How Much Sodium Is Too Much?
How Much Sodium Is Too Much? |
- How Much Sodium Is Too Much?
- Yosemite National Park Reports 3rd Hantavirus Death
- Hantavirus, Plague & West Nile: Are Animal-Borne Diseases on the Rise?
- Full-screen living
- Breast-Feeding in Infancy May Shield Adults from Depression
- Friends with Benefits? Study Says Attraction Between Friends More of a Burden
- Meandering is the path; uselessness is the purpose
| Posted: 08 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT
"The Healthy Geezer" answers questions about health and aging in his weekly column. Question: I've noticed that food labels list sodium content, but the numbers mean nothing to me. How much is bad? Answer: Diet experts recommend a daily consumption of less than 2,400 milligrams (mg), which is the amount of sodium in a teaspoon of table salt. If you have high blood pressure, your doctor may advise limiting yourself to 1,500 mg of sodium a day. High-sodium diets are linked to increased blood pressure and a greater risk for heart disease and stroke. Reducing the amount of sodium you consume can help lower blood pressure or prevent it from developing. Less sodium also makes blood-pressure medications more efficient. Table salt (sodium chloride) is not the only problem. The main sources of sodium in the average U.S. diet are: 5 percent added while cooking, 6 percent added while eating, 12 percent from natural sources and 77 percent from processed foods. Most of the body's sodium is in blood and other fluids. Sodium helps keep fluids in a normal balance and helps maintain normal nerve and muscle function. The body gets sodium through eating and drinking, and loses it by sweating and urinating. Healthy kidneys maintain a consistent level of sodium in the body by adjusting the amount excreted in the urine. Seniors have to be especially careful about sodium consumption because their bodies can't handle it as well as they did when they were younger. Here are some reasons:
Hyponatremia is a low sodium level in blood. In seniors, this can be caused by water retention brought on by heart failure. Hypernatremia is a high sodium level in blood. This is common in older people. It is caused by dehydration from not getting enough fluid. Symptoms of hyponatremia or hypernatremia are usually more severe in older people. For example, hyponatremia can cause confusion, agitation, or lethargy. About 9 out of 10 Americans consume too much sodium. How can you cut down? In my next column, I'll give you some tips to reduce your sodium intake. If you would like to read more columns, you can order a copy of "How to be a Healthy Geezer" at www.healthygeezer.com. All rights reserved © 2012 by Fred Cicetti  Read More @ Source 
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| Yosemite National Park Reports 3rd Hantavirus Death Posted: 08 Sep 2012 08:00 AM PDT
A third person has died from a hantavirus infection contracted while staying at Yosemite National Park, according to park officials. The rare, rodent-borne disease causes early symptoms similar to the flu, and can be deadly as the lung infection progresses. Eight people have now become sick from hantavirus pulmonary syndrome and the remaining five are either improving or recovering from the disease, according to officials. The confirmed cases occurred in six people from California, one from Pennsylvania, and one from West Virginia. "We continue to work closely with state and national public health officials, and we urge visitors who may have been exposed to hantavirus to seek medical attention at the first sign of symptoms," Yosemite Superintendent Don Neubacher said in a statement. Officials have traced seven of the cases to the "signature tent cabins" in the park's Curry Village.Those cabins have been closed, and the park has reached out to people who stayed in them overnight since June 10, who may have been exposed. One person is believed to have become sick after staying in the High Sierra Camp, in a different area of the park, according to an L.A. Times report. The virus kills 38 percent of infected people, filling its victims' lungs with fluid and essentially drowning them, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The virus cannot be spread from person to person; people generally become infected by inhaling airborne particles of contaminated rodent droppings or urine. Symptoms of infection include fatigue, fever, chills and muscle aches, all of which can develop up to five weeks after exposure, the CDC says. The disease worsens quickly and spreads to the lungs. Four to 10 days after the first signs, a person may develop coughing, shortness of breath and severe difficulty breathing. Receiving early medical attention greatly increases the chance of survival. Treatments for hantavirus oxygen therapy and breathing machines, according to the National Institutes of Health. Pass it on: Three people have now died from hantavirus infections contracted at Yosemite National Park. FollowMyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Hantavirus, Plague & West Nile: Are Animal-Borne Diseases on the Rise? Posted: 08 Sep 2012 07:00 AM PDT
A string of recent reports of people falling ill and dying of diseases that spread to people from animals might have you wondering: Are animal-borne diseases on the rise? This summer, three people died and eight were infected with hantavirus — a disease carried by rodents — after visiting Yosemite National Park; a Colorado girl reportedly contracted the plague from flea bites she received while camping; researchers reported the cases of two Missouri men infected with a never-before-seen virus carried by ticks; and nearly 2,000 people across the United States fell ill with West Nile virus, which is carried by mosquitoes. Experts say the number of new diseases crossing from animals to people has indeed increased in recent years, from fewer than 20 in the 1940s to about 50 in the 1980s, according to a 2008 study published in the journal Nature. Between 1990 and 2000, more than half of newly identified infectious diseases originated in wildlife, the study says. It's possible the increase is partly due to better detection of diseases, as well as new technologies that allow researchers to better study viruses, said Tony Goldberg, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's School of Veterinary Medicine. But there is also evidence the rise represents a true increase in the number of diseases that spread to people from animals. "The general feeling is that something is changing," Goldberg said. Global changes, including movement of people, deforestation and climate change, may all be contributing to the more rapid emergence of animal-borne diseases in people, Goldberg said. For instance, the ticks that carry Lyme disease prefer the type of habitats that arise when forests are fragmented, as occurs with deforestation, Goldberg said. Deforestation is sometimes done for the development of new housing complexes close to the wilderness, bringing people into contact with these ticks, he said. Global travel also allows diseases to spread quickly around the world. It's thought that West Nile virus, which arrived in New York City in 1999, came here from Europe or the Middle East, Goldberg said. The virus was first seen in Africa in the 1930s. It's likely the next big infectious disease that will pose a threat to humans will come from animals, Goldberg said. "That's what almost everybody will put their money on," he said. About three-quarters of all known human infectious diseases cross directly from animals to humans (like West Nile virus), or came from animals in the recent past (such as HIV), Goldberg said. Avoiding risky interactions between animals and people, and educating people about ways to avoid exposure to animal-borne diseases, may help reduce the risk of new infectious diseases, Goldberg said. Vaccinating people and animals to eradicate diseases in certain areas may also help, but such vaccination programs tend to be costly, he said. Pass it on: The number of new diseases crossing from animals to people has indeed increased in recent years, experts say. Follow Rachael Rettner on Twitter @RachaelRettner, orMyHealthNewsDaily @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Posted: 08 Sep 2012 06:00 AM PDT
Many of us who write, he points out, use tools that simplify our computer screens. My last book, and most of my blog posts, were written in an application called WriteRoom, which presents me with a black screen, green plain type, and no formatting options, toolbars, or any other distractions. When I'm reading news articles on the web I often use "Readability," which is a browser plugin that reformats the screen to make reading an undistracted full-screen experience. Babauta mentions these options, and more. But where he gets really interesting is when he takes "full-screen" as a metaphor for life. It's a brilliant metaphor, and along with many other writers I'm kicking myself that I didn't think of it myself. Here's the juicy part of his article:
But how do we do this. Babauta has some advice on this too, but I'll let you read that on Zen Habits. Read More @ Source
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| Breast-Feeding in Infancy May Shield Adults from Depression Posted: 08 Sep 2012 05:00 AM PDT
People who were breast-fed as infants may have a lower risk of depression in adulthood, a new study from Germany suggests. Researchers looked at 52 people, whose average age was 44, who were being treated for major depression at an inpatient facility, and compared them with 106 healthy people who had never been diagnosed with depression. Participants were considered to have been breast-fed if either they or their mothers said they had nursed for at least two weeks. Results showed that 73 percent of those without depression had been breast-fed, whereas 46 percent of people with depression were breast-fed. The association held when researchers took into account factors that could affect participants' risk of depression, such as age, gender and mother's level of education. Additionally, the researchers found that how long a person had been breast-fed did not matter in terms of their depression risk. While the finding suggests a link, it does not suggest a cause-and-effect relationship between breast-feeding and depression, the researchers said. However, there are ways that such an effect from breast-feeding might be explained. Breast-feeding could indicate the general quality of the mother-infant relationship, and other aspects of this relationship could be protective against depression, the researchers said. Or breast-feeding could increase the behaviors in mothers that have been linked with the hormone oxytocin. Such behaviors are believed to protect against stress, they said. It could also be that components of breast milk promote brain development in a way that helps prevent depression, they said. Previous studies have linked breast-feeding with a lower risk of conditions such as hypertension and obesity later in life. It's also been shown early weaning is linked with an increased risk of alcohol dependence, the researchers said. The researchers announced their findings Sept. 5; the study was published in the April issue of the journal Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics. Pass it on: People who were breast-fed as infants may have a lower risk of depression in adulthood. FollowMyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Friends with Benefits? Study Says Attraction Between Friends More of a Burden Posted: 08 Sep 2012 04:00 AM PDT
Perhaps men and women can't just be friends after all. Attraction is common between people in opposite-sex friendships, and such feelings make these friendships more of a burden than a bonus, a new study suggests. When participants were asked to list benefits and drawbacks of having opposite-sex friends, 32 percent listed feelings of attraction as a cost, while just 6 percent listed these feelings as a benefit. Women were more likely than men to say attraction was a drawback: 47 percent of women ages 18 to 23 listed attraction as a cost of an opposite-sex friendship, while 22 percent of men said the same. Opposite-sex friendships may also harm romantic relationships. In the study, 38 percent of women and 25 percent of men ages 27 to 50 said jealousy from their romantic partners was one cost of maintaining an opposite-sex friendship. In addition, the more attraction that people felt in an opposite-sex friendship, the less satisfied they were with their current romantic relationship, the researchers said. "Our findings implicate attraction in cross-sex friendship as both common and of potential negative consequence for individuals' long-term mateships," the researchers, from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire, write in the August issue of the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships. In a separate study, 88 college-age men and women came to the laboratory with an opposite-sex friend, and the pairs were surveyed about that particular friendship. Participants rated their level of attraction toward their friend on a scale of one to nine. On average, men rated their level of attraction toward their female friends as a five, while women rated their level of attraction to their male friends as a four. Men and women reported about the same level of attraction toward their friends regardless of whether they currently involved in a romantic relationship. The researchers hypothesized that interacting with a member of the opposite sex instinctually triggers mating strategies that evolved tens of thousands of years ago. "Mating strategies may influence people's involvement in cross-sex friendships to begin with, as well as unintentionally color people's feelings toward members of the opposite sex with whom their conscious intent is platonic," the researchers said. The researchers noted that some people did list attraction as a benefit to an opposite-sex friendship. "Perhaps attraction can be both benefit and burden for the same individual in different friendships, or be both benefit and burden for the same friendship at different points in time," the researchers said. Pass it on: Attraction to an opposite-sex friend is more often a burden than a benefit. Follow MyHealthNewsDaily on Twitter @MyHealth_MHND. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Read More @ Source 
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| Meandering is the path; uselessness is the purpose Posted: 07 Sep 2012 05:00 PM PDT The older I get, the less I care. Must be getting close to my Ultimate Enlightenment. Except, I care so little, I've lost interest in trying to figure out whether I'm closer to or further from something or other... God, spiritual truth, Buddha-nature, enlightenment, Tantric ecstacy, whatever. For a long time the notion of a spiritual path made sense to me. Now, it doesn't. A path leads to somewhere I want to go. And which I know exists. What the hell is a spiritual path? Can anybody point to it? Are there signs of the destination? Devotees of religions, forms of spirituality, mystical practices -- they're seeking something they don't have. I can heartily identify with that. I don't have a Retina Macbook Pro laptop. And I want one! Difference is, I've seen and touched a Retina Macbook Pro laptop. I haven't seen or touched God, spirit, soul, ultimate reality, heaven, or anything else spiritual paths supposedly lead to. So meandering aimlessly appeals to me now. I still have things on my to-do list, of course. (I'm married, after all.) I just feel much more comfortable not-knowing what life is going to bring me. Or what I'll bring to life. Yesterday I woke up with a plan for the day in mind. Finding that our wi-fi router, Apple's Airport Extreme, wasn't working dumped that plan in my psyche's garbage heap. I spent much of the day figuring out what was going on with some recalcitrant pieces of technology, a modem and router, which had their own ideas about how I should spend the day. Which was fine. A few years ago, in January 2008, I talked about this sort of meandering in "Meditation is useless." I can't believe how wise I was in that post. That's the thing about me: I find it so easy to agree with myself! I've meditated daily for almost forty years. I've read Zen literature for even longer. I've never actually practiced Zen. But maybe I have. Heck, I surely have. We all have. We're alive. And once in a while, either by accident or on purpose, or with purposeless purpose, we see what life seemingly is all about. A glimpse at least. It's cold here in Oregon right now. Freezing cold at night, which is fairly rare in the temperate Willamette Valley. This morning I got up and looked at our indoor thermometer, which also shows the outdoor temperature. "27.2 degrees," I said to myself. At that moment I had a flash of it's so absolutely right. That was the temperature! Absolutely marvelous! In a little while it'd be different. And that too, absolutely right. It might snow later in the week. Which could make it tough to drive around. Still, absolutely right. There's always only one thing going on: what's going on. Any attempt to convince oneself of that – completely useless. Yet this is what religion is all about. As is Zen and Taoism. The only difference, and it's a big one, is that religions take themselves seriously. Zen and Taoism don't. From what I've read, the ultimate Zen experience is throwing a pie in the face of your most revered Master. Whereupon he laughs uproariously. So do you. What a joke! True. But the humor can be related to serious neuroscience. This morning I was reading another chapter in my new favorite book, Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World." Divided refers to the left and right hemispheres, which look upon the world in markedly different ways. Thus it is almost as if we're two different people. McGilchrist says that in people where the connection between the hemispheres has been severed, they can still function mostly normally. So the two hemispheres can be viewed as each being conscious, since this is explicit in a "split brain" patient and implicit in our own everyday divided sense of self. At the end of McGilchrist's The Nature of the Two Worlds chapter, I learned about a central difference between the left and right hemispheres. The left is purposeful. The right is caring... about what is, not what could be. The nature of language in the left hemisphere and its relationship with grasp imply the overriding value to it of use. The left hemisphere is aways engaged in a purpose: it always has an end in view, and downgrades whatever has no instrumental purpose in sight. The right hemisphere, by contrast, has no designs on anything. It is vigilant for whatever is, without preconceptions, without a predefined purpose. The right hemisphere has a relationship of concern or care (what Heidegger calls Sorge) with whatever happens to be. ...The world of the left hemisphere, dependent on denotative language and abstraction, yields clarity and power to manipulate things that are known, fixed, static, isolated, decontextualized, explicit, disembodied, general in nature, but ultimately lifeless. The right hemisphere, by contrast, yields a world of individual, changing, evolving, interconnected, implicit, incarnate, living beings within the context of the lived world, but in the nature of things never fully graspable, always imperfectly known -- and to this world it exists in a relationship of care. If "spirituality" is a word that means anything, and increasingly I feel that it doesn't, it points to the world of the brain's right hemisphere. There's no path here, no perfection, no eternal truth, no disembodied reality. There's uncertainty, awe, being present caringly with what is here and now. Where the left hemisphere's relationship with the world is one of reaching out to grasp, and therefore to use, it, the right hemisphere's appears to be one of reaching out -- just that. Without purpose. Remember one of the unsacred teachings of useless Duhism: The Universe hears your every wish, and wonders why you can't hear it replying, "Uhhh… no." 
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Leo Babauta has a great post at Zen Habits (a site I must remember to visit more often) on Full-Screen Living.
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