http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Synopsis
Cartman wins a national environmental essay contest by plagiarizing Thoreau's Walden. The prize is getting on live TV with Kathy Lee Gifford, who visits South Park. This causes Mr. Garrison to relive a traumatic childhood memory when young Kathy Lee beat him in a talent show. Mr. Hat convinces Mr. Garrison that he must kill her. Meanwhile, Cartman decides to take Weight Gain 4000 so that he can "bulk up" for his big appearance. He becomes so fat that when he is accepting the award from Kathy Lee, the stage collapses at the same moment Mr. Garrison fires at her, hitting Kenny instead. Cartman gets to be on Geraldo, Mr. Hat is committed to a mental hospital, and Chef gives Kathy Lee some sweet lovin'.
Full Recap
Cartman wins a contest for having the best environmental essay, but he can't remember what he wrote about. Wendy suspects that Cartman has cheated and she is going to prove it. Kathie Lee Gifford is coming to South Park to give Cartman a trophy. Cartman prepares for the event by bulking up with Weight Gain 4000. Mr. Garrison is supposed to be directing the children in a play about the history of their town, but Kathie Lee’s pending arrival distracts him. Back when he was in grade school with Kathie Lee he believes she cheated to win the talent show. Mr. Garrison gets a gun and goes to the book depository with plans for revenge. Meanwhile, Cartman has expanded to 150 pounds or more because of the Weight Gain 4000 and everyone has begun calling him "Wide Load." The award proceedings are interrupted when Mr. Garrison tries to kill Kathie Lee Gifford, but kills Kenny instead. Wendy exposes the truth about Cartman's paper; Chef makes sweet love to Kathie Lee and Cartman goes on Geraldo.
Kenny dies when he's catapulted into the air and gets shot by Mr. Garrison (who's trying to kill Kathy Lee Gifford) and lands on the flagpole, thus impaling him.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
substitutes to animals j.883.002 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
An Associated Press story in the morning paper, today, described a move by animal activists to make attacks on researchers who work with animals increasingly personal. Teams that used to hold placards outside conferences and labs now picket scientists’ homes. Some “animal rights” groups use bullhorns to send neighbors the message that “Your neighbor kills animals,” the story said.
These reports rile me up. On lots of levels. First, so-called animal-rights groups seek to compel change through brutish intimidation. They are, in a word, bullies. The goal here is not to change the minds of scientists about the value of their labors but to intimidate their families and annoy — if not enrage — their neighbors. (I don’t like neighbors’ dogs barking all day or night; bullhorn-bleating activists are just a human corollary.)
If these activists have a beef with scientists, they ought to compel with data or the law. If those don’t work, maybe the argument they’ve been trumpeting isn’t all that compelling after all.
Actually, I’d like to see someone probe the behaviors of these alleged animal guardians to see how well they practice what they preach. For instance, I strongly suspect that when the animal crusaders (and especially their loved ones) become ill or injured, they don’t eschew life-saving medicines and procedures that were first pioneered through animal research. And if they don’t, they’re hypocrites to picket, harass — and occasionally even destroy the research of — toxicologists and biomedical scientists.
The animal researchers I know truly love animals. Many trained as veterinarians. Their goal, indeed their passion, is the humane treatment of animals, often in service of understanding — and ultimately eliminating — threats to the health and well being of wildlife.
Another suspicion: Animal rights crusaders don’t have an abiding respect for all fauna. Indeed, I’d like to see some organization — perhaps a major biomedical research group — finance detectives to investigate how deeply animal-protection attitudes run in all members of the movement.
I suspect we’d find that if their homes were under siege by marauding termites or carpenter bees, they wouldn’t let the insects destroy those structures. If activists moved into a roach-infested apartment, they probably would not willingly let these pests share their food, beds, and their infants’ eyebrows (because yes, roaches will eat nails and brows). If their kindergartners were sent home with lice, what do you want to bet they’d just accept the infestation and resort to home schooling these kids?
This morning’s news story quoted Jerry Vlasak of the Animal Liberation Front as saying that although he would not advocate an animal-scientist’s murder, “if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable.” I can’t begin to fathom what moral compass would lead him to that assessment. Such a comment also goes a long way toward undercutting the basic premise of protecting animals (of which Homo sapiens is but one).
I support every American’s first amendment right to free speech. But bullying and harassment is not protected by law in many jurisdictions. Moreover, if we’re talking morality here, which is more moral: to threaten the safety and life of a researcher engaged in studies that may improve the health, well-being, and longevity of millions of people or to threaten the lives of several dozen animals that were bred for the express purpose of being humanely sacrificed for highly regulated and well-supervised health studies?
Where good substitutes to animals in toxicology exist, I support their use. But initially validating even those may require the use of some animals for comparison purposes. And in many instances, good substitutes do not exist (for technical reasons). In those instances, I see no reason to substitute toddlers, grandpa, or college co-eds as our initial hypothesis-testing guinea pigs.
Instead of targeting scientists and harassing their families, I’d like to see animal activists focus their attention on those who not only encourage animal research but also provide most of its funding: Uncle Sam and Big Pharma. If the charge is that animal research is amoral, activists should engage constructively and deliberatively with those responsible for balancing the risks and benefits of research. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
But we should never give activists even tacit license to bully researchers, because in short order it may escalate to terrorism.
An Associated Press story in the morning paper, today, described a move by animal activists to make attacks on researchers who work with animals increasingly personal. Teams that used to hold placards outside conferences and labs now picket scientists’ homes. Some “animal rights” groups use bullhorns to send neighbors the message that “Your neighbor kills animals,” the story said.
These reports rile me up. On lots of levels. First, so-called animal-rights groups seek to compel change through brutish intimidation. They are, in a word, bullies. The goal here is not to change the minds of scientists about the value of their labors but to intimidate their families and annoy — if not enrage — their neighbors. (I don’t like neighbors’ dogs barking all day or night; bullhorn-bleating activists are just a human corollary.)
If these activists have a beef with scientists, they ought to compel with data or the law. If those don’t work, maybe the argument they’ve been trumpeting isn’t all that compelling after all.
Actually, I’d like to see someone probe the behaviors of these alleged animal guardians to see how well they practice what they preach. For instance, I strongly suspect that when the animal crusaders (and especially their loved ones) become ill or injured, they don’t eschew life-saving medicines and procedures that were first pioneered through animal research. And if they don’t, they’re hypocrites to picket, harass — and occasionally even destroy the research of — toxicologists and biomedical scientists.
The animal researchers I know truly love animals. Many trained as veterinarians. Their goal, indeed their passion, is the humane treatment of animals, often in service of understanding — and ultimately eliminating — threats to the health and well being of wildlife.
Another suspicion: Animal rights crusaders don’t have an abiding respect for all fauna. Indeed, I’d like to see some organization — perhaps a major biomedical research group — finance detectives to investigate how deeply animal-protection attitudes run in all members of the movement.
I suspect we’d find that if their homes were under siege by marauding termites or carpenter bees, they wouldn’t let the insects destroy those structures. If activists moved into a roach-infested apartment, they probably would not willingly let these pests share their food, beds, and their infants’ eyebrows (because yes, roaches will eat nails and brows). If their kindergartners were sent home with lice, what do you want to bet they’d just accept the infestation and resort to home schooling these kids?
This morning’s news story quoted Jerry Vlasak of the Animal Liberation Front as saying that although he would not advocate an animal-scientist’s murder, “if you had to hurt somebody or intimidate them or kill them, it would be morally justifiable.” I can’t begin to fathom what moral compass would lead him to that assessment. Such a comment also goes a long way toward undercutting the basic premise of protecting animals (of which Homo sapiens is but one).
I support every American’s first amendment right to free speech. But bullying and harassment is not protected by law in many jurisdictions. Moreover, if we’re talking morality here, which is more moral: to threaten the safety and life of a researcher engaged in studies that may improve the health, well-being, and longevity of millions of people or to threaten the lives of several dozen animals that were bred for the express purpose of being humanely sacrificed for highly regulated and well-supervised health studies?
Where good substitutes to animals in toxicology exist, I support their use. But initially validating even those may require the use of some animals for comparison purposes. And in many instances, good substitutes do not exist (for technical reasons). In those instances, I see no reason to substitute toddlers, grandpa, or college co-eds as our initial hypothesis-testing guinea pigs.
Instead of targeting scientists and harassing their families, I’d like to see animal activists focus their attention on those who not only encourage animal research but also provide most of its funding: Uncle Sam and Big Pharma. If the charge is that animal research is amoral, activists should engage constructively and deliberatively with those responsible for balancing the risks and benefits of research. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
But we should never give activists even tacit license to bully researchers, because in short order it may escalate to terrorism.
receptor sites 8.sit.33402 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Elderly people with excess amounts of the protein fetuin-A are more likely than others to develop type 2 diabetes, a new study finds. Because earlier work showed that the protein may interfere with the action of insulin, the new findings potentially implicate fetuin-A in diabetes and suggest the protein may make a good target for drug therapy.
Scientists have found fetuin-A tantalizing ever since lab experiments showed it competed with insulin to bind to receptor proteins on cells. By doing so, fetuin-A seems to crowd out insulin and prevent it from making glucose available to muscle cells.
“We don’t understand why one person who’s obese develops diabetes and another doesn’t,” says Joachim Ix, a nephrologist at the University of California, San Diego and coauthor on the study. Fetuin-A may play a role since it seems to operate irrespective of weight, he notes. That could help doctors to identify people at hidden risk of developing diabetes. “Ultimately that might lead to different therapies in these two different kinds of people,” Ix says.
Further research in mice genetically engineered to lack fetuin-A showed that the animals were the mirror opposites of mice with diabetes. “They were lean, mean mice machines,” Ix says.
Those early findings led Ix and his colleagues to assess the protein’s role in people. The researchers identified healthy elderly individuals who had participated in a medical study starting in the late 1990s while they were all still in their 70s. Each volunteer had given a blood sample at the start of the study. Ix and his team identified 135 people in the study who had developed type 2 diabetes during the six-year study period and another 384 who hadn’t.
High levels of fetuin-A in the blood increased the risk of diabetes by 70 percent.
The researchers accounted for differences between the groups in age, gender, obesity, lifestyle, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and proteins associated with inflammation. The study appears in the July 9 Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We think fetuin-A is a bad guy,” says Suresh Mathews, a molecular biologist at Auburn University in Alabama. He and his colleagues did much of the initial work establishing fetuin-A’s link to the insulin receptor.
Mathews says the new study breaks ground. A link to diabetes in a longitudinal study in which people are tracked over time hadn’t been shown before, he says.
Several groups are currently studying fetuin-A’s actions in the body. While there is keen interest in developing a drug that neutralizes fetuin-A, a drug doesn’t exist yet. “I think that has a lot for potential to be useful, but it’s not quite ready for prime time,” Ix says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Mathews’ working hypothesis is that the protein serves as a brake for insulin, to keep people from becoming hypoglycemic if the hormone doesn’t shut off appropriately.
But treatment may not be as simple as turning off the fetuin-A spigot, Mathews says. The protein also seems to regulate calcium levels in the blood. Disturbing that role could cause crystallization of calcium in blood vessels and other part of the body, causing other health problems. Ideally, he says, a drug would disable fetuin-A’s ability to crowd out insulin at the receptor sites while not disrupting its blood-calcium duties.
Elderly people with excess amounts of the protein fetuin-A are more likely than others to develop type 2 diabetes, a new study finds. Because earlier work showed that the protein may interfere with the action of insulin, the new findings potentially implicate fetuin-A in diabetes and suggest the protein may make a good target for drug therapy.
Scientists have found fetuin-A tantalizing ever since lab experiments showed it competed with insulin to bind to receptor proteins on cells. By doing so, fetuin-A seems to crowd out insulin and prevent it from making glucose available to muscle cells.
“We don’t understand why one person who’s obese develops diabetes and another doesn’t,” says Joachim Ix, a nephrologist at the University of California, San Diego and coauthor on the study. Fetuin-A may play a role since it seems to operate irrespective of weight, he notes. That could help doctors to identify people at hidden risk of developing diabetes. “Ultimately that might lead to different therapies in these two different kinds of people,” Ix says.
Further research in mice genetically engineered to lack fetuin-A showed that the animals were the mirror opposites of mice with diabetes. “They were lean, mean mice machines,” Ix says.
Those early findings led Ix and his colleagues to assess the protein’s role in people. The researchers identified healthy elderly individuals who had participated in a medical study starting in the late 1990s while they were all still in their 70s. Each volunteer had given a blood sample at the start of the study. Ix and his team identified 135 people in the study who had developed type 2 diabetes during the six-year study period and another 384 who hadn’t.
High levels of fetuin-A in the blood increased the risk of diabetes by 70 percent.
The researchers accounted for differences between the groups in age, gender, obesity, lifestyle, blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol and proteins associated with inflammation. The study appears in the July 9 Journal of the American Medical Association.
“We think fetuin-A is a bad guy,” says Suresh Mathews, a molecular biologist at Auburn University in Alabama. He and his colleagues did much of the initial work establishing fetuin-A’s link to the insulin receptor.
Mathews says the new study breaks ground. A link to diabetes in a longitudinal study in which people are tracked over time hadn’t been shown before, he says.
Several groups are currently studying fetuin-A’s actions in the body. While there is keen interest in developing a drug that neutralizes fetuin-A, a drug doesn’t exist yet. “I think that has a lot for potential to be useful, but it’s not quite ready for prime time,” Ix says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Mathews’ working hypothesis is that the protein serves as a brake for insulin, to keep people from becoming hypoglycemic if the hormone doesn’t shut off appropriately.
But treatment may not be as simple as turning off the fetuin-A spigot, Mathews says. The protein also seems to regulate calcium levels in the blood. Disturbing that role could cause crystallization of calcium in blood vessels and other part of the body, causing other health problems. Ideally, he says, a drug would disable fetuin-A’s ability to crowd out insulin at the receptor sites while not disrupting its blood-calcium duties.
Monday, May 4, 2009
calcium 3.cal.223 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Children born to older fathers might have an increased risk of developing bipolar disorder, Swedish researchers report in the September Archives of General Psychiatry.
The finding is a statistical association drawn from a large population survey. But it falls in line with earlier studies suggesting that children sired by older men face a greater-than-average risk of being stillborn, miscarried or having schizophrenia, cancer or autism.
The theory linking paternal age with an offspring’s health rests on the genetics of aging sperm. Spontaneous mutations can accumulate in the genes of a man’s sperm cells as he ages. These cells divide as many as 660 times by the time a man reaches 40, by some estimates. Each division increases the risk of acquiring a harmful mutation from erroneous gene copying, the theory holds.
Women don’t face this risk since the number of eggs a woman carries is set at birth, each having divided 23 times at that point and no more. But older women do face a higher risk of having a child with Down syndrome.
In the new study, epidemiologist Emma Frans of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and her colleagues used a national registry to identify 13,428 people who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder during at least two hospital admissions. For comparison purposes, each of these individuals was matched with five randomly selected people of the same gender and year of birth.
People fathered by men 55 or older had a 37 percent greater risk of being bipolar than those sired by men age 20 through 24. If the father was age 30 through 54, he imparted only a modestly increased risk. Being sired by a father age 25 through 29 did not add a risk. The researchers accounted for education level, age of the mother, family history of psychotic disorders and the number of children the mother had.
For people diagnosed with bipolar disorder before age 20, the late paternity effect was even more pronounced. Researchers found that people born to men over age 40 seemed to incur double the risk of being bipolar in youth as those fathered by men in their early 20s. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Other studies have suggested that having a close, personal relative with bipolar disorder increases a person’s risk of developing the condition. That association’s increase is much greater than any risk from merely having an older father, Frans says.
Bipolar disorder appears to have a clear genetic component, particularly when the condition shows up in youth, says epidemiologist Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School in Boston. But this study may not catch all men with bipolar disorder, and many bipolar men go through multiple marriages and often father children as they go along, he says. http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN-ESQUIRE.US
“I wonder whether men who have more severe bipolar disorder are just more likely to have kids at 40 or 50?” he asks. If so, that would exaggerate any risk seemingly imparted by aging itself, he says. The explanation “may be a psychosocial one,” he says.
Children born to older fathers might have an increased risk of developing bipolar disorder, Swedish researchers report in the September Archives of General Psychiatry.
The finding is a statistical association drawn from a large population survey. But it falls in line with earlier studies suggesting that children sired by older men face a greater-than-average risk of being stillborn, miscarried or having schizophrenia, cancer or autism.
The theory linking paternal age with an offspring’s health rests on the genetics of aging sperm. Spontaneous mutations can accumulate in the genes of a man’s sperm cells as he ages. These cells divide as many as 660 times by the time a man reaches 40, by some estimates. Each division increases the risk of acquiring a harmful mutation from erroneous gene copying, the theory holds.
Women don’t face this risk since the number of eggs a woman carries is set at birth, each having divided 23 times at that point and no more. But older women do face a higher risk of having a child with Down syndrome.
In the new study, epidemiologist Emma Frans of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and her colleagues used a national registry to identify 13,428 people who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder during at least two hospital admissions. For comparison purposes, each of these individuals was matched with five randomly selected people of the same gender and year of birth.
People fathered by men 55 or older had a 37 percent greater risk of being bipolar than those sired by men age 20 through 24. If the father was age 30 through 54, he imparted only a modestly increased risk. Being sired by a father age 25 through 29 did not add a risk. The researchers accounted for education level, age of the mother, family history of psychotic disorders and the number of children the mother had.
For people diagnosed with bipolar disorder before age 20, the late paternity effect was even more pronounced. Researchers found that people born to men over age 40 seemed to incur double the risk of being bipolar in youth as those fathered by men in their early 20s. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
Other studies have suggested that having a close, personal relative with bipolar disorder increases a person’s risk of developing the condition. That association’s increase is much greater than any risk from merely having an older father, Frans says.
Bipolar disorder appears to have a clear genetic component, particularly when the condition shows up in youth, says epidemiologist Ronald Kessler of Harvard Medical School in Boston. But this study may not catch all men with bipolar disorder, and many bipolar men go through multiple marriages and often father children as they go along, he says. http://LOUIS-J-SHEEHAN-ESQUIRE.US
“I wonder whether men who have more severe bipolar disorder are just more likely to have kids at 40 or 50?” he asks. If so, that would exaggerate any risk seemingly imparted by aging itself, he says. The explanation “may be a psychosocial one,” he says.
Friday, May 1, 2009
salt 6.sal.004 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
When you look at your food, some ingredients are easy to see. For example, there is obviously milk in your cereal, cheese on your pizza and peanut butter on your toast.
But your meals are also filled with ingredients you can’t see. And you might be surprised to learn just how much those hidden items affect your health.
Salt is a perfect example of an ingredient that you might not notice, even when you eat a lot of it.
Sometimes, salt is obvious. You can see it on pretzels. You can taste it on french fries. And you can sprinkle it on green beans, straight from the shaker.
But it’s the salt we can’t see that concerns scientists most. For decades, doctors have warned patients that too much salt can be bad for their hearts. Still, most Americans continue to eat way too much salt, even when they try to avoid the salt shaker.
That’s because more than 75 percent of the salt we eat is hidden in restaurant meals, fast food and processed foods, such as spaghetti sauce from a jar, canned soup and frozen pizza. Often, you can’t even taste that the salt is there.
Heart trouble has long been considered a grown-up problem, and parents haven’t worried too much about the salt their kids eat. But new research suggests that salt is starting to affect kids — in their hearts, kidneys and waistlines.
Loading up on salt-filled potato chips, hot dogs and canned tuna today could also set young people up for even more health problems down the road.
“Most national heads of policy-making bodies in the United States and Canada and Great Britain are reaching the same conclusion,” says Lawrence Appel, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “Reduce your salt intake.”
Straight to the heart
Salt is made up of two elements, or basic components: sodium and chlorine. When put in food or liquid, salt, also called sodium chloride, or NaCl, breaks into its two elements.
The chlorine part of salt isn’t that important. It’s the sodium that can stir up trouble.
We need a small amount of sodium to keep our muscles working and our nerves sending messages throughout the body. But the amount of sodium we actually need is really tiny: about 500 milligrams, or less than a quarter teaspoon of salt. A little bit goes a long way.
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Enlargemagnify
Want salt with that?Some foods just cry out for extra salt, like these fries. That can make them a bad meal choice.Burke/Triolo
Dietary guidelines in the United States and elsewhere recommend that healthy adults consume no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. That’s about a teaspoonful of salt.
Kids ages 9 to 13 should eat no more than 1,500 to 2,200 mg of sodium a day. Younger kids should get even less.
But the average American eats about twice the recommended daily amount. This worries doctors because too much sodium can cause the body to produce more blood. To pump the extra blood, the heart has to work extra hard. This leads to a rise in blood pressure — a measurement of how stressed out the heart is. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, often leads to heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and can lead to ailments like heart attacks.
“Ninety percent of adult Americans develop hypertension in their lifetimes,” Appel says. It’s a big problem.
You are what you eat
Salt isn’t the only cause of hypertension. Eating lots of junk food, weighing too much and exercising too little also contribute to high blood pressure. But a large number of studies suggest that salt is a major player.
Some of the most powerful strikes against salt come from a pair of studies that took place in the 1990s. The goal of the research was to figure out if what we eat affects blood pressure, and if so, how much.
As part of the studies, hundreds of adults ate exactly what researchers told them to. Called DASH, these studies lasted for months at a time.
The results showed a sizeable drop in blood pressure in people who ate extra fruits and vegetables, lots of whole grains, low-fat dairy products and only small amounts of red meat, sweet treats and fatty foods like fast food and donuts. Eating well, the researchers concluded, is good for your heart.
But blood pressure levels dropped even more when participants who followed the diet described above also lessened their salt intake. In the first DASH study, participants ate a relatively high level of salt — 3,300 mg a day. In the second DASH study, participants’ salt intake dropped to as low as 1,500 mg a day. The low-salt, healthy eating program became known as the DASH diet, and doctors now recommend it to both adults and kids.
“The DASH diet reduces blood pressure in the whole population,” says Eva Obarzanek, a registered dietician and research nutritionist with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md. Better yet, she says, the diet works “as much as any [blood-pressure] drug would.”
What’s more, studies from around the world show that hypertension and heart disease rates are lowest in places where people eat the least amount of salt. (In fact, the Yanomami Indians of South America eat very little sodium and have lower blood pressure readings than American 10-year-olds.)
And in a 2007 study, scientists turned up the first direct link between salt and heart disease. They found that cutting down on salt now can lower a person’s risk of heart disease 10 to 15 years in the future.
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Enlargemagnify
Well dressed?Although most salad offerings, with the exception of olives and other pickled foods, tend to be low in salt, salad dressings can have plenty. Check out the sodium content on the label before splashing plenty on your veggies.Burke/Triolo
“The bottom line is that high sodium levels are definitely bad for you,” Obarzanek says. “It affects everybody. And it’s important even if you don’t have high blood pressure [now], because you’re likely to get it as you get older.”
Start thinking about salt now
Like most kids, you probably don’t spend much time worrying about heart disease. After all, hypertension tends to become more common as people reach middle age and older.
But doctors say it’s never too early to start thinking about your heart — or about salt.
Blood pressure has been going up over the past decade in children and teenagers in the United States and many European countries. And a kid with high blood pressure is more likely to become a grown-up with hypertension.
“It’s better to not have a lifelong exposure to high blood pressure,” Obarzanek says.
Cutting down on salt might help stop the cycle. In one recent study, researchers from the United Kingdom analyzed 10 trials involving nearly 1,000 kids. The trial results showed that lowering sodium intake by 40 to 50 percent led to a significant decrease in blood pressure, even in infants.
Reducing salt might also help combat childhood obesity, a growing public health problem. British researchers recently found that kids who eat less salt also drink fewer sugary soft drinks. Drinking less soda makes kids less likely to gain weight, become obese and develop high blood pressure.
And salt can affect more than just your heart and weight. A study published in October found that a growing number of kids in the U.S are suffering from an ailment called kidney stones. This painful condition used to mostly affect people in their 40s and older. Now, kids as young as 5 are getting it.
The kidneys are responsible for filtering salt out of the bloodstream. So researchers think that kids eating too much salt and not drinking enough water are partly to blame for the trend.
How to lick salt
If you’re like most people, cutting down on salt can be tough, says Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
His research shows that when given larger and larger amounts of sodium, people want more and more of it. Even babies drink more formula when it’s saltier. That preference starts as early as 4 months old.
Getting used to eating less salt, on the other hand, can take months. And low-sodium food might taste gross at first when you’re used to highly salted versions.
The good news is that you can retrain your taste buds to prefer less salty food. And now is a good time to do it: Research shows that what you eat as a kid strongly influences what you’ll like as an adult. So, the more salt (or sugar, or even spices, such as hot chili powder) you eat now, the more likely you are to crave those ingredients later. And later, your heart might be weaker and less able to handle a heavy salt load.
“It’s an easy change to make at virtually no cost,” says Darwin Labarthe, director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “And it has an immense health impact.”
The best way to reduce the amount of sodium you consume, researchers say, is to make changes gradually. Start by sprinkling half as much salt on your dinner as you normally do. Switch to fresh foods instead of canned and bottled versions. And go easy on the condiments. Things like ketchup, soy sauce and salad dressing can carry far more sodium than you might expect.
You might also want to start reading nutrition labels. You may be surprised to find out that a serving of tomato sauce has more than 500 mg of sodium. And that there are 1,150 mg of sodium in a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, and more than 2,000 mg in many frozen meals.
“Kids today need to give salt the shake,” says David Grotto, a dietician and author in Chicago, “For overall health’s sake.”
When you look at your food, some ingredients are easy to see. For example, there is obviously milk in your cereal, cheese on your pizza and peanut butter on your toast.
But your meals are also filled with ingredients you can’t see. And you might be surprised to learn just how much those hidden items affect your health.
Salt is a perfect example of an ingredient that you might not notice, even when you eat a lot of it.
Sometimes, salt is obvious. You can see it on pretzels. You can taste it on french fries. And you can sprinkle it on green beans, straight from the shaker.
But it’s the salt we can’t see that concerns scientists most. For decades, doctors have warned patients that too much salt can be bad for their hearts. Still, most Americans continue to eat way too much salt, even when they try to avoid the salt shaker.
That’s because more than 75 percent of the salt we eat is hidden in restaurant meals, fast food and processed foods, such as spaghetti sauce from a jar, canned soup and frozen pizza. Often, you can’t even taste that the salt is there.
Heart trouble has long been considered a grown-up problem, and parents haven’t worried too much about the salt their kids eat. But new research suggests that salt is starting to affect kids — in their hearts, kidneys and waistlines.
Loading up on salt-filled potato chips, hot dogs and canned tuna today could also set young people up for even more health problems down the road.
“Most national heads of policy-making bodies in the United States and Canada and Great Britain are reaching the same conclusion,” says Lawrence Appel, professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore. “Reduce your salt intake.”
Straight to the heart
Salt is made up of two elements, or basic components: sodium and chlorine. When put in food or liquid, salt, also called sodium chloride, or NaCl, breaks into its two elements.
The chlorine part of salt isn’t that important. It’s the sodium that can stir up trouble.
We need a small amount of sodium to keep our muscles working and our nerves sending messages throughout the body. But the amount of sodium we actually need is really tiny: about 500 milligrams, or less than a quarter teaspoon of salt. A little bit goes a long way.
access
Enlargemagnify
Want salt with that?Some foods just cry out for extra salt, like these fries. That can make them a bad meal choice.Burke/Triolo
Dietary guidelines in the United States and elsewhere recommend that healthy adults consume no more than 2,300 milligrams of sodium a day. That’s about a teaspoonful of salt.
Kids ages 9 to 13 should eat no more than 1,500 to 2,200 mg of sodium a day. Younger kids should get even less.
But the average American eats about twice the recommended daily amount. This worries doctors because too much sodium can cause the body to produce more blood. To pump the extra blood, the heart has to work extra hard. This leads to a rise in blood pressure — a measurement of how stressed out the heart is. High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, often leads to heart disease. Heart disease is the leading cause of death in the United States and can lead to ailments like heart attacks.
“Ninety percent of adult Americans develop hypertension in their lifetimes,” Appel says. It’s a big problem.
You are what you eat
Salt isn’t the only cause of hypertension. Eating lots of junk food, weighing too much and exercising too little also contribute to high blood pressure. But a large number of studies suggest that salt is a major player.
Some of the most powerful strikes against salt come from a pair of studies that took place in the 1990s. The goal of the research was to figure out if what we eat affects blood pressure, and if so, how much.
As part of the studies, hundreds of adults ate exactly what researchers told them to. Called DASH, these studies lasted for months at a time.
The results showed a sizeable drop in blood pressure in people who ate extra fruits and vegetables, lots of whole grains, low-fat dairy products and only small amounts of red meat, sweet treats and fatty foods like fast food and donuts. Eating well, the researchers concluded, is good for your heart.
But blood pressure levels dropped even more when participants who followed the diet described above also lessened their salt intake. In the first DASH study, participants ate a relatively high level of salt — 3,300 mg a day. In the second DASH study, participants’ salt intake dropped to as low as 1,500 mg a day. The low-salt, healthy eating program became known as the DASH diet, and doctors now recommend it to both adults and kids.
“The DASH diet reduces blood pressure in the whole population,” says Eva Obarzanek, a registered dietician and research nutritionist with the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute in Bethesda, Md. Better yet, she says, the diet works “as much as any [blood-pressure] drug would.”
What’s more, studies from around the world show that hypertension and heart disease rates are lowest in places where people eat the least amount of salt. (In fact, the Yanomami Indians of South America eat very little sodium and have lower blood pressure readings than American 10-year-olds.)
And in a 2007 study, scientists turned up the first direct link between salt and heart disease. They found that cutting down on salt now can lower a person’s risk of heart disease 10 to 15 years in the future.
access
Enlargemagnify
Well dressed?Although most salad offerings, with the exception of olives and other pickled foods, tend to be low in salt, salad dressings can have plenty. Check out the sodium content on the label before splashing plenty on your veggies.Burke/Triolo
“The bottom line is that high sodium levels are definitely bad for you,” Obarzanek says. “It affects everybody. And it’s important even if you don’t have high blood pressure [now], because you’re likely to get it as you get older.”
Start thinking about salt now
Like most kids, you probably don’t spend much time worrying about heart disease. After all, hypertension tends to become more common as people reach middle age and older.
But doctors say it’s never too early to start thinking about your heart — or about salt.
Blood pressure has been going up over the past decade in children and teenagers in the United States and many European countries. And a kid with high blood pressure is more likely to become a grown-up with hypertension.
“It’s better to not have a lifelong exposure to high blood pressure,” Obarzanek says.
Cutting down on salt might help stop the cycle. In one recent study, researchers from the United Kingdom analyzed 10 trials involving nearly 1,000 kids. The trial results showed that lowering sodium intake by 40 to 50 percent led to a significant decrease in blood pressure, even in infants.
Reducing salt might also help combat childhood obesity, a growing public health problem. British researchers recently found that kids who eat less salt also drink fewer sugary soft drinks. Drinking less soda makes kids less likely to gain weight, become obese and develop high blood pressure.
And salt can affect more than just your heart and weight. A study published in October found that a growing number of kids in the U.S are suffering from an ailment called kidney stones. This painful condition used to mostly affect people in their 40s and older. Now, kids as young as 5 are getting it.
The kidneys are responsible for filtering salt out of the bloodstream. So researchers think that kids eating too much salt and not drinking enough water are partly to blame for the trend.
How to lick salt
If you’re like most people, cutting down on salt can be tough, says Gary Beauchamp, director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center in Philadelphia.
His research shows that when given larger and larger amounts of sodium, people want more and more of it. Even babies drink more formula when it’s saltier. That preference starts as early as 4 months old.
Getting used to eating less salt, on the other hand, can take months. And low-sodium food might taste gross at first when you’re used to highly salted versions.
The good news is that you can retrain your taste buds to prefer less salty food. And now is a good time to do it: Research shows that what you eat as a kid strongly influences what you’ll like as an adult. So, the more salt (or sugar, or even spices, such as hot chili powder) you eat now, the more likely you are to crave those ingredients later. And later, your heart might be weaker and less able to handle a heavy salt load.
“It’s an easy change to make at virtually no cost,” says Darwin Labarthe, director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta. “And it has an immense health impact.”
The best way to reduce the amount of sodium you consume, researchers say, is to make changes gradually. Start by sprinkling half as much salt on your dinner as you normally do. Switch to fresh foods instead of canned and bottled versions. And go easy on the condiments. Things like ketchup, soy sauce and salad dressing can carry far more sodium than you might expect.
You might also want to start reading nutrition labels. You may be surprised to find out that a serving of tomato sauce has more than 500 mg of sodium. And that there are 1,150 mg of sodium in a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, and more than 2,000 mg in many frozen meals.
“Kids today need to give salt the shake,” says David Grotto, a dietician and author in Chicago, “For overall health’s sake.”
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Oops! western 4.oop.223 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
It takes years for children to master the ins and outs of arithmetic. New research indicates that this learning process triggers a large-scale reorganization of brain processes involved in understanding written symbols for various quantities.
The findings support the idea that humans' ability to match specific quantities with number symbols, a skill required for doing arithmetic, builds on a brain system that is used for estimating approximate quantities. That brain system is seen in many nonhuman animals.
When performing operations with Arabic numerals, young adults, but not school-age children, show pronounced activity in a piece of brain tissue called the left superior temporal gyrus, says Daniel Ansari of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Earlier studies have linked this region to the ability to associate speech sounds with written letters, and musical sounds with written notes. The left superior temporal gyrus is located near the brain’s midpoint, not far from areas linked to speech production and understanding.
In contrast, children solving a numerical task display heightened activity in a frontal-brain area that, in adults, primarily serves other functions.
Ansari presented his findings November 19 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
“Left superior temporal regions may also be responsible for mapping numerical symbols onto quantities,” remarks Filip van Opstal of Ghent University in Belgium, who studies adults’ neural responses to number tasks.
In addition, Ansari and his colleagues find that nearby parts of the brain, in the parietal cortex, contribute far more to both number understanding and the ability to estimate quantities in adults than they do in children. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire At the same time, both types of numerical knowledge recruit the prefrontal cortex far more in youngsters than in adults, according to the scientists.
“Our results demonstrate that the brain basis of number processing changes as a function of development and experience,” Ansari says.
The new findings support the idea that symbolic number use unique to people builds on an evolutionarily ancient brain system many animals share for estimating approximate quantities. In the past five years, studies of adult people and monkeys have suggested that parts of both the parietal and prefrontal cortex foster quantity estimates and symbolic number knowledge, with a specific parietal region looming especially large in adult humans. But little is known about quantity-related neural activity in kids.
Ansari’s new study consisted of 19 children, ages 6 to 9, and 19 adults, ages 18 to 24. Participants first viewed pairs of Arabic numerals, ranging from 1 to 10, and indicated which number was larger. Volunteers then viewed pairs of images showing arrays of one to 10 squares and indicated which array contained more squares. During these tasks, a functional MRI scanner measured where blood flow changed in the volunteers’ brains, providing a glimpse of rises and falls in neural activity.
Young adults performed the tasks more accurately than children did. But like kids, these adults took increasingly longer to discriminate between two numbers or two arrays as quantities got closer. So, it took longer to tell 2 apart from 1 than 9 apart from 1.
Correspondingly, one part of the parietal cortex in young adults, but not in children, grew increasingly active as pairs of numerals or quantities got closer. This area aids in initial efforts to translate knowledge about approximate quantities into comprehension of symbolic numerals, Ansari hypothesizes. With increasing math experience, the left superior temporal gyrus assumes major responsibility for symbolic number knowledge, he suspects.
Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.
In related research presented at the neuroscience meeting, Ilka Diester of Stanford University reported that monkeys trained to associate Arabic numerals with corresponding quantities in dot arrays show robust prefrontal cortex activity but little parietal activity. Monkeys, like children, may achieve a budding grasp of numerals with the help of the prefrontal cortex, Diester proposes.
* Print Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
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* Comment
Found in: Body & Brain and Psychology
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Comments 4
* The Origin of Consciousness.
================
Descartes said: "I think , therefore I am"
Buddhist monk says "I think not, therefore I am"
==========================
Consciousness is real but nonphyslcal.
Consciousness is connected to physical reality .
================
There are many theories explaining the origin of consciousness.
Here some of them.
1)
"God" "blowing" "consciousness" "into man"
"whom he created from clay"
2)
20 billions years ago all matter (all elementary particles,
all quarks and their girlfriend antiquarks, all kinds of waves:
electromagnetic, gravitational, muons….) –
all was assembled in “singular point”.
Then there was a Big Bang .
Question: when was there consciousness?
a) Before explosion,
b) At the moment of explosion,
c) After the explosion.
It is more probable, that it existed after the explosion.
Then there is a question: what particles (or waves)
were carriers of consciousness?
Mesons, muons, leptons, bosons (W+, W- , Z) ,
quarks, …gluons field ….. ets …?
On this question the Big Bang theory does not give an answer.
But can it be that consciousness was formed as a result
of the interaction of all elementary particles, all waves, all fields?
Then, on the one hand, the reason for the origin of the Big Bang is clear:
everything was mixed, including consciousness, and when it is mixed
then it is possible to construct all and everything.
But on the other hand, it is not clear:
why farmer John can think simply, clearly and logically.
3) Ancient Indian Veda approve, that origination of consciousness
is connected with the existence of spiritual, conscious particles – purusha .
4) Modern physics affirms that the Quantum of light
is a privileged particle as in one cases,
it behave as a particle, and in other case, acts in a way which causes a wave.
How is a particle capable of creating a wave?
The behaviour of Light quanta (dualism ) is explained simply.
A quantum of light has its own initial consciousness.
This consciousness is not rigid, but develops.
The development of consciousness goes
“from vague wish up to a clear thought”.
#
Consciousness is connected to physical reality.
It is fact that consciousness is itself already dualistic.
This dualism stays on the basis of Quantum Physics.
Therefore “Quantum Theory of Consciousness”
can be understand only with connection to the
“Theory of Light Quanta”.
#
Spirituality Spot Found in Brain.
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
========= . .
Neuroscience has found the EGO assuming group
of neurons in the Brain in the right parietal lobe!
It keeps track of self-centred notions as “my hand”,
“my cocktail”, “my witty intelligence” etc.
The greatest silencing of this ‘Me-Definer’ region
likely happens in deep states of meditation!
Meditation stills and stops the EGO! How wonderful indeed !
LiveScience Details here:
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
=================================== . .
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 26, 2008 at 12:35am http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz
* Our computer-brain.
Consciousness and the Quantum Physics.
Dualism of consciousness.
The Problem of Knowledge .
Quantum Theory of Consciousness:
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
Some psychologists compare our consciousness with iceberg.
The small visible part of this iceberg is our consciousness.
And the unseen (underwater) greater part of the iceberg is
our subconsciousness. Therefore they say, the man uses
only 10% of possibility of his brain.
And if it so, why doesn’t anybody teach us how
to develop our subconsciousness.
I think it is because there are few people who understand
that the processes of subconsciousness are connected
with quantum processes. The subconsciousness theory
closely united with quantum theory.
These quantum processes which take place in lifeless
(inanimate) nature also take place in our brain.
Our brain can be the laboratory in which we can
test the truth of quantum theory.
The man acts:
1) usually under logic program,
2) sometimes on intuition (unconsciousnessly).
============================
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
1.
In a usual daily life all we do is done logically,
under an influence of our feelings.
2.
On the other hand, in intuition we act:
a) Without the participation of the sense organs.
b) Without the participation of the logic mental processes.
===== ========
"The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind"
- Chuang Tzu
The conflict between right and wrong can be explain
by the theory of “Quantum dualism of consciousness” .
===========.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
http://www.socratus.com
http://www.wbabin.net
http://www.wbabin.net/comments/sadovnik.htm
http://www.wbabin.net/physics/sadovnik.pdf
israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 12, 2008 at 11:30pm
* Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.
Oops! Might want to amend this to add "developmental" disorders rather than limiting it to just kids. It is common for adults with pervasive development disorders to have dyscalculia.
Criticisms dispensed with, this is interesting! I have always had a great deal of trouble writing numbers or transcribing letters if the spelling of them is recited to me. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Very frustrating and http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz confusing because I should be good at this (I'm a writer) but then I have pronounced dyscalculia and diagnosed ASD and altho I suspected a connection, didn't understand where it might be.
Kathleen Fasanella Kathleen Fasanella
Nov. 23, 2008 at 9:26am
* It would be interesting to see whether people who acquire mathematical skills in other cultures, using, say, Chinese numerals, primarily using the abacus to calculate, rely on the same brain areas as Western adults.
It takes years for children to master the ins and outs of arithmetic. New research indicates that this learning process triggers a large-scale reorganization of brain processes involved in understanding written symbols for various quantities.
The findings support the idea that humans' ability to match specific quantities with number symbols, a skill required for doing arithmetic, builds on a brain system that is used for estimating approximate quantities. That brain system is seen in many nonhuman animals.
When performing operations with Arabic numerals, young adults, but not school-age children, show pronounced activity in a piece of brain tissue called the left superior temporal gyrus, says Daniel Ansari of the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada. Earlier studies have linked this region to the ability to associate speech sounds with written letters, and musical sounds with written notes. The left superior temporal gyrus is located near the brain’s midpoint, not far from areas linked to speech production and understanding.
In contrast, children solving a numerical task display heightened activity in a frontal-brain area that, in adults, primarily serves other functions.
Ansari presented his findings November 19 at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.
“Left superior temporal regions may also be responsible for mapping numerical symbols onto quantities,” remarks Filip van Opstal of Ghent University in Belgium, who studies adults’ neural responses to number tasks.
In addition, Ansari and his colleagues find that nearby parts of the brain, in the parietal cortex, contribute far more to both number understanding and the ability to estimate quantities in adults than they do in children. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire At the same time, both types of numerical knowledge recruit the prefrontal cortex far more in youngsters than in adults, according to the scientists.
“Our results demonstrate that the brain basis of number processing changes as a function of development and experience,” Ansari says.
The new findings support the idea that symbolic number use unique to people builds on an evolutionarily ancient brain system many animals share for estimating approximate quantities. In the past five years, studies of adult people and monkeys have suggested that parts of both the parietal and prefrontal cortex foster quantity estimates and symbolic number knowledge, with a specific parietal region looming especially large in adult humans. But little is known about quantity-related neural activity in kids.
Ansari’s new study consisted of 19 children, ages 6 to 9, and 19 adults, ages 18 to 24. Participants first viewed pairs of Arabic numerals, ranging from 1 to 10, and indicated which number was larger. Volunteers then viewed pairs of images showing arrays of one to 10 squares and indicated which array contained more squares. During these tasks, a functional MRI scanner measured where blood flow changed in the volunteers’ brains, providing a glimpse of rises and falls in neural activity.
Young adults performed the tasks more accurately than children did. But like kids, these adults took increasingly longer to discriminate between two numbers or two arrays as quantities got closer. So, it took longer to tell 2 apart from 1 than 9 apart from 1.
Correspondingly, one part of the parietal cortex in young adults, but not in children, grew increasingly active as pairs of numerals or quantities got closer. This area aids in initial efforts to translate knowledge about approximate quantities into comprehension of symbolic numerals, Ansari hypothesizes. With increasing math experience, the left superior temporal gyrus assumes major responsibility for symbolic number knowledge, he suspects.
Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.
In related research presented at the neuroscience meeting, Ilka Diester of Stanford University reported that monkeys trained to associate Arabic numerals with corresponding quantities in dot arrays show robust prefrontal cortex activity but little parietal activity. Monkeys, like children, may achieve a budding grasp of numerals with the help of the prefrontal cortex, Diester proposes.
* Print Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
* |
* Comment
Found in: Body & Brain and Psychology
Share & Save
* slashdot slashdot
* digg digg
* facebook facebook
* yahoo yahoo
* del.icio.us del.icio.us
* reddit reddit
* google google
* technorati technorati
Comments 4
* The Origin of Consciousness.
================
Descartes said: "I think , therefore I am"
Buddhist monk says "I think not, therefore I am"
==========================
Consciousness is real but nonphyslcal.
Consciousness is connected to physical reality .
================
There are many theories explaining the origin of consciousness.
Here some of them.
1)
"God" "blowing" "consciousness" "into man"
"whom he created from clay"
2)
20 billions years ago all matter (all elementary particles,
all quarks and their girlfriend antiquarks, all kinds of waves:
electromagnetic, gravitational, muons….) –
all was assembled in “singular point”.
Then there was a Big Bang .
Question: when was there consciousness?
a) Before explosion,
b) At the moment of explosion,
c) After the explosion.
It is more probable, that it existed after the explosion.
Then there is a question: what particles (or waves)
were carriers of consciousness?
Mesons, muons, leptons, bosons (W+, W- , Z) ,
quarks, …gluons field ….. ets …?
On this question the Big Bang theory does not give an answer.
But can it be that consciousness was formed as a result
of the interaction of all elementary particles, all waves, all fields?
Then, on the one hand, the reason for the origin of the Big Bang is clear:
everything was mixed, including consciousness, and when it is mixed
then it is possible to construct all and everything.
But on the other hand, it is not clear:
why farmer John can think simply, clearly and logically.
3) Ancient Indian Veda approve, that origination of consciousness
is connected with the existence of spiritual, conscious particles – purusha .
4) Modern physics affirms that the Quantum of light
is a privileged particle as in one cases,
it behave as a particle, and in other case, acts in a way which causes a wave.
How is a particle capable of creating a wave?
The behaviour of Light quanta (dualism ) is explained simply.
A quantum of light has its own initial consciousness.
This consciousness is not rigid, but develops.
The development of consciousness goes
“from vague wish up to a clear thought”.
#
Consciousness is connected to physical reality.
It is fact that consciousness is itself already dualistic.
This dualism stays on the basis of Quantum Physics.
Therefore “Quantum Theory of Consciousness”
can be understand only with connection to the
“Theory of Light Quanta”.
#
Spirituality Spot Found in Brain.
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
========= . .
Neuroscience has found the EGO assuming group
of neurons in the Brain in the right parietal lobe!
It keeps track of self-centred notions as “my hand”,
“my cocktail”, “my witty intelligence” etc.
The greatest silencing of this ‘Me-Definer’ region
likely happens in deep states of meditation!
Meditation stills and stops the EGO! How wonderful indeed !
LiveScience Details here:
http://www.livescience.com/health/081224-brain-spirit.html
=================================== . .
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 26, 2008 at 12:35am http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz
* Our computer-brain.
Consciousness and the Quantum Physics.
Dualism of consciousness.
The Problem of Knowledge .
Quantum Theory of Consciousness:
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
Some psychologists compare our consciousness with iceberg.
The small visible part of this iceberg is our consciousness.
And the unseen (underwater) greater part of the iceberg is
our subconsciousness. Therefore they say, the man uses
only 10% of possibility of his brain.
And if it so, why doesn’t anybody teach us how
to develop our subconsciousness.
I think it is because there are few people who understand
that the processes of subconsciousness are connected
with quantum processes. The subconsciousness theory
closely united with quantum theory.
These quantum processes which take place in lifeless
(inanimate) nature also take place in our brain.
Our brain can be the laboratory in which we can
test the truth of quantum theory.
The man acts:
1) usually under logic program,
2) sometimes on intuition (unconsciousnessly).
============================
Our computer-brain works on a dualistic basis.
1.
In a usual daily life all we do is done logically,
under an influence of our feelings.
2.
On the other hand, in intuition we act:
a) Without the participation of the sense organs.
b) Without the participation of the logic mental processes.
===== ========
"The conflict between right and wrong is the sickness of the mind"
- Chuang Tzu
The conflict between right and wrong can be explain
by the theory of “Quantum dualism of consciousness” .
===========.
Best wishes.
Israel Sadovnik. / Socratus.
http://www.socratus.com
http://www.wbabin.net
http://www.wbabin.net/comments/sadovnik.htm
http://www.wbabin.net/physics/sadovnik.pdf
israel socratus israel socratus
Dec. 12, 2008 at 11:30pm
* Disturbances in that region and in nearby parietal areas may lie at the root of a dyscalculia, a childhood disorder characterized by an inability to conceptualize numbers and understand arithmetic, Ansari adds.
Oops! Might want to amend this to add "developmental" disorders rather than limiting it to just kids. It is common for adults with pervasive development disorders to have dyscalculia.
Criticisms dispensed with, this is interesting! I have always had a great deal of trouble writing numbers or transcribing letters if the spelling of them is recited to me. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire Very frustrating and http://Louis-J-Sheehan.biz confusing because I should be good at this (I'm a writer) but then I have pronounced dyscalculia and diagnosed ASD and altho I suspected a connection, didn't understand where it might be.
Kathleen Fasanella Kathleen Fasanella
Nov. 23, 2008 at 9:26am
* It would be interesting to see whether people who acquire mathematical skills in other cultures, using, say, Chinese numerals, primarily using the abacus to calculate, rely on the same brain areas as Western adults.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
positive 5.pos.123 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
Combination therapy that adds radiation to a standard medication for localized but aggressive prostate cancer results in longer survival and fewer signs of relapse than treatment with the drugs alone, Scandinavian scientists report online December 16 in The Lancet.
There hasn’t been a clear consensus on how best to treat such malignancies, which comprise roughly 10 to 20 percent of prostate cancer cases. Doctors call these growths locally advanced prostate cancers — tumors that are marked by fast growth and can even be felt by a doctor during a routine prostate examination. And although the cancer hasn’t spread to lymph nodes or organs beyond the prostate, it has often expanded to the outside of the gland and can be lethal.
For such patients, doctors can use radiation treatments to kill cancer cells, or prescribe drug therapy to suppress the testosterone that fuels prostate cancer growth. The benefits of using both hadn’t been ascertained until now.
“These are exciting results,” says radiation oncologist Colleen Lawton of the Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. “This confirms what we’ve all been thinking. It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used” for such patients, she says.
Researchers at 47 medical centers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway enrolled 875 men with this form of prostate cancer, average age 66, into a trial lasting from 1996 to 2002. Half were randomly assigned to get drugs only, while the others also received radiation treatments, says study coauthor Anders Widmark, a medical and radiation oncologist at Umeå University in Sweden.
After an average follow-up of 7 ½ years, 79 men in the drugs-only group had died of prostate cancer or related causes, compared with 37 in the group that received radiation and drugs. Deaths from other causes were roughly equal between the groups.
What’s more, 285 men assigned to the drugs-only group — but only 77 men getting the combined therapies — experienced warning signs of a return of their prostate cancer as evidenced by an increase in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) score. This measurement, obtained by a blood test, is a proxy for cancer and a jump in the score reveals “a very early relapse stage,” says Widmark.
“[This] is a pivotal trial, and is the first to show an overall survival advantage for radiotherapy in the primary treatment of prostate cancer,” according to Alex Tan of the Noe Valley Clinic in San Francisco and Chris Parker of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, U.K., writing in the same issue of The Lancet. “The results should change current practice, making long-term hormonal therapy plus radical radiotherapy the standard of care for men with locally advanced prostate cancer.”
Lawton agrees. “This says that radiation is playing a very significant role in local control” of the cancer, she says. “It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used.”
Whether dual therapy would help prostate cancer patients who have slower-growing malignancies, the vast majority, remains unclear, these researchers say. A course called “watchful waiting” may be best for elderly, frail men in that situation, Lawton says, whereas young or middle-aged men with slow-growing cancer have other options such as surgery or implantation of highly localized radioactive capsules.
In the new study, some well-known side effects of prostate cancer treatment showed up, and men getting the combined treatment experienced more of them than those on drugs alone. For example, five years into the follow-up period, roughly twice as many men in the combined therapy group than in the drugs-only group —7 percent versus 3 percent — reported urinary incontinence. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire And roughly 9 in 10 men receiving the dual therapy reported erectile problems, compared with 8 in 10 men getting drugs alone. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
On a more positive note, Widmark says radiation therapy has advanced since these men were treated and can now deliver more specifically targeted doses that are 10 percent greater than those used in much of this trial. Research has shown an added clinical benefit from the higher doses, he says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
“Indeed, it is possible that the trial could underestimate the true benefit of radiotherapy,” Tan and Parker note.
Combination therapy that adds radiation to a standard medication for localized but aggressive prostate cancer results in longer survival and fewer signs of relapse than treatment with the drugs alone, Scandinavian scientists report online December 16 in The Lancet.
There hasn’t been a clear consensus on how best to treat such malignancies, which comprise roughly 10 to 20 percent of prostate cancer cases. Doctors call these growths locally advanced prostate cancers — tumors that are marked by fast growth and can even be felt by a doctor during a routine prostate examination. And although the cancer hasn’t spread to lymph nodes or organs beyond the prostate, it has often expanded to the outside of the gland and can be lethal.
For such patients, doctors can use radiation treatments to kill cancer cells, or prescribe drug therapy to suppress the testosterone that fuels prostate cancer growth. The benefits of using both hadn’t been ascertained until now.
“These are exciting results,” says radiation oncologist Colleen Lawton of the Medical College of Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. “This confirms what we’ve all been thinking. It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used” for such patients, she says.
Researchers at 47 medical centers in Sweden, Denmark and Norway enrolled 875 men with this form of prostate cancer, average age 66, into a trial lasting from 1996 to 2002. Half were randomly assigned to get drugs only, while the others also received radiation treatments, says study coauthor Anders Widmark, a medical and radiation oncologist at Umeå University in Sweden.
After an average follow-up of 7 ½ years, 79 men in the drugs-only group had died of prostate cancer or related causes, compared with 37 in the group that received radiation and drugs. Deaths from other causes were roughly equal between the groups.
What’s more, 285 men assigned to the drugs-only group — but only 77 men getting the combined therapies — experienced warning signs of a return of their prostate cancer as evidenced by an increase in their prostate specific antigen (PSA) score. This measurement, obtained by a blood test, is a proxy for cancer and a jump in the score reveals “a very early relapse stage,” says Widmark.
“[This] is a pivotal trial, and is the first to show an overall survival advantage for radiotherapy in the primary treatment of prostate cancer,” according to Alex Tan of the Noe Valley Clinic in San Francisco and Chris Parker of the Institute of Cancer Research in Sutton, U.K., writing in the same issue of The Lancet. “The results should change current practice, making long-term hormonal therapy plus radical radiotherapy the standard of care for men with locally advanced prostate cancer.”
Lawton agrees. “This says that radiation is playing a very significant role in local control” of the cancer, she says. “It’s pretty clear that dual therapy should be used.”
Whether dual therapy would help prostate cancer patients who have slower-growing malignancies, the vast majority, remains unclear, these researchers say. A course called “watchful waiting” may be best for elderly, frail men in that situation, Lawton says, whereas young or middle-aged men with slow-growing cancer have other options such as surgery or implantation of highly localized radioactive capsules.
In the new study, some well-known side effects of prostate cancer treatment showed up, and men getting the combined treatment experienced more of them than those on drugs alone. For example, five years into the follow-up period, roughly twice as many men in the combined therapy group than in the drugs-only group —7 percent versus 3 percent — reported urinary incontinence. Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire And roughly 9 in 10 men receiving the dual therapy reported erectile problems, compared with 8 in 10 men getting drugs alone. http://Louis1J1Sheehan.us
On a more positive note, Widmark says radiation therapy has advanced since these men were treated and can now deliver more specifically targeted doses that are 10 percent greater than those used in much of this trial. Research has shown an added clinical benefit from the higher doses, he says.Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire
“Indeed, it is possible that the trial could underestimate the true benefit of radiotherapy,” Tan and Parker note.
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