Better than plastic surgery?

For reasons I will reveal in good time, I was attending a medical conference where a Brazilian dermatologist gave a presentation on how people could skip all the expensive plastic surgery procedures for things like stretch marks (and baldness, acne, WRINKLES!) by using this nifty little implement called a Derma roller than makes tiny little "injuries" (no blood, though) with tiny little needles that you roll on whatever part of the skin you are interested in healing and the skin produced more circulation and collagen in the process. 

This intrigued me because of some of the slides she showed and also because my father, an acupuncturist, had a little device that looked a lot like that.  I was also surprised to find, after talking to her after, that you can easily buy these devices online such as this FDA approved one here.  I have ordered one and found it a little annoyingly painful on my face, but pleasantly tingly on my stretch marks and scalp.  Too soon to see if it works BUT it's totally non invasive. 

The other advice I received from the derm is to look out for the needle size.  For the scalp you should never go longer than 1.5mm.  For sensitive skin, you will need to go shorter, for results for tough stuff like stretchmarks, you'll need to go longer, up to 3.0 mm.  Again, this is not medical advice but just  passing on some kwoledge I picked up. 

If anyone else tries this, please report back! 

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Toothpaste has that same stuff in hand sanitizer

Great, now toothpaste manufacturers are adding Triclosan, a chemical that is banned in Europe, to toothpaste and it may be causing (1) superbugs and (2) is an endocrine disruptor (a BIG no-no for fertility).  Also, you NEED good bugs in your mouth, they balance out the bad ones.  This whole suuper-disinfecting thing (using ammonia on meat, bleach on veggies) is getting a little out of hand.  For fast whitening and freshness, use baking soda (read secret to white teeth here) !  No one needs toothpaste. 

From the UK's Daily Mail:

For it seems an antibacterial chemical commonly added to toothpaste, including Colgate's Total range, may pose a threat to health. It is also widely used in handwashes and cosmetics.
The EU's Scientific Committee on Consumer Safety has warned that triclosan may promote widespread bacterial resistance to antibiotics and has called for further safety studies.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration is worried about bacterial resistance, as well as evidence that the chemical is a hormone disruptor.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1319731/How-toothpaste-speeding-spread-superbugs.html#ixzz131p7L7Jf

read more about how toothpaste is spreading superbugs and disrupting your hormones here.

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Ultrasound risks for female babies

I'm  not a big fan of ultrasound in general, being into energy medicine, but also check this out:

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) Sep 23 - Using ultrasound to gauge gestational age could put late-term female fetuses at risk of poor outcomes and even death, a new study from Sweden shows.
Indeed, up to a third of stillbirths among girls born post-term could be due to inaccuracies in these estimates, the researchers conclude.
Since the early 1990s, doctors have used second-trimester ultrasound measurements to determine the age of a fetus and estimate when the baby will be born, Dr. Alkistis Skalkidou of Uppsala Universitet and colleagues note in their paper, published online August 27th in Epidemiology.
But female fetuses, even at the end of the first trimester of pregnancy, are smaller than male fetuses, on average, Dr. Skalkidou and colleagues add, raising the possibility that a smaller, post-term female fetus could be misclassified as having a younger gestational age based on ultrasound measurements.

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Test to see if you're a good candidate for in vitro (IVF)

This is important news.  I remember friends getting more and more IVFs, no one telling them that it was unlikely it would work (age, health issues).  Now scientists have discovered a test that gave fairly accurately give you and idea:

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Stanford University researchers have developed a test to determine whether a patient is likely to conceive a child through in vitro fertilization - a breakthrough that could save women tens of thousands of dollars in fruitless procedures, as well as the heartbreak of failed treatment.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/08/23/BAGP1EVA8P.DTL&type=science#ixzz0y6libZZY

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Blood Type Diet

Morning folks,

I became interested in the Blood Type Diet when I read (and saw, experimentally with my friends) that most autistic/vaccine damaged kids are Type A, which is also prone to inflammatory autoimmune diseases, of which I, as a TypeA-er, have.  In addition the broad outlines: eat less meat, more vegetarian; avoid scary/violent movies and crowds; don't sunbathe...plus a bunch of other things were already things I didn't like to do (e.g., have been a vegetarian for a long time, never been crazy about meat, HATE and cannot watch violent movies), so I'm trying this diet that suggests foods that are good and bad for you.

For instance, since type As don't produce enough HCL in the stomach, digestion-friendly foods like a glass of red wine and a cup of coffee actually can be beneficial.  Whoopee!  My chiro's office even had a good on Blood Type Diet and FERTILITY.  Will check that out, and check back for updates.

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Chemical in breakfast cereal

Petroleum products are here, there, everywhere, even if you don't live in the Gulf.  The Washington Post reports via Planet green:

Federal regulators, who are charged with ensuring the safety of food and consumer products, are in the dark about the suspected chemical, 2-methylnaphthalene. The Food and Drug Administration has no scientific data on its impact on human health. The Environmental Protection Agency also lacks basic health and safety data for 2-methylnaphthalene -- even though the EPA has been seeking that information from the chemical industry for 16 years.

Read more here.  

How to avoid these awful contaminants?  Buy real food from people you know, make what you need.  I have a chicken stock bubbling on the stove right now from a chicken I helped to gut and clean, veggies from the same organic farm--and it's all the parts of the veggies we could have discarded.  And it smells heavenly!  

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B Vitamins Help Aging Brain

Horrible story in the New York Times today about how Eli Lilly's new alzheimer's drug made people have MORE cognitive decline than the placebo--oops!

But there is something simple to improve your brain  health AND your fertility.  B vitamins!  Folate, for instance, can help with depression in women as well as prevent neural tube defects in babies.  Check out this article from Newswise: 

Newswise — B vitamins–B-6, B-12 and folate–all nourish the brain. But much remains to be discovered about the relation between these essential nutrients and our brainpower.

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) nutritionist Lindsay H. Allen has collaborated in ongoing research that has taken a closer look at the role these nutrients may play in preventing decline in brain function. The investigations, led by Mary N. Haan of the University of California-San Francisco, are part of the multiyear Sacramento (Calif.) Area Latino Study on Aging, or “SALSA.” Begun in 1996, the study attracted nearly 1,800 Hispanic seniors, ages 60 to 101, as volunteers...

An analysis of volunteers’ blood samples showed that lower levels of one B vitamin, folate, were associated with symptoms of dementia and poor brain function, also called “cognitive decline," as determined by standard tests of memory and other factors. The impairments were detectable even though less than 1 percent of the volunteers were actually deficient in folate....

In women, but not men, low levels of folate were associated with symptoms of depression. In fact, female volunteers whose plasma folate levels were in the lowest third were more than twice as likely to have symptoms of depression as volunteers in the highest third. That finding provided new evidence of an association between lower blood folate and depression. Depression is already known to affect brain function.

In research with vitamin B-12, the SALSA team determined that a protein known as holoTC, short for holotranscobalamin, might be key to a new approach for detecting cognitive decline earlier and more accurately.
The researchers have published these and other findings, beginning in 2003 and continuing through

this year, in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, Clinical Chemistry and Laboratory Medicine, The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, The Journal of Nutrition, and The Journal of Nutrition, Health, and Aging.

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