Back pain affects about 8 out of 10 people. But there are many steps you can take to avoid it. One of the best things you can do to prevent back pain is to exercise regularly and keep your back and abdominal muscles strong.

Here are some quick pointers to prevent back problems:

• Always stretch before any strenuous physical activity
• Don’t slouch when standing or sitting
• Sit in chairs or car seats with good lumbar support
• Switch sitting positions often and periodically walk around or gently stretch muscles to relieve tension
• Don’t bend over without supporting your back
• Wear comfortable, low-heeled shoes
• Sleep on your side to reduce any curve in your spine, and always sleep on a firm surface
• Lift with your legs, keeping your back straight
• Try to control your weight
• If you smoke, quit; smoking reduces blood flow to the lower spine and causes the spinal discs to degenerate

Also, to keep your spine strong, as with all bones, you need to get enough vitamin D every day.

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Colon Health Probiotic SupplementReplenishes Good Bacteria to Promote overall Dig

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An independent inquiry into "appalling" levels of care at Stafford Hospital cost taxpayers £1.7m, it has emerged.

Patients were neglected by staff and management were too focussed on targets, Robert Francis QC said in his 900-page report last month.

The inquiry began after the Healthcare Commission revealed the hospital’s high death rate last year.

Cure the NHS Campaigner Julie Bailey, who has called for a public inquiry, said the report was a "waste of money".

She said she believed relatives had learned "very little" from it.

Not satisfied

David Kidney, Labour MP for Stafford, said: "This vast expense on this inquiry for barristers and lawyers and premises and all the rest is just one more reason why I am so angry about what went wrong at Stafford Hospital."

There were at least 400 more deaths than expected at the hospital between 2005 to 2008, the Healthcare Commission report said last March.

This latest investigation into what went wrong, which made 18 recommendations, took five months to compile but has not satisfied many relatives.

A Freedom of Information request by BBC Radio Stoke revealed the inquiry spent £391,000 on consultants and £55,000 on stationary.

Mr Francis and the three inquiry counsels who addressed witnesses shared £492,000 in fees and expenses.

A further £121,000 was spent on solicitors fees, which included representation for witnesses, while the building the team were based at – on a business park in Stafford – cost £67,000. A further £37,000 was spent on accommodation and travel.

The Department of Health declined to comment on the costs. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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A heart patient’s own skin cells soon could be used to repair damaged cardiac tissue thanks to pioneering stem cell research.

This new technique for reprogramming human skin cells puts could one day lead to treatments for Alzheimer’s, diabetes, muscular dystrophy and many other diseases.

The skin cells are turned into cells similar to embryonic stem cells, and they ultimately can be made into early-stage heart cells. These then could be implanted and grown into fully developed beating heart cells, reversing the damage caused by previous heart attacks. These new cells would replace the damaged cardiac tissue that weakens the heart’s ability to pump, develops into scar tissue and causes arrhythmias.

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A five per cent rise in tobacco tax would lead to a substantial drop in the number of smokers and save millions in health costs, a charity suggests.

Such an increase would discourage children from buying cigarettes and help adults quit, a report by Action on Smoking and Health (Ash) says.

Its chief executive, Deborah Arnott, said: "Smoking is a childhood addiction and not an adult choice."

Support for the idea comes from such charities as Cancer Research UK.

The British Heart Foundation and the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths (FSID) have also backed the proposal.

The report also says that raising tobacco prices through taxation by five per cent above inflation would lead to a reduction in the number of smokers by 190,000 and save the NHS more than £20m a year by cutting the cost of treating smoking-related diseases.

Health benefits

It also claims a tax rise would also reduce smoking-related absenteeism in the workplace, saving more than £10m a year, increase government tax revenues by more than £500m a year and result in wider economic benefits in the first five years of more than £270m a year.

Ash outlines its call on tobacco prices in a pre-Budget submission to the Treasury.

Its chief executive, Deborah Arnott, said: "By increasing tobacco taxation, we help to discourage children from buying cigarettes. An above-inflation rise would also help adults stop smoking."

FSID director Joyce Epstein said: "Scientific evidence shows that every year the lives of over 100 UK infants could be saved if no pregnant woman smoked.

"Smoking by fathers increases the risk of infant death as well. Our organisation supports increasing the price of tobacco because it will encourage smokers to consider quitting and so protect their children." </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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This textbook provides the reader with thorough coverage of the role nutrition plays in enhancing one’s health, fitness, and sport performance. Current research and practical activities are incorporated throughout.

About the Author

Melvin Williams is the Director of Human Performance Laboratory at Old Dominion University, and has more than 30 years of lab research with a focus on the role of nutrition in sports. He has written and edited five books on ergogenic aids and the role of nutrition in sports — his two latest books are The Ergogenics Edge: Pushing the Limits of Sports Performance (Human Kinetics) and Nutrition for Health, Fitness, and Sports, Sixth Edition (McGraw-Hill). He earned a B.S. from East Stroudsburg State College (1962), a Master of Education degree from Ohio University (1963), and a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland (1968), with a doctoral dissertation on the effects of alcohol as a possible means to enhance strength and (more…)

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By Jeffrey M. Smith

The American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM) has called on all physicians to prescribe diets without genetically modified (GM) foods to all patients.¹ They called for a moratorium on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), long-term independent studies, and labeling. They stated, “Several animal studies indicate serious health risks associated with GM food,” including infertility, immune problems, accelerated aging, insulin regulation, and changes in major organs and the gastrointestinal system. “There is more than a casual association between GM foods and adverse health effects. There is causation…”

Former AAEM President Dr. Jennifer Armstrong says, “Physicians are probably seeing the effects in their patients, but need to know how to ask the right questions.” Renowned biologist Pushpa M. Bhargava believes that GMOs are a major contributor to the deteriorating health in America.

Pregnant women and babies at great risk

GM foods are particularly dangerous for pregnant moms and children. After GM soy was fed to female rats, most of their babies died—compared to a 10% deaths among controls fed natural soy.² GM-fed babies were smaller, and possibly infertile.³

Testicles of rats fed GM soy changed from the normal pink to dark blue.⁴  Mice fed GM soy had altered young sperm.⁵ Embryos of GM soy-fed parent mice had changed DNA.⁶ And mice fed GM corn had fewer, and smaller, babies.⁷

In Haryana, India, most buffalo that ate GM cottonseed had reproductive complications such as premature deliveries, abortions, and infertility; Many calves died. About two dozen US farmers said thousands of pigs became sterile from certain GM corn varieties. Some had false pregnancies; others gave birth to bags of water. Cows and bulls also became infertile.⁸

In the US, incidence of low birth weight babies, infertility, and infant mortality are all escalating.

Food that produces poison

GM corn and cotton are engineered to produce a built-in pesticide called Bt-toxin—produced from soil bacteria Bacillus thuringiensis. When bugs bite the plant, poison splits open their stomach and kills them. Organic farmers and others use natural Bt bacteria spray for insect control, so biotech companies claim that Bt-toxin must be safe.

The Bt-toxin produced in GM plants, however, is thousands of times more concentrated than natural Bt spray, is designed to be more toxic,⁹  has properties of an allergen, and cannot be washed off the plant.

Moreover, studies confirm that even the less toxic natural spray can be harmful. When dispersed by plane to kill gypsy moths in Washington and Vancouver, about 500 people reported allergy or flu-like symptoms.^10,11 The same symptoms are now reported by farm workers from handling Bt cotton throughout India.¹² 

GMOs provoke immune reactions

GMO safety expert Arpad Pusztai says changes in immune status are “a consistent feature of all the [animal] studies.”¹³ From Monsanto’s own research to government funded trials, rodents fed Bt corn had significant immune reactions.^{14 15}

Soon after GM soy was introduced to the UK, soy allergies skyrocketed by 50%. Ohio allergist Dr. John Boyles says “I used to test for soy allergies all the time, but now that soy is genetically engineered, it is so dangerous that I tell people never to eat it.”

GM soy and corn contain new proteins with allergenic properties.¹⁶ and GM soy has up to seven times more of a known soy allergen.¹⁷ Perhaps the US epidemic of food allergies and asthma is a casualty of genetic manipulation.

Animals dying in large numbers

In India, animals graze on cotton plants after harvest. But when shepherds let sheep graze on Bt cotton plants, thousands died. Investigators said preliminary evidence “strongly suggests that the sheep mortality was due to a toxin. . . . most probably Bt-toxin.”¹⁸ In one small study, all sheep fed Bt cotton plants died; those fed natural plants remained healthy.

In an Andhra Pradesh village, buffalo grazed on cotton plants for eight years without incident. On January 3rd, 2008, 13 buffalo grazed on Bt cotton plants for the first time. All died within three days.¹⁹ Bt corn is also implicated in the deaths of cows in Germany, and horses, water buffaloes, and chickens in The Philippines.²⁰

In lab studies, twice the number of chickens fed Liberty Link corn died; 7 of 40 rats fed a GM tomato died within two weeks.²¹

Worst finding of all—GMOs remain inside of us

The only published human feeding study revealed that even after we stop eating GMOs, harmful GM proteins may be produced continuously inside of us; genes inserted into GM soy transfer into bacteria inside our intestines and continue to function.²² If Bt genes also transfer, eating corn chips might transform our intestinal bacteria into living pesticide factories.

Warnings by government scientists ignored and denied

According to documents released from a lawsuit, scientists at the FDA warned that GM foods might create allergies, poisons, new diseases, and nutritional problems.²³ But the White House ordered the agency to promote biotechnology, and Michael Taylor, Monsanto’s former attorney, headed up the FDA’s GMO policy. That policy declares that no safety studies on GMOs are required. Monsanto and other producers determine if their foods are safe. Taylor later became Monsanto’s vice president, and was reinstalled at the FDA in 2009 by the Obama administration as the US Food Safety Czar.

Opting out as guinea pigs

Biologist David Schubert of the Salk Institute says, “If there are problems [with GMOs], we will probably never know because the cause will not be traceable and many diseases take a very long time to develop.” In the 9 years after GM crops were introduced in 1996, Americans with three or more chronic diseases jumped from 7% to 13%.²⁴ But without any human clinical trials or post marketing surveillance, we may never know if GMOs are a contributor.

Citizens need not wait for more research to take the doctors advice: avoid GMOs. Consult the Non-GMO Shopping Guide (www.NonGMOShoppingGuide.com). Even a small percentage of people choosing non-GMO brands could force the food industry to remove all GM ingredients. Thus, AAEM’s non-GMO prescription may be a watershed for the US food supply.

To learn more about the health dangers of GMOs, and what you can do to help end the genetic engineering of our food supply, visit www.ResponsibleTechnology.org.

International bestselling author and filmmaker Jeffrey Smith is the leading spokesperson on the health dangers of genetically modified (GM) foods. His first book, Seeds of Deception, is the world’s bestselling and #1 rated book on the topic. His second, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, provides overwhelming evidence that GMOs are unsafe and should never have been introduced. Mr. Smith is the executive director of the Institute for Responsible Technology, whose Campaign for Healthier Eating in America is designed to create the tipping point of consumer rejection of GMOs, forcing them out of our food supply.

For a straightforward guide to shopping Non-GMO, see the Non-GMO Shopping Guide http://www.nongmoshoppingguide.com/SG/DownloadtheGuide/index.cfm.

Tell USDA that you DO care about GE contamination of organic crops and the food you eat! Click on the following link and let the USDA know that you WILL reject GE Contaminated Alfalfa and Alfalfa-Derived Foods and that GE Alfalfa will significantly increase the use of pesticides, resulting in the harm to human health and the overall environment. http://ga3.org/campaign/alfalfaEIS

1. http://www.aaemonline.org/gmopost.html
2. Irina Ermakova, “Genetically modified soy leads to the decrease of weight and high mortality of rat pups of the first generation. Preliminary studies,” Ecosinform 1 (2006): 4–9.
3. Irina Ermakova, “Experimental Evidence of GMO Hazards,” Presentation at Scientists for a GM Free Europe, EU Parliament, Brussels, June 12, 2007
4. Irina Ermakova, “Experimental Evidence of GMO Hazards,” Presentation at Scientists for a GM Free Europe, EU Parliament, Brussels, June 12, 2007
5. L. Vecchio et al, “Ultrastructural Analysis of Testes from Mice Fed on Genetically Modified Soybean,” European Journal of Histochemistry 48, no. 4 (Oct–Dec 2004):449–454.
6. Oliveri et al., “Temporary Depression of Transcription in Mouse Pre-implantion Embryos from Mice Fed on Genetically Modified Soybean,” 48th Symposium of the Society for Histochemistry, Lake Maggiore (Italy), September 7–10, 2006.
7. Alberta Velimirov and Claudia Binter, “Biological effects of transgenic maize NK603xMON810 fed in long term reproduction studies in mice,” Forschungsberichte der Sektion IV, Band 3/2008
8. erry Rosman, personal communication, 2006
9. See for example, A. Dutton, H. Klein, J. Romeis, and F. Bigler, “Uptake of Bt-toxin by herbivores feeding on transgenic maize and consequences for the predator Chrysoperia carnea,” Ecological Entomology 27 (2002): 441–7; and J. Romeis, A. Dutton, and F. Bigler, “Bacillus thuringiensis toxin (Cry1Ab) has no direct effect on larvae of the green lacewing Chrysoperla carnea (Stephens) (Neuroptera: Chrysopidae),” Journal of Insect Physiology 50, no. 2–3 (2004): 175–183.
10. Washington State Department of Health, “Report of health surveillance activities: Asian gypsy moth control program,” (Olympia, WA: Washington State Dept. of Health, 1993).
11. M. Green, et al., “Public health implications of the microbial pesticide Bacillus thuringiensis: An epidemiological study, Oregon, 1985-86,” Amer. J. Public Health 80, no. 7(1990): 848–852.
12. Ashish Gupta et. al., “Impact of Bt Cotton on Farmers’ Health (in Barwani and Dhar District of Madhya Pradesh),” Investigation Report, Oct–Dec 2005.
13. October 24, 2005 correspondence between Arpad Pusztai and Brian John
14. John M. Burns, “13-Week Dietary Subchronic Comparison Study with MON 863 Corn in Rats Preceded by a 1-Week Baseline Food Consumption Determination with PMI Certified Rodent Diet #5002,” December 17, 2002 http://www.monsanto.com/monsanto/content/sci_tech/prod_safety/fullratstudy.pdf
15. Alberto Finamore, et al, “Intestinal and Peripheral Immune Response to MON810 Maize Ingestion in Weaning and Old Mice,” J. Agric. Food Chem., 2008, 56 (23), pp 11533–11539, November 14, 2008
16. See L Zolla, et al, “Proteomics as a complementary tool for identifying unintended side effects occurring in transgenic maize seeds as a result of genetic modifications,” J Proteome Res. 2008 May;7(5):1850-61; Hye-Yung Yum, Soo-Young Lee, Kyung-Eun Lee, Myung-Hyun Sohn, Kyu-Earn Kim, “Genetically Modified and Wild Soybeans: An immunologic comparison,” Allergy and Asthma Proceedings 26, no. 3 (May–June 2005): 210-216(7); and Gendel, “The use of amino acid sequence alignments to assess potential allergenicity of proteins used in genetically modified foods,” Advances in Food and Nutrition Research 42 (1998), 45–62.
17. A. Pusztai and S. Bardocz, “GMO in animal nutrition: potential benefits and risks,” Chapter 17, Biology of Nutrition in Growing Animals, R. Mosenthin, J. Zentek and T. Zebrowska (Eds.) Elsevier, October 2005
18. “Mortality in Sheep Flocks after Grazing on Bt Cotton Fields—Warangal District, Andhra Pradesh” Report of the Preliminary Assessment, April 2006, http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp
19. Personal communication and visit, January 2009.
20. Jeffrey M. Smith, Genetic Roulette: The Documented Health Risks of Genetically Engineered Foods, Yes! Books, Fairfield, IA USA 2007
21. Arpad Pusztai, “Can Science Give Us the Tools for Recognizing Possible Health Risks for GM Food?” Nutrition and Health 16 (2002): 73–84.
22. Netherwood et al, “Assessing the survival of transgenic plant DNA in the human gastrointestinal tract,” Nature Biotechnology 22 (2004): 2.
23. See memos at www.biointegrity.org
24. Kathryn Anne Paez, et al, “Rising Out-Of-Pocket Spending For Chronic Conditions: A Ten-Year Trend,” Health Affairs, 28, no. 1 (2009): 15-25

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Ofsted inspectors are expected to say later that children’s services at the council criticised over the death of baby Peter Connolly have improved.

The 17-month-old was seen repeatedly by social workers at Haringey Council, in London, before he died in August 2007 with more than 50 injuries.

His mother, her ex-partner and another man have been jailed over his death.

In its previous report, the lead Ofsted inspector said the council’s children’s department was the "worst ever seen".

Extra spending

The report due to be published by Ofsted looked at the quality of child protection in Haringey and is expected to say that standards have improved.

Ofsted’s previous report was scathing about the way the department was run and said there had been a failure to identify children at immediate risk of harm.

The lead inspector in the review of Haringey’s services, Heather Brown, had said: "The concerns that arose from this exercise were extremely serious – fundamental to the way that safeguarding systems were operating in Haringey."

She said the quality of practice in the department had been the "worst I had ever seen", with "only a single example of good practice" found in the whole inspection.

It had been claimed at the time of Peter’s death that the department was facing budget cuts.

But since then the government has spent £2m to improve child protection in the borough.

Haringey’s former director of children’s services, Sharon Shoesmith, is awaiting a High Court judgement over the circumstances surrounding her dismissal from her job, claiming Ofsted, the government and Haringey Council acted unlawfully. </p

This article is from the BBC News website. © British Broadcasting Corporation, The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites.

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From Publishers Weekly

Hopkins, known as The Makeover Guy, explains fashion dos, don’ts and oh-no-she-didn’ts for women in the second act of their lives. A quiz helps the reader identify which of six Image Profiles suits her tastes (Casual, Romantic, Innovative, etc.); clothes, hair and makeup tips follow accordingly. Hopkins is encouraging and helpful: he does not simply tell women to clean their closets of any unsuitable clothes. He provides a checklist of what you’ll need, a 10-step to-do list and a questionnaire to determine which clothes to keep and which to toss. Benefiting from this book requires a certain amount of dedication—this is no quick-fix beauty mag article. There is even a revival guide journal in the back where readers can mark down outfits that worked or didn’t work, collect contact information on their personal beauty team and keep track of daily, weekly and monthly beauty tasks. Hopkins’s constant self-marketing can get annoying: irrelevant photos (more…)
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Have you ever wondered what you would include if you had to sum up the total human experience in one videotape?

That was the charge of Carl Sagan, famous astronomer and astrophysicist.

Toward the end of the summer of ‘77, NASA launched two spacecraft as part of the Voyager Interstellar Mission. On board each craft was a “golden record” that included, among other things, the sound of a kiss, a mother’s first words to her newborn child, music from all over the world, and greetings in 59 different languages.

You can watch the golden record here. 

The spacecraft were designed to take close-up pictures of Jupiter and Saturn, and then continue into the great expanse of space beyond our solar system. The records on board were meant to survive for a billion years, in the hope that some day, against enormous odds, they might cross paths with an alien civilization.

The golden record project was put together by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan, a project that launched not only the spacecraft, but also their whirlwind romance and marriage two days after the spacecraft launched.

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