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.

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.

The unprocessed fruit isn’t that hard, now is it? But the raw vegetables are a bit harder. And of course meat is to be at a minimum. I tried this approach and did lose 17 pounds in a month doing this – but then who wouldn’t not eating anything with carbs in it?

I’m going to focus now on doing this but add fish, chicken and milk products as well. I had dropped them altogether when I was eating fresh foods only.

Juices are okay as well and as long as they don’t have too many preservatives and sugars added I think I’ll be including them as well in the future.

I mean, isn’t this the jest of just about everything we read about how to eat healthy? Add water, exercise and a good nights sleep and we’ll have it going on! Yours in Health.

One of the books I read indicated that there is no provision in the body to store protein like there is for storing fat. This means that those low carb diets could work because they are high in protein but low in the fats forcing the body to go use the stores it already has.

However, it’s important to note with such low carb diets that eating too much protein (over 3 to 4 ounces a day) can cause illness. Check your keytones frequently and make sure and drink lots and lots of water if you’re going to try it.

I’m off to find out about ph levels now. I’ve been very curious about this since Melissa Etheridge beat breast cancer and talked so much about eating like that.

I haven’t been sleeping so well. I don’t know why exactly. I’ve been dreaming about losing weight which should be exciting, right? But it also seems I have to keep getting up to, well, you know, use the bathroom! And then I can’t seem to get back to sleep. I’m going to try this and see if it helps.

Also, as the weather turns colder I have a harder time relaxing to go to sleep (which doesn’t help when I have to get up and go tot he bathroom over and over again.) I’ve always been very cold natured. I read in the same book about the honey that people who are cold-natured and have cold hands and feet should eat corn and rye foods rather than other grains. Hmm – not sure how this health tip fits exactly – but I guess I’ll try it too! Anyone know about this? I’m not sure I agree with this one, but I’m definitly going to try the honey thing.

Some people seriously thought that riding a bicycle could cause testicular cancer.

Here are some other stupid notions:

Surgery causes testicular cancer to spread. Obviously hogwash.

Testicular cancer will end your sex life. This is not true as typically only one testicle is removed when surgery is necessary. Men do not notice any change to their sex drive or ability to have children.

Testicular cancer is an old man’s disease. In reality testicular cancer is a young man’s disease with most cases happening in men aged 15-40. And most commonly found in men in their mid-twenties. A five-year survival rate for all men with this cancer is 95%, so perform regular self-examinations to catch the cancer early.

Some think vasectomies cause cancer. There is no link for this scientifically.

Some even think an undescended testicle will become cancerous. This one does have some science behind it – but it’s so small it might was well be a myth. It is true that patients with undescended testicles are 40 to 100 times more likely than the general populace to get testicular cancer – but, and this is a big but, the cancer is so rare that it still only amounts to about a 2% chance!

What I didn’t think of too much though is that there are other risks to your health. You can catch diseases like HIV, hepatitis, or bacterial infections from dirty needles. You can also get skin cancer, psoriasis, toxic shock syndrome or even, supposedly, behavioural changes. (I’m not sure at all about that last one!) and the toxic shock one really surprised me.

I guess I hadn’t ever thought much about it, but state and local authorities are responsible for overseeing the practice of tattooing, the ink itself, and the ink colorings or pigments used in tattoos and so they are subject to FDA regulation along with cosmetics.

Some people are allergic to the ingredients in the ink. (I had never thought of that – but wow! what a pain that could prove to be!) To combat this many tattoo artists are using organic ingredients which have lowered the allergic responses.

Check this out: Some poeple develop swelling or burning at the tattoo site when undergoing MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) because the iron oxide in tattoo pigments cause this.

Some of the pigment migrates from the tattoo site to the body’s lymph nodes.

Get this – the FDA, which should be regulating, has no systematic studies in place concerning tattoo inks. Some tattoos fade over time, some fade when exposed to sunlight, and laser light is supposed to remove it. But what happens to the ink?

The FDA has not officially approved ANY (read that again if you missed it), they have not approved ANY  tattoo inks for injection into the skin. Many ink pigments that are used are industrial strength colors suitable for printers’ ink or automobile paint!

Whew! That’s a lot more than I think I wanted to know!

I have no idea how much of a response they got from this – but the concept is way cool technology wise, but way scary in other respects, like privacy.

The link is www.google.com/health

You create a user account and can put in things like existing medical conditions, allergies, medicines being taken and the like. This part doesn’t sound too scary.

You can also IMPORT medical records from pharmacies. This is where I start to squint my eyes a bit. Or you can import from medical facilities who have agreed to be partners (who wouldn’t?)

Here are a few who have: Longs Drug Stores, Walgreens Pharmacy, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and others.

Supposedly measures are being taken to secure these servers better than their other servers and users are able to decide who can see their info… We’ll see. Sounds like a prime candidate for a hacker challenge to me.

And it’s important to note that Google isn’t the only search engine taking steps this direction. Microsoft has been working on its Health Vault initiative, WebMD and Revolution Health Group has been founded by AOl cofounder Steve Case.

Hmmm… Any thoughts?

I think this might be a given, but then maybe not. Is it a matter of temptation not to exercise if there’s a tv handy?

I like to work out in front of the tv and changing rooms would be nice to change the view – but I don’t have many rooms big enough to really exercise in.

The tv helps me forget that I’m exercising. It’s a little trick I play on myself. I turn it on to distract myself. I thought music would work for me, but it really doesn’t for some reason. I’m big on music and thought singing my heart out would help me pass the time more painlessly.

What I discovered  instead is that I can’t sing effectively and exercise and so exercising just makes me angry when music is involved because I can’t sing!

So I watch tv – how about you?

Apparently drinking 2 or more a day may double the risk of our kidneys failing. In particular women who drank 2 or more had a 30% drop in kidney function. The report when on to say that the 30% amount was considered signification – duh! Particularly for diabetics who already have kidney issues and can’t drink sugary drinks.

Unfortunately, their definition of a “serving” of diet soda was rather non-definitive. It seems to have been merely a can, a glass or a bottle…

Other things that effect your kidneys in this way is higher salt intake. And of course the study they derived this from was all about women, so there’s no data to prove it’s true for men, but kidney disease diagnoses have doubled each of the last two decades – which is about the time diet cokes came on the scene!