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Atkins, 61, becomes the first of the Charles Manson followers on life sentences to die while in California prisons. She died Thursday night as the longest-serving female inmate in the state. Atkins was convicted in the 1969 murders at the home of actress Sharon Tate in Benedict Canyon and the Loz Feliz home of Rosemary and Leno LaBianca. Atkins, raised in San Gabriel, killed Tate while the pregnant 26-year-old actress was tied with a rope tossed over a ceiling beam. "I was stoned, man, stoned on acid," Atkins testified during the penalty phase of her trial. "I don't know how...

If the members of the American medical establishment were to have a collective find-yourself-standing-naked-in-Times-Square-type nightmare, this might be it. They spend 30 years ridiculing Robert Atkins, author of the phenomenally-best-selling ''Dr. Atkins' Diet Revolution'' and ''Dr. Atkins' New Diet Revolution,'' accusing the Manhattan doctor of quackery and fraud, only to discover that the unrepentant Atkins was right all along. Or maybe it's this: they find that their very own dietary recommendations -- eat less fat and more carbohydrates -- are the cause of the rampaging epidemic of obesity in America. Or, just possibly this: they find out both of the...

The vote was unanimously against her. She was at the hearing, rolled into the room on a bed, and she slept through most of the proceedings, after she read Psalm 23 as her statement.

Forty Years After Gruesome Cult Killings, Susan Atkins is Paralyzed, Near Death Charles Manson follower and convicted mass murderer Susan Atkins is expected to appear in person today to plead for parole so she can die outside of prison, but officials said her condition is on an "hour by hour" basis.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Restricting carbohydrates, regardless of weight loss, appears to slow the growth of prostate tumors, according to an animal study being published this week by researchers in the Duke Prostate Center. "Previous work here and elsewhere has shown that a diet light in carbohydrates could slow tumor growth, but the animals in those studies also lost weight, and because we know that weight loss can restrict the amount of energy feeding tumors, we weren't able to tell just how big an impact the pure carbohydrate restriction was having, until now," said Stephen Freedland, M.D., a urologist in the...

But veteran dieters know something that some researchers apparently don't: Certain foods seem to fuel the appetite like pouring gasoline on a fire. Some people find that once they start eating bread, cookies, chocolate, potato chips -- or leftover Easter candy -- they lose all sense of fullness and find it difficult to stop. ... After 23 years of treating patients -- some of it espousing liquid diets -- Dr. Aronne has concluded that refined carbohydrates and foods with high sugar and fat content promote what he calls "fullness resistance." They interfere with the complex hormonal messages the body usually...

Have you seen the news stories about the obesity epidemic? Did you see Super Size Me? Then guess what? ... You've been fed a load of bologna. Comedian (and former health writer) Tom Naughton replies to the blame-McDonald's crowd by losing weight on a fat-laden fast-food diet while demonstrating that nearly everything we've been told about obesity and healthy eating is wrong. Along with some delicious parody of Super Size Me Naughton serves up plenty of no-bologna facts that will stun most viewers, such as: The obesity "epidemic" has been wildly exaggerated by the CDC. People the government classifies as...

People on low-carbohydrate diets are more dependent on the oxidation of fat in the liver for energy than those on a low-calorie diet, researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have found in a small clinical study.The findings, published in the journal Hepatology, could have implications for treating obesity and related diseases such as diabetes, insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, said Dr. Jeffrey Browning, assistant professor in the UT Southwestern Advanced Imaging Research Center and of internal medicine at the medical center. "Instead of looking at drugs to combat obesity and the diseases that stem from it, maybe optimizing...

http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14102&AlertID=934 # Note: The following text is a quote: http://www.lc.org/index.cfm?PID=14100&PRID=759 December 18, 2008 Sixth-Grader Penalized For Mentioning Jesus in His Christmas Paper at School www.LC.org Hattiesburg, MS – Eleven-year-old Andrew White wrote a poem about Christmas but received a deduction for writing about Jesus. His teacher, Latasha Atkins, insisted that mentioning Jesus was not allowed and asked him to write a new poem. Andrew and his classmates were assigned a creative expression paper for the Winter Writer’s Board as part of his sixth-grade language class at Thames Elementary School in the Hattiesburg Public School District. He could choose among three...

Shaped by glacial temperatures, stark landscapes, and protracted winters, the traditional Eskimo diet had little in the way of plant food, no agricultural or dairy products, and was unusually low in carbohydrates. Mostly people subsisted on what they hunted and fished. Inland dwellers took advantage of caribou feeding on tundra mosses, lichens, and plants too tough for humans to stomach (though predigested vegetation in the animals' paunches became dinner as well). Coastal people exploited the sea. The main nutritional challenge was avoiding starvation in late winter if primary meat sources became too scarce or lean. These foods hardly make up...

Few if any murders carry the horrifying cachet of the Manson murders in 1969. The deaths of seven people on two nights at the end of a tumultuous decade combined all of the political and cultural baggage of the era — drugs, counterculture, celebrity, cults, and pure evil in the form of the perpetrators, especially Charles Manson himself. Combining mass murder and serial murder, the Manson Family has played on the imaginations of Americans for almost 40 years, while its members routinely apply for parole and get rejected. Now one of them faces death, although much different in nature than...

HUDSON - It was a simple idea, with big potential. For years, marksmen have been using a technique called bump firing, shooting a semiautomatic rifle from the hip and allowing the weapon's recoil to pull the trigger. With federal regulations keeping fully automatic weapons out of their hands, it was one of the few ways for firearm enthusiasts to enjoy the thrill of firing a machine gun. If there was only a way to simulate that action, Bill Akins wondered, by creating a device that mechanized the recoil resistance to fire more rapid, and accurate, bursts of bullets. Thus the...

On June 19, 1987, Ben & Jerry’s introduced Cherry Garcia, in honor of the man who played lead guitar for the Grateful Dead. The Food and Drug Administration struck back three months later, when it approved the first of a new family of statin drugs that curb cholesterol production in the human liver. A synthetic statin licensed a decade later would become the most lucrative drug in history. At its peak, Lipitor was streaming $14 billion a year into Pfizer’s coffers. Let’s not blame the victim: we don’t choose Cherry Garcia; it chooses us. Lipitor is a lifesaver for 600,000...

'Atkins hormone' discovered 05 June 2007 They are loved and endorsed by celebrities and dismissed as an unhealthy diet craze by critics. But 'low carb', high protein and high fat diets have proven their metabolic worth: scientists in the US have discovered a fat-burning role for a specific hormone stimulated by these eating regimes. The work has also raised the intriguing question of whether the Atkins diet could make you live longer. A group of researchers led by Steven Kliewer at Southwestern University in Dallas, Texas found that a growth hormone called fibroblast growth factor 21 (FGF21) stimulates fat metabolism in...

Women Consider How to Interpret Health Study Results October 01, 2006 As results emerge from one of the largest women's health studies ever undertaken, women are trying to sort out how to apply the findings to their own lives. With more than 160,000 participants, the Women's Health Initiative (WHI) tracked postmenopausal women for seven to 12 years looking at, among other things, the value of menopausal hormone therapy, a low-fat diet, and calcium and vitamin D supplements. UCLA participated in the study under the direction of Howard Judd, M.D., now professor emeritus of obstetrics/gynecology. Some of the still-emerging results have...

The beleaguered Atkins diet may get a breath of life from a new study that suggests the high-protein, low-carbohydrate diet regime leads to more effective weight loss with fewer negative health effects than three other weight loss strategies. The study, which pits the Atkins diet against the Zone, Ornish and LEARN diets, appears in the current issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Related: Questions About Breast Cancer? Ask National Experts. But the findings could be too little too late for the popular diet, which at one time changed the way Americans ate. Proponents of Atkins say...

High consumption of trans fat, found mainly in partially hydrogenated vegetable oils and widely used by the food industry, has been linked to an increased risk of coronary heart disease (CHD). New York and Philadelphia have passed measures eliminating its use in restaurants, and other cities are considering similar bans. A new study from the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) provides the strongest association to date between trans fat and heart disease. It found that women in the U.S. with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had three times the risk of CHD as those with...

CHICAGO - The low-carb, high-fat Atkins diet gets high marks in one of the biggest, longest head-to-head studies of popular weight-loss plans, beating the Zone, the Ornish diet and even U.S. guidelines. Even so, critics say the results show how hard it is to lose weight and keep it off. Overweight women on the Atkins plan lost more weight over a year than those on the low-carb Zone diet. And they had slightly better blood pressure and cholesterol readings than those on the Zone; the very low-fat, high-carb Ornish diet, and a low-fat, high-carb diet similar to U.S. government guidelines....

CAHORS, France For her 100th birthday party last October, Hélène Vialard indulged in her favorite meal -- coq au vin. She adores the local Cahors red wines, occasionally eats a sliver of foie gras, another regional specialty, and says she has no secret for reaching the century mark: "It just came on its own. I never thought I would live this long." The women of France -- a land renowned for a cuisine laden with fats and calories -- have the longest life expectancy of any nation on Earth except Japan. A baby girl born in France in 2006 can...

Nov 8, 11:19 PM EST Low-Carb Diet Doesn't Raise Heart Risk By LINDA A. JOHNSON Associated Press Writer Eating a low-carb, high-fat diet for years doesn't raise the risk of heart disease, a long-term study suggests, easing fears that the popular Atkins diet and similar regimens might set people up for eventual heart attacks. The study of thousands of women over two decades found that those who got lots of their carbohydrates from refined sugars and highly processed foods nearly doubled their risk of heart disease.At the same time, those who ate a low-carb diet but got more of...

Adapted from:The Paleolithic Diet and Its Modern Implications An Interview with Loren Cordain, PhD by Robert Crayhon, MS Reprinted by permission from Life Services Can hundreds of thousands of years of human evolution be wrong? What are we really "designed" to eat? Are high carbohydrate "Food Pyramid" diet standards a health disaster? What do paleolithic fossil records and ethnographic studies of 180 hunter/gatherer groups around the world suggest as the ideal human diet? Find out in nationally acclaimed author and nutritionist Robert Crayhon's interview with paleolithic diet expert, Professor Loren Cordain, Ph.D. Robert Crayhon, M.S. is a clinician, researcher and ...

Eating a high-protein diet can boost the release of a hunger-suppressing hormone, according to new study on mice. The research suggests that a diet rich in protein may be a good way to lose weight and keep it off. Mice fed a protein-heavy diet produced higher levels of an appetite-regulating protein called peptide YY (PYY), which has been linked to reduced appetite in human studies. What's more, the high-protein mice put on less fat than mice on a low-protein regime. The discovery boosts the theory that eating more protein might help to reduce appetite and lead to sustained weight loss,...

Diabetes appears to be written into some people's genes, but with the right diet and exercise, the disease may never surface, according to a new study. Nearly 1 in 10 U.S. adults age 20 and older have diabetes, a condition in which the body cannot properly regulate blood glucose levels, leading to organ disease and other complications. Type 2 diabetes accounts for 90% to 95% of all diabetes cases, and over the past 6 years, researchers have linked a handful of genes to the disease. Most recently a team at deCode Genetics in Reykjavik, Iceland, found that individuals with one...

Health officials said Manuel Uribe weighed 1,235 pounds when he made a desperate plea for help on national television in January. Unable to leave his bed for five years, the 41-year-old mechanic in the northern industrial city of Monterrey longed to move again. His plea was answered by doctors and nutritionists who prescribed a high-protein diet, helping him lose about 200 pounds since then. Gilberto Montiel, health secretary for Nuevo Leon state, said medical officials have been monitoring Uribe's weight and confirmed the loss. "I feel better now, I can stretch and move a bit more," Uribe said Monday, flanked...

When World War II veteran Rear Adm Barry K. Atkins was interred in Arlington National Cemetery January 30, Amateur Radio enabled coordinated rifle salutes at the cemetery and in Hartford, Connecticut. Atkins was a longtime resident of Connecticut, and Alex Parley of Windsor--a member of Atkins' US Navy crew during World War II--requested the special honor. "Their destroyer, the USS Melvin, sank the Japanese battleship Fuso in the battle of Surigao Strait--the only destroyer known to have sunk a battleship," explains Mac Harper, W1FYM, of Glastonbury, Connecticut. Through a series of communications that began when Parley requested help from ARRL...

News Analysis In an early 19th-century best seller, a famous food writer offered a cure for obesity and chronic disease: a low-carbohydrate diet. The notion that what you eat shapes your medical fate has exerted a strong pull throughout history. And its appeal continues to this day, medical historians and researchers say. "It's one of the great principles — no, more than principles, canons — of American culture to suggest that what you eat affects your health," says James Morone, a professor of political science at Brown University. "It's this idea that you control your own destiny and that it's...

Controversial American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore bemoaned an apparent right turn by liberal northern neighbor Canada in its upcoming general election. "Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, ... but this is no longer funny," Moore complained in a commentary on his website. "First, you have the courage to stand against the war in Iraq -- and then you elect a prime minister who's for it. You declare gay people have equal rights -- and then you elect...

Michael Moore Statement on Canadian Election Friday, January 20th, 2006 Michael Moore is currently in production on his next movie. As an avid lover of all things Canadian, he has issued the following statement regarding Canada's upcoming election on Monday: Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, and certainly a well-developed sense of irony, but this is no longer funny. Maybe it's a new form of Canadian irony -- reverse irony! OK, now I get it.

Michael Moore Statement on Canadian Election Michael Moore is currently in production on his next movie. As an avid lover of all things Canadian, he has issued the following statement regarding Canada's upcoming election on Monday: Oh, Canada -- you're not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That's a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, and certainly a well-developed sense of irony, but this is no longer funny. Maybe it's a new form of Canadian irony -- reverse irony! OK, now I get it. First, you have the courage to...

ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) -- More dieters are ditching carb counts and biting into baguettes with gusto these days. ... This week's bankruptcy filing by the late Dr. Robert C. Atkins' old company provide fresh evidence of the low-carb diet's demise, a downward spiral that began early last year. But no single new diet has filled the void. Observers say the only sure thing -- given the boom-and-bust nature of weight-loss trends -- is that something will pop up eventually. ''There isn't one single strong contender,'' said Anne M. Russell, editor-in-chief of Shape magazine. ''If you look at what the single...

Bankruptcy shows diet is 'too extreme' for U.S., baker says. In Boise, staff members of the Idaho Potato Commission gave each other gleeful high-fives when they heard the news. In Houston, the folks at the U.S. Rice Producers' Association declared "good riddance." And fruit farmers in the Central Valley said they were "happy to see them go." Across the United States, producers of carbohydrate-laden food exulted at the decision by Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the Ronkonkoma, N.Y.-based designer of the once popular low-carbohydrate weight-loss program, to file for bankruptcy protection. The company said it planned to reorganize and focus mainly on...

NEW YORK - Atkins Nutritionals Inc., the company that promoted low-carb eating into a national diet craze, filed for bankruptcy court protection Sunday, a company spokesman said. Atkins has been hurt by waning popularity of its namesake diet, which focuses on eliminating carbohydrates such as bread and pasta as a way to shed weight. The diet quickly became one of the most popular in U.S. history, spawning numerous derivatives and a virtual cottage industry of low-carb regimens - but also drew criticism from many experts for its focus on fatty foods and low fruit and vegetable consumption. A hearing on...

Tufts researchers recently reported that while the leading source of calories in the average American diet used to be from white bread, that may have changed. Now, according to preliminary research conducted by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Americans are drinking these calories instead. The research was presented in abstract form at the Experimental Biology Conference in April of this year and a more comprehensive paper is being developed.Odilia Bermudez, PhD, MPH, studied the reported diets of a large nationwide sample of American adults. Among respondents to the 1999-2000 National...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Foods with a low-glycemic index, which are digested relatively slowly and cause smaller increases in blood sugar, may protect the heart and blood vessels better than low-fat fare, according to the findings of a small study. Researchers in Boston found that when obese people consumed as many carbohydrates with a low-glycemic index as they wanted, they lost just as much weight in 12 months as people who stuck with a conventional, calorie-restricted low-fat diet.Carbohydrates with a low-glycemic index include foods such as nonstarchy vegetables, fruit, legumes, nuts and diary products, according to the report in...

Diet-related chronic diseases represent the single largest cause of death and sickness in the United States and most Western countries. Yet while these diseases are epidemic in contemporary Westernized populations and typically afflict two-thirds of the adult population, they are rare or nonexistent in hunter-gatherers and other less Westernized cultures.Why? There is an increasing awareness that the profound environmental changes, such as diet and other lifestyle conditions that began with the introduction of agriculture and animal husbandry (the care and breeding of domestic animals), occurred too recently for the human genome to adapt to.Thus, universal characteristics of preagricultural human diets...

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - When it comes to carbohydrates, it's not how much you eat, but which kind, that makes a difference to your bathroom scale, new research shows. People who are overweight do not appear to eat more carbohydrates overall than people who weigh less, the researchers report in the American Journal of Epidemiology. However, they found that overweight people tend to eat more refined carbohydrates, such as white bread and pasta, which cause a rapid spike in blood sugar. "Total amount of carbohydrate is not related to body weight," Dr. Yunsheng Ma of the University of Massachusetts...

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 11 (Reuters) - McDonald's  has agreed to pay $8.5 million to settle a lawsuit over artery-clogging trans fats in its cooking oils, the company said on Friday. McDonald's said it will donate $7 million to the American Heart Association and spend another $1.5 million to inform the public of its trans fat plans.The settlement is the result of litigation from a San Francisco area activist who has been seeking to raise public awareness of the health dangers from the trans fatty acids (TFAs) in hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils. Trans fats are used in thousands of processed...

Sugar and Grains Increase Depression   Depression may be the culprit behind both mental and physical health conditions. According to studies, more than normal rates of depression can be found in patients with clinically manifest type 2 diabetes. Type 2 is the most common form of diabetes and can be characterized by insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency--either of which can be present at its onset.And, while the relationship between insulin resistance and depression is a vague and contradictory area, a more recent study may have made some headway.Treading New GroundResearchers discovered a positive connection between higher levels of...

Changing the way the world eats is an ambitious goal. The significant changes in the government’s dietary guidelines are an important step forward and a clear signal that the message Dr. Atkins long championed is increasingly heeded. I’m delighted to see the much-awaited dietary guidelines of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). A close look at the recommendations released last week shows how closely these recommendations reflect our efforts to raise carbohydrate awareness and emphasize the importance of weight management. It appears that government officials have listened to the Atkins’...

Soy Formula May Stunt the Intestinal Growth in Your Baby   Concerns regarding the safety of soy formula were raised after two studies revealed that the amounts of soy isoflavone genistein, a chemical found in commercial soy formulas, might inhibit the intestinal growth in babies. There is a great deal of merit surrounding this concern, particularly because nearly 25 percent of formula-fed babies in the United States consume soy formula.Commercial soy formulas contain anywhere from 32 to 45 milligrams of genistein. These concentration levels exceed the amount found to affect menstrual cycles in women. Since formula is the only...

For the more than 11 million Americans who suffer from food allergies, some news with a tantalizing aroma is emanating from Israel. Scientists from the Technion Israel Institute of Technology have found a way to neutralize a sesame seed protein that causes allergies and they believe the technique can also be used to eliminate allergens in milk, peanuts and other common foods.

Another Painkiller Linked to Heart RiskNIH Halts Study On Aleve Ingredient The epidemic of bad news about the potential risks of popular anti-inflammatory medications expanded yesterday as federal officials announced that naproxen, a painkiller sold by prescription and also over the counter as Aleve, might increase people's risk of having a heart attack or stroke. <> The new findings bring to three the number of widely used anti-inflammatory drugs suddenly in the spotlight for their potential health risks. Vioxx was pulled from the market this fall, and its sister drug Celebrex, the blockbuster arthritis drug, was linked to heart attacks...

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) - For the past year, many of the nation's chain restaurants have trumpeted their efforts to give consumers helpful details about the food they serve - from calories to carbs. An unscientific spot check of some of the most popular suggests they do indeed offer a lot of information - from Ruby Tuesday's 1,164-calorie Cuban panini to Subway's 210-calorie Ham Deli sandwich. The push to tell what those menu items will cost your waistline might be more than just helpfulness. The Food and Drug Administration and members of Congress have been considering whether to require such information...

Experts Say Low-Carb Craze May Be Over ) By MARGARET STAFFORD KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - About a year ago, Dave Champlin and his two roommates lived in what their friends at the University of Missouri called the House of Fat. At a combined weight of 890 pounds, the three decided to try the Atkins diet. By sticking to the low-carb, high-protein diet, Champlin lost about 45 pounds and his roommates each lost between 50 and 60 pounds. Despite being pleased with the results, all three were off the diet by this past summer and have gained back some of...

......snip......... A study by NPD Group, an independent marketing information company, found that the percentage of American adults on any low-carb diet in 2004 peaked at 9.1 percent in February and dropped to 4.9 percent by early November. Carb cutting doesn't take Further, it said only one of four people surveyed was significantly cutting carbs and “virtually none” were reducing carbs as much as the diets recommended. That means many companies that rode the low-carb wave are either out of business or refocusing their strategies. ............. Oversaturated market? That decline is not surprising, even at Atkins Nutritionals Inc., a company...

SEATTLE - Sitting in a small evaluation room at the University of Washington, apprehension written on her face, Christa Zamora turned her eyes toward her son Connor and contemplated his future. A talkative and animated 2-year-old, Connor appears normal, Ms. Zamora said, but it is too soon to be certain. Doctors diagnosed autism in her older son, Cameron, just before he turned 3. And with Connor, who is also at risk for developing the devastating neurological disorder, which runs in families, she has decided to be proactive, enrolling him in an early diagnosis study for children as young as 16...

An experimental wonder drug, Rimonabant, helps you lose weight, quit smoking and it also helps protect your heart. Trials have shown that 33% of people on Rimonabant lost 10% of body weight and kept their weight down for two years - this is a record, no other diet drug has managed to keep a person's weight down for so long. The second 33% lost 5% of body weight and kept it down. As well as keeping you lean, the drug also helps you quit the smoking habit. This will be of great interest for many smokers who are afraid to...

- 03-22-2004, 07:40 PM By Gilien Silsby and Gia Scafidi When our human ancestors started eating meat, evolution served up a healthy bonus - the development of genes that offset high cholesterol and chronic diseases associated with a meat-rich diet, according to a new USC study. Those ancestors also started living longer than ever before - an unexpected evolutionary twist. The research by USC professors Caleb Finch and Craig Stanford appeared in the Quarterly Review of Biology. "At some point - probably about 2 1/2 million years ago - meat eating became important to humans," said Stanford, chair of the...

40 Percent in U.S. Use Prescription Drugs By RANDOLPH E. SCHMID WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 40 percent of Americans take at least one prescription drug and one-in-six takes at least three, the government reported Thursday. "Americans are taking medicines that lower cholesterol and reduce the threat of heart disease, that help lift people out of debilitating depressions, and that keep diabetes in check," Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said in a statement. The annual report on Americans' health found that just over 44 percent of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and 16.5 percent...

LONDON (Reuters) - People born in May in the northern hemisphere have a higher than average risk of developing multiple sclerosis, researchers said on Tuesday. An analysis of data from studies of more than 42,000 people in Canada, Britain, Denmark and Sweden showed that May babies have a 13 percent increased chance of suffering from the illness later in life, but that having a November birthday decreased the average odds by 19 percent. "If you are born in May, your risk is higher than any other month and if you are born in November your risk is lower than any...