Life is Healthy

One of the things I've been thinking about lately is the possibility that intestinal damage due to gluten grains (primarily wheat) contributes to the diseases of civilization by inhibiting the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. If it were a contributing factor, we would expect to see a higher incidence of the common chronic diseases in newly-diagnosed celiac patients, who are often deficient in fat-soluble vitamins. We might also see a resolution of chronic disease in celiac patients who have been adhering faithfully to a long-term, gluten-free diet.

One thing that definitely associates with celiac disease is bone and tooth problems. Celiac patients often present with osteoporosis, osteopenia (thin bones), cavities or tooth enamel abnormalities (thanks Peter).

An Italian study showed that among 642 heart transplant candidates, 1.9% had anti-endomyosal antibodies (a feature of celiac), compared with 0.35% of controls. That's more than a 5-fold enrichment! The majority of those patients were presumably unaware of their celiac disease, so they were not eating a gluten-free diet.

Interestingly, celiac doesn't seem to cause obesity; to the contrary. That's one facet of modern health problems that it definitely does not cause.

The relationship between cancer and celiac disease is very interesting. The largest study I came across was conducted in Sweden using retrospective data from 12,000 celiac patients. They found that adult celiac patients have a higher overall risk of cancer, but that the extra risk disappears with age. The drop in cancer incidence may reflect dropping gluten following a celiac diagnosis. Here's another study showing that the elevated cancer risk occurs mostly in the first year after diagnosis, suggesting that eliminating gluten solves the problem. Interestingly, celiac patients have a greatly elevated risk of lymphoma, but a lower risk of breast cancer.

There's a very strong link between celiac and type I diabetes. In a large study, 1 in 8 type I diabetic children had celiac disease. This doesn't necessarily tell us much since celiac and type I diabetes are both autoimmune disorders.

One last study to add a nail to the coffin. Up to this point, all the studies I've mentioned have been purely observational, not able to establish a causal relationship. I came across a small study recently which examined the effect of a high-fiber diet on vitamin D metabolism in healthy (presumably non-celiac) adults. They broke the cohort up into two groups, and fed one group 20g of bran in addition to their normal diet. The other group got nothing extra. The bran-fed group had a vitamin D elimination half-life of 19.5 days, compared to 27.5 for the control group. In other words, for whatever reason, the group eating extra bran was burning through their vitamin D reserves 30% faster than the control group.

Unfortunately, the paper doesn't say what kind of bran it was, but it was probably wheat or oat (**Update- it's wheat bran**). This is important because it would determine if gluten was involved. Either way, it shows that something in grains can interfere with fat-soluble vitamin status, which is consistent with the staggering negative effect of wheat products on healthy non-industrialized cultures.

Add to this the possibility that most people may have some degree of gluten sensitivity, and you start to see a big problem. All together, the data are consistent with gluten grains interfering with fat-soluble vitamin status. As I discussed earlier, this could strongly contribute to the diseases of civilization. These data don't prove anything conclusively, but I do find them thought-provoking.

Thanks to Dudua for the CC photo

I have a new post up at MyBreastCancerNetwork.Com.

I wrote about pulling myself out of the emotional funk, with the help and support of so many of you.

I watched nine hours of George Carlin this weekend. You know, he was kinda good looking when he was young. NBC also ran the very first Saturday Night Live with George Carlin hosting. So I've been saturated. Geez I'm gonna miss the guy.

Confusing Correlation and Causation

Recently, a paper was published that examined the association between sleep duration and the risk of death. Ferrie et al. showed that in their study population, subjects who slept either more or less than 7 hours a night had an increased overall risk of death. Here's how it was reported in Medical News Today:

Too Little Or Too Much Sleep Increases Risk Of Death

In terms of prevention, our findings indicate that consistently sleeping around 7 hours per night is optimal for health and a sustained reduction may predispose to ill-health.

I must be PMSing. Wait, no…it’s just the way I am.

Someone described my arms as “chicken wings” the other day and I got pissed and actually cried. Not much – just a little tear in the corner of my eye accompanied by a big lip, but still. I freaking cried! Why would something as silly as my arms being described as chicken wings make me cry?

Maybe it’s because when I went to the zoo earlier in the day with my daughter and granddaughter, I saw the elephants and observed their skin and realized that I have similar wrinkly skin patterns in the crease of my arms and I got sad that I missed the boat on smooth, even skin because I spent so many years overweight and obese.

Flog, flog, flog.

The same thing happened when my legs were described as “toothpicks” on national television. I heard it as a criticism, as something about me that didn’t satisfy someone else. This has been a pattern all my life. God forbid something about me is flawed and people notice.

Being overly critical of myself is selfish in many ways. The energy I spend worrying what people think of me could be better spent cultivating compassion for others and helping people feel better about themselves. I’m working on it, though, and hope that by writing about it, I’m encouraging my readers think more deeply about how they address criticism.

I’ve written further about criticism as a whole over on ZenBagLady if you want to check it out. (There’s a bonus photo of the lovely Miss Claire there, too.) I’d love to hear from you, about how you deal with criticism as it pertains to your body as it is, was and will be. How do you handle it? What do you blow off and what do you take personally? Most importantly, WHO is doing the criticizing most of the time – you or someone else?

I’ll take my chicken wings and toothpick legs over the kind of pain and dissatisfaction I felt about myself at 300 pounds, but my reaction to these descriptions is a good reminder to me that my life didn’t become perfect at goal. Many of our demons follow us down the scale.

The "Thrifty Gene" Hypothesis

The thrifty gene hypothesis is the darling of many obesity researchers. It was proposed in 1962 by the geneticist James V. Neel to explain the high rates of obesity in modern populations, particularly modernizing American Indians. It states that our species evolved under conditions of frequent starvation, so we're designed to store every available calorie. In today's world of food abundance, our bodies continue to be thrifty and that's why we're fat.

Obesity researchers love it because it dovetails nicely with the equally dim "calories-in, calories-out hypothesis", whereby calories alone determine body composition. You practically can't read a paper on overweight without seeing an obligatory nod to the thrifty gene hypothesis. The only problem is, it's wrong.

The assumption that hunter-gatherers and non-industrial agriculturalists lived under chronic calorie deprivation has been proven false. The anthropological evidence indicates that most hunter-gatherers had abundant food, most of the time. They did have fluctuations in energy balance, but the majority of the time they had access to more calories than they needed, just like us. Yet they were not fat.

The Kitavans are a good example. They are an agricultural society that eats virtually no grains or processed food. In Dr. Staffan Lindeberg's studies, he has determined that overweight is virtually nonexistent among them, despite an abundant food supply.

The cause of obesity is not the availability of excess calories, it's the deregulation of the bodyweight homeostasis system. We have a very sophisticated set of feedback loops that "try" to maintain a healthy weight. It's composed of hormones (insulin, leptin, etc.), certain brain regions, and many other elements, known and unknown. These feedback loops influence what the body does with calories, as well as feeding behaviors. When you throw a wrench in the gears with a lifestyle that is unnatural to the human metabolism, you deregulate the system so that it no longer maintains an appropriate "set-point".

Here's what Neel had to say about his own theory in 1982 (excerpts from Good Calories, Bad Calories):

The data on which that (rather soft) hypothesis was based has now largely collapsed.

The composition of the diet, and more specifically the use of highly refined carbohydrates.

In a six-month open label trial involving three medical centers in Australia, Mexico and Norway, the 31 obese participants who received the vagal nerve blocking device, also called VBLOC(TM) vagal blocking therapy, lost an average of nearly 15 percent of their excess weight. A quarter of the participants lost more than 25 percent, and three patients lost more than 30 percent.

Read more: MedicalNewsToday

My computer and my body are both still pretty sick.

I have been thinking though about my tendency to become a hermit when I get to feeling low, missing work and my old life (or give in to the fear, as cancer is still very real presence and I know that I have not escaped it).

Chemo weeks tend to be the worst but I will admit that I have been struggling a bit of late.

I have this friend who refuses to stop calling me, though, even when I don't call back. A friend who calls and leaves me messages that say, "Just checking in!"

A friend who refuses to let me turn completely inward.

I am very grateful.

HBO is running all of its George Carlin Specials. I DVR'd about six of them and watched four last night. You know, it's just as funny the 140th time you see it. I'm really going to miss him. He was a part of my life ever since I was a kid. It's his fault that I question everything.

Scorching heat, freak storms and lounging in the pool pretty much sums up this week!
Its a hard life hehe.

It was a mixed bag of the usual; singing, dancing & acting. We had to improvise the entertainment hour on Monday due to no lighting and flooding in the meeting room; but I guess that show business for you.
I was a little disappointed that the Anglo's didn't offer to share their own personal experiences or travels etc, as a presentation, but the effort they did put into the performances made up for it.
One of the best Four Yorkies in a long time, I, O, Eeeee.

As for the Spaniards some of them, didn't work as hard as they ought to, pity because a week isn't a long time and its best to take EVERY advantage of the program, after all they did pay. But I hope they ALL got something from the week, hopefully what they needed (which is usually only the confidence to speak in English)

The weather was very strange this week, we had flash storms and scorching heat, I'm actually quite burnt (silly me!)
I'm guessing so are some of the Anglo's as they spent alot of time in the sun.

However the week passed without incident and everyone seemed happy so a successful week. Things at the hotel are improving; so that's good too.

Anyway here are the photos of our time together

Vaughan Town - Monfrague - Program 116

Once again this morning, I had a private aerobics class. This appears to be a trend. But it was OK. I can really feel my age when I'm the only one exercising—the pressure's on you know. It's like having a personal training session every other day. But it's kind of hard to slack when you're the only one in class, too.

Have you ever wondered why the buttocks is one of the most attractive parts of the body on both sexes? Here's the most common explanation I've heard mindlessly repeated: it's attractive because a man with a nice posterior will be better at thrusting during sex. I've also heard that it's purely aesthetic and nonfunctional, like a baboon's. Neither of these make any sense.

The shape of the buttocks comes mostly from the gluteal muscles (maximus and medius), superimposed by a layer of fat. The 'glutes' are some of the strongest muscles in the body, due to their large size and efficient leverage. Thrusting doesn't even come close to tapping into the glutes' tremendous power. What does? Heavy lifting. Sprints. Jumps. In short, some of the most functional full-body movements we perform as humans.

In any full-body movement, the hips are the central source of power. The strongest muscles surround the hips, and muscle strength diminishes progressively as you move further from them. A shapely buttocks is typically a strong buttocks, and a strong buttocks generally means a strong person. So if you want to decide at a glance whether a person is capable of sprinting and jumping after large prey, and then carrying it home, the buttocks is a good place to look.

The buttocks is also a storage area for fat. Humans tend to store a disproportionate amount of fat near their center of gravity: in the abdominal cavity, on the hips and on the buttocks. The right amount of fat indicates a healthy individual. A shapely buttocks is typically attached to someone who is strong and well-nourished. It's not so hard to imagine why we find it attractive.

Ever have those exercise moments when you are SOOOOO in the zone, SOOOO with the rhythm of the movement that you don’t want it to end? For every three, nine or maybe 25 times I’m on the elliptical or bike or arc trainer thinking, “OK, five more minutes. I can do FIVE more minutes,” there is one completely pure Zen moment of, “God this feels good….I don’t want to stop.”

That’s what happened today. I plan my weekly workout schedule usually on Sundays, and this week had “penciled in” a 15-minute warm-up before a 45-minute strength training routine for today. But once on the elliptical, I fell into a groove. Maybe it was the music, maybe it was the day off yesterday, but I felt fabulous. So I cranked that sucker to a high incline and stayed there way longer than usual.

I’d still be on it probably if I didn’t have, well, a LIFE.

After the longer-than-usual workout, I showered and went to a friend’s house. We went for a walk through the woods and then walked one of her neighbor’s dogs because his owners are on vacation. My friend lives on one of the most beautiful pieces of land in western Pennsylvania and is surrounded by woods and hills and the most beautiful wild flowers. Even though I’d had a near cosmic experience on the elliptical earlier, nothing could replace the walk with her today, both for the natural beauty and the time talking to one of the most important people in my life.

It made me realize that exercise is a lot of things. It’s not just sweating or agony or numbing out. Look around you the next time you’re in the heat of it. Who’s there? What’s there? What do you see outside the window or to your left and right? Yes, we exercise to improve our bodies, but surely there is another reason. Surely there is something else that keeps us coming back to it.

When I ride my bike along the bike trails or go canoeing or hiking, I’m not thinking, “Gosh, this is helping me keep my weight off.” I’m thinking on a totally higher plain.

Am I alone in this? Tell me….what goes on in your head when you’re moving?

Sanofi-Aventis won a final green light for its obesity drug Acomplia from Britain's cost-effectiveness watchdog NICE on Wednesday, clearing the way for doctors to prescribe it on the state health service. Acomplia was once touted as a multibillion-dollar seller, but hopes for the product dimmed last year when a U.S. expert panel recommended against its approval in the world's biggest market, after it was linked to rare cases of suicidal thoughts.

Read more Yahoo News

I have a "friend" that I really don't trust very much. And yesterday, true to form, he made me realize that my intuitions were correct. We have kind of a past--going back about seven years. When I first met him, he didn't give me a chance. He immediately assumed the worst of me because of the things another person said about me. He even did malicious little things to me to make me feel bad, despite not knowing me. I know, I never should've given him the opportunity to "do it again." But I have to work with this guy. So being a mature human being, I allowed him to become my "friend."

Since that time and over the seven years that I've known him, we never really had much of a relationship--because of the way we started out. He minded his business and I minded mine. And I never really trusted him. I know, it's with good reason that I didn't trust him. Then last fall we had to travel together. We had to spend six hours in car with each other. At first things were like they always were. Just kind of OK. Then as time dragged on, we started talking and the conversation got warm and fuzzy. I talked a lot about Al and our life together. I even let a couple of secrets slip. I talked about my youth. I talked about the things I wanted out of life. I foolishly thought that we had a breakthrough and really were becoming friends. But as it turns out, he thought I wanted to sleep with him. Well, he was all over that. But I misread the situation. I'm still at loss as to how he could've thought I wanted to sleep with him from the things I said--especially when I was talking mostly about my dead husband. Maybe it's that he's dead and I must be "missing it." Nudge, nudge. Wink, wink.

When we got back, he started telling everyone that something happened between us while we were away. And then I found out that he telling everyone that we were going to have an affair. Well, I got really pissed off and didn't even want to be in the same room with him for a while. But then as some time passed I started feeling a little more generous, and I let my guard down. We traveled together again a couple of more times, and much to his dismay we never did sleep together. But I'm still the kind of person who gives people the benefit of the doubt. I thought we were friends.

Yesterday, however, it all came to a big realization. We are not friends. I don't want to sleep with him, so he doesn't want me around anymore. He has now found another person he thinks is a potential bed buddy--and I just cramp his style. So now I'm hurt. What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I constantly get myself into relationships with people who only want something from me? And who don't give a damn if they hurt me? And I, like a fool, keep coming back for more.

So I didn't go to work today. I couldn't sleep last night. I was so angry once I allowed myself to face the truth. So now how do I continue to work with someone I hate? And this other girl--I think she's falling for his charm. Do I clue her into his real motives? I tried once before, and I thought she got it. But she's having "trouble at home." And she's lonely. And she tells him all of this. And he's feeding on it like a Parana. I can see this heading for some big mistakes. (Which I thank God in Heaven I did not make. Remember my "Red Flag" dream? Well, I took my own unconscious mind's advice. If I was throwing up that many red flags, well, I must know what I'm talking about. And baby did I ever. ) But can I really do anything about it? If they want to, they're going to "do it" no matter what I have to say.

You see. This is why I can never have a satisfactory life. I'm such a sucker. I keep believing in the "goodness of mankind" when any goodness that I see is really just my imagination. Everyone is out for himself, or herself, as the case may be. What just absolutely kills me is that I thought we really were friends. I should've known. All along I kept going back to the way it was when we first met. I would remember how it felt to be humiliated on a daily basis when I felt myself being sucked into the charm that was being spewed about. Sometimes it made me cry. But it kept me grounded in reality and from making a huge mistake. And again I thank God for giving me some kind insight, and I won't even begin to be able to thank Him for the good sense.

I've always been a keen observer of human kind. And I usually know someone's true colors immediately. But I try to give people the opportunity to prove me wrong. Unfortunately, I'm rarely wrong. And in this case, I am so glad I listened to myself. Now if I can just get this poor, pitiful girl to listen to me--but if I can't, at least I will have tried. And she won't be able to say she wasn't warned. But I'm still pissed off.

I never allowed myself to talk about this here before because, in all honesty, I was embarrassed. I didn't want anyone to know that I was stupid enough to give someone a chance--over and again--who would have the nerve to treat me like I was only here for his pleasure. And who never would've done the same thing for me. As it turns out, I was right. I should be embarrassed. So here's to publicly getting all out.

Wow. That was great. I feel like I just threw up.

Water Flowing Back Into Public Hands

The announcement by the Paris municipality that water services will return to public hands by 2010 is in line with a global trend of ending privatisation of such services. Mayor Bertrand Delanoë announced Jun. 2 that the municipal administration would regain control of all water services for the city, ending a private monopoly that has lasted more than 100 years.

The contracts with the world’s two biggest water service companies, Suez and Veolia, will not be extended after Dec. 31, 2009. “We want to offer a better service, at a better price,” Delanoë said. “We also promise that prices would be stable.” Delanoë said his administration will encourage other municipalities in the Ile de France region around Paris to end privatisation of water services.

“That France, once known as the heartland of water privatisation, is embracing a return to public management of water services, is a strong signal in this new pattern,” Olivier Hoedeman of the Water Remunicipalisation Tracker told IPS. The group, a sub-division of the Amsterdam-based Corporate Europe Observatory (CEO) and the Transnational Institute, documents the decline of water privatisation.

end of excerpt.
~~~~~~~~
A victory! This is good news and a good trend we need to see across the globe. Water is a public trust. Hopefully, the information put out about the effects of water privitization has helped this along. This is just the beginning.

All this talk about butter is making me hungry. Richard mentioned in the comments that he bought some ghee recently and has been enjoying it, so I thought I'd post a recipe. Ghee is the Hindi word for clarified butter. It's butter that has had everything removed but the fat. Rich in fat-soluble vitamins and lacking the sometimes problematic lactose and casein, ghee has rightfully been considered a health food in India since ancient times.

Another advantage of ghee is its high smoke point, which is higher than butter because it doesn't contain any protein or sugars. Consequently, food sauteed in ghee has a clean, rich taste.

The recipe is simple but touchy. I recommend using the best butter you can get your hands on. 100% grass-fed, unsalted cultured butter is the best.

Ingredient and materials

• Butter (1 lb minimum)
• Wide-mouth glass jars
• Cheesecloth
• Rubber bands
  

1. Place the butter in a saucepan and turn the heat to medium until it's melted.
   
2. Once it begins to boil, turn the heat down to low. It's very important to calibrate the heat correctly. Typically, you will want the burner on its lowest setting. The idea is to evaporate the water without burning the oil. It should boil, but slowly.
3. The melted butter starts out cloudy but gradually clears up as the water evaporates. At the same time, a crust will form on the surface of the ghee and the bottom of the pan. Keep the heat very low.
   
4. Push a portion of the top crust to the side with a spoon to see inside of the saucepan. When the butter looks clear and bubbles only rise from the bottom every few seconds, it's done. You have to be very careful because once the water has evaporated, the fat heats up quickly and burns the crust. This gives the ghee an acrid flavor and color. Make sure to handle the pot cautiously, because hot oil can give severe burns.
   
5. Allow the ghee to cool until it's warm but not hot. Place a piece of cheesecloth over the lid of your jar. Secure it with a rubber band. Pour the ghee through the cheesecloth, into the jar.
   
6. Store ghee in the refrigerator or at room temperature. It keeps much longer than butter.

Here's a video with Katie Stiles showing off five inexpensive summer tops that help hide a very slight post-pregnancy belly. They're all available at Eddie Bauer online for under $40.

If vitamin A, D and K2 deficiency are important contributors to the characteristic pattern of chronic disease in modern societies (the 'disease of civilization'), we should see certain associations. We would expect to find a lower fat-soluble vitamin status along with the most prevalent chronic diseases: cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, osteoporosis, tooth decay, etc. We would also expect that improving vitamin status could reduce the incidence or recurrence of these diseases, which would be more convincing than a simple association.

Let's start with cancer. This one is like shooting fish in a barrel. There are consistent associations between low vitamin D status and numerous cancers, most notably breast and colon. And it doesn't just stop at associations. Here's a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial showing a 60% reduction of internal cancers in 1,179 American women taking 1,100 IU of D3 (and calcium) per day for 4 years. I won't go through the rest of the mountain of data linking low vitamin D to cancer, but if you want to see more science go here.

Vitamin K2 has been less well studied in this respect, but preliminary evidence is promising. Cancer patients are often vitamin K deficient. Supplementation with menatetrenone (K2 isoform MK-4) may reduce the recurrence of liver cancer. There's a strong inverse association between K2 intake and advanced prostate cancer, with the effect coming mostly from dairy.

In my post on K2 last week, I mentioned a study in which investigators found a strong inverse association between K2 consumption and cardiovascular as well as all-cause mortality. Patients with severe arterial calcifications tend to be K2 deficient, and K2 deficiency can induce arterial calcification in rodents. Marcoumar, a drug that interferes with K2 status, also causes calcification in humans. There's a mechanism behind K2's effect on CVD. There are several K2-dependent proteins that may protect the arteries from calcification, lipid accumulation and damage: matrix Gla protein, gas6, and protein S.

There is also a compelling association between vitamin D status and cardiovascular disease. Here's a quote from one study that struck me:

The adjusted prevalence of hypertension (odds ratio [OR], 1.30), diabetes mellitus (OR, 1.98), obesity (OR, 2.29), and high serum triglyceride levels (OR, 1.47) was significantly higher in the first than in the fourth quartile of serum 25(OH)D levels (P<.001 for all).

I’m sitting outside on the porch on an old white-painted bent-branch chair, my laptop’s perched on my lap, there’s thunder rumbling in the distance, and I just ate a pickle. My dogs are afraid of thunder and so they’re lying around my feet. Our female dog, Mathilda, has a nervous stomach and it’s making all kinds of gurgling noises. I empathize. My stomach turns upside down when I’m stressed, too.

I’m eating colors tonight. I just had green beans and green peppers while waiting for the carrots and squash to roast. Wearing my 2002 glasses because I can’t find the other ones, I’m monitoring the plastic bowls sitting on my living room floor filling up with water dripping down from the ceiling. If I thought food and gas was expensive, wait until I get the estimate on a new roof.

I’m really missing missing George Carlin right now.

I just took my third calcium/vitamin D tablet of the day. Can they BE any bigger and harder to swallow? Anyway…I have a vitamin D deficiency and the more I read about vitamin D, the more I realize how important it is. Check out this article on CNN: “Vitamin D is hot! Here’s how to get it.” I’m still period free – 17 months and counting – and my doctor is concerned my lack of vitamin D could be the culprit, given everything else checks out just fine.

Who knows?

The lightening is kind of scary now and so I’m moving back inside. There’s a cutie foreign guy named Sven on “Jeopardy”. I think I need to check him…I mean the show out. Just wanted to give you a heads up on vitamin D. And my leaky roof. Life in general.

I am afflicted with my usual pre-chemo malaise.

And something else. I made it a goal this year to write as much as I could about cancer and living with mets and yet, today I am sick of being a cancer patient, sick of cancer and everything about it.

Achieving balance has always been a challenge for me.

My computer is sick today. The fan has died and it will only work for a few minutes at a time. Tomorrow it will go unto the shop (how realistic is it to think that I will get it back on the same day?).

Hopefully, by Wednesday, my computer and I will both be up to writing again.

Researchers have found a possible way to overcome the common problem of dieters eventually abandoning their diet and regaining the weight they lost. Eat a big breakfast packed with carbohydrates and protein, then follow a low-carb, low-calorie diet the rest of the day.

"Most weight loss studies have determined that a very low carbohydrate diet is not a good method to reduce weight," said lead author Daniela Jakubowicz, MD, of the Hospital de Clinicas, Caracas, Venzezuela. "It exacerbates the craving for carbohydrates and slows metabolism. As a result, after a short period of weight loss, there is a quick return to obesity. Read more on News-Medical.Net

Today was the second interval workout. It took me more than an hour to get through it. And I did almost all of it. I'll need to start a little a sooner—like maybe 10 minutes sooner.

The Daily Telegraph is one of the most well recognised and reputable British newspapers available and is relied upon by hundreds of thousands of people everyday.

After conducting extensive qualitative interviews with successful slimmers, Proactol™ was recommended to this famous broad sheet newspaper as the best fat binder for losing weight.

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More information

Leptin is a natural appetite suppressant secreted by fat cells in the body. Its discovery created a stir in the 1990s when researchers found leptin caused mice to eat less and lose weight. This rarely happens in humans.

Since then researchers have been looking the best way to use the hormone to help treat obesity.

In earlier studies, researchers found that when people lose weight, leptin levels fall as the body tries to protect its energy stores.

Rosenbaum investigated the impact of this loss of leptin on the brains of people who had lost weight, and whether replacing the hormone might help them keep off the weight.

He used an imaging technique known as functional magnetic resonance imaging that shows activity in the brain. The researchers studied six obese patients before and after going on a hospital-supervised diet that reduced their body weight by 10 percent.

People were shown pictures of food and non-food items, such as an apple or a yo-yo. The researchers found that after weight loss, areas in the brain responsible for regulating food intake were less active when people were shown food images. Areas in the brain responsible for emotion were more active.

When the researchers restored leptin to the levels before the dieting, these changes were largely reversed.

Similar results have been seen in people with a rare genetic condition in which their bodies do not make leptin.

Rosenbaum believes leptin could be a useful tool in helping people maintain weight loss. "The idea is there should be a whole new class of therapies to help us keep weight off after we have lost it," he said.

Source: Yahoo News

I may have a new act?

Currently I am learning a few past, present and future telling techniques.
This a new skill I'm currently working on and uses alot of psychology.

I have decided to combine several different ways to offer readings for fun rather than business; draw me a tree, graphology, palm reading, cartology and tarot.

should you be interest too simply click the link below for the BEST resource I have found
http://www.learnpalmistry.biz/

I saw a movie a few nights ago called 'The Dhamma Brothers'. It's about a meditation program at Donaldson correctional facility in Alabama, one of the most violent prisons in the country. Two Bhuddist teachers of Vipassana meditation led a 10-day silent retreat for a volunteer group of inmates. They got up at dawn and meditated for several hours each day. Some of the inmates went through an amazing transformation.

They were forced to confront and accept the horrible crimes they had committed. When you aren't allowed to talk for 10 days, and all you have are your thoughts to keep you company, it's hard to ignore your feelings. Many of them had breakdowns as they felt the full force of their own suffering for the first time.

At first, the warden was skeptical that the prisoners were just acting to get parole; "fake it 'til you make it". Then he started noticing major changes in the inmates' behavior. They became less violent and easier to deal with. Some of them left their gangs. Even after the program was discontinued thanks to an overzealous chaplain, many of the "Dhamma brothers" continued meditating on their own.

It's hard to doubt a grown man's sincerity when you see tears running down his cheeks. These men were hardened criminals, most of them serving life sentences for murder, who rediscovered perspective and humanity simply by spending focused time with themselves.

Meditation is a powerful tool. There are two types of knowledge: intellectual and visceral. You can read books until you're cross-eyed and you will never connect with the fundamental, animal, visceral side of living. We like to think of ourselves as rational, conscious beings. It's reassuring to us. We're in control of our minds and therefore our lives. But that's more illusion than reality.

Neuroscience and meditation have shown us that the human mind is like a monkey riding an elephant. The monkey is our conscious and the elephant is our subconscious. The monkey can tell the elephant where to go, but ultimately the elephant is going to do what it wants. The monkey likes to be in charge however, so it retroactively decides it was the one that chose the direction.

To illustrate the point, imagine doing a simple algebra problem. Do you have to go over everything you ever learned about algebra in your head to solve that problem? No, your subconscious navigates the strata of accumulated knowledge and practically hands you the answer. What happens when you decide on an entree at a restaurant? Do you make a pro/con list for each item and weigh them accordingly? Or do you decide based on a feeling? Where does that feeling come from?

Meditation is plugging back into the vastness of human experience. It's acknowledging that your conscious, declarative mind is only a small slice of the pie.

The scale is a useful tool, but if that’s the only tool we use to measure our weight-loss successes, we’re missing out on a lot of exciting NSVs (non-scale victories).

I’ve kept certain medical and weight-loss related data on an Excel spreadsheet since May 2005. I update it every six months when I see my doctor (she keeps close tabs on my “numbers”), and every few months I update my waist, hip and chest measurements, BMI, and body fat percentage.

In May 2005, four months after I started losing weight, my cholesterol was 253. Broken down, my LDL (the “bad” cholesterol) was 160 (recommended level is a reading less than 100) and my HDL (the “happy” cholesterol) was 47 (recommended level is 30-85, with a reading above 60 being optimal). My triglycerides, which should be less than 150, were 267. Keep in mind that these readings were MUCH better than they were six months prior. My triglycerides alone had soared past 300 and my sugar levels were as close to diabetic as you can get without going over.

The first time I took my body measurements was in April 2006, more than a year after I started losing weight. Prior to that, I was so deep in denial over numbers that even stepping on the scale was emotional torture. No way was I going to wrap a measuring tape around my body. It was bad enough I had to see my body in the shower. I wasn’t going to get naked and allow yet another number make me feel even worse. (Yes, I really hated my body that much. I’ve done a lot of psychological homework in the last few years to change that attitude and I’m glad to say I can now appreciate who I was and what I looked like much more than I could at the time.)

In hindsight, I wish I’d have recorded my waist, hip and chest measurements when I weighed almost 300 pounds. I wish I hadn’t been so freaked out and in denial. Alas, I only have a ballpark guess of what those numbers were. Given that I was wearing a size 30W (3X) and the largest bra I ever bought was a 46C and it was uncomfortably small, I can assume my bust was probably around 48-50 inches, my waist somewhere around 46-48 inches and my hips close to 56 or 57 inches. I have one article of clothing that I kept from that time: a sad pair of black stretch pants, size 3X, riddled with stains and a few holes, and the elastic is coming out of the seams. They were the only pants I wore, day in and day out. They reflect the way in which I cared for myself back then. Some day I might do a whole-body-in-one-leg photo, but it’s still difficult for me to look at them, let alone put them on.

Enough of that. Let’s get back to the measurements.

Looking back on the numbers helps me, in maintenance, to stay real about where I was and how far I’ve come. Something interesting I noticed yesterday as I was looking through my spreadsheet was how quickly I lost inches when I joined the gym in late September 2006.

I’d started walking for exercise in April 2006 and my measurements were 44-38-49 and I weighed 187. In September, five months later and just before joining the gym, they were 41-36.5-45.5 and I weighed 164. Two months later, after adding strength training to my routine and upping my cardio routine by implementing the elliptical and bike, and by walking at higher inclines on the treadmill, my measurements were 39-33.5-42.5 and I weighed 152.7. While the scale moved at a respectable rate, what really improved were my measurements. Eight inches gone in two months!

I was also thrilled to see my blood work numbers continually improving as well. Today, my cholesterol is 175 (LDL at 100, HDL at 70), triglycerides are 60 and my BMI is 21.1.

The challenge now is keep those numbers steady. I’m still a sucker for a good NSV, so I think I’ll take my arm measurements. Since I upped my strength training routine, I’m noticing some bulging biceps that I think need a number.

FYI: If you want to read about how I decided my weight-loss goal, click on over to Refuse to Regain to read my latest blog over there.

My father-in-law, himself a cancer survivor, sent me a terrific article from the New York Times:

"Cancer as a Disease, Not a Death Sentence"

That about sums it up, for me.

I particularly enjoyed the following anecdote, so reflective of my own experience (the drugs are different, except for the Herceptin):

''Dr. Esteva described a breast cancer patient first treated with a mastectomy and the antiestrogen tamoxifen in 1995. Five years later, cancer had spread to her lungs, prompting treatment with a newer anticancer drug, an aromatase inhibitor. When that no longer worked, her cancer was found to possess a molecular factor, HER-2, and she began treatment with Herceptin, a designer drug tailor made to attack HER-2-positive breast cancer.

Herceptin therapy was able to stabilize her metastases for years, “something we had not seen before,” Dr. Esteva said.

The patient now receives a combination of Herceptin and another drug and enjoys a relatively normal quality of life, the doctor reported.''

I had a personal training session this morning. OMG, I thought I was going to die. It was a cardio interval-thing. You know, you do a few of cardio and then run over to a weight machine and do two sets of 15 reps and then back to a cardio machine and so on. So after an hour of this, the trainer says, "OK now we'll go back to the bike," and I said, "No we're done." I was so tired I was shaking. And I still had to go to work.

There is a VERY famous scream that hundreds of movies have used and unless you know about it you probably dont even realise.

Its called the WILHELM SCREAM and below is a compilation of the scream in use by sound editors.


It would appear that there exists a mystery of who actually produced the scream but it does go way back to 1953 and has been used ever since - sadly however the movie producers are now saying that as people are becoming more aware they will stop using it.

Im VERY surprised that given what we are able and capable of producing today that they would use something so old anyway, but its also a tribute too I guess!?

Hungry for more sound effects - check out this compilation!