Weight Loss Surgery Cuts Type 2 Diabetes

It’s been less than one month since two studies — conducted independently by researchers in the United States and Italy — concluded that bariatric surgery may be the best treatment for obese people who suffer from type 2 diabetes.

Now a new study, conducted by yet another institution, also in Italy, comes to the same conclusion. All three studies found that patients who underwent weight loss surgery enjoyed improved diabetes outcomes compared to patients who received standard therapy and medications to control diabetes.

Obesity and diabetes are two major health challenges across the world, and for both diseases, the increasing prevalence has reached epidemic proportions. Even as the prevalence of diabetes in the U.S. and across the world is surging in parallel with obesity’s rise, the link between the two conditions is also well established: Some 80 percent of the 23 million adult Americans who have type 2 diabetes are either overweight or obese.

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Does Your Tea Have Pesticides?

Does Your Tea Have Pesticides? Greenpeace finds banned pesticides in major Chinese tea brands. Is drinking tea good for you? Yes and no, depending on many factors.

Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is just as good as drinking plenty of water — and the flavonoids tea contains helps protect drinkers against heart disease and some cancers. The polyphenol antioxidants found in tea leaves have been shown to prevent cell damage. Other health benefits include protection against tooth plaque and the strengthening of bones.

That’s what British nutritionists from the Kings College London said in a 2006 study published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition. The work, which was funded by the United Kingdom’s Tea Council, also dispelled the common belief that tea dehydrates. The British researchers said the amount of caffeine contained in even four cups of tea isn’t enough to cause dehydration — and tea actually rehydrates as well as water does.

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FDA Rejects Call to Ban BPA from Food Packaging

In a resounding defeat, health advocates and environmentalists in the United States lost the fight to take the chemical bisphenol-A out of food packaging. On March 30, the Food and Drug Administration rejected their petition to ban the industrial chemical from all food and drink packaging, including plastic bottles and canned food.

But the FDA stressed its latest ruling on the petition brought by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) wasn’t the final word. “The FDA denied the NRDC petition because it didn’t have the scientific data needed for the FDA to change current regulations, which allows the use of BPA in food packaging,” FDA spokesman Doug Karas said a media statement.

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Hidden Chemicals in Cigarettes: Uranium, Cyanide, Formaldehyde & More

FDA bares teeth, requires tobacco companies to list levels of 20 hazardous chemicals

Uranium-235? Uranium-238? Vinyl acetate? Polonium-210? Mercury? Hydrogen cyanide? Coumarin? Formaldehyde? Did you even know that these chemicals exist in the cigarette you’re smoking?

Yes, they do — along with 93 other chemicals that the United States Food and Drug Administration classifies as “harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs)” in tobacco products and tobacco smoke under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

And on March 30, the health regulator said it will begin requiring tobacco companies to report how much of the 20 harmful chemicals are in their products.

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Are Prilosec & Mevacor Sold Over the Counter?

FDA mulls bringing key drugs over-the-counter and medications for high blood pressure, diabetes and migraine may be the first to make the switch.

It’s driven by many things: Drug companies seeking more profits, as well as the rapid developments in medical technologies that have led to touch-screen kiosks in pharmacies that patients can use to self-diagnose common diseases. It’s also motivated by a need to address undertreated epidemics like diabetes.

Overall, it means nothing less than a sea change in the United States drug regulation policy.

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Bisphenol-A Toxicity: Campbell’s Soup, French Ban, FDA Health Studies

Bisphenol-A Toxicity: Campbell’s Soup, French Ban, FDA Health Studies. The FDA is set to decide on a bisphenol-A ban on all food packaging — even as French authorities ban food packaging-BPA and Campbell’s Soup announces it will soon substitute BPA in its canned soup.

It’s a triple victory for public health advocates and environmentalists long pushing for bisphenol-A (BPA) to be taken out of food packaging in the United States.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is set to decide whether it will ban the toxic chemical BPA from all food packaging, prodded by a series of legal actions from environmental groups and a recent French move to ban the chemical in all food packaging. The agency’s decision is expected by March 31.

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