Health Issues

Good news for kids who like to play outside. According to new research, a healthy and diverse microbiome may be key to preventing childhood leukemia. And one of the best ways to encourage “gut” health is to get plenty of exposure to dirt—preferably “healthy” dirt, not dirt whose microbial activity has been killed or compromised by toxic agricultural chemicals.

Leading cancer researcher Professor Mel Greaves of the Centre for Evolution and Cancer at the Institute of Cancer Research in London theorizes that the onset of acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL)—the most common form of

On Wednesday last week, the nonprofit Natural Resources Defense Council revealed that pig herds in the United States receive almost as many antibiotics as people in this country do. That’s bad news, especially since most of the pigs receiving antibiotics aren’t sick, but instead are getting the drugs to prevent infections in intensive farming. Those drugs don’t keep the US pig herd healthy—major diseases have increased year over year since 2000—and all those antibiotics are increasing the amount of drug-resistant bacteria that arise on pig farms and that are routinely found on meat.

Science has recently begun associating the decline of biodiversity with the increase of inflammatory diseases. These range from inflammatory bowel disease, to ulcerative colitis, to cardiovascular disorders, to various liver diseases and to many types of cancer. This increase in the frequency of inflammatory diseases has been associated with a decrease in our immune defences. 

Your brain is a really important part of your body. I'm sure no one would disagree with that. In this interview, Dr. Lee Cowden, cofounder of the Academy of Comprehensive Integrative Medicine (ACIM), discusses some really simple and inexpensive strategies that boost brain health and support neuroregeneration. This is also the topic of this year's ACIM conference, which will be held in Orlando, Florida, in November.