I have posted a List of dangerous additives in Food.
Now one on dangerous ingredients in Food.
Palm Oil When a regular fat like corn, soybean, or palm oil is blasted with hydrogen and turned into a solid, it becomes a trans fat. These evil anti-nutrients help packaged foods stay “fresh,” meaning that the food can sit on the supermarket shelf for years without ever getting stale or rotting. Eating junk food with trans fats raises your “bad” LDL cholesterol and triglycerides and lowers your “good” HDL.These fats also increase your risk of blood clots and heart attack. Avoid palm oil and other trans fats like the plague, and kiss fried foods goodbye too, since they’re usually fried in one of these freakish trans-fatty oilsShortening Ditch any food that lists shortening or partially hydrogenated oil as an ingredient, since these are also evil trans fats. In addition to clogging your arteries and causing obesity, they also increase your risk of metabolic syndrome. Choose healthier monounsaturated fats, such as olive, peanut and canola oils and foods that contain unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids instead.When a whole grain is refined, most of its nutrients are sucked out in an effort to extend its shelf life. Both the bran and germ are removed, and therefore all the fiber, vitamins, and minerals. Because these stripped down, refined grains are devoid of fiber and other nutrients, they’re also easy to digest — TOO EASY.They send your blood sugar and insulin skyrocketing, which can lead to all sorts of problems. Replace processed grains with whole grains, like brown or wild rice, whole-wheat breads and pastas, barley, and oatmeal.Corn Syrup The evil king of all refined grains is high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). The amount of refined sugar we consume has declined over the past 40 years, but we’re consuming almost 20 times as much HFCS. According to researchers at Tufts University, Americans, for example, consume more calories from HFCS than any other source. It’s in practically EVERYTHING.Artificial Sweeteners Aspartame (NutraSweet, Equal), saccharin (Sweet’N Low, SugarTwin), and sucralose (Splenda) may be even harder on our metabolic systems than plain old sugar. These supposedly diet-friendly sweeteners may actually be doing more harm than good! Studies suggest that artificial sweeteners trick the brain into forgetting that sweetness means extra calories, making people more likely to keep eating sweet treats without abandon. Scan ingredient labels and ban all artificial sweeteners from entering your mouth.Blue, Green, Red, And Yellow The artificial colours blue 1 and 2, green 3, red 3, and yellow 6 have been linked to thyroid, adrenal, bladder, kidney, and brain cancers. Always seek out foods with the fewest artificial chemicals, especially when shopping for your kids. Look for colour-free medications and natural food products that don’t contain artificial colours like these.
I am posting some dangerous additives that are used in Fast Foods, Packeted Food, Ready to eat.Check the composition of the Product and avoid those that contain the following ingredients.
For the side effects of these additives, check Wiki ,FDA,webmd sites.
Dopamine is associated with Gambling drive, overwhelming Sex drive, among other things.
Story:
To see how the taste of beer affects the brain, researchers gave a group of men tiny tastes of beer, and as the men sipped the beer, the researchers scanned the men’s brains. After a taste of beer, the men’s brains showed a notable release of dopamine, a brain chemical associated with the pleasurable experience of consuming alcohol and other drugs. The effect was even greater among men who had a family history of alcoholism.
The findings are not surprising, scientists say, but having a way to assess predisposition to alcohol abuse could be useful.
“We believe this is the first experiment in humans to show that the taste of an alcoholic drink alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, can elicit this dopamine activity in the brain’s reward centers,” the study’s senior author, neuroscientist David Kareken of the Indiana University School of Medicine, said in a statement. The findings were detailed online today (April 15) in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.
Dopamine, a brain chemical widely associated with pleasure, has long been linked to the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. Sensory cues — such as tastes, smells or the sight of a bar — can elicit cravings to drink and cause relapses in recovering alcoholics. Dopamine may be critically involved in such cravings, scientists believe. [ 11 Interesting Facts About Hangovers ]
In the study, researchers gave 49 male volunteers a tiny taste (half an ounce, or 15 milliliters) of their favorite beer over the course of 15 minutes — enough to taste the beer but not enough to cause a change in blood-alcohol level or intoxication. At other times, the volunteers were given a sports drink or water, for comparison…
Dopamine Facts.
So is dopamine your cupcake addiction? Your gambling? Your alcoholism? Your sex life? The reality is dopamine has something to do with all of these. But it is none of them. Dopamine is a chemical in your body. That’s all. But that doesn’t make it simple.
What is dopamine? Dopamine is one of the chemical signals that pass information from one neuron to the next in the tiny spaces between them. When it is released from the first neuron, it floats into the space (the synapse) between the two neurons, and it bumps against receptors for it on the other side that then send a signal down the receiving neuron. That sounds very simple, but when you scale it up from a single pair of neurons to the vast networks in your brain, it quickly becomes complex. The effects of dopamine release depend on where it’s coming from, where the receiving neurons are going and what type of neurons they are, what receptors are binding the dopamine (there are five known types), and what role both the releasing and receiving neurons are playing.
And dopamine is busy! It’s involved in many different important pathways. But when most people talk about dopamine, particularly when they talk about motivation, addiction, attention, or lust, they are talking about the dopamine pathway known as the mesolimbic pathway, which starts with cells in the ventral tegmental area, buried deep in the middle of the brain, which send their projections out to places like the nucleus accumbens and the cortex. Increases in dopamine release in the nucleus accumbens occur in response tosex, drugs, and rock and roll. And dopamine signaling in this area is changed during the course of drug addiction. All abused drugs, from alcohol to cocaine to heroin, increasedopamine in this area in one way or another, and many people like to describe a spike in dopamine as “motivation” or “pleasure.” But that’s not quite it. Really, dopamine is signaling feedback for predicted rewards. If you, say, have learned to associate a cue (like a crack pipe) with a hit of crack, you will start getting increases in dopamine in the nucleus accumbens in response to the sight of the pipe, as your brain predicts the reward. But if you then don’t get your hit, well, then dopamine can decrease, and that’s not a good feeling. So you’d think that maybe dopamine predicts reward. But again, it gets more complex. For example, dopamine can increase in the nucleus accumbens in people with post-traumatic stress disorder when they are experiencing heightened vigilance and paranoia. So you might say, in this brain area at least, dopamine isn’t addiction or reward or fear. Instead, it’s what we call salience. Salience is more than attention: It’s a sign of something that needs to be paid attention to, something that stands out. This may be part of the mesolimbic role in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and also a part of its role in addiction.’
So Beer is not as innocuous sounding drink as is made out to be.
The Organised War on Drugs is about a hundred years old.
Look at the use of Drugs Statistics.
The Global picture
Globally, it is estimated that in 2010 between 153 million
and 300 million people aged 15-64 (3.4-6.6 per cent of
the world’s population in that age group) had used an illicit
substance at least once in the previous year. The extent of illicit drug use has thus remained stable, but the estimated
15.5 million-38.6 million problem drug users (almost 12
per cent of illicit drug users), including those with drug
dependence and drug-use disorders, remain a particular
concern.
It is also estimated that there were between 99,000 and
253,000 deaths globally in 2010 as a result of illicit drug
use, with drug-related deaths accounting for between 0.5
and 1.3 per cent of all-cause mortality among those aged
15-64.
1
Moreover, it was estimated that in 2008 there were
16 million injecting drug users worldwide and that 3 million (18.9 per cent) of them were living with HIV, though
no new figures are available after 2008. Global prevalence
of hepatitis C infection among injecting drug users in 2010
was 46.7 per cent, meaning that some 7.4 million injecting drug users worldwide are infected with hepatitis C.
And some 2.3 million injecting drug users are infected
with hepatitis B. Evidence is also emerging that non-injecting drug use is also associated with an increased risk of HIV infection, principally due to unprotected sex.”
With estimated annual prevalence of cannabis use in 2010
ranging from 2.6 to 5 per cent of the adult population
(between 119 million and 224 million estimated users aged
15-64), cannabis remains the world’s most widely used
illicit substance (see figure 1). There may be shifts in cannabis use between the drug’s two principal forms, resin and
herb, and there is even evidence of the increasing popularity of synthetic marijuana among young people in some
regions, but in general annual prevalence of cannabis use
remained stable in 2010…”
Money Spent on War On Drugs.
Nations, especially the US has been spending huge money on War on Drugs.
Federal Drug Control BudgetUS Dollars (In Millions)
– Year –
– Total –
Demand Reduction
% of – Total –
Supply Reduction
% of – Total –
Domestic Law Enforcement
International
Interdiction
2004
19,188.4
8,579.0
44.7%
10,609.4
55.3%
7,051.7
2,008.7
1,549.0
2005
20,371.6
8,798.2
43.2%
11,573.4
56.8%
7,267.5
2,432.2
1,873.7
2006
21,133.1
8,775.2
41.5%
12,357.9
58.5%
7,538.9
2,923.2
1,895.8
2007
22,175.1
9,056.6
40.8%
13,118.5
59.2%
7,881.9
3,045.2
2,191.4
2008
22,497.1
9,244.9
41.1%
13,252.2
58.9%
8,286.7
2,967.0
1,998.5
2009
25,579.5
10,332.7
40.4%
15,246.8
59.6%
9,017.1
3,697.1
2,532.6
2010
25,887.1
10,443.2
40.3%
15,443.9
59.7%
9,190.9
3,658.0
2,595.0
2011
25,731.6
10,563.8
41.1%
15,167.8
58.9%
9,093.6
3,706.7
2,367.5
2012
26,209.6
10,664.8
40.7%
15,544.8
59.3%
9,505.4
3,901.0
2,138.4
TOTAL
208,773.1
86,458.4
41.4%
122,314.7
58.6%
74,833.7
28,339.1
19,141.9
% Chg/2004-2012
+36.6%
+24.3%
—
+46.5%
—
+34.8%
+94.2%
+38.1%
For more Statistics and information on Drug abuse,pattern age group please refer the links at the end of the Post.
Now some States have started legalizing marijuana, admmitting that the War on Drugs is not yielding results and more illicit Drug and more usage is reported.
The idea to scale down th War on Drugs is gaining ground.
The commission presented a 20-page report, the first sentence of which read: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world.” Nadelmann wrote the sentence, as well as the report’s entire executive summary. He advised the commission, and he also searched for high-profile members.
One of the speakers at the press conference in the Waldorf Astoria was an amiable man with glasses: César Gaviria, the president of Colombia from 1990 to 1994. While in office, he did almost everything except fight a war. Colombia was what Mexico is today: a country hijacked by drug lords.
“An irrational and pointless drug policy was partly responsible for that period,” says Gaviria today.”
The war on Drugs intensified during the Nixon Era.
In 2010, about 200 million people took illegal drugs. The numbers have remained relatively constant for years, as has the estimated annual volume of drugs produced worldwide: 40,000 tons of marijuana, 800 tons of cocaine and 500 tons of heroin. What has increased, however, is the cost of this endless war.
In the early 1970s, the Nixon administration pumped about $100 million into drug control. Today, under President Barack Obama, that figure is $15 billion — more than 30 times as much when adjusted for inflation. There is even a rough estimate of the direct and indirect costs of the 40-plus years of the drug war: $1 trillion in the United States alone.
In Mexico, some 60,000 people have died in the drug war in the last six years. US prisons are full of marijuana smokers, the Taliban in Afghanistan still use drug money to pay for their weapons, and experts say China is the drug country of the future.
Taking into account the high cost of War OnDrugs and the results it has produced the thought is on legalising the Trade of Drugas.
When about 30 national leaders met in Cartagena, Colombia, in April 2012 for the Summit of the Americas, there was only big, behind-the-scenes topic: a new drug policy. Suddenly Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was saying: “If the world decides to legalize (drugs) and thinks that that is how we reduce violence and crime, I could go along with that.”
General Otto Pérez Molina, president of Guatemala, wrote: “Consumption and production should be legalized but within certain limits and conditions.”
Uruguayan President José Mujica said: “What scares me is drug trafficking, not drugs”.
Vicente Fox, the president of Mexico from 2000 to 2006, wanted to wage the “mother of all wars” against organized crime, sending the Mexican army into the drug war. Today, Fox says that the war was a “total failure.”
In fact, sitting in Nadelmann’s office in Manhattan, it really is difficult to imagine a world without the drug war. A future in which marijuana and cocaine are legal and can be purchased in pharmacies or specialty drug shops? A life in which everyone decides for him- or herself: Am I going to take this drug? How much am I going to take? How do I protect my children?
It isn’t an easy thing to imagine. In fact, the very thought of it creates a gut-wrenching feeling, and it makes you ask yourself questions like: Legalizing drugs? Are you folks nuts?”
Sane Policy.
Gambling, Prostitution, Drinking and use of Intoxicants have been a part of Man since time immemorial.
Investing money on something to prohibit which a Man wants to do, is not a sound idea.
The best is to legalize it and provide adequate safeguards for individual’s health.
Despite this, if some one wants to poison himself to death, one can do nothing.
Jhon Velásquez, aka “Popeye,” was a brutal killer as head of security for Pablo Escobar, head of Colombia’s Medellín cartel until his death in 1993A man works in a coca lab in Putumayo: None of the materials or equipment needed to produce cocaine are expensive, sophisticated or hard to obtain. The end product is cocaine hydrochloride, or pure cocaine. A good laboratory with a well-trained team can produce 500 kilograms (1,100 lbs.) a day
This applies high use of Steroids,over consumption of Antibiotics as well.
Even if you do not care about your Health,(deterioration is not visible), please look these Photos, and stop misusing Drugs.
Hope you are conceited enough about your looks at least.
The photographer captured subjects in the studio using make-up and combined the before and after images to make these powerful photosDrug Abuse.Drug Abuse.Two sides to every story: The photographer’s eye-catching images prompts people to think about the history behind drug abuse
Many would automatically assume judgements about those caught in the grip of drug addiction.
But one photographer has sought to overcome the stereotypes by presenting both faces of a drug addict – the classic before and after picture.
Using make up and models, Roman Sakovich showed one half of a face ravaged by drugs, including cut lips, scabbed skin, matted hair.
But he also peeled back the years to show the person before their descent into addiction, showing them in smart clothes with neat hair.
These startling photos, posed by subjects, are part of Mr Sakovitch’s ‘Half’ project, which he created with make up ‘in order to explore the outsiders superficial judgement of the same person before and after drug abuse’, according to Features Shoot .
Many a time we find it difficult to read the Drug Composition printedon the Pack.They are either in too fine a print or the foil in which it is packed reflects light.
Is this drug real or counterfeit? SMS text with Pharma Secure to find out #mhs09 (Photo credit: Wayan Vota)
Some times the batch Number and the Manufacturing/Expiry Date Stampings are smudged.
To help one in this respect,’The DGFT has made it mandatory for medicines that are exported from India to have barcodes entailing unique product identification code, unique serial number, batch number and expiry date from July 1, 2011. The deadline on the mandate has been extended to July 2012.”
As most of the Drugs manufactured in India , we in India can make use of this Service.
“Thanks to the mandate—and PharmaSecure–consumers can now instantly validate drugs by texting the 9 digit alpha-numeric code printed on the packs to the number provided alongside (for example: SMS gejr887zd to +91 99010.99010for drug authenticity).
Once an inquiry is received, PharmaSecure sends an SMS back to the consumer on behalf of the original drug manufacturer, with information about the authentication of the drug, expiry dates and manufacturing details, within a few seconds. The information that a customer receives can be customized by drug manufacturers.
“SMS is a low cost, direct to end-users, and fast option. Mobiles in India are effective as people from rural India, tier two and tier three cities are fairly comfortable using it,” says Nakul Pasricha, director of operations, PharmaSecure Product Authentication Services, India.
The PharmaSecure system is currently capable of handling 50 authentication requests per second, that is, more than four million requests per day. The systems are scalable to roll out and handle more than a trillion codes.
Mayur Danait, CIO of Lupin, which is one of the first companies to use PharmaSecure, says installing PharmaSecure for printing barcodes isn’t a Herculean task. All that manufacturers need to do is install PharmaSecure’s software–which is compatible with most of the leading printers in India–and a scanner at the end of the assembly line.
Here’s how it works: The manufacturing company purchases inactive bar codes from PharmaSecure. PharmaSecure’s software components interact with the printing software and printers on the production unit and print the codes on the drug packs. A scanner on the assembly line scans the barcodes that have already been printed on the packs of drugs.”
When you finally call a hotline for prescription drug addiction help, you can expect to get the essential information you need from a friendly, understanding, and supportive counselor who will guide you about the types of prescription drug addiction treatments available that will help bring about an addict ‘s rehabilitation.
Call 1-866-675-4912 Now to begin the process of change.
Our free, 24 hour a day, 7 days per week drug helpline is here to assist you.
Before Calling A Prescription Drug Help Line
Preparing any of the following information will be absolutely helpful:
If you’re calling about a loved one, get as much information as you can on how long the prescription drug addiction has been going on, dosages/amounts, frequency or if there are any other substances being abused.
It will also be very useful to have details on the addict’s mental state or whether they are suffering from any behavioral disorders or other co-occurring disorders.
If there is no insurance, or if your insurance will not cover the entire recovery cost, be ready to discuss finances or if you have money available for the treatment.
For the Best Results You Should:
Be prepared to be honest about the extent of prescription drug abuse, the problems it is causing, and how serious you or the addict are about getting help.
Be open and upfront about what your treatment goals are and ask questions until you understand the process and have enough information to make a good decision.
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