GMO Food Products

GMO was introduced into our food supply where I live without consumers knowing or getting to choose. Most people, when the learn about this, do not like it. Including myself. Other countries reject the products, and that is noteworthy in itself. I would like GMO products to be labeled, as I would never choose to purchase them if labeled. Hence, the whole GMO controversy is that the genetic modifications are for the sole purpose of making some corporation some extra money.

Right and if GMO's are so safe, why did these companies fight the labelling process so that people are informed consumers? There was BIG money put up by Monsanto and many other companies to ensure that Prop 37 did not pass in California. They knew if it passed in 1 state that many other states would follow suit.

They don't want people to know. What are they hiding?

Because people who would fearmonger and oversensationalize it, the label would get a stigma and the company would go out of business due to paranoia about the safety of the product, regardless of any actual study or negative reaction.

I say GOOD. Put them all out of business. We don't need to eat that junk anyway.

Were you abused by food growing up? You seem to have some very deep seated issues with it. All this undo stress in your life will probably kill you faster then these evil GMOs.

Stay stafe.

Here's another one:

Hungary has taken a bold stand against biotech giant Monsanto and genetic modification by destroying 1000 acres of maize found to have been grown with genetically modified seeds, according to Hungary deputy state secretary of the Ministry of Rural Development Lajos Bognar. Unlike many European Union countries, Hungary is a nation where genetically modified (GM) seeds are banned. In a similar stance against GM ingredients, Peru has also passed a 10 year ban on GM foods.

Please, I am far from stressed. I have no issues with food. I have issues with companies that MANUFACTURE food like products passing it off as some nutritious substance that it is not.

I am passionate about wanting nutritious food that has not been artificially tampered with.

I'm no fan of Monsanto, BUT I also suspect GMO crops will be key in the survival of humanity given the havoc we are doing to the climate. If GMO can make a crop resistant to the drought, floods, etc.we humans seem intent on bringing to pass, well... we might have to get off our high horses.

They are messing up the balance in nature. Everything in life has a cycle. Droughts, floods, etc are all part of that NATURAL life cycle. We need things to happen as part of the natural cycle of life.

Humans are trying to be God or Mother Nature and they are ruining everything.

ok then don't drive your car and don't use plastics etc etc..Remember we are consumers and eventually one day the earth will run out of resources.. Some day. What happens when the sun burns out then we are all doomed then too ahhhhhh. But before that all happens are you are suggesting that GMO is going to destroy nature and natural life as we know it.. Evolution is REAL.. run for your lifes!!

GMO was introduced into our food supply where I live without consumers knowing or getting to choose. Most people, when the learn about this, do not like it. Including myself. Other countries reject the products, and that is noteworthy in itself. I would like GMO products to be labeled, as I would never choose to purchase them if labeled. Hence, the whole GMO controversy is that the genetic modifications are for the sole purpose of making some corporation some extra money.

Right and if GMO's are so safe, why did these companies fight the labelling process so that people are informed consumers? There was BIG money put up by Monsanto and many other companies to ensure that Prop 37 did not pass in California. They knew if it passed in 1 state that many other states would follow suit.

They don't want people to know. What are they hiding?

Because people who would fearmonger and oversensationalize it, the label would get a stigma and the company would go out of business due to paranoia about the safety of the product, regardless of any actual study or negative reaction.

GMO was introduced into our food supply where I live without consumers knowing or getting to choose. Most people, when the learn about this, do not like it. Including myself. Other countries reject the products, and that is noteworthy in itself. I would like GMO products to be labeled, as I would never choose to purchase them if labeled. Hence, the whole GMO controversy is that the genetic modifications are for the sole purpose of making some corporation some extra money.

Right and if GMO's are so safe, why did these companies fight the labelling process so that people are informed consumers? There was BIG money put up by Monsanto and many other companies to ensure that Prop 37 did not pass in California. They knew if it passed in 1 state that many other states would follow suit.

They don't want people to know. What are they hiding?

Because people who would fearmonger and oversensationalize it, the label would get a stigma and the company would go out of business due to paranoia about the safety of the product, regardless of any actual study or negative reaction.

No, because if GMO's are labeled then we could track any potential health risks. I have the right to know what is in my food, I say YES TO LABELING GMO's! Such labeling is already required in India, Japan, Europe, South Korea, Canada, Australia and New Zealand...

I know I am much older than most people here so I hope you will bear with me when I say "this reminds me of . . ."

My mother and father, a nurse and a doctor, were lifelong smokers. My father had his first heart attack when he was 35 and continued to smoke. In the late sixties and early seventies people started talking about how smoking was bad for you and no one believed it. Tobacco companies advertised that smoking was healthy, and even health care providers believed this was true. Tobacco companies had very powerful lobby groups spreading misinformation. My father used to say that smoking wasn't bad for you; what WAS bad for you was jogging along the street and inhaling car exhaust. THAT's what would kill a person.

My parents, both healthcare providers, would routinely drive the car with the windows rolled up and myself and my sister in the back, and they would chain smoke. I can't imagine anyone doing that today.

This argument seems very similar to that time. Lots of people were sounding the warning about smoking, and there were a whole lot of people telling them they were wrong.

I really hope people speak out against GMO foods because that will protect all of us, just the way less smokers protects all of us from the effects of second hand smoke.

Exiting soapbox.

The latest I read today: Monsanto has developed a new corn that naturally produces a toxin that causes the stomach's of the insects that eat it to explode. This is supposed to break down by the time it is processed for human consumption but early research on rats has not born out this conclusion.

You are burning the corn when you drive your car. Federally mandated ethanol is made from corn and the politicians are using your money to reward the corn producers by requiring we purchase their less than useless product, which buys them elections in the mid-west. If you really want to punish them, stop driving.

Corn subsidies expired.

I'm no fan of Monsanto, BUT I also suspect GMO crops will be key in the survival of humanity given the havoc we are doing to the climate. If GMO can make a crop resistant to the drought, floods, etc.we humans seem intent on bringing to pass, well... we might have to get off our high horses.

They are messing up the balance in nature. Everything in life has a cycle. Droughts, floods, etc are all part of that NATURAL life cycle. We need things to happen as part of the natural cycle of life.

Humans are trying to be God or Mother Nature and they are ruining everything.

ok then don't drive your car and don't use plastics etc etc..Remember we are consumers and eventually one day the earth will run out of resources.. Some day. What happens when the sun burns out then we are all doomed then too ahhhhhh. But before that all happens are you are suggesting that GMO is going to destroy nature and natural life as we know it.. Evolution is REAL.. run for your lifes!!

And stop going to the tanning bed.

I think it's kind of funny that to justify sitting in a tanning bed, which produces known carcinogens and most definitely without doubt causes cancer, you tell us that the dangers of tanning beds aren't what we've been led to believe, but you rail against something that has not yet been proven to cause disease.

Make up your mind.

Mental health, Seasonal Affective Disorder, osteoporosis greatly improved by exposure to natural sunlight, vitamin D supplements



The following is part five of an eight-part interview with Dr. Michael Holick, author of "The UV advantage" and one of the world's most respected authorities on vitamin D and the health benefits of natural sunlight. His work can be found at www.UVadvantage.com. Be sure to print out the vitamin D myths, facts and statistics page summarizing the key points of this interview.
Adams: Let's move on to discuss some of the other disorders or diseases that are correlated with vitamin D deficiency. Let's talk about mental health and Seasonal Affective Disorder.

Dr. Holick: Principally, Seasonal Affective Disorder is due to the fact that people who live in northern climates can't easily regulate the production of melatonin by the pineal gland. And melatonin is a hormone that causes you to fall asleep basically, or to hibernate. And so for many people that live in northern latitudes, the sun's rays are not intense enough and long enough in exposure time to regulate melatonin levels. So people will wake up in the morning in winter time, their melatonin levels are not suppressed as they should be if you're exposed to some bright sunlight, and as a result they feel tired and they want to hibernate throughout the winter. They get depressed.

There is one study, however, that looked at patients with seasonal affective disorder and looked at exposing them to a tanning bed, and looking at their vitamin D levels, and they could show a direct benefit from increasing blood levels of 25-hydroxy vitamin D and relief of symptoms of seasonal affective disorder. We also know that people during the winter time have aches and pains in their bones and muscles, and it also makes them depressed. And we now recognize that vitamin D is very important for muscle function, and that people who are vitamin D deficient are prone to have muscle weakness, they're more likely to fall and they're more likely to have bone fractures. We also know that if you're vitamin D deficient, not only does it precipitate and exacerbate osteoporosis in older men and women, but it causes a very subtle and quite devastating bone disease known as osteomalatia. Long story short, osteomalatia is like adult rickets. And what it does is it causes severe bone discomfort, achiness in the bones and also in the muscles. And these patients are often misdiagnosed as having fibromyalgia.

Adams: Yes, that makes sense.

Dr. Holick: There was a study done in Minnesota by Dr Plotnikoff and what he showed was that, he looked at over 150 individuals. And we're talking about children ages 10+ and adults up to the age of 65, presenting at a Minnesota hospital in the wintertime, complaining of muscle aches and pains and bone pain. Many of these, especially young women in their 20s, were given Motrin or some type of over the counter drug, or even a prescription strength anti-inflammatory drug (NSAIDs) because the doctors couldn't figure out what was going on. 93% of that entire group of children and adults complaining of bone pain or muscle pain were vitamin D deficient.

Adams: Wow.

Dr. Holick: And none of the doctors at the time recognized the signs and symptoms or worked these people up for vitamin D deficiency, or treated them appropriately.

Adams: What a tragic failure of diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Holick: I see this all the time in my clinic. I see women as well as men coming in complaining of severe achiness in their bones and muscles. A complete work up, sometimes thousands of dollars are spent, to do all kinds of tests, not to find the cause, only to be seen by me, only to find that they're vitamin D deficient. As I explained, it takes months, it takes years to become vitamin D deficient, and to have such problems with your bones and muscles, and it takes months at least if not up to a year of intensive vitamin D treatment and sunlight exposure in order to reverse that effect.

Adams: That's an important bit of information: you're saying months to years to reverse the deficiency?

Dr. Holick: Right, but what I also tell my patients is that they'll begin to feel better after a month or two, but it's not something that's going to happen overnight. And I have one particular case of a woman who was hospitalized, totally immobile and was just complaining of global bone pain and muscle aches and weakness ... she couldn't even get out of bed! And her doctors didn't know what to do with her. She basically was admitted to the hospital to die. And I happened to see her because I was on call for that weekend, and I instantly recognized it -- she was African American, she was not outside at all. I was convinced based on my physical exam. Typically what I like to do is if you take your forefinger and press on the breastbone a little bit, if the patient winces in pain, it's consistent with osteomalatia. And that's exactly what she did. She was excruciatingly uncomfortable with minimum touching of her sternum. I was convinced that she had osteomalatia. And I told her, I want you out of the hospital. I'm giving you vitamin D, and I'm telling you to go out and be exposed to some sunlight, and you're going to start feeling better in a month or two. Hopefully you'll get in your wheelchair, and then eventually you'll be able to walk within six months. And then sure enough, I just saw her in clinic this past Monday, and she now is up and walking around, using a walker. Really almost for the first time in half a dozen years.

Adams: Fascinating. How many other people are in nursing homes and hospitals right now suffering from nothing more complicated than this deficiency?

Dr. Holick: I saw another case in my clinic on Monday, which was absolutely shocking, which again shows how pervasive this concept is that the American Academy of Dermatology has provided to the media. I saw a 45 year old woman who brought in her 7 year old son, and her son had severe rickets. She's Caucasian, as is her son and the father. And she was told, because she was older when she had her first pregnancy that she was at very high risk of having a potential problem, that she should never be exposed to any sunlight.

Adams: Unbelievable!

Dr. Holick: And so she followed her physician's advice. And then she was told that when she gives birth, that she should solely breastfeed her infant, and that the infant should not receive any extra outside nutrition or supplements. And she followed the physician's advice.

Adams: And passed on the vitamin D deficiency.

Dr. Holick: By this age, the child had severe bowing of the legs, and that's severe rickets.

Adams: Fascinating. And it seems like, well, what do you estimate -- how many people are in nursing homes and hospitals right now with this condition, and those buildings are typically windowless...

Dr. Holick: Doesn't matter actually, because vitamin D rays are absorbed by the glass, so even if you're exposed to sunlight through glass, you can't make any vitamin D.

Adams: And that's all glass?

Dr. Holick: All glass. And so if you're driving in the car all the time, it's not going to do you any good. But the bottom line is this -- a study was done in Mass General Hospital. They found over 50% of inpatients - these are young adults, and middle aged, and older adults - were vitamin D deficient. Typically, on average, probably 50-80% of nursing home residents, 50-60% of inpatient hospital patients, and on average I would estimate, 40% of the population in the United States at large, if they're not getting some sensible sun exposure, are probably deficient in vitamin D.