Slashdot Mirror

The Ritalin is the little round pill with "CIBA" on it - I think you took aspirin again.

http://blogs.webmd.com/breaking-news/2011/10/steve-jobs-pancreatic-cancer.html

According to this and others, when he first learned of his condition, it was early and treatable. He went with alternatives.

Devil's advocate here. Everything in your post is flawed. It's a long rant about how you want things to be. Just to avoid other people taking you too seriously, I've provided counter points.

1) People are physically larger than cats and dogs. Aside from physical size, a dog is domesticated. Selectively bred to have the qualities people wanted. Wolves, are not so easily dominated, and they're very difficult to keep as pets.

2) Viciousness is not recognized as part of the Theory of Evolution. You might as well say happiness is not a survival trait, because that would be equally valid to your point.

3) The vicious monkey got sex. You're trying to assign more reason than a monkey has. Flip that story around: An incredibly vicious monkey kills all the other males, and has all the females to himself. So, your story's monkey just wasn't vicious enough.

4 & 5) This was already argued against by another poster.

6) When the population density is too high, monkeys killing each other can free up the resources they need to stay alive.

7 & 8) Cultures change and absorb each other over time, and only a rare few die out completely. The Anglo-Saxon's descendents still exist. Europe has had more wars in the past two millenia than any other part of the world. You're drawing lines around groups saying, "they're statistically peaceful.". But, if you look at the whole world interacting, we're not collectively at peace for more than a couple months at any given time.

9) Sleeping in the same bed isn't about sleeping more soundly. It's a cultural thing, and it probably causes a lot of sleep disorders and insomnia. Everybody would be better off if we just had sex on the couch, then slept far enough away to avoid being kicked and woken by snoring. You say it's been proven, but you haven't cited anything to back that up.

The heart doesn't have a limited number of beats, it has an average of 60 per minute. That's the average a person needs to stay alive and conscious. Less than that is called Bradycardia. Contradicting you further, athletes often have slower resting heart rates. Peaceful, sedentary people are statistically more likely to be obese and have heart problems.

10) Define viciousness? If that definition has the word pointless, irrational or unnecessary in it, then that explains the whole waste/cost thing. Pointless anything costs you. How nasty we could be is within the realm of possibility, and in some cases reality. Ever heard of genocide? Imagined horrors versus reality fixate on fantastical elements, but the real nightmares are simpler and far more common.

If extremes are the norm, then they aren't extremes anymore. If all sex was rape, then it wouldn't be. How far could cultures shift in the future, especially if all harm is treatable or eliminated? Sex carries far fewer risks and penalties these days, than in the past (contraceptives, medicine, hygiene). People have sex a lot more in modern times, than in the past. If somebody from Victorian times were brought to modern times, our norms would be considered rape by them. Women didn't have rights, so premarital sex was synonymous with rape.

11) Remember the Vulcans weren't inherently peaceful? Their emotions nearly destroyed their race. We have mutually assured destruction, to maintain peace. Otherwise if we believe we can fight each other and win, we try to.

Looks to me as an acceptable orthography for the word.

see:

http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/news/20090223/low-vitamin-d-levels-linked-to-colds

Today, I bounce up and down between a low of 180 and a high of 195. At six feet tall, that's not "fat", but I'm certainly not the lean mean fighting machine who proudly wore his uniform around the world.

You make the call - overweight, or fat? I call it overweight.

195lbs. and 6' tall would be at the low end of "overweight".

Of course height-weight is just a useful ballpark measurement. To get exact numbers you would need to take into consideration body fat ratios and other measurements.

http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/news/20090323/7-rules-for-eating

Segway seemed like a great idea....but it just lowered the physical activity level of people who stopped walking. Thus making them fatter. What a cunning plan to sell stomach evacuators.

Depends on whether you got a flu shot or the fluemist. The nasal spray uses a weakened version of the virus.

This study suggests there's a real effect going on there.

I didn't realize that Viagra is just a specific vasodilator. (It works on the smooth vessels found only in erectile tissue and in the lungs, apparently.) I wonder if there's an analogue that would work for vasoconstriction-induced migraines?

http://www.webmd.com/infertility-and-reproduction/features/womb-rent-surrogate-mothers-india

When you say that, I immediately think of Dengue fever. It's a hemorrhagic fever with four serotypes: fun for the whole family. Unlike most diseases where catching one variant grants immunity to the others, with dengue you end up with *less* protection from the other variants. I like to think of it as "Ebola Lite", except by the time you've had it a couple times you may not appreciate the distinction.

You can get worse things without having to make the trip to the tropics: MRSA will make your insides become your outsides at a shockingly rapid pace, and tends to cause permanent scarring in survivors. It's commonly found in hospitals! Fun fact: About half the US states do not require hospitals to report statistics on Hospital-Acquired Infections.

I've had both (within the last year or so -- may you live in interesting times). MRSA is worse, and lots closer to home. For all the hue and cry about salmonella, only about 30 people die per year from it. In 2005, over eighteen thousand people died from MRSA -- it has a greater annual death toll than AIDS.

If I had to pick which infection to get again, I'd probably go with "Ebola Lite". That should tell you something.

The question of why MRSA gets less press than other diseases is left as an exercise to the reader. Support legislation on hospital infection statistics!

Meanwhile, over here in the real world, 14000 people are at risk of fungal meningitis, 186 have been diagnosed, and 14 or more people have died. Those who contract the disease and recover can suffer permanent damage. According to WebMD http://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20121012/fungal-meningitis-qa?page=3

Some people will make a full recovery, but others can expect long-term damage from the infection or the drugs used to treat it.

“The recovery is long,” Schaffner says. “These fungi actually destroy tissue, and that tissue will eventually heal, but can’t restore itself, so some patients will be left with disabilities.”

In addition, prolonged use of the antifungal drugs can damage the kidneys.

Strokes caused by the fungal infection may also cause lasting mental and physical problems.

This could all have been avoided, but the freedom loving drug industry was able to avoid all the needless bureaucracy and expense involved in testing and adhering to safety standards. Who cares about risk when we're making good money here?

So let's just drum up some fake outrage about the evil government, and pretend this whole bad drug thing didn't happen.

(I have two friends who have gotten injections of these drugs for chronic back problems, and they both gratefully reported that they had not had this procedure in over a year. Now if we could just take all the recalled vials and dispose of the drugs by injecting libertarians then we could solved two problems at once.)

That's strange; I thought it was Timothy Ray Brown the only man to be officially declared cured from AIDS.

Except despite the headline, what the actual article you linked correctly points out is that he's the only man officially delcared cured from HIV.

Those people who have HIV but never develop AIDS still have HIV.

That's strange; I thought it was Timothy Ray Brown the only man to be officially declared cured from AIDS. Apparently, he was cured 3 years ago as a result of a bone marrow transplant (to cure leukemia) from a donor with a rare genetic mutation that makes him/her immune to HIV. Brown was declared cured last July.

You should have that same look at the thought of mutilating little boys (as they scream in pain & blood spills on the hospital sheets).

You mean like when they are born, the cord is cut, and they get slapped? I'm surprised you didn't continue on with your line of reasoning to advocate leaving everyone in the womb, although I'm sure you can figure out there are problems with that too.

Doctors Now Ease Pain of Circumcision - Survey Shows Most Residency Programs Teach Doctors to Treat Baby's Pain

Of the programs that taught circumcision as part of its training program, 97% of them report teaching residents to ease circumcision pain with either a local or topical anesthetic.

"IQ tests work best when you're young and they assume less training"

IQ changes during adolescence, from age 12 to 16 it may go down 18 points or up 21 points.

Adults generally show stable and even increasing IQ scores until mid-30s and some to mid-50s, then there can be decline.

The senator's statements imply that if a women were to get pregnant in the case of rape it was not a "legitimate" or "real" rape.

I'm totally not on Akin's side of this, but I do believe his words have been widely misunderstood. The way he said it, I took "legitimate rape" to mean "against their will, under duress, stress-inducing, back-alley rape." The other kind of rape would include statutory rape and possibly other forms that, while legally considered rape, don't create the physical and emotional response in women that "legitimate rape" would.

I also think this is a problem with the statistics referenced in the article. I would like to see the rate of pregnancy resulting from sex-under-duress, instead of the rate of pregnancy resulting from sex-that-is-legally-considered-rape, because google tells me that the former would indeed likely be lower.

The issues with antidepressants aren't just hypothetical. The FDA found reports of suicide associated with antidepressant use serious enough to include a "black box" warning to the effect that antidepressants can cause an increase in suicidal thinking.

I was talking about the book he mentioned (Anatomy of an Epidemic). Note that the black box warning only applies to people under 24 years of age.

Another issue- when given to people with bipolar disorder, antidepressants can actually cause mania, and some researchers believe this can cause the disorder to actually get worse over time ... Another issue is that antidepressants can cause what they call discontinuation syndrome- that is, withdrawal effects.

To add to this, if you go on medication it is very important to follow up with your psychiatrist regularly. In particular, do not abruptly stop taking your meds. Call your doctor first. This applies to any prescription drug, not just antidepressants.

I'm not saying you should never take antidepressants, but these are very powerful chemicals we're talking about, so you really need to be careful. That means be sure you're working with a good psychiatrist, not your primary care physician, who simply does not have the know-how to diagnose and treat serious mental illnesses. That means doing a lot of reading as well- educate yourself about what you're up against and what the treatments are.

I agree with this 100%. You are responsible for your own health. Only you can decide what risks and side effects are acceptable. Personally, I find years or decades of misery to be a much worse option, but everyone has to make that choice for themselves.

And it's a good idea to consider the various alternative/complementary treatments ... the evidence for these things isn't fantastic (although that could be because there's not a multibillion dollar fish-oil industry sponsoring clinical research)

Actually, there is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are a lot of alt medicine journals popping up (mostly because the research didn't pass muster at real journals). They even have federal research grants. Again, it's a personal choice, but I'd say if you're worried about vitamin levels go get your blood tested.

The issues with antidepressants aren't just hypothetical. The FDA found reports of suicide associated with antidepressant use serious enough to include a "black box" warning to the effect that antidepressants can cause an increase in suicidal thinking.

I was talking about the book he mentioned (Anatomy of an Epidemic). Note that the black box warning only applies to people under 24 years of age.

Another issue- when given to people with bipolar disorder, antidepressants can actually cause mania, and some researchers believe this can cause the disorder to actually get worse over time ... Another issue is that antidepressants can cause what they call discontinuation syndrome- that is, withdrawal effects.

To add to this, if you go on medication it is very important to follow up with your psychiatrist regularly. In particular, do not abruptly stop taking your meds. Call your doctor first. This applies to any prescription drug, not just antidepressants.

I'm not saying you should never take antidepressants, but these are very powerful chemicals we're talking about, so you really need to be careful. That means be sure you're working with a good psychiatrist, not your primary care physician, who simply does not have the know-how to diagnose and treat serious mental illnesses. That means doing a lot of reading as well- educate yourself about what you're up against and what the treatments are.

I agree with this 100%. You are responsible for your own health. Only you can decide what risks and side effects are acceptable. Personally, I find years or decades of misery to be a much worse option, but everyone has to make that choice for themselves.

And it's a good idea to consider the various alternative/complementary treatments ... the evidence for these things isn't fantastic (although that could be because there's not a multibillion dollar fish-oil industry sponsoring clinical research)

Actually, there is a multi-billion dollar industry. There are a lot of alt medicine journals popping up (mostly because the research didn't pass muster at real journals). They even have federal research grants. Again, it's a personal choice, but I'd say if you're worried about vitamin levels go get your blood tested.

First off, that used to be believed, but is no longer accepted as fact. . Secondly, it can sometimes be hard to define what are ovaries and what are testes. They can have varying degrees of intermediacy. And third, it depends on what is meant by "produce an egg". Is it meant that an undeveloped egg exists, or that an undeveloped egg matures and is ovulated? Lastly, it's kind of a silly boundary, since it's not eggs or sperm that give an athlete an edge.

http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/20060523/pot-smoking-not-linked-to-lung-cancer

You're wrong.

May 23, 2006 -- People who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk for developing lung cancer, new research suggests.
While a clear increase in cancer risk was seen among cigarette smokers in the study, no such association was seen for regular cannabis users.
Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.
The findings surprised the study’s researchers, who expected to see an increase in cancer among people who smoked marijuana regularly in their youth.

See what happens when you don't look up the stuff you hear? You look silly.

The FDA is much stricter than other country's regulatory agencies when it comes to not approving medications. But it's easy for you to complain about recalls because the sample size is so large and you can just ignore all the drugs that are shown to be safe. Many are calling for the FDA to relax their strict guidelines for approving medications as it is a trade-off between making available potentially life-saving medicine and protecting people from medications that don't work / have unexpected side-effects.

While others are calling for increased scrutiny because a number of recent drugs that have gone through 'fast track' have turned out not to be so useful or safe. It's a very, very difficult question and while the FDA often doesn't do a good job of it, I'm not sure that any extant or mythical regulator will. It depends critically on how 'safe' something is. Nothing is perfectly safe, no action, no drug, no treatment. There is a huge body of literature devoted to reasonable levels of safety and basically, it's arbitrary and any one level is guaranteed not to please everyone.

Personally, I think that the FDA has caved to the manufacturers and Big Pharma. If you have a revolutionary new treatment that expands opportunities and actually prolongs or improves life to a significant extent, you can afford some side effects or problems. If it's just another 'me too' drug or treatment or one that cures a disease 30 minutes faster than the old one, not so much.

And the case of Quinine is interesting. The FDA never banned Quinine. They just asked that studies be done on what amounts to a significant off label use (leg cramps). That was done because of quite a bit of (bad) data indicating possible health problems with the drug and unclear benefits. Nobody took them up on it. You can still buy branded Quinine for $3.00+ dollars a pill and use it for malaria treatment. You just can't get the generics.

I'm not up on the exact level of data the FDA used, but it appears they made a reasonable (not necessarily correct) decision. Like every other Federal regulatory agency, the FDA is heavily politicized. It isn't supposed to be, but that's reality. Politics and Science make strange bedfellows. Add the Law and you have a menage-a-trios that would made the Marquis de Sade happy.

We have free health care. It's called WebMD. Remove prescription requirements for non-narcotics and you eliminate 80-90% of health care demand.

The geek has gone off his meds again, I see.

That, or he has never learned how to read the fine print.

The [WebMD] Content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on the WebMD Site!

If you think you may have a medical emergency, call your doctor or 911 immediately. WebMD does not recommend or endorse any specific tests, physicians, products, procedures, opinions, or other information that may be mentioned on the Site.

Reliance on any information provided by WebMD, WebMD employees, others appearing on the Site at the invitation of WebMD, or other visitors to the Site is solely at your own risk.

You will find this under the bland head Addtitional Information on the back pages of the WebMD site and not on the front page, which is where it belongs. I have bolded and parsed it for emphasis here.

I am a rather complex prescription drug regime myself, only one of which is on the restricted list, and not a narcotic by legal definition but does require clinical monitoring.

The term is, today, imprecisely defined and typically has negative connotations. When used in a legal context in the US, a narcotic drug is simply one that is totally prohibited, or one that is used in violation of strict governmental regulation, such as heroin or morphine.

Narcotic

The interactions among prescription and non-prescription drugs can be subtle and dangerous.

They can mask the symptoms of other diseases, like pnemonia. It is so very easy and tempting to go off the prescribed regime. You feel good.

But you cannot always trust your own judgement.

Next week you may find yourself in the ER or in-patient under Intensive Care.

I've been down that road and the lessons it teaches come hard.

Fat people die earlier, and as such have much lower cost of care for age related diseases.

Guess again: http://www.webmd.com/healthy-aging/features/heart-disease-medical-costs

"In fact, most people recover after their first heart attack."

"In fact, of all the money spent in the U.S. on health care, 17% goes toward treating cardiovascular disease"

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110124121545.htm

Please cite statistics that you get better health care on average than Canadians

I didn't say "better health care", I said "better treatments". That is, provided you can pay for good health care, you are better off in the US than in Canada. That includes less waiting and better outcomes.

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080716/cancer-survival-rates-vary-by-country

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2231416/

because statistics also show that over 16% of US citizens have zero health care at all.

Everybody in the US gets health care, by law. But if you don't have insurance, it will be a lot worse than if you do have insurance. Many of those who don't have insurance don't have it because of choices they made.

The US system clearly has serious problems, foremost the ties of private insurance to employers, and the fact that insurers can weasel out of insurance contracts through excessive rate hikes. But the solution is not to adopt a Canadian system. For the majority of Americans, the Canadian system would be no better than what they have now, and for many it would probably be worse.

That's OK because I drink lots of coffee to combat lack of sleep.

A few days ago http://www.webmd.com/alzheimers/news/20120607/coffee-may-help-turn-tide-on-alzheimers-disease came out. so sleep and get alzheimers or stay awake and get a stroke... I'd consider skydiving lessons...

http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20051118/rat-study-shows-cancer-aspartame-link

I got an Ergotron adjustable standing workstation earlier this year. I probably stand 4-6 hours a day and sit once my feet get tired. It was cheaper than the next cheapest adjustable standing desk by a factor of 2. I'm loving it. It clamps onto a regular desk and it has some internal counter weight so it glides up and down without fiddly cranks or buttons.

http://www.ergotron.com/Products/tabid/65/PRDID/560/language/en-US/Default.aspx

I got it after hearing that sitting all day, even for people who exercise, is bad for heart health. http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20110112/sitting-down-too-long-bad-health

I've found this to be true as well. Growing up trying all sorts of options recommended by doctors, different medications, and during allergy season, removing myself from any sort participation in outdoor activity all helped to a degree, but nothing really "solved" the problem. Two years ago I decided to stop taking the medications and actually make an effort to expose myself to the allergens that made me miserable. I know this is entirely anecdotal, but I haven't taken any allergy medications (even OTC) since, and this allergy season has been the mildest I've ever experienced. I don't have the link handy, but I've also read studies where people with wheat allergies consumed wheat-based foods that made them feel sick for a number of consecutive days, but gradually the symptoms disappeared and they appeared to be "cured". It's definitely interesting.

You have to consider where these numbers came from. According to Google, the "Best way to lose weight" is eat more, exercise less, and walk.

http://women.webmd.com/guide/weight-loss-tips

Let me guess... you're not a chemist. Because, if you were, you would know that the hydrogenation process converts unsaturated fats into saturated fats. "Trans fats" are unsaturated fats (seriously, even if you knew nothing about "trans fats", it's clearly on the first paragraph of the wikipedia article).

The problem is not "hydrogenation", it's "partial hydrogenation".

Lucky guess! I am indeed not a chemist!

The very first section of the Wikipedia article on Hydrogenation states:

Hydrogenation of unsaturated fats produces saturated fats and, in some cases, trans fats.

Surely a professional chemist like yourself can fix the Wikipedia article to make it less ambiguous. And there are plenty of other references around that say that transfats from from a Hydrogenation process.

While it may be true, if somewhat pedantic, to claim that only "partially hydrogenation" creates trans fats, it seems that I'm not alone in using "hydrogenation" as a generic term to describe the process.,

And, in the end, the problem is neither "trans fats" nor saturated fats... the problem is that people have no restraint. Our bodies are made to tolerate saturated fats, because we've been having saturated fats for thousands of years (see "butter"). Of couse, if your idea of a nice afternoon is stuffing your face with fatty food, you're bound to get health problems, even if you're having fully-cis unsaturated fats. Both trans fats and saturated fats (like cholesterol) are REQUIRED for normal functioning of your cells: the problem is, again, that people have no fucking restraint.

Wait a second - you say that trans fats are REQUIRED, yet the very Wikipedia article that you told me I'm too lazy to read says "Their recommendations are based on two key facts. First, "trans fatty acids are not essential and provide no known benefit to human health",[1] whether of animal or plant origin". Did you even read the shit that you told me to read? That particular quote came from the National Academy of Sciences.

Or it's just that it's lower down in the health section because it's simply far more important for people to know that you can't fix migraines with... botox?

Yeah, we're all screwed up over here. Thanks for the reminder.

The difference isn't whether you have the facts. The difference is whether you need to look up the calorie content of a serving of popcorn versus requiring the vendor of popcorn to post the calorie content. If you care you could probably get a pretty good idea with about 10 seconds of searching. Nothing prevents you from getting the facts.

What would happen if a bucket of popcorn reported the following nutritional data:

1200 Calories
1500 mg sodium
60 grams saturated fat (more than 2 Big Macs, from the coconut oil)

Do you think theater owners might object? Do you think parents might object?

THAT's the downside of posting the nutrients.

Popcorn Calorie Bomb

I'm happy to read any sources you might have.

Sources for what?

Aspirin metabolism is outlined here, with a bit more here. Salicylic acid is derived from willow bark (the name Salix from Latin for willow) and is the active form of the drug, resulting predominantly from first pass metabolism in the liver - although some also occurs in the intestine.

Or, did you want a reference for my criticism of your wooly thinking? My only source for that was your post, which I referenced and quoted. For all I know you could be usually quite sharp. If you have other examples of misinformed decisions based on warm-and-fuzzy concepts I will of course be happy to take a look.

Or, were you looking for a reference to the suggestion that taking excessive quantities of some drugs may cause ill effects? I think that's well established fact. Even your own inference that willow bark would be 'better' was based on that very idea. If we're going to accept these things have pharmacological action (which they do) it follows that inconsistent or excessive dosing is either going to limit effectiveness or cause harm. Natural products are intrinsically variable, ergo replacing aspirin with willow bark is introducing variability with the potential to limit effectiveness or cause harm.

I'm not arguing that willow bark "wouldn't work" I'm arguing against your suggestion that it would be in any way better. If you still genuinely think it would be I think the onus is on you to provide both a coherent argument why that is the case - and references to support it.

It may be too late, but you could tell your friend about vitamin D, iodine, and vegetables, fruits, and beans, as well as fasting, in preventing and sometimes curing cancer. I've posted many links on that stuff here in the past. Just google on those term and cancer, and look up Dr. Joel Fuhrman's work and Dr. John Cannell's work. Unfortunately, the best way to deal with cancer is to prevent it by helping the human immune system deal with individual cancer cells before they proliferate. Once you have cancer, things are pretty iffy. Fasting can also help in reducing nausea from chemotherapy. Good luck to your friend. Assuming the surgery is a success, exploring these things may help prevent a recurrence. Some links to start:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/health-conditions/cancer/
http://www.drfuhrman.com/library/article24.aspx
http://iodine4health.com/disease/cancer/cancer.htm
http://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20080331/fasting_may_improve_cancer_chemotherapy
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/fasting-cancer/

Unfortunately, instead of scientists studying what is proven to work (nutrition, fasting, and lifestyle) and then people lobbying to make good support for healthy choices readily available to all, scientists seem to be creating what could become the basis of a weaponized plague that evades the human immune system. :-(

If you work with other people, make sure to reach out to them often. At least one person, once a day. Check in with your bosses at least once a week, probably more. (Maybe that's built in, who knows)

Ideally, have a door on your office. And make the family/roommates understand that work time is that and that only. They should pretend you are not there for the most part.

Get dressed for work, at least at first. This helps you get into work mode.

Using a chat program with the main people you work with will be helpful to them, as most of them have idle markers to show if you are there and using your computer. This can help keep you honest if you have trouble with that sort of thing. Although, I suppose if you do have trouble, there are about a million ways around that one, the most obvious being that watching a movie at your computer would let you keep the mouse moving every few minutes. But don't do that. Don't even have a TV on your office.

Keep yourself honest. If you are sleepy and NEED to nap, take a nap. But then make sure you work late to make up the work/hours.

I personally try to check email only about 3 times a day(8am, 11am, 3pm). I am an engineer working on projects, so interruptions are a bad distraction and there is never anything so urgent that I can't take 3 hours to get to it. Your situation may vary, or may not even apply.

Don't keep facebook/twitter or any self-updating news or distractions open. If you must, check them at lunch.

Eat a good breakfast. So many office goers skip that meal, or eat something packaged/processed rushing out the door. But you have time, and you don't need to eat right as you get up; you can wait an hour or two if needed. http://www.webmd.com/diet/guide/most-important-meal

Give yourself a real lunch break, even if it's only 15 minutes. Use that time to check social media, news, investments, whatever you like to keep tabs on throughout the day.

Prevent home office ass: Don't even keep snack food in your house. Don't buy it. Then when you are bored, or frustrated, or whatever it might be that would drive you to your kitchen, there won't be anything there to eat.

a lot of opportunity for medical monitoring

Continuous blood sugar monitoring would require a supply of reagent to react with glucose and need constant refills. There are no currently known properties of dissolved blood sugar you can measure without a direct chemical reaction.

Haven't heard of a Continuous Glucose Monitoring (CGM) system? Medtronic makes one, and I suspect other manufacturers do as well. Like the first article said, I don't believe they're currently used in place of the more traditional meter but there's probably no reason they couldn't eventually be.

Because you didn't read through the implications of your quoted material.

So, note that that article obliquely references the study which is centered on the effects of acetaldehyde. Acetaldehyde is carcinogenic? Well, no shit.

It is one of the most important aldehydes, occurring widely in nature and being produced on a large scale industrially. Acetaldehyde occurs naturally in coffee, bread, and ripe fruit, and is produced by plants as part of their normal metabolism. It is also produced by oxidation of ethanol and is popularly believed to be a cause of hangovers from alcohol consumption through drinking spirits.[3] Pathways of exposure include air, water, land or groundwater as well as drink and smoke.[4]

But it's everywhere. Every time you walk beside the road and smell car exhaust, you're getting filled up with acetaldehyde.

But, thankfully, millennia of co-evolution has promoted the anti-tumor agents in cannabis to offset the carcinogenic elements generated by smoking it. At this point, after all the co-evolution, you get net zero cancer increase. It's a complete offset. Or you even get a cancer decrease.

Read up on the NIH/UCLA studies conducted by Donald Tashkin. Here are some references:

• also from Web MD ("Even very heavy, long-term marijuana users who had smoked more than 22,000 joints over a lifetime seemed to have no greater risk than infrequent marijuana users or nonusers.")
• from the National Cancer Institute
• A population-based case-control study of marijuana use and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
• Marijuana use and the risk of lung and upper aerodigestive tract cancers: results of a population-based case-control study

Smoking anything is going to get you some carcinogens. In fact, smoking marijuana results in about 200 different carcinogens. And yet no cancer. It's a puzzle. Something else it at work here. Consider the idea: "anti-tumor."

And what happens if you vaporize , rather than burn? It reduces the carcinogens from 200 to 2.

Hey, you could parlay the anti-tumor property of cannabis by taking the cannabis in a non-burned form. Without the acetaldehyde and other carcinogens from smoking, you'd only get a strong anti-cancer effect.

You could use that to offset an exhaust-sucking urban life's inherent extreme, often acetaldehyde-driven carcinogenicity. Whoa, everyone can benefit from a medical marijuana prescription. I hadn't realized it before.

I call bullshit

Yes, C-Sections are in fact linked to Asthma. If you ask your OB or ask your spouse to ask her OB you'll find out. It's common knowledge for the medical community and is one of the reasons some hospitals have made moves to fix the C-Section rates.

The "diseases of civilization" (heart disease, cancer, obesity, diabetes, alzheimers), are all variants of chronically elevated insulin levels, which, fun fact, is caused by excess carbohydrate consumption.

Not quite. I'll give you one out of five (diabetes -- and that's only Type II. Type I is entirely autoimmune and is not caused by insulin levels, diet, etc.). As for the rest...

• Heart disease? Limited hardening of the arteries can occur due to high blood glucose levels, but this manifests in the extremities, not the heart. More important is the progressive age-related thickening, combined with the buildup of the cholesterol plaques which cause heart disease. Note that the American Heart Association states that low-carbohydrate, high-fat diets such as the Atkins diet actually increase the risk of heart disease.
• Cancer? So many different causes are known, from viral to radiation-related chromosomal damage to genetics to potential telomere issues... Insulin? It seems odd that our body would produce a carcinogen. I've never heard of this before, got any references?
• Obesity? Calories are calories, and they make you gain weight. It is certainly cheaper to eat a high-carbohydrate diet than it is to eat a high-fat/high-protein diet, but the diet is a cause of high insulin levels, not an effect of them.
• Alzheimer's? Where did you get this one? Alzheimer's is caused by the brain failing to properly cut and fold its own proteins, creating plaques that travel throughout the brain and destroy neurons. In fact, research shows that Alzheimer's patients have reduced levels of insulin in the cerebrospinal fluid. There has been quite a bit of research on this horrible disease posted to Slashdot recently,

What has Pseudoscience given us? Asprin as Willow Bark Tea. Hypnosis as pain management.

What has modern medicine and science given us? Plenty, but demonizing others and blaming your 40% mortality rate on others doesn't help gain you any respect.

Have you noticed that EVERYTHING seems to cause cancer?

It is a wonder that not everyone has cancer, with so many things causing it. (*)

I really doubt all the different classes of sleep meds are carcinogenic.

*

Too much sun
http://www.webmd.com/healthy-beauty/guide/sun-exposure-skin-cancer

Not enough sun
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/health/2004179538_vitamind13m.html

Being overweight
http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/factsheet/Risk/obesity

Being underweight
http://foodforbreastcancer.com/news/underweight-women-have-higher-risks-of-breast-cancer-recurrence-and-metastasis

Too little exercise
http://m.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/new-health/health-nutrition/leslie-beck/prolonged-bouts-of-sitting-increase-cancer-risk/article2229466/?service=mobile

Too much exercise
http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2006/12/too-much-exercise-causes-cancer.html

Too little vegetables
http://www.cancer.org/Healthy/EatHealthyGetActive/EatHealthy/fruits-and-vegetables-do-you-get-enough

Too many vegetables
http://www.keytobeing.com/2009/pesticides-in-fruits-veggies-linked-to-cancer-parkinsons-more

Even chemo"therapy"
http://www.cancer-free-for-life.com/articles/chemotherapy.php

I totally agree. And there are other things to consider as well. My doctor regularly lectures me on the relationship between sleep, blood pressure, and obesity.

Young adults in industrialised countries typically receive only 20–120 min of daily light exposure exceeding 1000 lux.42 87 108 109 Elderly adults’ bright light exposures average only 1/3 to 2/3 that duration.42 110 Institutionalised elderly receive less than 10 min per day of light exposure exceeding 1000 lux,55 111 with median illuminances as low as 54 lux.55

The article was very interesting. However, how would it stack up against other epidemiological data, such as the fact that depression in Brazil (lots, and lots of sunlight), approaches U.S. rates of depression?

http://www.webmd.com/depression/news/20110726/richer-countries-have-higher-depression-rates

My kid would be dead if we had done the flu vaccines in him.

Probably not.

There is a small risk to the vaccinated caused by the un-vaccinated. However, there is a much bigger risk to the too-young-to-be-vaccinated caused by the un-vaccinated. That was the case in the San Diego measles outbreak a couple of years ago: http://children.webmd.com/vaccines/news/20100322/vaccination-choice-affects-other-kids-too

I'm happy that your personal experience marks you as an outlier. This does not alter the fact that folic acid supplements and breastfeeding should be encouraged. "Theory of the day" my arse.

I'm not saying that they shouldn't be encouraged, indeed they should. However, that doesn't mean that they are the cause of more intelligent children.