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7117. arkymalarky - 5/20/2007 10:14:31 PM It took two days to put up that basketball goal. The instructions were awful, even by assembly instructions standards. But I got a lot of physical activity out of putting it together and was able to do it. Last week, no way. And I LOVE IT. I shot baskets while Bob cleaned off the old concrete slab I'm playing on (from the carport of our old house), and I just love it, chasing the ball around and everything. It's all fun. 7118. thoughtful - 5/22/2007 2:41:34 PM On the importance of adequate protein and other nutrients in the diet.
Death by veganism
WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty....
Protein deficiency is one danger of a vegan diet for babies. Nutritionists used to speak of proteins as “first class” (from meat, fish, eggs and milk) and “second class” (from plants), but today this is considered denigrating to vegetarians.
The fact remains, though, that humans prefer animal proteins and fats to cereals and tubers, because they contain all the essential amino acids needed for life in the right ratio. This is not true of plant proteins, which are inferior in quantity and quality — even soy.
A vegan diet may lack vitamin B12, found only in animal foods; usable vitamins A and D, found in meat, fish, eggs and butter; and necessary minerals like calcium and zinc. When babies are deprived of all these nutrients, they will suffer from retarded growth, rickets and nerve damage.
and
There are no vegan societies for a simple reason: a vegan diet is not adequate in the long run. 7119. wonkers2 - 5/22/2007 4:03:18 PM I saw that article yesterday. It confirmed my previous opinions about veganism. It also validates my occaisonal two slider and fries lunches. My new daughter-in-law is a vegetarian. But she drinks milk, and eats eggs and cheese, etc. I hope that will be enough for a pre-natal diet if she were to get pregnant. She grew up a vegetarian and is a graduate of MIT and has a PhD from U of Washington. So, I guess she didn't lose any brain cells as a result of her diet. 7120. thoughtful - 5/22/2007 4:59:42 PM what's a slider? 7121. robertjayb - 5/22/2007 5:35:38 PM (baseball) A pitch thrown with added pressure by middle and ring fingers yielding a combination of backspin and sidespin, resulting in a motion to the left when thrown by a right handed pitcher
The closer had a wicked slider that was almost unhittable.
A small greasy hamburger
We ordered five sliders.
(curling) A piece of teflon or similar material attached to a curling shoe that allows the player to slide along the ice
(Wiktionary)
7122. thoughtful - 5/22/2007 6:02:02 PM hmmm...you learn something new every day! 7123. wonkers2 - 5/22/2007 9:22:50 PM A slider is a very small hamburger cooked with onions. Sometimes they are a bit greasy, hence the name slider. The kind they sell at White Towers. 7124. thoughtful - 5/24/2007 2:39:53 PM The two go hand in hand...the diabetes drug Avandia substantially increases the risk of heart attack.
Diet and Exercise can stave off type 2 diabetes
Participants randomly assigned to intensive lifestyle intervention reduced their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 58 percent. On average, this group maintained their physical activity at 30 minutes per day, usually with walking or other moderate intensity exercise, and lost 5-7 percent of their body weight. Participants randomized to treatment with metformin reduced their risk of getting type 2 diabetes by 31 percent.
So which is it...expensive drugs that are less effective with potentially deadly side effects?
Or diet and exercise that is more effective and will make you look and feel better?
I report...you decide. 7125. wonkers2 - 5/24/2007 3:06:56 PM Opinion All NYT
Opinion
Rethinking Old Age
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By ATUL GAWANDE
Published: May 24, 2007
At some point in life, you can’t live on your own anymore. We don’t like thinking about it, but after retirement age, about half of us eventually move into a nursing home, usually around age 80. It remains your most likely final address outside of a hospital.
To the extent that there is much public discussion about this phase of life, it’s about getting more control over our deaths (with living wills and the like). But we don’t much talk about getting more control over our lives in such places. It’s as if we’ve given up on the idea. And that’s a problem.
This week, I visited a woman who just moved into a nursing home. She is 89 years old with congestive heart failure, disabling arthritis, and after a series of falls, little choice but to leave her condominium. Usually, it’s the children who push for a change, but in this case, she was the one who did. “I fell twice in one week, and I told my daughter I don’t belong at home anymore,” she said.
She moved in a month ago. She picked the facility herself. It has excellent ratings, friendly staff, and her daughter lives nearby. She’s glad to be in a safe place — if there’s anything a decent nursing home is built for, it is safety. But she is struggling.
The trouble is — and it’s a possibility we’ve mostly ignored for the very old — she expects more from life than safety. “I know I can’t do what I used to,” she said, “but this feels like a hospital, not a home.” And that is in fact the near-universal reality.
Nursing home priorities are matters like avoiding bedsores and maintaining weight — important goals, but they are means, not ends. She left an airy apartment she furnished herself for a small beige hospital-like room with a stranger for a roommate. Her belongings were stripped down to what she could fit into the one cupboard and shelf they gave her. Basic matters, like when she goes to bed, wakes up, dresses, and eats were put under the rigid schedule of institutional life. Her main activities have become bingo, movies, and other forms of group entertainment. Is it any wonder most people dread nursing homes?
The things she misses most, she told me, are her friendships, her privacy, and the purpose in her days. She’s not alone. Surveys of nursing home residents reveal chronic boredom, loneliness, and lack of meaning — results not fundamentally different from prisoners, actually.
Certainly, nursing homes have come a long way from the fire-trap warehouses they used to be. But it seems we’ve settled on a belief that a life of worth and engagement is not possible once you lose independence.
There has been, however, a small band of renegades who disagree. They’ve created alternatives with names like the Green House Project, the Pioneer Network, and the Eden Alternative — all aiming to replace institutions for the disabled elderly with genuine homes. Bill Thomas, for example, is a geriatrician who calls himself a “nursing home abolitionist” and built the first Green Houses in Tupelo, Miss. These are houses for no more than 10 residents, equipped with a kitchen and living room at its center, not a nurse’s station, and personal furnishings. The bedrooms are private. Residents help one another with cooking and other work as they are able. Staff members provide not just nursing care but also mentoring for engaging in daily life, even for Alzheimer’s patients. And the homes meet all federal safety guidelines and work within state-reimbursement levels.
They have been a great success. Dr. Thomas is now building Green Houses in every state in the country with funds from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Such experiments, however, represent only a tiny fraction of the 18,000 nursing homes nationwide.
“The No. 1 problem I see,” Dr. Thomas told me, “is that people believe what we have in old age is as good as we can expect.” As a result, families don’t press nursing homes with hard questions like, “How do you plan to change in the next year?” But we should, if we want to hope for something more than safety in our old age.
“This is my last hurrah,” the woman I met said. “This room is where I’ll die. But it won’t be anytime soon.” And indeed, physically she’s done well. All she needs now is a life worth living for.
Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and a New Yorker staff writer, is the author of the new book “Better.” He is a guest columnist this month.
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Past Coverage
National Briefing | South: Louisiana: Post-Hurricane Charges Dropped (April 26, 2007)
Oversight of Nursing Homes Is Criticized (April 22, 2007)
FITNESS; Shuffleboard Gets Pushed to the Closet (April 10, 2007)
Elder-Care Costs Deplete Savings Of a Generation (December 30, 2006)
7126. thoughtful - 5/24/2007 5:34:38 PM The situation has changed quite a bit with differing levels of care including assisted living which is much more home-like. Now there are places that offer a full range of living options that you can take advantage of as you need to. My MIL was in one such place that had private cottages, congregate living, assisted living and full nursing home care.
The level of care required by many of the people I know in nursing homes is appropriate to being like a hospital room. My MIL was in one for 11 years and it was the environment she needed. She was blind, very hard of hearing and unable to get around on her own. She had no sense of time and often didn't know her own son. Her roommate was a woman who was 100% bed ridden, didn't communicate or respond at all. For people like this, this is an appropriate level of care.
For people who have trouble living on their own but are still 'with it' there are assisted living places that provide apartment style living, lots of social activities for residents, communal dining to encourage social interaction and social activities scheduled. You can still maintain privacy and bring more personal belongings including furnishings.
Before MIL was in the nursing home, she was in a 'congregate living' place where she had her own apartment but went to the dining room for meals and enjoyed social events and exercise classes and so on with others. It provided no nursing care at all. She made friends and it was a great environment for her so long as she was able.
The beauty of these differing levels of care is that the less care you get the more affordable the living.
And as us baby boomers age, there will be plenty of businesses stepping up to fulfill our living needs, just like they did with giving us our beatles albums and our 1st homes. 7127. thoughtful - 5/27/2007 1:44:53 PM Trying to roll more legumes and beans into our diet, i made a 'mexican lasagne' last night that was delish and very easy. use 6 tortillas instead of noodles (i bought the multigrain) and spread a little tomato sauce in bottom of pan, then mix rest of tomato sauce (3 8oz cans in total) with 1 can of red kidney beans rinsed & drained, 1/2 green pepper finely chopped, 1/4c onion finely chopped, 1/4c sliced pitted black olives, 1t vinegar, 1/4t garlic powder, 1/2t oregano, 1/2t cumin, salt, pepper and mix well. Then layer in pan toritillas, sauce mix and shredded cheddar. Repeat 2 more times. Bake covered 20 min at 375 then uncover and bake 15 min more. Let sit 5 min before digging in. Yummy. 7128. thoughtful - 5/27/2007 1:49:05 PM My dear doc is retiring. I hope not for good. He's 55 and just had a baby. His wife is 50. I think she must have told him that she raised the first 4 kids...now it's his turn. So he's staying home to be a full-time dad.
Now i'm going to have to go dr. shopping. I hate that. It's so hard to find a doc who is willing to teach me, argue with me, and explain to me as well as put up with my strong dislike of medicine in general and my frequent use of unorthodox but natural cures if they do the trick. I've also been extremely spoiled as dear doc always gave us his e-mail and cell number so he was always at hand. How am I going to find a doc to do that?
Most frustrating. Maybe I can offer to baby sit while he tends to my family members???
7129. arkymalarky - 5/27/2007 2:55:58 PM I don't envy you the search. We got SO lucky when our doctor died this fall, but had his replacement not been so fantastic, we know from experience with Bob's dying father that there simply isn't a good choice where we live. The one I recommended to Bob's family, who seemed to do well with my grandparents, was absolutely awful--though better than what they had.
If things hadn't worked out for us, I'd be driving however far I had to go to get someone outside that town. If you have to drive, it would be worth it. Is it possible he could recommend someone to you who would suit your personality as a patient? 7130. arkymalarky - 5/27/2007 3:00:18 PM Um, we weren't lucky our doctor died, we were lucky his replacement was so great. 7131. alistairConnor - 5/27/2007 10:31:37 PM I'm facing the same problem too. Our family doctor for the past 18 years is taking more and more time off, as a prelude to retirement, i.e. she's not always there when we need her. She's been so good that I'm really perplexed at how to replace her.
All the more so because younger doctors are not willing to set up shop in country areas. They are not willing to do the irregular hours and the housecalls, they prefer comfortable suburban or city clienteles. 7132. wonkers2 - 5/28/2007 12:36:38 PM There is a long, excellent article in today's NYT on the causes, symptoms and treatment of strokes. It emphasizes the importance of quick diagnosis and proper treatment (within 3 hours for ischemic strokes) which most hospitals aren't equipped to provide and the importance of controlling high blood pressure to prevent strokes.
Lost Chances for Survival Before and After Strokes 7133. robertjayb - 5/28/2007 11:02:41 PM Kiwi cow gives low-fat milk. Chocolate next?
WELLINGTON, New Zealand: New Zealand scientists are breeding a herd of cows that produce lower-fat milk after the chance discovery of a natural gene mutation in one animal.
Milk from the cows is also high in health-boosting omega-3 fatty acids and makes butter that spreads as easily as margarine even when chilled, biotechnology company Vialactia said Monday.
.................................................
While she looked like any other Friesian cow, testing revealed that Marge's milk contained about 1 percent fat, compared with about 3.5 percent for whole milk.
Offspring from the cow also produce low-fat milk, showing the genetic trait is dominant, Snell said.
7134. robertjayb - 5/29/2007 5:37:51 AM Doctors group posts prices...(AP)
TORRANCE, Calif. (AP) - Breaking with long-held medical tradition, a Southern California physicians group has become one of the first and largest health organizations in the nation to make prices for procedures easily available to the public.
HealthCare Partners put an itemized price list on its Web site last week, with little fanfare.
.................................................
The Torrance-based company serves more than 500,000 patients, who can now learn without asking that a flu vaccine runs $15, a chest X-ray goes for $61, and a colonoscopy costs $424.
7135. thoughtful - 5/29/2007 5:57:14 PM wow! what a great innovation! bringing competition to the medical field.
All you'd need is catastrophic insurance for the biggies and then the price list for the regular procedures. Considering that I'd be looking at something in the neighborhood of $12-14,000 per year for health coverage for me and hubby for secondary, that would indeed buy us a lot of chest xrays, cholesterol tests and colonoscopies. 7136. wonkers2 - 5/30/2007 4:07:37 PM Health care pricing is a bit strange. The prices allowed by Medicare or Blue Cross are a small fraction of those for the uninsured man on the street. A friend of mine was able to buy a prescription item at Costco for $15 dollars that his Blue-Cross Blue Shield/Medco was charging, as I recall, something like $160 against his minimum/co-pay. He had the prescription filled at Costco and paid cash. He called Medco to find out what they were charging and got the run-around. They told him to call BC-BC where he also got the run-around. Finally, somebody at BC-BS told him what the price would be--ten times more than Costco's price.
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