A new diet is challenging conventional wisdom that simply eating too many calories is the driver of weight gain. Rather, it claims, food intolerances — chemical reactions to common foods, including “healthy” ones such as soy and egg whites — are triggers of weight gain for up to 70 percent of Americans.
“Your body is not a bank account. It’s a chemistry lab,” says JJ Virgin, author of The Virgin Diet, Drop 7 Foods, Lose 7 Pounds, Just 7 Days, a book that became a New York Times best-seller just two weeks after its release in late November.
What Virgin means is this: Traditional diets view your body as a caloric bank account in which calories in must balance calories out. However, a more basic, hidden problem of food intolerance underlies the inability to lose weight.
What Is Food Intolerance?
We are all familiar with food allergies, which can trigger life-threatening breathing difficulties or hives when someone eats an offending food, such as shellfish or peanuts. These are reactions of the immune system.
SPECIAL: These 5 Things Flush 40 lbs. of Fat Our of Your Body — Read More.
Food intolerances are also triggered by the immune system, but in a different way. They are subtle, may take hours or days to manifest, and can include a variety of symptoms, from bloating and gas to skin conditions, achy joints, and excess body fat.
Solve the Problem
Theoretically, food intolerance can be triggered by any food, and each one of us has a unique body chemistry. But in more than 25 years of solving the weight problems of athletes, CEOs, celebrities, and other clients, as a nutrition and fitness specialist, Virgin has identified these seven foods as the most likely culprits:
1. Gluten
2. Soy
3. Eggs
4. Corn
5. Dairy
6. Peanuts
7. Sugar and artificial sweeteners
She has devised a plan that enables anyone to identify which foods are causing problems and learn how to eat to lose weight for good. Although her book is called a “diet,” it isn’t one in the usual sense.
“It treats food as information,” she tells Newsmax Health, “connecting the dots between what you eat, how you feel, and what you weigh.”
3-Step Plan
In practice, Virgin’s “diet” has three steps:
1. Transform. For three weeks, eliminate the seven foods most likely to trigger reactions. In addition to being found in obvious places (soy in soy milk, or gluten in baked goods and pasta, for example), all seven are ingredients in many packaged and restaurant foods, so you need to be vigilant.
2. Test and Customize. Gradually start eating the seven foods, one at a time, and keep a diary of how you feel. This determines how much of a given food you can tolerate, if any, so that you get to know your own body chemistry and customize your diet.
3. Sustain. Continually eat the way that works for you, and you should never have to “diet” again.
To make this work, you have to follow the plan 100 percent — cheating during the first 21 days will put you back at square one. But most people who stick with it for at least a week experience significant weight loss, feel better, and continue, Virgin says.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/Headline/food-intolerance-triggers-food-allergies-gluten/2013/07/15/id/515024#ixzz2Z8McNPqX
Alert: What Is Your Risk for a Heart Attack? Find Out Now
Monday, 15 July 2013
Food Intolerance: Real Reason You Can't Lose Weight?
A new diet is challenging conventional wisdom that simply eating too many calories is the driver of weight gain. Rather, it claims, food intolerances — chemical reactions to common foods, including “healthy” ones such as soy and egg whites — are triggers of weight gain for up to 70 percent of Americans.
“Your body is not a bank account. It’s a chemistry lab,” says JJ Virgin, author of The Virgin Diet, Drop 7 Foods, Lose 7 Pounds, Just 7 Days, a book that became a New York Times best-seller just two weeks after its release in late November.
What Virgin means is this: Traditional diets view your body as a caloric bank account in which calories in must balance calories out. However, a more basic, hidden problem of food intolerance underlies the inability to lose weight.
What Is Food Intolerance?
We are all familiar with food allergies, which can trigger life-threatening breathing difficulties or hives when someone eats an offending food, such as shellfish or peanuts. These are reactions of the immune system.
SPECIAL: These 5 Things Flush 40 lbs. of Fat Our of Your Body — Read More.
Food intolerances are also triggered by the immune system, but in a different way. They are subtle, may take hours or days to manifest, and can include a variety of symptoms, from bloating and gas to skin conditions, achy joints, and excess body fat.
Solve the Problem
Theoretically, food intolerance can be triggered by any food, and each one of us has a unique body chemistry. But in more than 25 years of solving the weight problems of athletes, CEOs, celebrities, and other clients, as a nutrition and fitness specialist, Virgin has identified these seven foods as the most likely culprits:
1. Gluten
2. Soy
3. Eggs
4. Corn
5. Dairy
6. Peanuts
7. Sugar and artificial sweeteners
She has devised a plan that enables anyone to identify which foods are causing problems and learn how to eat to lose weight for good. Although her book is called a “diet,” it isn’t one in the usual sense.
“It treats food as information,” she tells Newsmax Health, “connecting the dots between what you eat, how you feel, and what you weigh.”
3-Step Plan
In practice, Virgin’s “diet” has three steps:
1. Transform. For three weeks, eliminate the seven foods most likely to trigger reactions. In addition to being found in obvious places (soy in soy milk, or gluten in baked goods and pasta, for example), all seven are ingredients in many packaged and restaurant foods, so you need to be vigilant.
2. Test and Customize. Gradually start eating the seven foods, one at a time, and keep a diary of how you feel. This determines how much of a given food you can tolerate, if any, so that you get to know your own body chemistry and customize your diet.
3. Sustain. Continually eat the way that works for you, and you should never have to “diet” again.
To make this work, you have to follow the plan 100 percent — cheating during the first 21 days will put you back at square one. But most people who stick with it for at least a week experience significant weight loss, feel better, and continue, Virgin says.
Read Latest Breaking News from Newsmax.com http://www.newsmaxhealth.com/Headline/food-intolerance-triggers-food-allergies-gluten/2013/07/15/id/515024#ixzz2Z8McNPqX
Alert: What Is Your Risk for a Heart Attack? Find Out Now
Top 15 actrices más deseadas de 2013
Megan Fox
Un tanto fuera de órbita tras la movida con Michael Bay a cuenta de la tercera parte de Transformers, Megan, que ha sido mamá este año, tratará de coger impulso con la nueva comedia de Judd Apatow, Si fuera fácil, en la que interpreta un pequeño pero explosivo papel.
Zoe Saldana
A finales de año rodará la secuela de Avatar a las órdenes de James Cameron, pero antes la veremos en la segunda parte de Star Trek dando vida a la oficial de comunicaciones Uhura, que trae por el camino de la amargura tanto a Kirk como al señor Spock.
Mila Kunis
La chica de Mark Whalberg en la reciente Ted nos regalará su presencia en dos títulos muy distintos. En Oz. Un mundo de fantasía interpretará a una malvada bruja, y en Blood Ties, que la emparejará con otras dos bellezas, Marion Cotillard y Zoe Saldana, será la chica de un mafioso.
Kim Kardashian
La presentadora y diseñadora de moda más voluptuosa de la tele americana está decidida en 2013 a explotar su imagen como actriz. La veremos en lo nuevo como director de Tyler Perry, Confessions of a Marriage Counselor, en la que todos tratan de echarle el guante.
Naomi Watts
Tras el éxito de Lo imposible, la actriz australiana se convertirá en Diana de Gales en el biopic que ha dirigido Olivier Hirschbiegel (El hundimiento) y a continuación dará vida a Marylin Monroe en Blonde, drama que prepara Andrew Dominik (Mátalos suavemente).
Charlize Theron
Si 2012 fue un año redondo gracias a Blancanieves y la leyenda del cazador y Prometheus, Charlize quiere repetir éxitos en 2013 con otros dos proyectos de envergadura: la cuarta parte de Mad Max (sin Mel Gibson) y el nuevo proyecto de terror de Scott Derrickson (Sinister).
Natalie Portman
La oscarizada actriz de Cisne negro sigue con la ambición intacta. Este año la veremos en la segunda parte de Thor, junto a Chris Hemsworth, y en el nuevo trabajo del siempre estimulante Terrence Malick, el drama romántico Knight of Cups.
Heather Graham
Una de las pelirrojas con más estilo de Hollywood quiere recuperar su trono de sex-symbol con la tercera y última parte de Resacón en Las Vegas, en la que retomará su papel de novia de Stu (Ed Helms). Talento y atributos no le faltan.
Scarlett Johansson
Parece que lleve toda la vida actuando, pero la sensación rubia aún no llega a los 30 años. En 2013 volverá a dejar huella de su talento en Hitckcock, dando vida a la actriz Janet Leigh (protagonista de Psicosis), y en la cinta de ciencia-ficción Under the Skin, de Jonathan Glazer.
Vanessa Hudgens
Es una de las actrices más deseadas y con más proyección de Hollywood desde que Zack Snyder explotara todas sus virtudes en Sucker Punch. En 2013 la veremos en la secuela de Machete y en la comedia Spring Breakers, junto a las también increíbles Selena Gómez y Ashley Benson.
Halle Berry
Otra que quiere enmendar su carrera como sea es Halle Berry, no hace tanto sex-symbol indiscutible y una de las mujeres más atractivas del planeta. Lo intentará de la mano de los hermanos Wachowski en El atlas de las nubes y en la comedia colectiva Movie 43
Olivia Wilde
Hasta nueve proyectos tiene filmados o en proceso de postproducción la guapísima potagonista de House, Tron y Cowboys & Alienígenas. Lo más destacado para este 2013 es su concurso en la comedia The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, con Jim Carrey y Steve Carell.
Eva Green
La novia de Daniel Craig en Casino Royale desplegará todo su exotismo en la esperadísima secuela de 300, titulada finalmente 300: Rise of an Empire, en la que da vida a la reina Artemisa de Halicarnaso. No veremos a Leónidas, aunque los hechos narrados se suceden en paralelo a las batalla de las Termópilas.
Freida Pinto
Lanzada tras los éxitos consecutivos de Slumdog Millionaire, El origen del planeta de los simios e Immortals, este bellezón de la India ha cautivado al mismísimo Terrence Malick para coprotagonizar su nuevo proyecto, Knight of Cups, junto a Natalie Portman y Cate Blanchett.
Friday, 12 July 2013
Jerusalem's Germans
By the late 1940s though, the entire Templer community of seven settlements across Palestine had been deported, never to return.
They had landed two generations earlier, led by Christoph Hoffmann, a Protestant theologian from Ludwigsburg in Wuerttemberg, who believed the Second Coming of Christ could be hastened by building a spiritual Kingdom of God in the Holy Land.
Kurt's grandfather, Christian, was among several dozen people who joined Hoffmann in relocating from Germany to Haifa in Palestine in 1869.
Hoffmann had split from the Lutheran Evangelical Church in 1861, taking his cue from New Testament concepts of Christians as "temples" embodying God's spirit, and as a community acting together to build God's "temple" among mankind.
But building a community in what was then a neglected land was an immensely difficult endeavour. Much of the ground was swamp, malaria was rife and infant mortality was high.
"The Templers saw 'Zion' [Biblical synonym for Jerusalem and the Holy Land] as their second homeland," says David Kroyanker, author of The German Colony and Emek Refaim Street. "But it was like being on the moon - they came from a very developed country to nowhere."
In fact, the Templers arrived in Palestine more than a decade before the first large-scale immigration of Jewish Zionists, who fled there to escape destitution and pogroms in Russia - and in many ways they served as a model for the Jewish pioneers.
Initially the Templers concentrated on farming - draining the swamps, planting fields, vineyards and orchards, and employing modern working techniques unfamiliar to Palestine (they were the first to market "Jaffa Oranges" - produce from their Sarona settlement near Jaffa).
They operated steam-powered oil presses and flour mills, opened the country's first hotels and European-style pharmacies, and manufactured essential commodities such as soap and cement - and beer.
In his book The Settlements of the Wuerttemberg Templers in Palestine 1868-18, Prof Alex Carmel of Haifa University observes how the Templers "soon gained a reputation for their skills and their diligence. They built exemplary colonies and pretty houses surrounded by flower gardens - a piece of their homeland in the heart of Palestine".
Symbols of their fervent religious beliefs are still evident in the Jerusalem neighbourhood where the Templers began to settle in 1873. They named the district Emek Refaim (Valley of Refaim) after a place in the Bible, and verses from the Scriptures, inscribed in Gothic lettering, survive on the lintels of their former homes.
Most of the buildings, with their distinctive red-tiled roofs and green shutters, are intact (protected by a preservation order) and lend the district a continental elegance which has helped make it one of Jerusalem's most expensive areas.
"In the first years of Jewish immigration, in Palestine the know-how in terms of agricultural and industrial modernisation was in the hands of the Germans," notes Jakob Eisler, a Templer historian in Stuttgart.
A Biblical verse on the lintel of a former Templer house in the German Colony, which reads: "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord rises upon you. Isaiah 60, 1"
"Although they were few in number, they had a very big impact on the whole of society, and especially on the Jews who came there," he says.
"Without the help of the Templers it would have been much more complicated for the Jewish settlers to establish so much.
"If you compare the modernity of Jewish colonies in the 1880s and '90s with the German colonies at that time, the Germans are leading."
While Palestine was worlds apart from Germany, the Templers remained fiercely patriotic, proudly retaining their German citizenship and even their Swabian dialect.
When the German Kaiser Wilhelm II visited Jerusalem in 1898, the Templers turned out in their finest attire to cheer him, and their colony of Wilhelma, near Jaffa, was named in honour of King Wilhelm II of Wuerttemberg.
With the advent of World War I, many Templers went to fight for Germany, dying on the battlefields of Europe and in Palestine, which was eventually conquered by the British.
A memorial to 24 of their WWI dead stands in the Templers' well-tended cemetery, tucked away behind two large green gates on Emek Refaim street.
Germany's defeat was disastrous for the Templers. Their German loyalties meant they were now considered enemy aliens by the British, and in 1918 850 of them - most of their population - were sent to internment camps in Egypt and their properties and livestock seized.
The visit of the Kaiser was an important event for the Templers in 1898
It would be another three years before they were all allowed back to rebuild their now dilapidated settlements. The returnees displayed the same drive as their predecessors half a century before but there was no longer such close collaboration between the Templers and Palestine's Jewish immigrants.
"In the 1920s the Jews didn't need any Germans for modernisation because the British were there, so the British Mandate authority was building the roads and planning the expansion of the cities and doing all those things which in the Ottoman time no-one was caring for," notes Dr Eisler.
"In the Mandate time Jews came to the land and were competing with the Germans so a lot of the Germans no longer saw themselves as helping development but rather they saw their own future under threat."
After WWI, hundreds of Templers were expelled to Egypt, where they lived in internment camps
Nevertheless, relations between Templers and the Jewish community remained good, and despite increasing violence between Jews and Arabs in Palestine, life for the Templers was peaceful.
Rosemarie Hahn, who was born in the Jerusalem colony in 1928, recalls the period with a deep sense of nostalgia.
"I have only happy memories," she says, her German accent, like Kurt's, still discernible. "For us as children it was like living in our own homeland - we didn't know anything else. We were friends with everybody - my best friends in kindergarten were a Jewish girl and an Arab girl. English, Jewish, Arab, Armenian - everybody was accepted into our school.
"But that changed after 1934. My Jewish friend was taken out of school, and my brother had a Jewish friend who never came back - because of the politics."
Rosemarie Hahn (circled near front) went to a Templer school in the German Colony in Jerusalem. Ludwig Buchhalter (circled, back row), head of the Nazi party in Jerusalem, was a teacher there
By this time, the Nazi party had risen to power in Germany and the ripples had spread to expatriate communities, including in Palestine. A branch was established in Haifa by Templer Karl Ruff in 1933, and other Templer colonies followed, including Jerusalem.
While National Socialism caught the imagination of many of the younger, less religious Templers, it met resistance from the older generation.
"The older Templers were afraid that the Fuehrer would overtake Jesus ideologically," says Mr Kroyanker.
"Many of the young people were easily influenced by Nazism - there were many young Templers who studied in Germany at the time... and when they came back they were very excited about Nazism.
"At the beginning there was some sort of disagreement between the older generation and the newer generation, and in the end the newer generation won the battle."
In Jerusalem, a teacher at one of the Templer schools, Ludwig Buchhalter, became the local party chief and led efforts to ensure Nazism permeated all aspects of German life there.
The Nazi party gained a foothold in Templer communities across Palestine (Ludwig Buchhalter circled)
The British Boy Scouts and Girl Guides which operated in the German Colony were replaced by the Hitler Youth and League of German Maidens. Workers joined the Nazi Labour Organisation and party members greeted each other in the street with "Heil Hitler" and a Nazi salute.
Under pressure from Buchhalter, some Germans boycotted Jewish businesses in Jerusalem (while Jews did the same in return).
David Kroyanker tells of a macabre turn of events when, in 1978, a box containing a uniform, dagger and other Nazi artefacts was discovered hidden in the roof-space of a house belonging to an 82-year-old Holocaust survivor in Emek Refaim.
Buchhalter's house - now the site of a luxury apartment block - on Emmanuel Noah Street served as the Nazi party headquarters and Buchhalter himself drove with swastika pennants attached to his car. He later recalled how he once forgot to remove them while driving through a Jewish area and was stoned and shot at.
Continue reading the main story
German communities in Palestine, 1939
German Templer in Jerusalem
Templers: 1,290 members
German-speaking Protestant Churches: Up to 500 members
Catholic Church: Up to 180 members
Source: Heidemarie Wawrzyn
BBC History: Learn more about WWI and WWII
The extent to which the Templers as a whole adopted Nazism is a matter of historical debate. While some were enthusiastic followers, others were less committed, and among others still there was defiance and resistance.
"You can find dozens of those who were really active and you can find those who were going with the stream and others who were afraid not to go into the party, exactly as you could find in Germany," says Dr Eisler.
Figures vary, but according to Heidemarie Wawrzyn, whose book Nazis in the Holy Land 1933-1948 is due to be published next week, about 75% of Germans in Palestine who belonged to the Nazi party, or were in some way associated with it, were Templers.
She says more than 42% of all Templers participated in Nazi activities in Palestine.
Curiously, Nazi chief Adolf Eichmann, architect of the Final Solution, cultivated a legend that he was born in the Templer colony of Sarona just north of Jaffa - though this was untrue.
As war loomed in Europe, once again the position of the Templers in Palestine became insecure.
In August 1939, all eligible Germans in Palestine received call-up papers from Germany, and by the end of the month some 249 had left to join the Wehrmacht.
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“Start Quote
Kurt Eppinger
As a child I couldn't understand why we were being deported, but as it turned out, it was a blessing in disguise”
Kurt Eppinger
On 3 September 1939, when Britain (along with France) declared war on Germany, all Germans in Palestine were, for the second time, classed as enemy aliens and four Templer settlements were sealed off and turned into internment camps.
Men of military age, including the fathers of Kurt and Rosemarie, were sent to a prison near Acre, while their families were ordered into the camps.
For the next two years at least, the Templers were allowed to function as agricultural communities behind barbed wire and under guard, but it was the beginning of the end.
In July 1941, more than 500 were deported to Australia, while between 1941 and 1944 400 more were repatriated to Germany by train as part of three exchanges with the Nazis for Jews held in ghettos and camps.
A few hundred Templers remained in Palestine after the war but there was no chance of rebuilding their former communities. A Jewish insurgency was under way to force out the British and in 1946 the assassination by Jewish militants of the former Templer mayor of Sarona, Gotthilf Wagner, sent shockwaves through the depleted community.
Contemporary reports say Wagner was targeted because he had been a prominent Nazi. Sieger Hahn, Wagner's foster son, says Wagner was killed because he was an "obstacle" to the purchase of land from the Germans.
With the killing of two more Templers by members of the Haganah (Jewish fighting force) in 1948, the British authorities evacuated almost all the remaining members to an internment camp in Cyprus.
The last group of about 20-30 elderly and infirm people was given shelter in the Sisters of St Charles Borromeo convent in Jerusalem, but in 1949 some of them too were ordered to leave the country - now the State of Israel - accused of having belonged to the Nazi party. The last Templers left in April 1950.
Israel 'secretly holds second Prisoner X' in jail
The existence of a second "Prisoner X" being held in top-secret conditions in an Israeli jail has prompted comments in the Israeli parliament and media.
The case was revealed in legal documents released this week concerning the original "Prisoner X", an Australian-Israeli who hanged himself in his prison cell in 2010.
He has been identified as Ben Zygier, a disgraced Mossad spy.
The second prisoner is also said to involve a member of security services.
The Knesset's chairman of the Committee on Defence and Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, told parliamentarians the case was "extremely serious" but insisted Israeli prisoners' rights were protected.
Media reports say that the detainee has been kept at Ayalon Prison, near Tel Aviv for many years. Even the guards do not know his identity.
The windowless high security cell where the man is kept neighbours one where Mr Zygier killed himself.
Well-known lawyer Avigdor Feldman, who visited the first "Prisoner X" and specialises in security cases, said that the second prisoner faced allegations that were "worse than Ben Zygier's case".
"Without getting into details, [they are] much more grave, much more sensational, much more amazing, much more riveting," Mr Feldman told Tel Aviv radio station 103 FM.
He said only that the individual was a Jewish male who had worked for the security services.
Mystery remains
The strange circumstances of the arrest and detention of Mr Zygier were revealed in Australian news reports in February. They had been subject to reporting restrictions in Israel which have since been eased.
Israeli officials have never published the charges in the case but say the prisoner had jeopardised national security and agreed to being held in isolation while he prepared his defence.
Photographs and details of Ben Zygier made the front pages of Australia's newspapers on 14/2/13 Details about "Prisoner X" were revealed in the Australian media
The Australian Broadcasting Corporation, which broke the original story about Mr Zygier, said he was arrested after unwittingly sabotaging a top secret spy operation aimed at bringing home the bodies of Israeli soldiers missing in Lebanon.
When the case was first in the headlines, Israel's Internal Security Minister, Yitzhak Aharonovitch, said that there were no other hidden prisoners.
This week the minister said he stood by those comments as arrests were reported and handled by the prosecution and courts in accordance with the law. However, he admitted there were some cases that remained confidential for national security reasons.
On Monday, the Justice Ministry published a document on the first "Prisoner X" case which included a reference to the second, unidentified prisoner.
The Israeli newspaper, Haaretz, cited court documents saying he had been convicted without giving information about his crime.
Box ticking: Dubious benefits of midges and ticks explored
Edward Snowden re-emerges for Moscow airport meeting
Fugitive US intelligence leaker Edward Snowden has met human rights groups and lawyers at a Moscow airport, in his first appearance in three weeks.
In a statement, Mr Snowden said he was seeking asylum in Russia because he was unable to travel to Latin America, where Venezuela had granted him asylum.
He had dropped an earlier Russian application after Moscow said he could stay only if he stopped the US leaks.
The Kremlin reiterated its condition on Friday.
"Mr Snowden could hypothetically stay in Russia if he first, completely stops the activities harming our American partners and US-Russian relations and, second, if he asks for this himself," President Vladimir Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
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At the scene
Olga Ivshina BBC Russian Service, Moscow
"He exists" - the first words of lawyer Genri Reznik, when he spoke to journalists after the meeting. And no-one laughed at the phrase, because no-one had actually seen Edward Snowden in several weeks. Mr Reznik joked that he even touched the former CIA contractor to make sure he was alive.
Russian MP Vyacheslav Nikonov remarked that Mr Snowden was nervous and did not joke, but looked quite resolute and even handsome. "He looked as if he was not fed very well, but he's got a perfect haircut," said Mr Nikonov.
All human rights activists who participated in the meeting said they thought Mr Snowden had quite a good chance of being granted political asylum in Russia. Almost all stated their readiness to help him get asylum, or in court, if he asks for that.
US President Barack Obama is due to have a telephone conversation with Mr Putin later on Friday.
White House spokesman Jay Carney said the phone call had been scheduled for several days, Reuters reported.
Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov, who attended the meeting at Sheremetyevo airport, said Mr Snowden had not specified whether he was seeking temporary or permanent asylum.
"He said that he needs asylum in Russia to freely move around," Mr Nikonov said. "It suits him perfectly well staying in the airport because everything is fine here. The only thing he wants is to be given freedom of movement."
Mr Snowden is wanted by the US on charges of leaking secrets about US surveillance schemes. The former CIA contractor has been stuck in transit since arriving in Moscow from Hong Kong on 23 June.
He is unable to leave the transit zone without asylum documents, a valid passport or a Russian visa, none of which he reportedly has.
The American has sent requests for political asylum to at least 21 countries, most of which have turned down his request. However, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Venezuela have indicated they could take him in.
But some European countries are likely to close their airspace to any plane suspected of carrying the fugitive.
'Unlawful campaign'
On Friday, Mr Snowden said he formally accepted all offers of support or asylum he had already received "and all others that may be offered in the future".
But he added that the US and some European countries had "demonstrated a willingness to act outside the law".
Russian lawmaker Vyacheslav Nikonov described Mr Snowden as "a hot potato"
"This unlawful threat makes it impossible for me to travel to Latin America and enjoy the asylum granted there in accordance with our shared rights," Mr Snowden said in a statement released on the Wikileaks website.
He also asked the rights groups and lawyers present at the airport meeting to assist him "in requesting guarantees of safe passage from the relevant nations in securing my travel to Latin America, as well as requesting asylum in Russia".
Continue reading the main story
Snowden leaks timeline
5 June: First leak published in the Guardian saying the National Security Agency (NSA) is collecting the telephone records of millions of people in the US
6 June: Details of the US Prism internet surveillance programme published by the Guardian and Washington Post
9 June: Guardian identifies Edward Snowden as the source of the leaks, at his own request, and says he has been in Hong Kong since 20 May
14 June: US files criminal charges against Mr Snowden
23 June: Mr Snowden leaves Hong Kong for Moscow, Ecuador confirms he has applied for political asylum
2 July: Bolivian leader Evo Morales' plane is diverted to Vienna and apparently searched for Mr Snowden
6 July: Bolivia, Venezuela and Nicaragua say they would offer Mr Snowden asylum
Who is Edward Snowden?
Where will Snowden end up?
Microsoft's work with NSA revealed
Mr Snowden had invited around 10 activists, including Sergei Nikitin, the head of Amnesty International's Russia office, prominent Moscow lawyer Genri Reznik and Russia's presidential human rights ombudsman, Vladimir Lukin.
Mr Lukin was later quoted by Interfax news agency as saying Mr Snowden should be given refugee status instead of political asylum in Russia. "It would be better if the UN or Red Cross did it," he said.
Last month, Mr Snowden had already tried to apply for Russian asylum but President Putin said at the time he would only be welcome if he stopped "his work aimed at inflicting damage on our American partners".
A large press scrum had gathered at the airport ahead of Friday's meeting, which was closed to journalists. Ms Lokshina released a photo showing Mr Snowden at the talks. The fugitive, who is reportedly staying at the airport's Capsule Hotel, had not been seen in public in nearly three weeks.
He had sent his meeting request via an email message, which instructed those attending to bring a copy of the invitation and identification papers because of tight security.
Act of espionage'
Also on Friday, members of the Mercosur, the South American trade bloc, were gathering in the Uruguayan capital of Montevideo to discuss allegations of US spying over Latin American governments.
Continue reading the main story
Art installation of an eye in Berlin
Q&A: Prism internet surveillance
What could 'they' know about me?
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff told reporters that "any act of espionage that violates human rights deserves to be condemned by any country that calls itself democratic".
Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay and Venezuela were also expected to give a joint statement condemning European countries for closing their airspace to Bolivian president Evo Morales on his way back from Moscow last week.
His plane was forced to land in Austria after France, Portugal, Italy and Spain barred it from flying through their airspace - apparently because of suspicions that Mr Snowden was on board.
Mr Snowden's leaking of thousands of classified US intelligence documents have led to revelations that the National Security Agency is systematically seizing vast amounts of phone and web data.
They have also indicated that both the UK and French intelligence agencies allegedly run similarly vast data collection operations, and the US has been eavesdropping on official EU communications.
Greece's life-saving austerity medics
The Greek health system is buckling under the strain of massive budget cuts, an expanding client list and worsening public health. A network of volunteer-run health clinics has emerged to help ease the burden.
Giorgos Vichas is not someone with time on his hands. Middle-aged, with a head of thick black hair flecked with grey, he has a look of alert determination - but for a moment his gaze becomes wistful.
"When I was studying to become a doctor what I really wanted to do was travel to places that needed voluntary workers," he says.
In the end, he was able to fulfil that ambition without getting on a plane. Eighteen months ago Dr Vichas co-founded the Metropolitan Community Clinic at Helliniko in Athens, for Greeks who found themselves in need without health insurance.
"The crisis in Greece has caused a humanitarian crisis in terms of the health sector. I never imagined we would have to set up social clinics and work on a voluntary basis," he says.
Like many European countries, Greek citizens pay for their healthcare by a system of insurance, with contributions from employers, the state and the beneficiaries themselves. When someone loses their job, they lose their healthcare plan too.
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A pharmacisit looks for a prescription drug at her pharmacy in Athens
Greece - In Sickness and in Debt, presented by Zeinab Badawi, is a documentary for Assignment on the BBC World Service, and Our World on the BBC News Channel
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The state gives them a short period of grace, but then they're on their own and have to stump up the cash for drugs and treatment. When the "troika" of the European Commission, the IMF and the European Central Bank agreed a 240bn-euro rescue package for Greece in 2011 the condition was that the Greek government should make tax system improvements, cut the public sector workforce and lower public spending to reduce its debt burden.
What nobody had really properly considered is the impact of the austerity measures - in particular the detrimental effect on that most vital of public services: health care.
There are now around 40 community clinics operating across Greece. Dr Vichas's clinic has 9,500 patients on the books but with a nationwide unemployment increase of 20% since last year (215,735 people) the number of people flocking to the Helliniko clinic is growing fast.
People come to get treatment and drugs. Stamatis Govostis, a dignified, neatly turned-out man in his late fifties, is in no doubt what would happen to him if it weren't for Dr Vichas and his team of volunteers. "That's easy," he says - his eyes watering with emotion. "I would be dead." He says he feels like an old workhorse who, after working all his life as a waiter, is simply being left to suffer and die.
Dr Vichas says his clinic is the only place in the city where cancer patients can get free chemotherapy. They are also providing 200 families with milk formula for their babies.
The municipality provides the premises for the clinic, on a disused American military base, and pays the overheads. But the medical professionals - which include paediatricians, gynaecologists and cardiologists - work there for nothing.
All the drugs are donated by individuals and pharmaceutical companies. They enter the clinic by the plastic bagful, higgledy piggledy, to be processed by a team of volunteers led by pharmacists. They sort them, date them, label them and store them.
Individuals and companies donate drugs to the clinic
"What we're really proud of is this - it's a bit ugly, but it's our storeroom," says Martha Frangiadakis, one of the volunteers. She started to help at the clinic after seeing fellow Athenians suffering day after day on the streets and on TV.
"You sit in your living room and drink your coffee and say, 'Oh my, people are having such problems!' And you feel terrible. And ok, I come and sort meds once a week - big deal. But it's something."
If the clinic finds itself particularly short of a medicine, it posts a request on its blog. But if the clinic's storeroom can't supply a patient with what he or she needs, it's not uncommon for volunteers to walk with them to a pharmacy and pay for it out of their own pocket.
The clinic's pride and joy: the storeroom full of the sorted medicines
Katerina Dolianiti and Alexandros Zaganas recently came to the Helliniko clinic in desperation.
Their seven year-old son, Christos, had been diagnosed with angioneurotic edema of the larynx. The pair knew immediately what this meant, since Alexandros has the same rare disorder.
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They knew that Christos would be prone to sudden and dramatic swelling that would move rapidly along his body. If the swelling reached his stomach it would be excruciatingly painful - if it reached his face or neck, it would be life-threatening. For this reason, Christos would always have to have with him a syringe filled with a strong anti-inflammatory.
Each syringe costs 600 euros (£520), and Christos might need two or three a month. The family used to own a café and a bar, but both businesses closed during the recession. Now, Katerina and Alexandros are unemployed, like 27% of the working-age population - the highest rate in the EU.
"Every time we go to the hospital they won't see us," says Katerina. "Because we don't have insurance, we can't get the injection. If it's urgent and he needs the injection, sometimes I have to lie and say that I am insured. I don't like doing this but I have to."
Katerina has previous unpaid medical bills of her own, but there is no hiding from the system and they will eventually be added to her tax bill. She is so worried for her son that she checks on him every 10 minutes or so and won't let him play with his brothers - but she is also worried that her unpaid tax bill could land her in jail.
Christos Zaganas should always have a syringe of anti-inflammatory with him
"Thank God that these community clinics are now operating and these doctors are helping - otherwise there would be no way of getting treatment," she says. "People are dying - people do not have insurance and they can't get into hospitals."
Dr Vichas is now acting as an intermediary between the family and a local hospital: he is trying to get to supply anti-inflammatories for free. His clinic has a track record of applying pressure on behalf of patients with complex or serious problems. He recently succeeded in getting the state to waive a 6,000 euro (£5,200) fee for a cancer operation on a patient he had referred himself.
Dr Vichas has described Athens' volunteer medics as a "Robin Hood network"
The Evangelismos General Hospital in central Athens is one of the largest in Greece. They have felt the pain of the 23% cut in the Greek health budget - last year, their budget was 103 million euros (£90m), down from 150 million euros (£130m) in 2009.
The CEO of the hospital, Michail Theodorou, runs a tight ship. He says that the hospital has been able to make efficiency savings, and the quality of service to patients has not suffered.
One of his senior doctors is more forthright and frank: Ilias Sioras, a cardiologist and staff representative at the hospital with 25 years' experience, says that the staff are struggling, with nurses sometimes scheduled to work for three weeks without a day off.
Dr Sioras adds that some doctors don't follow the law and ask for all the patients' insurance details. "Every day I break the law," he says. "I never ask for insurance for any patient." He gives patients diagnostic tests for free, and says that as yet, no doctor has been punished for bending these rules.
The Greek health service has been hit by multiple blows since the country's economy was thrown into turmoil. As well as the budget cuts and the care needs of patients without insurance, there has been a migration into the state-sponsored insurance scheme of citizens who had previously paid for private healthcare.
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Is a sick economy making people sick?
A new book by David Stuckler and Sanjay Basu makes the case that between January and May 2011 there was a 52% rise in the incidence of HIV infection in Greece following government cuts to prevention programmes
They also claim that homelessness has gone up by 25% and homicides doubled between 2010 and 2011
Cuts to spraying programmes have led to the re-emergence of West Nile virus and malaria - Medecins Sans Frontieres told the BBC that if a further three cases of locally-caught malaria are recorded in the Lakonia region this year, Greece will reappear on the list of countries where the disease is endemic
Aris Violatzis, a clinical psychologist working for the Klimaka NGO, says that on the island of Crete, the suicide rate increased by 80% between 2010 and 2012
Dr Panos Eustathiou from the Ministry of Health agrees that Greece and the Greek health service are facing difficulties, however he insists that no-one - including non-Greek citizens and Greeks without insurance - is being turned away from hospitals. "Health services continue to be provided to all Greeks," he says.
He also denies that the emergence of community clinics is a sign that the health service is collapsing.
"These are signs of a society operating in austerity and difficulty," he says. "These are positive signs for a civilisation and society - not signs of disintegration."
At the Hellinikon clinic in Athens, Dr Vichas does not see it that way. He says that the government have "disregarded" their patients, although like many Greeks, he feels they are not ultimately to blame.
"We are sure the troika are aware of what is going on," he says. "It is the troika who are manufacturing these policies."
He says that his team cannot continue firefighting the city's health problems forever. He is especially worried about poor children falling behind with their vaccinations and malnutrition among babies with insufficient supply to milk powder.
"You could compare our situation to the story of Hydra and Hercules," he says. "When you cut off the head, and you feel like you have achieved something, another four or five grow."
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