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June 13, 2011  In This Issue... - Seven Danger Signs of a Toxic Liver
- Healthy Diet Drinks -- Can You Trust Them?
- The 10 Biggest and Deadliest Heart Myths
- Remote Control Chemotherapy
Seven Danger Signs of a Toxic Liver There are seven danger signs that could be your body’s way of telling you that you have a toxic liver. The scary thing is that these signs could easily be mistaken for other, less common health problems. But the fact is that, if you’re experiencing any one of these seven danger signs, your liver could be full of harmful toxins. To find out about these Seven Danger signs, watch this free special presentation right now.
Healthy Diet Drinks -- Can You Trust Them? Is anyone surprised to find beverage giants Coca-Cola and PepsiCo scrambling to reposition themselves as producers of drinks that are good -- or at least not bad -- for your health? Both have introduced new diet drinks formulated with their own versions of stevia, a sweetener that comes from nature rather than from a laboratory. Coca-Cola worked with the giant agribusiness company Cargill to develop a purified derivative of stevia that it calls Truvia... and PepsiCo followed shortly thereafter with its own very similar version called PureVia. So, for several years now, consumers have been drinking Coca-Cola’s Sprite Green and PepsiCo’s 0 Calorie SoBe Lifewater made with their new stevia-based sweeteners -- but, are they really, truly safe for your health? Why Should We Be Worried? To understand why anyone would even ask that question requires a bit of history. Made from the leaves of the stevia plant, stevia has been used for medicinal purposes and as a sweetener for centuries in South America. It’s a popular sweetener in Japan, but here in the US we require more evidence of its safety than is yet available. While research has largely shown stevia to be safe, some questions remain -- it has possible harmful effects on blood sugar control, the kidneys and the cardiovascular and reproductive systems. That’s why the Food and Drug Administration refused to approve importation of stevia as a sweetener. But as wily types always do, importers figured out a way around that. They decided to call stevia a supplement, for which the regulations are far more lax. As a result, you now can find stevia sold as a supplement in health-food stores and online, but people in the know use it as a sweetener. Stevia is sold in powder and liquid form. You can even buy plants to grow yourself a ready supply of leaves! And none of these products carries any label warning of health dangers. But, you may be wondering, how is it that Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are using their forms of stevia as a sweetening food additive? Indeed this situation bothers many consumer advocates. I called Daily Health News medical editor Andrew Rubman, ND, for his take on the stevia conundrum. You may be surprised when I tell you that he said we actually can trust the soda sellers on this one... they did their research! How Much Is Too Much? It’s all about quantity, Dr. Rubman explained. He said that the reason for restricting any substance, including stevia, to supplement status only is to be sure that people will use it in limited quantities. In contrast, food additives will be used in many foods and drinks that people consume daily, which -- the FDA assumes -- adds up to far higher quantities. But, Dr. Rubman said, in this particular situation, consumers are safe, at least in the short term. After carefully reviewing the literature for Daily Health News readers, Dr. Rubman told me that the toxicological studies of Coca-Cola’s Truvia and PepsiCo’s PureVia revealed nothing that would be cause for concern healthwise. Both PureVia and Truvia are more than 90% rebaudioside A, a refined extract of stevia which the FDA has labeled GRAS -- generally regarded as safe. If you feel you must drink very sweet beverages, Dr. Rubman said, in his view you’d do far better to select the Sprite Green or the Sobe Lifewater than a diet soda sweetened with aspartame (which is associated with numerous health risks, including migraines, abdominal pains and asthma) or a regular soda loaded with sugar. Similarly, he believes using stevia to sweeten tea or coffee is preferable to NutraSweet or Sweet’N Low. There is a caveat, however. Dr. Rubman told me that some folks may find that when they quaff drinks made with Truvia and PureVia, they feel a bit bloated and gassy. The impact is the same as with other sweeteners on the market. It’s a problem for some, Dr. Rubman told me, but not others -- only personal experimentation will tell. But in any case Dr. Rubman’s overall advice is to limit your consumption of any sweetener -- natural or not -- including this one. Source(s): Andrew L. Rubman, ND, founder and director, Southbury Clinic for Traditional Medicines, Southbury, Connecticut. www.SouthburyClinic.com.
The 10 Biggest and Deadliest Heart Myths The number of heart attacks has increased by 27 percent over the past 20 years, in spite of all the supposed advances of modern medicine. What’s going on here? Could we be mistaken about some things? Perhaps we’re under some major misconceptions about heart disease. Like... Myth #1 -- Heart disease and heart attacks are an inevitable part of aging. Myth #2 -- Cholesterol is the main cause of heart disease and heart attacks. Myth #3 -- Blood pressure drugs help you avoid heart problems and live longer. Myth #4 -- Aggressive, "type A" behavior increases your risk of a heart attack. Myth #5 -- Low-fat, low cholesterol diets are good for you and your heart. Learn more...
Remote Control Chemotherapy
When you talk to people who have had chemotherapy to battle cancer, they may tell you that the treatment can be as bad as the disease... and they aren’t joking. The side effects of the therapy’s toxic chemicals are well-known. Adding insult to injury, chemotherapy often leaves the taste of metal in people’s mouths, making it much less likely that they’ll have a healthy appetite and get the nutrition they need for their bodies to fight the disease.
But what if doctors could steer chemotherapy through a patient’s bloodstream so that, instead of the toxins spreading throughout the body and creating all of those harsh side effects, they were focused solely on the cancer site and the patient remained side effect free?
This is an exciting and very different approach being worked on by researchers. While it is still in development, it’s encouraging enough that I wanted to share the news with you.
Engineers at École Polytechnique de Montréal have been working to make remote control chemotherapy a reality for the past seven years. They used micro-carriers loaded with nano-sized particles and chemotherapy drugs together with a customized magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine to successfully guide the drugs through the bloodstream of a live rabbit to a predetermined treatment site in its liver. (This is a medical first.) The technique still has to pass a multitude of tests before it’s ready for use in humans, but its development is incredibly exciting -- and it gives a glimpse into the future of medicine.
The Fascinating Science Behind This Technology
For all you science buffs, here’s how the MRI-drug-delivery process works...
Creating the package. The engineers encapsulate tiny amounts of a chemotherapy drug (in this case, doxorubicin, typically used in people who are fighting lung and breast cancer) along with particles that contain iron inside a biodegradable polymer -- essentially the drug and particles are stuffed into a plastic ball. The trick: The ball is only about 50 micrometers in diameter -- less than the width of a human hair. Then many of these balls (the researchers call them "therapeutic magnetic microcarriers," or TMMCs) are injected into the bloodstream via a catheter.
Making a map. Researchers use a previous MRI scan of the subject to plot the correct route through to the tumor they want to target and program that map into the machine. Once the balls are injected, the customized MRI machine takes over -- it uses the map to guide the tiny balls to their final destination.
And how is the MRI customized? The engineers change the programming of the machine so it can "drive" the nanoparticles by adding a magnetic coil to attract the iron particles in the balls and pull the balls through the bloodstream.
The two-minute drive. The patient (a rabbit, in the research) is then put in the customized MRI machine. The powerful magnetic field of the machine allows precise control of the microcarriers. Within two minutes, plus or minus, the procedure is over -- the microcarriers become trapped in the treatment area, where the plastic balls break down over several days and release the chemotherapy drugs.
"The microcarriers are like trucks," said Sylvain Martel, PhD, professor and director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at École Polytechnique de Montréal. "And the MRI is like a GPS. We can load the trucks with anything we want, and then take it where it needs to go." And that’s what makes this especially exciting -- the system isn’t just specific to cancer treatment. It has the potential to work for any condition -- arthritis, blood clots -- really any situation where the precise delivery of drugs is a benefit.
What It Means for All of Us
Dr. Martel’s technology still has to show its efficacy and safety before it can be approved for humans. In a bigger-picture way, though, this amazing technology is yet more proof that there are many new opportunities in the future of cancer treatment.
Source(s):
Sylvain Martel, PhD, professor and director, NanoRobotics Laboratory, Department of Computer Engineering, Institute of Biomedical Engineering, École Polytechnique de Montreal, Canada.
Be well, 
Carole Jackson
Bottom Line’s Daily Health News
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