Drugs Found In The Fish, Safe or Dangerous?

It may sound strange but the fish that you eat on your plate may need a drug test. A certain report from the US Government Accountability Office said that FDA isn’t doing anything good enough to make sure that fishes available for American consumers are free from other form of pharmaceuticals. They found out that FDA lacked procedures, criteria and standards to make sure that the fishes that are being sent to the markets are safe. It’s unlike the European Union which is stricter when it comes to inspection and regulation on sea foods. Click here for more.


80% of the fishes in the US are imported. Half of these imported fishes come from fish farms. The largest producer is China which provides a quarter of the fish imported to the US every single year. Thailand, Canada, Indonesia, Vietnam and Ecuador also provide 5% at the least for US imports. In the past years, FDA has inspected about 1.5% of Chinese facilities that are exporting to US. .1% of the fish are inspected upon import. But it’s not expected for drugs that are legal in China but are banned in US.

In short, the majority of fishes remain uninspected. Their production is also unsupervised. As a result, pharmaceutically absorbed fishes are certainly leaking through the holes in the system all throughout the country.


Like factory beef feedlots, factory fish farms also suffer the same problems. Fishes are crowded into pens. They feed not on their natural diet but with foods that are cheap and easily bought like soy. Waste then builds up inside their pens and is then seeped into the environment. Fishes then become sick, infested and become deformed. They die in higher rates which makes the farmers worry. To solve this, pharmaceuticals, antibiotics, vaccines and other chemicals are used to kill the disease-causing micro-organisms. Get more information from Hootan Melamed Los Angeles. 

The largest source of imported fish which is China produces the most dangerous fishes. China uses a high density model for breeding fishes and they are about ten times denser than any other countries. China Times News Group says that diseases are spreading through these fish farms which can only be treated with heavy doses of antibiotics. Cai Shuanghu, an associate professor at Guangdong Key Laboratory of Pathogenic Biology and Epidemiology for Aquatic Economic Animals, antimicrobial drugs lose their effect in the environment in a couple of years. After those bacteria become more resistant which makes fish farmers get more potent antibiotics.

As a consumer, awareness of these things is necessary. It’s important that you give information to the proper authorities if something happens especially if you have eaten fishes that are contaminated. For more information, just visit http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-286.

American Restaurants Please Customers By Giving Super-Size Foods

A lot of restaurants in the US serve meals that are actually 2 to 4 times much larger than the recommended serving sizes by the government. This is a study which was presented in Obesity Society in Boston.


The researchers who were from Penn State University and Clemson University in South Carolina made survey of about 300 chefs who were also attending lots of national culinary meetings. They have found that almost all of them believed that that amount of food that they were serving their customers in their respective restaurants have huge influence on how much they eat.

About 17% of the chefs made a description of the portions they gave as large or even extra-large. 76% are claiming that their portions are regular. But a market research from NPD, a normal restaurant meal contains about 60% more calories as compared to home-made foods. Americans, according to the firm are eating 209 restaurant meals per person in a single year.


About 60% of the chefs are claiming that they serve steaks that are 12 ounces or more. This is even though the government’s standard requires the serving of meat as three cooked ounces. Even the government’s definition of pasta serving is only half cup; a lot of restaurants make one or a couple of cups.  Also, the researchers have found that vegetables were served in small portions.

Older chefs tend to give smaller serving portions while the younger ones were those who were prone to giving large overly placed portions. This, according to researchers was credited to modern day restaurant training.

"The older chefs were trained a couple of decades ago when portions were smaller," the experts say. "The younger ones grew up at a time when the cultural norms were bigger servings." 58% of the said chefs believed that diners were the ones responsible for eating up the right amount of food regardless of the portion size of the meal they were ordering. 86% of the chefs were saying that customers can immediately notice if their meal size were decreased by about 25%.

"Portions didn't get this big overnight, so we need to scale back slowly -- 10 percent to 15 percent at a time would be progress," says a nutrition professor in New York. "And we need to change customer expectations."

Mike Adams, a consumer advocate and Author of “The Food Timing Diet,” said that a typical US restaurant would be able to feed the whole South American Family. "People tend to eat what's put in front of them, regardless of the portion size," he says. "In this way, restaurants are actually encouraging customers to overeat."

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Restaurants To Hand Out Pharma Drugs, Doctors Recommend and My Opinion

A doctor from Imperial College in London made a study and published it to the American Journal of Cardiology. It revealed that those people who were eating burgers and milkshakes inside fast food restaurants are required to be given statin drugs for free to counteract the cholesterol effects of eating burgers.



"Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge," says Dr. Darrel Francis, the main author of the study. He also pushes that statin drugs shouldn’t need prescription at all. He says people should be getting them as easily like asking for a packet of ketchup. "It makes sense to make risk-reducing supplements available just as easily as the unhealthy condiments that are provided free of charge.” Francis prefers to call statins more of a supplement rather than a drug.

The problem with this is that Francis never mentioned the side effects of statin drugs like extreme muscle pain and weakness, kidney failure and the loss of CoQ10 which is vital for heart health. Other effects would be liver damage, erectile dysfunction, constipation and more. There were those who were almost killed by using statin drugs.


It’s a dangerous drug but this doctor doesn’t seem to recognize this. He doesn’t believe these side effects are big deal. According to Francis, the drugs are so safe that restaurants can hand them out just like candies. This is a pretty dangerous advice coming from a medical professional. You can eat toxic fast foods as long as you are protected by taking very dangerous chemical medications.

That’s just the beginning. Dr. Francis even compares taking statin drugs to wearing a seat belt while driving. "When people engage in risky behaviors like driving or smoking, they're encouraged to take measures that minimize their risk, like wearing a seatbelt or choosing cigarettes with filters. Taking a statin is a rational way of lowering some of the risks of eating a fatty meal," he says.

Personally, I would prefer stopping myself from eating burgers. Self-control is harder but safer solution to stop the intake of bad cholesterol in the body. At least no side effects can harm my body. There are other solutions out there but studies should be made to stop these people from stopping harm by doing harm.

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Botox Keeping Wrinkles Away, The Real Story

Usually, Botox is used for those who are already having the signs of aging. That’s what we think but it’s not always. Plastic surgeons these days who are experts in giving this kind of medications say that they are slowly seeing younger patients. Yes, they patients who don’t even have wrinkles yet and they still seek for treatment. “Preventive Botox” may sound silly for some people but this cosmetic procedure may be the best solution for wrinkles before they even start.

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There’s no fixed deadline when it comes to the appearance of wrinkles but some habits like smoking or soaking in the sun can actually accelerate the appearance of these lines on the face. Genetics can also play a huge factor in the aging of a person. However, there are young adults who are beginning to feel nervous around the age 30 especially when the wrinkles start to appear.

"With 30 kind of looming around the corner, you start to panic a little," says a 29 year old Botox patient Lisa Parsons. "To me, if I prevent it, I can't get the wrinkle in the first place." Since she was 26, Parsons has already been receiving Botox. She along with other persons like her is eager to maintain the youthfulness of the 20’s.


The real question is does it really work? Are people like Parsons just dreaming or Botox really makes a huge difference along the way? One medical expert who also gives Botox treatments claims that early injections can help in a huge way. "If you can't move the muscle, you can't move the skin. You can't form a wrinkle," says a nurse. To put it simply, since Botox freezes the muscles that are causing wrinkles, people will be able to delay the appearance of the fine lines around the eye and other significant areas of the face.

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In 2011, Botox was the most popular and common procedure for people who are aging between 35 and 50. Statistics also showed that Botox were the most common non-surgical procedure on that same year. It totaled about 2, 169, 739 injections. This simply shows that people from different ages are looking and considering cosmetic treatments to get rid of the signs of aging.

A certain patient who received his or her first dose of Botox will be able to feel and see the results within 10 days following the treatment. They don’t have to take injections for the next 6 months or so which is enough time to regain the ability to move the facial muscles that were affected.

Hidden Fats, Things That You Don’t See Might Harm You

For people who want to undergo methods like liposuction, they think that it’s the best way to remove certain risks for obesity problems. Of course, we know them as hypertension and high cholesterol levels. Of course, liposuction gives some benefits, but you have to realize that there are actually two kinds of fats. There’s the kind that you can see and there’s the kind that you cannot. Liposuction can remove the visible fats that gives you discomfort in the waist, stomach, legs and buttocks. However, it’s the hidden fats that are actually responsible for the major health related issues caused by excess weight.

The kind of fats that you can see or what we call subcutaneous fats can be found just beneath the problem areas like abdomen, thighs and hips. Visceral fats on the other hand are found much deeper within the midsection or are closer to the organs like liver, heart and lungs. Subcutaneous fats are easier to see if you view them from the outside but visceral fats, which you can’t see may cause a lot of damage in your health.

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"People are self-conscious about the fat they can see," says Heather Hausenblas, associate professor of exercise and health and the College of Health and Human Performance in Florida. “But it's the ‘hidden fat’, in people of any size, [which] poses the bigger threat."

A study was published in New England regarding called Journal of Medicine in 2004. It showed that female patients who have undergone liposuction experienced no changes in their cholesterol levels or blood pressure or even blood sugar. But, in a huge study published last year, it showed that some people had a significant decrease in triglyceride and white blood cell counts. These two are important indications of heart diseases and some other health problems.

You should know that liposuction isn't substitute for healthy diet, exercise and important medications fir health improvement. The real deal is that experts would tell you to lose extra amount weight first as much as possible before going out for liposuction treatments. Only a board certified surgeon can give you the best results so you should think about that first before considering one.

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