Vital Votes Health Blog - Natural Health Articles by Dr. Mercola

1. Major Journal Blasts New Code Book for Making Grief a Psychiatric Illness

   At some point in their lives everyone suffers from grief, usually from the loss of a loved one. It’s a normal part of living, but now the American Psychiatric Association wants to make grief a certifiable mental illness, thereby treatable by drugs and billable through insurance companies―and most likely something that will stigmatize your health records for the rest of your life.

   The proposed classification, which is intended for inclusion in the association’s upcoming new diagnostic manual, DSM-5, will characterize bereavement as a major depressive disorder after only two weeks of grieving. But medicalizing a condition that most people just don’t get over with in two weeks is not the thing to do, according to The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM). In a critical review of the plans to “treat” grief as a major disorder, the NEJM blasted the new code book's grief classification, saying “the medical profession should normalize, not medicalize, grief.”

   
2. Is Your Sun Screen Safe? New Study Shows Less than 1 in 4 Are

   With the height of the sun season upon us, health officials are telling everybody to pull out their sunscreen and slather it on. But before you do that, it might be best to check the Environmental Working Group’s (EWG) 2012 Sunscreen Guide to see if your sunscreen is one of the 25 percent with potentially harmful ingredients in it.

   While there’s disagreement on the actual level of toxicity some of the chemicals on the list have on humans, the list does provide safer alternatives that consumers can choose. And while you’re checking that list, you might want to look at other articles the EWG provides on its website on surprising truths about sunscreen, efficacy questions, and whether or not it actually protects you from cancer.

   
3. Break Out the Champagne! EFT One Step Closer to Professional Association Acceptance

   A historic moment in the era of emotional freedom techniques (EFT) has arrived, with the finding that EFT is closer to meeting the criteria for evidence-based treatments proposed by the American Psychological Association (APA). In a critical review scheduled to appear in the APA’s journal Review of General Psychology, researchers found that EFT “consistently demonstrated strong effect sizes and other positive statistical results that far exceed chance after relatively few treatment sessions.”

   It doesn’t mean the AFA has certified EFT or reversed its 12-year ban on continuing education credits for EFT. But it’s exciting in that this is an important step toward EFT’s acceptance by the wider professional community.

   EFT is a powerful self-help method based on research showing that emotional trauma contributes greatly to disease. Clinical trials have shown that EFT is able to rapidly reduce the emotional impact of memories and incidents that trigger emotional distress. Once the distress is reduced or removed, the body can often rebalance itself, and accelerate healing.

   
4. Body Hacks for a Longer Life: Minimize Chronic Inflammation
   
   From: BestHealthDegrees.com

   You’ve heard of mind hacks for being more efficient in the office and tech hacks for keeping your computer humming. So if you’ve been wondering if somebody will ever come up with some tricks for living a longer, happier, healthier life, there’s good news: Best Health Degrees.com has a colorful way of telling it like it is, beginning with chronic inflammation.

   Chronic inflammation is the source of many diseases such as cancer, obesity, and heart disease, which essentially makes it the leading cause of death in the U.S. To address that issue, Best Health suggests these key ways to bust out of the aging process.

   
5. New Proof that Soy Is Not Good for Women

   If you’re pregnant or thinking of having a baby, you might want to take a look at some new research on the effects of plant estrogens, such as that found in soy, on a developing fetus. According to Medical News Today, a paper published in Biology of Reproduction’s Papers-in-Press suggests that exposure to estrogenic chemicals in the womb or during childhood has the potential to negatively affect a woman’s fertility as an adult.

   This coincides with earlier research on neonatal effects of exposure to plant or environmental estrogens. In studies with mice, researchers found that causes of infertility included failure to ovulate, reduced ability of the oviduct to support embryo development before ovulation, and failure of the uterus to support effective implantation of blastocyst-stage embryos.

   Since human development of the reproductive tract continues through puberty, researchers believe that estrogenic chemical exposure to human females as fetus, infant, child, and adolescent could have impacts on their fertility. The authors suggested that minimizing the use of soy-based baby formula would be a step toward maintaining female reproductive health.
6. So Inherently Dangerous that Only Two Countries in the World Have Legalized This and the U.S. Is One of Them

   Mood swings, weight gain, tummy problems―you name the ailment, there’s a pill for it. And you, the American consumer, are helping Big Pharma sell it. You don’t believe it? Well, it’s true, and believe it or not, the U.S. is one of only two countries in the world that allows this to happen.

   What we’re talking about is direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising, that barrage of ads you see on TV and in magazines and newspapers, or on the radio and Internet. They’re ads telling you to run right out and ask your doctor if this or that pill would be right for you. It’s a bonanza that’s turned America into a medicated mass of people who’ve been brain-washed into thinking that taking pills will make everything better―even for ailments you don’t yet have (think pre-diabetes, pre-high blood pressure or pre-cholesterol).

   It’s a disgusting, dishonorable way to generate sales, but it works: according to AlterNet, in the U.S. every $1000 that a drug company spends on DTC advertising produces 24 new patients―seven times more customers than the companies would get if they didn’t advertise.