Toxic amounts of aluminium found in infant formulas
Wednesday, December 05, 2012 by: Helen Davies MSc
Although the unacceptably excessive presence of aluminium in infant
formulas has been scientifically documented and proven since the late
1990s and the manufacturing companies are sufficiently warned and very
well aware of the health problems it causes, it looks like commercial
infant formulas still contain too much of this neurotoxic element.
Milk
substitutes are sophisticated products that aim to nutritionally
support newborns and infants of several years of age. Dr Weintraub and
his team were some of the first scientists that investigated the
presence of toxic amounts of aluminium in commercial infant formulas in
1986. They found that popular formulas had up to 150 times more
aluminium than fresh breast milk, tap water or pasteurized cow's milk.
The problem with aluminium is that it accumulates in the bones and
neural tissues. Although there are no clinical studies investigating the
impact of aluminium overload in healthy infants, preliminary research
shows that aluminium causes significant oxidative stress in the brain of
newborn rats, while it compromises the cellular antioxidant defenses.
In the official journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics
(1996), we find the description of several cases of young children
suffering from aluminium intoxication, which was closely associated to
subsequent encephalopathies, leading to progressive degeneration of
brain functions and bone abnormalities, mainly osteomalacia, which
results in soft and flexible bones. Overexposure to aluminium combined
with poor kidney function are the most important factors that determine
to which extent toxic amounts of aluminium will accumulate in the body tissues. FDA has
determined that newborn babies can tolerate up to five micrograms of
aluminium for every kilogram of their weight on a daily basis. Even if
we accept this limit as legitimate, an interesting study published in
the Journal of Pediatric Gastroenterology and Nutrition found that on average, preterm babies receive three times more aluminium than this arbitrary safe limit allows.
Revisiting this important child health topic, Professor Chris Exley, from the University of Keele,
UK, tested several brands of ready-made milks and powder formulas for
aluminium content in 2010. Surprisingly, the samples studied, especially
the ready-made preparations, were heavily loaded with aluminium,
containing several times higher amounts than the ones allowed in the
drinking water. The study reveals that the maximum concentration
measured was 700 micrograms per liter, which was found in a milk
product (Cow and Gate Nutriprem 1) destined for preterm newborns.
Overall, all the commercial brands tested had alarmingly high
concentrations of aluminium (200-700 micrograms/lt) resulting in the
ingestion of up to 600 micrograms of aluminium on a daily basis. Professor Exley reports that infant formulas
contain 40 times more aluminium than breast milk; these amounts
constitute these products inappropriate for human consumption, let alone
for nutritionally supporting newborns. Although the sources for this
consistent contamination are hard to find, there is a considerable
amount of responsibility for the manufacturing companies. Based on these
facts, parents should be well aware of the potential dangers of giving
commercial infant formulas to their babies or younger children.
UK doctors now using toxic chemo organ baths on cancer patients
Sunday, November 18, 2012 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
The future of chemotherapy treatment for cancer appears to be moving
towards a more targeted poisoning approach rather than a systemic one,
which may actually be shown in time to cause the same amount of harm as
existing chemotherapy treatments. For the very first time, doctors in
the U.K. have administered what are known as "chemo baths" to patients
with cancer, meaning they have isolated certain cancerous bodily organs
in cancer patients from the rest of their bodies' blood supplies for the
purpose of directly injecting chemotherapy poisons into these specific
organs.
The way it works is that doctors first inject balloon
mechanisms into patients' blood vessels in order to temporarily block
blood flow and isolate their infected organs from the rest of their
bodies. After being quarantined, these isolated organs are then pumped
full of toxic chemotherapy drugs, sometimes at levels significantly
higher than would typically be injected systemically using existing
chemotherapy protocols. The idea behind the approach, of course, is to
prevent patients' entire bodies from becoming damaged by chemotherapy,
which more often than not ends up becoming their eventual cause of death
rather than their cure.
According to Dr. Brian Stedman, a consultant interventional radiologist quoted by BBC News, the chemo bath process typically takes about an hour, which supposedly gives the body plenty of time to filter out the chemotherapy
toxins before a normal blood supply is restored to the isolated organ.
But the process also puts an incredible toxicity load on the targeted
organ that would otherwise not occur during a systemic poisoning
routine, which could actually end up causing cancer patients more bodily harm in the long run than if they received normal chemotherapy, or, of course, no chemotherapy at all.
Time will tell whether or not the novel treatment protocol is accepted by the mainstream medical community, as well as whether or not it is any less deadly than existing chemotherapy treatments. Particularly for liver cancer, the chemo bath treatment might prove somewhat more effective than traditional chemotherapy at mitigating cancer cells, at least for a time. But it still too early to fully ascertain how an already overburdened liver will fare in the long term after receiving an acute dose of chemotherapy using the chemo bath process.
Experts are also openly admitting that chemo baths do not actually cure cancer, but rather they may help to slightly prolong lifespan in some patients. This means that, regardless of whether a cancer patient receives chemotherapy or a chemo bath, he or she will still most likely to die from a combination of both cancer and chemotherapy. So while some are hailing chemo baths as a cancer treatment of the future, the procedure is still just as incapable of curing cancer as traditional chemotherapy.
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