Holy Sh*t Moments 2014 - seven minutes worth of people feeling the luck of the Irish -
XIAM007 - Generation X I am
Wednesday, 28 May 2014
It’s Official: Most American Kids Are Physically Unfit -
It’s Official: Most American Kids Are Physically Unfit -
You’ve probably heard the complaints since you were a kid yourself – children aren’t getting enough exercise. Now there are numbers behind this notion.
According to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adolescents aged 12 to 15 are considered physically unfit.
The authors of the report tested more than 600 young teenagers on treadmills to measure cardiorespiratory fitness, a measure of how well the heart and lungs can move blood to supply muscles during exercise.
They found that just half of all boys and only a third of all girls in the study met the bare minimum threshold of being called “fit.” Taken as a whole, this meant that only 42 percent of kids were fit. In 2000, by comparison, this figure was 52 percent – lackluster for sure, but still a majority.
Not surprisingly, overweight and obese children were less fit than those who had a healthy weight; only 30 percent of overweight children and 20 percent of obese passed the minimum standards to be called fit. But even so, only 54 percent of children with normal weight – barely half – had adequate levels of cardiorespiratory fitness.
Dr. Jaime Gahche, the lead author of the report, said the solution is clear – children simply need to get up and move.
“Children should spend at least 60 minutes daily,” Gahche said, “mostly doing aerobic exercise, like walking, running, participating in team sports or martial arts.”
Keith Ayoob, director of nutrition at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Rose R. Kennedy Clinic, agreed that the findings are a clear signal that American children need more physical activity.
“We have got to make sure that no kid is left on his behind,” said Ayoob, who was not involved with the study.
Competing for kids’ time with these activities, of course, is a growing proportion of the day devoted to computers, tablets and other forms of screen time.
“Kids come home after school nowadays and don’t even leave the house,” said Dr. Dyan Hers, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Medical College, who was also not involved with the study. “Especially teenage girls – they chat, they text, they go online. It’s really a sad state.”
Doctor’s Take
The fact that less than half of the next generation of Americans meets the minimum standards for fitness is a major cause for concern. If we are unable to stop this trend, the decades to come will see us all living in a very sick country.
Fortunately, there is a lot that we can do to stem the tide of poor fitness. As both Ayoob and Hers note, physical activity doesn’t necessarily mean running marathons or forcing kids to do team sports. Simple encouragement to go outdoors, walk, and spend less time in front of television screens may go a long way.
And even though this study was only in teenagers, the results should prompt all of us to improve our own levels of cardiorespiratory fitness. After all, children and teens adopt the habits of people around them, especially their parents.
Read more -
You’ve probably heard the complaints since you were a kid yourself – children aren’t getting enough exercise. Now there are numbers behind this notion.
According to a new report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than half of adolescents aged 12 to 15 are considered physically unfit.
The authors of the report tested more than 600 young teenagers on treadmills to measure cardiorespiratory fitness, a measure of how well the heart and lungs can move blood to supply muscles during exercise.
They found that just half of all boys and only a third of all girls in the study met the bare minimum threshold of being called “fit.” Taken as a whole, this meant that only 42 percent of kids were fit. In 2000, by comparison, this figure was 52 percent – lackluster for sure, but still a majority.
Not surprisingly, overweight and obese children were less fit than those who had a healthy weight; only 30 percent of overweight children and 20 percent of obese passed the minimum standards to be called fit. But even so, only 54 percent of children with normal weight – barely half – had adequate levels of cardiorespiratory fitness.
Dr. Jaime Gahche, the lead author of the report, said the solution is clear – children simply need to get up and move.
“Children should spend at least 60 minutes daily,” Gahche said, “mostly doing aerobic exercise, like walking, running, participating in team sports or martial arts.”
Keith Ayoob, director of nutrition at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine’s Rose R. Kennedy Clinic, agreed that the findings are a clear signal that American children need more physical activity.
“We have got to make sure that no kid is left on his behind,” said Ayoob, who was not involved with the study.
Competing for kids’ time with these activities, of course, is a growing proportion of the day devoted to computers, tablets and other forms of screen time.
“Kids come home after school nowadays and don’t even leave the house,” said Dr. Dyan Hers, clinical assistant professor of pediatrics at Weill Medical College, who was also not involved with the study. “Especially teenage girls – they chat, they text, they go online. It’s really a sad state.”
Doctor’s Take
The fact that less than half of the next generation of Americans meets the minimum standards for fitness is a major cause for concern. If we are unable to stop this trend, the decades to come will see us all living in a very sick country.
Fortunately, there is a lot that we can do to stem the tide of poor fitness. As both Ayoob and Hers note, physical activity doesn’t necessarily mean running marathons or forcing kids to do team sports. Simple encouragement to go outdoors, walk, and spend less time in front of television screens may go a long way.
And even though this study was only in teenagers, the results should prompt all of us to improve our own levels of cardiorespiratory fitness. After all, children and teens adopt the habits of people around them, especially their parents.
Read more -
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2014/05/28/its-official-most-american-kids-are-physically-unfit/
BREAKING: Wikipedia Is NOT A Doctor -- And A Study Confirms It -
BREAKING: Wikipedia Is NOT A Doctor -- And A Study Confirms It -
Your high school teacher said it best: Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
The online encyclopedia that can be edited by experts and idiots alike is an easy source of information when trying to learn about a new topic. But a new study confirms what we all (hopefully) already know: Many entries -- especially medical entries -- contain false information, so don't use Wikipedia in place of a doctor.
Dr. Robert Hasty of Campbell University in North Carolina, along with a team of researchers, published the study in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. The study calls the information published in 20,000-plus medical-related Wikipedia entries into question.
For the study, researchers identified the "10 costliest conditions in terms of public and private expenditure" -- which included diabetes, back pain, lung cancer and major depressive disorder -- and compared the content of Wikipedia articles about those conditions to peer-reviewed medical literature. Two randomly assigned investigators found that 90 percent of the articles contained false information, which could affect the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Now for those of you who are saying that it's not the doctors themselves checking Wikipedia, you'd be wrong. According to a pair of studies from 2009 and 2010, "70% of junior physicians use Wikipedia in a given week, while nearly 50% to 70% of practicing physicians use it as an information source in providing medical care."
Pew research suggests that 72 percent of Internet users have looked up health information online in the last year. False information on Wikipedia accounts -- like a edited information about the side effects of a medication or false information about the benefits of one course of treatment over another -- could encourage some patients to push their doctors toward prescribing a certain drug or treatment.
Moral of the story: Wikipedia can't tell you if those sniffles are a symptom of the common cold or the West Nile Virus, so consult your doctor if you have health concerns. If you're a doctor, we don't know what to tell you, except maybe get off Wikipedia. (Isn't that what med school was for?)
Read more -
Your high school teacher said it best: Wikipedia is not a reliable source.
The online encyclopedia that can be edited by experts and idiots alike is an easy source of information when trying to learn about a new topic. But a new study confirms what we all (hopefully) already know: Many entries -- especially medical entries -- contain false information, so don't use Wikipedia in place of a doctor.
Dr. Robert Hasty of Campbell University in North Carolina, along with a team of researchers, published the study in this month's issue of the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. The study calls the information published in 20,000-plus medical-related Wikipedia entries into question.
For the study, researchers identified the "10 costliest conditions in terms of public and private expenditure" -- which included diabetes, back pain, lung cancer and major depressive disorder -- and compared the content of Wikipedia articles about those conditions to peer-reviewed medical literature. Two randomly assigned investigators found that 90 percent of the articles contained false information, which could affect the diagnosis and treatment of diseases.
Now for those of you who are saying that it's not the doctors themselves checking Wikipedia, you'd be wrong. According to a pair of studies from 2009 and 2010, "70% of junior physicians use Wikipedia in a given week, while nearly 50% to 70% of practicing physicians use it as an information source in providing medical care."
Pew research suggests that 72 percent of Internet users have looked up health information online in the last year. False information on Wikipedia accounts -- like a edited information about the side effects of a medication or false information about the benefits of one course of treatment over another -- could encourage some patients to push their doctors toward prescribing a certain drug or treatment.
Moral of the story: Wikipedia can't tell you if those sniffles are a symptom of the common cold or the West Nile Virus, so consult your doctor if you have health concerns. If you're a doctor, we don't know what to tell you, except maybe get off Wikipedia. (Isn't that what med school was for?)
Read more -
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/05/27/wikipedia-study-medical-information-doctor_n_5398691.html
CLAIM: Supplements May Make Body Age Faster...
CLAIM: Supplements May Make Body Age Faster...
Think antioxidants will make you live longer? Think again: We spend millions on them but now researchers say supplements may make our bodies age FASTER
We all want to stay as healthy and young-looking as possible, which is why millions of us dutifully take antioxidant supplements such as vitamins C, E and beta-carotene, as well as splashing out on costly antioxidant 'superfoods' such as blueberries.
For years we've swallowed the line from scientists that antioxidants could slow the rate at which our cells - and therefore our bodies - age.
The theory is that antioxidants reduce the 'oxidising' damage caused by free radicals - corrosive molecules produced by our bodies as we process oxygen, and which we also breathe in from polluted air and smoking.
It is thought that when these free radicals attack proteins and lipids (fats in the cells), it breaks down the cell membrane and damages the DNA inside. This in turn may cause cancerous mutations, as well as making the cells age more rapidly. Free-radical damage to brain cells is also believed to cause the sort of drops in cognitive functioning associated with ageing.
In Britain, we spend £175 million a year on antioxidant supplements - but a new study suggests we might be wasting our money. Not only do free radicals not cause ageing, say researchers at McGill University in Canada, but taking antioxidant pills may actually make our bodies age faster- making them a short cut to an early grave. So what is going on?
When free radicals interact with the cells, proteins and DNA in the body, they can cause damage by interfering with their chemical structure. Until now, it has been believed that, as a result, we inevitably suffer the ravages of ageing, from normal physical ageing to diseases such as cancer.
But the Canadian study, published in the respected journal Cell, says the opposite. Researchers found that free radicals can make our cells live longer.
This happens by altering a mechanism called apoptosis. This is a process by which damaged cells are instructed to commit suicide in a variety of situations, such as to avoid becoming cancerous when their DNA has mutated dangerously, or to kill off viruses that have invaded the cell.
Researchers found that free radicals can actually make our cells live longer
+3
Researchers found that free radicals can actually make our cells live longer
The scientists have found that free radicals can stimulate this 'suicide mechanism' to do something completely different in healthy cells - bolstering their defences and increasing their lifespan.
Siegfried Hekimi, professor of biology at McGill University, who led the study, says: 'The so-called free-radical theory of ageing is incorrect. We have turned this theory on its head.'
Professor Hekimi says that when he raised levels of free radicals in nematode worms (these simple roundworms are used because their nervous system performs many of the same functions as higher organisms), he got the creatures to live 'a substantially longer life'.
His study reinforces suspicions raised by other scientists. Last year, for example, researchers at the Multimedica Cardiovascular Research Institute in Italy warned that our bodies need the stress caused by free radicals to stimulate them to fight infectious disease and to properly regulate vital bodily functions such as our cardiovascular system.
The Milan-based researchers had surveyed all previous research evidence and concluded in The International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology: 'Increasing the levels of antioxidants in our bodies may harm our health. Balanced levels of antioxidants are important for our cardiovascular system and for healthy ageing.'
The theory behind this idea is called hormesis - which may be more described as 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'.
Scientists believe our bodies have evolved an array of defence mechanisms for surviving tough environments, but that these systems are not switched on unless we are challenged. And that is where free radicals come in.
The problem with antioxidants is that they may neutralise this 'protective' effect. It may also help explain why antioxidant pills have been found to produce some unexpectedly harmful results.
For instance, laboratory studies have shown how high doses of antioxidants such as N-acetyl cysteine - a popular antioxidant supplement - may promote the spread of breast cancer cells.
Meanwhile, the antioxidants beta carotene and vitamin A have been linked to an increased risk of death from lung cancer and lung disease.
Read more: -
Think antioxidants will make you live longer? Think again: We spend millions on them but now researchers say supplements may make our bodies age FASTER
We all want to stay as healthy and young-looking as possible, which is why millions of us dutifully take antioxidant supplements such as vitamins C, E and beta-carotene, as well as splashing out on costly antioxidant 'superfoods' such as blueberries.
For years we've swallowed the line from scientists that antioxidants could slow the rate at which our cells - and therefore our bodies - age.
The theory is that antioxidants reduce the 'oxidising' damage caused by free radicals - corrosive molecules produced by our bodies as we process oxygen, and which we also breathe in from polluted air and smoking.
It is thought that when these free radicals attack proteins and lipids (fats in the cells), it breaks down the cell membrane and damages the DNA inside. This in turn may cause cancerous mutations, as well as making the cells age more rapidly. Free-radical damage to brain cells is also believed to cause the sort of drops in cognitive functioning associated with ageing.
In Britain, we spend £175 million a year on antioxidant supplements - but a new study suggests we might be wasting our money. Not only do free radicals not cause ageing, say researchers at McGill University in Canada, but taking antioxidant pills may actually make our bodies age faster- making them a short cut to an early grave. So what is going on?
When free radicals interact with the cells, proteins and DNA in the body, they can cause damage by interfering with their chemical structure. Until now, it has been believed that, as a result, we inevitably suffer the ravages of ageing, from normal physical ageing to diseases such as cancer.
But the Canadian study, published in the respected journal Cell, says the opposite. Researchers found that free radicals can make our cells live longer.
This happens by altering a mechanism called apoptosis. This is a process by which damaged cells are instructed to commit suicide in a variety of situations, such as to avoid becoming cancerous when their DNA has mutated dangerously, or to kill off viruses that have invaded the cell.
Researchers found that free radicals can actually make our cells live longer
+3
Researchers found that free radicals can actually make our cells live longer
The scientists have found that free radicals can stimulate this 'suicide mechanism' to do something completely different in healthy cells - bolstering their defences and increasing their lifespan.
Siegfried Hekimi, professor of biology at McGill University, who led the study, says: 'The so-called free-radical theory of ageing is incorrect. We have turned this theory on its head.'
Professor Hekimi says that when he raised levels of free radicals in nematode worms (these simple roundworms are used because their nervous system performs many of the same functions as higher organisms), he got the creatures to live 'a substantially longer life'.
His study reinforces suspicions raised by other scientists. Last year, for example, researchers at the Multimedica Cardiovascular Research Institute in Italy warned that our bodies need the stress caused by free radicals to stimulate them to fight infectious disease and to properly regulate vital bodily functions such as our cardiovascular system.
The Milan-based researchers had surveyed all previous research evidence and concluded in The International Journal of Biochemistry and Cell Biology: 'Increasing the levels of antioxidants in our bodies may harm our health. Balanced levels of antioxidants are important for our cardiovascular system and for healthy ageing.'
The theory behind this idea is called hormesis - which may be more described as 'what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger'.
Scientists believe our bodies have evolved an array of defence mechanisms for surviving tough environments, but that these systems are not switched on unless we are challenged. And that is where free radicals come in.
The problem with antioxidants is that they may neutralise this 'protective' effect. It may also help explain why antioxidant pills have been found to produce some unexpectedly harmful results.
For instance, laboratory studies have shown how high doses of antioxidants such as N-acetyl cysteine - a popular antioxidant supplement - may promote the spread of breast cancer cells.
Meanwhile, the antioxidants beta carotene and vitamin A have been linked to an increased risk of death from lung cancer and lung disease.
Read more: -
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2639929/Think-antioxidants-make-live-longer-Think-We-spend-millions-researchers-say-supplements-make-bodies-age-FASTER.html
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