainstream media have in unison ignored the book entirely, hoping it will fade away into obscurity, is itself gross negligence. Even Fauci and Bill Gates have failed to satisfactorily make a concerted effort to exonerate themselves from the book’s damning evidence. If the Times’ fraudulent charge is guilt by association, then yes indeed Robert has a fan base among tens of thousands of anti-vaccination parents across the nation with vaccine-damaged children. But this follows the kind of illogic that Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Allen Dershowitz should be behind bars for their fellowship with Jeffrey Epstein. Repeatedly, Robert is very succinct about being pro-vaccine and he has reason to be very worried about the credibility of vaccine makers’ clinical trial data and the deep conflicts of interest between the drug industry and federal regulators who are too willing and eager to give their Big Pharm masters a green light to licensure. That Nagnourney would resurrect the old vaccine-autism chestnut is to be expected of any hit person assigned to target an anti-vaxxer. Yet there is very sound evidence to support Robert’s stance on the vaccine-autism debate. We may recall that it was Robert who filed the Freedom of Information request to uncover the smoking gun behind a CDC study showing that there was indeed a relationship between earlier thimerosal (mercury)-laced vaccines and neurological disorders, including autism. The evidence is clearly outlined in the transcript of a 2000 secret meeting held at the Simpsonwood retreat facility outside CDC headquarters in Atlanta.  During the meeting, the study’s chief scientist, Dr. Thomas Verstraeten, stated, “This analysis suggests that in our study population, the risks of tics, ADD, language and speech delays, and developmental delays in general may be increased by exposures to mercury from thimerosal-containing vaccines during the first six months of life.”  The clandestine Simpsonwood gathering decided to withhold its findings from the public and, instead, proceed with a recalculation of the same data by employing confounders, or biased criteria selection in order to confirm the CDC’s desired results. Later a House Committee on Government Reform’s three-year review of the CDC’s and FDA’s handling of the exponential rise in autism concluded that “It appears that many who participated in the thimerosal debates allowed their standards to be dictated by their desire to disprove an unpleasant theory.” Dr Roger Bernier confirmed a deep concern Robert has been sounding for years to the mainstream media’s plugged ears. During the Committee hearings, Dr. Bernier, who was then the CDC’s associate director of science, stated, “It [removing thimerosal from vaccines] could entail financial losses of inventory if current vaccine inventory is wasted. It could harm one or more manufacturers and may then decrease the number of suppliers… The evidence justifying this kind of abrupt policy change [immediate removal of mercury from all vaccines] does not appear to exist, and it could entail financial losses for all existing stocks of vaccines that contain thimerosal.” In other words, for the CDC, then as now, protecting pharmaceutical interests and money trump public health and well-being. The Real Anthony Fauci is riddled with similar examples of financial incentives driving health policies directly under Fauci’s control. Finally, the Commission recommended that “studies be conducted that pool the results of independent research that has been done thus far, and a comprehensive approach should be developed to rid humans, animals and the environment from this dangerous toxin.” Yet unsurprisingly a subsequent CDC study, after several attempts to massage the original data, was published to deny any relationship between vaccination and autism. This remains the position of the CDC, FDA and HHS despite a large body of independent research, with no conflict of interests with governmental and private industry interests, continues to mount against our policy makers’ reliance on tabloid science. Separate from Robert, cases have been adjudicated through the Justice Department to award monetary compensation to victims of vaccine-related autism and encephalitis. However, most dramatic is the whistleblower case of Dr. William Thompson, a senior CDC epidemiologist. Dr. Thompson released thousands of documents to Prof. Brian Hooker, a biologist at Simpson University, providing evidence that the CDC under Julie Gerberding’s watch, withheld and later destroyed research data proving the MMR vaccine contributed to higher autism rates in African American boys The documents also proved the CDC has known for years that the influenza vaccines, which still contain mercury, contributed to neurological tics and disorders. If we can easily find these references, certainly it is within the Times’ capability to do so also. We should lend an attentive ear to Robert’s Covid vaccine warnings because on many occasions in the past he has been on the correct side of history. Perhaps Nagourney’s conflating the safety profiles between the experimental mRNA and adenovirus vector Covid injections from traditional pre-Covid vaccines. For example, Robert was a lead attorney in the historic ruling against Monsanto and its carcinogenic glyphosate herbicide or Roundup. The latest legal update is that Monsanto has settled nearly 100,000 lawsuits and paid out $11 billion. Another 26,000 cases remain pending. Throughout his law career Robert has been involved in hundreds of legal cases to protect the environment such as New York City’s watershed; enforcement of the Clean Water Act; protecting poor minority, indigenous communities, and military personnel from corporate and federal toxic pollution; and legal victories against the oil, hydrofracking, pipeline and nuclear power industries. Last year, Robert’s Children’s Health Defense (CHD) won a US Court of Appeals case against the Federal Communications Commission for the agency’s failure to review the health and safety guidelines on 5G and other wireless technology. In 2019, 26,000 scientists submitted a petition to the UN, World Health Organization, European Union and world governments demanding a halt to a 5G rollout. There are over 10,000 peer-reviewed studies now warranting global caution about radio frequency radiation’s adverse effects to the environment and human DNA, the endocrine system and various organs. Undoubtedly the CHD case unsettled the New York Times; it may be a reason among others for the newspaper to print vindictive articles against Robert. Following the Times’ partnership with the telecom giant Verizon to launch a 5G Journalism Lab, the paper’s 5G coverage has consistently parroted the telecom industry’s talking points. The Verizon collaboration will provide the newspaper with a jump start ahead of other mainstream media to gain “early access the 5G network.” Nor should we forget that the Times’ top shareholder is Mexican billionaire and mobile phone magnate Carlos Slim, who is positioned to rake in billions from 5G’s rollout south of the border. We might ask why Robert would risk tarnishing the Kennedy legacy, which his siblings seem determined to keep pristine? Quite simply, like his father and uncle, Bobby is a rebel at heart who seeks the truth rather than to preserve a family legacy or bureaucratic ideology. As for the New York Times, on matters of critical domestic and international importance, it has repeatedly proven to be unreliable. This is the same Times, despite its enormous resources and government contacts that has gotten its stories wrong at the cost of countless lives. It got the story of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction reprehensibly wrong, which led to one of the greatest debacles in foreign policy in this century. It got Libya, Venezuela, and Syria wrong. It was wrong about the Obama-Clinton backed coup spearheaded by Hillary sidekick Victoria Nuland.  And to this day the Times has failed to hold the US’s co-responsibility for prolonging the Saudis’ genocide in Yemen. And the Gray Lady refuses to cover other nations’ success stories in their handling the pandemic, including prescribing repurposed inexpensive drugs such as ivermectin which has reduced SARS-2 infections and deaths dramatically. Had Nagourney, Rabin and Robert’s siblings and friends spent thousands of hours doing meticulous research to uncover the truth, it would be less likely they would have proceeded in advancing their shared conspiratorial delusions. In the absence of any observable scientific background, to denigrate Robert with personal biases and dogmatic assumptions is disingenuous. Certainly he has spent more time investigating the corruption endemic in our federal health system than anyone in the history of the New York Times. So at what point do the Fed’s junk science, misdemeanors, and perjury before Congress pile up to a tipping point whereby nothing coming our health agencies can be taken at their word?  Robert evidently passed that threshold long before the rest of us. As we witness our federal health officials back pedaling or abandoning their own health advice, rewrite scientific analyses, rapidly fund compromised research institutes in order to debunk the next damning study about the inefficacy of masks, social distancing and the Covid vaccines’ adverse effects and mandates, we are observing a health system in dismal disarray. Improvising on a meditation by the Trappist monk Thomas Merton, who had carried on a correspondence with Robert’s mother Ethel, Times’ journalists such as Nagourney and Rabin are like people who wander the countryside painting billboards that say “The CDC Saves” or “Prepare to Meet God (Anthony Fauci).”  Oddly, these biased opinion essays should not make us think about the CDC nor Fauci. Rather we should wonder what goes on in these writers’ minds. Absent any journalist integrity, we should wonder what their motives are to force THEIR CDC and Fauci upon us by way of condemning the critics of the government’s failed Covid pandemic policies. Or rather should we pity these journalists’ scorn and vitriol as simply pathetic projections of themselves?

Tea's benefits extend to old bones: Japan researchers

Osaka University (Japan), February 24th, 2015 

Researchers in Japan say black tea could help treat osteoporosis, a bone condition affecting older people, but admit you need to drink an awful lot of it. Scientists say the humble brew contains an antioxidant that can prevent the loss of bone density commonly seen in old age that makes the elderly more vulnerable to fractures. Researchers found that theaflavin-3 (TF-3), the antioxidant, works by inhibiting the function of an enzyme called DNA methyltransferase, which destroys bone tissue. The research, published in the online edition of the US journal Nature Medicine on Monday, found that mice suffering from osteoporosis who were given TF-3 showed recovering levels of bone volume, similar to those of healthymice.

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High vitamin C intake may help elderly maintain immune cells

Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology  February 20, 2022

Long-term high-dose vitamin C supplementation could help maintain immune functions in ageing, according to research in mice. The Japanese researchers supplemented the diet of vitamin-C deficient mice with either the recommended 20 mg/kg of vitamin C per day or a high dose of 200 mg/kg per day for a year. The results showed a high vitamin C intake could inhibit the age-related decrease in the size of the thymus and maintain thymic output, meaning stable immune cell counts as the mice aged. They said the finding could point to solutions for maintaining immune functions in elderly people. T cells counts were significantly higher in the high dose vitamin C group when compared to the lower dose. They said the change to the thymus may be due to vitamin C's promotion of the production of fibronectin, laminin and collagen.

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Vitamin D2's impact on human health questionable, but vitamin D3 could be important for fighting infections

University of Surrey (UK), February 24, 2022

New research has found significant differences between the two types of vitamin D, with vitamin D2 having a questionable impact on human health. However, the study found that vitamin D3 could balance people's immune systems and help strengthen defenses against viral infections such as COVID-19. In a collaborative study by the Universities of Surrey and Brighton, researchers investigated the impact of vitamin D supplements—D2 and D3—taken daily over a 12-week period on the activity of genesin people's blood. Contrary to widely held views, the research team discovered that both types of vitamin D did not have the same effect. They found evidence that vitamin D3 had a modifying effect on the immune system that could fortify the body against viral and bacterial diseases.

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What’s in Mushrooms That Supports Healthy Aging

Life Extension, February 23, 2022

A landmark study published in April 2021 followed the dietary patterns of 15,000 Americans for nearly 20 years. Those who consumed mushrooms in their diet had a 16% lower overall mortality risk. When one serving a day of mushrooms was ingested in place of processed or red meats, there was a 35% reduction in all-cause mortality. A trend toward even lower mortality was found in people who consumed higher amounts of mushrooms. So, what's in mushrooms that enables people to live longer? It turns out that mushrooms contain more of an amino acid called L-ergothioneine than other food sources. L-ergothioneine appears to protect DNA and reduce the shortening of telomeres. L-ergothioneine is an amino acid not produced by the human body. L-ergothioneine levels peak in early adulthood and steadily decline with age as the body loses its ability to accumulate this powerful nutrient. It is found in the highest concentration in mushrooms and other fungi. When L-ergothioneine intake in America was compared with intake in Europe, researchers found that Europeans had greater longevity possibly due to higher L-ergothioneine intake. Most tissues of the body contain L-ergothioneine. It is concentrated in higher degrees in cells at greatest risk of injury due to oxidative stress and inflammation, including blood, bone marrow, eye lens, brain, liver, and skin. L-ergothioneine transporters are also found in the placenta and mammary glands, suggesting its importance in the early development of the embryo and newborn children.

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Kim Iversen: GREAT RESET Has INFILTRATED Cabinets Around The World With Young Leaders Like Trudeau (

Meta-analysis affirms benefit for ginseng in type 2 diabetics

Zheijian University (China)

The issue of the journal Medicine published the results of a meta-analysis conducted by researchers at China's Zhejiang University which add evidence to a beneficial effect for ginseng in men and women with impaired glucose tolerance or type 2 diabetes. For their research, Yun-mei Yang and colleagues selected eight trials that included 195 participants treated with ginseng and an equal number of control subjects. The analysis revealed improvements in fasting glucose, post-meal insulin levels and insulin resistance, as well as a reduction in triglycerides, and total and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol among ginseng-treated subjects. Our results demonstrate for the first time, an improved lipid profile (triglycerides, total cholesterol, and LDL) associated with ginseng-related therapy in patients with type 2diabetes mellitus or impaired glucose tolerance. Moreover, ginseng-related therapy was more effective in terms of hemoglobin A1c and fasting glucose levels, in drug naïve participants than those taking antidiabetic medications, probably due to the masking of the effect of ginseng by antidiabetic medications."

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Want to Lose Weight? Chew Your Food Longer

Waseda University (Japan)

A recent study published in Scientific Reports links chewing with increased energy expenditure and possible obesity prevention. The results out of Waseda University in Japan showed that tasting and chewing food for 30 seconds boosted heat generation after eating. This practice may help you on your weight loss journey. "Increased diet-induced thermogenesis induced by chewing and taste stimuli may help to prevent overweight and obesity," the authors stated. The study found significant energy changes after meals by testing a time of 30 seconds for tasting and chewing. At a rate of one chew per second, the study matched up with the widely-touted guideline of 32 chews per bite. In addition to helping limit your calorie intake, chewing helps start the digestive process, setting your stomach up for soothing success as your meal makes its way through your system. This recent study—admittedly a small one—shows that the act of tasting and active chewing significantly increased thermogenesis, regardless of the consistency of the food itself. It also found tasting and chewing increased the movement of food through the upper GI tract. Slow eating brings mindfulness into your meals, giving your brain time to realize you're full. The result? You eat less, which is key to any weight loss program.

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Children with higher exposure to air pollution and lower exposure to green space have 62% increased risk of ADHD

Barcelona Institute for Global Health

Children living in areas with higher air pollution due to PM2.5 particles and very low levels of green space might have up to 62% increased risk of developing ADHD. On the contrary, children living in greener and less polluted areas have a 50% lower risk of developing the disorder. These are the conclusions of a paper published in Environment International with data from 37,000 children from Vancouver (Canada). The green space analysis revealed that participants living in areas with a greater percentage of vegetation had a lower risk of ADHD. More specifically, the results show that a 12% increase in vegetation percentage was associated with a 10% reduction in the risk of ADHD. Regarding air pollution, the opposite association was observed with PM2.5: participants with a higher exposure to fine particles had higher risk of ADHD (every 2.1 µg increase in the levels of PM2.5 translated into an 11% increase in the risk of ADHD).

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Melatonin supplementation associated with improved heart failure outcomes

Isfahan University of Medical Sciences (Iran), February 23 2022. 

A trial reported  in Clinical Cardiology found improvements in N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-Pro BNP, a prohormone released by the heart that, when elevated, may be an indicator of heart failure) among heart failure patients who received supplements that contained melatonin. The trial also uncovered better quality of life and composite clinical outcomes in association with melatonin supplementation.

Resveratrol may be an effective intervention for lung aging

The Saban Research Institute (Los Angeles), February 22, 2022

In a study by The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, researchers demonstrate, for the first time that inhaled resveratrol treatments slow aging-related degenerative changes in mouse lung. Lung aging, characterized by airspace enlargement and decreasing lung function, is a significant risk factor for chronic human lung diseases. The study is published online in the journal Thorax. Resveratrol (RSL), a chemical found in red wine, is an antimicrobial chemical substance produced by plants to protect against infection and stress-related changes. RSL prophylaxis by inhalation was a novel measure taken by the research team as a potential approach for slowing age-related deterioration of lung function and structure by preserving alveolar epithelial type 2cells (AEC2) which line alveoli (the tiny air sacs in the lungs through which the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes place) and produce surfactant which is vital for efficient breathing.

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Plant product shows promise in mouse model of Parkinson’s Disease

University of California, Davis, February 22, 2022

A natural product from the dried root of a pea-family plant, potentially combined with an enzyme inhibitor discovered in the laboratory at the University of California, Davis, may provide hope in alleviating neuroinflammation in Parkinson’s disease. The team found that a soluble epoxide hydrolase (sEH) inhibitor combined with kurarinone, a compound from the dried root of Sophora flavescens, reduced neuroinflammation in an animal model with Parkinson’s disease. The dried root, also known as kushen, has been used for hundreds of years in traditional Chinese medicines.

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Tai Chi may reduce stroke risk

Chinese University of Hong Kong, February 22, 2022

Weekly Tai Chi exercise sessions may reduce stroke risk by lowering high blood pressure and increasing the good cholesterol, or high-density lipoprotein (HDL), according to research presented at the American Stroke Association’s International Stroke Conference. Researchers studied how Tai Chi compared to brisk walking for reducing stroke risk in 246 adults with known stroke risk factors, including high blood pressure. Participants were randomly assigned to a group that participated in two 60-minute Tai Chi sessions each week; a walking group that walked briskly for 30 minutes every day; or a control group, which was told to maintain the activities they were doing before the study. At three months into the assigned activities, researchers found: The Tai Chi group had notably greater reductions of 10.25 mm Hg in systolic (upper number) and 6.5 mm Hg in diastolic (lower number) blood pressure measurements than those in the control group.

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Postmenopausal women who increased intake of collagen peptides demonstrated improved bone mineral density, study finds

Kapodistrian University (Greece)

A randomized trial reported  in the Journal of Clinical Densitometry found that the addition of collagen peptides to a standard bone-supporting regimen of calcium and vitamin D3 was associated with greater improvements in measures of bone health compared to calcium and vitamin D3 alone.1 Collagen is important for bone health because it enables bones to absorb energy and have some flexibility – such that they don’t instantly fracture when they are highly stressed. “It is known that the mechanical integrity of the collagen network in human bone deteriorates with age, and such adverse changes correlate with the decreased toughness of the aged bone,” authors Kalliopi Lampropoulou-Adamidou of National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and colleagues wrote. The study included 45 postmenopausal women with osteopenia,. All participants received 500 mg of calcium and 10 mcg of vitamin D3 (400 IU) daily for one year and 23 women also received 5 grams per day of collagen peptides, the building blocks of collagen. After one year of treatment, women who received collagen peptides plus vitamin D and calcium experienced significant improvements in parameters related to bone mineral content and bone density in the trabecular portion of their tibia while the group receiving only vitamin D and calcium did not. Bone mineral density and mineral content also improved in the cortical bone (outer more solid portion) of the tibia among collagen peptide-intake participants compared to the calcium/vitamin D group. The group that received the collagen peptides also had greater bone density of their lower spine and changes suggestive of slight improvements in markers of bone turnover.

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Wokeism Is a Cruel and Dangerous Cult

Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—of those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda.

Victor Davis Hanson (Stanford University)

January 23, 2022

Wokeism has been described by its critics as the omnipresent use of race—and to a lesser extent, gender—to replace meritocracy and thus ensure equality of result. What follows from implementing that ideology are reparatory actions to reward those of the present by atoning for the injustices done to others in the past. Some see it as an update of 1960s cultural Marxism fads. Others scoff that it is just a return to 1980s-style political correctness. Still more see it as the logical successor to 1990s-type race, class, and gender obsessions—albeit with a shriller and more dangerous Jacobin, Soviet, and Maoist twist. Wokeism’s hysteria also invites comparisons to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. But few have described wokeism as the cruel creed that it is. Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda. It is nihilist and destroys everything it touches. It tears apart foes and friends alike, whether by fueling media-driven hatred of Donald Trump or faux-deification of the disaster that is now Joe Biden. Woke’s Victims Defunding law enforcement and defaming police resulted in record numbers of murders in 12 U.S. cities. A wave of violent crime is even hitting America’s suburbs. Without much fear of arrest, indictment, conviction, and incarceration, emboldened violent career criminals for the past year have robbed, assaulted, and killed the innocent with impunity. The victims at the bus stop, the subway, or in the furniture store do not seem to warrant media or progressive attention, much less sympathy. They are the ignored—the unnamed, and the forgotten collateral damage from the grand experiment of redefining crime as a social construct. The guilty are the elite academics, activists, and billionaires like George Soros who are untouched by what they birthed. We have all seen videos of the vast expanse of flotsam and jetsam strewn by train thieves along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Yet the Wild West mess is still more than just the concrete manifestations of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón’s unhinged efforts to excuse criminals from legal consequences. The packages thrown along the ground by thugs and gangsters represent, among other things, lost COVID-19 test results of the ill. Presumably, they unknowingly are waiting still by the window for the delivery of results that never arrive. The package in the dirt was, perhaps, a key tractor part eagerly awaited, in vain, by the broke farmer in the Central Valley. The mess included the life-saving medicines shipped to the sick that disappeared. And our elected leaders did what in response? Governor Gavin Newsom apologized for using the insensitive word “gangs” to describe those who plunder, loot, and trash railcars. Always In Search of Targets It is a cruel thing to indoctrinate children with the lie that they are innately guilty of oppression due to their skin color. One accurate definition of racism is collective ill-treatment of an individual due to his innate appearance—on the pretext that such bias is deserved, given the target is deemed mentally, spiritually, or morally inferior because of said traits. But that, in a nutshell, is the essence of critical race theory: the destruction of all human traits and unique characteristics, as demonized individuals are reduced to stereotyped, faceless members of a collective. The Forgotten Broken Eggs of the Woke Omelet Equity in our Orwellian world is not equality, but payback. Again, it is the idea of making the current generation pay for the supposed sins of the long dead of centuries past. Aside from the destruction of merit by the substitution of racial criteria, millions from a discarded generation will have doors slammed on their careers—simply because of the color of their skin. And they will never forget that. The woke do not even make the effort to admit that class matters as much as, or more than, race. By doing so, they doom millions of poor white and Asian students, who managed in poverty to achieve excellent grades and test scores, from being admitted to top-tier schools. Their actual achievement, despite their absence of wealthy, college-educated, or well-connected parents, means little. Once a morally bankrupt society—for naïve, utopian, or ignoble reasons—begins to calibrate graduation ceremonies, dorm space, roommate selection, achievement, and grading standards based on race, then it not only will lose its standard of living, but it will deserve to. And it may have a future date with the violence of Rwanda, Iraq, or the Balkans. Power, Not “Equity,” Is the Creed In sum, wokeness is not about kindness, equality, fairness, or morality. It is the power agenda of the elite of all races. For differing reasons, they rig the game in their own interests, without a care about who suffers. Rich white people assume that they possess the money, the influence, the networking skills, and the connections to navigate around the very exclusionary rules they make for others. For them, there are seldom costs. But they win apparent psychological gain at feeling spiritually superior while driving a Range Rover. They get high on the sense of power they wield to engineer the lives of millions deemed less important than they. And to the degree they feel guilty about their own monopoly of wealth and leisure, such transient superficial remorse is alleviated by abstract caring for the “other.” If they can ensure that 50 percent of TV commercials highlight African Americans, then they worry little about the nation’s existential crisis of 800 blacks murdered in Chicago last year. And no such television execs have a clue—or likely a concern—about how to stop it. The woke take out a medieval contract that all their material indulgences can be balanced by virtue-signaling caring for the less fortunate—although always at someone else’s expense. Woke = Wealthy Careerists And for the millions of the affluent, elite nonwhite? The resurgence of racial obsessions conveniently destroys the old idea of class, even though now it is the far more precise calibration of inequality. For all the woke talk about “constructs” of gender, race is somehow alone exempted and declared innate, definable, and immutable. One’s appearance becomes the permanent victimized refuge—even of NBA multibillionaires and billionaire rappers alike. A Ward Churchill or Elizabeth Warren can desperately seek to leverage a career in becoming Native American, apparently as if they were almost trapped in their own white bodies. Yet they can still not manage to construct such assumed identities in the manner of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. If race is now the sole immutable barometer of who is a victim, who a victimizer, then LeBron James, Jay-Z, Kayne West, Chris Rock, Michelle Obama, and Oprah Winfrey are always to be among the eternally oppressed. The enormous influence, power, status, and wealth they wield never negates their victimhood, despite a nation three generations into affirmative action. In the immoral calculus of woke, the poor white or Southeast Asian offspring of poorly paid high-school dropouts constitute “the privileged.” And a multimillionaire racist like the TV anchorwoman Joy Reid claims to be the perpetual victim, not the inner-city African American retiree who in 2021 has lost local police protection. No wonder the woke elite and the affluent leftists fixate on race, given they are now the ruling class. Otherwise, their own privilege would be the obvious target of the once-beloved “Revolution.” So, they fear that by their own prior left-wing standards, they too could end up on the wrong side of their moral Maginot Line. Wokeism’s obsessions with ferreting out “white privilege” are a way for rich people to head off (so to speak) the fate of Marie Antoinette. Totalitarian Wokeism A final note. We know wokeism is both contrary to human nature and antithetical to democracy and constitutional government. Without public support, it has instead embraced an entire array of cruel, Soviet, and Maoist means to achieve its own self-interested ends. Woke talk about “racists” eerily emulates Soviet boilerplate about “counterrevolutionaries.” Today’s wokeist spouts things that could come right out of the mouth of the novelist Boris Pasternak’s character Army Commissar Strelnikov, or Mao’s Little Red Book concerning “suppression of counterrevolutionaries.” No wonder the woke, so-called “humanists” are the first to resort to Trotskyization and iconoclasm. They are masters of censoring, blacklisting, scapegoating, deplatforming, ritual humiliation, doxxing, cancel-culture, ostracism, and disbarring. Wokeism’s logic is the eternal one of the bully Jacobin with his guillotine lists of the revolutionary unpure, the 19th-century lynch mob storming the frontier jail, the Red Guards hounding the counterrevolutionary, and the forced mental hospitalizations of the Soviet Union. But above all, wokeism is a cruel cult—created by and for the careerist benefit of the privileged.

Depression linked to reduced arginine levels

University of Eastern Finland, February 20, 2022

People suffering from major depressive disorder, MDD, have reduced arginine levels, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. Arginine is an amino acid which the body uses to produce, e.g., nitric oxide. Nitric oxide, in turn, is a nervous system and immune defence mediator, and it also plays a role in vascular regulation. The global arginine bioavailability ratio, GABR, is an indicator of the body’s arginine levels, and the ratio has previously been used to measure the body’s capacity to produce nitric oxide. Reduced arginine bioavailability is also known to be an independent risk factor of cardiovascular diseases.

(NEXT)

Vitamin D supplementation associated with improvement in mood, desire in women

Medical University of Silesia (Poland), February 19 2022 

A study reported in Endokrynologia Polska resulted in improvement in female sexual desire, orgasm and satisfaction, as well as mood, after supplementation with vitamin D. Based on researchers Robert Krysiak and colleagues’ previous finding of an association between deficient vitamin D levels and abnormal female sexual function, a trial that examined the effects of six months of oral vitamin D supplementation was conducted among 47 women with deficient or insufficient plasma vitamin D levels. Women with vitamin D deficiency, defined as plasma 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels that were lower than 2 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), were given 4,000 international units (IU) vitamin D per day, and participants with insufficient levels of 20-30 ng/mL were given 2,000 IU daily or no vitamin D. Questionnaires that evaluated female sexual function and depressive symptoms were completed before and after the treatment period. Supplementation with vitamin D was associated with improved sexual desire in both deficient and insufficient women. Among participants with vitamin D deficiency, vitamin D improved total sexual function scores and scores for sexual satisfaction and orgasm, while decreasing total depression scores.

(NEXT)

Midwifery linked to better birth outcomes in state-by-state report cards

Oregon State University, February 22, 2022 

Midwife-friendly laws and regulations tend to coincide with lower rates of premature births, cesarean deliveries and newborn deaths, according to a new U.S.-wide “report card” that ranks all 50 states on the quality of their maternity care. The first-of-its-kind study found a strong connection between the role of midwives in the health care system – what the researchers call “midwifery integration” – and birth outcomes. States with high midwifery integration, like Washington and Oregon, generally had better results, while states with the least integration, primarily in the Midwest and South, tended to do worse. The findings were published in the journal PLOS ONE. About 10 percent of U.S. births involve midwives, far behind other industrialized countries, where midwives participate in half or more of all deliveries. Each state has its own laws and regulations on midwives’ credentialing, their ability to provide services at a client’s home or at birth centers, their authority to prescribe medication and the degree to which they are reimbursed by Medicaid.

(NEXT)

Microbiome changes could underlie nicotinamide riboside’s ability to protect against weight gain

Medical College of Wisconsin, February 21 2022.

The January/February 2022 issue of the journal mSystems reported how the vitamin B3 derivative nicotinamide riboside (NR) impacts the gut microbiome and protects against weight gain. NR is a precursor of NAD+, a coenzyme found in all cells that aids in the production of energy. “Gut bacteria produce vitamin B3 in the colon and are capable of salvaging and metabolizing vitamin B3 and its derivatives,” wrote Valery V. Lozada-Fernández of the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee and colleagues. “However, it is unknown how dietary supplementation of NR alters the microbiome and if those alterations contribute to deflection of weight gain.” Mice were given diets that were high in fat with or without the addition of NR. NR supplementation resulted in less body mass gain, lower fasting glucose levels and differences in gut microbes, including a greater number of bacteria that produce butyrate.

(NEXT)

How sound waves could help regrow bones

RMIT University (Netherlands), February 22,2022

Researchers have used sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells, in a tissue engineering advance that could one day help patients regrow bone lost to cancer or degenerative disease. The innovative stem cell treatment from researchers at RMIT University offers a smart way forward for overcoming some of the field’s biggest challenges, through the precision power of high-frequency soundwaves. Tissue engineering is an emerging field that aims to rebuild bone and muscle by harnessing the human body’s natural ability to heal itself. Additionally, the few clinical trials attempting to regrow bone have largely used stem cells extracted from a patient’s bone marrow—a highly painful procedure. In a new study published in the journal Small, the RMIT research team showed stem cells treated with high-frequency sound waves turned into bone cells quickly and efficiently.

(Videos)

1. Justin Trudeau’s China dictatorship gaffe (1:30) (start at :25)

(OTHER NEWS)

Wokeism Is a Cruel and Dangerous Cult

Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—of those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda.

Victor Davis Hanson (Stanford University)

Wokeism has been described by its critics as the omnipresent use of race—and to a lesser extent, gender—to replace meritocracy and thus ensure equality of result. What follows from implementing that ideology are reparatory actions to reward those of the present by atoning for the injustices done to others in the past. Some see it as an update of 1960s cultural Marxism fads. Others scoff that it is just a return to 1980s-style political correctness. Still more see it as the logical successor to 1990s-type race, class, and gender obsessions—albeit with a shriller and more dangerous Jacobin, Soviet, and Maoist twist. Wokeism’s hysteria also invites comparisons to the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism. But few have described wokeism as the cruel creed that it is. Wokeism’s natural logic is to destroy the lives of people of both genders, of all races, and—if need be—those of every age, all to leverage an otherwise unworkable ideological agenda. It is nihilist and destroys everything it touches. It tears apart foes and friends alike, whether by fueling media-driven hatred of Donald Trump or faux-deification of the disaster that is now Joe Biden. Woke’s Victims Defunding law enforcement and defaming police resulted in record numbers of murders in 12 U.S. cities. A wave of violent crime is even hitting America’s suburbs. Without much fear of arrest, indictment, conviction, and incarceration, emboldened violent career criminals for the past year have robbed, assaulted, and killed the innocent with impunity. The victims at the bus stop, the subway, or in the furniture store do not seem to warrant media or progressive attention, much less sympathy. They are the ignored—the unnamed, and the forgotten collateral damage from the grand experiment of redefining crime as a social construct. The guilty are the elite academics, activists, and billionaires like George Soros who are untouched by what they birthed. We have all seen videos of the vast expanse of flotsam and jetsam strewn by train thieves along the Union Pacific tracks in Los Angeles. Yet the Wild West mess is still more than just the concrete manifestations of Los Angeles County district attorney George Gascón’s unhinged efforts to excuse criminals from legal consequences. The packages thrown along the ground by thugs and gangsters represent, among other things, lost COVID-19 test results of the ill. Presumably, they unknowingly are waiting still by the window for the delivery of results that never arrive. The package in the dirt was, perhaps, a key tractor part eagerly awaited, in vain, by the broke farmer in the Central Valley. The mess included the life-saving medicines shipped to the sick that disappeared. And our elected leaders did what in response? Governor Gavin Newsom apologized for using the insensitive word “gangs” to describe those who plunder, loot, and trash railcars. Always In Search of Targets It is a cruel thing to indoctrinate children with the lie that they are innately guilty of oppression due to their skin color. One accurate definition of racism is collective ill-treatment of an individual due to his innate appearance—on the pretext that such bias is deserved, given the target is deemed mentally, spiritually, or morally inferior because of said traits. But that, in a nutshell, is the essence of critical race theory: the destruction of all human traits and unique characteristics, as demonized individuals are reduced to stereotyped, faceless members of a collective. The Forgotten Broken Eggs of the Woke Omelet Equity in our Orwellian world is not equality, but payback. Again, it is the idea of making the current generation pay for the supposed sins of the long dead of centuries past. Aside from the destruction of merit by the substitution of racial criteria, millions from a discarded generation will have doors slammed on their careers—simply because of the color of their skin. And they will never forget that. The woke do not even make the effort to admit that class matters as much as, or more than, race. By doing so, they doom millions of poor white and Asian students, who managed in poverty to achieve excellent grades and test scores, from being admitted to top-tier schools. Their actual achievement, despite their absence of wealthy, college-educated, or well-connected parents, means little. Once a morally bankrupt society—for naïve, utopian, or ignoble reasons—begins to calibrate graduation ceremonies, dorm space, roommate selection, achievement, and grading standards based on race, then it not only will lose its standard of living, but it will deserve to. And it may have a future date with the violence of Rwanda, Iraq, or the Balkans. Power, Not “Equity,” Is the Creed In sum, wokeness is not about kindness, equality, fairness, or morality. It is the power agenda of the elite of all races. For differing reasons, they rig the game in their own interests, without a care about who suffers. Rich white people assume that they possess the money, the influence, the networking skills, and the connections to navigate around the very exclusionary rules they make for others. For them, there are seldom costs. But they win apparent psychological gain at feeling spiritually superior while driving a Range Rover. They get high on the sense of power they wield to engineer the lives of millions deemed less important than they. And to the degree they feel guilty about their own monopoly of wealth and leisure, such transient superficial remorse is alleviated by abstract caring for the “other.” If they can ensure that 50 percent of TV commercials highlight African Americans, then they worry little about the nation’s existential crisis of 800 blacks murdered in Chicago last year. And no such television execs have a clue—or likely a concern—about how to stop it. The woke take out a medieval contract that all their material indulgences can be balanced by virtue-signaling caring for the less fortunate—although always at someone else’s expense. Woke = Wealthy Careerists And for the millions of the affluent, elite nonwhite? The resurgence of racial obsessions conveniently destroys the old idea of class, even though now it is the far more precise calibration of inequality. For all the woke talk about “constructs” of gender, race is somehow alone exempted and declared innate, definable, and immutable. One’s appearance becomes the permanent victimized refuge—even of NBA multibillionaires and billionaire rappers alike. A Ward Churchill or Elizabeth Warren can desperately seek to leverage a career in becoming Native American, apparently as if they were almost trapped in their own white bodies. Yet they can still not manage to construct such assumed identities in the manner of Bruce/Caitlyn Jenner. If race is now the sole immutable barometer of who is a victim, who a victimizer, then LeBron James, Jay-Z, Kayne West, Chris Rock, Michelle Obama, and Oprah Winfrey are always to be among the eternally oppressed. The enormous influence, power, status, and wealth they wield never negates their victimhood, despite a nation three generations into affirmative action. In the immoral calculus of woke, the poor white or Southeast Asian offspring of poorly paid high-school dropouts constitute “the privileged.” And a multimillionaire racist like the TV anchorwoman Joy Reid claims to be the perpetual victim, not the inner-city African American retiree who in 2021 has lost local police protection. No wonder the woke elite and the affluent leftists fixate on race, given they are now the ruling class. Otherwise, their own privilege would be the obvious target of the once-beloved “Revolution.” So, they fear that by their own prior left-wing standards, they too could end up on the wrong side of their moral Maginot Line. Wokeism’s obsessions with ferreting out “white privilege” are a way for rich people to head off (so to speak) the fate of Marie Antoinette. Totalitarian Wokeism A final note. We know wokeism is both contrary to human nature and antithetical to democracy and constitutional government. Without public support, it has instead embraced an entire array of cruel, Soviet, and Maoist means to achieve its own self-interested ends. Woke talk about “racists” eerily emulates Soviet boilerplate about “counterrevolutionaries.” Today’s wokeist spouts things that could come right out of the mouth of the novelist Boris Pasternak’s character Army Commissar Strelnikov, or Mao’s Little Red Book concerning “suppression of counterrevolutionaries.” No wonder the woke, so-called “humanists” are the first to resort to Trotskyization and iconoclasm. They are masters of censoring, blacklisting, scapegoating, deplatforming, ritual humiliation, doxxing, cancel-culture, ostracism, and disbarring. Wokeism’s logic is the eternal one of the bully Jacobin with his guillotine lists of the revolutionary unpure, the 19th-century lynch mob storming the frontier jail, the Red Guards hounding the counterrevolutionary, and the forced mental hospitalizations of the Soviet Union. But above all, wokeism is a cruel cult—created by and for the careerist benefit of the privileged.

Could a black raspberry extract help manage blood pressure?

Korea University

Supplements containing a dried powder extract from black raspberry (Rubus occidentalis) may improve blood pressure and help support cardiovascular health, says a new study. Eight weeks of supplementation with a high-dose of the extract were associated with significant reductions in 24-hour systolic blood pressure in pre-hypertensive people of about 3.3 mmHg, report scientists from the Korea University Anam Hospital and the Gochang Black Raspberry Research Institute in Korea. Data published in Nutrition also indicated that the high-dose supplement decreased night-time systolic blood pressure by an average of 5.4 mmHg over eight weeks, compared to placebo.

(NEXT)

Tahini Shown to Promote Heart Health Significantly

Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences (Iran), February 20th, 2022

You may not have ever knowingly eaten tahini, but if you’ve had authentic hummus, you’ve eaten it nonetheless. Raw and unprocessed tahini, without any additional oils or additives, could be a superior food-medicine for preventing heart disease and the risk factors associated with it. A recent study from the Archives of Iranian Medicine reveals tahini as a possible substitution for risky drugs like statins, drugs prescribed for heart health and known to come with potentially dangerous side effects.

(NEXT)

Air pollution found to reduce sperm motility

Tongji University and Jiao Tong University School of Medicine (China)

A small team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in and around Shanghai, China, has found evidence that men who live in heavily polluted areas may experience poor sperm motility. In their paper published in JAMA Network Open, the group describes studying the medical records of thousands of men living in China. Prior research has shown that sperm counts for men living in North America, Australia and Europe have been declining since the 1970s. Scientists do not know why this is happening, but theorize it is likely tied to air pollution. Several studies have been conducted in recent years attempting to better understand the connection between sperm health and air pollution involving particulate matter. Unfortunately, such studies have delivered mixed results. In this new effort, the researchers in China sought to find connections by studying the health records of 33,876 male patients at fertility clinics in 130 cities in China.

(NEXT)

Kids Who Consume Energy Drinks Are 66 Percent More Likely To Be Hyperactive and Inattentive

Yale University, February 19, 2022

Middle-school children who consume heavily sweetened energy drinks are 66% more likely to be at risk for hyperactivity and inattention symptoms, a new study led by the Yale School of Public Healthhas found. An alarming increase in the consumption of sports and energy drinks, especially among adolescents, has been found to cause irreversible damage to teeth and erode tooth enamel. 

Two research papers, each published separately, suggest that concerns over levels of caffeine and sugar in energy drinks, and their effects on young people who drink them, are mounting.

Athletes who consume too many energy drinks are also known to suffer from dehydration, tremors, heat stroke and heart attacks. Now the focus is on behavior.

(NEXT)

Glucosamine plus chondroitin may reduce joint space narrowing

University of Sydney

Two years of daily supplementation with a combination of glucosamine and a low molecular weight chondroitin sulfate may significantly reduce joint space narrowing in the knee, says a new study from the University of Sydney, Australia. Results of the randomized, double blind and placebo-controlled Long-Term Evaluation of Glucosamine Sulfate (LEGS) study indicated that daily doses of 1500 mg of glucosamine sulfate (Sanofi-Aventis) and 800 mg of chondroitin sulfate (PureFlex, TSI) resulted in a statistically significant decrease of 0.1mm in joint space narrowing, compared with placebo.

(Videos)

1. The Trudeau Regime Will DESTROY the Lives of Protestors…Whether They Leave or Not (1:31)

(OTHER NEWS)

The Naked Face of New Normal Fascism

CJ Hopkins, Off-Guardian, February 20, 2022

I told you this part wasn’t going to be pretty. The collapse of fascist ideological movements and fanatical death cults never is. The New Normal is proving to be no exception. After three weeks of non-violent civil disobedience outside the Canadian parliament in Ottawa by truckers and other Canadian citizens struggling to uphold their right to not be subjected to forced “vaccination,” Justin Trudeau unleashed the goon squads. Thousands of militarized riot police (and other unidentified heavily-armed operatives) swarmed the area, surrounded the protesters, started breaking into trucks and arresting people, and beating them with batons and the butts of their rifles. In one particularly ugly episode, the New Normal stormtroopers rode their horses directly into a crowd of non-violent protesters, trampling an elderly lady with a walker. She had just finished saying something to the police along the lines of “you break my heart … this is about peace, and love, and happiness.” Then they knocked her down and rode their horses over her. Despite an abundance of video evidence clearly depicting exactly what happened, the Ottawa Police tried to spin it this way … The big red arrow (courtesy of The Marie Oakes) points to the lady’s walker, or the alleged “horse-assaulting bicycle.” Presumably, the face of the gentlemen above her also caused the horse “to trip,” or was in the process of causing the horse “to trip,” at the moment that this photo was taken. And that wasn’t all. Oh no, far from it. The “show of force” was just getting started. After all, this was not a “mostly peaceful” outbreak of rioting, looting, and arson. This was non-violent civil disobedience, with children’s bouncy castles, makeshift saunas, honking, dancing, illegal barbecuing, and other forms of “terrorist” activity, which had to be crushed with an iron fist. On Saturday, the goon squads broke out the stun grenades, the pepper spray, and the big wooden sticks. By Sunday morning, they were shooting people with “non-lethal, mid-range impact weapons.” Tow truck operators in horror-movie ski masks were brought in to haul away the big rigs. Before he turned the goon squads loose on Friday, Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act, suspending the Canadian constitution, which he had already suspended back in 2020 due to the “apocalyptic pandemic,” which is why the protesters were protesting in the first place. Parliament was scheduled to debate his authority to declare another “state of emergency,” but, of course, the debate was abruptly suspended due to the massive “police operation” that his invocation of the Act had enabled. Acting under the Emergencies Act, he immediately cancelled the right of assembly, outlawed the protests, and started threatening to kill people’s dogs and take away their kids. Then he and his fascist New Normal lieutenants started freezing the bank accounts of anyone and everyone even vaguely connected to the trucker protest. According to a Bloomberg report: “The emergency orders require virtually every participant in the Canadian financial system — banks, investment firms, credit unions, loan companies, securities dealers, fundraising platforms and payment and clearing services — to determine whether they possess or control property of a person who’s attending an illegal protest or providing supplies to demonstrators.” And, as if all that wasn’t fascist enough, Ottawa’s police chief has made it clear that, once the “crackdown” is finally over, they will hunt down anyone involved in the protests, arrest them and charge them with “criminal offenses,” subject them to “financial sanctions,” and otherwise destroy their lives and families. The crackdown in Ottawa is hardly an aberration. As my readers might recall, New Normal Germany outlawed protesting against the New Normal (i.e., the new official ideology) back in September of 2020, and the German police have been absolutely brutal. Anyone deemed a “Covid denier” is subject to surveillance by Germany’s Intelligence services. The US Department of Homeland Security designates us “domestic violent extremists.” Same story in Australia, France, Belgium, The Netherlands, and assorted other countries. I have been describing the New Normal as a new form of totalitarianism (or fascism, if you prefer) for the past two years, and I have been documenting it from the very beginning (see, e.g., these Twitter threads from March 2020 and April 2020, which the OffGuardian editors have preserved for posterity). It has been there all along, right out in the open, but rendered invisible by the official Covid narrative. The official narrative is rapidly dissolving, rendering the fascism of the New Normal visible. This is happening now because those of us who have seen it from the beginning — and have been resisting it all along — have held out long enough to run out the clock. GloboCap can’t keep the narrative going, so all they have left is brute fascist force. We need to make GloboCap deploy that force, and to shine a big, bright spotlight on it, as the truckers and protesters in Ottawa have just done. In case anyone is confused about the tactic, it’s called classic non-violent civil disobedience. I described it in a recent column: “In other words, we need to make GloboCap (and its minions) go openly totalitarian … because it can’t. If it could, it would have done so already. Global capitalism cannot function that way. Going openly totalitarian will cause it to implode … no, not global capitalism itself, but this totalitarian version of it. In fact, this is starting to happen already. It needs the simulation of ‘reality,’ and ‘democracy,’ and ‘normality,’ to keep the masses docile. So we need to attack that simulation. We need to hammer on it until it cracks, and the monster hiding within in appears. That is the weakness of the system … New Normal totalitarianism will not work if the masses perceive it as totalitarianism, as a political/ideological program, rather than as a response to a deadly pandemic.” The official narrative is dead, or dying. The Covidian Cult is coming apart. No one but the most fanatical New Normals believes there is any real justification for imposing mandatory “vaccination,” “quarantine camps,” segregation of “the Unvaccinated,” or any of the other “Covid restrictions.” “The virus” is no longer an excuse for mindlessly following ridiculous orders and persecuting those of us who refuse. Apocalyptic Pandemic Theater is over. It is a purely political fight from now on. Ottawa is not the end. It is just the beginning. Protests and other forms of civil disobedience are growing all around the world … yes, even here in New Normal Germany. That does not mean it is time to relax. On the contrary, it is time to step up the pressure. It is time to make the monster show itself, in all its naked fascist ugliness, and to force everyone to pick a side. There are only two sides … fascism or freedom.

Mortality lower during five-year period among adults who supplemented with calcium plus vitamin D

Thirumalai Mission Hospital (India), February 16 2022. 

A study published in the  Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism found a decrease in fractures and mortality during a 5-year average follow-up period among individuals who regularly supplemented with calcium and vitamin D. The study involved participants in a community-based osteoporosis detection program that included women aged 50 and older who had been postmenopausal for five years and men over the age of 55.  Osteoporosis and osteopenia were detected among 2,882 participants, who were subsequently advised to consume 500 mg calcium and 250 IU of vitamin D3 per day. These participants were additionally offered annual injections of 600,000 IU vitamin D3. The current analysis was limited to 2,113 participants among this group who were not treated with prescription drug therapy for severe osteoporosis and who were followed for at least two years. Among those who supplemented regularly, the risks of experiencing a fracture or death were respectively 73% and 47% lower during the 5-year average follow-up compared to those who failed to adhere to the regimen.

(NEXT)

Black walnuts found to suppress appetite and oxidative degradation of lipids

University of Georgia, February 3, 2022

Researchers have found that adding black walnuts (Juglans nigra) to your breakfast not only helps you feel fuller, but also protects your cells from oxidative damage. In their report, which was published in the journal Nutrition Research, the team explored the benefits of using black walnuts as a butter substitute. In their report, the team noted that most studies on the health benefits of walnuts use English walnuts, which have a different nutritional profile than black walnuts. While walnuts are nutrient-dense, they argued that black walnuts have more protein than the more popular English walnuts. Black walnuts, they proposed, can improve satiety and even regulate postprandial increases in lipid peroxidation better than English walnuts. A total of 30 healthy adults participated in the randomized, double-blind control crossover study. At each testing visit, the participants were asked to eat a breakfast meal that had either butter (which served as the control) or a butter substitute (black walnut or English walnut). After three testing visits, the team noted that participants who ate black walnuts reported feeling fuller than those who had English walnut and butter. In addition, they had greater suppression of lipid peroxidation after eating. “Substituting butter in a breakfast meal with [black walnuts] or [English walnuts] increased fullness; however, the [black walnut] meal was superior for suppressing overall appetite while also lowering postprandial lipid peroxidation,” the team wrote in their report.

(NEXT)

Human brain doesn't slow down until after 60

Heidelberg University's Institute of Psychology, February 17, 2022

You used to be able to make snap judgments in your 20s, but now it feels like you take a lot longer to react to questions, decisions and challenges put before you. Don't fret, it's not that you're losing brain power. Your response time does tend to slow down as you age, but a new study argues that's not because your brain's processing speed is deteriorating. Your brain remains as nimble as ever until you hit your 60s, according to a report published Feb. 17 in the journal Nature Human Behaviour. "Our research now shows that this slowing is not due to a reduction in cognitive processing speed," von Krause said. "Until older adulthood, the speed of information processing in the task we studied barely changes."

(NEXT)

Study shows exercise can help older adults retain their memories

We all know exercise is good for us, but that still leaves plenty of questions. How much exercise? Who benefits the most? And when in our lives? New research led by University of Pittsburgh psychologists found that it seems like exercising about three times a week for at least four months is how much you need to reap the benefits in episodic memory." Episodic memory is the kind that deals with events that happened to you in the past. It's also one of the first to decline with age. "I usually like to talk about the first time you got behind the wheel of a car," said Aghjayan. "So you might remember where you were, how old you were, who was in the passenger seat explaining things to you, that feeling of excitement." Seeking clarity in the muddy waters of the scientific literature, the team pored over 1,279 studies, eventually narrowing them down to just 36 that met specific criteria. The researchers found that pooling together those 36 studies was enough to show that for older adults, exercise can indeed benefit their memory.

(NEXT)

Prevention Against Gallstones - Eat More Foods With Vitamin E

University of Kiel (Germany), February 16, 2022

More than 90 percent of the population does not meet their recommended daily allowance of vitamin E. Researchers in Germany led by the University of Kiel found that subjects with gallstone disease had lower blood levels of vitamin E than those who did not have gallstones. Vitamin E does everything from ease exercise soreness, treating menstrual pain, preventing cancer and playing a central role in neurological and cardiovascular function. Adequate levels of vitamin E, an essential micronutrient, are especially critical for the very young. The scientists also found that those with gallstone disease also had a lower alpha-tocopherol/cholesterol ratio than healthy individuals. A similar association was found with gamma-tocopherol levels. However, with the gamma form, the results were not statistically significant.

(OTHER NEWS)

How Medicare is quietly being privatized

By Abdul El-Sayed, M.D. Detroit Metro Times, February 9, 2022

Healthcare is big business — literally one of the most lucrative corporate endeavors in the country, accounting for one-fifth of our total economy. And the way that the business of healthcare interferes with actually providing Americans with appropriate, accessible, and affordable healthcare has been a frequent subject of my writing in these pages. From hospital consolidation to drug pricing, rising premiums to healthcare inequities, the fact that our healthcare system is designed to maximize profit for a few large corporations is the root, if not all, of the problem. The fattest slice of that very, very large pie is healthcare for seniors — the Americans who most often need care. American seniors are insured through Medicare, a government health insurance program that’s supposed to offer them affordable, comprehensive healthcare. But as this is the American healthcare system we’re talking about, the knives are constantly out for Medicare — looking for just another bite. Late last year, I wrote about the Medicare (dis)Advantage program, a frontal assault on Medicare, which cajoles beneficiaries into selecting privately managed Medicare plans. The private health insurance corporations that administer these plans get to keep the money they don’t spend on healthcare as profit, putting $27 billion of taxpayer moneyinto the pockets of health insurance corporations in 2018 alone. As bad as Medicare Advantage is, a new plan hatched under the Trump administration — and being allowed to proceed under the Biden administration — is even worse. But unlike Medicare Advantage, most seniors haven’t even heard about it. It’s called Direct Contracting. Designed by the Trump administration, it’s a sop to the health insurance corporations and private equity firms that have been such a persistent force in Republican healthcare circles. They agree on a simple goal: privatize everything. Instead of cajoling seniors to hand over their Medicare dollars, large corporations, called Direct Contracting Entities, target doctors. When a doctor signs up, all of the Medicare beneficiaries they see are signed up too — without their knowledge or consent. The Direct Contracting Entity acts as a middleman between the physician and Medicare — and like Medicare Advantage, they profit off of the Medicare dollars that aren’t spent on beneficiaries. In exchange for signing up, the doctors earn a kickback from the Direct Contracting Entity. But Direct Contracting isn’t a matter of law; Congress never voted on this. It’s just a pilot program designed by the Trump administration … that the Biden administration is now carrying forward. They could kill Direct Contracting in its tracks if they wanted to! The fact that it’s not should be extremely worrying to seniors, consumer rights advocates, and anyone who pays taxes to the U.S. government. The irony here is that President Biden ran on a public option — which doesn’t look to be coming anytime soon. Instead of that promise, his administration is allowing a backdoor private buyout of Medicare.

Why iodine deficiency during pregnancy may have disastrous consequences

Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology February 7, 2022

Higher mammals, such as humans, have markedly larger brains than other mammals. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden recently discovered a newmechanism governing brain stem cell proliferation. It serves to boost the production of neurons during development, thus causing the enlargement of the cerebral cortex – the part of the brain that enables us humans to speak, think and dream. The surprising discovery made by the Dresden-based researchers: two components in the stem cell environment – the extracellular matrix and thyroid hormones – work together with a protein molecule found on the stem cell surface, a so-called integrin.

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Broccoli and kale microgreens pack a nutritional punch that varies with growing conditions

American Chemical Society, February 16, 2022

Although microgreens were initially gourmet ingredients for upscale restaurants, they’ve become popular among gardeners and home cooks. Despite their “superfood” label, the levels of healthful compounds, such as phytonutrients, in most varieties of microgreens are unknown. Researchers in ACS Food Science & Technology now report that kale and broccoli microgreens grown in either windowsills or under commercial growing conditions are rich in phytonutrients, though the levels of some compounds varied considerably between the two environments. As indoor gardening has taken off in recent years, the most commonly planted varieties of these small seedlings are from the Brassica family, which includes broccoli, kale, cabbage and mustard. The mature, fully-grown versions of these vegetables are rich in vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals, and environmental conditions can impact the plants’ nutritional contents.

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Can EPA-rich supplements help brains work ‘less hard’ and boost mental performance?

Swinburne University (Australia) February 10, 2022

Omega-3 supplements rich in EPA may improve cognitive performance with a reduction in neural activity observed, indicating that the brain worked ‘less hard’, report researchers from Australia. On the other hand, DHA-rich supplements were associated with an increase in functional activation and no improvement in cognitive performance, according to results published in Human Psychopharmacology: Clinical and Experimental . Isabelle Bauer from Swinburne University and her co-authors said that this indicated that DHA-rich supplements are less effective than EPA-rich supplements for boosting neurocognitive functioning.

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Study ‘leaves little doubt’ about Pycnogenol’s benefits for menopause symptoms

Keii Medical Center (Japan), February 13, 2022

Daily supplements of extracts from the bark of French Maritime Pine may help reduce the symptoms of the menopause like hot flashes and night sweats, says a new study. Twelve weeks of supplementation with Pycnogenol were associated with significant reductions in scores of menopause symptoms,  according to findings published in The Journal of Reproductive Medicine. The researchers recruited 170 perimenopausal women to participate in their randomized, placebo-controlled, double-blind, parallel-group clinical trial. The women were randomly assigned to receive either daily Pycnogenol supplements (60 mg per day) or placebo for 12 weeks. Results showed that there were no statistically significant differences between the groups for estradiol, follicle stimulating hormone, insulin-like growth factor, IGF binding protein 3, and dehydroepiandrosterone, which meant there were no hormonal effects of Pycnogenol, said the researchers.

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Yale study links common chemicals to osteoarthritis

Yale University School of Environmental Studies, February 14, 2022

A new study has linked exposure to two common perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) with osteoarthritis. PFCs are used in more than 200 industrial processes and consumer products including certain stain- and water-resistant fabrics, grease-proof paper food containers, personal care products, and other items. Because of their persistence, PFCs have become ubiquitous contaminants of humans and wildlife. The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, looked at the associations between perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid (PFOS), and osteoarthritis, in a study population representative of the United States. “We found that PFOA and PFOS exposures are associated with higher prevalence of osteoarthritis, particularly in women, a group that is disproportionately impacted by this chronic disease,” said Sarah Uhl, who authored the study. Women in the highest 25% of exposure to PFOA had about two times the odds of having osteoarthritis compared to those in the lowest 25% of exposure.

(Videos)

1. Who Got the Covid Relief Money? | Real Time with Bill Maher (HBO) (3:51)

(OTHER NEWS)

OPED:  The Earth Belongs to America

Caitlin Johnstone, February 14, 2022

The Wall Street Journal has an article out titled “U.S. Aims to Thwart China’s Plan for Atlantic Base in Africa“, subtitled “An American delegation wants to convince Equatorial Guinea against giving Beijing a launchpad in waters the U.S. considers its backyard.” The article quotes the former U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Tibor Nagy saying, “We’d really, really not like to see a Chinese facility” on the Atlantic, and discusses “American concern about China’s global expansionism and its pursuit of a permanent military presence on waters the U.S. considers home turf.” The Quincy Institute’s Trita Parsi has discussed the irony of WSJ yelling about China’s “global expansionism” over a potential military base in Equatorial Guinea without applying that label to the U.S., when the U.S. has hundreds of times the number of foreign military bases as China. Antiwar’s Daniel Larison wrote an article back in December eviscerating the ridiculous claim that a military base some six thousand nautical miles from the U.S. coastline could be reasonably framed as any kind of threat to the American people. But what really jumps out is the insane way the U.S. political/media class routinely talks about virtually every location on this planet as though it is a territory of the United States. The Wall Street Journal referring to the entire Atlantic Ocean as “America’s backyard” and “waters the U.S. considers home turf” follows a recent controversy over the U.S. president proclaiming that “Everything south of the Mexican border is America’s front yard.” This provoked many references to the so-called “Monroe Doctrine”, a nineteenth-century imperialist assertion that Latin America is off limits to any power apart from the United States, effectively declaring the entire Western Hemisphere the property of Washington, DC. It also follows another incident in which Press Secretary Jen Psaki remarked on the ongoing tensions around Ukraine that it is in America’s interest to support “our eastern flank countries”, which might come as a surprise to those who were taught in school that America’s eastern flank was not Eastern Europe but the eastern coastline of the United States. The casual way these people say such things reflects a collectively held worldview that you won’t find on any official document or in any schoolchild’s textbook, but which is nonetheless a firmly held perspective among all the drivers of the modern empire: that the entire world is the property of the U.S. government. That the U.S. is not just the most powerful government in the world but also its rightful ruler, in the same way Rome ruled the Christian world. It’s not something they can come out and directly say, because admitting they see themselves as the rulers of the world would make them look tyrannical and megalomaniacal. But it’s certainly something they believe. They’re about as obvious about it as could be. They make almost no effort to conceal it. And yet you’ll still get empire apologists like Michael McFaul saying nonsense like this: McFaul knows very well that the U.S. is an imperial power and that it demands a very large “sphere of influence”. Would you like to see a picture of America’s sphere of influence? Here you go: To live in the western world is to be constantly inundated with made-up stories about tyrants who want to terrorize the world while living under a globe-spanning power structure that is actually terrorizing the world. It’s just so bizarre watching these imperial spinmeisters try to frame nations like China and Russia as freakish and backwards while working to literally rule the world like a comic book super villain. The U.S.-centralized empire is quantifiably the single most destructive and evil power structure in today’s world. We shouldn’t want anyone to rule over the entire planet with an iron fist, but these monsters are the very least qualified among us to do so.

University of the Pacific, February 1, 2022 

According to the recently released 2015-2020 Dietary Guidelines for Americans, small shifts in food choices can make a big difference; including a shift from solid fats to oils, like the oil in fresh avocados. On the heels of this advice, a new meta-analysis, published in the Journal of Clinical Lipidology, adds to the growing body of research that supports the use of avocados in lieu of solid fats (and foods that have higher saturated fat content) to significantly change lipid profiles.

The research, “Impact of avocado-enriched diets on plasma lipoproteins, looked at 10 unique avocado studies with 229 participants, assessing the impact of avocados on cholesterol levels. Researchers found avocado consumption (1 to 1.5 per day) significantly reduced total cholesterol (TC), “bad” low density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) and triglycerides (TG) when they were substituted for sources of saturated fat. Additionally, avocado consumption did not impact “good” high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL). However, the optimal amount of avocado and frequency of use needs further evaluation along with the nutritional similarities and differences between other different MUFA sources. Larger trials looking at the impact of avocados on major adverse cardiovascular events are warranted. (See conclusion of study)

Any physical activity is better late than never but earlier in older age, better still

University of Padua (Italy), February 15, 2022

Twenty minutes of daily moderate to vigorous exercise in early old age (70-75) may best stave off major heart disease, including heart failure, in late old age (80+), suggests research published online in the journal Heart.

The findings reinforce the maxim of ‘better late than never,’ when it comes to exercise, but earlier on in older age is better still, concludes a linked editorial.

To plug this knowledge gap, the researchers drew on data from the Progetto Veneto Anziani (ProVA), a study of 3099 older Italians (65 and above). The final analysis included 2754 participants with complete data, of whom 1398 were women (60%).

The largest reduction in risk was observed for new cases of coronary heart disease and heart failure in late old age. No significant association between physical activity and stroke was observed. 

Most of the participants had stable active physical activity patterns over time. Patterns of stable-high physical activity were associated with a significantly (52%) lower risk of cardiovascular disease among men compared with those with stable-low patterns.

The greatest benefits seemed to occur at the age of 70. Risk was only marginally lower at the age of 75, and no lower at the age of 80-85, suggesting that improving physical activity earlier in old age might have the most impact, say the researchers.  

Johns Hopkins University, February 15, 2022

Previous studies by Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers showed that psychedelic treatment with psilocybin relieved major depressive disorder symptoms in adults for up to a month. Now, in a follow-up study of those participants, the researchers report that the substantial antidepressant effects of psilocybin-assisted therapy, given with supportive psychotherapy, may last at least a year for some patients.

A report on the new study was published on Feb. 15, 2022 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.

“Our findings add to evidence that, under carefully controlled conditions, this is a promising therapeutic approach that can lead to significant and durable improvements in depression,” says Natalie Gukasyan, M.D., assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She cautions, however, that “the results we see are in a research setting and require quite a lot of preparation and structured support from trained clinicians and therapists, and people should not attempt to try it on their own.”

The researchers reported that psilocybin treatment produced large decreases in depression, and that depression severity remained low one, three, six and 12 months after treatment. 

Salk Institute for Biological Studies, February 15, 2022

The results of a recent study are offering new hope that avoiding memory loss related to aging as well as Alzheimer’s disease could be as simple as eating more cucumbers.

Many older adults resign themselves to memory loss as part of the aging process. However, a study out of the the Salk Institute for Biological Studies has shown that this doesn’t have to be the case. The health benefits of cucumbers are many, and one of them seems to be better memory and even the prevention of Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers working with mice that normally developed the symptoms of Alzheimer’s (including memory loss) discovered that a daily dose of a flavonol called fisetin prevented these and other related impairments. This improvement occurred despite the continued formation of amyloid plaques, the brain proteins commonly blamed for Alzheimer’s.

The compound fisetin is found in numerous vegetables and fruits but is especially concentrated in strawberries and cucumbers. This flavonol is quite effective in stopping memory loss in mice and holds hope for humans as well.

Columbia University Business School, February 7, 2022 

Exposure to air pollution, even imagining exposure to air pollution, may lead to unethical behavior, according to findings published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. A combination of archival and experimental studies indicates that exposure to air pollution, either physically or mentally, is linked with unethical behavior such as crime and cheating. The experimental findings suggest that this association may be due, at least in part, to increased anxiety.

“This research reveals that air pollution may have potential ethical costs that go beyond its well-known toll on health and the environment,” says behavioral scientist Jackson G. Lu of Columbia Business School, the first author of the research. “This is important because air pollution is a serious global issue that affects billions of people—even in the United States, about 142 million people still reside in counties with dangerously polluted air.”

Previous studies have indicated that exposure to air pollution elevates individuals’ feelings of anxiety. Anxiety is known to correlate with a range of unethical behaviors. Lu and colleagues hypothesized that pollution may ultimately increase criminal activity and unethical behavior by increasing anxiety.

In one study, the researchers examined air pollution and crime data for 9,360 US cities collected over a 9-year period. The air pollution data, maintained by the Environmental Protection Agency, included information about six major pollutants, including particulate matter, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, and sulfur dioxide.

The researchers found that cities with higher levels of air pollution also tended to have higher levels of crime. This association held even after the researchers accounted for other potential factors, including total population, number of law enforcement employees, median age, gender distribution, race distribution, poverty rate, unemployment rate, unobserved heterogeneity among cities (e.g., city area, legal system), and unobserved time-varying effects (e.g., macroeconomic conditions).

“Our findings suggest that air pollution not only corrupts people’s health, but also can contaminate their morality,” Lu concludes.

(Videos)

1. Libtard lunatic accuses unmasked kids of homicide calls em “Biological weapons” (after music)

University of California, Los Angeles, 15 Feb 2022 

The American west has spent the last two decades in what scientists are now saying is the most extreme megadrought in at least 1,200 years. In a new study, published on Monday, researchers also noted that human-caused climate change is a significant driver of the destructive conditions and offered a grim prognosis: even drier decades lie ahead.

“Anyone who has been paying attention knows that the west has been dry for most of the last couple decades,” says Park Williams, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles and the study’s lead author. “We now know from these studies that is dry not only from the context of recent memory but in the context of the last millennium.”

The research builds on conclusions from a previous study, also led by Williams, that ranked the period between 2000 and 2018 as the second driest in 12 centuries. The last two incredibly dry years – which were marked by record-setting heatwaves, receding reservoirs, and a rise in dangerously erratic blazes that burned both uncontrollably and unseasonably – were enough to push this period into first.

Worryingly, the west is experiencing a point on an upward trajectory, the researchers warn. In the summer of 2021, both Lake Mead and Lake Powell – the largest reservoirs in North America – reached record-low levels. Nearly 65% of the American west is experiencing in severe drought according to the US drought monitor, even after record rainfall hit some areas late last year. For the first time, federal official curbed allocations from the Colorado River Basin, which supplies water and power for more than 40 million people. Wildfires in the last two years have left behind more blackened earth than ever before and performed feats never thought possible.

‘It’s an underhanded move, meant to silence parents and hobble grassroots efforts across our state’

California Globe, February 9, 2022

California lawmakers have chosen to fast-track several key child health bills that will further erode parental rights and infringe on parents’ ability to maintain medical freedom.

Specifically, three fast-tracked bills involve 1) forced COVID-19 vaccinations for children for school enrollment, 2) allowing minor children to make their own vaccine decisions away from a parent, and 3) require health care staff to complete cultural humility training to provide trans-inclusive health care.

The Globe spoke with Karen England, Executive Director of the Capitol Resource Institute (CRI), a pro-family public policy organization educating, equipping, and engaging California citizens for 34 years. England shared her grave concerns about the bills, as well as the legislative processes being circumvented.

“Typically, a bill must be in print for 30 days before it is acted upon, to give Californians time to read and understand the bill. But by conveniently suspending this established rule (Joint Rule 55 & Article IV Section 8(a)), the legislature is denying individual citizens and organizations like CRI the right to properly review and respond to these bills before they are passed,” England said. “It’s an underhanded move, meant to silence parents and hobble grassroots efforts across our state.”

The point of this rule is to give Californians time to read and understand these bills.

“The fact is that they want to slide these bills through when there is plenty of time,” England said. “This should concern everyone.”

Brian Shilhavy, Health Impact News

The U.S. Government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) database was updated this past Friday, February 11, 2022, and it is now reporting that there have been 1,103,893 cases of injuries and deaths following COVID-19 vaccines since December of 2020, when the FDA issued emergency use authorizations for the COVID-19 vaccines. 

By way of contrast, there were 918,856 cases of injuries and deaths following all FDA-approved vaccines for the previous 30+ years, from 1990 through November of 2020. 

So there have been more injuries and deaths recorded in VAERS during the past 14 months following COVID-19 vaccines, than there were for the previous 30+ years combined following all vaccines recorded in VAERS.

To arrive at the number of fetal deaths recorded in VAERS I had to test several different searches on listed “symptoms” and then see if the search results documented fetal deaths, since there is no demographic for “fetal deaths.”

The following is the current list of “symptoms” in VAERS that reveals fetal deaths:

• Aborted pregnancy

This list may not be exhaustive. But if we use the exact same search using these symptoms, we can compare “apples to apples” in examining fetal deaths following COVID-19 vaccines as compared to fetal deaths following all non-COVID vaccines.

Here are the yearly averages:

• 82 fetal deaths per year following non-COVID vaccines

Alpha-lipoic acid supplementation associated with improved lipid levels

Tabriz University of Medical Sciences (Iran), February 14 2022. 

Findings from a systematic review and meta-analysis published in the International Journal for Vitamin and Nutrition Research indicated that supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid was associated with improvements in total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol and triglycerides. Researchers at Tabriz university of Medical Sciences in Iran selected 12 randomized, placebo-controlled trials that evaluated the association between supplementing with alpha-lipoic acid and lipid levels among a total of 548 participants.  Analysis of all 12 studies (which included data concerning triglycerides) found a significant reduction in triglycerides in association with alpha-lipoic acid. Dose-response analysis found a nonlinear relationship of LDL cholesterol and triglyceride levels with alpha-lipoic acid dosage that was dependent upon the duration of treatment.

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Positive attitudes about aging reduce risk of dementia in older adults

Yale University, February 7, 2022

Research has shown that older persons who have acquired positive beliefs about old age from their surrounding culture are less likely to develop dementia. This protective effect was found for all participants, as well as among those carrying a gene that puts them at higher risk of developing dementia, a new study led by the Yale School of Public Health has found. Published in the journal PLOS ONE, the study reports that older persons with positive age beliefs who carry one of the strongest risk factors for developing dementia—the ε4 variant of the APOE gene —were nearly 50% less likely to develop the disease than their peers who held negative age beliefs.

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Study: Running helps brain stave off effects of chronic stress

Exercise protects vital memory and learning functions Brigham Young University, February 14, 2022

Most people agree that getting a little exercise helps when dealing with stress. A new BYU study discovers exercise -- particularly running -- while under stress also helps protect your memory. The study, newly published in the journal of Neurobiology of Learning and Memory, finds that running mitigates the negative impacts chronic stress has on the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for learning and memory. "Exercise is a simple and cost-effective way to eliminate the negative impacts on memory of chronic stress," said study lead author Jeff Edwards, associate professor of physiology and developmental biology at BYU. Inside the hippocampus, memory formation and recall occur optimally when the synapses or connections between neurons are strengthened over time. That process of synaptic strengthening is called long-term potentiation (LTP). Chronic or prolonged stress weakens the synapses, which decreases LTP and ultimately impacts memory. Edwards' study found that when exercise co-occurs with stress, LTP levels are not decreased, but remain normal.

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Extra Virgin Olive Oil: Why It’s Healthier Than Other Cooking Oils

University of Hertfordshire (UK), February 14, 2022

Numerous studies have shown that consuming olive oil – in particular extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) – can have many different benefits for our health. For example, the Spanish PREDIMED study (the largest randomised control trial ever conducted on the Mediterranean diet) showed that women who ate a Mediterranean diet supplemented with extra virgin olive oil had a 62% lower risk of breast cancer compared to women who were advised to eat a low-fat diet. Experts who have since examined multiple scientific studies looking at the Mediterranean diet and its effect on chronic diseases conclude that a primary reason the diet protects against breast cancer is because of EVOO. There’s also evidence that EVOO may protect against type 2 diabetes and possibly even Alzheimer’s disease. Alongside its fat, EVOO contains many natural substances, such as polyphenols. Polyphenols occur naturally in plants, and have been linked to many health benefits, such as reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease and cognitive disorders.

(OTHER NEWS)

EXCLUSIVE: Embalmer reveals 93% of cases died from the vaccine

Anna Foster is an embalmer with 11 years of experience in Carrollton, MO. She reveals that 93% of her last 30 cases died due to clots from the COVID vaccine.

Steve Kirsch, February 14, 2022

Anna Foster is an embalmer with 11 years of experience in Carrollton, MO. She speaks out for the first time The big news is that she found the unusual clots in 93% of the last 30 people who she embalmed. This is significant because she isn’t selective about who she embalms. Not all embalmers will see a 93% clot rate. Richard Hirschman only sees these clots in 65% of his cases. Either way, we have identified what is the #1 cause of death in America today; a killer that is much bigger than COVID. This is a massive health issue since it is killing a huge number of people. Her embalmer friends have noticed it as well and have never seen it before in their careers. The clots are only associated with people who have been vaccinated. They were only observed after the vaccines rolled out. The clots are life threatening and are almost certainly the root cause of death in all of these cases. When 93% of people who die are killed by a single cause, this merits immediate investigation by the CDC as to the cause. However, I am certain that the CDC and all legacy media will continue to ignore this story.

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Myocarditis Cases Reported After mRNA-Based COVID-19 Vaccination in the US From December 2020 to August 2021

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Emory University, Vanderbilt University, Boston Medical Center, Duke University, US Food and Drug Administration

Journal of American Medical Association, February 2022

Question  What is the risk of myocarditis after mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccination in the US? Findings  In this descriptive study of 1626 cases of myocarditis in a national passive reporting system, the crude reporting rates within 7 days after vaccination exceeded the expected rates across multiple age and sex strata. The rates of myocarditis cases were highest after the second vaccination dose in adolescent males aged 12 to 15 years ), in adolescent males aged 16 to 17 years , and in young men aged 18 to 24 years . Results  Among 192 405 448 persons receiving a total of 354 100 845 mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines during the study period, there were 1991 reports of myocarditis to VAERS and 1626 of these reports met the case definition of myocarditis. Of those with myocarditis, the median age was 21 years (IQR, 16-31 years) and the median time to symptom onset was 2 days (IQR, 1-3 days). Males comprised 82% of the myocarditis cases for whom sex was reported. The crude reporting rates for cases of myocarditis within 7 days after COVID-19 vaccination exceeded the expected rates of myocarditis across multiple age and sex strata. The rates of myocarditis were highest after the second vaccination dose in adolescent males aged 12 to 15 years (70.7 per million doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine), in adolescent males aged 16 to 17 years (105.9 per million doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine), and in young men aged 18 to 24 years (52.4 and 56.3 per million doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine and the mRNA-1273 vaccine, respectively). There were 826 cases of myocarditis among those younger than 30 years of age who had detailed clinical information available; of these cases, 792 of 809 (98%) had elevated troponin levels, 569 of 794 (72%) had abnormal electrocardiogram results, and 223 of 312 (72%) had abnormal cardiac magnetic resonance imaging results. Approximately 96% of persons (784/813) were hospitalized and 87% (577/661) of these had resolution of presenting symptoms by hospital discharge. The most common treatment was nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (589/676; 87%). Conclusions and Relevance  Based on passive surveillance reporting in the US, the risk of myocarditis after receiving mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines was increased across multiple age and sex strata and was highest after the second vaccination dose in adolescent males and young men. This risk should be considered in the context of the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination.