Zesty Mexican Soup
This spicy vegetable soup is full of flavor, and easy to prepare. It is a great way to get many vegetables into one meal and will keep for a few days. It actually gets better with time, so feel free to make a big batch to have around. It is a perfect quick meal on a cold day. All ingredients should be organic.[ read more ]

Protecting children from endocrine disrupters in cosmetics and prescription drugs may be difficult in the near future. In 1989, the Food and Drug Administration proposed allowing up to 10,000 units of estrogen per ounce of cosmetic, the approximate oral daily dose of hormone replacement therapy for postmenopausal women. Dr. Chandra Tiwary said that in the early 1990’s he filed an adverse drug report with the agency about hormone-containing shampoos but that to his knowledge, it never came to anything. Reached by e-mail, a spokeswoman for the F.D.A. said that the agency was “aware of some reports describing premature sexual development” with shampoos but that it had concluded that “there is no reason for consumers to be concerned.” At this time, “placental materials are neither prohibited by cosmetic regulations nor restricted” by the F.D.A., she wrote.

Aspartame was first developed as an ant poison until the manufacturer discovered its more lucrative role as a sweetener. Interesting that this ingredient, now commonly used as a sweetener in diet drinks, should be handled as a poison should you choose to use it to rid your home of ants.

Eating three or more servings a week of green leafy vegetables or root vegetables could reduce the risk of stomach cancer by between 35 and 57 percent.

Reports cite in an AP piece estimate that the average child views 40,000 TV ads every year - the bulk of which are for soda pop, cereal, candy, and fast food (especially if they're watching TV on Saturday morning). This correlates to current estimates that fully one third of the sub-adult population in the United States is overweight or obese.

In a study of 200 healthy men, researchers found that virgin olive oil -- rich in antioxidants called polyphenols -- showed stronger heart-health effects than the more extensively processed "non-virgin" variety. The findings suggest that virgin olive oil has more going for it than its supply of heart-healthy monounsaturated fat, according to the study authors. Polyphenols, they say, may account for some of the health benefits that have been attributed to the oil. In fact, virgin olive oil is the only vegetable oil that's rich in polyphenols, Dr. Maria-Isabel Covas, the study's lead researcher.

A major study by the US CDC has concluded that trace amounts of the rocket fuel perchlorate found in drinking water, milk and produce, may be endangering the health of millions of women and their children with thyroid disease.

A new warning from the Pennsylvania Dental Association notes patients who take a class of drugs known as bisphosphonates are susceptible to a side effect called osteonecrosis of the jaw. More than 1,000 cases of jawbone death have been reported in patients who have been administered bisphosphonates such as Fosamax. Symptoms include bone pain, non-healing extraction sockets, or exposed bone.

The only people who may benefit from statins are those who already have low LDL cholesterol levels. Dr Andrew Clark, from Hull University and one of the research team members, aid: In contrast to what you might imagine, having a high level of cholesterol might be good for you." In the same week, researchers from the University of Michigan have concluded that the new low levels for cholesterol have no scientific validity, but instead were perhaps arbitrary. Rather than focusing on cholesterol levels, patients at risk should be advised to eat a healthier diet, and exercise more. (Sources:  World Congress of Cardiology, Barcelona (statins study); Annals of Internal Medicine, October 2, 2006, on line version (low cholesterol levels study)).

"Experts estimate that at least 25 percent of chemotherapy patients are affected by symptoms of confusion, so-called chemo brain, and a recent study by the University of Minnesota reported an 82 percent rate, the statement said.  "People with 'chemo brain' often can't focus, remember things or multitask the way they did before chemotherapy," Silverman said. "Our study demonstrates for the first time that patients suffering from these cognitive symptoms have specific alterations in brain metabolism." - Reuters

Daily cups of tea can help you recover more quickly from the stresses of everyday life, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers. New scientific evidence shows that black tea has an effect on stress hormone levels in the body. The study, published in the journal Psychopharmacology, found that people who drank tea were able to de-stress more quickly than those who drank a fake tea substitute. Furthermore, the study participants - who drank a black tea concoction four times a day for six weeks - were found to have lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their blood after a stressful event, compared with a control group who drank the fake or placebo tea for the same period of time.

The use of statin drugs is associated with serious side effects, most prominent is a degeneration of the muscular tissue and debilitating pain that comes with it. What is less well known is that the progression of the

muscle wasting side effect may lead to a diagnosis of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), also called Lou Gehrig's disease or motor neurone disease, described as a chronic, progressive, almost invariably fatal neurological disease.

In research published in the October, 2006 issue of the American Medical Association journal Archives of Neurology Yvonne Freund-Levi, MD, of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, and colleagues found that omega-3 fatty acid supplementation could slow cognitive decline in patients with very mild Alzheimer's disease.

"What we ponder and what we think about sets the course of our life. Any day we wish; we can discipline ourselves to change it all. Any day we wish, we can open the book that will open our mind to new knowledge. Any day we wish, we can start a new activity. Any day we wish, we can start the process of life change. We can do it immediately, or next week, or next month, or next year. We can also do nothing. We can pretend rather than perform. And if the idea of having to change ourselves makes us uncomfortable, we can remain as we are. We can choose rest over labor, entertainment over education, delusion over truth, and doubt over confidence. The choices are ours to make. But while we curse the effect, we continue to nourish the cause. As Shakespeare uniquely observed, "The fault is not in the stars, but in ourselves." We created our circumstances by our past choices. We have both the ability and the responsibility to make better choices beginning today."—Jim Rohn