Archive for the ‘Healthcare’ Category

SOURCE: CNN

Alcohol ranks “most harmful” drug beating out crack and heroin, according to study results released by a British medical journal.

A panel of experts from the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs weighed the physical, psychological, and social problems caused by the drugs and determined that alcohol was the most harmful overall, according to an article on the study released by The Lancet on Sunday.

Using a new scale to evaluate harms to individual users and others, alcohol received a score of 72 on a scale of 1 to 100, the study says. It was compared to 19 other drugs using 16 criteria: nine related to the adverse effects the drug has on an individual and seven on its harm against others.

That makes it almost three times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco, according to the article, which is slated to be published on The Lancet’s website Monday and in an upcoming print edition of the journal.

Heroin, crack cocaine and methamphetamine were the most harmful drugs to individuals, the study says, while alcohol, heroin and crack cocaine were the most harmful to others.

In the article, the panelists said their findings show that Britain’s three-tiered drug classification system, which places drugs into different categories that determine criminal penalties for possession and dealing, has “little relation to the evidence of harm.”

Panelists also noted that the rankings confirm other studies that say that “aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy.”

The Lancet article was co-authored by David Nutt, a professor and Britain’s former chief drug adviser, who caused controversy last year after he published an article saying ecstasy was not as dangerous as riding a horse.

“So why are harmful sporting activities allowed, whereas relatively less harmful drugs are not?” Nutt wrote in the Journal of Psychopharmacology. “I believe this reflects a societal approach which does not adequately balance the relative risks of drugs against their harms.”

Nutt later apologized to to anyone offended by the article and to those who have lost loved ones to ecstasy. He said he had no intention of trivializing the dangers of the drug and that he only wanted to compare the risks.

In the article released by The Lancet on Sunday, ecstasy’s harmfulness ranking — 9 — indicates it is only one-eighth as harmful as alcohol.

The study was funded by the London-based Centre for Crime and Justice studies.

______________________________________

MY TAKE: Alcohol certainly does take its toll on the body over time, and the effects of being drunk and driving can be devastating and expensive. If you think you have issues now with debt settlement services think agai. Try to eliminated credit card debt once you’ve lost your license and your job and your freedom because you’ve killed someone in a car accident. By the way, it’s usually the drunk driver who survives an accident, possibly with no more than a few scratches or perhaps nothingmore than a California plastic surgeon would have to handle.

One of the best ways to lose belly fat for men is to put down the heavy beer guzzling. Women can also count on being able to also lose belly fat if they stop drinking excessively, especially wine, which is pure sugar!

——————————————————————-

OTHER RESOURCES

Kosher Milk Issues

There is an assumption that is made by rabbinical scholars which suggests that the milk obtained from an animal that is otherwise kosher would mean that the milk was kosher as well and that it could be sold within the context of a kosher food online business. An interesting aside to this assumption however is the idea that if the meat from an otherwise kosher animal is found to be diseased and is therefore made non-kosher, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the milk obtained from that animal would also be considered non-kosher in what would be a type of retroactive application of non-kosher status.

Arabica Beans Becoming Scarce

A number of companies that roast coffee for a living are finding that there has been a reduction in the availability of Arabica beans for standard coffee and wholesale coffee which has meant that various manufacturers have had to change their options as far as obtaining the right sort of beans is concerned. There was a significant amount of rain that fell in Columbia last year that meant that the crop was far smaller that came out of the country and the harvest for the crop in Brazil is not yet expected for several months so prices have gone up.

Natomas Private Seucrity

For the best Natomas private security services your company should ensure the safety your business and your assets, proved outstanding customer service and cater to your needs. That goes for any Rancho Cordova private security firm.

SOURCE:

Too much TV is not a good thing.

Forget about how to find daycare centers. Turns out childcare is one of the last things you should worry about when it comes to kids.

Parents should limit their young children’s screen time to no more than two hours per day, according to pediatricians. This recommendation has been in place for many years, but parents and child caregivers don’t seem to be catching on. A new study finds that the average preschool-age child is exposed to double the recommended amount.

Screen time consists of television, DVDs, computers and video games. The researchers examined data from nearly 9,000 preschool-aged children who were part of a longitudinal study that began in 2001 and included interviews with parents and child care providers to collect data on each child’s daily screen time.

On average, children were exposed to four hours of screen time per day — with 3.6 hours of that time coming from exposures while at home.

That’s a lot of time exposed to commercials and ads for everything from green issues and pharmaceutical companies to senior style forum debates and other issues they don’t really understand, let alone need to hear about.

Children in home-based day care averaged 5.6 hours of screen time at day care. Children in center-based day care watched about 3.2 hours a day while at home and at day care. Even children who did not attend any day care or preschool exceeded recommendations — 4.4. hours a day of screen-time on average. Children enrolled in Head Start, a day care program for economically disadvantaged children, watched an average of 4.2 hours a day, but most of their screen time was at home, not at the Head Start center.

Excessive television, video and computer time is linked to delayed speech and language, aggressive behavior and obesity in children, which is why the American Academy of Pediatrics issued the recommendation to limit exposure to one to two hours per day of quality programming. Most states, however, do not issue regulations regarding screen time as part of licensing of child care centers, the authors noted.

______________________________________

MY TAKE: One of the best ways to find out how parents feel about TV watching is to use online survey tools. If you take an online survey software program and set up a survey that way, they are more likely to answer it. But for kids and TV issues it’s always as crap shoot about whether the results are real. Parents don’t really want to admit how much time they rely upon the TV for a babysitter, nor do daycare centers.

———————————————————————

OTHER RESOURCES:

Cited: The New York Times

You hear Richard Simmons is familiar southern tinged voice floated through the doors of the studio where he is holding his “Project Me” a talk therapy class about exercise. You always hear Richard before you see him. His acolytes wait in a small green and pink pastel colored lobby of Slimmons, his fitness studio, or the doors to cling open. “Hello, everybody!” Mr. Simmons called out, as a high-energy remix of “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga throbbed through the sound system.

Ninety-one students ran to take their places in the long, narrow gym, among them the swimmer Rowdy Gaines, a three-time Olympic gold medalist who was visiting from Florida with his wife.

Mr. Simmons is everything you expect him to be. At a recent class, he stood at the front of the room wearing teeny red shorts and a matching “Sweatin’ to the Oldies” tank top encrusted with crystals. His lean, shapely legs were covered by nude tights, over which he wore pristine white socks and sneakers. And there was the ever-present halo of curly, graying brown hair, a miracle of hair plugs.

At 61, Mr. Simmons is as American as apple pie and the Big Mac — two things he would no doubt warn you away from eating. He has outlasted many of his peers, including Jane Fonda, whose career as a fitness guru started around the same time as his (the same company released their first videotapes in the early ’80s). While she has moved on from leg lifts to political activism and the occasional acting role, he is about to release two new videos, “Sweating to the Oldies 5” and “Toning to the Oldies” — his 58th and 59th.

Other contemporaries like Susan Powter, the buzz-cut dynamo behind “Stop the Insanity,” and Denise Austin, the peppy telegenic trainer, are still active through books and DVDs. But Mr. Simmons is the only one regularly offering classes to the public in his own studio.

It’s not that he needs the money. He commands up to $20,000 to speak and has sold millions of DVDs, according to his manager, Michael Catalano. But Mr. Simmons, who says he is deeply religious, has an almost spiritual connection with his followers.

“I don’t have to teach anymore, I don’t have to work anymore, God has been really good to me,” Mr. Simmons said. “But I can’t forget these people — where would they go? Where would these men and women who don’t feel accepted in other places, where would they find a place to work out where they could laugh and feel good about themselves?”

Yes, he is a people person.

When he is in town — and last year he traveled 200 days — he teaches up to three times a week at Slimmons. “It’s a very unusual place — it has a spirit all its own,” Mr. Simmons said of the studio. “I’ve been on a month-to-month lease for 35 years.”

For those who would like to experience a more conventional way of exercise . . . You can enjoy excellent Pilates instruction, learn how to do Pilates exercise or just find out “what is Pilates?” The leading online Pilates resource, supported by quality Pilates fitness equipment, training videos, manuals and workouts. The Pilates fitness program provides exercises to increase core strength, tone and strengthen the abdominal muscles and sculpt long, lean muscles.

His classes are an open secret in Los Angeles. You can call the studio to see if he will be there (or sign up for the Slimmons e-mail newsletter), show up 20 minutes early to ensure entry and pay $12. The sessions attract a mix of first-time looky-loos, young Simmons converts and a die-hard clientele of middle-aged women. One student, Willam Belli, a 25-year-old actor, described the class as “women who would go to Curves, and hipsters.”

Mr. Belli had come for a friend’s birthday party a few months ago, and kept coming back. “I have a muscle now,” he said and lifted his shirt.

He had brought his friend, Ingrid Sheaffer, 25, a reporter for US Weekly. “The real Richard Simmons is teaching a class?” Ms. Sheaffer asked. “I’m like, ‘I don’t even know how we lived in L.A. for so long and didn’t know that this was something you could do.’ ”

The class is part workout, part stand-up show. Mr. Simmons cracked jokes in between instructions: “Look! There’s a cookie down there!” he said, taunting one student. To another: “Why are you going so fast? Do you have lunch at the Ivy?”

Sometimes, for no apparent reason, Mr. Simmons would start screaming. “Aaaah! Aaaaaaaah!” Everyone giggled.

Midway through the class, a Hollywood tour bus pulled up to the front of the studio. Mr. Simmons ran out to wave hello.

“This is my theater,” he said afterward. “This is where I can sing and act out a play and do sit-ups at the same time.”

When he wasn’t demonstrating the moves, he was frantically throwing well-worn vinyl records on a Technics turntable.

He led sing-alongs to the summer camp ditty “Kookaburra” and to “The Sound of Music.” His class joined hands and kicked in a chorus line. Everyone was smiling, even when they were grunting to keep up.

After 45 minutes of aerobics and a round of sit-ups, push-ups and weights — which Mr. Simmons oversaw like a drill sergeant — he gave a brief motivational speech on the subject of inner peace.

“Peace is a state of being, where you are happy with who you are,” he said. “I wish you success — some of you are young or changing careers. More than that, I wish you peace.”

He closed with: “Have a wonderful day! Thank you!” This is the Richard Simmons people came to see.

After class, Mr. Simmons ruminated on his appeal. “I show them many facets of my diamond,” he said. “I show them the funny part, the silly part, the laughing part, the crazy part and then the really deep, deep part where I’m talking from my heart to these people. Because I’ve been through everything they’ve been through.”

His story — a well-worn trope about being a fat kid from New Orleans who shed a large amount of weight and kept it off through exercise — is universally appealing.

“Everybody needs somebody that they can connect with,” Ms. Austin said in a telephone interview. “And I think that’s what Richard makes people feel, especially people who are very overweight. It’s all about being genuine.”

Mr. Simmons spends his days writing and calling the thousands of people who reach out to him for advice and inspiration. Sometimes, he will sing to them.

“It’s my whole life,” he said, welling up. “I can’t go to bed at night knowing that I don’t answer something. It upsets me.”

Even Ms. Powter, who thinks his shtick has long since worn thin (“He needs to put some trousers on and stop it,” she said), offered begrudging admiration. “To be able to continue going and go with the trends — it’s amazing,” she said. She called Mr. Simmons “the Liberace of wellness.”

Mr. Gaines, the swimmer, said he found his encounter satisfying. “It’s the epitome of what I expected,” he said after the class. “He’s Richard Simmons. He’s the exact same persona you see on TV.”

Mr. Simmons says it is his wife’s purpose and that he will continue teaching until no one shows up. That is very unlikely, since there are still people who are overweight and want to lose weight.

———————————

My Take: I have lost weight to the oldies and I know it works. Unfortunately, I developed myasthenia gravis, which prevents me from doing any type of exercising. It is almost impossible to lose weight without exercising and I for one would recommend Richard Simmons’ “Sweating to the Oldies” to anyone. It is a much better choice than my family searching for cremation urns.

Believe me; I would rather worry about natural skin care than my weight. Being overweight causes a variety of problems that include heart disease, low back pain, and breathing problems. I definitely would rather worry about buying organic gift sets then how many calories I’m taking it.

I have heard of a new diet called HCG diet. I do not know how well it works, but you use HCG weight loss drops under your tongue and to lose weight. I am thinking very strongly about investigating it and see if it will help me. I just hope that the HCG drops diet plan is not too expensive since I am on disability. I would much rather my family for pet urns than one for me.

———————————

Other Resources

Escape to a Spa

Answer the following questions:

1. Are you active with a busy schedule?
2. Do you sometimes dream of getting away from your daily routine?
3. Do you feel that you have not taken care of yourself and need some personal care?
4. Do you want to feel rejuvenated, refreshed and stimulated?
5. Do you think your skin needs to be renewed?
6. Would you like to calm down and relax?
7. Would you like to travel without packing?
8. Would you like to learn about different ways of relaxing and healing?

Then you definitely need to escape for a Lebanon day spa salon indulgence. Everyone deserves and needs to take some personal time.