The Source of Healing

Enlisting mind, body and spirit to heal

by Woodson Merrell, M.D.

A Fight for More Scrutiny: The First GMO Animal Built for Human Consumption

Blink and you'll miss a critically important moment in the effort to keep genetically engineered animals out of the food supply. But if you want clean food....pay attention! Read More

Food Safety Czar's Fuel Farms

While the world has been transfixed by events in the Middle East, food safety czar Michael Taylor (senior advisor to the commissioner of the FDA and formerly chief lawyer at chemical giant Monsanto) quietly helpled win a major victory for the ethanol industry, striking a potential blow to the health of corn crops used for food. Read More

Vanity Fair Exposes Pharmaceutical Industry

In the current issue of Vanity Fair, with Johnny Depp on the cover, investigative journalists Donald Barlett and James Steele take on a scandal one doesn't expect among the magazines usual Hollywood profiles and tales of hedge-fund managers' profligacy. Read More

Vitamin D Hatchet Job

Here we go again. Cranky New York Times reporter Gina Kolata has once again fanned the flames over an important tool in the preventive armamentarium: This time it's vitamin D. But it's important to bring some sense to the now raging debate. Read More

Kids Today Pay a Higher Price for Getting High

Reefer Madness? Black market drugs now are different, often much stronger, than what's been available for many decades. And genomic research shows it is very likely there are changes taking place within the human genome as a result of generations of illicit drug use. Read More

When Corporate Profit Trumps Public Health

It's not often you see the Freedom of Information Act invoked in a food story. But perhaps food reporters should do so more often. Read More

Why Are Hormones Still Prescribed?

It's kind of ironic (bordering on unconscionable) that hormones continue to be prescribed, even though evidence of harm just keeps piling up. Is it that no one wants to mess with menopausal women whose hormones are raging? Or are doctors unmoved by new evidence, and know of little else to offer their patients who are suffering? Read More

Sleep More, Burn More Fat

There will be no big marketing budget behind this diet breakthrough, no FDA approvals, no celebrity endorsements: Research published this month in the Annals of Internal Medicine (one of the the big kahunas of peer reviewed medical journals) establishes that sleep--and sleep alone--is one of the most powerful diet tools ever identified. Read More

Cellphones and Brain Tumors, Reduce Your Exposure Today

In a gutsy move, the Maine legislature is currently considering requiring warning labels on cellphones--much like cigarette packets--about the increased risk of brain cancer from electromagnetic radiation emitted as part of the radio signaling technology of all cellphones. The mayor of San Francisco, Gavin Newsom, wants to do the same. And a similar bill was introduced this year to the California legislature. Read More

Are Hot Flashes A Sign of Heart Trouble?

Emerging research into why some women have hot flashes while others with identical hormonal profiles do not has shed light on a possible connection between hot flashes and heart disease. Read More

Friendships Promote A Healthy Heart - Even While You Sleep

It has been known for some time that both the size and diversity of a person's social network are strongly linked with the risk of dying from heart disease. Now researchers at the University of Pittsburgh provide further evidence of a biological connection between friendship and heart health. Read More