Archive for January, 2010

Bill Gates Promises Vaccines

Sunday, January 31st, 2010

Bill Gates is promising $10 billion dollars worth of vaccines for the developing world. His wife Melinda and he have been involved in many foundations and organization that support this sort of outreach. It should be possible to prevent the deaths of 7.6 million children under five between 2010 and 2019, Gates told reporters at the World Economic Forum.

Wow! That’s a log of kids at just over $1 a child. Can you imagine what we could do if we all supported this sort of effort. I know they are wealthy and have a means to create the cash to support this sort of effort – but just over a dollar to save a life! We spend more than that on a coke at the gas station.

Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organization said an extra two million deaths in children under five could be prevented by 2015 by widespread use of new vaccines and a 10 percent increase in global immunization coverage.

Of course this has undertones of health reform, but that is another issue entirely. Let me know what you think.

Tags: , ,
Posted in Kids Health | No Comments »

Fructose Bad For You?

Monday, January 4th, 2010

I ran across this article (see the link below) about how fructose is actually bad for you after they’ve told us all this time that it’s better for you. There are a couple of videos, one you don’t want to watch if you are squeemish! on the page the article came from. Hope this helps you rethink your fructose intake. I know it will change mine. I’ve become quite dependant on such sweeteners during this diet and I am a bit upset to think I’ll have to change it up, but I think the evidence is overwhelming. What do you think:

Scientists have proved for the first time that fructose, a cheap form of sugar used in thousands of food products and soft drinks, can damage human metabolism and is fueling the obesity crisis.

Fructose, a sweetener usually derived from corn, can cause dangerous growths of fat cells around vital organs and is able to trigger the early stages of diabetes and heart disease.

Over 10 weeks, 16 volunteers on a controlled diet including high levels of fructose produced new fat cells around their heart, liver and other digestive organs. They also showed signs of food-processing abnormalities linked to diabetes and heart disease. Another group of volunteers on the same diet, but with glucose sugar replacing fructose, did not have these problems.

Find out more.

Posted in Healthy Eating | No Comments »