Research published last year determined that commercial bottled water in Spain had over 50 pharmaceutically-active chemicals in it, as well as the highly addictive drug nicotine. Is your (or your children's) bottled water polluted with addictive chemicals?

It looks like it very well may be. And we're not talking about nicotine-supplemented water meant to help wean smokers off of nicotine. We're talking the kind of bottled water people drink to avoid the pollutants found in municipal drinking water supplies. 

Researchers from the School of Public Health, Immunology and Medical Microbiology of Spain's Rey Juan Carlos University analyzed ten brand of commercially available bottled waters.

The researchers were surprised to learn that the bottled water contained 58 active pharmaceuticals, and five of the ten brands contained significant amounts of nicotine.

A growing body of research is confirming that the bacteria that infect our gums may well be the cause of many cases of arthritis.

Dentistry researchers from Germany's Martin-Luther University Halle-Wittenberg recently analyzed the synovial fluid of 42 patients - average age of 54 years old - with rheumatoid arthritis. They compared this information with 114 control subjects around the same age who had no arthritis and no other rheumatoid conditions.

The synovial fluid is the fluid within the joint capsule, which will typically contain inflammatory components relating to the arthritis. The researchers analyzed the synovial fluid for DNA that matched the genome of oral bacteria – specifically Porphyromonas gingivalis – the bacteria most known to be at the root of most gingivitis infections.

A large scale review of research by Australia and Chinese University scientists has proved with thousands of studies using hundreds of thousands of cancer patients that Chinese herbal medicine offers significant treatment for most types of cancers - including breast cancer.

The research comes from Australia's University of Western Sydney and the Beijing University of Chinese Medicine. The researchers analyzed and reviewed 2,964 human clinical studies that involved 253,434 cancer patients. Among these were 2,385 randomized controlled studies and 579 non-randomized controlled studies.

These studies covered most of the cancer types, but the cancers most studied were lung cancer, liver cancer, stomach cancer, breast cancer, esophageal cancer, colorectal cancer and nasopharyngeal (throat and sinus) cancer. Yes, breast cancer was the fourth most-studied type of cancer among these thousands of clinical studies.

The researchers discovered that the overwhelming majority of studies – 90% of the clinical studies - utilized herbal medicine.

Researchers may have solved a vexing mystery as to why parabens contamination in humans has been so pervasive in recent studies: Parabens are increasingly contaminating our food supply.

Researchers from the New York State Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Health Sciences, along with the University of New York at Albany have determined in a study of foods purchased from local markets that much of the U.S. food supply is contaminated with parabens – a group of chemicals thought previously to produce exposure in humans through the skin in cosmetics and lotions containing preservatives.

This likely explains an increasing body of evidence showing that humans have much higher blood and urine concentrations of parabens than could be explained with the use of body lotions and cosmetics.

New research from the West Virginia University School of Medicine has confirmed other research finding that Bisphenol A (BPA) – found among various plastics and resins in consumer goods – may lead or contribute to type 2 diabetes.

The researchers examined 3,516 people using the National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey of 2003-2008. The researchers compared the urinary BPA levels with fasting glucose levels to determine if there was a relationship between higher BPA concentration in the body and a prediabetic condition.

The researchers used the range for fasting glucose of 100-125 mg/dL and two-hour glucose levels of 140-199 mg/dL or a glycated hemoglobin (A1C) value of 5.7-6.4 % as the standard for a prediabetic condition. A normal A1C range is between 4% and 6%, and the lower the level, the better.

The researchers found that those subjects with BPA levels in the highest third (tertile) range of BPA concentration in the urine had an average of 34% increased incidence of prediabetic condition in terms of their glucose or A1C levels.

The researchers eliminated other possible known factors in diabetes such as weight, blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and alcohol consumption.

Recent research has confirmed and quantified that whole extracts of Garlic and Ginger have the ability to stop several species of multi-drug resistant bacteria.

The newest research comes from Italy's University of Pisa. The researchers tested garlic against the infective bacteria Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Escherichia coli. The research found that all three bacteria species were inhibited by the Garlic extract, which was taken from fresh Garlic bulbs.

This research confirmed another recent study published in the Asian Pacific Journal of Tropical Biomedicine, and conducted by researchers from King Saud University and India's Rangasamy College.

This study focused on seven of the most dangerous superbugs – called MDRs or multidrug resistant bacteria. These included E. coli, S. aureus, P. aeruginosa, Enterococcus faecalis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, Proteus mirabilis, Enterococcus cloacae and Bacillus subtilis.

A groundbreaking study from the United Kingdom has connected gingivitis and oral health to cognitive decline. The study's findings are backed up by a multitude of research supporting the mechanisms.

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry at London's King's College followed over 1050 adults for five years while tracking their oral health, as part of the Health, Aging and Body Composition (Health ABC) Study.

The test subjects were given comprehensive cognition tests and periodontal examinations at the beginning of the study and each year following for five years. Their degree of periodontal disease – or lack thereof – was calculated together with parameters of cognitive decline.

Researchers from the University of California at San Diego have determined that healthy skin bacteria serve as defense mechanisms against infection, and can fight off even the sometimes deadly MRSA infection.

This of course explains why not everyone who comes into contact with the methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria – or any other skin infective agent for that matter – becomes infected.

The researchers tested a typical skin (probiotic) bacteria Propionibacterium acnes against MRSA in several settings. The researchers conducted laboratory studies by growing cultures of Propionibacterium acnes with and without their preferred food medium of glycerol, and tested these varying cultures against a species of MRSA bacteria known to be one of the most fatal – the USA300 species.

Researchers from the Medical University of South Carolina have confirmed that using copper metal surfaces at hospitals significantly reduces hospital-acquired infections. What the study didn't mention was that copper cups and devices have been used for wellness in Ayurveda for thousands of years.

This study, published recently in the Journal of Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, studied two types of superbug infections among selected internal care facilities in three hospitals. The researchers tracked infection rates from methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and vancomycin-resistant Enterococcus (VRE) - two of the most hardy and difficult to treat infections known.

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense. The three hospitals tested were the Medical University of South Carolina, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City and the Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Charleston, South Carolina.

Italian researchers have confirmed that a certain oral probiotic species significantly reduces ear infections, throat infections and tonsillitis among children and adults with recurring infections.

In the most recent study, published in March's Journal of Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy from Informa Healthcare, researchers studied 40 adults who had a history of frequent strep throat infections and/or tonsillitis.

They were divided into two groups of 20 adults. For ninety days, one group was given an oral probiotic supplement (European brand = Bactoblis®) containing Streptococcus salivarius K12, while the other group went untreated.

The Bactoblis product is a slow-release lozenge containing five billion CFUs (colony-forming units) of Streptococcus salivarius K12.