Sounds great, right? Except for the fact that, like genetic modification of food crops, nanotechnology tampers with Mother Nature in a way that's largely untested for safety. And here's something really bizarre: The pharmaceutical industry may soon begin using nanotechnology to encode drug tablets and capsules with brand and tracking data that you swallow as part of the pill.

To really explain how this works, let me simplify how nanotechnology works so you'll see why this is so bizarre (and potentially dangerous). Instead of using materials and elements as they're found in nature to build and construct things, nanotechnologists are deconstructing the basic building blocks of these materials and elements to make completely new ones. In other words, nanoscientists are reconstructing the molecular building blocks of our world without yet knowing what it will do to humans and to the environment.

The long-term consequences of nanotechnology are still largely unknown because not a single formidable study has ever been conducted on this emerging science that proves it to be safe. In fact, most of the studies that have been conducted on nanotechnology show that it's actually detrimental to health and to the environment (which I'll cover further, below).

But that hasn't stopped Big Pharma from potentially adopting it for use in a new tracking and identification system that could be integrated into the very drug pills and capsules that millions of people swallow every day.

By the way, I've also posted a video explaining all this. Check it out here: http://naturalnews.tv/v.asp?v=93626…

Now don't get me wrong. Big Pharma isn't the only industry using nanotechnology despite a complete lack of safety evidence. "Nanoparticles" are present in sunscreens, fabric protectors, plastic food liners, and other products. But what's different about the nanoparticles soon to be found in a pill near you is that they are capable of storing data about where the drug was made, when it was made, and where it has traveled.

It's a lot like the barcodes used on parcels to track them along their shipping journeys, except that in the drugs, it's a molecular barcode that people will be swallowing. During digestion of the pill, the nano data bits will be distributed throughout your body and can become lodged in your body's tissues.

A company that's introducing this system for pharmaceuticals, says it this way on its website:

"In the NanoEncryption process, NanoCodes are incorporated directly onto tablets, capsules and vial caps. These codes may be associated with an unlimited amount of manufacturer-determined data, including product information (strength and expiration date), manufacturing information (location date, batch and lot number) and distribution information (country, distributor, wholesaler and chain)."

So if you take these drugs, you'll be swallowing nano "hard drives" that can store data — data that will be distributed throughout your body and can be read by medical technicians who could then track what drugs you took in the past. And what's the rationale for this? According to the company, it's to "defen[d] against pharmaceutical counterfeiting and illegal diversion".

It sounds like a good idea, right? Unfortunately, there's a whole lot more to this technology than meets the eye.

Editor's Note: UPDATE 1 — The company originally mentioned in this story now denies what NaturalNews reported. Their own website text as quoted in this story, was apparently misleading, and they now claim they do not use nano "material" of any kind to achieve their nano encoding. We are temporarily removing the name of this company from this story while we attempts to sort out the truth of the matter. In the past, we've had many company rush to change their own website text after we ran a story on them. All quotes published in this story were 100% accurate at the time of publication, and we made a good faith attempt to report this story accurately.

Though you'll rarely hear about it in the mainstream media, little is known about what nanoparticles really do to people's bodies and to the environment in the long term. Studies continue to show that nanoparticles tend to easily build up in the body where they can potentially cause damage. They also behave differently than the materials from which they are derived and constructed, posing unknown hazards.

Researchers from the University of Rochester discovered back in 2006 that nanoparticles are easily absorbed throughout the body via inhalation. According to the report, nanoparticles travel from the nasal cavity directly to brain tissue where they deposit themselves and cause brain inflammation. In other words, nanoparticles very easily cross the blood-brain barrier, which is the mechanism by which the brain normally protects itself from foreign materials.

The same study, which is part of a five-year, $5.5 million investigation into the safety of nanoparticles, also determined that this artificial micro-matter makes its way to the lungs when inhaled.

Nanoparticle use is on the rise based on the flawed assumption that if the elements and compounds from which they are derived are considered safe, then the nanoparticles themselves must also be safe. But research reveals that this simply isn't the case.

A study from 2004 found that low levels of fullerenes, a type of carbon nanoparticle used in electronics and other materials, changed the entire physiology of fish that were exposed to it. Exposure to just 0.5 parts per million (ppm) over the course of two days literally caused significant brain damage in these fish.

"Given the rapid onset of brain damage, it is important to further test and assess the risks and benefits of this new technology (nanotechnology) before use becomes even more widespread," emphasized Dr. Eva Oberdorster, author of the study, back in 2004.

Again in 2007, scientists from the University of California, San Diego, discovered that iron nanoparticles are toxic to nerve cells and nerve function. Even though iron is a necessary mineral that benefits the body in its natural form, its nanoparticle is quite dangerous, it turns out.

According to Sungho Jin, senior author of the study which was published in the journal Biomaterials, nanoparticles in general "may not be as safe as we had once thought."

But none of the nation's regulatory bodies seem to be paying any attention to these studies, or to the many others I didn't mention that also highlight the toxicity of nanoparticles. Instead, they've allowed nanoparticles to invade our society without so much as a single piece of credible evidence showing that they're safe.

Based on all the research, we know that nanoparticles cross through the skin, lungs, and blood-brain barrier, where they lodge themselves in body tissues. We also know that their compositional differences cause them to be highly reactive with other chemicals, particularly in the body where they create damaging free radicals. But there's more to this story… it gets even worse.

It's amazing to me that altered molecules with no scientific backing of safety are now being deliberately allowed in the food supply. It would seem unacceptable to allow their use in food manufacturing equipment because of the potential for residue contamination, but that's exactly where they are being used right now.

According to a DiscoveryNews report from 2009, nanoparticles are everywhere in the food supply. Externally, they're used in the packaging, containers, films, and other storage materials to kill bacteria and increase shelf life. Internally, they're used to enhance or alter the flavors and textures of food.

Nanoparticles are even being used in some vitamins, supplements and other "nutraceuticals" to allegedly improve nutrient assimilation and delivery.

The report actually encourages the use of nanotechnology in food, citing all the potential benefits (but remaining silent on all the dangers). One section even hawks nanotechnology as a "green" technology.

But the real truth is that using nanoparticles in food is a grant experiment with an unknown outcome. When it comes to nanotechnology in food, there's a lot of speculation and pseudo-science being peddled as scientific fact, but there's truly no scientific backing to support the safe use of man-made nanoparticles in things we consume.

It's quite common for big industry to persuade the public into accepting new technologies based on promises that they will make their lives better and safer. And that's exactly what's happening with nanotechnology: We're all being sold a bill of goods on something that's entirely unproven.

And getting back to the issue of embedding nanoparticles in drugs, the whole argument for why this is necessary stems from the notion that there's a lot of drug fraud occurring, and that it could be stopped if only drugs contained proprietary nanocode data that could be read from your body tissues. But does this benefit the consumer in any way? Who really stands to benefit from this?

Most NaturalNews readers already know this, but when a pharmaceutical company creates a new drug, it patents it so that no other company can sell it until the patent expires. After acquiring FDA approval for the drug, the company then sells it for thousands of times more than what it costs to produce it. This is the FDA-enforced monopoly known as the modern pharmaceutical industry.

How does this tie into nano protection for drugs? Since drugs are exclusively owned and protected by 20-year patents here in the U.S., which allows drug companies to charge whatever they want for them with no competition, Big Pharma stands to benefit tremendously from a technology that ensures no one else can "counterfeit" its patented drugs.

Because right now, all those counterfeit imitations (which are actually the same chemicals without the brand name) are sold for far less than the brand name drugs, and some people are buying them because they can't afford the real thing. By integrating nanotechnology into each and every drug pill, it will be easier for Big Pharma to verify and control the drugs people are taking.

Nano-protected pills can be scanned by a detection device that will verify their authenticity and trace them back to the factories where they were manufactured, the warehouses where they were distributed, the pharmacies where they were stocked and sold, and so on. But here's the part where this all turns Big Brother: The same scanning technology can theoretically be used to scan your body tissues and determine which drugs you've been taking, who sold them, where you bought them, where they were made and possibly even how long you've been taking them.

By swallowing these nano-protected pills, you are essentially turning your body into a walking Big Pharma hard drive that's storing all kinds of data on your particular drug habits. This data could be read by law enforcement or even used against you in a court of law. It's sort of like swallowing RFID technology that tracks your medication use.

A few years ago, a friend of mine showed me a clever device that uses a laser to detect antioxidant levels in the body. It basically takes a reading based on the molecular signature of antioxidants in your skin. It uses a blue laser to produce a number revealing your antioxidant level. (Mine was very high, something like 90,000 on this machine.)

Theoretically, a similar detection device could be used to scan patients for nano particles to see whether or not they've taken their meds for the day, for the week, or even for the year. You could be scanned by a laser that you don't even see, and the government or anyone else could "read" your entire history of medication use. This information could be used against you in many ways:

• To deny you employment.
• To deny you health insurance coverage.
• To serve as evidence against you in a court of law.
• To take away your children by labeling you mentally unstable.
• To force you to take vaccines that you've been avoiding.

… and so on. This is a "drug enforcement" technology that makes all your private medication habits easily and instantly available to Big Brother and health industry drug enforcers who want you to "take all your meds."

As such, this technology could further destroy health freedom. The federal government would no doubt attempt to use this technology to control your medication and vaccination intake while enforcing your compliance with random scanning of your hand or other tissues.

Imagine this scenario. Your government-approved doctor says you have a mental disorder because you prefer healthy foods (See my recent article on "orthorexia" if you don't know what I'm talking about), and he prescribes you a brand name drug to treat it. You decide that eating healthy is normal and you refuse to take the drug. The next time you go in for a checkup, your doctor scans you to check your nanoparticle count and discovers that you haven't been taking your meds. Since he ordered you to take them and you didn't, he assesses you a fine and tells you begin taking them or else face potential arrest and prison time.

This scenario is entirely fictitious at the moment, but with the way things are going with Big Brother and Big Pharma, it's a very real possibility in the near future. Nano technologies can be used in precisely this way to enforce compliance with things like drug prescriptions and treatment mandates. Big Brother will have access to your medical records because they'll have been implanted into your body tissues through nanotechnology, sort of like radio-frequency identification (RFID) for pharmaceuticals.

It's a way for the drug industry to turn a human body into a compliant profit machine. And it's being marketed right now.

It's not my intention to sound alarmist about nanotechnology, but rather to ask some obvious questions that have yet to be answered. Why has nanotechnology essentially been approved for practically any and every use with absolutely no credible backing showing that it's safe? Why have most of the studies showing its dangers been ignored by most mainstream scientists? Why are nano particles about to start showing up in our pharmaceuticals?

In theory, nanotechnology may sound like a great thing, but as I've mentioned in previous articles I've written on the subject, we should be wary of its seductive promises. Not only are nanoparticles potentially dangerous, but many of its uses are completely unnecessary.

Back in 2004, I wrote a piece about the top ten technologies that were around at the time, and nanotechnology wasn't one of them. My reasoning for this was that nanotechnology, particularly in the field of medicine where it was being promoted the most, was entirely unnecessary because our bodies contain their own built-in "nanoparticles", so to speak, that cause the body to heal itself naturally. The best nanotechnology in the world already exists inside you — it's called your immune system.

But science has decided instead to try to engineer its own imitation of the immune system by constructing artificial nanoparticle "robots" to do the job instead. It's an example of Man's arrogance over nature. Instead of supporting the human body's innate immune system technology, arrogant scientists want to overthrow it with their own micro-mechanical robots that attempt to serve the same role.

And now, with the nano technology mentioned here, Big Pharma could be embedding your body's tissues with nanoparticle data that turns you into a compliant, monopoly-priced drug consumer whose medication habits can now be scanned right off your skin. That's what Big Pharma wants, of course: Total control over your body. Combined with targeted lobbying of corrupt Washington lawmakers and bureaucrats, Big Pharma could achieve a "mandatory medication requirement" across the entire country, where every citizen is required to dose themselves with psychiatric drugs, statin drugs or vaccines. Your compliance will be verified with a nanotech scan that reads the nanodata right off your skin, and if you're found to be non-compliant, you could be arrested and forcibly medicated on the spot.

Don't think this is possible? Much of this has already come true with forced vaccinations of children. See the article I wrote in 2007, Children herded like cattle into Maryland courthouse for forced vaccinations as armed police and attack dogs stand guard (http://www.naturalnews.com/022267.html).

The conspiracy between Big Government and Big Pharma will always try to find a way to make you take more meds (whether you need them or not). This nano-protection technology could play right into their hands, providing an enforcement and tracking technology that would turn your body into a walking Big Pharma storage device.

It's just one more reason to avoid taking pharmaceuticals in the first place (as if there weren't enough already!).

by: Kerri Knox, RN

(NaturalNews) As more people begin to realize the amazing health benefits that Vitamin D has to offer, more people are naturally beginning to get more vitamin D, either through supplements or sunshine. The downside of this increased intake, however, is that more people are having adverse reactions from Vitamin D. What most people are not aware of, though, is that most of these so-called 'Vitamin D Side Effects' are not problems with taking the vitamin itself, but are actually problems with not getting enough magnesium.

Transdermal Magnesium Oil
Membrane Complex
Vitamin D-3

Vitamin D, just like all other nutrients, works in harmony with several other nutrients to perform its many functions. Most importantly, vitamin D requires and 'uses up' magnesium to convert from supplements or sun into its active form in the blood. As such, it is a big mistake to simply take large doses of Vitamin D without taking the need for magnesium into consideration. Yet this is exactly what is happening in most cases and it is causing a lot of people to have problems that they believe are due to side effects of Vitamin D- or even worse they believe they are experiencing an overdose. Such a huge number of people have subtle magnesium deficiency that some researchers and doctors are calling magnesium deficiency an epidemic, and anyone with even a mild or 'subclinical' magnesium deficiency will have this deficiency amplified when Vitamin D is taken. This is creating some uncomfortable 'Side Effects of Vitamin D' that are actually symptoms of an induced magnesium deficiency! Some of the magnesium deficiency symptoms being attributed to Vitamin D are:

Headaches
Insomnia
Jitteriness
Muscle Cramps
Anxiety
Heart Palpitations
Constipation

While there are always going to be those who simply can't tolerate taking Vitamin D supplements for one reason or another, the good news is that the vast majority of these problems can be prevented and even reversed by getting clinically significant amounts of magnesium – while you are getting your Vitamin D from pills or from the sun.

Vitamin D Absorption Problems

Conversely, it's also true that taking Vitamin D may not raise blood levels in those who are magnesium deficient. In many cases, both the Vitamin D deficient person and their doctor believe that they are having 'absorption' problems. This lack of knowledge about the need for magnesium ends up causing serious issues such as:

1) A lot of fear being generated that an underlying serious medical problem exists
2)Unnecessarily high dosages of Vitamin D that further worsen the magnesium deficiency
3)Thousands, and sometimes tens of thousands of dollars, being spent on unnecessary medical testing to find the 'absorption' problem
4)The underlying magnesium deficiency not being found because testing for magnesium levels is not useful in determining need for the nutrient

This leaves many people still low in Vitamin D and believing that they are toxic or allergic to Vitamin D. This belief is being encouraged by practitioners and websites that are unaware of this intimate connection between these two nutrients and who don't have a solution for those who are suffering. Unlike drugs, nutrients are interconnected with one another and rarely does someone have only One nutrient deficiency completely in isolation. But as Vitamin D testing is becoming more common, people are being treated with large and sometimes massive doses of Vitamin D without taking into consideration their need for other nutrients. In particular, the need for sufficient magnesium is critical to avoid some of the uncomfortable problems that are often falsely attributed to being Vitamin D side effects or overdoses.

by: David Gutierrez

(NaturalNews) Drinking more than one sweetened soft drink per week may significantly increase your risk of pancreatic cancer, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Minnesota and published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

"The high levels of sugar in soft drinks may be increasing the level of insulin in the body, which we think contributes to pancreatic cancer cell growth," lead researcher Mark Pereira said.

The researchers followed 60,524 adult male and female participants in the Singapore Chinese Health Study for 14 years, monitoring their soda intake and pancreatic cancer risk. They found that participants who drank two or more sweetened soft drinks per week were 87 percent more likely to develop cancer of the pancreas than those who drank sodas less frequently.

This risk was not seen among those who drank non-sweetened fruit juices instead.

"Singapore is a wealthy country with excellent healthcare," Pereira said. "Favorite pastimes are eating and shopping, so the findings should apply to other western countries."

Researchers believe that excessive sugar consumption may cause damage to the pancreas, which produces the sugar-regulating hormone insulin. Some research also suggests that sugar may accelerate the growth of some tumors, which rely more heavily on glucose than other bodily cells.

Sugar may not be solely responsible for the observed effect, however.

"Soft drink consumption in Singapore was associated with several other adverse health behaviors such as smoking and red meat intake, which we can't accurately control for," said Susan Mayne of the Yale Cancer Center.

Prior studies have linked consumption of red meat, especially burned or charred varieties, to a significantly increased risk of pancreatic cancer.

Pancreatic cancer is one the most lethal forms of the disease, with a 5-year survival rate of only 5 percent. An estimated 37,680 people are diagnosed with the disease in the United States each year, and 34,290 die from it.

by: S. L. Baker

(NaturalNews) Fruits and vegetables contain relatively small amounts of the form of sugar known as fructose. But the typical American diet is now loaded with unnaturally high amounts of refined versions of this sweetener, primarily in the form of high fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is found in everything from soft drinks and juice drinks to bakery products and other processed foods and it has been linked to a host of health woes ranging from obesity to the pre-diabetic condition known as metabolic syndrome. Now researchers have found that consuming foods sweetened with fructose raises the risk of developing one of the top killers in the U.S. — high blood pressure, also known as hypertension.

According to the Institute of Medicine, one in three Americans has hypertension and many don't know their blood pressure is elevated, putting them at risk for several deadly diseases. For example, hypertension is blamed for more than one-third of heart attacks. It's also a leading cause of strokes and kidney failure, plays a role in blindness and can contribute to dementia, too.

Scientists have searched for environmental factors that might play a role in the development of high blood pressure — and it appears a big connection to diet has been found. Diana Jalal, MD, of the University of Colorado Denver Health Sciences Center, and her colleagues have come up with evidence that the rise in the rate of hypertension over the past hundred years is directly related to the increase in the consumption of fructose.

Dr. Jalal and her research team analyzed data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey collected from 2003 to 2006. Their study involved 4,528 US adults 18 years of age or older with no prior history of hypertension. The research subjects answered questions about their consumption of foods and beverages such as fruit juices, soft drinks, bakery products, and candy sweetened with fructose (primarily HFCS).

The results, just published in the Journal of the American Society Nephrology (JASN), showed that people whose diet contained 74 grams or more per day of fructose — the equivalent of drinking about 2 and a half soft drinks daily — had a greatly increased risk of high blood pressure. A normal blood pressure reading is below 120/80 mmHg. But for research participants consuming fructose regularly, the risk of a high blood pressure level of 134/85 went up 26 percent and the risk of having a blood pressure reading of 140/90 climbed by 30 percent. However, the risk of very high blood pressure — 160/100 — was 77 percent higher in those consuming fructose sweetened foods and drinks on a daily basis.

According to the scientists, their findings suggest that cutting back on foods and beverages containing a lot of fructose might decrease the risk of developing hypertension. "Our study identifies a potentially modifiable risk factor for high blood pressure," Dr. Jalal said in a statement to the media. "However, well-planned prospective randomized clinical studies need to be completed to see if low fructose diets will prevent the development of hypertension and its complications."

Once again, the connection between vitamin D and good health is clearly evident in a scientific study. Published in the British Medical Journal, the study revealed that when a pregnant woman fails to get enough sunlight during her pregnancy, the development of her child's central nervous system and immune system becomes compromised. Consequently, her child will be more susceptible to developing MS as an adult.

Researchers were able to verify the connection between low vitamin D levels and MS by evaluating a series of birth records from between 1920 and 1950. The records revealed that many MS patients born during this time period were born in the months of November and December in the Southern Hemisphere, which would have placed the early days of their development during the winter months when their mothers' sunlight exposure was likely at a minimum.

On the flip side, experts observed that very few of the MS patients were born between May and June, when their first trimesters would have landed during the warm summer months when sunlight exposure is maximized.

"The risk of multiple sclerosis was around 30 percent higher for those born in the early summer months of November and December compared to the months of May and June," explained researches in a statement about the study.

Experts derived similar conclusions in studies conducted in the Northern Hemisphere as well. Most MS patients seem to have been in their first trimesters of development during the winter. In fact, cases of MS become increasingly more prevalent the further you travel away from the equator, indicating that sunlight exposure is directly linked to MS susceptibility.

If natural sunlight is unavailable, mothers can always supplement with natural vitamin D3 in order to maintain their own health and to help ensure that their babies experience healthy development. Vitamin D3 supplementation is inexpensive and it is a great, simple way to maximize health and well-being.