• Scientists find why 'sunshine' vitamin D is crucial
• UK: Tobacco tax hikes 'good for the health' - report
• General Electric plans new American export -- outdoor smoking ban

• Patient gains through Transcendental Meditation: Increased emotional stability, intuition, self-confidence, mind-body integration'
• Transcendental Meditation: 'Most effective wellness program' to promote health, reduce health care expenses
• New published study shows 'Transcendental Meditation resets the brain'

• US: Pharmaceutical group spent $6.3 million lobbying in Q4
• US says 'drugged driving' growing threat
• US blacks, Hispanics losing more sleep over worries

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Positive Trends
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Scientists find why 'sunshine' vitamin D is crucial
8 March 2010 - Scientists have known for a long time that vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, and that there is a link between levels of the vitamin and some diseases. Danish researchers found that immune systems' killer cells, known as T cells, rely on vitamin D to become active and remain dormant and unaware of the possibility of threat from an infection or pathogen if vitamin D is lacking in the blood. (more)

UK: Tobacco tax hikes 'good for the health' - report
6 March 2010 - Raising tobacco taxes by 5 percent above inflation in Britain would help 190,000 smokers to kick the habit and save the nation's health system over 20 million pounds a year, campaigners said. A report by an independent economist for the anti-smoking group said tax hikes would also cut smoking-related absence from work, saving 10 million pounds a year, and boost annual government tax revenues by more than 500 million pounds. (more)

General Electric plans new American export -- outdoor smoking ban
5 March 2010 - General Electric Co is known for exporting American products like washing machines and jet engines, and the biggest US conglomerate is getting ready to ship out another American trend -- the outdoor smoking ban. The Connecticut-based company told employees that it plans to ban smoking on all GE property -- both indoors and out -- worldwide starting in March 2011. GE's ban also applies to chewing tobacco and other so-called smokeless products. (more)

Health project helps North-South Korean ties: WHO
5 March 2010 - North Korea has reduced deaths from surgery and among women in childbirth under a programme funded by South Korea that is building trust across the divided peninsula, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday. Four provincial hospitals -- two pediatric and two maternity -- have been renovated and supplied with medicines and laboratory equipment, a WHO statement said. Hospitals in 80 of the 220 counties and rural clinics have also been upgraded. (more)

France: Grass, flowers, trees for Paris' Champs-Elysees
4 March 2010 - Paris' Champs-Elysees will be cleared of traffic and blanketed with grass, flowers, and trees for three days in May -- giving Parisians a chance to picnic there or stroll down the famous avenue barefoot. The press officer for the 22-24 May event, said it aims to increase people's awareness about sustainable development and celebrate farmers' work. 22 May is the International Day for Biological Diversity. (more)

US study: Marriages last longer than living together
3 March 2010 - US marriages last longer than unions where couples live together outside matrimony, the Centers for Disease Control reported on Tuesday. About 78 per cent of marriages lasted five years or more, compared with less than 30 per cent of what the CDC called cohabiting unions, or couples living together outside marriage. The study also showed about 75 per cent of marriages between men and women 26 years old or older last at least 10 years, compared with only about half of teen marriages. (more)

Industry crackdown on salt could save US billions
2 March 2010 - Working with the food industry to cut salt intake by nearly 10 per cent could prevent hundreds of thousands of heart attacks and strokes over several decades and save the US government $32 billion in healthcare costs, US researchers said on Monday. Several governments including the United States are looking for solutions to curb salt intake as a way to head off future heart attacks and strokes that help drain healthcare systems. A programme in Britain to cut salt intake in foods has resulted in a 20 to 30 per cent decline in salt in processed foods sold in stores since 2003. (more)

Shanghai declares indoor smoking ban ahead of World Expo
2 March 2010 - Restaurants and office buildings in China's commercial capital Shanghai are scrambling to set up nonsmoking areas as the city bans lighting up in indoor public spaces ahead of the World Expo. There is rising awareness of the health risks of smoking in China, and this modern city of 20 million is cleaning up its act as it prepares to host the Expo, which begins 1 May. That six-month event is expected to attract 70 million people, with exhibits from 192 countries. (more)

Study: Physically fit students do better academically too
26 February 2010 - Getting students to exercise more might not just address obesity issues but also improve their grades with a US study finding physically fit students tend to score higher in tests than their less fit peers. Test scores dropped more than one point for each extra minute it took middle and high school students to complete a one mile run/walk fitness test, according to researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles. (more)

US: Births by teenage girls hit record low in California
23 February 2010 - Births by teenage mothers have hit a record low in California, health officials said on Monday, crediting a 'comprehensive' public education campaign. The Department of Public Health said the drop in teenage births between 2007 and 2008 saved the state $98 million. California, which once had a teenage birth rate higher than the national average, has seen that number decline steadily since 1991. (more)

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Success of Maharishi's Programmes
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

Patient gains through Transcendental Meditation: Increased emotional stability, intuition, self-confidence, mind-body integration'
11 March 2010 - Joanne Frankel, MD, graduated from the University of Washington School of Medicine and completed her residency in psychiatry at UC San Diego in 1985, where she is now clinical faculty in psychiatry. In a statement on the tmwomenprofessionals.org website about recommending Transcendental Meditation in her private practice, she says that she 'feels fortunate that such a powerful yet easy technique is available to my patients'. (more)

Transcendental Meditation: 'Most effective wellness program' to promote health, reduce health care expenses
10 March 2010 - In a statement on the new website tmwomenprofessionals.org, Dr Kulreet Chaudhary comments that by 2017, health care spending in the United States is projected to reach just over $4.3 trillion and comprise 20 per cent of GDP. 'The only permanent solution to the health-care crisis is to prevent disease from happening in the first place,' she says. Dr Chaudhary adds that the Transcendental Meditation Technique has been shown to be the most effective wellness programme for promoting health and reducing health-care utilization and medical expenses. (more)

New published study shows 'Transcendental Meditation resets the brain'
9 March 2010 - A new EEG study, published in the journal Cognitive Processing, discovers that the practice of the Transcendental Meditation (TM) Technique helps the brain 'reset' to a natural state of restful alertness. The three-month randomized, controlled study was conducted on college students at American University, in Washington, DC, USA. (more)

Reduction of stress and deep relaxation during Transcendental Meditation practice 'benefit all women': Dr Rebecca Beuchert
9 March 2010 - Rebecca Beuchert, MD, received her doctorate in medicine from the University of Louisville School of Medicine in the United States. She has had fifteen years experience as a board certified obstetrician and gynecologist in private practice in Washington, DC. On the website tmwomenprofessionals.org, Dr Beuchert states that 'both personally as a woman, and professionally as a physician, I have found that the reduction of stress and deep relaxation during Transcendental Meditation practice benefit all women.' (more)

Two new publications offer profound knowledge of health through VedAroma essential oils
9 March 2010 - Two new publications offer profound knowledge of the qualities and diverse uses of purest, highest quality VedAroma essential oils. (more)

Transcendental Meditation 'a potential critical strategy' for treatment of cardiovascular disease: Dr Abraham Bornstein
8 March 2010 - A statement by eminent American cardiologist Dr Abraham Bornstein about the value of Transcendental Meditation for the treatment of cardiovascular disease is featured on the new website tmwomenprofessionals.org. Dr Bornstein, a board-certified cardiologist and Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, holds a faculty appointment as Assistant Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York. Dr Bornstein has done cardiovascular research in the areas of electrophysiology, pacemaker insertion and congenital heart disease, and also spent time on the pediatric cardiology service. (more)

Twenty-five years of success in Maharishi Ayur-Veda health care: Dr Robert Schneider
8 March 2010 - Dr Robert Schneider recently presented a synopsis of the progress and achievements in the United States in the field of Maharishi Ayur-Veda natural health care. The same presentation was also given to the Board of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homeopathy (AYUSH) of the Government of India, as part of the Board's initiative to spread knowledge of Ayurvedic medicine outside of India. (more)

Dermatologist recommends Transcendental Meditation: 'Invaluable' for reducing stress
7 March 2010 - The new website tmwomenprofessionals.org features statements by eminent physicians in different fields, including dermatologist Dr Margaret Sparks, recommending the Transcendental Meditation Programme as applied to a wide range of health situations. Dr Sparks has practised Transcendental Meditation for 38 years and has been recommending it to her patients for 25 years for reducing stress, which is a major component of skin diseases, she says. In the coming days, Global Good News will also feature statements of the other physicians. (more)

VedAroma's basis in the ancient Vedic Literature
7 March 2010 - The ancient Vedic Literature of India describes the benefits of essential oils, how to utilize them, and how to combine them to achieve diverse effects for health and beauty. Now through VedAroma essential oils, this ancient wisdom has been revived in its completeness as an aspect of Maharishi Vedic Medicine. (more)

VedAroma: Ancient tradition of health and beauty, fast-growing complementary health care today
6 March 2010 - Aromatics have been used for religious, medicinal, and cosmetic purposes for thousands of years in diverse cultures and countries, including India, China, Egypt, Rome, and Greece. Now, with the increasing awareness of the side effects of allopathic medicine, aromatherapy is becoming one of the fastest growing complementary medicines today. VedAromas are purest, highest quality essential oils, and as an aspect of Maharishi Vedic Medicine they offer the ancient wisdom of one of the most natural systems of promoting holistic psychological and physical health and well-being. (more)

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Flops
10 Short Summaries of Top Stories

US: Pharmaceutical group spent $6.3 million lobbying in Q4
11 March 2010 - The pharmaceutical industry's main trade group spent $6.3 million in the fourth quarter lobbying Congress, the White House, and multiple government agencies on health care provisions and related issues, according to a quarterly disclosure report. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America include drug giants Pfizer Inc, Merck and Co, Johnson and Johnson, and more than two dozen other US and foreign companies. PhRMA lobbied on multiple aspects of the health care overhau. Besides Congress, PhRMA lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services and several of its agencies, including the FDA, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. The trade group also lobbied the White House, Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget, Patent and Trademark Office, Federal Trade Commission, US Trade Representative, and the Departments of Agriculture, Commerce, Homeland Security, and State. (more)

US says 'drugged driving' growing threat
10 March 2010 - Motorists under the influence of drugs are a growing threat on US roads, while the number who drink and drive has fallen thanks to education and law enforcement, a top US drug control official said on Tuesday. The United States is calling for discussions at United Nations level to tackle 'drugged driving' and says it wants to collect data to gauge the scale of the problem among public sector drivers and commercial truckers. 'If you think about driving on an American road on a Friday or Saturday evening about 16 per cent of the vehicles -- one in six of the cars -- (the driver) will be under the influence of an illicit or licit drug,' Gil Kerlikowske, Director of the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, said. (more)

US blacks, Hispanics losing more sleep over worries
9 March 2010 - Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely than whites and Asians to lose sleep over job and money worries, a sleep survey released on Monday found. Black Americans have long suffered from higher jobless rates than white Americans, a phenomenon that in recent years spread to Hispanics. Three quarters of each group associated poor sleep with health problems, while one fifth reported missing events at least one day in the past month because they were too sleepy or had a sleep problem. Whites and Asians were more likely than blacks and Hispanics to blame a lack of sleep for harming their job performance, hindering their ability to carry out household duties, and care for their family. (more)

Cambodia drug-resistant malaria stirs health fears
7 March 2010 - A New England Journal of Medicine study last year showed that conventional malaria-fighting treatments derived from artemisinin took almost twice as long to clear the parasites that cause the disease in patients in Pailin and others in northwestern Thailand, suggesting the drugs were losing potency in the area. That is echoed by US development agency USAID, which says artemisinin-based combination therapy is 'now taking two to three times longer to kill malaria parasites along the Thai-Cambodian border than elsewhere.' The agency has helped to monitor the situation in the area for years. (more)

Common weedkiller turns male frogs into females
2 March 2010 - Atrazine, one of the most commonly used and controversial weedkillers, can turn male frogs into females, researchers reported on Monday. The experiment is the first to show such complete effects of atrazine, which had been known to disrupt hormones and which is one of the chief suspects in the decline of amphibians such as frogs around the world. The European Union banned atrazine in 2004. More than a half million pounds (227 tonnes) of atrazine are precipitated in rainfall each year in the United States. Syngenta AG, one of several companies that makes atrazine, has long defended its safety. (more)

Long-term cannabis use can double risk of psychosis
1 March 2010 - Young people who smoke cannabis or marijuana for six years or more are twice as likely to have psychotic episodes, hallucinations, or delusions than people who have never used the drug, scientists said on Monday. The findings adds weight to previous research which linked psychosis with the drug -- particularly in its most potent form as 'skunk' -- and will feed the debate about the level of controls over its use. Despite laws against it, up to 190 million people around the world use cannabis, according to United Nations estimates, equating to about 4 per cent of the adult population. (more)

'Big Tobacco' still on the march, WHO warns
28 February 2010 - Developing countries are the new frontier for tobacco companies, which often target women and girls, and smoking rates remain high among poor people in affluent countries, World Health Organization said on Friday. Tobacco kills more than 5 million people a year from cardiovascular disease, cancers, diabetes, and other chronic illnesses, including about 600,000 from second-hand smoke, according to the United Nations agency. 'Most alarming of all, tobacco use is actually increasing in many developing countries. If Big Tobacco is in retreat in some parts of the world, it is on the march in others,' Dr Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, told a meeting to review implementation of a landmark tobacco treaty five years after it came into force. 'As we all know, the tobacco industry is ruthless, devious, rich, and powerful,' she said. (more)

Severe allergic reaction to meat may not be rare
28 February 2010 - Eating meat may be a much more common trigger for anaphylaxis -- a severe and potentially deadly allergic reaction -- than previously thought, US researchers said on Sunday. A study of 60 patients who had unexplained severe allergic reactions suggests that a compound in meat known as alpha-galactose may be the culprit, according to research presented at a meeting of the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology in New Orleans. They found immune system proteins called IgE antibodies in 25 out of 60 patients who had unexplained allergic reactions. 'We believe that the presence of IgE antibody to this sugar is wider spread in the human population as a whole than we had initially expected,' Dr Scott Commins of the University of Virginia, who led the research, said. (more)

Snuff just as addictive as cigarettes
25 February 2010 - People who use smokeless tobacco, or 'snuff,' are just as hooked on nicotine as cigarette smokers, if not more so, new research from Sweden shows. And those who smoke and use snuff may be especially nicotine-dependent. The researchers looked at more than 800 teen boys and girls who used tobacco, including 466 who only smoked cigarettes, 209 who only used snus (the traditional Swedish type of snuff), and 144 who used both. Eighty-seven per cent of the entire group reported having symptoms of nicotine dependence. The average age of the study participants was around 18. 'The findings in this study,' the researchers say, 'support the conclusion that smokeless tobacco in adolescence has a potential to induce nicotine dependence which is at least as high as for cigarette smoking.' (more)

Hormone replacement tied to lung cancer risk
24 February 2010 - Women who use hormone replacement therapy combining estrogen and progestin may have a higher risk of lung cancer than non-users, a new study finds. The findings add to the complicated mix of potential health effects of HRT. The study, published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology, looked at new lung cancer diagnoses among more than 36,000 women ages 50 to 75 who were followed over six years. During that time, 344 women developed the cancer. Overall, researchers found, the risk was greater among women who had used HRT containing estrogen and progestin compared with women who had never used HRT. The link was strongest among women who had used combination HRT for 10 years or more; compared with non-users, they were almost 50 per cent more likely to be diagnosed with lung cancer. (more)