Optimum Life Blog Archive - April 2011

The Alzheimer’s Association and the National Institute on Aging recently announced new diagnostic criteria and guidelines for Alzheimer’s Disease AD. Key additions to the 1984 recommendations are looking for biomarkers for the disease and formulating diagnostic criteria for each phase of the disease: the dementia phase; the symptomatic, pre-dementia phase; and the asymptomatic, preclinical phase of AD.

Japan raised the rating of its nuclear disaster this week to a level 7, the same as the 1986 Chernobyl disaster. The evacuation zone around the plant was widened.

In the US concerns over the contamination of Japanese exports is rising especially amid reports of contaminated food from areas surrounding the disaster. The US FDA has stopped the sale of all food products from the Fukushima area. US health officials from the FDA, CDC, EPA and Department of Homeland Security are all involved in efforts to monitor levels of radiation on Japanese exports.

The 17 Day Diet is the latest diet craze. The book describing the plan reached the top of the New York Times Best Seller List this week. Now, I’ll be honest-I have not read the book.

In pursuing the headlines today I was amazed by the number of articles related to toxins of all kinds: IV infections, fungus in baby food, radiation from airport scanners, dyes in our food, a musty odor on Tylenol capsules, plastic by products building up in our bodies… the list goes on and on.