School of Being Healthy

There just could not be anything better than inspiration when it comes to health, fitness, and lifestyle.

You can either hold yourself up to the unrealistic standards of others, or ignore them and concentrate on being happy with yourself as you are. – Jeph Jacques, Questionable Content webcomic, #352, 05-04-05

Be careful about reading health books. You may die of a misprint.  – Mark Twain (1835 – 1910)

When I walk into my kitchen today, I am not alone. Whether we know it or not, none of us is. We bring fathers and mothers and kitchen tables, and every meal we have ever eaten. Food is never just food. It’s also a way of getting at something else: who we are, who we have been, and who we want to be. -  Molly Wizenberg, A Homemade Life: Stories and Recipes from My Kitchen Table, 2009

Health is not valued till sickness comes. – Dr. Thomas Fuller (1654 – 1734), Gnomologia, 1732

Be not slow to visit the sick. – Ecclesiastes

I have never cared much for fish – it floats in the belly as much as in the pond.  – Erica Eisdorfer, The Wet Nurse’s Tale, 2009

Preserving health by too severe a rule is a worrisome malady. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613 – 1680)

It is amazing how much crisper the general experience of life becomes when your body is given a chance to develop a little strength. – Frank Duff, A Coder in Courierland, 03-20-05

What some call health, if purchased by perpetual anxiety about diet, isn’t much better than tedious disease. – George Dennison Prentice

Rejecting a U.S. plan that had called for a five-year delay, health ministers from around the world recently agreed to put off setting a deadline to destroy the last known stockpiles of the smallpox virus for three more years.

The 193-nation World Health Assembly agreed by consensus, after two days of heated debate, to a compromise that calls for another review in 2014.

From news.yahoo.com:

The United States had proposed a five-year extension to destroying the U.S. and Russian stockpiles, arguing that more research is needed and the stockpiles could help prevent one of the world’s deadliest diseases from being used as a biological weapon.

But other ministers at the decision-making assembly of the World Health Organization said they saw little reason to retain the stockpiles, and objected to the delay in destroying them.

Dr. Nils Daulaire, head of the U.S. Office of Global Health Affairs and the chief American delegate to the assembly, expressed some disappointment but said the compromise was satisfactory.

“Three years is a reasonable time period in terms of the next review,” he told reporters. “Obviously during that time period, we expect there will be meaningful progress in the research on anti-virals and vaccines and diagnostics.”

The assembly declared smallpox officially eradicated in 1980, and the U.N. health agency has been discussing whether to destroy the virus since 1986.

The assembly “strongly reaffirmed the decision of previous assemblies that the remaining stock of smallpox (variola) virus should be destroyed when crucial research based on the virus has been completed,” as per WHO officials.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recently said mobile phone users should limit their use as it may lead to cancer.

The health agency of the United Nations advised ‘pragmatic’ measures for reducing exposure, such as using hands-free kits and texting instead of calling.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

The disturbing report marks the first time the WHO has linked mobiles with cancer, and follows earlier research linking just half an hour’s use a day with up to 40 per cent higher odds of brain cancer.

However the mobile phone industry was quick to point out that the devices had not been directly shown to cause cancer.

More than 70million mobile phones are now in use in Britain – more than one for every man, woman and child. Worldwide, the total tops five billion.

Dr Christopher Wild, director of the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer, said: ‘Given the potential consequences for public health, it is important that additional research be conducted into the long-term, heavy use of mobile phones.

Dr Jonathan Samet, chairman of the working group, remarked that while the evidence is still accumulating, it is still strong enough to support the classification.

A new study has suggested that prostate cancer patients who take brisk walk on a regular basis fare better than those who do not.

It was reported by researchers that brisk walking not only reduces their risk for disease progression but also minimizes their chances of dying from the disease.

From news.yahoo.com:

The finding builds on earlier research from the same group of scientists that had indicated that “vigorous physical activity” reduces the risk of dying from prostate cancer.

“Men who engaged in brisk walking, defined as three miles per hour or faster, after a diagnosis of clinically localized prostate cancer, had a reduced risk of prostate cancer progression compared to men who walked at an easy pace [less than two miles per hour],” said study author Erin L. Richman, a research associate in the department of epidemiology and biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco.

“Men who engaged in three hours per week or more of brisk walking had the greatest benefit,” Richman added, “with a 57 percent lower risk of disease progression compared to men who walked less than three hours per week at an easy pace. These results were independent of clinical prognostic factors, dietary factors and lifestyle factors such as obesity and smoking.”

The report of Richman appears in the June 1 issue of Cancer Research.

A British study has revealed that light smokers and non-smokers pay more attention to health warnings on cigarette packs that lack branding graphics.

The revelation supports initiatives being considered by some nations to draw more attention to the warnings.

From Reuters.com:

“Repeated exposure to health warnings on cigarette packs might mean that daily smokers may be able to over-ride the automatic tendency to focus more on these (warnings) on plain packs — in other words, ignore them,” said Marcus Munafo, a professor at the University of Bristol and lead researcher on the small study, published in “Addiction.”

Australia is set to be the first country to require plain packaging on cigarettes and from 2012 cigarettes sold in the United States will be required to carry pictorial warnings.

Researchers tracked eye movements of 43 people as they looked at cigarette packs that had either branded information or plain packaging, each paired with pictorial health warnings — such as those of lungs damaged by smoking.

“In other words, if you don’t look at a health warning it won’t influence your behavior, but if you do it might,” Munafo wrote.

Loneliness could be as bad for your health as obesity, smoking, and alcoholism, according to a recently concluded study.

The study disclosed that the chances of living to a healthy old age increase by 50 percent with the support of family, friends, and neighbors.

From Dailymail.co.uk:

But the findings, based on an analysis of more than 300,000 people, suggest social isolation is as bad for your health as smoking 15 cigarettes a day or being an alcoholic.

It also does more damage to your health than not exercising – and is twice as harmful as obesity.

The American scientists who made the discovery say lack of social support should be added to the ‘short list’ of risk factors for an early grave.

Dr Julianne Holt-Lunstad, of Brigham Young University in Utah, who led the study, said friends and family influenced health for the better by offering a ‘calming touch’ or by helping people find meaning in their lives.

A spokesman for the journal PLoS Medicine, which published the study, remarked, ‘The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognised by health organisations and the public.’

A spokesman for the journal PLoS Medicine, which published the study, said: ‘The idea that a lack of social relationships is a risk factor for death is still not widely recognised by health organisations and the public.’