E-Cigarettes Should be a Last Resort, Heart Doctors Say
byMaggie Fox
E-cigarettes should be outlawed for minors and
only be used as a last resort to quit smoking, the American Heart
Association says in a new policy statement. And the Food and Drug
Administration should hurry up and regulate them, the group says.
New research shows that teens are not using
e-cigarettes to quit. The latest Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention survey released Monday shows more than 263,000 middle-and
high-schoolers who had never smoked before tried e-cigarettes in 2013.
That's triple the number from 2011 and reinforces the argument that
vaping can be a gateway to nicotine addiction.
"Over the last 50 years,
20 million Americans died because of tobacco. We are fiercely committed
to preventing the tobacco industry from addicting another generation of
smokers," Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, says in a statement.
The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes,
along with cigars and other tobacco products. Many "vapers" who use
e-cigarettes say regulation will damage a product that's a far safer
substitute for cigarettes.
The Heart Association disagrees. "In the
years since the FDA first announced it would assert its authority over
e-cigarettes, the market for these products has grown dramatically,"
Brown said. "We fear that any additional delay of these new regulations will have real, continuing public health consequences."
Dr. Nancy Snubs Out E-Cigarette Myths
1:55
The Food and Drug Administration says it plans to regulate e-cigarettes,
along with cigars and other tobacco products. Health advocates say it's
about time, but many "vapers" who use e-cigarettes say regulation will
damage a product that's a far safer substitute for cigarettes
Even health experts agree that electronic cigarettes might be
useful in helping people who want to quit smoking. So where's the harm
in them? Mostly, it's the unknown, the FDA says. "We
can't even tell you what the compounds are in the vapor," FDA's Mitch
Zeller told reporters.
FDA regulation would require the companies to tell the agency, but not
necessarily the public, what's in their products. FDA is sensitive to
protecting competitive secrets. The FDA is also asking for research on potential
harms from inhaling the heated mixture. It might not be as harmful as
burning tobacco leaves, but it might not be completely benign, either,
says Dr. John Spangler, who runs a smoking cessation clinic at Wake
Forest Baptist Medical Center in North Carolina. "It is true that electronic cigarettes are safer
than regular cigarettes. On the other hand there are some effects in
the lung of the vapors which mimic the same kind of changes that go
along with asthma,"Spangler told NBC News.
"That happens within 5 minutes of using an
electronic cigarette. We don't know how long that will last or whether
it will lead to permanent lung damage."
Spangler's been studying this and doesn't have
final data yet. But in general, e-cigarettes appear slightly less
effective than nicotine gum or patches or drugs such as Chantix, he
says.
And experts argue that if e-cigarette makers
wanted their products used as quit-smoking aids, they'd have submitted
them to the FDA as such. Instead, manufacturers fought FDA's attempts to
regulate them in that way, and won in federal appeals court.
"Electronic cigarettes may represent the next
evolution of nicotine replacement, supplanting the gum, patch and the
existing inhaler. However, most consumers would be shocked to realize
the products they buy have less oversight than a bag of dog food, and
are often manufactured and imported from countries that have histories
of tainted pharmaceutical and food products," Cobb added.
Glynn and others remember that the tobacco
industry first told Americans that cigarettes were healthful, and then
battled the U.S. government in court for decades when the Surgeon
General declared that smoking caused cancer. It took decades to prove
that tobacco companies colluded to make cigarettes ever more addictive
and to cover up research showing tobacco caused not only cancer, but
heart disease, stroke, emphysema and other diseases. They also point to industry attempts to market
"light" cigarettes as less dangerous — research shows they are not — and
companies have pushed menthol cigarettes despite evidence that menthol worsens the health effects.
This unique resource shows you everything you need to know to get started crafting top-quality spirits on a small scale.
In
the post Victoria shares her struggles to not only make liquor legally
at home but how, once realizing there was not a reasonable way for an
individual to legally distill liquor at home, she engaged in the process
of changing the law.
Back in November 2012, I applied
for a Craft Distillery license in my home state of Washington. I wasn't
interested in opening a commercial distillery; as an experienced home
brewer, I simply wanted to learn a new skill and to do it legally.
I
thought it was going to be easy. I thought that the Washington State
Liquor Control Board was going to pat me on the back for going to the
trouble to get a license, even though I only wanted to distill liquor as
a hobby. Since I was NOT going to opening a commercial distillery, I
also imagined that somehow the licensing process was going to be easier.
Boy, was I wrong!
In most of the world today, including the United States and
Canada, it is illegal to distill liquor without a license. (In the US,
distillers must have a Federal permit as well as a state license.) What I
didn't know was that I was the first person in Washington to apply for a
distillery license as a private individual, and that I was
inadvertently exposing a major flaw in the system: there is simply no
provision in the law for someone like me. That is, the licensing system
is completely biased toward commercial distilleries. The bottom line is
that I am required to have a license to distill liquor, but they won't
give me one unless I open a commercial distillery.
I could have
left it at that. I could have decided at that point to give it up, and
either not distill liquor at all, or else quietly pursue the hobby
illegally. Instead, I am actively engaged in the process of changing the
laws, both state and Federal, to allow limited home production of
distilled liquor while making it a lot easier for hobbyists to do so
legally. The current laws, most of which date back to around the repeal
of Prohibition in 1933, no longer make sense given that we are allowed
to make beer and wine at home legally. The Liquor Control Board had no
idea of this until I applied for the license!
This isn't just
about making booze. It's about shining the light of reason on unfair,
outdated laws and having them make sense for everyone. I don't believe
unrestricted production of alcohol is the answer, but continuing to make
it impossible for enthusiastic hobbyists to pursue their passion
legally is definitely not the answer.
I wrote Craft Distilling: Making Liquor Legally at Home
in part to clarify all the legal issues involved, as well as to make my
case for why the laws should be changed. Most of the book is about how
to make top-quality distilled liquor, though, and a lot more. Even if
you aren't interested in pursuing distilling as a hobby, by
understanding something about the process that goes into making liquor,
you'll appreciate your next shot of Scotch or bourbon a little bit more.
I promise.
http://foodnsport.com Ido
Portal, a phenomenal practitioner of movement, refuses to work and
train with vegans, claiming that all vegans are too weak and have too
low energy to train at elite fitness levels.
Perhaps Ido hasn't
met the vegans that are on this YouTube channel. Tim Shieff, vegan and
world champion free running champion allays the concerns held by many
that going vegan involves losing strength and stamina.
What do you get with The 80/10/10 Diet? -peak performance for any athlete -perfect weight no matter what your body type -off-the-charts wellness -success with a low-fat vegan raw food diet -simplicity in your lifestyle -a healthy relationship with your food -and enviable vitality
In the 1930s and 1940s, smoking
became the norm for both men and women in the United States, and a
majority of physicians smoked. At the same time, there was rising public
anxiety about the health risks of cigarette smoking. One strategic
response of tobacco companies was to devise advertising referring
directly to physicians. As ad campaigns featuring physicians developed
through the early 1950s, tobacco executives used the doctor image to
assure the consumer that their respective brands were safe.
These
advertisements also suggested that the individual physicians’ clinical
judgment should continue to be the arbiter of the harms of cigarette
smoking even as systematic health evidence accumulated. However, by
1954, industry strategists deemed physician images in advertisements no
longer credible in the face of growing public concern about the health
evidence implicating cigarettes.
Diets high in fat can lead to not only weight gain and heart disease,
but depression and behavior changes, according to a new study at
Louisiana State University.
These changes come about due to the high-fat diet's affect on the gut microbiome, according to the study.
The microbiome is a term used to describe the overall composition of
microorganisms that reside in the intestinal tract, most of which are
necessary for normal physiological functioning, although poor
diversification can lead to health problems.
Working with mice, the research team set out to test whether an obesity-related microbiome could also affect behavior and mood.
They transferred the gut microbiota from mice that had been fed either a
high-fat diet or a control diet into adult mice of normal weight that
had been kept on a normal diet.
Recipient mice were kept under observation and researchers evaluated them for behavior and cognitive change.
Those who had received microbiota shaped by a high-fat diet underwent
behavioral changes indicating increased anxiety and impaired memory.
They also engaged in repetitive behaviors and exhibited signs of physiological malaise such as inflammation.
"This paper suggests that high-fat diets impair brain health, in part,
by disrupting the symbiotic relationship between humans and the
microorganisms that occupy our gastrointestinal tracks," says Dr. John
Krystal, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, in which the study was
recently published.
Even in the absence of obesity, changes to the microbiota brought upon
by a high-fat diet could alter brain function, according to the study,
whose findings support prior research.
The research team says it's possible their study reveals the potential
application of the gut microbiome to treat neuropsychiatric disorders.
You knew that eating high-fat foods made you fat, but it turns out that these foods also make you stupid.
High-fat diet makes you dumber
Honey, does this cheeseburger make me look stupid?
In fact, yes — new research shows that fatty diets break down neurons in your brain, making you stupid.
In the study, groups of mice were fed high- and low-fat diets. After
three months, the mice on the fatty diet were not only obese, but lost
synapses.
“What happens in obesity is (brain cells called) microglia stop
moving...and start eating synapses," Dr. Alexis M. Stranahan of the
Medical College of Georgia told Science News. "When microglia start
eating synapses, the mice don't learn as effectively."
The good news is that the damage can be repaired, according to the study published in Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
Once scientists put the mice back on a low-fat diet, brain function returned.
Low-fat versus low-carb? The diet debate is not that simple, says Dr. Dean Ornish, whose own diet plan was ranked #1 for heart health by U.S. News and World Report. And while meat-centric Paleo diets are having their moment, he's warning they could cause health problems down the road.
Ornish, a clinical professor of medicine at the University of California San Francisco, weighed in on the latest diet trends and controversies in a New York Times op-ed Monday, "The Myth of High Protein Diets."
He raised concern about the recent decision by a federal nutrition panel to ease recommendations on dietary cholesterol -- a policy shift that had bacon lovers cheering. "Alas, bacon and eggs are not health foods," Ornish wrote.
"The debate is not as simple as low-fat versus low-carb. Research shows that animal protein may significantly increase the risk of premature mortality from all causes, among them cardiovascular disease, cancer and Type 2 diabetes. Heavy consumption of saturated fat and trans fats may double the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease."
On "CBS This Morning," Ornish said it's important to focus not just on short-term weight loss, but on a diet's role in long-term health -- and he says cutting down on animal protein is key.
"It's true, you can lose weight on these high-animal-protein, Atkins-type diets, but you're mortgaging your health in the process," he said. "It's not even low-fat versus low-carb. There are good carbs and there are bad carbs, there's good fats and bad fats. But the animal protein itself seems to make a big difference. And the more animal protein, particularly red meat, you eat, the more likely you are to get sick from all kinds of different things."
Eating what Ornish described as a "whole-foods, plant-based diet," heavy on fresh fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, helps keep the arteries in the heart free of plaque buildup. Those are many of the same foods emphasized in the Mediterranean diet, which studies suggest can lower the risk of heart disease and even slow aging.
By contrast, he said, what happens "when you eat a lot of animal protein, particularly red meat, an Atkins-type diet, is that your arteries are more clogged."
He points out that eating a high-protein diet doesn't have to mean gorging on meat. Instead of a steak or burger, you can get protein from soy products, beans, yogurt and other foods. "You're going to get all the protein you need, but you're not getting the bad stuff that makes you sick," he said.
And he urged would-be dieters not to get discouraged by the occasional slip-up. "What matters most is your overall way of eating and living," Ornish said. "So if you indulge yourself one day, it doesn't mean you cheated or you're bad, just eat healthier the next. You don't have time to exercise one day, do a little more the next. You don't have time to meditate for an hour, do it for a minute. Whatever you do, the more you change, the more you improve at any age."
ONE
evening early this summer, I opened a book and found myself reading the
same paragraph over and over, a half dozen times before concluding that
it was hopeless to continue. I simply couldn’t marshal the necessary
focus.
I
was horrified. All my life, reading books has been a deep and
consistent source of pleasure, learning and solace. Now the books I
regularly purchased were piling up ever higher on my bedside table,
staring at me in silent rebuke.
Instead
of reading them, I was spending too many hours online, checking the
traffic numbers for my company’s website, shopping for more colorful
socks on Gilt and Rue La La, even though I had more than I needed, and
even guiltily clicking through pictures with irresistible headlines such
as “Awkward Child Stars Who Grew Up to Be Attractive.”
During
the workday, I checked my email more times than I cared to acknowledge,
and spent far too much time hungrily searching for tidbits of new
information about the presidential campaign, with the election then
still more than a year away.
“The
net is designed to be an interruption system, a machine geared to
dividing attention,”Nicholas Carr explains in his book “The Shallows:
What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.”
“We willingly accept the loss
of concentration and focus, the division of our attention and the
fragmentation of our thoughts, in return for the wealth of compelling or
at least diverting information we receive.”
Addiction
is the relentless pull to a substance or an activity that becomes so
compulsive it ultimately interferes with everyday life.
By that
definition, nearly everyone I know is addicted in some measure to the
Internet.
It has arguably replaced work itself as our most socially
sanctioned addiction.
According to one recent survey,
the average white-collar worker spends about six hours a day on email.
That doesn’t count time online spent shopping, searching or keeping up
with social media.
The
brain’s craving for novelty, constant stimulation and immediate
gratification creates something called a “compulsion loop.” Like lab rats and drug addicts, we need more and more to get the same effect.
Endless
access to new information also easily overloads our working memory.
When we reach cognitive overload, our ability to transfer learning to
long-term memory significantly deteriorates. It’s as if our brain has
become a full cup of water and anything more poured into it starts to
spill out.
I’ve
known all of this for a long time. I started writing about it 20 years
ago. I teach it to clients every day. I just never really believed it
could become so true of me.
Denial
is any addict’s first defense. No obstacle to recovery is greater than
the infinite capacity to rationalize our compulsive behaviors. After
years of feeling I was managing myself reasonably well, I fell last
winter into an intense period of travel while also trying to manage a
growing consulting business. In early summer, it suddenly dawned on me
that I wasn’t managing myself well at all, and I didn’t feel good about
it.
Beyond
spending too much time on the Internet and a diminishing attention
span, I wasn’t eating the right foods. I drank way too much diet soda. I
was having a second cocktail at night too frequently. I was no longer
exercising every day, as I had nearly all my life.
In
response, I created an irrationally ambitious plan. For the next 30
days, I would attempt to right these behaviors, and several others, all
at once. It was a fit of grandiosity. I recommend precisely the opposite
approach every day to clients. But I rationalized that no one is more
committed to self-improvement than I am. These behaviors are all
related. I can do it.
The
problem is that we humans have a very limited reservoir of will and
discipline.
We’re far more likely to succeed by trying to change one
behavior at a time, ideally at the same time each day, so that it
becomes a habit, requiring less and less energy to sustain.
I
did have some success over those 30 days. Despite great temptation, I
stopped drinking diet soda and alcohol altogether. (Three months later
I’m still off diet soda.) I also gave up sugar and carbohydrates like
chips and pasta. I went back to exercising regularly.
I failed completely in just one behavior: cutting back my time on the Internet.
My
initial commitment was to limit my online life to checking email just
three times a day: When I woke up, at lunchtime and before I went home
at the end of the day. On the first day, I succeeded until midmorning,
and then completely broke down. I was like a sugar addict trying to
resist a cupcake while working in a bakery.
What
broke my resolve that first morning was the feeling that I absolutely
had to send someone an email about an urgent issue. If I just wrote it
and pushed “Send,” I told myself, then I wasn’t really going online.
What
I failed to take into account was that new emails would download into
my inbox while I wrote my own. None of them required an immediate reply,
and yet I found it impossible to resist peeking at the first new
message that carried an enticing subject line. And the second. And the
third.
In
a matter of moments, I was back in a self-reinforcing cycle. By the
next day, I had given up trying to cut back my digital life. I turned
instead to the simpler task of resisting diet soda, alcohol and sugar.
Even
so, I was determined to revisit my Internet challenge. Several weeks
after my 30-day experiment ended, I left town for a monthlong vacation.
Here was an opportunity to focus my limited willpower on a single goal:
liberating myself from the Internet in an attempt to regain control of
my attention.
I
had already taken the first step in my recovery: admitting my
powerlessness to disconnect. Now it was time to detox. I interpreted the
traditional second step — belief that a higher power could help restore
my sanity — in a more secular way. The higher power became my
30-year-old daughter, who disconnected my phone and laptop from both my
email and the Web. Unburdened by much technological knowledge, I had no
idea how to reconnect either one.
I
did leave myself reachable by text. In retrospect, I was holding on to a
digital life raft. Only a handful of people in my life communicate with
me by text. Because I was on vacation, they were largely members of my
family, and the texts were mostly about where to meet up at various
points during the day.
During
those first few days, I did suffer withdrawal pangs, most of all the
hunger to call up Google and search for an answer to some question that
arose. But with each passing day offline, I felt more relaxed, less
anxious, more able to focus and less hungry for the next shot of instant
but short-lived stimulation.
What happened to my brain is exactly what I
hoped would happen: It began to quiet down.
I
had brought more than a dozen books of varying difficulty and length on
my vacation. I started with short nonfiction, and then moved to longer
nonfiction as I began to feel calmer and my focus got stronger. I
eventually worked my way up to “The Emperor of All Maladies,” Siddhartha
Mukherjee’s brilliant but sometimes complex biography of cancer, which
had sat on my bookshelf for nearly five years.
AS
the weeks passed, I was able to let go ofmy need for more facts as a
source of gratification.
I shifted instead to novels, ending my vacation
by binge-reading Jonathan Franzen’s 500-some-page novel, “Purity,”
sometimes for hours at a time.
I
am back at work now, and of course I am back online. The Internet isn’t
going away, and it will continue to consume a lot of my attention. My
aim now is to find the best possible balance between time online and
time off.
I
do feel more in control. I’m less reactive and more intentional about
where I put my attention.
When I’m online, I try to resist surfing
myself into a stupor. As often as possible, I try to ask myself, “Is
this really what I want to be doing?” If the answer is no, the next
question is,
“What could I be doing that would feel more productive, or
satisfying, or relaxing?”
I
also make it my business now to take on more fully absorbing activities
as part of my days. Above all, I’ve kept up reading books, not just
because I love them, but also as a continuing attention-building
practice.
I’ve
retained my longtime ritual of deciding the night before on the most
important thing I can accomplish the next morning. That’s my first work
activity most days, for 60 to 90 minutes without interruption.
Afterward, I take a 10- to 15-minute break to quiet my mind and renew my
energy.
If
I have other work during the day that requires sustained focus, I go
completely offline for designated periods, repeating my morning ritual.
In the evening, when I go up to my bedroom, I nearly always leave my
digital devices downstairs.
Finally,
I feel committed now to taking at least one digital-free vacation a
year. I have the rare freedom to take several weeks off at a time, but I
have learned that even one week offline can be deeply restorative.
Occasionally,
I find myself returning to a haunting image from the last day of my
vacation. I was sitting in a restaurant with my family when a man in his
early 40s came in and sat down with his daughter, perhaps 4 or 5 years
old and adorable.
Almost
immediately, the man turned his attention to his phone. Meanwhile, his
daughter was a whirlwind of energy and restlessness, standing up on her
seat, walking around the table, waving and making faces to get her
father’s attention.
Except for brief moments, she didn’t succeed and after a while, she glumly gave up. The silence felt deafening.
