go vegan

oh my god... there's really people eating this.

Xenoestrogens, poison of the new century

They are alien oestrogens, which mimic real oestrogens that our body produce. But they are much more harmful, they last longer and it's difficult to get rid of them. They are endocrine disrupters, which may affect the proper functioning of thyroid, immune system and many organs. They can seriously affect the hormonal balance of men and women, as well as the fauna. Rivers are contaminated by xenostroegens, fish become hermaphrodites. Water treatment can not eliminate xenoestrogens, so now more and more cities install a new processing system with ozone.

Where are they?
Environment is full of it. We find those undesirable hormones in:
pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, petrochemicals,
tap water, bbq, paint, glue, solvents, paint removers, plastics, in meat of animals fed with food containing pesticides, detergents industry: cosmetics, cleansers, hygiene products, air pollution: gasoline, diesel, nail polish containing toluene or phthalates.
Dyes containing phenylenediamine, towels and tampons bleached with chlorine, phthalates, synthetic components that increase the flexibility of plastic, anti-lice shampoos (pesticides), cigarette smoke.



What they do?
if the body fails to dispose of estrogen excess, following disorders may occur: uterine fibroids, ovarian cysts, cystic fibrosis of the breast, heavy menstruation blood flow, acute PMS, endometriosis, risk of breast cancer and other cancers.

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Xenoestrogens are synthetic chemicals that mimic or interfere with estrogen in our bodies. They form a subset of a broader group of chemicals known as endocrine disruptors.

Exposure to xenoestrogens, which are found in pesticides, PCBs, plastics, and other industrial chemicals, has been linked to breast and ovarian cancers in women and to decreased testosterone levels, prostate cancer, and lowered sperm count in men. These damaging effects have been found in fish, reptiles, birds, rodents, and humans.

These chemicals are found in soil, lakes, and rivers as pesticide run-off from agricultural usage. They are present in polycarbonate plastic food wraps and containers and are also found in herbicides and pesticides on fruits and vegetables. Because hormones such as estrogen act in the body at very low levels (parts per trillion), exposure to even small amounts of environmental endocrine disruptors concern scientists. Although the plastic and chemical industries refute the links between their products and the effects of endocrine disruption, the government environmental agencies in Canada and the US have begun to screen potentially xenoestrogenic chemicals and to undertake more research into the impact these chemicals have on animals and humans.



Source: alive #X

This is why you're fat

http://thisiswhyyourefat.com

Who likes sugar or chocolate on things like French fries or meat !? : Krispy Kreme bacon cheddar cheeseburgers, deep fried Mars bar, deep fried coca-cola, bacon donut... a tongue sandwich... wtf ? some bacon in ice cream, on cookies, a McDonald’s chocolate milkshake with BBQ sauce and garnished with a chicken McNugget. Sausage egg and cheese on a chocolate glazed donut... Is this evidence that meat-eating drives insane ?

crazy world

100 million tons of plastic in the sea and in fish
The scientist Charles Moore discovered a while ago that there is tons of tiny pieces of plastic  floating in the Atlantic. This is due to all the plastic used in society, all the plastic bags, drink bottles  and all kind of containers we throw away in rivers, it's then ripped in tiny pieces  in streams against stones or with errosion due to sunlight. It all end up in the ocean, tiny pieces (1-3 mm) or some larger (few cm) found in the stomach of fish. The explorer Marcus Eriksen fished a tuna he wanted to eat, he opened it and he found 14 different pieces of plastic in it. He didn't eat the fish. There is 100 million tons of plastic in the Atlantic between Japan and Hawaï. Those fragments of plastic float right under the surface of water, so it is visible from a boat, but not from satelitte photographies. 


OBESITY: a man was too large to fit in the prison cell so he got released.



MafiaBoy, a 15 years old kid living in Montreal, became the biggest hacker of the history of Internet when in year 2000 he invented a system to overload a target, Yahoo.com. Then he did the samething on other big websites: CNN, eBay, etc... 1,7 billion $ in damage... He was proud and said to lot of people he was the author, so after a while he got caught. 8 months in a correction center for kids.
Fraud on the web, like stealing personal informations and credit card numbers is huge, as much as drug traffic.
Credit card numbers are sell online and you can buy one for only 1$, or a cc number with complete infos of the owner for only 5$.
Russian mafia decided to specialize on internet and they became cyber criminals.
Cyber wars between countries: to attack all the systems and infrastructure of the ennemy. Wars of the future ? It already happened. Russia attacked Estonia. Someone attacked Estonia's government and its economy, paralysed the banks, tv, newspapers, phones, etc.
United States once feared that Russia could make a cyber attack, but now they suspect China to make cyber spying. Not only companies, but also countries - the governement and secret agencies recruit experimented hackers.
The worm Storm is invisible until it attacks. The identity of its creator is still unknown, and we still ignore what is the purpose of this worm. But when it will attack, it could be huge, since it is in millions of computers now, forming an immense network, waiting... and we don't know when it will decide to strike.
8 years later, MafiaBoy says he could do it easily again, he says Internet is not safer than before, it's worse.



Brian Sinclair died in a hospital after waiting 34 hours in the emergency room without recieving any service. The administrator of the hospital said that Sinclair never went to the triage desk to register his arrival and to ask for help, but then a security video footage proved he was wrong and he admitted he was wrong.  Sinclair was a homeless person, which may explain why he has been left aside and victim of prejudice.
http://blackrod.blogspot.com/2009/02/brian-sinclair-cover-up-timeline-tells.html



There is 35 millions  debris in orbit around planet Earth, due to all rockets sent into space over the years.



Arvin, San Francisco, CA. The most polluted town of United States. The air is so polluted that there is over 100 days of smog per year and a high % of population is asthmatic. 



Water in the region of Bruxelle is highly polluted. The freshwater of  our planet is endangered, polluted by nitrates from intensive agriculture, especially due to the meat industry. 
Fish from Rhone is prohibited to consumption. 



United States spent 750 billion $ in 8 years to finance the war in Irak and Afghanistan.
For every dollar invested in development assistance in the world, there is 17 dollars for military expenditures, half of it from the U.S.
With only 1 million dollar we can nourrish 5,800 children for 1 year in Malawi, or pay the salary of 1160 teachers during 1 year in Ouganda.



The Lyme disease is now in Quebec, Canada. Larva have been found in a deer fly just recently, but many people have suffered from it already some years ago. Very hard to find doctors and medications for this in Quebec because it's new. Climate changes and all that made possible for insects and diseases from South to be able to move and survive in Northern areas.




A 12 yeard old girl sue her dad in court. The father surprised his daughter on the net browsing some porn websites. For punishment he cancelled the trip she was supposed to make with school. The young girl talked about it to her mother (custody) and they both initiated prosecutions


Americans often see Chinese as a nation who is too severe on punishement. But truth is that only 1,2% of Chinese population, which is 1,3 billion people, is in jail, while there is 7,7% prisoners for 300 million Americans. So the pourcentage of prisoners is much higher in United States.




Ethanol production is dangerous for quality of fresh water in the world, due to the huge quantities of water, pesticides, insecticides and toxic fertilizers to produce astronomical quantities of grains for fueling cars. W. Bush wanted to increase ethanol to 130 billion litres in ten years (6 times more than in 2006). Corn is #1 grain used to make ethanol, but it is also the type of cereal which require the most fertilizers and pesticides.
Study from EPA.



Milk could be the cause to hyperactivity in kids, shows a recent Norwegian study. Professors and doctors named Knivsberf, Noedland and Fosse, from Stavanger University in Norway, tried the lactose free diet on several kids suffering AD/HD (attention deficit and hyperactive disorder) and positive results appeared on the first day, they become more calm and can concentrate and study better; the kids who kept with the diet were able to have much better results at school than before.
Scientist Karl Ludvig Reichelt studied this subject for a long time and arrived to the conclusion that undigested peptids of casein (milk proteins) can have the same effects on the brain than opium does. Many studies show a connection between autism, schizophrenia and the non-disintegration of milk proteins. Many kids are lactose intolerant and this problem may cause certain behavioral disorders. But we must not belive that milk is the cause to all cases of Attention Deficit among all kids.



But, to end on a happier note (kind of)... Canadian artist Leonard Cohen donated 200,000$ to help the victims of the fires that hit Australia. Cohen is in tour in Australia this week.This is very nice of him, knowing that not so long ago he was bankrupt after his record manager has been stealing millions $ of him, so Leonard HAD TO DO this world tour, it wasn't a choice. He's now over 70 years old but still very active, after a dozen of successful records.

Endocrine disrupters

MSG, GMO, more and more insecticides and pesticides for intensive agriculture to supply the meat industry, plastics, medications, et cetera, all this end up in our food and water, and then in our body. Endocrine disrupters. We notice some alarmous changes: hundreds of toxic substances (like PCB, DDT, mercury...) in everybody's blood, polluted flora, more and more mutations and malformations in the fauna (hermaphrodite animals, infertility...). Endangered species... including us, humans. Males' sperm is getting poor quality and penis gets smaller over generations. Hormones are inversed or amplified: 8 years young girls with huge breasts, pubic hair and menstruations, young boys with female breast... 


http://forums.nightly.net/index.php?showtopic=59562

"It's official: Men really are the weaker sex

Evolution is being distorted by pollution, which damages genitals and the ability to father offspring, says new study. Geoffrey Lean reports

Sunday, 7 December 2008

The male gender is in danger, with incalculable consequences for both humans and wildlife, startling scientific research from around the world reveals.

The research – to be detailed tomorrow in the most comprehensive report yet published – shows that a host of common chemicals is feminising males of every class of vertebrate animals, from fish to mammals, including people.

Backed by some of the world's leading scientists, who say that it "waves a red flag" for humanity and shows that evolution itself is being disrupted, the report comes out at a particularly sensitive time for ministers. On Wednesday, Britain will lead opposition to proposed new European controls on pesticides, many of which have been found to have "gender-bending" effects.

It also follows hard on the heels of new American research which shows that baby boys born to women exposed to widespread chemicals in pregnancy are born with smaller penises and feminised genitals.

"This research shows that the basic male tool kit is under threat," says Gwynne Lyons, a former government adviser on the health effects of chemicals, who wrote the report.

Wildlife and people have been exposed to more than 100,000 new chemicals in recent years, and the European Commission has admitted that 99 per cent of them are not adequately regulated. There is not even proper safety information on 85 per cent of them.

Many have been identified as "endocrine disrupters" – or gender-benders – because they interfere with hormones. These include phthalates, used in food wrapping, cosmetics and baby powders among other applications; flame retardants in furniture and electrical goods; PCBs, a now banned group of substances still widespread in food and the environment; and many pesticides.

The report – published by the charity CHEMTrust and drawing on more than 250 scientific studies from around the world – concentrates mainly on wildlife, identifying effects in species ranging from the polar bears of the Arctic to the eland of the South African plains, and from whales in the depths of the oceans to high-flying falcons and eagles.

It concludes: "Males of species from each of the main classes of vertebrate animals (including bony fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) have been affected by chemicals in the environment.

"Feminisation of the males of numerous vertebrate species is now a widespread occurrence. All vertebrates have similar sex hormone receptors, which have been conserved in evolution. Therefore, observations in one species may serve to highlight pollution issues of concern for other vertebrates, including humans."

Fish, it says, are particularly affected by pollutants as they are immersed in them when they swim in contaminated water, taking them in not just in their food but through their gills and skin. They were among the first to show widespread gender-bending effects.

Half the male fish in British lowland rivers have been found to be developing eggs in their testes; in some stretches all male roaches have been found to be changing sex in this way. Female hormones – largely from the contraceptive pills which pass unaltered through sewage treatment – are partly responsible, while more than three-quarters of sewage works have been found also to be discharging demasculinising man-made chemicals. Feminising effects have now been discovered in a host of freshwater fish species as far away as Japan and Benin, in Africa, and in sea fish in the North Sea, the Mediterranean, Osaka Bay in Japan and Puget Sound on the US west coast.

Research at the University of Florida earlier this year found that 40 per cent of the male cane toads – a species so indestructible that it has become a plague in Australia – had become hermaphrodites in a heavily farmed part of the state, with another 20 per cent undergoing lesser feminisation. A similar link between farming and sex changes in northern leopard frogs has been revealed by Canadian research, adding to suspicions that pesticides may be to blame.

Male alligators exposed to pesticides in Florida have suffered from lower testosterone and higher oestrogen levels, abnormal testes, smaller penises and reproductive failures. Male snapping turtles have been found with female characteristics in the same state and around the Great Lakes, where wildlife has been found to be contaminated with more than 400 different chemicals. Male herring gulls and peregrine falcons have produced the female protein used to make egg yolks, while bald eagles have had difficulty reproducing in areas highly contaminated with chemicals.

Scientists at Cardiff University have found that the brains of male starlings who ate worms contaminated by female hormones at a sewage works in south-west England were subtly changed so that they sang at greater length and with increased virtuosity.

Even more ominously for humanity, mammals have also been found to be widely affected.

Two-thirds of male Sitka black-tailed deer in Alaska have been found to have undescended testes and deformed antler growth, and roughly the same proportion of white-tailed deer in Montana were discovered to have genital abnormalities.

In South Africa, eland have been revealed to have damaged testicles while being contaminated by high levels of gender-bender chemicals, and striped mice from one polluted nature reserved were discovered to be producing no sperm at all.

At the other end of the world, hermaphrodite polar bears – with penises and vaginas – have been discovered and gender-benders have been found to reduce sperm counts and penis lengths in those that remained male. Many of the small, endangered populations of Florida panthers have been found to have abnormal sperm.

Other research has revealed otters from polluted areas with smaller testicles and mink exposed to PCBs with shorter penises. Beluga whales in Canada's St Lawrence estuary and killer whales off its north-west coast – two of the wildlife populations most contaminated by PCBs – are reproducing poorly, as are exposed porpoises, seals and dolphins.

Scientists warned yesterday that the mass of evidence added up to a grave warning for both wildlife and humans. Professor Charles Tyler, an expert on endocrine disrupters at the University of Exeter, says that the evidence in the report "set off alarm bells". Whole wildlife populations could be at risk, he said, because their gene pool would be reduced, making them less able to withstand disease and putting them at risk from hazards such as global warming.

Dr Pete Myers, chief scientist at Environmental Health Sciences, one of the world's foremost authorities on gender-bender chemicals, added: "We have thrown 100, 000 chemicals against a finely balanced hormone system, so it's not surprising that we are seeing some serious results. It is leading to the most rapid pace of evolution in the history of the world.

Professor Lou Gillette of Florida University, one of the most respected academics in the field, warned that the report waved "a large red flag" at humanity. He said: "If we are seeing problems in wildlife, we can be concerned that something similar is happening to a proportion of human males"

Indeed, new research at the University of Rochester in New York state shows that boys born to mothers with raised levels of phthalates were more likely to have smaller penises and undescended testicles. They also had a shorter distance between their anus and genitalia, a classic sign of feminisation. And a study at Rotterdam's Erasmus University showed that boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys.

Communities heavily polluted with gender-benders in Canada, Russia and Italy have given birth to twice as many girls than boys, which may offer a clue to the reason for a mysterious shift in sex ratios worldwide. Normally 106 boys are born for every 100 girls, but the ratio is slipping. It is calculated that 250,000 babies who would have been boys have been born as girls instead in the US and Japan alone.

And sperm counts are dropping precipitously. Studies in more than 20 countries have shown that they have dropped from 150 million per millilitre of sperm fluid to 60 million over 50 years. (Hamsters produce nearly three times as much, at 160 million.) Professor Nil Basu of Michigan University says that this adds up to "pretty compelling evidence for effects in humans".

But Britain has long sought to water down EU attempts to control gender-bender chemicals and has been leading opposition to a new regulation that would ban pesticides shown to have endocrine-disrupting effects. Almost all the other European countries back it, but ministers – backed by their counterparts from Ireland and Romania – are intent on continuing their resistance at a crucial meeting on Wednesday. They say the regulation would cause a collapse of agriculture in the UK, but environmentalists retort that this is nonsense because the regulation has get-out clauses that could be used by British farmers."

Should we supplement or not ?

About 100 million Americans use vitamin pills because they are sure it helps them to be healthy and they spend 25 billion US $. But nothing proves that supplements help to live longer or healthier.

Here's an article that shows how "scientific" studies are ineffective at proving some stuff. It can't say clearly if vitamin pills are effective or not to protect from illness/reduce risks of disease. Some studies say vitamin pills don't really have any positive or negative effect - but they're not sure... A few studies show that certain supplements could reduce the risks of certain health issues... but they're not absolutly sure. And some other studies say supplements could even be counterproductive and cause premature deaths - but they're not sure...
Some scientists are so incompetent that in one study they consider the vitamins from fruits and veggies to be the samething as vitamins from supplements !

Some studies have even shown a negative supplement effect. Analysis of data collected from some 70,000 postmenopausal nurses showed that over an 18-year period, those who consumed the most vitamin A from food or from supplements had the greatest risk of bone fractures.

I've read today that a 40 years-old man got seriously illed because of a Vitamin D overdose due to supplements. He had been taking those pills for like 2 years and then had to go to the hospital and it took 30 months for the vitamin D blood level to go back to normal. I've read this in a magazine, but here's some quotes from the article on Canadianliving.com which summarize vaguely a bunch of studies. And here's the link to the article.
Do Multivitamins Work ?

A typical survey-type, or "observational," study involved over 83,000 healthy American physicians who filled out questionnaires about supplement intake and dietary habits. Roughly 30 percent of the doctors regularly took vitamin supplements. After about six years, 1,000 or so had died of some form of cardiovascular disease. Were the deceased more or less likely to have been taking antioxidant supplements? As it turned out, there was no relationship between supplement intake and cardiovascular death. Of course, it is possible that physicians are more health conscious that others and pay more attention to their diet, so that they already had a sufficient intake of antioxidants.

low vitamin E intake during pregnancy has shown to increase the risk of childhood asthma, and women who take vitamin supplements during pregnancy appear to have a reduced risk of having infants who develop brain tumours.

Vitamin C
How about studies of blood levels of vitamins? English researchers in one case found that among 20,000 people, those who had the highest level of vitamin C in the blood lived the longest. But was this because of the vitamin C, or was the vitamin C just acting as a marker for increased fruit and vegetable intake? Low levels of folic acid have been linked with breast cancer, heart disease and, most significantly, with giving birth to babies with neural tube defects. Still, such studies do not show cause and effect. You can never be certain that the observations are not due to some other dietary factor that happens to parallel folic acid in its presence. That's why intervention studies are the most meaningful. And in the case of folic acid in pregnant women, they certainly back up the observational studies. Supplementing the diet with 400 micrograms of folic acid daily significantly reduces the risk of neural tube defect.

Antioxydants
Researchers in Oxford, England, enrolled over 20,000 adults with heart disease risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol in a major study. Half received a daily supplement of 600 IU vitamin E, 250 milligrams vitamin C and 20 milligrams beta-carotene, while the others got a placebo. The supplements were certainly effective in increasing blood levels of vitamins, as tests clearly showed. But after five years there was absolutely no difference in any form of disease or in death rates between the groups. Maybe, though, these subjects already had the beginnings of cardiovascular disease that could not be reversed with the supplements and perhaps in a healthy group, supplements can prevent disease. Maybe …

To supplement or not?
As is evident, it is possible to support either side of the "to supplement or not" debate by looking at the scientific literature selectively. But what happens when scientists put all the data together in a meta-analysis? Sometimes they just add to the confusion! That's what Goran Bjelakovic and his colleagues at the University of Nis in Serbia and Montenegro apparently did when they examined the relationship between dietary antioxidants and the risk of gastrointestinal cancers. Free radicals can form in the gut and have been implicated in cancer, and fruits and vegetables have been shown to be protective, presumably because of the antioxidant content. So it certainly seemed reasonable to expect that antioxidant supplements should be beneficial in preventing cancer. Bjelakovic scoured the scientific literature and identified 14 rigorous placebo-controlled trials involving over 170,000 subjects. All the trials used oral supplements, although amounts varied, as did combinations. Vitamin C ranged from 120 to 2,000 milligrams a day, vitamin A from 1.5 to 15 milligrams, beta-carotene from 15 to 50 milligrams, selenium from 50 to 228 micrograms and vitamin E from 30 to 600 IU. The supplements were taken for years, either daily or every other day. Such doses are typical of what average consumers might take.

Shocking results
The results of the meta-analysis were unexpected. No protection against esophageal, gastric, colorectal, pancreatic or liver cancer was found. Selenium supplementation in a few of the trials did show some optimistic results. Now for the real shocker: in seven trials, all of high quality, involving over 130,000 subjects, the supplement takers had a higher rate of premature death! The researchers actually calculated that one premature death would be expected for every 100 people taking supplements. Little wonder that this work prompted sensational headlines like "Vitamins Only Take You Closer To Death." How do we interpret this surprising finding? The study was well executed and has statistical weight, but is it not possible that people who are ill are more likely to take supplements and that this explains the increased mortality? Or that supplements are most effective when taken for longer periods? And maybe they don't protect against cancer but have other benefits.

Supplements proved not helpful
Dr. Bjelakovic decided to look into this possibility by mounting a second meta-analysis. His team tracked hundreds of published trials on the health effects of beta-carotene, vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin E and selenium supplements, and whittled these down to 68 that met the criteria for proper blinded, randomized, placebo-controlled trials. Some studies used low doses of supplements, some high; some lasted months, other many years. Some used single antioxidants, others used various combinations. But the strength of a anti-meta-analysis lies in pooling results from many studies, evening out variables and allowing an overall conclusion to emerge. As in his previous study, Bjelakovic found no benefit from the supplements, and as before, he noted an increase in mortality among supplement takers. The data appear to be robust. More than 230,000 participants were involved in the 68 trials, 21 of which focused on healthy subjects who were taking antioxidants to prevent disease.

Better to get our vitamins from food than from pills
While I do not think that vitamin supplements are killing us, there is mounting evidence that it is better to get our vitamins from food than from pills. It seems that there is an almost magical blend of antioxidants, minerals and probably unrecognized other ingredients in fruits, vegetables and whole grains that cannot be replicated in supplements. A 13-member expert panel of the National Institutes of Health in the United States concluded that there is insufficient evidence for or against recommending vitamin supplements except in three cases. Supplementation with B vitamins in women of child-bearing age is beneficial, as is supplementation with calcium and vitamin D in postmenopausal women to prevent bone fractures. And the progression of macular degeneration can be reduced with a mix of beta-carotene, zinc, vitamin C and vitamin E.

Pollution

I'm living in an apartment with many students, we all have our own room, of course I'm the only vegan. There's one especially who cook meat every night, like cook it a lot, because of course he wouln't like to eat this shit raw or just half-cooked, but there's no ventilation system over the stove and he wouldn't think about opening the window when it's -20 degrees celcius outside. So what results of burning animal corpses everynight is an odor of burned meat almost 24/7 and now it's even going in my room, like a deep fog or smoke of death or interior smog. As I'm breathing now, I can smell those carcinogenic molecules and feel them irritating my nostrils and entering my body. I became really sensitive to such pollution after not eating it for years now, and it's the exact samething with cigarettes. Even when someone smokes OUTSIDE and I just cross this person for half a second, this little cloud of toxic smoke intoxicates me a lot, way more than when I was smoking 10 cigarettes per day! I say cigarettes and all kind of voluntary and involuntary pollution should be illegal, prohibited and abolished! I know it's sad for the smokers who really enjoy ruining their lungs and body and to do the same to others who breathe the secondary smoke, and some will say it would be against their freedom to not let them smoke cigarettes anymore, but it's for their good and for others too.