Cannabis WORSE than Tobacco
From BBC Health News:
Cannabis harm worse than tobacco
The impact of cannabis is worsened by how joints are smoked.
A single cannabis joint could damage the lungs as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes one after another, scientists in New Zealand have said.
The research, published in the journal Thorax, found cannabis damaged the large airways in the lungs causing symptoms such as coughing and wheezing.
Read the rest of the story HERE.
And don’t let anyone tell you it isn’t addictive as well as damaging to your health.
McGuire’s for Steak
“I just have a yearning for a steak,” I said to my son’s wife, as we sat in the kitchen chatting and thinking about what to do for dinner. “I know you want to go for a run tonight, but maybe tomorrow night.”
Here is what I have loved about staying with them. Five minutes later she came back to me and said she had talked with her husband and they thought going out for steak tonight would be a very GOOD idea, and they could run tomorrow night.
And the best steaks, they both recommended, were at McGuire’s.
When we got there, the huge parking lot was already full. The street parking all around McGuire’s was full. We dropped off my son and his wife and I went to park in one of the few places they have heard cars are never towed from: Sammy’s Club for Gentlemen. It was still early, and we didn’t get towed.
Because it was their weekly fun-run night, we had to wait for a table. As we waited, runners finishing the run were running past us. Run six runs and you are eligible for the McGuire’s coveted green fun run shirt, with a shamrock on it. Woo hoooooo! I have heard there is a Hash House Harrier group in Kuwait that does something similar, but they change locations every run, whereas the McGuire sponsored runs all end up at – Maguire’s! They have free eats for the runners, who have to rehydrate in the McGuire’s bar.
There is another tradition at McGuires; customer write their name in felt pen on a dollar bill and staple it to the ceiling. The bar has an estimated $500,000 in dollar bills stapled to it’s ceilings, walls, pass throughs, etc. It is an amazing sight.
The steaks were magnificent. I had the peppercorn steak, and it was so big I took half of it home for the next day. It came with sides – your choice – garlic mashed potatoes, grilled vegetables, asparagas (my choice) and several others. The steaks were perfect, and the entire meal was worth every penny. They also have a good variety of seafood selections, and Irish selections, and a great selection of beer and wines.
Tuscan Oven – Pensacola
We have food prejudices in my family, and one of our prejudices is against thick crusted pizzas. We like thin crust pizzas, and we like them baked in a wood burning oven. So when my son and his wife recommended we go to the Tuscan Oven, I knew we were in for a treat.
The pizzas were fine. We all ordered them with a minimum of cheese, and that’s the way they came. I had the Pizza Putanesca, all vegetables, with capers and artichokes and oh, it was totally delicious. My son and his wife had a much larger specialty pizza, and they, too, ate every bite. The Tuscan oven is a WOW in my book.
And here was the starter – Yes, I know it looks like chopsticks, but those are tiny little breadsticks:
This place is worth a trip to Pensacola all on it’s own!
Obesity Contagious
Obesity ‘contagious’, experts say
This report is from BBC Health News.
The study looked at data collected over 32 years
Having a friend, sibling or spouse who is overweight raises a person’s risk of being obese too, US researchers say.
They said data on more than 12,000 people suggested the risk was increased by 57% if a friend was obese, by 40% if a sibling was and 37% if a spouse was.
They argued this showed social factors, such as the body sizes of other people, were important in developing obesity. . . .
“Rather, there is a direct, causal relationship. What appears to be happening is that a person becoming obese most likely causes a change of norms about what counts as an appropriate body size.
“People come to think that it is OK to be bigger since those around them are bigger, and this sensibility spreads.”
The study was actually about heart disease, and this result was a by-product of the study.
Libya Frees Medics
This has got to be one of history’s most bizarre news stories. For years, these Bulgarian (and one Palestinian) medics have been accused of deliberately infecting Libyan children with the AIDS virus at medical facilities.
Do you believe they did it? Most medical people are in the profession because they want to help. They have consistently denied their guilt, except under torture, and we all know that under torture people will say anything to make the pain stop.
I am betting the procedures in Libya were so primitive, the sterilization minimal to none, and the disease was transmitted by accident. Of course it would be too embarrassing for a nation to admit 1) that any Libyan had AIDS and 2) that poor hospital procedures and equipment caused the infection of children, so let’s accuse the guest workers from a poor country.
Here is a case where patient, persistent diplomacy prevailed. Although convicted in the Libyan courts, and although the guilty verdict was upheld by their courts, they were released to Bulgaria where they received an immediate pardon. Pardon my cynicism, but I don’t believe even the Libyans believed they were guilty. It became an embarassment all the way around.
HIV medics released to Bulgaria
The medics were greeted by tearful relatives and well-wishers
Six Bulgarian medics who were serving life sentences in Libya have arrived in Bulgaria following their release, ending their eight-year incarceration.
They were immediately pardoned by Bulgarian President Georgi Parvanov.
The five nurses and a Palestinian-born doctor were convicted of deliberately infecting Libyan children with HIV – charges they have always denied.
You can read the full story at BBC News.
Supersize Me
Have you heard about this movie? It is a documentary, and you might think “Oh YAAWWWWWWNNN” but this one really kept going. I love visiting our son; I learn SO much.
The creator of this movie decides that for one month, he will eat every meal, three meals a day, at McDonald’s. And he has to try every entry on the menu at least once. And if the employees ask him to super-size, he has to do it. It appeared that he also made a rule for himself that he had to finish every meal. I don’t know how he did it.
Before he does this, he visits three doctors, a cardiologist, a gastroentrologist and . . .hmmmm, maybe an internal medicine specialist. He has health care professionals who will do blood readings every week and weigh him in. He starts at 185 lbs and very low body fat, and his cholesterol and triglicerides are to die for – excellent readings. His girlfriend is a vegan chef, so he has been eating beautiful meals, but not a lot of meat. (He is not a vegetarian.)
We watch him eat many of the meals. On the third day, his system rebels, as he is trying to finish, I think, a double quarter pounder, and he vomits. It isn’t pretty. At one point, his girlfriend says he has lost his sex drive, and has far less energy than before.
At the end of the first week, his weight has gone up to 203 – 12 lbs in one week! Worse, his cholesterol is rising rapidly. The second week, he is feeling sick and the doctor says he is developing a fatty liver, from digesting all the fats and sugars he is eating.
At the end of the month, he has gained 25 lbs, his system is in total rebellion against all the fats and sugars, and the doctors have warned him that he must stop now to reverse the damage.
Threaded through this adventure are sides, where we learn how much sugar the supersized drinks contain, and that even the SALADS at McDonalds have sugar in them. The calorie count for one of the salads exceeded that for the Big Mac!
I have to admit, there is nothing like a fast food hamburger every now and then – maybe once every six months or so – but this movie is a must see if you are eating at a fast food restaurant even once a week. The “food” they are serving is so processed, it barely qualifies as food.
The man who conducted this experiment went on a vegan diet for a while when he finished, and it took 8 weeks for his blood readings to return to normal, and 9 MONTHS for him to lose all the weight he had gained.
This was a fascinating movie, and a must see if we want to counter the rising tide of obesity spreading around the world. If it were an illness, people would be mobilized. As it stands, obesity is going to kill more people every year than smoking. The narrator says this is going to be the first generation of young people whose lives will be shorter than their parents, thanks to fast food. See this movie! Take your children!
There is a post script, and another reason I love this movie. As we were watching, my son said “Mom, thank you for cooking all those dinners for me as I was growing up.” He and his wife are very exercise and diet conscious, and I am proud to say, they live very conscientiously, trying to recycle, trying to eat fewer processed foods. What a gift that “thank-you” was!
Bayou Texar, Early Morning
A warm breeze blows, barely ruffling the mirror like waters of the Bayou Texar early in the morning. The area is like a large scale fitness track, with singles, couples and groups running, walking, chatting and getting fit. Mid-day is brutal, but early morning and evenings are almost perfect. This is for you, R, a reminder of your school days in Pensacola, and for you, Adventure Man, wishing you were here, too. 🙂
News from Florida
In Kuwait, the free press is still very cautious. They might hint at a story, they might give a few details, but they are still cautious about crimes which in other countries would be a matter of public record.
Here is a very sad story from the Florida news scene today:
State Representative Arrested for Prostitution Charge
State Representative Bob Allen was arrested Wednesday after offering to perform oral sex for $20 on an undercover male police officer, authorities said.
Veteran’s Memorial Park was under surveillance when Allen, Republican – Merritt Island, was seen coming in and out of a restroom three times. . . Allen, 48, then approached an undercover officer and was arrested.
He has been charged with solicition for prostitution, which has a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Brevard County officials said Allen posted a $500 bond.
For my Kuwait readers, a state representative is an elected official who helps make the laws. The Republican party is considers itself the guardian of public morals. So there is some irony in this story, as well as infinite sadness.
Chocolate ‘lowers’ blood pressure
A mouthful of dark chocolate each day could reduce blood pressure, cutting the risk of stroke, research suggests.
Forty-four people with raised blood pressure were put into two groups. One ate six grams of dark chocolate daily, the other the same amount of white.
The first group saw blood pressure fall slightly, but the others saw no change, researchers wrote in the Journal of American Medicine (JAMA).
The British Heart Foundation warned chocolate was a “treat not treatment”.
You can read the rest of the article at the BBC Health News here. Heh heh heh – sounds like a ‘treatment’ to me!
Update on Chinese Seafood
From AOL Health Watch originally taken from an article by Andrew Martin at the New York Times. You can read that article, and several similar articles, there.
The problems with Chinese seafood are evident in a database of products that the FDA stops at the border. In May, for instance, the FDA. turned away 165 shipments from China, 49 of which were seafood.
Monkfish was rejected for being filthy. Frozen catfish nuggets were turned away because they contained veterinary drugs. Tilapia fillets were contaminated with salmonella.
The problems were even worse in April, when 257 shipments from China were rejected, including 68 of seafood. Frozen eel contained pesticides, frozen channel catfish had salmonella and frozen yellowfin steaks were filthy, the records show.
The word “filthy” resonates with me. I am going to stick with Kuwaiti fish!
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