It would be lovely if you could edit your answer to include links to at least one paper (or abstract thereof, e.g. on PubMed) for each of the scientific points you raise. One wonderful thing about science is that it is checkable by far more people than can actually perform the research.
Written by Rex Kerr
One who rejoices when everything is made as simple as possible, but no simpler. Sayer of things that may be wrong, but not so bad that they're not even wrong.