Large study links higher nutrient intake with lower risk of mortality during 9.3-year median period
University of Connecticut, January 25, 2022
A study that utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Education Survey (NHANES) found an association between having an adequate intake of vitamin E, iron, magnesium, potassium, EPA and DHA, essential amino acids and fiber and a lower risk of dying during a median follow-up period of 9.3 years. The study included 20,602 m...
Large study links higher nutrient intake with lower risk of mortality during 9.3-year median period
University of Connecticut, January 25, 2022
A study that utilized data from the National Health and Nutrition Education Survey (NHANES) found an association between having an adequate intake of vitamin E, iron, magnesium, potassium, EPA and DHA, essential amino acids and fiber and a lower risk of dying during a median follow-up period of 9.3 years. The study included 20,602 men and women enrolled in NHANES. During a median 9.3-year period, 3,539 participants died. The participants who survived were more likely to have reported a higher intake of specific nutrients. Notably, compared to participants whose magnesium intake was among the lowest one-third, those whose intake was among the top third had a 22% lower adjusted risk of dying from any cause, a 35% lower risk of dying from cardiovascular disease and a 29% lower risk of cancer death during follow-up. Magnesium wasn’t the only nutrient linked to a lower risk of mortality during follow-up; the top consumers of vitamin E, iron, potassium and fiber had 19%, 15%, 18% and 16% lower respective risks of premature all-cause mortality.
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Active ingredient in cannabis protects aging brain cells
Salk researchers find cannabinol preserves mitochondrial function and prevents oxidative damage to cells Salk Institute, January 25, 2021
Decades of research on medical cannabis has focused on the compounds THC and CBD in clinical applications. But less is known about the therapeutic properties of cannabinol (CBN). Now, a new study by Salk scientists shows how CBN can protect nerve cells from oxidative damage, a major pathway to cell death. The findings, published online January 6, 2022, in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicine, suggest CBN has the potential for treating age-related neurodegenerative diseases, like Alzheimer’s. “We’ve found that cannabinol protects neurons from oxidative stress and cell death, two of the major contributors to Alzheimer’s,” says senior author Pamela Maher, a research professor and head of Salk’s Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory. “This discovery could one day lead to the development of new therapeutics for treating this disease and other neurodegenerative disorders, like Parkinson’s disease.”
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Apple polyphenols may slash inflammation marker levels, change gut microbiota
University of Auckland (New Zealand)
Polyphenols from apples may modify the bacterial populations in the gut, and reduce markers of inflammation, according a new study from New Zealand Data from a study indicated that adding extracts from genetically engineered apples with increased flavonoids led to 10-fold decrease in levels of pro-inflammatory prostaglandins than extracts from non-transformed apples. In addition, the total number of bacteria in the colons of animals fed a diet containing the transformed apple extracts was 6% higher than for mice fed the control diet, said the researchers in the Journal of Nutrition . “The findings here further demonstrate that apple consumption affects aspects of inflammatory pathways and the gut microbiota.
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Extra 10 minutes of daily activity could save 110,000 U.S. lives annually
National Cancer Institute, January 25, 2022
If everyone between 40 and 85 years of age were active just 10 minutes more a day, it could save more than 110,000 U.S. lives a year, a large study reports. "Our projections are based on an additional 10 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity," said lead researcher Pedro Saint-Maurice at the U.S. National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Md. "If the walk is brisk, it counts." And added exercise benefits everyone—white, Black, Asian and Hispanic, men and women, the investigators found.
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Alzheimer's defense: omega-3s linked to larger brain volume
University of South Dakota, January 24, 2022
Among the myriad changes that accompany aging, shrinking brain volume can be a worrying one. A normal part of growing older, it can also be a sign of Alzheimer's disease. But the good news is that a recent study suggests people with higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids have larger brain volumes in old age. The research, published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, suggests that the larger brain volumes associated with higher omega-3 levels are the equivalent to preserving up to 2 years of brain health.
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Dr. Robert Malone | Senator Ron Johnson COVID-19: A Second Opinion
(OTHER NEWS)
Authoritarian Madness: The Slippery Slope from Lockdowns to Concentration Camps
By John W. Whitehead & Nisha Whitehead, January 26, 2022
In the politically charged, polarizing tug-of-war that is the debate over COVID-19, we find ourselves buffeted by fear over a viral pandemic that continues to wreak havoc with lives and the economy, threats of vaccine mandates and financial penalties for noncompliance, and discord over how to legislate the public good without sacrificing individual liberty. The discord is getting more discordant by the day. Just recently, for instance, the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and deploy the National Guard “to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.” In other words, lock up the unvaccinated and use the military to determine who gets to be “free.” In Italy, the unvaccinated are banned from restaurants, bars and public transportation, and could face suspensions from work and monthly fines. Similarly, France will ban the unvaccinated from most public venues. In Austria, anyone who has not complied with the vaccine mandate could face fines up to $4100. Police will be authorized to carry out routine checks and demand proof of vaccination, with penalties of as much as $685 for failure to do so. In China, which has adopted a zero tolerance, “zero COVID” strategy, whole cities—some with populations in the tens of millions—are being forced into home lockdowns for weeks on end, resulting in mass shortages of food and household supplies. Reports have surfaced of residents “trading cigarettes for cabbage, dishwashing liquid for apples and sanitary pads for a small pile of vegetables. One resident traded a Nintendo Switch console for a packet of instant noodles and two steamed buns.” For those unfortunate enough to contract COVID-19, China has constructed “quarantine camps” throughout the country: massive complexes boasting thousands of small, metal boxes containing little more than a bed and a toilet. Detainees—including children, pregnant women and the elderly— were reportedly ordered to leave their homes in the middle of the night, transported to the quarantine camps in buses and held in isolation. If this last scenario sounds chillingly familiar, it should. Eighty years ago, another authoritarian regime established more than 44,000 quarantine camps for those perceived as “enemies of the state”: racially inferior, politically unacceptable or simply noncompliant. While the majority of those imprisoned in the Nazi concentration camps, forced labor camps, incarceration sites and ghettos were Jews, there were also Polish nationals, gypsies, Russians, political dissidents, resistance fighters, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and homosexuals. You don’t have to be unvaccinated or a conspiracy theorist or even anti-government to be worried about what lies ahead. You just have to recognize the truth in the warning: power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. This is not about COVID-19. Nor is it about politics, populist movements, or any particular country. This is about what happens when good, generally decent people—distracted by manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring “us vs. them” camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains. It’s about what happens when any government is empowered to adopt a comply-or-suffer-the-consequences mindset that is enforced through mandates, lockdowns, penalties, detention centers, martial law, and a disregard for the rights of the individual.
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95% Deceptive: COVID Vaccine Efficacy & Medical Betrayal
How statistical sleights of hand betrayed the heart and soul of medicine. Dr. Benjamin Kaplan-Singer, MD. January 25, 2022
COVID Combat Zones We are in the midst of informational and narrative warfare. All things COVID are active combat zones. Within this, vaccines are the most polarizing, controversial, hot button issue. On one extreme are those who believe COVID vaccines should be mandatory whether that is accomplished by: applying censorship, public shaming, and cancel culture to stifle dissent; making employment, school enrollment, travel, and private/public event participation contingent on vaccination status; threatening to remove licenses from medical professionals; or even going door-to-door with armed enforcers. (Yes, I have heard this suggested on multiple occasions.) On the other extreme are those who believe COVID vaccines are a bioweapon being used for depopulation, soul-harvesting, and to socially engineer a technocratic, totalitarian, panopticon state. Most people are in the center, doing their best to make sense of the risks and benefits of vaccination and early treatment options in order to make informed choices for themselves and their families. On November 16, 2020 NIH announced “Promising Interim Results from Clinical Trial of NIH-Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine” reporting “the candidate was safe and well-tolerated and noted a vaccine efficacy rate of 94.5%.”1 The New England Journal of Medicine published the trial on February 4, 2021 where it reported “94.1% efficacy.”2 On December 10, 2020 Pfizer and BioNTech announced “Publication of Results from Landmark Phase 3 Trial of BNT162b2 COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate in The New England Journal of Medicine,” reporting “the vaccine candidate was well tolerated and demonstrated 95% efficacy in preventing COVID-19 in those without prior infection 7 days or more after the second dose.”3 The New England Journal of Medicine published the trial on December 31, 2020 reporting the vaccine was “95% effective in preventing Covid-19.”4 From “95% effective” it is a short cognitive leap to: When X% of the population vaccinates, COVID will (mostly) disappear When COVID (mostly) disappears life will return to normal(-ish) Vaccination protects the vulnerable People have a social responsibility to vaccinate The social contract means to participate in society you must vaccinate Trials showed the vaccines are safe, therefore the vaccines are safe The benefits of the vaccines clearly outweigh the risks The unvaccinated are overburdening hospitals If you do not vaccinate you are overburdening hospitals Overburdening hospitals kills innocent people The unvaccinated are the ones spreading COVID If you do not vaccinate you are killing someone’s grandma or immunocompromised child Trust the science, trust the experts The unvaccinated are spreading misinformation The unvaccinated are anti-science, brainwashed, delusional conspiracy theorists, ignorant, selfish assh*les Anyone who questions vaccines should be shamed, censored, canceled, or penalized Relative Deception The “95% effective” frame comes from Pfizer-BioNTech’s published trial and refers to a specific statistical measurement called relative risk reduction Of note, the trials did not look at: the effectiveness of the vaccine on hospitalizations, deaths, or transmission; on the effect of confirmed cases of COVID beyond 2 months post-vaccination; safety beyond 2 months; in addition, the control group did receive vaccination in what is called “crossover” which makes medium and longer term safety data very difficult, if not impossible, to ascertain. Furthermore, for trial results to translate to real world conditions we must make at least two assumptions: that the population being vaccinated is comparable to the population in the study and that the virus does not evolve in a way that reduces vaccine effectiveness. Keep in mind, the absolute risk reduction from these trials refers to the average decreased risk an individual has of getting a confirmed case of COVID (i.e. it does not confer information about hospitalization, death, transmission, nor “long COVID”) within a certain time window after vaccination. Absolute risk reduction is the best available measurement, but only conveys the average reduction in risk for the average individual in the trial. Pfizer-BioNTech’s “95% effective” vaccine reduces risk on average by 0.84% Moderna-NIH’s “94% effective” vaccine reduces risk on average by by 1.2% Gamaleya’s “91% effective” vaccine reduces risk on average by 0.93% J&J’s “67% effective” vaccine reduces risk on average by 1.2% AstraZeneca–Oxford’s “67% effective” vaccine reduces risk on average by 1.3% As you can clearly see, there is no correlation between the espoused effectiveness of a vaccine based on its relative risk reduction, and how much the vaccine decreases your personal risk of a confirmed case of COVID based on absolute risk reduction. Given the COVID vaccines reduce an individual’s risk of a confirmed case within a certain time window after vaccination by 0.84-1.3% – which some people will consider a marginal benefit – obvious questions ensue.
