Phthalates Risk Factor for Diabetes
A Swedish study, posted on AOL Everyday Health News, indicates we heighten our risk of diabetes with repeated exposures to phthalates common in items we use every day of our lives . . .
HealthDay News
Common Plastics Chemical Might Boost Diabetes Risk
Phthalates, found in soaps, lotions and food packaging, may disrupt insulin production, researchers say.
By Steven Reinberg, HealthDay News
THURSDAY, April 12, 2012 (HealthDay News) — High blood levels of chemicals called phthalates, which are found in soaps, lotions, plastics and toys, may double the risk for type 2 diabetes among older adults, Swedish researchers say.
“Our study supports the hypothesis that certain environmental chemicals can contribute to the development of diabetes,” said lead researcher Monica Lind, an associate professor of environmental medicine in the section for occupational and environmental medicine at Uppsala University.
“Most people come into daily contact with phthalates as they are used as softening agents in everyday plastics and as carriers of perfumes in cosmetics and self-care products,” she added.
The study’s implications “must be to cut down on plastics and choose self-care products without perfumes,” Lind said.
But the research does not prove cause and effect. To find out whether phthalates (pronounced THAL ates) truly are risk factors for diabetes, further studies are needed that show similar associations, she said.
“Experimental studies are also needed regarding what biological mechanisms might underlie these connections,” Lind stressed.
The report was published online April 12 and in the June print edition of Diabetes Care.
For the study, Lind’s team collected data on more than 1,000 Swedish men and women, age 70, who took part in the Prospective Investigation of the Vasculature in Uppsala Seniors Study.
The researchers measured the participants’ blood sugar, insulin levels and levels of toxins from the breakdown of phthalates.
As expected, they found diabetes was more common among those who were overweight and had high cholesterol.
And they also found an association between blood levels of some phthalates and diabetes. That association remained even after taking into account obesity, cholesterol, smoking and exercise.
For people with high phthalate levels, the risk of developing diabetes was about double compared to those with lower levels, the investigators found.
Some phthalates were also linked to disrupted insulin production, the researchers said. Insulin is a hormone that helps deliver blood sugar into the body’s cells for energy. Without insulin, or with too little of the hormone, too much sugar stays in the blood, setting the stage for diabetes.
“Even at relatively low levels of phthalate in the blood, the risk of getting diabetes begins to rise,” Lind added.
Other studies have linked these chemicals with breast growth in boys and reproductive problems in men, possibly caused by estrogen disruption.
Phthalates are used in hundreds of products, such as toys, vinyl flooring and wall coverings, detergents, lubricating oils, food packaging, pharmaceuticals, blood bags and tubing, according to information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Personal care products, such as nail polish, hair sprays and shampoos, also contain phthalates.
At present, “the FDA does not have compelling evidence that phthalates, as used in cosmetics, pose a safety risk,” according to the FDA website.
In the United States, companies are not required to test the long-term health effects of chemicals before using them in consumer products. Lind said this means the dangers of hazardous chemicals aren’t known until they are already widely used.
Lind said the health effects of chemicals should be tested before they reach the consumer market similar to the way drugs get tested before being approved.
“We are looking at a tip of an iceberg,” she said in terms of a possible health crisis. “We are just scratching the very top of the iceberg.”
The way the system is designed, if phthalates were banned, they would be replaced by other chemicals about which even less is known, Lind said.
According to the Environmental Working Group, a group trying to rid hazardous chemicals from consumer products, there is no practical way to choose phthalate-free products. Sometimes the print on ingredient labels is too small to read, and different names are often used for the same plasticizing chemicals. And some products lack ingredient labels even though they’re required by federal regulations.
That said, some of the names to look for in cosmetics, self-care products, solid air fresheners, and scented candles are: mono-methyl phthalate (MMP), mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP) and mono-isobutyl phthalate (MiBP), which are types of the chemicals dimethylphthalate (DMP), diethyl phthalate (DEP) and di-isobutyl phthalate (DiBP). DMP is also used in ink and as a softening agent in plastics.
Happy Easter
While an Easter Church service can get a bit long for a toddler (“No baby church! Big church!”), learning to hunt for eggs is just pure delight. We had Easter dinner and an egg hunt and then our little Happy Toddler spent the night. He has his own room, his own bed – and he slept through the entire night! Woo HOOOO!
We have a nearby park that he just loves! Who wouldn’t? When you are two years old, and love to run, all the world is your playground!
“You Brought the Sunshine!”
When I arrived in Seattle, my best friend from University said “You brought the sunshine!”
(This week’s weather in Seattle)
Now, when I fly back to Seattle, it takes a mere half day, not a day and a half. When I leave early enough, I can arrive mid-day, and beat the rush hour traffic. You’d think after driving in Kuwait and Qatar that I would find Seattle traffic tame, but Germany, with it’s wide-laned autobahn, and Pensacola, with it’s laid back version of going-home traffic have spoiled me.
Seattle is beautiful, although my trip is one of those more stressful ones, with things to be done to manage changing circumstances. My Mom may – or may not – have had a stroke. What is verifiable is that she has been very very sick, too sick to live on her own any longer, sick enough to need hospitalization, and professional monitoring from now on. The sisters have handled mountains of work and desperate calls for assistance, and now it is my turn to do what I can.
I stayed in Mom’s condo, but it was a little soulless, all her favorite pieces of furniture moved to her new place, her plants languishing, the stuff and detritus of life waiting to be cleared out.
Thank God for my best friend, and for the sunshine.
The sun just beginning to color the mountains as it rises off in the east.
The sisters had a full day of business, money, finances, and Mom’s recovery plan. We get a little goofy after a while; it’s a family culture. Our way of handling the worst, worst of times is laughter, and there were several times we were almost breathless from laughing. Yeh, I guess some would find it inappropriate, but for us, for our family, I think it is how we survive.
My second day there, we had a joyful family wedding. It was one of the sweetest events I have attended in a long time, and I loved the way the bride and the groom looked at each other, that they enjoyed their own wedding, smiling, laughing, dancing. Their signature was over everything; the colors (Purples!) and the food and the music and the ceremony, it was all perfectly thought through and delightful.
Sun setting in the west over the Olympic mountains
The rest of the trip was just hard work. And now, back in Pensacola, I have flights booked already for my next trip back. All part of life’s circle, I guess.
Through all this, we have met with kind, helpful people, who have made all the sorting out easier. Thanks be to God.
AdventureMan Does Lobster
I don’t know if you remember, but when AdventureMan retired, it didn’t stick. He retired in April 2010, went back to work on contract to the same company in June – August 2010, retired, went back from October 2010 – February 2011. Finally, I think he has really retired. He hasn’t worked in a year. I think the last stint was ENOUGH! Thanks be to God.
I wasn’t sure how life would evolve, once he really really committed to retirement. And it definitely has been an evolution, starting with the day he told me he was going to re-organize my spice drawers (No! No! No, you’re not!) to yesterday, when he told me he had a yearning to broil some lobster for dinner.
You know those Red Lobster ads, like for a whole month they show these mouth-watering dinners featuring lobster, but if you actually go to Red Lobster, they are overcooked and pretty tasteless, sometimes even covered in cheese? We always say ‘never again.’
AdventureMan is a GREAT cook. Who knew? We had hints, back when our baby was born, and had colic, and AdventureMan took lessons in Chinese cooking on Saturday mornings and would cook Chinese food while I walked the squalling baby, but once the baby no longer had colic, we reverted to more traditional ways of doing things. (Pity, I still love his Chinese food!)
He started with simple things, and has become more and more daring. Lobster is expensive, but his lobster were PERFECT. He basted them with a mix of olive oil, a little sea salt and herbes de Provence. And he also fixed green beans, which were perfectly cooked, still just a little crisp, perfect.
Wooo HOOOO on you, AdventureMan!
Depends Who Writes the Obituary . . .
I am sorry, but this totally cracks me up. I found in on AOL Huffpost and it is about a Tampa family, where the one writing the obituary gets to insert his point of view. We all have families; they each have their points of view.
When I am reading the obituaries, the ones that crack me up are the ones who have clearly written their own obituaries and had them ready to go when their time is up. Many of the ones written by men are a little grandiose, the ones written by women are more matter-of-fact. You can usually tell what they found most important about the life they lived. Now and then, you find someone original, with a sense of humor and proportion about themselves, who talk about hunting, or their dogs, or sailing. There are people I wish I had met when I read their obituaries; maybe we should all publish pre-death summaries of our lives so far . . . Oh wait . . . that’s a blog, LOL!
When AdventureMan says “that’s not how I remembered it!” I always say (you’ve heard it before, you can say it along with me) “Get your own blog, AdventureMan!” But it is true, the one who is doing the blog gets to skew the history, LLOOLL!
By Laura Rowley
One of my first assignments in my first real job in journalism was writing obituaries for The Milwaukee Journal. I found it a little daunting at first, this job of writing about the dead. But that changed after a phone call with a woman whose daughter had died in a car crash overseas with her husband and toddler.
It was my job to call the family for the story, and I assumed the mother would hang up on me. Instead she spoke for an hour, sobbing, telling me stories about her extraordinary daughter and son-in-law, and the grandchild she had barely gotten to know. At the end of the call she said, “Thank you, my husband won’t talk with me about this.”
In every call I made after that I had a different attitude. I realized that the obituary is a place where ordinary people have the opportunity to honor the people they love in a very public way.
That is, unless the survivor is self-centered enough to believe the obituary is about him, as appears to be the case with Angelo “A.J.” Anello of Florida. Anello placed an obituary for his mother Josie, who died on February 11, taking the opportunity to insult his siblings Ninfa and Peter with the following line:
“She is survived by her Son, ‘A.J.’, who loved and cared for her; Daughter ‘Ninfa’, who betrayed her trust, and Son ‘Peter’, who broke her heart.”
The source of this rivalry between these post 50 siblings? Money. Ninfa Simpson told the Tampa Bay Times that her brother A.J. became more controlling over their mother once their father died, which A.J. denied. The two told the paper that the third sibling, Peter, has been estranged from the family for more than 25 years. The Tampa Bay Times also reported that:
Simpson says Anello drained the mother’s savings and maxed out her credit cards. Anello says Simpson and her husband used their mother’s Social Security checks to go on vacations to Branson, Mo., and Alaska.
Both siblings deny the other’s allegations.
A.J. told the Tampa Bay Times that he was merely conveying what his mother said through the obituary; nevertheless, an alternative version of Josie Anello’s obituary — which does not include evidence of the siblings’ feud — has also been published.
What do you think about Josie Anello’s obituary? Let us know in the comments, and watch the below video to hear more about this unbelievable family rift.
Rainy Saturday at 5 Sisters in Pensacola
It’s been rainy and dark the entire day, and I know what I need – I need to go to Five Sisters. We had planned to go to the huge Pensacola Mardi Gras Parade, but as the rain came down, my spirits were also dampened. There was a time – and I could see in AdventureMan’s eyes, he was hoping this wasn’t one of those times – when I would have said “We HAVE to go, even if it is raining!”
He has a little cold and I drift in and out of allergies, and standing a couple hours out in the rain and hollering and catching beads is probably not what mature people like us should be doing. (A part of me is greatly depressed at being so ‘mature’.)
But I know just the thing. Five Sisters. As we drive up, a parking space becomes available, always a good omen, and as we walk to the door, we are greeted with divine fragrances of smoke and grilling meat and we are starting to feel better already.
On the menu board, one of the specials of the day is BBQ Shrimp. Ummmm, ummmmmm, doesn’t that sound good on a rainy day. I order the BBQ Shrimp with cheese grits and a salad, AdventureMan orders the Seafood Platter. Bluesy music, some old hits from the 60’s and 70’s, and our food comes.
My BBQ Shrimp was AWESOME. Today it was tangy, vinegar-y and Tabasco sauce, the essence of Louisiana. It came sizzling hot, but the shrimp still had the shells on, which AdventureMan tells me is the way it comes when it is BBQ Shrimp in the South. Oh well, it is a good thing that the shells are on and I have to work to get them off before I can eat each one, if I didn’t have to get those tails and shells off I would probably gobble them down in no time at all! As it was, I was able to bring about half of the shrimp home to savor later. 🙂
AdventureMan said on the way home “Oysters sure are rich, aren’t they?” I just laughed, I like oysters cooked, but mostly I like them steamed, and even then, they are so rich I can’t eat many of them. If you deep fry them, you just add rich on rich. His dish was fish, shrimp and oysters, deep fried, and some of 5 Sisters fabulous fries, which he didn’t eat, and didn’t need because there was so much seafood on the Seafood Platter:
As we left, it was still raining, one of those days that went from dark to dark grey to not-quite-so-dark grey to a couple moments of light grey and then back to dark grey and now it is almost dark once again. We don’t often have a day with no sunshine in Pensacola, and it is very very sad when that one day is the day of the Pensacola Mardi Gras Parade and it pours down rain just as the parade is starting. Sometimes life just isn’t fair. But Five Sisters puts a smile back on our faces every time.
Cramming for the Exam
“I’m cramming for my exam” I said to AdventureMan, as he eyed my plate full of vegetables and my WonTon soup broth.
“What exam?” he asked.
“I have a follow up with Dr. Internal Medicine, and I need to get my blood tested in two weeks. In two weeks I can make sure my cholesterol and blood sugar and blood pressure are all in line,” I told him.
My sister, Big Diamond, told me that it only takes two weeks of proper eating to get the numbers right. I did it last time and it worked. Now and then, between exams, I eat something too sweet, or too white, or too high on the glycemic index, but not the two weeks before my blood test! No no no!
Whoda thunk I would reach this ripe, mature age and still have to worry about exams?
Scanning Obituaries
Who knew? I certainly didn’t, and yet I find that I’m not alone. AdventureMan does it, too, and other friends. One friend says she thinks she scans the obituaries to celebrate the fact that she is still alive. That may be it for most of us, but in addition, I find that there are people living among us with amazing histories, and we don’t even know. Sometimes when you read an obit, you can tell that the person wrote it himself or herself, and what that person considered important in his/her life. Sometimes the obituary is not very loving.
Southern newspapers, in my experience, are much richer in extraordinary detail that newspapers in bigger cities, like Seattle. In bigger cities, only the rich and famous or notorious get much space; it may be that the space is far more expensive in the bigger cities, or that families are less willing to shell out from the estate for the bigger coverage. Southerners value family, and history; it’s a part of the culture.
Yesterday, when I took the Pensacola News Journal in to AdventureMan, I had circled something in one of the obituaries, knowing that he, like me, only reads them now and then. I didn’t want him to miss this line:
(Name) was a Past Mighty Chosen One of the Zelica Daughters of Mokanna, Ladies Auxiliary to the Grotto.
Holy smokes! I thought it might be one of the Mardi Gras Krewe things, but AdventureMan googled, and discovered that is a Masonic offshoot, and their larger groups are called Cauldrons. (!)
In America of the early 1900’s, social affiliation groups were important. People belonged to religious groups like Knights of Columbus, Ladies of the Church, etc, quasi-religious groups like Masons and Shriners, and social groups like the Elks and Moose and Lions Club. Some groups still exist, and are still going strong, like Rotary Club, and special interest groups. In Pensacola, there is a Tea Party AND a Coffee Party. There is a Philipino-American Republican Club. When people gather together regularly to share something in common, they can form a group. All of these groups help people be connected in their communities and in their lives, and help people to look after one another.
I belonged to a group once that called ourselves the Aqua-Babes. To be perfectly honest, we might not be total babes, but hey – it’s our group, we can call ourselves what we want, right?
But oh, my, to be a Mighty Chosen One . . .
Happy Two Years Old
I remember when they were called the Terrible Twos . . . but, at two, our little Happy Toddler is a delight:
He is so delighted to be able to communicate. We can hear him in his car seat, practicing his pronunciation, so people will understand what he says. Two weeks ago, he was patiently trying to communicate something to us, and we thought he was asking about the garbage can, but he was asking about his car blanket. Now “car blanket” is clear, and daily he gathers more and more vocabulary. “Stuck!” he chortles! “Bubbles!” “Tractor!” “Door OPEN!”
We laugh with glee to see his delight at our comprehension.
There are other times he cracks us up. “What color is this?” we ask, and he says “Lello,” but he isn’t even looking. He doesn’t really care much what color it is. If we say “no, it isn’t yellow” he might say “red” or “geen” or “boo” but he isn’t looking and he doesn’t care. The-Grandmother-who-lives-on-color hopes that this is just a passing phase, and that one day he will care whether it is carmine or flaming or blood or cherry or claret . . .
He walks boldly, he runs exuberantly, he skips, he dances, he climbs; he is a very all-boy boy. He has a dignity all his own, and a confidence that he is greatly loved. We thank God for this little grandson.
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