Sleep Routines:  Funny that the first day of my 2 day abrupt schedule change (having to get up at 7:30 instead of 9:00), my news radio alarm began with a story about sleep inconsistency and increased risk of obesity.  (meaning, it is not a good idea to sleep in on the weekends, according to the report)

Science Debunked: Good Cholesterol, or HDL in and of itself is not necessarily enough to reduce adverse health outcomes related to heart disease.  I was going to talk more about what the newest study found when I read the linked post and I think that the reporter did a great job, so I refer you to the hyperlink under the words Science Debunked.

Alzheimer's:  Good news that a substantial amount of research dollars are now being funneled to test certain ways to prevent Alzheimer's Disease or its progression.  This is a horrific, brain wasting disease and preventing it is a desperate need.

Food System: A simple example of the way environment or context makes the healthier choice harder with regard to price. I was at a Cultural Center recently and went in search of the water fountain.  It happened to be next to the vending machines.  Of course, the water from the fountain was free, but in the vending machines, it was $1.25 while the sodas were $0.75.

Heart Attack beyond Life Style:  This week we learned that one of our most over used medications, an antibiotic, was associated with increased risk of sudden death from heart attack.  In a study that showed very few deaths overall, the more expensive Zithromax increased the chance of death when compared to people who were taking the cheaper and less convenient (longer course of treatment) amoxicillin.

Bottle Cap Collector:  In the recreation center(gym) I saw a smaller recycle container next to our commingled one.  In my state, you do not have to separate paper from plastic and glass.  Anyways, I had never seen the shorter container before, but it was specifically labeled for bottle caps only.  Pretty cool!

Thyroid Cancer:  One of my friends told me that she heard of a new warning regarding radiation through medical testing and this particular cancer. Radiation is one of my hot topics so I was interested when she said that thyroid cancer cases were being linked to mammogram and dental X Rays.  However, I follow the advice that I give to you and did not just take her word for it.  I went back to the Presidents Cancer Panel report - the one that lists environmental causes of cancer, such as medical radiation.  Again, the bigger concern is with CT scans and much less so with dental X rays and mammograms, though mammograms do exert more radiation than Xrays.  I am not going to review the report again, but you can search my past posts for a lot of information.  I suggest that you go to the report yourself and revisit table 7 which shows doses of radiation associated with different tests, but focus on the right column.  Also, I think I missed this last time but Appendix F shows which cancers have been associated with which chemicals or exposures and whether or not that is strong evidence or just suspected.  Thyroid cancer is on the list.  I provide snap shots of these two items below to entice you.










 
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