Just Hang Up on Telemarketers

Telemarketing fraud has become an International scourge of staggering proportions. It operates out of back rooms in remote areas of the world where is difficult to track, uses sophisticated technology, and thrives in part thanks to the complicity of otherwise legitimate corporations, including some of the world’s largest banks.

We have known for years that crafty scam artists target older Americans and in spite of the “do not call” registry, the cancerous growth of telemarketing and its criminal underbelly has continued unabated.   According to the Direct Marketing Association, callers selling insurance plans, subscriptions, precooked meals, etc., racked up $177 billion in sales in 2006--$4.5 billion more than they sold the year before “do-not-call” took effect.

Millions of people age 60 and older have been victimized by telemarketers who sell them phony insurance polices, get them to donate to nonexistent charities and much worse. Posing as government workers or pharmacy employees, criminals will tell you that Social Security Administration computers have crashed or that your prescription records are incomplete and that payments or prescriptions will be delayed unless you provide your banking information.

Once a conniving crook has your banking information he can use a banking instrument called an “unsigned check” to deplete your bank account. If your local bank won’t cash these types of checks, the greedy folks at banking giant Wachovia will be happy to oblige them.

The United States attorney in Philadelphia has filed a lawsuit claiming Wachovia ignored thousands of warnings that it was processing fraudulent checks. According to federal prosecutors, this publicly traded bank has accepted $142 million of unsigned checks from telemarketing companies that made unauthorized withdrawals from thousands of accounts.

Another bad actor in this tragedy is InfoUSA, one of the giant database companies that compiles and sells consumer information. InfoUSA maintains data on 210 million Americans and in 2006 it grossed $430 million selling lists mostly to large magazine publishers including Reader’s Digest. But, InfoUSA also knowingly sells their lists to scam artists who specialize in bilking the elderly. According to The New York Times, InfoUSA has sold lists to companies under criminal investigation and even companies that have been successfully prosecuted.

If you are looking for some old suckers to scam, InfoUSA will gladly sell you names and contact information from its list of 3.3 million older people who are “looking for ways to make money” or from its list of 4.7 million people with cancer or Alzheimer’s disease. They even market a list of 500,000 gamblers over 55 years old. The promotion for one their list says, “These people are gullible. They want to believe that their luck can change.”

Just in the past year, federal agencies have filed over 50 lawsuits against telemarketing companies and scam artists accusing them of stealing more than $662 million. But this is just the tip of the iceberg—millions of people who are scammed never report the crime because they feel too embarrassed or in the case of some elders, they fear their children will want to take away their financial independence. The total amount of ill-gotten gains is in the tens of billions.

So here’s what I think everyone should do about this seemingly insurmountable problem. First register your phone number and your mobile phone number at the Do Not Call National Registry. It is easy to do and will stop some if not all of your incoming telemarketing calls. Second, never talk to anyone on the phone if you don’t know who they are. The friendly young lady from the Bank of America is quite possibly a member of a gang of thieves operating out of Mumbai.

Don’t enter sweepstakes contests because many of these are complete fakes, designed only to get people’s contact and other personal information. And even if they are legitimate, your name, address, phone number, age, etc., ends up on one of the lists, like those they sell at InfoUSA. Entering your information in a sweepstakes contest can be the beginning of a long chain of events—the result of which is you’ll wake up one of these days and discovered all your assets have vanished.

Finally, if you have older parents or friends you care about; convince them to do the same. Only you can prevent telemarketing scams—you government is only on the case part time, and your bank is too busy making big buck to care much about the safety of your hard earned savings.

Got Melamine?

The government doesn’t want to tell you this, but the odds are fairly good at one time or another you’ve eaten a poisonous substance called "melamine."

Melamine is an organic molecule that is extracted from oil or coal and then used as one of the ingredients for making plastic. It is found in plastic plates, counter-tops and even in children’s erasers (a darn good reason to tell your kids or grandchildren to not put erasers in their mouths).

So, what's the big deal you may wonder.

The big deal is a bunch of criminals in China (both inside and outside their corrupt government) have been buying up ground-up melamine scraps from plastic-making factories to add it into grains and byproducts, including the sticky wheat glutens used to thicken soups or help bread rise.

They have also, by the way, been putting it into pet food and into the food used to feed chickens and hogs.  If you read the newspaper or watch TV news, you already know the consequences of this.

You see, melamine is a fake protein—no nutritional value whatsoever but much, much cheaper than the real thing.  When wheat gluten buyers, for instance, test for protein content, the test they use measures the density of nitrogen molecules. Both protein and melamine throw off a lot of nitrogen molecules so the test can't differentiate between the two. 

The good folks at the Food and Drug Administration say they are going to start requiring importers to provide "proof " of the safety of glutens and proteins like wheat, corn, soy and mung bean, however, their ability to enforce this is dubious at best.  And just what the proof is is not defined. 

Meanwhile, the Agriculture Department tells us that three million Indiana chickens were fed food contaminated with melamine and these chickens were slaughtered and then instead of being disposed of they were shipped off to market to be eaten by unsuspecting consumers.   

The FDA’s tepid response to all of this is typified by: (1) their statement that the “likelihood of human illness is very low,” and, (2) their dramatic action of sending “two drug agency employees” to China where they are scheduled to talk to a “Chinese official” who couldn't be available immediately because of May Day celebrations.   Wouldn't you love to be a fly on the wall during this conversation.  "Hey,  Dude, will you pretty please tell  your party bosses to quit putting poison in the food you export overseas? "

It seems to me it might be time to boycott Chinese products—what do you think?  To learn more about how to boycott China, check out the Boycott China Union website.

FDA Cleans up It's Act (Sort of)

Tell me it's just a dream--the FDA, our marvelous government watchdog, has issued a new rule that members of drug approval advisory boards can't rule on drugs from companies that pay them more than $50,000. 

Up to now, apparently, there were no limits.  According to The New York Times 10 of the 32 advisors who voted in 2005 to allow the painkiller Bextra to remain on the market and the painkiller Vioxx to return despite huge safety problems had taken money from the drug companies.  At the end of the day these recommendations (thank GOD!) weren't followed, but the votes of these advisory committees can have tremendous influence.

Of course, if you read into the fine, fine print of this new regulation you'll discover the FDA can waive this obvious conflict of interest in individual situations if it wants to and I suspect very much that it will indeed do this.  You see, it is all a ploy--the FDA is only trying to head off new legislation by the democratically controlled congress which will be much more stringent. 

While the agency has long been defensive about its process for selecting expert advisers, under the Bush regime, things have evolved from the realms of dubious ethics to outright banditry as our government's primary purpose has been transformed from serving the will of the people to boosting the prosperity of the industrial elite--and I'm not even paranoid!

FDA expert advisors shouldn't be allowed to accept one thin dime, much less $50,000, from the companies they rule on.  Is this not obvious, dear readers?

The Worldwide Anti-Vaccine Conspiracy

Doctor Abdul Ghani Khan was on a mission.  A high official in the health ministry, he recently traveled to Pakistan's dangerous North-West Waristan Province to convince Bajaur tribal members to allow their children to be vaccinated against polio.  Over 160,000 Pakistani children are vulnerable to the disease because reactionary mullahs believe polio shots are being used by the United States to sterilize the population.

Thanks to this stupid paranoia, Pakistan is one of only four polio endemic countries in the whole world.  Last year, their were 39 cases in the country and medical experts fear a much bigger epidemic is on the way.

Dr. Ghani thought he had had a successful meeting with tribal leaders and was optimistic that they would allow his program to go forward.  On his return trip, however, he ran into a little snag--a roadside bomb blew him to kingdom come.

No big surprise, other Pakistani health officials are now refusing to participate in the vaccination program.

Meanwhile, right here at home in the good ole "US of A" we have our own religious ignoramuses who are trying to prevent the inoculation of young girls against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.  They claim that protecting these girls will only encourage them to become sexually active.

This is the same argument they use to deny young women access to birth control pills, the "day after" pill, and abortion services.  Meanwhile, teenage promiscuity and teenage pregnancy is continues to soar, particularly in the so-called Bible Belt.   

There are valid reasons to be concerned about new vaccines but religious paranoia is not one of them.  While the fanatics here are not yet blowing up doctors they are joining forces with the more traditional "antivaccinists" who oppose the cervical vaccine (and others including flu shots) because they believe in equally paranoid conspiracy theories about government corruption and the greed of the medical establishment.

In Pakistan and in the United States, children are being victimized by ignorance and unfortunately untold numbers will likely die before it is all over. 

How Fat is Your Dog?

In my college days, particularly when cramming for finals, I had to read so much I often found myself reading in my sleep. My dreams consisted of words flowing in front of my eyes much like a teleprompter.

Just recently I thought I was having those dreams again—I thought I had dreamt I was reading a newspaper and the article was about the F.D.A. approving a diet drug for dogs. 

Tell me, dear readers, it was just a dream. Pfizer hasn’t really developed a “prescription” drug with the stupid name “Slentrol” that suppresses the appetite’s of your obese canine. Say it aint’ so.

I had to go out my back door to dig yesterday’s newspaper out of the recycle bin before believing that this was for real. Upon a second reading I learned there are 65 million dogs in the United States and 40% are fat.  That's 26 million fat dogs!

I wanted to stand on the back porch and scream out, “Dogs don't have can openers--they can't open up the refrigerator.  It's not their fault!"

If you have a fat dog, I’m sorry, your irresponsible and it’s your fault. Cut back on your doggie’s rations! Don’t feed fido the leftover fat from your T-Bone. Take your dog for a walk or better yet, a jog and do this daily.

If I had the time and resources to pursue this issue a bit more, I’d commission a survey to see what the correlation is between fat people and fat pets (dogs or cats or whatever). I’d wager anyone ahead of time that it’s better than 90%.

Fat people have fat pets. And you want to know what is going to happen when they start giving Slentrol to their dogs? They are going to start taking it themselves. And just like their dogs, they can suffer the consequences--loose stools, diarrhea, vomiting, lethargy and loss of appetite.  

It's Time to Boycott Prepacked Produce

Next time my granddaughter asks for some carrot sticks in her lunch I'm going to chop them up myself.  From now on, I'm going to discontinue altogether the use of prepackaged vegetables and I urge you to do the same. 

First it was prepackaged spinach from Monterrey, California, which killed three people and sickened hundreds more.  Next we had tainted tomatoes and now we have people getting sick from eating at Taco Bell--initially they thought it was the green onions, but it turns out it was actually the lettuce. 

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 5,000 people in the U.S. die each year from food poisoning.   A whopping 76 million Americans annually get sick from the food they eat and over 325,000 are hospitalized.

Food will never be totally safe, but it can be much safer.  The problems we have today are the result of mass centralization and poor government inspection.  The majority of the beef we consume in the U.S. is processed by only 13 gigantic slaughterhouses--thus the meat in the hamburger you eat from McDonald's comes from hundreds, if not thousands of cows.  You see, tons of meat is put into one huge vat where it is ground up and then packaged.  Thus, if only one cow is diseased tons and tons of hamburger meat get contaminated.

The same goes for veggies.  The spinach from dozens of farms winds up in a centralized processing plant where it is washed and processed in huge tubs before being packaged for delivery to restaurants and grocery stores.  One leaf of spinach (or lettuce, or whatever) contaminated with E. coli 0157:H7 and there goes the whole batch.  Compounding matters, it is very difficult if not impossible to trace the contamination to its source.

Meanwhile, our government has been asleep at the wheel.   Due to cutbacks the number of food-safety inspections conducted by the F.D.A. has dropped from 35,000 per year in the 1970S to less than 3,500 per year.  Pathetic and totally inadequate.  Hopefully, the new Democratic Congress will reverse the decades-long trend of weakening regulations and manipulating both the F.D.A. and the Department of Agriculture so that they spend more time protecting mega-corporations and less time protecting us.  But, I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Besides being pissed off, the best thing we can do about this situation is to simple not eat food from fast food restaurants and boycott forever prepackaged produce. 

New York Takes the Lead

Every city should have a Board of Health like the one in New York.  Made up mostly of physicians and health care professionals appointed by the mayor, the Board can adopt regulations and turn them into law without approval from any other agency.  Because they have this power and because Mayor Bloomberg has appointed the right people, they have issued two stunning new regulations that put New York on the forefront of the battle against obesity.

The first regulation requires fast food restaurants to post the number of calories in all their dishes and the second, more controversial regulation, requires all restaurant to phase out the use of trans fat over the course of the next 18 months.  Thus in one sweeping action, New York has set a national standard that hopefully will be duplicated in major cities across the country.  Once this is accomplished, major fast food chains, like McDonald's will quit using trans fat at all their restaurants thus even people living in the most backward rural areas will benefit. 

I say hooray!

Of course, of course, some of the viler folks in the food industry are threatening legal action to try to overthrow these regulations.  They complain that their costs will go up and that certain foods, like french fries and donuts, simply won't taste as good.  The owner of New York's Carnegie Deli refutes this kind of thinking.  He was quoted in the Board of Health press release, as follows: "We have been using 100% Canola Oil for 20 years because it has a better taste and is better off for the customers.  It's easy to replace artificial trans fat, it costs the same, and the food tastes great.  Our cakes and other baked goods are already trans fat free.  If we can do it, so can other restaurants."

Just in case you don't know this, trans fats are partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which turn oil foods into semi-solid foods and thus extend shelf life.  They have zero nutritional value.  If fast food is bad, trans fat is evil.  What it does is increase the damaging choleserol content of a meal, clogging up arteries and increasing the risk of a heart attack.

Trans fat is actually a killer.

Famed nutritionist Walter Willett, M.D., said, "If New Yorkers replace all sources of artificial trans fat, by even the most conservative estimates, at least 500 deaths from heart disease would be prevented each year in New York City--more than the number of people killed annually in motor vehicle crashes."

Let's hope the New York action catches on nationwide and even worldwide!

 

Starve Yourself to a Longer Life

Ok, monkeys who eat 1/3 fewer calories than their fellow monkeys on a "normal" diet can live as much as 40% longer, therefore if you could only cut back to 2,000 calories a day you would live to be healthier and longer, right?   Dr. Roy Walford, the famous pathologist at UCLA thought so and for the last 30 years of his life he followed a severe calorie-restriction regimen.  In 2004, he died at age 79--a victim of Lou Gehrig's disease (ALS).  (No one knows for sure what causes ALS, but a genetic defect is the main suspect and it is most certainly not related to diet.)

The calorie restiction diet concept got a big, big boast recently with two major articles, one in the New York Times and the other in The Wall Street Journal .  Both articles make it fairly clear that not many people can deal with the hunger pangs, however, there is great hope and tons of money in creating a drug that "mimics" calorie restriction.  No pain, lots of gain....maybe.

Let's Nuke Our Veggies

Let's not waste our time with North Korea--their pathetic "nuclear event" could have been simulated with a few sticks of dynamite.  It could be 10 or 20 years before they get it right and by then Kim Jong-il will have been overthrown or assassinated by his own people or both as more and more North Koreans discover through the Internet and smuggled videos that the world outside is a better place.   In other words, this problem is bound to take care of itself. 

Meanwhile, the war at home against contaminated veggies has just begun and before it kills all of us I think we should bow to the inevitable and start nuking our produce. 

According to a fantastically interesting article by Michael Pollen, The Vegetable-Industrial Complex, published in the Sunday, October 15th edition of The New York Times, 76 million Americans get sick every year from food, more than 300,000 are hospitalized and about 5,000 actually die. 

Following the outbreak of E. coli in hamburger meat, many producers, instead of cleaning up their foul act, simply started irradiating their products.  That way, if there are microscopic droplets of cow dung on your Big Mac, you can eat it worry free and come to think of it, it might enhance the flavor (or lack thereof).  The problem seems to be we are stuck with the big industrial approach to food and there is very little government will to change this.

Now that "organic" foods too are increasing being produced by corporate farms we might as well bow to the inevitable and save as many lives as we can.  All you really need to know is that the "Natural" Selection Foods company that recently had the little problem with spinach washes 26 million servings of salad every week in ONE plant.  Thus, you see, any contamination from say ONE little leaf of spinach from Farmer Fred's Manure Enriched Organic Food Patch could theoretically infect 26 million people and there is no way now or ever to inspect every single leaf of spinach.   It just can't be done. 

So, instead of thinking we can reverse ourselves and go back to Willy Nelson's so-called "family" farm I think we might as well start nuking now.  What do you think?

Walnuts--The More We EAT them, the More People STEAL Them

The more walnuts we eat, the costly they get, which creates a big problem for Undersheriff J. Paul Parker of the Sutter County, California, Sherriff's Department.  You see, deputy Parker is on the frontlines in the fight against walnut theft--a "mushrooming" problem in California's northern Central Valley where they harvest approximately 350,000 tons every Fall.  This years opening price for jumbo in-shell walnuts on the international market is $1.07 a pound, the highest ever.
    Deputy Parker was recently called to a nearby orchard to investigate walnut theft and upon arriving he found the alleged thief back at work, raking up nuts and putting them in gunny sacks.  Rene Alvarez had about 200 pounds of walnuts.  At his home nearby, Parker found several hundred pounds more, apparently from the same orchard.
    But this bust was pretty much "small potatoes" as entire truckloads of walnuts have been known to disappear.  Most of these major type cases are not solved.  According to walnut grower Matt Conant, thieves have on occasion made off with as much as 50,000 pounds or more. 
    The increasing demand for walnuts is driven by new research that shows eating raw walnuts and walnut oil decrease arterial inflammation and improve arterial elasticity.  One recent study from Spain indicated that walnut oil is better than olive oil at keeping arteries flexible.
    The bottom line is fairly clear--eating walnuts is good for your heart and your cardio-vascular system.  This is why I include them in my LongLifeClub cereal.  You can check out the recipe by reading The Almost PERFECT Breakfast Cereal You Can Make Yourself. 

Whose to Blame for the Great Spinach Debacle?

Still baffled?  The FDA seems to be having a difficult time with the spinach debacle.  They just can't figure out who or what to blame.

I have a suggestion for them.  I think no matter how this shakes out, the FDA can blame itself.  E. coli infections in spinach are nothing new, it just hasn't happened on a large scale before.  In fact, the recent outbreak is the 20th time in the past 10 years that leafy greens from California have been contaminated by the deadly 0157:H7 strain.  Just this past November, the FDA sent a letter to growers, packers, processors and shippers warming them to improve produce safety.

In my opinion the deaths, sickness, panic and economic disruption of the past couple weeks could have been avoided if the FDA wasn't sitting around waiting for something like this to happen.  And sending out a letter is not enough. 

I rest my case on the single bag of spinach found in a victim's refrigerator in New Mexico.  After determining that this spinach was indeed infected the FDA was able to trace its origin by using the lot number printed on the bag.  They traced it to NINE large spinach farms in California's Salinas Valley.  I repeat, NINE farms!

How could the spinach in one puny little bag come from so many different farms?  The answer is that corporate conglomerates like Earthbound Farm (the nation's largest "organic" producer) process all their products in one large centralized place.  Earthbound washes and packs both it organic and "natural" spinach in the same plant and thus the spinach in one bag can indeed come from multiple farms.

This same problem cropped up a few years back when E. coli infected the hamburgers sold by Wendy's.  Only this was even worse as the hamburger in one patty can actually come from as many as 10,000 cows!

So, you see, no matter if the contamination originates from run-off water, the unwashed hands of a laborer, or from improperly processed fertilizer, the massive impact would never have happened if it wasn't for the fact that the FDA has allowed the evolution of larger and larger, centralized food processing plants.

So there.   

Why I DON'T Want to be Your Salty Dog

Doctor Morgan was way ahead of his time.  It was at least 50 years ago--I was a small boy living in Nebraska--when I over-heard him telling my dad, "every time you pick up a salt shaker, you shorten your life by five minutes." 

Fast-Forward to June, 2006, and the American Medical Association is finally urging the government and private industry to reduce the extremely high levels of salt found in most processed and pre-packaged foods.  The nation's largest doctor organization wants the F.D.A. to place limits on the amount of salt that can be put into specific types of food.

Even though it is widely known excessive amounts of salt in our diets are one of the major causes of high blood pressure and thus heart disease and death, the F.D.A. categorizes salt as "generally recognized as safe."  To regulate it, they would have to change its status to that of a "food additive."

The Salt Institute and its paid scientists have feverishly lobbied against this, along with many friends in the canned food industry who know their products would taste like crud without adding a ton of sodium.  In fact, "low-salt" alternatives have historically sold poorly.

Unfortunately, restricting salt in canned and other pre-packaged foods would NOT be enough to solve the problem as resaurant foods and in particular fast-foods also contain massive amounts of salt.

How much is too much?  The American Heart Association recommends a maximum daily intake of 2,300 milligrams for people who don't have hypertension or "pre-hypertention."  If you do have high blood pressure, you should keep it down to 1,500 mg. 

2,300 mg is about the amount in one teaspoon and 1,500 is slightly more than 1/2 teaspoon. 

As the good people at the Salt Institute like to point out, salt is "essential."  On average, we need about 500 mg a day to maintain fluid balance, regulate blood pressure, transmit nerve impulses and maintain muscle activity.  The BIG problem here is that the average American consumes 4,000 to 6,000 mg a day. 

A quick check on the NutritionData  website will give you some insight as to why American eat way too much salt.  One McDonald's 1/4 lb cheeseburger has 1,450 mg of salt and it you add in a large bag of fries you get 390 additional mg.  But if you think this bad--try eating a small can of Campbell's Chicken Noodle soup.  As my grandmother once said, "there enough salt in there to choke a horse." 

Ready for this?  The Campbell's concoction includes 2,290 mg and this isn't a typo.

Instead of simply reducing the amount of salt in their products, as reported by the New York Times, Campbells has for years been searching high and low for a substitute ingredient that tastes like salt, but isn't.

Even Starbucks has gotten into the saltier is better routine--their cheese Danish contains 750 mg.  Many of the dishes from Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine have more than 600 mg.

To get away from shortening your life 5 minutes at a time by ingesting too much sodium, I urge you to simply QUIT eating canned foods, pre-packaged foods and fast-foods.  Learn how to be extremely careful about what you eat in the restaurant and learn to flavor your foods at home with spices, herbs, lemon, vinegar or salt-free blends.  When cooking rice or pasta, DON'T put salt into the boiling water.  Buy unsalted nuts.  Forget the potato chips.  And, oh yeh, put down the salt shaker.

If people had listened to Doc Morgan back then, literally millions of lives could have been prolonged.  According to a 2004 study in The American Journal of Public Health 150,000 lives could be saved annually in the U.S. by cutting sodium levels in packaged and restaurant foods in half.

Next Time You Bench-Press 400 lbs., DON'T Hold Your Breath

Some ophthalmologists in Brazil measured the internal "intraocular" eye pressure of 30 young weight-lifters while they bench pressing a heavy weight.  During some of the reps they were asked to exhale while hosting the weight and inhale when lowering the weight.  For the remaining reps they were asked to hold their breath.

The result was the intraocular pressure rose an average of 90% when they were holding their breath and only 65% when they were breathing correctly.  Theoretically, a rise in intraocular pressure might possibly raise the risk of developing glaucoma.  To their credit, the researchers say this study doesn't prove anything.

Here's the rub--the headline published by WebMD and picked up by other news sources is:  "Weightlifting May Boost Glaucoma Risk"  People who glance at this headline and don't bother to read the article just might conclude weight-lifting will make them go blind. 

When actually, bench-pressing a really heavy weight while you are holding your breath might maybe possibly increase your risk of glaucoma.

Why Apples are REALLY Good for You

The apples I've been getting at the Berkeley Farmer's Market have been really good--crisp and flavorful.  I guess they must be in season.

Normally I only occasionally eat apples, but lately I'm eating one or two a day.

Apples are not a terrific source of nutrients like folic acid, calcium, vitamin C, vitamin B or magnesium--on the surface you might conclude because of their sugar content you shouldn't really bother with them.  However, it turns out one medium size apple contains five grams of fiber, mostly from pectin which is know for its cholesterol-lowering properties.  And when it comes to antioxidants--apples are phenomenal. 

Apple skins contain a variety of antioxidants called "phenolics," including the flavonoid "guercetin."  Researchers at Cornell University have found the skin of a single apple has a much antioxidant activity as 1,500 milligrams of vitamin C.  And researchers at the University of California at Davis have discovered apples lower LDL cholesterol levels and improve the cell lining of arteries, possibly even protecting against atherosclerosis. 

It only gets better--there is evidence from laboratory studies at the University of Massachusetts that the antioxidants in apples reduce oxidative damage in brain cells.  Other studies have found eating lots of apples may reduce the risk of breast, lung, colon and digestive cancers.

All of this, of course, depends upon eating the skin--if you peel your apples first, you're just eating some fructose laden carbohydrates which will do your body no good.  A few years ago in China I observed that people there regularly carve the skin off of apples before eating them, probably because of pesticides.  Apple skin easily absorbs odors, gasses and poisons--which is why it is always best to buy the organic varieties.

No Duh! People Underestimate Calories in Junk Food

Oftentimes health research is so predictable you wonder why anyone bothers. A case in point is the study out of France which found most Midwestern U.S. people underestimate the number of calories in fast-food meals. No duh…

Why professors at the international business school INSEAD are interested in the obesity problems of Midwesterners is a bigger mystery than the conclusions.

Anyway, these “researchers” asked 105 people eating at fast-food restaurants in three Midwestern cities to estimate the number of calories in the food they had just consumed—and, of course, they grossly underestimated the total. 

In the second part of the study, 40 INSEAD undergrads were asked to estimate the calories in 15 various sizes of meals; all of them consisting of chicken nuggets, fries and soda. They also grossly underestimated the totals.

The problem here is there is way more calories, saturated fat, transfat, salt and sugar in fast food than almost anyone could estimate.

For example, how many calories, how much saturated fat, salt, sugar and carbohydrates do you think there is one measly Carl Jr.’s “Six Dollar” burger?

How bout a Starbuck’s Mocha Frappaccino with Whip?

Or a McDonald’s large French fries? 

The answers are:

• Carl Jr. (960 calories, 25g fat, 1,690mg salt, 17g sugar, 61g carbohydrates)
• Starbuck’s (420 calories, 10g fat, 260 mg salt, 51g sugar, and 61g carbohydrates)
• McDonald’s (531 calories, 4.6 g fat, 324mg salt, 0g sugar, and 69.3g carbohydrates)

 What I found really odd in reading the press reports on this study is the researchers and so-called “experts” who commented believe the lesson is people should eat smaller portions! How bout not eating junk food at all?

A great resource for calories in all sorts of pre-packaged and junk food can be found at the Calorie King  website.

 

 

How Much Mercury Do You Have in Your Teeth?

Mercury poisoning from dental amalgams (i.e. fillings) is back on the front burner thanks to the FDA's announcement that it will hold public hearings on the matter. For years the agency has seemingly  sided with the American Dental Association which likes these fillings because they are cheap, last a long time and are easy to install in your mouth. 

FDA officials have been sayng that dozens of studies have found no evidence that the fillings are dangerous, except for rare cases of allergic reactions.  Of course, they ignor studies that show people who have the most fillings have more mercury in their blood and in their urine. 

The FDA also seems to ignor the obvious fact that mercury "bioaccumulates" in your body--thus the amount of mercury in a filling might not be harmful in of itself but it adds to totally amount of mercury levels.

The public hearings will be held on September 6 and 7 in Gaithersburg, MD.

There is a Washington D.C. based advocacy group called "Consumers for Dental Choice" which met with two high-ranking FDA Associate Commissioners, Randal Lutter and Jason Brodsky last fall and has apparently been instrumental in getting the FDA to conduct the upcoming hearings.  You can read more about this at their website.

The FDA announcement is also posted. 

If you want to weigh in on this issue, you can email Randall Lutter rlutter@oc.fda.gov or Jason Brodsky jbrodsky@oc.fda.gov

Longevity is NOT in the Genes

I can't tell you how many times a fat, middle-aged person with poor lifestyle habits has told me living a long time is a matter of genetics.  "I'd start going to the gym and eating brocolli if I thought it made any difference," they might say, "but it won't because it's all in the genes."

When they say this I usually tell them about England's Queen Mum who lived to be 101 even though she drank a gin and tonic first thing when she woke up every morning and even though she continued drinking gin throughout the day and usually consumed at least a full quart. 

But, I've never believed this--perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but I've always believed lifestyle, nutrition, fitness and just plan old good luck was a much bigger factor than genetic makeup.

It turns out I'm right.

The New York Times last week published a major front page story "Live Long?  Die Young?  Answer isn't just in the Genes," which reports researchers have discovered how old your parents or other close relatives were when they died has very little, if any bearing on how long you will live.  You can still read this article at  New York Times Archive  

Most interesting was the study of over 10,000 twins--actually  all the twins born in Finland, Switzerland and Denmark between 1870 and 1910.   By 2005, all of these people had died and researchers were able to examine records to find out if twins tend to die at the approximately the same age and to see if there was any difference between faternal and identical twins. 

The researchers were pretty much blown away by the results as they found "the vast majority" of twins die years apart, and that there is very little difference in this regard between faternal and idential twins.  No matter how the researchers sliced the data, the genetic impact on longevity was very small.

The moral of this story is that you can't use the "it'a all in the genes" excuse anymore--cause it ain't. 

California Dreamin'--Health Insurance for ALL

The California Legislature passed a stunning bill yesterday that would establish a universal health care system covering all Californians.

If signed in law by our Republican governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, which seems dubious, it would eliminate private medical insurance plans. The new single-payer plan would provide comprehensive medical, dental, vision, hospitalization and prescription drug coverage to every California resident. ,

Californians would also have the right to see any doctor or go to any hospital.

Schwarzenegger hasn’t commented yet, but his fellow republicans are predictably complaining that the plan would set up another unworkable state run bureaucracy similar to  California's notorious Department of Motor  Vehicles (DMV).

The bill would first create a “blue-ribbon” commission to figure out how to make this work. An independent health care consulting firm called the Lewin Group has already figured out how to pay for it—or so they say.

The idea is to combine all state and federal funds currently going to healthcare with business contributions and participant payments and co-payments. The total would be enough to pay for the new deal.

How do you do this? Well, actually you increase the payroll tax by 8 percent and the individual income tax by 3 percent. (Those “tax and spend” Democrats are at it again)

One of the better features is the state would be empowered to negotiate bulk rates for prescription drugs and durable medical equipment—which could result in a savings of $2 billion.

Can you imagine if this actually becomes law—people will move to Californai in droves.

The problem, of course, is this whole thing is just a political ploy. The Dems want Arnold to veto this bill so they can embarrass him in a future election. According to bill sponsor Sen. Sheila Kuehl, D-Santa Monica, "I hope that the people of California will hang the albatross of bad health care around the governor's neck."  You see, they aren’t really serious about making this into an actual law.

In case you think I’m being cynical, the tip-off is that the democratic candidate for governor, Phil Angelides, is not supporting Kuehl’s bill. He wants to go at a much slower pace by first covering all uninsured children in California and then requiring businesses to cover their employees.

Too bad this crucial issue gets so caught up in the bipartisan malaise—there are 7 million uninsured Californians and according to figures just released by the U.S. Census Bureau, 45.6 million Americans were without health insurance at the end of 2005.

In my opinion, universal health insurance is inevitable as nothing else will ever really work. So, let’s figure out how to implement it in the best way and get on with this—please! 

A good article on the California bill can be found at theSan Francisco Chronicle

Emma Douglas Dies at 108

Emma Douglas, who was the “Centenarian of the Month” in March, died on Wednesday, August 16, at the age of 108.  Born March 29, 1898, with a little help from a Native American midwife, she is survived by her many friends at the Advent Christian Church in Margaretteville, New York.  Emma’s husband, Ralph Douglas, died in 1973 and she had no other surviving family members.

Very independent and self-sufficient, Emma lived in her own apartment in nearby Arkville, New York.  An honorary member of the local German-American Club, her 108th birthday was celebrated by the club on March 12. Only people over 100 of German heritage are honorary members.

A memorial service was held at Emma’s church with the Rev. Harold Patterson and the Rev. S. Hayden Walsh officiating.  In memory of Emma H. Douglas, donations may be made to the Advent Christian Church Memorial Fund or the Margaretville Memorial Hospital Ambulance Fund, Margaretville, NY 12455.