Bad News: Brain Decline Begins at 27
Bad news today as BBC reports our brains begin their functional decline as early as age 27:
‘Brain decline’ begins at age 27
Professor Timothy Salthouse of the University of Virginia found reasoning, spatial visualisation and speed of thought all decline in our late 20s.
Therapies designed to stall or reverse the ageing process may need to start much earlier, he said.
His seven-year study of 2,000 healthy people aged 18-60 is published in the journal Neurobiology of Aging.
To test mental agility, the study participants had to solve puzzles, recall words and story details and spot patterns in letters and symbols.
The natural decline of some of our mental abilities as we age starts much earlier than some of us might expect
The same tests are already used by doctors to spot signs of dementia.
In nine out of 12 tests the average age at which the top performance was achieved was 22.
The first age at which there was any marked decline was at 27 in tests of brain speed, reasoning and visual puzzle-solving ability.
Things like memory stayed intact until the age of 37, on average, while abilities based on accumulated knowledge, such as performance on tests of vocabulary or general information, increased until the age of 60.
You can read the rest of the article at BBC Health News
Discouraging Sunrise 19 March 2009
When I got up this morning, my heart sank. It is not a glorious sunrise, it isn’t even one of Kuwait’s silvery sunrises, but a very very grey sunrise.
The Germans have a word “smutzich” (I may not have spelled that right) that means dirty, filthy, covered with grime . . . and the sunrise reminds me of that, it is grimy . . . and discouraging. That thin layer of yellow, whatever it is, is closer.
Weather Underground says the entire week will be clear:
But it amends that forecast with what is happening right now:
It might be a cloud, but what a grimy cloud! I hate to think that we breathe that air!
Painful Sight
Everytime I go to Fehaheel – not all that often, but maybe two times a month – I see water overflowing from two manholes. Sometimes, it is a LOT of water. It makes a terrible hazard along Gulf Road, where traffic is chaotic at best, and worse – in a dry and thirsty land, it is a terrible thing to waste water.
Sometimes the water stinks like sewage. It makes me wonder where this water is coming from? It also makes me nervous because if it is sewage water, it comes up, it dries on the ground, a wind comes along and blows it on to my salad as I sit outside with AdventureMan having lunch – and I haven’t a clue what I have just ingested. Not good!
This isn’t something that happens rarely. It happens often, often enough that I think it is every time I am in Fehaheel. This isn’t just bad for the environment, it is also very bad for our health. Whatever is going wrong here needs a permanent fix.
”ICU at Contagious Diseases Hospital isolated”
From today’s “” Al Watan:
KUWAIT: The Intensive Care Unit (ICU) at the Hospital of Contagious Diseases is completely isolated from the other wards in line with international regulations pertaining to this matter, said the hospital”s director Dr. Jamal AlـDuaij on Wednesday.
In a statement to Kuwait News Agency (KUNA), the director refuted local newspaper reports claiming that the ICU did not fall within the international standards, describing these claims as “baseless.”
He also said that patients that had been transferred to AlـRashed Allergies” Center were ones whose condition had stabilized, and this transfer was not because of shortage in bed space in the hospital”s ICU. ـKUNA
I get nervous when I see denials that use language like “these claims are baseless.”
Next Five Days
No sunshine photo this morning; I slept a little late. While yesterday and today are gorgeous, AdventureMan and I are stuffed up and sneezy – go figure. We got throught the dust, and when the sky is crystal clear, we get allergies?
We have some hot hot hot temperatures coming – isn’t this a little early for temperatures this warm?
Mostly Cloudy Sunrise
Good morning, Kuwait, or is it afternoon? I know most of you are sleeping in a little, after the exhausting celebrations of National Day and Liberation Day.
I stayed home!
Last year, it wasn’t the foam, although I hate the foam. For me, it is parents who allow their children to hang outside the car.
You know me. You read me every day. I’m not an angry person, but seeing parents with children on their laps, children in the front seat and most of all – children hanging out of windows, or with their heads / bodies out of skyroofs – it makes me see red. I want to get out of my car and scold people. It makes me SO angry that people would endanger their children.
There must be a safer way to express all the celebratory exuberance.
It is mostly cloudy outside.
Walk-a-thon Tomorrow (Saturday)
The weather is PERFECT. There is no excuse – honestly – this is a wonderful activity!
Don’t Trash My Kuwait
You know how ideas are . . . they some in flashes sometimes, and other times they trickle through a lot of material before appearing . . . you catch glimpses, and then one day the idea is complete.
Kuwaitis are proud people, and they love their country deeply.
That’s why I can’t understand how they can allow Kuwait to be so covered in trash and filth. I don’t understand why people just inches away from a trash can will toss a tissue on the ground. I don’t understand why there are plastic bags blowing around in the desert.
So here is a public service campaign idea. It puts Kuwaitis at the center. I would love to see a series of magazine ads, billboards, bus ads, etc. with real Kuwaitis who are making a difference, with the theme Don’t trash my Kuwait.
I know there is a new recycle group in Kuwait, who pick up recyclables – for free. I don’t know their name, but my heart was so happy when I heard about this group. Start with them, one photo, showing them holding things like plastic milk jugs and bags, newspapers, and give them a little free publicity, and get the campaign started. Their information is small print, big campaign slogan Don’t Trash My Kuwait.
Second photo, the volunteer group that goes underwater and rids the gulf of abandoned nets and trash, still in the water, holding the kinds of trash they collect, trying to rescue the Gulf: Don’t Trash My Kuwait.
Third photo, one of the volunteer beach clean-up groups with their bags and bags of litter: Don’t Trash My Kuwait.
Fourth photo – guy in traditional Kuwaiti dress with a falcon on his arm, trite, yes, but I still love it. I just don’t know how to tie it in to the campaign, LOL.
Fifth photo: 3baid, holding up handsfull of flyers, computer in the immediate background with PaperDump on the screen: Don’t Trash My Kuwait.
Don’t you just love it?
Your turn: additional photos/ groups / ideas for the Don’t Trash My Kuwait campaign.
Here’s how it started. At the top of an exit ramp the other day, we saw a man unbuckle his seatbelt, exit his car and place a bag in the trash receptacle. We clapped; he pumped his arms in the Rocky-esque victory signal. It was a glorious moment. I’d love to have more of them.
Yes, I’m an ex-pat, but I live here. Don’t Trash My Kuwait!
Never Blow Your Nose When You Have a Cold
The Claim: Never Blow Your Nose When You Have a Cold
From The New York Times
By ANAHAD O’CONNOR
Published: February 9, 2009
THE FACTS
Blowing your nose to alleviate stuffiness may be second nature, but some people argue it does no good, reversing the flow of mucus into the sinuses and slowing the drainage.
Counterintuitive, perhaps, but research shows it to be true.
To test the notion, Dr. J. Owen Hendley and other pediatric infectious disease researchers at the University of Virginia conducted CT scans and other measurements as subjects coughed, sneezed and blew their noses. In some cases, the subjects had an opaque dye dripped into their rear nasal cavities.
Coughing and sneezing generated little if any pressure in the nasal cavities. But nose blowing generated enormous pressure — “equivalent to a person’s diastolic blood pressure reading,” Dr. Hendley said — and propelled mucus into the sinuses every time. Dr. Hendley said it was unclear whether this was harmful, but added that during sickness it could shoot viruses or bacteria into the sinuses, and possibly cause further infection.
The proper method is to blow one nostril at a time and to take decongestants, said Dr. Anil Kumar Lalwani, chairman of the department of otolaryngology at the New York University Langone Medical Center. This prevents a buildup of excess pressure.
THE BOTTOM LINE:
Blowing your nose can create a buildup of excess pressure in sinus cavities.
scitimes@nytimes.com
Better, Still Sandy
Once again, we have “light haze.” This is better than yesterday – we can see the shore – but this is not what I would call a light haze. Taken around 7:30 a.m.
There is a 20% chance of rain on Monday. We surely need rain to damp down all this new orange sand.
My sister, Sparkle, asked if people don’t wear gauze masks when the sand blows in like this. Yes, Sparkle, you see them everywhere, but most people who can, stay home, stay inside. Even inside, last night when it was time to go to sleep, it felt like breathing underwater, the air feels thick and heavy. It gives you a little headache after a while, trying to breathe.
This morning is a little better; maybe there has been some shift in atmospheric pressure. Even though the sun is up, you don’t see a lot of orange like yesterday, but the thick haze in front of my house is more a tangerine-tinged cream color.
Weirder still, there are two new layers of sand on the beach in front of our house, orange and oranger:
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