1. You’ll lose weight. If you eat out, take out, or rely on fast food, those extra calories and fat in your diet can add up. By cooking your own meals, you fill up on fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and complex carbohydrates—foods that are high in fiber, low in fat, and take a longer time to digest so you’ll feel more satisfied.
2. Your child won’t be obese. By preparing your child’s meals, you eliminate processed foods, refined carbohydrates and sodium and increase the amount of fiber-rich foods that make up a healthy diet.
3. You’ll save money. [...] eating fast food is actually more expensive than shopping at the supermarket.
4. Your family’s bond will be stronger. Making a habit of having family dinners, even if it’s just three times a week can pay off [...] There will be more laughter, more appreciation for each other, more affection, and communication will increase. “
5. Your kids will have a healthy future. [...] when your kids take an active role in grocery shopping and cooking, they’re learning at an early age how to eat a nutritious diet and lead a healthy lifestyle.

The avocado works in concert with traditional antibiotics to treat infections that are resistant to antibiotics alone. Researchers explained that a compound in the avocado is able to lower the “MIC level” of an antibiotic. The MIC Level is the lowest concentration of an antibiotic that is needed to stop the growth of bacteria. In this instance, the avocado compound lowered the antibiotic’s MIC level by eight times. Study researcher Jes Gitz Holler, of the University of Copenhagen, explained how the avocado assisted the antibiotic in a statement. “Resistant bacteria have an efflux pump in their bacterial membrane that efficiently pumps out antibiotics as soon as they have gained access,” Holler explained in the statement. “I have identified a natural substance that inhibits the pumping action, so that the bacteria’s defense mechanisms are broken down and the antibiotic treatment allowed to work.”

Ciprofloxacin is from the fluoroquinolone group of antibiotics that have been linked with tendon problems and other muscolo-skeletal issues. Some other side effects include chest pain, rapid heartbeat, blackouts, swelling, hot flushes, sweating, pancreatitis (inflamed pancreas) and tinnitus. There have been 2269 suspected adverse reactions to fluoroquinolones reported to the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (UK drug safety watchdog) including 67 deaths since January 2000.

Dr. Kieran Hand of Southampton General Hospital and a spokesperson for the Royal Pharmaceutical Society said, “We are realizing antibiotics are not completely harmless, and prescribing them is not a decision to be taken lightly.”

The truth of the matter is that the drugs to treat some of these infections are very dangerous indeed, and as stronger antibiotics are needed due to bacterial immunity, we will no doubt see the more powerful and dangerous forms of antibiotics used more and more often. It is best practice to avoid antibiotics if at all possible, however if you ever are required to take them you should be very aware of what your body is telling you, and always read the information either online or from the leaflet inside.

Sucralose, sold under the brand name Splenda, is simply chlorinated sugar; in chemical terms, it is a chlorocarbon. The idea behind this is that the body would no longer recognize it as sugar. But, as Johns Hopkins-trained physician and biochemist James Bowen, MD, points out, chlorine is “nature’s Doberman attack dog—a highly excitable, ferocious atomic element employed as a biocide in bleach, disinfectants, insecticide, WWI poison gas and hydrochloric acid.” Common chlorocarbons include chlordane and DDT, a product so harmful that it is now banned for agricultural use the world over.

Now Splenda is selling a product called Splenda Essentials. The marketing and advertising appear to be targeting health-conscious people who are interested in vitamins and nutrition—despite the fact that Splenda is highly toxic and has no place in a healthy diet. Splenda’s advertising says the addition of B1, B5, and B6 “help support a healthy metabolism.” The antioxidant product “contains vitamin C and E, like those found in fruits and vegetables,” while the fiber product is touted as containing “one gram of healthy fiber.” For the fiber product, they bumped it up an even 1.0 grams. Whoopee.

For the vitamins, Splenda has added 20% of the recommended daily allowance; for the fiber, they’ve added 0.03% of the RDA. With the minute amounts of nutrients per packet, one would need to be consuming unconscionable numbers of packets to make any impact at all on one’s health—that is, provided one weren’t also consuming the sucralose itself! As we noted last year, Splenda alters the microflora in the intestine and “exerts numerous adverse effects,” according to a Duke University study, including an increase in body weight (not quite what a “diet aid” is supposed to do!) and an elevation of liver enzymes, which hurts the bioavailability of nutrients.

The AHA also has some tips on what you can do to incorporate more exercise into your day:

1. Watch television from the treadmill or bicycle
2. Take the stairs instead of the elevator
3. Park far away from the building you work in
4. If you use public transportation, get off a stop early and walk a little longer to work
5. Walk down the hallway while brainstorming with a colleague
6. Use the farthest printer on your floor or another
7. Use the restroom on another floor and climb the stairs
8. Visit a colleague in person rather than e-mail or calling them
9. Use a cycle machine under your desk

In the new study, Werker and colleagues tested the ability of babies born to mothers with and without depression to discriminate between consonant sounds in a non-native language. Babies of mothers without depression showed the normal pattern of development — they could discriminate between the consonant sounds at 6 months old, but by 10 months old, they had lost this ability. In contrast, babies of mothers with depression could still discriminate between the sounds by age 10 months.

Interestingly, babies of mothers with depression who took serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SRIs (a type of antidepressant) could not discriminate between the consonant sounds at either 6 or 10 months old.

There has been some intense research led by Dr. Sarah Brennan of Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland that spanned over a dozen scientific studies and over 400,000 subjects. The results of this analysis found that a direct relationship between those at risk of breast cancer to healthy or unhealthy dieting practices. At risk women were viewed as women who were at a genetic risk due to their mother or grandmother being diagnosed with the disease in their lifetime. The findings summarized a higher ratio of women that were identified as having breast cancer at some point in their lives if they adhered to the common unhealthy practices of western diets, defined as those that are rich in red meats and refined grains. However, those that adopted diets that were rich in fruits, vegetables, and whole grains were less likely to be diagnosed with breast cancer.

Therefore, if there is even a slight chance that eating healthy can result in breast cancer prevention, why not? A healthy meal can start right from the refrigerator as the first step toward breast cancer prevention.

According to the featured paper: “… The lack of animal models that can reliably predict vaccine efficacy means that development still unavoidably relies on testing of novel vaccines in healthy individuals…In recent decades there has been a distressing decline in the numbers of healthy volunteers who participate in clinical trials, a decline that has the potential to become a key rate-limiting factor in vaccine development… mandatory involvement in vaccine trials is… perhaps more akin to military conscription… In both conscription and obligatory trial participation, individuals have little or no choice regarding involvement and face inherent risks over which they have no control, all for the greater good of society.”