Aluminum and Alzheimer's. The Universe. Big Pharma. Medical Errors. Trans Fats Unsafe. Old Photos. Grand Canyon. Smoking.

 

For "Summary Saturday" or News, some new, some old:

Alzheimer's & Aluminum Toxicity

Reducing Your Risk of Alzheimer's Disease

"There is a strong connection between aluminum and Alzheimer's disease. Research clearly demonstrates abnormally high accumulations of aluminum within the brains of Alzheimer's victims.

Aluminum alloy cookware and containers - Cooking utensils and aluminum beverage cans contribute substantially to our load of aluminum. Beer has more aluminum when it is packaged in aluminum cans. It is best to use stainless steel cooking containers or glass or iron cookware. The older your aluminum cookware is the more rapidly it corrodes. Acid-forming foods dissolve aluminum more rapidly. The amount of aluminum ingested from cookware, however is far exceeded by the amounts ingested from food additives.

Food - Sodium aluminum phosphate is an additive in most baking powders, cake mixes and self-rising flower.. If this form of aluminum combines with maltol, a sugar-like flavoring agent, the resulting aluminum compound is able to get through the blood-brain barrier 90 times as well.
Potassium alum is used to whiten bleached flour.
Aluminum compounds are widely used as additives to prepared foods. They lighten food texture, adjust acidity and keep chunks of processed vegetables and fruits firmer.
Aluminum is even used in infant formulas and beer.
Sodium aluminosilicate or aluminum calcium silicate are added to table salt to absorb moisture and keep it from caking.
Sodium aluminum phosphate is used as an emulsifier in processed cheese.

OTC and prescription drugs - Aluminum is found in many over-the-counter painkillers, anti-inflammatory drugs and douche preparations. For instance, aspirin is commonly buffered with aluminum hydroxide or aluminum glycinate. If you wash down your aspirin with orange juice, the buffering powder becomes aluminum citrate which is able to get through the blood-brain barrier five times as well."  More at: http://www.angelfire.com/az/sthurston/alzheimers_and_aluminum_toxicity.html

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A giant step in space measurement: Scale of the universe is measured to ONE per cent accuracy

• "This compares to 20 years ago when data differed by up to 50 per cent
• Scientists mapped over 1.2 million galaxies up to 6bn light years away
• Equations revealed details about expansion, and as a result, dark energy
• They suggest a model of universe that extends into space and time infinitely

There aren’t many things in our everyday lives that we know to one per cent accuracy.

But now scientists claim to have measured parts of the universe to this gold standard using galaxies more than six billion light years away.

The impressive measurements were taken by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) using the Sloan Foundation Telescope in New Mexico.

‘I now know the size of the universe better than I know the size of my house,’ said Professor David Schlegel BOSS principal investigator." Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2536386/A-giant-step-space-measurement-Scale-universe-measured-ONE-cent-accuracy.html

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Bill Maher on Big Pharma: “We Are Being Poisoned” with David Letterman.

"Please be warned about Big Pharma."

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7 Tips on Surviving The Medical Industrial Complex.

"Dr. Benjamin Rush a Founding Father of America and a signer of the Declaration of Independence was right. America's Medical Industrial Complex has organized itself into an undercover dictatorship and is now "controlling the shots", in every sense of that expression. And they are more deadly that all of the shots fired in all of the wars that America has ever been involved in." 

"Medical errors kill enough people to fill four jumbo jets a week." says The Wall Street Journal

"200,000 to 400,000 deaths per year from preventable harm in hospitals" reports "A New, Evidence-based Estimate of Patient Harms Associated with Hospital Care" published in the Journal of Patient Safety September 2013.

"It seems that every time researchers estimate how often a medical mistake contributes to a hospital patient's death, the numbers come out worse." laments Scientific American"

From: Click here: Medical Errors Kill Enough People to Fill 4 Jumbo Jets a Week. - 7

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FDA Rules Trans Fats Unsafe in Food

"For over 60 years, saturated fats have been wrongfully accused of causing heart disease, despite mounting evidence showing that saturated fat is actually critical for optimal health while trans fat is the dietary fat causing heart disease.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced it is now considering removing partially hydrogenated oils—the primary source of trans fats—from the list of "generally recognized as safe" (GRAS) ingredients.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled for the first time that trans fats aren't considered safe in food, a sharp policy shift that could lead to banning trans fats in baked goods and other foods. Peter Landers reports in this Wall Street Journal video: http://on.wsj.com/1gugKcB

Making trans fat non-GRAS is the first step toward getting trans fats out of the American diet altogether. The FDA’s decision comes right on the heels of a lawsuit filed against the agency by a heart disease researcher.

FDA is still holding fast to its ignorant view on saturated fats, urging you to “choose products that have the lowest combined amount of saturated fat, cholesterol and trans fat.” This advice causes far more harm than good.

Saturated fats from animal and vegetable sources provide a number of important health benefits, and your body requires them for the proper function. Science has firmly debunked the myth that saturated fat promotes heart disease."

More at: http://healthimpactnews.com/2013/fda-sued-forced-to-remove-safety-status-on-trans-fats/

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If you just love old photos.

"If you are over 60 (or you just love old photos) and you do not take a few minutes look over these photos, you have missed a chance to relive your childhood and go back in time to the truly wonderful 1950's.  Enjoy the journey back!

Put your mouse over the photo (do not click) and it tells you who and what it is.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/blast_of_the_past/ "

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On This Day:

Grand Canyon National Monument is created, Jan 11, 1908:

"In January 1908, Roosevelt exercised this right to make more than 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon area into a national monument. "Let this great wonder of nature remain as it now is," he declared. "You cannot improve on it. But what you can do is keep it for your children, your children’s children, and all who come after you, as the one great sight which every American should see."

Declaring that "The ages had been at work on it, and man can only mar it," President Theodore Roosevelt designates the mighty Grand Canyon a national monument.

Home to Native Americans for centuries, the first European to see the vast brightly colored spectacle of the Grand Canyon was Don Garcia Lopez de Cardenas, who traveled through northern Arizona in 1540 with the Spanish explorer Coronado. Subsequent explorers also marveled at the amazing view from the rim, but few dared to attempt the treacherous descent into the 5,000-foot-deep canyon and explore the miles of maze-like twists and turns.

Even as late as the 1860s, the Grand Canyon remained terra incognita to most non-natives. In 1869, though, the geologist John Wesley Powell made his first daring journey through the canyon via the Colorado River. Powell and nine men floated down Wyoming's Green River in small wooden boats to its confluence with the Colorado River (now in Canyonlands National Park), and then into the "Great Unknown" of the Grand Canyon.

Astonishingly, Powell and his men managed to guide their fragile wooden boats through a punishing series of rapids, whirlpools, and rocks. They emerged humbled but alive at the end of the canyon in late August. No one died on the river, though Indians killed three men who had abandoned the expedition and attempted to walk back to civilization, convinced their chances were better in the desert than on the treacherous Colorado.

Visitors today see a vista little changed from the one Lopez de Cardenas saw nearly 500 years ago."

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50 years since smoking became bad

"On January 11th, 1964, the US Surgeon General issued the first government report linking smoking to disease and death. It ushered in an era of regulation that fifty years later has helped to cut the smoking rate for American adults by more than half."

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Yesterday:

It was a lot warmer and the two cats could go out on the screen porch, but they still keep away from each other.  Maybe, one day they will be friends.

Ray came over and shampooed the carpets, while I washed Misty's beds and blankies in the washing machine.  I'll put the two small beds back under the coffee table and under my bed, where they have always been, as the cats like to curl up in them.  The big bed will probably be stored in the attic.  

It seems strange without Misty, and even though I miss her, I know she is in a better place. She couldn't go on like that.  Nala seems to be looking for Misty, but Ava appears to be more at ease, I think she is scared of dogs.  Both cats nap on opposite ends of the living room and still ignore each other.

A Heat-and-Air man came to look at both houses, and will give me an estimate for mini-splits in the next new days.