Most of us associate calcium with healthy bones, and rightly so. But did you know that calcium is also vital for maintaining the health of your nervous system? It also helps blood clot and muscles contract. Without calcium, in fact, we cannot survive. Getting sufficient calcium, however, isn’t as simple as popping a calcium tablet.
Low-fat dairy delivers more calcium than full fat. For example, 8 ounces of whole milk yogurt has only 274 mg calcium, compared to low fat yogurt, which has about 400 mg.
Calcium is best absorbed at night because that’s when your parathyroid glands and the liver are most active. Incidentally, calcium is known to help you sleep better.
Though you might require 1000 mg or more of calcium every day, it is best abosrbed when taken in doses of 500 mg at a time. The body can’t handle too much calcium at one go.
Should you take your multivitamin and iron supplements at the same time as your calcium tablet? No! For better absorption, take calcium separately from these.
Dairy isn’t your only option. If you choose to avoid it or cannot tolerate it, get your calcium from green leafy vegetables and dry roasted almonds.
You should always take calcium with a full glass of water and have it either with your meal or just after. This helps your system absorb it better.
Calcium needs a partner for better absorption—that’s Vitamin D, which helps form the hormone calcitriol. Your intake of Vitamin D comes from three sources—sunshine, diet and supplements. Make sure you know how much you need and which of these sources works best for you.
Vegetables are important protective food and highly beneficial for the maintenance of health and prevention of disease. They contain valuable food ingredients which can be successfully used to build up and repair the body. Here is a list with the veggies that are high in nutrients and your body would love to have them.
Artichokes– 1 medium (60 calories, 0 g fat): In addition to their high fiber content (6 g), artichokes contain a flavonoid that has been shown to reduce skin cancer in animals.
Avocado– 1/2 avocado (170 calories, 13 g fat): Yes, they’re high in fat, but fortunately half of it’s the heart-healthy monounsaturated variety. Avocado is a good source of vitamin E.
Beets - 1/2 cup, sliced (37 calories, 0 g fat): Beta-cyanin, which gives beets their reddish-purple color, is a disease-fighting antioxidant.
Bok choy– 1 cup, cooked (20 calories, 0 g fat): This veggie of Chinese cuisine contains isothiocyanates (useful chemopreventive agent against the development and proliferation of cancers), plus lots of calcium (158 mg per cup) and vitamin C (44 mg per cup).
Broccoli– 1 cup, cooked (44 calories, 0 g fat): This super food is loaded with sulphoraphane. Then there’s the 72 mg of calcium, 78 mcg of folic acid and all the vitamin C.
Cabbage– 1 cup raw, chopped(22 calories, 0 g fat): The indoles in cabbage make it a cancer fighter. For a healthy coleslaw, top shredded raw cabbage with low fat dressing.
Carrots– 1 medium (26 calories, 0 g fat): They are a rich source of beta-carotene. One carrot contains twice the RDA for vitamin A.
Garlic - 1 clove (5 calories, 0 g fat): Raw, cooked or granulated: all forms contain cholesterol-fighting organosulfur compounds.
Greens (collard, kale, mustard, turnip)– 1 cup, cooked (29-49 calories, 0-1 g fat): These greens are packed with disease fighters: lutein, zeaxanthin, and isothiocyanates and 93 to 226 mg of calcium per cup.
Green beans– 1 cup, cooked (43 calories, 0 g fat): Green beans carry a variety of antioxidant carotenoids, including beta-carotene, lutein and zeaxanthin.
Green pepper– 1 medium (32 calories, 0 g fat): One of the richest vitamin C vegetables – 66 mg per pepper.
Lettuce (romaine) - 2 cups, shredded (18 calories, 0 g fat): The darker the green, the more carotenoids. These lettuces are also high in folic acid: there’s 40% of the RDA in 2 cups of romaine.
Mushrooms– 4-5 mushrooms (20 calories, 0 g fat): they are a good source of B vitamins, copper and selenium.
Onions– 1/2 cup, chopped (30 calories, 0 g fat): They’re important suppliers of the same heart-healthy organosulphur compounds that are found in garlic.
Peas - 1/2 cup, cooked (67 calories, 0 g fat): A good source of the carotenoids lutein and zeaxanthin – both of which help protect against age-related eye disease.
Peppers (hot)– 1 pepper (18 calories, 0 g fat): Help short-circuit the cancer process.
Potato (white)– 1 medium (220 calories, 0 g fat): Don’t peel it, and you get a generous 5 g of fiber, 43% of the day’s vitamin C requirement and a major dose of potassium. See here how to cook a potato without peeling it.
Pumpkin - 1/2 cup (41 calories, 0 g fat): Gives you three times the RDA for vitamin A and 3/5 g of fiber.
Radishes - 4 radishes (4 calories, 0 g fat): The beginning of the bite is cool, but soon things get hot; chewing activates the veggies’ indoles and isothiocyanates. Radishes are an excellent source of Potassium (767mg), Vitamin C (74mg), Folate (95mcg) and Magnesium (54mg).
Seaweed– 1 cup (32 calories, 0 g fat): Seaweed is carotenoid and calcium-rich and has a delicate taste.
Spinach - 1 cup, cooked (41 calories, 0 g fat): Offers enough beta-carotene to surpass the RDA for vitamin A, a lot of lutein and more than half the RDA for folic acid.
Squash (winter types)– 1 cup, cooked (82 calories, 0 g fat): Not only does a cup equip you with three day’s worth of vitamin A, but it fulfills nearly 10% of your daily calcium needs also.
Tomatoes– 1 tomato (26 calories, 0 g fat): Technically considered a fruit, tomatoes are loaded with cancer-fighting lycopene and are great sources of vitamin C.
Watercress– 2 cups (8 calories, 0 g fat): One of its compounds detoxifies a major carcinogen in tobacco and may help prevent lung cancer.
Yams (sweet potatoes)– 1/2 cup, mashed (103 calories, 0 g fat): They win the carotenoid prize, with astonishing levels amounting to six times the RDA for vitamin A.
In a study published Thursday in the journal Science, the team from Japan revealed how they were able to figure out what people were dreaming about.
“In this study, we tried to read out what we called the visual contents of dreaming from brain activity during sleep which is measured by functional MRI (fMRI),” said team scientist Yukiyasu Kamitani in an interview for Science’s podcast.
By using context specific activity patterns associated with stimulus perception, we are able to reveal dream contents from brain activity during sleep
To do this, the scientists hooked subjects up fMRIs and then tracked their brain activity when they slept, and when the brain activity became the most active and indicative of visual stimuli, the scientists woke the subjects up and asked them to explain what they saw.
“Dreaming often accompanies vivid visual experience, and we assumed that visual content represented disparity between common brain activity patterns between dreaming and perception during wakefulness,” Kamitani explained to Science. ”By using context specific activity patterns associated with stimulus perception, we are able to reveal dream contents from brain activity during sleep.”
This wasn’t something that they just did a few times. Each subject was woken up over and over and over again.
When hooked up to an fMRI “the subject verbally reported what they saw [in their dream], and then went to sleep again. We repeated this procedure to get at least 200 visual reports from each subject,” Kamitani said.
That data was then correlated and organized so that it could be parsed out in a meaningful way.
“Since verbal reports were not well structured, we performed text analysis on the reports…. We group them into about 20 basic visual categories,” Kamitani said on the podcast. “So each verbal report can now be represented by a vector with elements indicating the presence or absence of each visual category.
“We collected images from the Internet depicting each of the basic visual categories, and presented them to the subjects, while measuring with the [fMRI], and that was used for the training of the decoder.”
The decoder that Kamitani is talking about is a database built from brain scans when a person is awake, that data is then mixed and correlated with the “dream” reports to create a predicative matrix.
The decoding of images from the fMRI scan
That matrix was then used on fMRI scans of new sleepers to predict what they were dreaming about, which it could do about six out of ten times.
The reason it the computer was able to do this was because the brain’s reaction to images seen by the eyes was very similar to those experienced in dreams.
“There is a similarity amongst the subjects, so from that result, we could pick up some basic dream content and then we can build a model from those base contents, and they may apply to other people,” study co-author Masako Tamaki told Live Science.
Even after he was forced to see his mum being hanged and his brother being shot dead, he was convinced he had done the right thing
Survivor: Shin Dong-hyuk has seen horrors of death camps
When 13-year-old Shin Dong-hyuk overheard his mother planning an escape from their North Korean death camp, he knew exactly what he had to do.
He told the guards everything and watched as his mum and brother were dragged away.
And in an even more shocking confession, Shin has revealed that after he was forced to see his mum being hanged and his brother being shot dead, he was convinced he had done the right thing.
He thought they deserved to die for their treachery.
Shin was born in notorious Camp 14. The grim battle to survive in the gulag 50 miles north of capital Pyongyang was the only life he knew.
It is only now – as the sole inmate known to have escaped the prison camp – that he can recognise the true horror of what he did.
As the world watches the deluded posturing of North Korea’s young dictator Kim Jong-un, Shin’s harrowing story shines a rare light on the most secretive country on Earth.
While the regime pumps out stage-managed pictures of military parades, the country’s 24 million people live in terror of being sent to one of the slave labour camps that are dotted around the country.
Around 200,000 people are detained in these hell holes where torture and rape are common.
Most inmates die in the camps. Escape is almost impossible which makes Shin’s story so compelling.
Since he fled he has devoted his life to telling people the truth about North Korea.
But it was not until recently that he revealed his darkest secret about betraying his mum and brother.
Far from being rewarded for his betrayal, Shin was tortured for four days as guards demanded more information.
“I was taken to a chamber full of torture instruments,” he says.
“I was stripped, my legs were cuffed and my hands were tied with rope. I was hung by my legs and hands from the ceiling.
"Someone started a charcoal fire and brought it under my back. I felt the heat at my waist and shrieked.
"My torturers pierced me with a steel hook near the groin to stop me writhing. The pain was so bad that I passed out.”
Burns: His back suffered injuries from torture
What did he hope to get out of informing on his own family? He says: “Being full for the first time.
"But the biggest reason was simply that I was supposed to report things like that.
“If I could meet my mother and brother through a time machine I would apologise.
"By telling this story I think I can kind of repent for what I did.”
His body still bears the scars of torture and his escape.
Crisscrossing his legs are the terrible burns he suffered as he clambered over the dead body of his friend who was killed by the electrified barbed wire that encircled Camp 14.
Shin, 30, was born in the camp, punished for the political sins of his parents who were forced into marriage inside the prison and were allowed to sleep together for a few nights a year as a rare reward for good work.
Inmates, fed gruel made of cornmeal and cabbage, live in a constant state of hunger, and an estimated 40% starve to death.
The best chance of survival is by scavenging rats and cockroaches to eat.
Without a proper diet, prisoners develop hunchbacks from bending over while working in the fields.
In winter, wearing the most threadbare of clothes, fingers are often lost to frostbite.
Knowing nothing else, Shin believed this life was normal.
“I had no concept of human rights. I was only destined to live and die in this camp.
"We were always hungry, and the guards always told us ‘through hunger you will repent’.”
Guards are brutal and inmates are terrorised for fun but very few prisoners attempt to flee.
Anyone who tries, plans, or knows of a potential escape is executed and all the other detainees are forced to watch.
School was no safe haven. Teachers would beat students to death for minor rule breaking.
There are also medieval torture devices in underground cells.
Shin fell foul of the casual brutality of the guards.
When he accidentally broke a sewing machine in a factory, he had the tip of one finger chopped off as punishment.
Daily life was an exercise in survival. He says: “We woke up before sunrise and worked all day.
"It was manual labour well into night until the prison guards deemed it fit for us to go to sleep.
“It was repeated day in, day out. And it was something that I thought was very natural.
“There was no way for the prisoners to know what was beyond the electrified fence, whether it was a world of prison camps or a different society.
"My mother and father never talked to me about the outside world.”
The Korean peninsula has been troubled for decades.
It was occupied by Japan in the first half of the 20th century before being split in two after Japan’s defeat in the Second World War.
The USSR imposed Kim Jong-un’s grandfather Kim Il-sung as leader in the North in 1946, while the US controlled the South.
Following the US withdrawal, the North invaded the South, sparking the Korean War which raged from 1950 until 1953.
An uneasy truce has been maintained since.
While those in the South live in a democracy, those in the North live in fear of being accused of dissent against Kim Jong-un and sent to one of the concentration camps.
While Shin was working in a factory at Camp 14 he became friends with a man called Park, a 40-year-old political prisoner.
Park was well educated and had even travelled outside the country before falling foul of the despotic regime.
He told Shin of the world outside. And there was something that lit a fire in the young man’s heart – the promise of a good dinner.
Shin says: “I paid most attention to the food he ate outside the camp – like barbecued pig.
"The most important thing was the idea that a prisoner like me could eat chicken and pork if I escaped. I still think of freedom as broiled chicken.”
Horrific: Scars on his legs
The pair began to plot their escape. On January 2, 2005 they were posted to work near the electric fence on top of a mountain ridge.
When the guards were out of sight they took their chance but Park was electrocuted.
Shin used his friend’s body as a shield to cross the electric fence but still suffered terrible burns when his legs touched the wire.
But he broke out, found an old military uniform in a nearby barn and, posing as a soldier, made his way north to the border with China.
From there he travelled to South Korea where he still lives.
Shin is now a powerful voice speaking out for those left behind in his homeland. Astonishingly, one of the things he talks about is forgiveness.
He says: “I used to feel intense hatred for the guards. But now I think they are victims too.
“I hope they will realise their wrongdoings and grab a chance to start a new life. The biggest change is that I can forgive them.”
Strawberry shake Blend kefir (it's like a liquid yogurt), strawberries, and a teaspoon of honey for a refreshing protein shake that's also chock-full of digestion-enhancing probiotics.
Frozen blueberries A cup of the fruit is packed with vitamins, antioxidants, and more than 4 grams of fiber. For a richer snack, top them with a little light whipping cream.
Yogurt cubes If you're an ice cream lover, try this lean alternative: pour a homemade smoothie (like the kefir-strawberry mixture above) into ice cube trays, then freeze until slushy.
Multigrain pretzels Whether in stick or twist form, pretzels are a surprisingly good alternative to chips. One ounce—about a handful—boasts just over 100 calories. To add some metabolism-revving protein, dunk 'em in yogurt.
Crackers For a nutty snack, try Ak-mak crackers (made of stone-ground sesame seeds), multigrain Wasa crackers, or low-fat rye mini toasts. Spread on some hummus or light cheese, or eat with a small slice of lean lunch meat. Cheese quesadilla Sprinkle some grated low-fat cheese, like Jarlesberg light, in between a couple of high-fiber tortillas, then crisp both sides on a cast-iron skillet or indoor grill. The healthiest cheeses have just 3 to 5 grams of fat per ounce.
Popcorn Choose 100-calorie packs of 94% fat-free microwave popcorn. Or air-pop your own. Skip the butter. Instead, raid your spice cabinet: Use lime powder for tang, cayenne pepper for heat, or a dash of cinnamon for sweetness.
Greek yogurt "It's high protein, low in sugar, and can really fill you up," Villacorta says. For more flavor, mix in your own fruit, like sliced papaya.
Dark chocolate The darker the better. Chocolate made with at least 70% cacao contains less sugar and more antioxidants than its milky cousin.
Dried figs Three or four of the chewy, candylike fruit should do the trick. Still hungry? Pair them with a wedge of light cheese like Laughing Cow.
There's nothing worse than meeting someone and realizing that your breath smells like your tuna lunch, stale coffee or worse. What you eat and poor oral hygiene are the two main causes of halitosis, or bad breath.
When you think about it, the mouth is a dirty worksite: more than 600 kinds of bacteria live in the average mouth. Many produce smelly gases as they digest the tiny food particles lodged between your teeth and on your tongue. Some of the most offensive gases produced by mouth bacteria are sulfur compounds, which are formed during the breakdown of proteins. Garlic and onion also contain many sulfur compounds. A proper oral-hygiene routine, which includes brushing, flossing, rinsing, tongue cleansing and regular visits to the dentist, is an important first step.
But even with good dental hygiene your breath can still stink. About $1 billion a year is spent on breath-freshening products like gum and mints. However, these only work to temporarily mask odors. Fortunately, there are a few foods you can add to your arsenal in the battle against bad breath. If bad breath is a persistent problem, talk with your doctor. It could be a sign of a more serious condition. Tea For tea-rific breath, try a cup of tea. Studies suggest that drinking unsweetened black or green tea may help ward off bad breath. Both types of tea contain antioxidants called polyphenols that can help destroy the growth of bacteria that cause bad breath-although green tea contains more because it is processed in a different way. A study conducted at Pace University, for example, found that green tea extracts were effective at fighting several types of oral bacteria by preventing their growth. Polyphenols also reduce those nasty sulfur compounds. Probiotic Yogurt Recent studies show that eating 6 ounces of unsweetened yogurt every day can reduce the level of odor-causing hydrogen sulfide in your mouth. The reason is that active cultures in yogurt, such as Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus, compete with the bacteria in your mouth that contribute to bad breath. Accumulation of plaque and development of periodontal disease were also reduced in the study's yogurt eaters. Eat a cup of plain yogurt with active cultures and make sure to avoid varieties with added sugars. (Sugars allow for bacterial growth in the body and especially the mouth.)
Water Wet your whistle-often. Most odor-causing bacteria are anaerobic, meaning they thrive in a dry mouth. Therefore, drinking water helps flush out food particles and bacteria stuck in your mouth. Drinking water also promotes the production of saliva, which acts as a cleansing agent.
Parsley and Basil Nothing says stinky breath like garlic and onions. That's because there are roughly 33 different smelly sulfur compounds that naturally occur in garlic and onions; they linger in your mouth and are absorbed in the bloodstream and expelled when you exhale. Parsley and basil help kick garlic breath. The polyphenols (compounds that act like antioxidants) in these herbs break down the sulfur compounds in garlic. For the biggest benefit, combine garlic and either basil or parsley in the same dish (think pesto!), though it may be possible to get the garlic-breath-fighting benefits of polyphenols by eating the herbs in dishes separate from the garlic, as long as they are consumed during the same meal.
Apples and Spinach While we can't guarantee that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, research has shown that eating apples with garlic can mitigate garlic breath. (Think pork chops with apples and garlic-smashed potatoes. Or if the thought of garlic and apples together doesn't sound appealing, follow a garlic-heavy dish with an apple.) The polyphenols found in apples break down the smelly sulfur compounds. Spinach is another polyphenol-rich food that is good at breaking down stinky sulfur compounds. According to Sheryl Barringer, Ph.D., professor of food science and technology at Ohio State, the polyphenols in foods like spinach and apples should be mixed with garlic to break down the sulfur compounds. Luckily, spinach and garlic are delicious together.
Cherries and Lettuce According to nutritionist David Grotto, author of The Best Things You CanEat, cherries and lettuce can also beat bad breath. Studies have shown that these two foods help remove the smell of methyl mercaptan, another odorous gas released by mouth bacteria as they digest bits of food.
Do you avoid eating garlic or onions before meeting someone? By Gretel H. Schueller Gretel H. Schueller is an award-winning journalist and book author. A graduate of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program, she's put her masters in journalism to good use. While on assignment, she has eaten backyard weeds, harvested cactus buds in an Arizona desert and made goat cheese in Greece.
We know a bad habit when we see one. Smoking? Check! Not exercising? Duh! Gorging on doughnuts? Of course! But what about, say, eating lunch at your desk? Turns out that can be worse for you than you'd think (and here we were just trying to be extra productive). It's not always easy to know what's good for us and what's not, especially because medical advice keeps changing as new research emerges. But never fear: We have the lowdown on 10 potentially worrisome everyday habits so you will know just when you can—and can't—relax.
You skip the pill now and then
The verdict:It won't kill you, but... It could get you pregnant. For every 100 women using oral contraceptives, between two and nine get pregnant each year, mostly because of errors, like forgetting a pill or starting a pack late, says Lauren Streicher, MD, a professor of ob-gyn at Northwestern University. If you miss your daily dose: "Take it as soon as you remember, or take two the next day," she says. "If you skip two pills, take two pills for two days, and use backup birth control, like a condom, for a week." If you find you're having trouble staying on top of a daily pill, talk to your doc about other forms of birth control.
You load up your coffee with extras
The verdict:It won't kill you, but... A heavy hand with the condiments adds empty calories to your diet. And we're not just talking about whipped cream and mocha syrup: Even stirring in half-and-half and a couple of packs of sugar can add 50 calories to your five-calorie cup of joe. Over a year, if you don't offset those extra calories each day, that's enough to pack on 5 extra pounds. That said, if you're generally a healthy eater, then a splash of milk and a little sugar are "not a problem," says Kelly Morrow, RD, associate professor of nutrition at Bastyr University in Seattle.
You text while walking
The verdict:Danger! Danger! Being absorbed in your smartphone while crossing the street is a really great way to become roadkill. In a recent study, people who traversed several busy intersections while texting were four times less likely than nontexters to look before they crossed, cross with the light or stay in the crosswalk. It also took them two seconds longer to navigate the intersection. "Crossing less cautiously and spending more time in the intersection raises the risk of being hit by a car. We certainly saw some near-misses," says senior study author Beth Ebel, MD, of the University of Washington.
You weigh yourself daily
The verdict:No worries! Really! Body weight can fluctuate by several pounds throughout the day, and watching it bounce up and down like the stock market will drive you bonkers. And it may not help you actually lose weight, according to a recent review of research in The New England Journal of Medicine. But weighing in once a day, in the morning, after you pee and before you put on your clothes, can be a smart way to keep tabs on whether you've been gaining over time. "Daily weigh-ins allow you to detect small changes before they become big changes," says Rena Wing, PhD, a professor of psychiatry at Brown University.
You wear out your kitchen sponge
The verdict:It won't kill you, but... That sponge sitting in your sink is germier than you might realize. If you use it to clean your sink or counters—especially after you've mopped up raw meat and poultry juices and only quickly rinsed the sponge—you're spreading potentially illness-causing bacteria all over the place. Ick, right? That doesn't mean you should never reuse a sponge. You just have to clean it thoroughly enough to zap the bacteria in it, either by running it through the dishwasher or nuking the damp sponge in the microwave on high for one to two minutes once a week.
You sit your bare butt on public toilet seats
The verdict:No worries! Really! The toilet seat is probably the cleanest thing you'll touch in a public restroom, according to research done at the University of Arizona, largely because anxious women either use those seat covers or otherwise wipe the seat before touching down. So go ahead and make yourself comfortable! "There's this idea that if you sit on a toilet seat you're going to get some dreaded disease," Dr. Streicher says. "That's just not going to happen. Things like gonorrhea, syphilis and HIV don't live on surfaces. And your vagina doesn't touch the toilet seat; it hangs over the bowl."
You pop OTC pain relievers like candy
The verdict:Danger! Danger! Stuff hurts and you want it to stop, so you pop an Advil or a Tylenol. Nothing wrong with that. But where this habit starts getting a bit troublesome is if you're regularly taking a lot more than the prescribed daily amount. That can lead to liver issues if acetaminophen is your pain reliever of choice. If you prefer NSAIDs (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), stomach and/or kidney problems can occur. And if you're one of the 25% of women who get migraines, taking over-the-counter pain relievers two or three times a week for weeks on end can actually cause more headaches, due to a rebound effect that can occur after your body gets used to medication.
You scarf down lunch at your desk
The verdict:It won't kill you, but... When you nosh as you work, especially if you're sitting in front of your computer, you're more likely to overeat, according to research in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. When we're distracted, the study showed, we tend not to recall very much about what we've just put in our mouths. "That blunts the satiety"—that is, fullness—"response," explains lead author Jeff Brunstrom, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Bristol in England. Try to relocate to your office's kitchen or cafeteria. If you don't have that luxury, Dr. Brunstrom recommends at least turning away from the computer screen for the duration of your meal so you can savor each bite.
Sam Parnia MD has a highly sought after medical speciality: resurrection. His patients can be dead for several hours before they are restored to their former selves, with decades of life ahead of them.
Parnia is head of intensive care at the Stony Brook University Hospital in New York. If you'd had a cardiac arrest at Parnia's hospital last year and undergone resuscitation, you would have had a 33% chance of being brought back from death. In an average American hospital, that figure would have fallen to 16% and (though the data is patchy) roughly the same, or less, if your heart were to have stopped beating in a British hospital.
By a conservative extrapolation, Parnia believes the relatively cheap and straightforward methods he uses to restore vital processes could save up to 40,000 American lives a year and maybe 10,000 British ones. Not surprisingly Parnia, who was trained in the UK and moved to the US in 2005, is frustrated that the medical establishment seems slow and reluctant to listen to these figures. He has written a book in the hope of spreading the word.
The Lazarus Effect is nothing short of an attempt to recast our understanding of death, based on Parnia's intimate knowledge of the newly porous nature of the previously "undiscovered country from which no traveller returns". His work in resuscitation has led him logically to wider questions of what constitutes being and not being. In particular, he asks what exactly happens, if you are lying dead before resuscitation, to your individual self and all its attendant character and memories – your "soul", as he is not shy to call it – before it is eventually restored to you a few hours later?
When I meet Parnia, he is not long off the plane from New York after a night flight with his wife and baby daughter, and the particular revival he is craving is the miracle of strong coffee. He is both forthright and softly spoken, full of careful zeal for his findings. As I sit across the table from him, he can make even the most extraordinary claim seem calmly rational. "It is my belief," he says, "that anyone who dies of a cause that is reversible should not really die any more. That is: every heart attack victim should no longer die. I have to be careful when I state that because people will say, 'My husband has died recently and you are saying that need not have happened'. But the fact is heart attacks themselves are quite easily managed. If you can manage the process of death properly then you go in, take out the clot, put a stent in, the heart will function in most cases. And the same with infections, pneumonia or whatever. People who don't respond to antibiotics in time, we could keep them there for a while longer [after they had died] until they did respond."
Parnia's belief is backed up by his experience at the margin of life and death in intensive care units for the past two decades – he did his training at Guy's and St Thomas' in London – and particularly in the past five years or so when most of the advances in resuscitation have occurred. Those advances – most notably the drastic cooling of the corpse to slow neuronal deterioration and the monitoring and maintenance of oxygen levels to the brain – have not yet become accepted possibilities in the medical profession. Parnia is on a mission to change that.
The one thing that is certain about all of our lives, he says, is that we will all eventually experience a cardiac arrest. All our hearts will stop beating. What happens in the minutes and hours after that will potentially be the most significant moments of our biography. At present, the likelihood is, however, that in those crucial moments we will find ourselves in the medical environment of the 1960s or 1970s.
The kind of CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) that we are familiar with from medical dramas – the frenzied pumping of the chest – remains rooted, Parnia claims, in its serendipitous discovery in 1960. It remains a haphazard kind of procedure, often performed more in hope than anticipation. Partly, this is a question of personnel. Parnia is quietly maddened by the worldwide hospital habit, in the event of death, to send the most junior of doctors along "to have a go at CPR". It is as if hospital staff have given up before they have started.
"Most doctors will do CPR for 20 minutes and then stop," he says. "The decision to stop is completely arbitrary but it is based on an instinct that after that time brain damage is very likely and you don't want to bring people back into a persistent vegetative state. But if you understand all the things that are going on in the brain in those minutes – as we now can – then you can minimise that possibility. There are numerous studies that show that if you implement all the various resuscitation steps together you not only get a doubling of your survival rates but the people who come back are not brain damaged."
In Parnia's ideal world, the way that people are resuscitated would first take in the knowledge that machines are much better at CPR than doctors. After that, he suggests, the next step is "to understand that you need to elevate the level of care". The first thing is to cool down the body to best preserve the brain cells, which are by then in the process of apoptosis, or suicide.
At the same time, it is necessary to keep up the level of oxygen in the blood. In Japan, this is already standard practice in emergency rooms. Using a technique called an ECMO, the blood of the deceased is siphoned out of the body, put through a membrane oxygenator and pumped round again. This buys the time needed to fix the underlying problem that caused the person to die in the first place. If the level of oxygen to the brain falls below 45% of normal the heart will not restart, Parnia's research shows. Anything above that and there is a good chance.
Potentially, by this means, dead time can be extended to hours and there are still positive outcomes. "The longest I know of is a Japanese girl I mention in the book," Parnia says. "She had been dead for more than three hours. And she was resuscitated for six hours. Afterwards, she returned to life perfectly fine and has, I have been told, recently had a baby."
It was a truncated version of this process, at the London Chest Hospital, that allowed the Bolton footballer Fabrice Muamba to be restored to life after he collapsed on the pitch at White Hart Lane last year. Parnia watched the events unfold on TV and subsequently kept on reading that Muamba had been, for up to an hour, "dead" – but always in quotation marks. He laughs. "Journalists have invented a new term, 'clinically dead'. I don't know what that term means. But the fact is Muamba was dead. And it was not by a miracle he was brought back to life, it was by science."
One of the stranger things you realise in reading Parnia's book is the idea that we might be in thrall to historical perceptions of life and death and that these ultimate constants have lately become vaguer than most of us would allow. The other strand of Parnia's research, in which he leads a team at Southampton University, is into what most people tend to call "near-death experiences" and what he calls "actual death experiences". Parnia has talked to many people about what they recall experiencing while they were dead in his intensive care unit. About half claim to have clear recollections, many of which involve looking down on the surgical team at work on their body or the familiar image of a bright threshold or tunnel of light into which they were being drawn. Parnia has been collecting detailed accounts of these experiences for four years. I ask what conclusions he has drawn.
He suggests he is agnostic about the source of these subjective memories, as he is about questions of mind and matter. "When I first got interested in these mind/body questions, I was astonished to find that no one had even begun to put forward a theory about exactly how neurons in the brain can generate thoughts," he says. "We always assume that all scientists believe the brain produces the mind, but in fact there are plenty who are not certain of that. Even prominent neuroscientists, such as Sir John Eccles, a Nobel prizewinner, believe that we are never going to understand mind through neuronal activity. All I can say is what I have observed from my work. It seems that when consciousness shuts down in death, psyche, or soul – by which I don't mean ghosts, I mean your individual self – persists for a least those hours before you are resuscitated. From which we might justifiably begin to conclude that the brain is acting as an intermediary to manifest your idea of soul or self but it may not be the source or originator of it… I think that the evidence is beginning to suggest that we should keep open our minds to the possibility that memory, while obviously a scientific entity of some kind – I'm not saying it is magic or anything like that – is not neuronal."
Does he have a religious faith?
"No," he says, "and I don't have any religious way into this. But what I do know is that every area of inquiry that used to be tackled by religion or philosophy is now tackled and explained by science. One of the last things to be looked at in this way is the question of what happens when we die. This science of resuscitation allows us to look at that for the first time."
While those more esoteric studies go on, Parnia wants to ensure that more and more people are successfully returned from death to tell whatever tales they can. "I still have colleagues in ICU who say, 'I don't know why we are doing all this stuff'," he says. "Not long ago, I went for a job interview in New York at a teaching hospital and I was told if a patient comes in and has a cardiac arrest and they end up in the cardiac care unit they will be cooled, but if they end up in the intensive care unit the doctor in charge doesn't believe in it. He thinks it blocks his beds so he won't do it. I don't see this as negligence exactly because there is, as yet, no authority telling us this is the standard we should use. But surely there should be." All of this, I say, must have had a powerful bearing on Parnia's own sense of mortality. Is he comforted or made paranoid by his work?
He suggests that the experience of talking to people who have returned from dying serves only to enhance his curiosity about the process they have undergone, and which he has sometimes helped to reverse. Other than that, he says: "In ICU, I see people dying every day and each time it happens a part of you thinks, one day this will be me. There will be people huddling round my bed deciding whether or not to resuscitate and I know one thing for sure: I don't want it just down to pot luck whether I end up brain damaged or even alive."
Staying alive: The 'miracle' machine
WHAT IS ECMO? During cardiac arrest, blood cannot carry oxygen to the brain, causing brain cells to decay irreparably, making recovery uncertain. CPR, in which circulation is manually stimulated to delay brain damage, has long been considered the last chance for patients. With ECMO, however, those same patients can be brought back from the brink and kept alive while doctors work towards diagnosis and treatment, making CPR seem primitive by comparison. This hi-tech method of resuscitation is known as ECPR and could mark a revolution in medical practice if adopted by hospitals worldwide.
HOW DOES IT WORK? An extracorporeal membrane oxygenation machine (ECMO) is an advanced life-support apparatus. Two catheter needles are inserted, one into a major vein and one into a major artery, allowing a synthetic pump to begin drawing blood out of the body, circulating it through the apparatus, before returning it to the bloodstream. The blood passes through a membrane oxygenator, in which oxygen is introduced and carbon dioxide removed, much like the exchange of gases that takes place in the lungs. Some ECMO machines also include a heat exchanger, which can cool or warm the blood according to the patient's condition.
A dedicated team is required to place a patient on ECMO but, once that patient is stabilised, the machine can be supervised by specially trained nurses and can maintain stability for sustained periods. This allows the patient to live without a functioning cardiopulmonary system for days or even weeks, giving diseased organs a valuable holiday in which to recover.
WHEN IS IT USED? Until recently, it has been used largely for severe lung failure in babies. In the UK, it is principally thought of as an intensive care treatment used in the ward, but more and more US hospitals are adding ECPR to their emergency treatment options. In an emergency, when a patient has shown no return of spontaneous circulation after conventional CPR, a doctor would decide whether the patient merits being attached to an ECMO machine, which must be carried out in a matter of minutes. Emergency ECMO is therefore administered as a last resort to patients who stand a good chance of full recovery.
In these conditions, it can be very effective and patients who have been medically dead for hours have been resuscitated successfully through ECMO, which can restart the heartbeat through steady pressure and blood flow. Even after full cardiac arrest, in situations where cell decay and brain damage have been avoided, ECMO has proved a lifesaver. There are four ECMO centres in the UK. Europe's largest centre and the only one in the UK that treats adults is the Glenfield hospital in Leicester.
A motorist jumped the curb and slammed into a bus stop and scaffolding in East Flatbush on Saturday, striking up to 10 pedestrians. Four people were hospitalized in critical condition, including a woman and her young son. According to the Post, Denim McLean, whose age has been reported as 2 and 3, is brain dead.
Within hours NYPD told the media that charges were unlikely, despite witness accounts that the driver was speeding.
The crash occurred in the 67th Precinct, where at least three pedestrians have died in traffic in the last five months, and where police issued just 45 speeding tickets in 2012 — an average of one every eight days.
Details vary somewhat as to how the crash unfolded. The Times reported that, according to NYPD, the driver was northbound on Utica Avenue near Church Avenue at around 6:50 p.m. when she swerved to avoid another vehicle. Police told DNAinfo that the driver, 48, “accidentally” hit the accelerator instead of the brake as she approached a red light at Utica and Church: “As she swerved to avoid colliding with the traffic around her, the vehicle jumped onto the sidewalk, hitting up to nine pedestrians, police said.”
From the Post:
Witnesses saw the boy [Denim McLean] facedown and unconscious near a pile of shattered glass, blood gushing from his tiny head.
“That little baby looked dead,” said Lawrence Nicholas, who rushed over from a nearby hair salon.
“When I looked in the baby’s eyes, I never saw any life. I started to cry,” said Paris Rainey, 30.
Good Samaritans tried to revive the injured boy.
“I ran outside and jumped over the car. I tried to do CPR on the baby,” said Lenox Blocker, 40. “The baby wasn’t even winking.”
“They said the lady who hit them must have fainted or did something, because she didn’t know what happened,” said the boy’s aunt, Dierdra McCorkle, 51.
The Post says Wendy McLean, 37, is semi-comatose and does not know of her son’s condition. Another female victim was pinned to a building, and one was an 86-year-old man, according to the Post.
Witnesses told the Daily News that the unnamed driver, who was hospitalized along with a passenger, was speeding before the crash. That she jumped a curb and hit multiple people with a vehicle is not in dispute. Nevertheless, NYPD apparently concluded its work with characteristic haste. As early as 10:27 p.m. Saturday, less than four hours after the incident, the Post reported: “Police do not believe the crash was a crime.” A Post follow-up published this morning reads: “Cops said the driver passed a breath-alcohol test and would not be charged.”
Kenneth Cole, Gerald Green, and Jason Williams were all killed by motorists in the 67th Precinct since last November, according to crash data compiled by Streetsblog. While the precinct wrote 45 speeding tickets in 2012 [PDF], and 71 citations for failure to yield to a pedestrian, officers issued 5,219 summonses for tinted windows, and 2,216 for seatbelt violations.
To voice your concerns about neighborhood traffic safety directly to Deputy Inspector Kenneth C. Lehr, the commanding officer of the 67th Precinct, go to the next community council meeting. The 67th Precinct council meetings happen at 8 p.m. on the third Thursday of the month at the precinct, 2820 Snyder Avenue, in the second floor conference room. Call 718-287-2530 for information.
The City Council district where this serious crash occurred is represented by Jumaane Williams. To encourage Williams to take action to improve street safety in his district and citywide, contact him at 212-788-6859 or @JumaaneWilliams.
With 48 killed and 5,377 wounded, Brooklyn saw more pedestrian and cyclist injuries and deaths than any other borough in 2012, according to NYPD. With one known prosecution, Charles Hynes led all NYC district attorneys in charging sober drivers for taking a life.
A woman in Warrenton was arrested Thursday after she texted a police officer and offered to sell him drugs.
Just before 3 p.m. officer Ray Ayers turned on his department-issued cell phone as he started his shift for the day. He immediately got a text and a voice mail from a woman calling herself “Diana”, saying she had some “stuff” for him, said Chief Mathew Workman with Warrenton police.
Ayers thought the messages could be a joke, but decided to play along anyway.
He continued to text back and forth with “Diana” to find out what kind of drugs she had, and how much they cost. He eventually agreed to meet with her, Workman said.
They agreed to meet at the Warrenton Fred Meyer and do the deal. Ayers, along with another officer and two deputies, met up with 48-year-old Diana Cochran from Longview at 2:45 a.m. Friday.
Officers searched Cochran and found methamphetamine, marijuana, prescription drugs and drug paraphernalia. She told the police that she was given the number from a person at a hotel named "Wayne," and she thought she was contacting him.
Cochran was arrested and charged with attempted delivery of controlled substances and booked in the Clatsop County Jail.
The accounting of the financial cost of the nearly decade-long Iraq War will go on for years, but a recent analysis has shed light on the companies that made money off the war by providing support services as the privatization of what were former U.S. military operations rose to unprecedented levels.
Private or publicly listed firms received at least $138 billion of U.S. taxpayer money for government contracts for services that included providing private security, building infrastructure and feeding the troops.
Ten contractors received 52 percent of the funds, according to an analysis by the Financial Times that was published Tuesday.
The No. 1 recipient?
Houston-based energy-focused engineering and construction firm KBR, Inc. , which was spun off from its parent, oilfield services provider Halliburton Co. , in 2007.
The company was given $39.5 billion in Iraq-related contracts over the past decade, with many of the deals given without any bidding from competing firms, such as a $568-million contract renewal in 2010 to provide housing, meals, water and bathroom services to soldiers, a deal that led to a Justice Department lawsuit over alleged kickbacks, as reported by Bloomberg.
Who were Nos. 2 and 3?
Agility Logistics of Kuwait and the state-owned Kuwait Petroleum Corp. Together, these firms garnered $13.5 billion of U.S. contracts.
As private enterprise entered the war zone at unprecedented levels, the amount of corruption ballooned, even if most contractors performed their duties as expected.
According to the bipartisan Commission on Wartime Contracting in Iraq and Afghanistan, the level of corruption by defense contractors may be as high as $60 billion. Disciplined soldiers that would traditionally do many of the tasks are commissioned by private and publicly listed companies.
Even without the graft, the costs of paying for these services are higher than paying governement employees or soldiers to do them because of the profit motive involved. No-bid contracting - when companies get to name their price with no competing bid - didn't lower legitimate expenses. (Despite promises by President Barack Obama to reel in this habit, the trend toward granting favored companies federal contracts without considering competing bids continued to grow, by 9 percent last year, according to the Washington Post.)
Even though the military has largely pulled out of Iraq, private contractors remain on the ground and continue to reap U.S. government contracts. For example, the U.S. State Department estimates that taxpayers will dole out $3 billion to private guards for the government's sprawling embassy in Baghdad.
The costs of paying private and publicly listed war profiteers seem miniscule in light of the total bill for the war.
Last week, the Costs of War Project by the Watson Institute for International Studies at Brown University said the war in Iraq cost $1.7 trillion dollars, not including the $490 billion in immediate benefits owed to veterans of the war and the lifetime benefits that will be owed to them or their next of kin.
Attitudes about marijuana are changing rapidly in the U.S., so much so that even law enforcement is coming up with some unique ways of dealing with those who consume or even sell the drug.
Since voters decided to legalize marijuana in November 2012, Washington state authorities have attempted to navigate the unfamiliar waters of drug legalization. For the most part, that has involved figuring out how to deal with individuals smoking or attempting to purchase pot.
A poll released on Thursday found that for the first time a majority of Americans favor legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana. But Colorado and Washington are the only two states that have so far passed legalization measures on a statewide level.
But how does the law apply to selling small amounts of cannabis? As with alcohol, the current state marijuana legalization does not allow for consumption in public places or for nonlicensed individuals to sell the drug.
So, after a number of complaints from local residents, SPD investigated two dozen individuals suspected of dealing drugs in an area known as the “Ave.”
“Turns out that marijuana dealers actually accounted for the majority of the problem. In the spirit of I-502, Seattle Police coordinated with the King County Prosecutor’s Office to forge ahead with an innovative approach to equitably deal with those responsible,” reads an explanation on the SPD’s blog.
In other words, individuals who were only carrying marijuana and did not have outstanding criminal records were let go.
“In street dealing cases, this would be the first time. Ever,” SPD spokesman Sean Whitcomb told Seattle PI.
But the SPD did issue the pot dealers warning, discouraging them from continuing to sell pot and to not consume it in public places like the Ave.
“The offender will have been shown to have been warned about marijuana sales, and that they still returned, despite our attempt at gaining their cooperation,” explained Narcotics Lt. Mike Kebba. "The admonishment letter is reasonable, because we are not restricting their freedom to go anywhere. SPD will just be requiring them to comply with the law while in public places and refrain from drug dealing.”
E numbers, which are codes for food additives, populate food labels throughout the European Union. They are also increasingly appearing on North American packaging, especially in Canada on imported European products. Also Australia and New Zealand use these codes, but without the prefix 'E'. E102, E211, and E110 do not sound like something you would want to put into your mouth, and recent headlines in the press such as "E-numbers do harm children, research shows" and "E numbers 'link' to manic kids" are likely to only reconfirm your previously-held view that E numbers are utterly detrimental to your health. You may have read about the study commissioned by the UK Food Standards Agency a few years ago which confirmed that tartrazine (E102), sunset yellow (E110), quinoline yellow (E104), ponceau 4R (E124), azorubine (E122), allura red (E129) and sodium benzoate (E211) can indeed trigger bad behaviour and should be avoided. While you should stay as far away as possible from the harmful food additives such as the ones mentioned above (especially if you're worried about hyperactivity or suffer from allergies, there is no reason to shy away from all foods that contain E numbers. Many E numbers are just standardized codes for natural substances (natural preservatives/emulsifiers/stabilizers), some of which may even have beneficial health effects. For instance, E300 is nothing fancier than vitamin C — a well-known flu fighter and an immune booster — and E160d is the E number for lycopene, a powerful antioxidant that can control exercise-induced asthma and increase the skin's natural c.
A Sample of Beneficial E Numbers
The below table provides an overview of some of the most powerful natural health promoting nutrients that also have an E number.
Nutrient
Usage as additive
Potential health benefits
Vitamin C E300
Vitamin C (E300) functions as a natural antioxidant additive and bread flour enhancer. E300 is added to a wide range of foods including cured meat, frozen fish, breakfast cereals and wine.
Helps the body burn more fat during workouts; promotes strong and healthy connective tissue; helps strengthen and tone blood vessels and increase circulation; protects the body from free radical damage; increases iron absorption from foods; helps reduce histamine release in the body; boosts the immune system
Vitamin B2 E101
Vitamin B2 (E101), also known as riboflavin, is used as a food coloring.
May help reduce the severity and frequency of migraines; is essential for normal thyroid function and metabolism; helps maintain healthy hair; helps combat greasy hair by regulating sebum production; helps protect cells from oxygen damage
Curcumin E100
Curcumin (E100), a substance that gives turmeric root its intense yellow color, is used as a natural food coloring.
Has proven anti-inflammatory activity and may therefore be able to alleviate symptoms associated with psoriasis and eczema; has strong anti-cancer properties; can significantly reduce the number of colon polyps
Anthocyanins E163
Anthocyanins (E163) are used as a natural food coloring. It is added to certain dairy products, jellies, sweets, pickles, soft drinks and vegetable soups. E163 is usually extracted from grape skins or red cabbage.
May help prevent cellulite and wrinkles by contributing to the health of the collagen matrix; promotes the overall health of the cardiovascular system; helps combat rheumatoid arthritis due to its strong anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties
Chlorophyll E140
Chlorophyll (E140) is used to color a variety of products such as pasta and absinthe.
Inhibits nitrosamine formation in the body (nitrosamines can cause cancer; possesses some anti-atherogenic activity and may thus help maintain cardiovascular health; helps neutralize pollution that we breathe in every day;
Lycopene E160d
Due to its strong red color lycopene (E160d) is a popular food coloring. Commercially, lycopene is extracted from tomatoes.
Is believed to protect the skin against harmful ultraviolet radiation from the sun; may help control exercise-induced asthma; is thought to have anti-cancer properties;
Lutein E161b
Lutein (E161b) is used as a food coloring. Commercially, lutein is extracted from the petals of marigold.
Appears to keep the eyes safe from oxidative stress and may reduce the risk of age-related cataracts; supports skin health and prevents wrinkles by increasing skin hydration, elasticity and lipid levels; helps maintain cardiovascular health
The reputation of mushrooms as a superfood is well deserved – mushrooms really are that good for you! The health benefits of eating mushrooms are well documented, and they range from anti-cancer effects and weight loss benefits to immunity-boosting properties and stress relief. Here's a lowdown on the amazing health benefits of mushrooms:
Strong Anti-Cancer Properties
Edible mushrooms can make a great addition to an anti-cancer diet as they contain significant amounts of selenium. one cup of shiitake mushrooms, for example, provides more than half of the recommended daily intake for selenium. Dietary selenium is believed to prevent cancer in two ways: First, this micro-mineral is an important constituent of glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme that helps protect your body's cells from the damaging effects of free radicals. Second, selenium may help prevent tumor growth by strengthening the immune system and by inhibiting the development of blood vessels to tumors. Furthermore, edible mushrooms contain beta-glucans which, according to some human studies, can provide protection against some types of cancer – including breast, skin, stomach and lung cancer. Beta-glucans in mushrooms have been shown to be capable of passing immune cells to the cancerous area and destroying cancer cells. The anti-cancer effects of beta-glucans have also been documented in a number of animal studies. If you are planning to add wild mushrooms to your anti-cancer diet, make sure the batch you plan to buy comes from a clean area. As mushrooms lack roots, they use their surface cells to absorb nutrition directly from the air. However, if the air is contaminated, also harmful substances may enter mushrooms.
Stress Relief from Mushrooms
One of the lesser known health benefits of eating mushrooms is the ability of mushrooms to provide significant amounts of B vitamins. White button mushrooms and crimini mushrooms, for instance, are supercharged with riboflavin (vitamin B2), niacin (B3) and pantothenic acid (B5). B vitamins work together and are involved in many bodily functions, including brain and nervous system function. Signs of B vitamin deficiency include unusual stress, anxiety, insecurity, irritability and difficulty concentrating. The symptoms associated with a vitamin B deficiency can be improved by eating mushrooms and other foods that provide substantial amounts of stress-relieving B vitamins. Keep in mind, however, that for optimal relief from stress and anxiety, you should eat B vitamin containing foods daily as these water-soluble vitamins cannot be stored in the human body. In addition to eating mushrooms, you can step up your vitamin B intake by adding foods such as wheat germ, whole grains, brewer's yeast and legumes to your diet.
Weight Loss Benefits
In addition to playing an important role in brain and nervous system function, B vitamins are involved in energy metabolism and are essential for normal thyroid function. They help convert dietary fat, protein and carbohydrates into energy, which is why a diet rich in B vitamins is often recommended to people who are looking to get rid of excess body fat. In addition, vitamin B6 – which is abundant in shiitake mushrooms – promotes the absorption of zinc, another important weight loss nutrient. And if that's still not enough to convince you of the weight loss benefits of mushrooms, consider this: mushrooms are extremely low in calories, contain practically no fat, and provide plenty of vitamin D. Yes, you heard right: mushrooms contain vitamin D. In fact, they are the only natural food source of vitamin D you will find in the produce aisle of your favorite supermarket. A deficiency of vitamin D has been associated with increased fat accumulation and obesity, and some experts believe that a decrease in vitamin D levels in winter, associated with low levels of sunlight in winter, could in fact be the key trigger for the so-called winter response (increased fat accumulation) in humans.
The Immune-Boosting Shiitake
In Asia, the health benefits of shiitake mushrooms are legendary. In China and India, these nutritional superfoods have been used medicinally for centuries, particularly as a natural remedy for colds and flu. Today, researchers know that lentinans, naturally-occuring polysaccharides particularly concentrated in shiitake mushrooms, are largely responsible for the extraordinary health benefits of these mushrooms. The healing properties of lentinans have been linked to their impeccable ability to stimulate the immune-system, without overpowering it, and to fight viruses that enter the body.
After taking antibiotics, it is important to restore the 'good bacteria' in your intestines. If you prefer to do that naturally through diet rather than resorting to supplements, you'll be happy to learn that there are plenty of foods that can help restore your intestinal flora. The rest of this article provides a detailed list of some of the best foods to eat after taking antibiotics.
1. Yoghurt
Yoghurt, or yogurt, is probably the most famous probiotic food, and it certainly is one the best foods to eat after taking antibiotics. Milk is transformed into yogurt through a fermentation process that uses live probiotic bacteria such as Lactobacillus bulgaricus and Streptococcus thermophilus. In addition, other lactobacilli as well as bifidobacteria are also sometimes added during or after the culturing process.
Not all yogurts contain probiotic bacteria.
Normally, the probiotic cultures used to make yogurt remain live and active in the final product. However, pasteurization and some other processes designed to prolong yogurt's shelf life may kill off the health promoting probiotic bacteria. In the US, the National Yogurt Association (NYA) has developed a Live & Active Cultures seal to help consumers identify yogurts that contain significant amounts of live and active probiotic bacteria. The seal is voluntary and available to all manufacturers of refrigerated and frozen yogurt whose products contain at least 100 million (108) cultures per gram at the time of manufacture. If you live in the US and are planning to eat yogurt to restore your intestinal flora after taking antibiotics, it is best to choose products with the Live & Active Cultures seal. Without the seal, there is no unbiased validation of the amount of live cultures present in the yogurt.
2. Sauerkraut
Sauerkraut is finely cut cabbage that has been fermented in its own juice by various lactic acid bacteria. According to a study published in the December 2007 issue of Applies and Environmental Microbiology, raw sauerkraut can contain more than 13 different species of probiotic bacteria. Each batch of sauerkraut you eat may contain different proportions of different strains of gut-friendly bacteria, which in turn can help you diversify your intestinal flora. However, not all sauerkraut is equal when it comes to restoring good bacteria after taking antibiotics. In many cases, commercial canned and jarred sauerkraut have been heat-treated and pasteurized, destroying the beneficial bacteria. Fortunately, some health food stores are bringing back this extraordinary health-promoting food. But before you buy a batch of sauerkraut with the intention of eating it as part of your post-antibiotic diet, make sure that it is labeled 'raw' or 'unpasteurized'. Or, consider making gut-friendly sauerkraut at home — it is a simple and inexpensive way to get to enjoy one of the best foods you can eat after taking antibiotics
3. Garlic
Garlic contains prebiotics which help probiotic bacteria grow.
Garlic, another good food to eat after a course of antibiotics, is a great source of prebiotics. Prebiotics are non-digestible carbohydrates that help probiotic bacteria grow and flourish in the digestive system. You can think of prebiotics as "food" for probiotics. Recommendations as to the ideal amount of prebiotics in the diet vary substantially, but in most cases, the recommendations range from 4 to 8 grams (0.14—0.28 oz) for supporting general digestive health, to 15 grams (0.53 oz) or more for those with digestive disorders. A serving of three large garlic cloves provides about 2 grams of prebiotics. Tip: To make a super healthy Greek-style dip that contains both probiotic bacteria and prebiotic carbohydrates that feed these 'friendly' bacteria, mix probiotic yogurt with minced raw garlic. Add finely chopped cucumber if you like.
4. Jerusalem Artichokes
Unlike garlic, Jerusalem artichokes – also known as sunchokes – are not a particularly famous food. Nevertheless, these earthy tubers are packed full of nutritional benefits. In addition to providing plenty of B vitamins and immune-boosting vitamin C, Jerusalem artichokes are loaded with inulin, a prebiotic fiber that has been shown to stimulate the growth of bifidobacteria. Jerusalem artichokes can be eaten raw or cooked, and they make a great gut health promoting addition to soups and salads alike.
5. Almonds
In an in vitro study funded by the Almond Board of California, a group of scientists found that finely ground almonds significantly increased the levels of certain beneficial gut bacteria. The almond preparation was found to lose its prebiotic effect its fat content was removed, suggesting that the probiotic bacteria only use the lipids in almonds for growth.
Almonds provide prebiotics and fight off new infections.
But there's also another reason why almonds make it to this list of the best foods to eat after antibiotics: A 2010 study found that almonds can help fight off viral infections such as the common cold and flu. After taking antibiotics, you are more prone to new infections as a result of a weakened immune system. The researchers responsible for this almond study found that naturally occurring chemicals found in almond skins improved the ability of the white blood cells to detect viruses and to boost the body's ability to prevent viruses from replicating. Even after the almonds had been digested in the gut, there was still an increase in the body's ability to fight viruses.
Nutrients play an enormous role in preventing and treating the leading causes of impaired vision in North America–cataracts and macular degeneration. In both conditions, the eye’s normal protective mechanisms are unable to prevent damage to the lens and macula, respectively. Certain nutrients are essential in maintaining eye health, preventing these diseases, and improving visual function when these conditions do develop.
A diet high in richly colored fruits, particularly berries and grapes, and vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables, helps to lower your risk for cataracts and macular degeneration. Initially it was believed that this protection was the result of increased intake of antioxidant vitamins and minerals. However, various “nonessential” food components, such as non-provitamin A carotenes like lutein, zeaxanthin, lycopene, and flavonoids, were later shown to be even more significant in protecting against cataracts and macular degeneration than traditional nutritional antioxidants like vitamin C, vitamin E, and selenium.
Let’s look at some of the most important nutrients for improving eye health.
Lutein Critical to the health of the macula are the carotenes lutein and zeaxathin. These carotenes function in preventing oxidative damage to the area of the retina responsible for fine vision, and play a central role in protecting against the development of macular degeneration. In one study, subjects with macular degeneration who took 10-15 mg of lutein daily showed significant improvements in several objective measurements of visual function, including glare recovery, contrast sensitivity, and visual acuity vs. those who took a placebo. Three large studies have shown that the intake of lutein was inversely associated with cataract surgery. In other words, the higher the intake of lutein, the less likely cataract surgery would take place. In addition to offering protection against cataract formation, lutein can also help improve visual function in people with cataracts. Where to find Lutein: dark leafy greens, pistachios, peas, cucumber and celery
Nutritional Antioxidants Nutritional antioxidants like beta-carotene, vitamins C and E, zinc, copper, and selenium are extremely important for eye health. While research has often focused on just one of these nutrients, studies conducted by the Age-Related Eye Disease Study Research Group (AREDS) confirm that a combination of these nutrients produces better results than any single nutrient alone. Yet, even something as simple as taking vitamin C or zinc can produce dramatic effects in preserving eye health. In one study, the use of vitamin C supplements for greater than 10 years was associated with a 77% lower rate of cataract formation compared to those who did not take a vitamin C supplement. Zinc is perhaps the most important mineral for eye health, as it plays an essential role in the metabolism of the retina and the visual process. Levels of zinc have been shown to be greatly reduced in over 90% of cataract cases. Zinc is also involved in protecting against macular degeneration. A two-year double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving 151 subjects demonstrated that the group taking a zinc supplement had significantly less visual loss than the placebo group. Where to find Vitamin C: Bell peppers, kale, kiwi, papayas, oranges and clementines, strawberries Where to find Zinc: Oysters, pumpkin seeds, peanuts, crab
Flavonoid-rich Extracts Flavonoid-rich extracts of blueberry, bilberry, pine bark, or grape seed also offer valuable benefits in improving eye health as well as protecting against cataracts and macular degeneration. In addition to possessing excellent antioxidant activity, these extracts have been shown to exert positive effects on improving blood flow to the retina as well as improving visual processes–especially poor night vision. Take 150 to 300 mg of one of these flavonoid-rich extracts to support eye health.
Coenzyme Q10 (CoQ10) and Acetyl-L-Carnitine These two nutrients play a critical role in energy production. For example, the role of CoQ10 in our cells is very similar to the role of a spark plug in a car engine, while acetyl-L-carnitine functions as the fuel injection system. Just as the car cannot function without that initial spark, cells in our body cannot function properly without CoQ10 and carnitine. CoQ10 and carnitine perform their functions primarily in the mitochondria, the cell’s energy producing compartment. Although the body makes some of its own CoQ10 and carnitine, considerable research shows significant benefits with supplementation. The mitochondria within the retina are especially vulnerable to toxic byproducts of cell metabolism, making supplementation with acetyl-L-carnitine (a highly absorbable form of carnitine) and CoQ10 especially important. In one double-blind study, the combination of acetyl-L-carnitine (200 mg), omega-3 fatty acids (EPA 460 mg/DHA 320 mg) and CoQ10 (20 mg) was shown to improve visual function and macular alterations in the early stages of macular degeneration. In addition, it stopped the disease from progressing in 47 out of 48 cases.
Fish Oils There is a strong relationship between hardening of the arteries (atherosclerosis) and eye health. So, just as in atherosclerosis, omega-3 fatty acids from fish oils play an important role in prevention of eye conditions like macular degeneration. The recommended dosage of a fish oil supplement to support eye health is enough to provide approximately 1,000 mg of EPA+DHA, the two important omega-3 fatty acids.
A Fox News reporter is facing jail time over her refusal to reveal a source she used in a story, an episode receiving remarkably little attention in the mainstream press — and prompting suggestions on the right that the media and advocates are ignoring Jana Winter's plight because of hostility to her employer.
Jana Winter, the reporter for FoxNews.com and former New York Post reporter, reported on July 25 on a notebook alleged Aurora, Colo., shooter James Holmes sent to a University of Colorado psychologist "full of details about how he was going to kill people."
In Winter's story, she described the notebook, indicating it included illustrations of a massacre drawn using stick figures. The notebook and other items in a package the alleged shooter sent to the psychologist were "made subject to a protective order," according to court documents filed in Arapahoe County Courthouse.
The court has subpoenaed Winter to give testimony in the case.
Holmes defense attorney indicated the confidential source in Winter's story violated the court's order to limit pretrial publicity, and efforts to discover who the source was have been unsuccessful, according to court documents. Colorado's shield law protects reporters from being jailed for refusing to name sources, but allows judges to compel disclosure if the identity of the source cannot be obtained by other means.
She is expected to return to court Wednesday.
The story has received some attention online, but a search for "Jana Winter" on TVEyes indicates the story has only been covered on Fox News, which has begun to focus on it intensely.
"If she worked for mainstream newspapers or CNN, I think the case would have been covered," said Judith Miller, a Fox News contributor who was jailed for 85 days for refusing to reveal a source she used for a story in the New York Times in 2005. "There's a certain reluctance because it's Fox News."
"When I got into trouble, people were very supportive of me because I was with theNew York Times," Miller said. "I'm surprised and disappointed there hasn't been more coverage."
Miller said she talked with Winter, and had a meeting with her on Friday.
"She didn't do anything wrong," Miller said. "She did her job."
Only one advocacy group appears to have weighed in on Winter's behalf: In a statement Friday, the National Press Club urged the judge to drop his push.
"Courts have the right to enforce the confidentiality of investigations, and that may in some cases require punishing leakers," National Press Club President Angela Greiling Keane said. "But attempting to get that information by subpoenaing reporters in order to learn their anonymous sources goes too far. It jeopardizes a value of greater significance. If anonymous sources believe their identities can be dredged up in court, they will be less likely to disclose to the press information of vital public importance. That's not a risk worth increasing."
The American Civil Liberties Union didn't immediately have a statement ready in response to a question about the case Saturday, and other groups didn't immediately respond to a query about it.
Winter referred a reporter's questions to Fox News, but made her case that Holmes's lawyers should be blocked from seeking her testimony in an affidavit late last month.
"A source's wilingness to come forward to the press often depends on my ability to earn the source's trust and to maintain his or her confidentiality," she said in the sworn statement, posted by Fox. "Being made to testify as Holmes requests will force me to 'burn' not one, but two confidential soruces. My reputation as a journaltist will be irrepreably tarnished."
Winter also told the court that she is "fearful for my safety based on numerous threatening Internet posting sabout my work pertaining to the Holmes case."
"She knows what's at stake," Miller said. "She is, in my view, a very brave person."
2.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions or 30 percent of the carbon associated with deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon between 2000 and 2010 was effectively exported in the form of beef products and soy, finds a new study published in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The research underscores the rising role that global trade plays in driving tropical deforestation.
The study, led by Jonas Karstensen of the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research in Oslo, Norway, looked at carbon emissions from beef and soy production in the Brazilian Amazon. It then calculated the share of these commodities that was exported to overseas markets.
The research found that Brazilian consumption is responsible for the vast majority of emissions from its own deforestation: 85 percent of emissions from in Brazilian beef products and 50 percent of emissions in soy products were driven by domestic consumption between 1990 and 2010. However over the past decade, the share of emissions attributable to commodity exports has increased sharply, with more Brazilian products being exported to China and Russia.
"With a consumption perspective, the share of responsibility for deforestation is divided among the global consumers. What, in one perspective is Brazil's problem, is now a global problem" said Karstensen in a statement. "Particularly in the last decade, greater imports by emerging markets and industrialized countries have led to an increasing share of exported emissions from Brazil."
According to the paper, 29 percent of emissions from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon were due to soybean production and 71 percent were due to cattle ranching over the past decade. But emissions from soybeans fell substantially during the second half of the 2000s, possibly a partial consequence of a soy producer moratorium on rainforest conversion that was signed in 2006 after a damaging Greenpeace campaign. Overall emissions from deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon are declining in step with the falling rate of forest clearance, although rates outside the Brazilian Amazon — especially in Bolivia and Peru — appear to be on the rise, possibly as a consequence of agricultural development shifting across borders.
The paper adds to a growing body of research that shows a major shift in global drivers of deforestation from subsistence agriculture to industrial commodity production. The trend indicates that efforts to curb deforestation — like the nascent Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD)+ program — will have to address urban consumption to be effective. Focusing solely on small-holder agriculture will fail to reduce emissions from deforestation. Read more at http://news.mongabay.com/2013/0405-amazon-deforestation-emissions-exports.html#XAtBPrWT3G3W5rah.99
Paul Marinaccio Sr. traces his fear of frogs to a childhood incident in Italy when a man holding bullfrogs chased him away after he'd wandered from the vineyard where his parents worked.
Decades later, he found himself describing his phobia to a jury, calling himself "a prisoner in my own home" after runoff water from a nearby development turned his 40-acre property into wetlands and inundated it with frogs.
"I am petrified. I go home at night and I can't get in my garage because of the frogs," Marinaccio testified in 2009. "They're right in front of the damn door, OK?"
It was part of a seven-year legal fight involving Marinaccio, the town of Clarence and a developer that, according to The Buffalo News, finally ended last month when the state's highest court ruled that Marinaccio, who was awarded $1.6 million in compensation after the 2009 trial, is not entitled to an additional $250,000 in punitive damages
Marinaccio sued Clarence, a Buffalo suburb, and Kieffer Enterprises Inc. after runoff diverted onto Marinaccio's property from a new Kieffer subdivision turned it into wetlands. A town engineer initially said the water would flow into a ditch elsewhere on Kieffer property. The town later discovered the ditch was actually on Marinaccio's property, and that it was too small to handle the flow of water.
Lawyers on both sides said Monday that Marinaccio's frog testimony amounted to just moments of a more than three-week trial — and may not have affected the jury's award. The Court of Appeals, however, referred to it in a five-page decision in which it determined that while Marinaccio had been wronged, the developer hadn't acted maliciously.
"This newly created wetland caused mosquitoes to breed and frogs to gather on plaintiff's property, about which plaintiff is particularly phobic," the court wrote in an opinion dated March 21. "Consequently, plaintiff had problems traversing his property without the assistance of his family and friends, whom plaintiff would often call on to remove frogs from his driveway and near the door of his home."
"I'm petrified of the little creatures," Marinaccio, 65, said in Monday's Buffalo News.
The lower court jury returned a verdict of $1.3 million against the town and $328,400 against Kieffer for compensatory damages, as well as $250,000 in punitive damages against Kieffer.
In reversing the punitive damages, the Court of Appeals said they are awarded only when there is evidence "of spite or malice, or a fraudulent or evil motive on the part of the defendant, or such a conscious and deliberate disregard of the interests of others that the conduct may be called willful or wanton."
As part of a post-verdict agreement, the town will dig ditches to help dry out Marinaccio's land.
The property owner told the newspaper his plans involve much bigger creatures than frogs.
"I'm going to put cows out there," Marinaccio said.
Wikimedia France said in a press release on Saturday morning that France's domestic intelligence agency, the Direction Centrale du Renseignement Intérieur (DCRI), contacted in early March its parent organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, which hosts the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia.
The DCRI claimed an article on Wikipedia France was in breach of the country's laws by disclosing "classified military information," and should be pulled from the site.
The Wikipedia entry pertained to a French military compound, the "Radio station military Pierre-sur-High," around 70 miles west of Lyon. The installation is thought to act as part of France's nuclear deterrent and detection capabilities.
The San Francisco, California-headquartered Wikimedia Foundation refused the request by the DCRI on the grounds that it did not provide enough information to prove that the entry contained classified information — likely because it would confirm what the DCRI still believes to be information that should not be in the public light.
In the press release, Wikimedia Foundation said it "has often collaborated with public authorities to follow legal decisions," as it has many offices in various countries and therefore abides by local laws — as any company must.
Though the not-for-profit organization cited that it receives "hundreds of requests every year asking for the deletion of articles," this was not one of them, the statement said.
"Without further information, we could not understand why the DCRI believes information in the article is classified," said Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel Michelle Paulson in a discussion thread on the site.
Instead, the DCRI threw its weight behind bullying a Wikipedia editor based in the country to delete the page under the threat of prosecution, with consequences not limited to massive fines and a lengthy prison sentence.
"Bullying and coercive methods"
Not content with the Wikimedia Foundation's refusal to delete the article, the DCRI "summoned" a Paris, France-based Wikipedia editor to its offices on Thursday.
According to the press release: "This volunteer had no link with that article, having never edited it and not even knowing of its existence before entering the DCRI offices. He was chosen and summoned because he was easily identifiable, given his regular promotional actions of Wikipedia and Wikimedia projects in France."
Once hauled in to the spy agency's office, despite his explanation to the French spies that "this is not how Wikipedia works," he was forced to remove the entry using his access to the site's administrator tools that allow such an action.
After his release, he explained to other editors that the entry, according to the DCRI, violated Article 413-11 of the French Criminal Code, which details compromising the secrecy of national defense infrastructure.
Under the law, a French resident can face five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 ($97,000) for "bringing to the attention of the public or any unauthorized person a process, object, document, information, computer network, computerized data, or file". This also, apparently as this case dictates, includes divulging a military installation that, for the record, can be seen in plain sight from a nearby road passing by.
He confirmed in a following Wikipedia discussion thread: "French police called me in as an administrator, following the refusal of the Wikimedia Foundation to remove this article the state of the information provided."
He noted (translated from French) that anyone who re-added the deleted entry on Wikipedia would be "engaging in criminality" and would be the "responsibility of the administrator [editor] who performed [such] actions".
But Wikimedia Foundation re-added the page within hours of the DCRI forcing the editor to pull the entry, which had existed for many years beforehand, but had only recently come to the attention of the French authorities.
Despite claims that it contains classified material, the entry "corresponds almost perfectly" to a video interview given by the military installation's commander to a journalist. Also, almost all of the content in the entry cites publicly available content. In this case, Wikipedia acts as an editorial aggregator of content located elsewhere on the web.
Censorship backfires, "Streisand effect" kicks in
Censorship often begins to unravel when it impacts often just one person who doesn't subscribe to it. This is the very foundation of transparency, and why it almost always trumps censorship.
As a result of this poor attempt at bypassing the judiciary and forcing the Wikipedia editor into censoring an article that he had no involvement in writing, the editor took the transparent approach and explained why he pulled the article from publication.
Many responded to the thread explaining his actions. Reading through, he states nothing but factual remarks in about 75 words. The rest falls down to the community, which took it upon itself to ask questions and blow the whistle on the DCRI, further unraveling its attempt at hiding what was previously public knowledge.
In just a few hours, it became the most popular entry on Wikipedia France. The French-speaking Wikipedia community is second only to the English-language version.
According to Wikiscan, a service that monitors Wikipedia pages, the entry in question has seen more than 47,000 views on Saturday alone, with more than 145 modifications and additions by 55 different editors to the page.
This is known as the "Streisand effect," the phenomenon whereby an attempt to conceal or remove information in the public domain unintentionally causes the information to rise to extreme popularity or prominence, having the opposite intended effect. In the DCRI's attempt to censor Wikipedia, it has caused a massive influx of users to see, in effect, what all the fuss is about.
The page has become so popular that it dwarfs other popular entries, not limited to the "Attacks of September 11, 2001," the entry relating to "North Korea," and even Wikipedia France's own main "Welcome" page.
Ironically, in sixth place by page popularity, the page "Streisand Effect" has around 15,000 views.
There have also been entries made in English, German, Portuguese, and Catalan. The English version of the page also notes the controversy surrounding the DCRI's attempt to censor Wikipedia, adding to the self-perpetuating cycle of views to the page.
Censorship only works if everyone is all-in; not everyone always is
"Has editing Wikipedia officially become risky behaviour in France? Is the DCRI unable to enforce military secrecy through legal, less brutal methods?" the press release questioned.
One of the key points in this debacle is that the DCRI did not go through the French judiciary and serve a viable legal request to the Wikimedia Foundation. If it did, the foundation would be forced to comply to the best of its ability. Instead, the spy agency took the route of targeting a resident of France, under the law and jurisdiction of the DCRI, by threatening terrorism charges against the editor.
Wikimedia Foundation legal counsel Michelle Paulson added to her remarks: "While we have never received a request of this nature from the DCRI before, it is unfortunately not unheard of for governmental entities to contact, or even harass, local users."
The UK's domestic intelligence agency MI5, for instance, does not have power of arrest, nor can it exercise all of the laws given to its corresponding police and law enforcement agencies.
For example, while MI5 has the ability to use UK law to wiretap and acquire information and data in transit, it does not have the power to subpoena or serve search warrants on a suspect. It has to go through the courts, and due to the nature of its sensitive and classified work, a lot of the time these requests go via UK police forces. MI5 cannot arrest people, and requires UK police to enact these powers on the intelligence service's behalf.
Serving a subpoena or search warrant against a citizen falls within France's legislative rules, as it does in the vast majority of developed nations around the world. However, intimidation does not. "The internet is not a place that has to be regulated in such a brutal manner," the release said.
Paulson said: "The foundation strongly opposes any governmental attempts to intimidate the volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to build one of the world's great educational resources that everyone can freely share in."
And, more often than not, censorship will — and has proven to — blow up in the faces of those forcing such measures.
People don't like being censored, in spite of a lack of "true" freedom of speech laws in the UK and wider Europe. It only works if everyone is all-in, such as in North Korea, where the punishment is many years of hard labor in concentration camp-like conditions — or frankly, by comparison, if you're lucky, a rather undignified execution.
We saw this in the UK with superinjunctions, effectively the British version of US National Security Letters, that prevented anyone from disclosing a particular fact or mistruth, as defined by the court that issued it. The only difference with these gag orders was that they applied to every UK resident, rather than just one individual or organization, except nobody knew it.
Superinjunctions were broken within minutes, hours, or days, and the courts were forced to react. Ultimately, the very notion of such gagging orders became defunct and powerless in the face of online activism and the burgeoning need for free speech and open expression.
While this case boiled down to the intimidation of a French citizen by an overzealous national intelligence agency, the good news is that once again, censorship has taken a kick to the teeth.
