Posts Tagged
‘death’
by ilene - June 19th, 2010 1:39 pm
Good news, coffee and tea drinkers. Keep drinking--6 cups of tea or 4 cups of coffee. – Ilene
Study Shows 3 to 6 Cups of Tea Daily Linked Reduced Risk of Death From Heart Disease
By Salynn Boyles
WebMD Health News
June 18, 2010 — People who drink a lot of tea or drink coffee in moderation are less likely to die of heart disease than coffee and tea abstainers, new research suggests.
The finding adds to the growing body of evidence suggesting that coffee and tea help protect against heart disease, but not stroke.
Researchers followed more than 37,000 people in The Netherlands for 13 years in one of the largest and longest studies ever to examine the impact of coffee and tea drinking on heart health.
They found that:
- People who drank three to six cups of tea per day had a 45% lower risk of death from heart disease than people who drank less than one cup of tea a day.
- Drinking more than six cups of tea a day was associated with a 36% lower risk of heart disease, compared to drinking less than one cup.
- People who drank more than two, but no more than four, cups of coffee a day had about a 20% lower risk of heart disease than people who drank more or less coffee or no coffee at all.
- Moderate coffee consumption was associated with a slight, but not statistically significant, reduction in death from heart disease, but neither coffee nor tea affected stroke risk.
Continue here.>
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By Richard Alleyne, Telegraph
The researchers believe that the health benefits are down to antioxidants found in both drinks which remove damaging free radicals from the body.
The team, whose research is published in Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology: Journal of the American Heart Association, also noted that tea and coffee drinkers have different health behaviours – with more coffee drinkers prone to smoke and have a less healthy diet.
This is the latest research into the relative health benefits of two of the world’s favourite beverages.
It has been claimed that they can reduce risks of some cancers, diabetes, stress and even acne.
But they have also been linked to increased rates of cancer, rheumatoid arthritis and high blood pressure.
Full article here.>
Tags: antioxidants, coffee, death, heart disease, Netherlands 13 year study, stroke
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by ilene - February 12th, 2010 9:59 pm
Very sad, tragic start to the Olympics, one of those times in which everyone wishes the clock could be turned back. – Ilene
Horrible news from the 2010 Winter Olympics. Georgian luge competitor Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed in a serious accident as he skidded off course at a staggering 90 miles per hour.
(Note there have been various videos being uploaded to YouTube, and the IOC is aggressively stomping them out)
—-
AP: A luge athlete from Georgia, Nodar Kumaritashvili, was killed in a crash in training on the Olympic track at the Whistler Sliding Center on Friday, an Olympic luge official at the track confirmed, the worst case scenario developing on a track that many competitors have said is too fast.
Kumaritashvili lost control of his sled 48 seconds into his run, near the end of the track. According to the speed clock on the broadcast, he was going 143.3 kph — 88 mph — and was propelled over the track wall. He slammed into a steel pole near the finish line.
Officials from the international luge federation and Olympic officials did not immediately confirm his condition, nor where he was taken after rescue officials removed him from the track.
Medical officials rushed to the scene and were performing chest compressions and mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, the Associated Press reported. Kumaritashvili was lifted into an ambulance. An air-rescue helicopter was summoned and was over the track about eight minutes after the crash.
Kumaritashvili struck the inside wall of the track on the final turn. His body immediately went airborne and cleared the ice-coated concrete wall along the left side of the sliding surface. His sled remained in the track, and it appeared his helmet visor skidded down the ice.
“It’s a very rare situation,” Georg Hackl, the three-time Olympic champion and German coach, told the A.P. “But there’s some things that you can’t do anything about.”
Many sliders have exceeded 90 miles an hour on this course. The track is considered the world’s fastest and several Olympians recently questioned its safety. More than a dozen athletes have crashed during Olympic training.
At the finish area, not far from the crash scene, athletes, coaches and officials solemnly awaited word on Kumaritashvili.
“I’ve never…

Tags: death, Luge Competitor, Nodar Kumaritashvili, Olympics, Practice Run
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by ilene - January 27th, 2010 4:51 pm
Timothy warned me about Toyotas several months ago, and this is his previous article with updates in the comments at the very end – scroll down. See also my previous article, M-m-m-my Toyota - featuring my first attempt at song writing, for my car of all things (thankfully not on the recall list!!). It goes to the tune of My Sharona. (Okay, I had some time on my hands.)
Timothy was subject to one of my interviews back in October, in case you missed it. - Ilene
Courtesy of Timothy D. Naegele[1]
All Toyota-produced vehicles sold in the U.S. today—including Toyota cars and trucks, and Lexus automobiles—are unsafe. It will take years before new models roll off the company’s assembly lines that are completely safe. Also, millions of Toyota vehicles are on American roads already that are unsafe to drive. Any recent-vintage Toyota product, model years 2002[2] and later, potentially can turn into a runaway vehicle at a moment’s notice. Driving one or being a passenger is like playing Russian roulette. Query whether Americans, especially young families with small children, will trust their lives to Toyota?
Tragically and irresponsibly, the company has lied for years and it is lying now. First, Toyota claimed it was a floor mat problem. Next, the problems were related to the accelerator pedal[3]; and on and on the company’s lies go. Toyota has had 10 years to investigate these issues, and determine and implement solutions, but its management has lied repeatedly and it is still doing it. The runaway vehicle safety problems, which are confronting the giant automaker, are of a magnitude equal to or greater than those that brought down the storied Firestone tire brand, and the same thing may happen to Toyota. Every American needs to read about runaway Toyota-produced vehicles. The facts are sobering.

After the sudden-acceleration problems surfaced in Toyota and Lexus vehicles, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said “more motorists have died in Toyota vehicles associated with sudden acceleration in the last decade than in cars made by all other manufacturers combined.”[4] Consumer advocate Ralph Nader’s trail-blazing and Herculean efforts helped launch the automobile safety movement. His speeches and writings on behalf of Americans (see, e.g., “Unsafe at Any Speed”) helped expose
…

Tags: acceleration, accelerator, accelerator pedal, auto safety, auto safety defects, automaker, automobile safety, cover-up, death, die, Firestone, Firestone tire, Firestone tire brand, floor mat, floor mat problem, giant automaker, government, Ken Bensinger, LA Times, Lexus, Lexus cars, Lexus vehicles, lie, lied, lies, Los Angeles Times, lying, Martin Zimmerman, massive cover-up, media, model year 2002, model year 2003, model year 2004, model year 2005, model year 2006, model year 2007, model year 2008, model year 2009, model year 2010, model year 2011, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, NHTSA, passenger, Ralph Nader, Ralph Vartabedian, runaway, runaway car, runaway car safety problem, runaway safety problems, runaway truck, runaway vehicle, runaway vehicle safety problems, sudden acceleration, Times, Times Investigation, Toyota, Toyota cars, Toyota trucks, Toyota vehicle, Toyota vehicles, Toyota-produced vehicles, unsafe, Unsafe at Any Speed, unsafe cars, unsafe trucks
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by ilene - October 4th, 2009 9:33 pm
Courtesy of Joe Weisenthal at Clusterstock
Remember Shoichi Nakagawa? He was the Japanese finance minister who resigned in disgrace early this year after a rambling, presumably drunk, press conference.
Today, he was found dead. Neither suicide nor foul play is suspected.
TOKYO (AP) — A former Japanese finance minister who stepped down after appearing to be drunk at an overseas news conference was found dead in his home Sunday, police said, ruling out foul play.
Shoichi Nakagawa was lying face down in bed when his wife found him in their Tokyo home, a spokesman for the Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department said on condition of anonymity due to police policy.
Investigators have ruled out foul play because the room was undisturbed, and they were downplaying the likelihood of suicide. Determining a cause of death will likely "take some time," the spokesman said, adding that an autopsy will be conducted as part of an investigation.
The 56-year-old Nakagawa caused an uproar when he appeared to be intoxicated at a news conference during a meeting of Group of Seven financial leaders in Rome in February. International news programs repeatedly played footage of him slurring his speech and looking sleepy.
More odd behavior followed when he visited a museum at the Vatican after the news conference. He touched exhibits and set off an alarm after entering an off-limits area.
The trip was widely seen as a major embarrassment for the Japanese government.
Nakagawa stepped down as finance minister shortly afterward, denying he had been drunk and blaming cold medicine. But the opposition demanded his resignation.
Nakagawa had been a longtime lawmaker from the northernmost island of Hokkaido with the Liberal Democratic Party, which had ruled Japan almost continuously for the last half-century. He lost his seat in parliament in Aug. 30 nationwide elections in which the Liberal Democrats lost to the Democrats, who now rule Japan in a coalition.
Stunned colleagues said Sunday that Nakagawa appeared to be in good health recently but speculated that he may have been physically and mentally drained after losing his seat.
Former Prime Minister Taro Aso praised Nakagawa for helping the country tackle its worst recession since World War II.
"I’m in such a state of shock right…

Tags: death, Economy, japan, Japanese Finance Minister, Recession, Shoichi Nakagawa
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by ilene - August 25th, 2009 2:22 pm
By Laura Blue, courtesy of TIME
A new headline-grabbing report from the White House claims that swine flu could plausibly infect up to 50% of Americans, causing flu symptoms among some 60 to 120 million of them, and leading to as many as 1.8 million hospitalizations and 30,000 -90,000 deaths.
Where, exactly, do numbers like these come from? The new report was put together by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. It turns out the predictions are based on just a couple key facts:
- The virus seems to be transmitted from person to person at the same rate as in previous flu pandemics — a rate that’s much higher than that of the regular seasonal flu. Rapid transmission suggests that the total number of infections could be very high.
- The death rate for people who catch H1N1 seems about the same as that for seasonal flu. The White House advisors estimate that, so far, between 1 in 1,000 and 3 in 1,000 people who have needed medical help then end up dying. Assuming that this normal death rate continues during flu season, the total number of deaths is projected to be much higher than normal because of the higher number of infections.
And that’s basically it. The Council’s report notes prominently and often that, even though the up-to-50%-infected scenario is plausible, it is by no means certain. That’s because both of the basic facts above — the infection rate and the case fatality rate — are still a little fuzzy. They’re hard to measure in the first place, and it’s not totally clear whether they’ll change as the pandemic progresses.
So why all the fuss if the estimates are still murky? As Homeland Security head Janet Napolitano put it yesterday in a statement: "It is not possible to predict how the 2009-H1N1 influenza virus or the upcoming influenza season will play out, but it is best that we plan and prepare for a resurgence of H1N1 flu." Things may not develop the way the White House advisors suggest, in other words, but given available evidence it’s still a fine idea to brace ourselves.
There’s one other very good reason that this year’s flu pandemic has experts unnerved. Seasonal flu typically kills only the elderly, with 90%…

Tags: death, flu projections, H1N1, swine flu
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by ilene - June 29th, 2009 11:02 am
Here’s a scathing commentary comparing the life and death of Michael Jackson to the demise of our nation.
Courtesy of James Kunstler
As America entered the horse latitudes of summer, befogged in a muffling stillness on deceptively calm seas, we were distracted for a while by visions of a pale death angel moonwalking across the deck of collective consciousness. Eerie parallels resound between the sordid demise of pop singer Michael Jackson and the fate of the nation.
Like the United States, Michael Jackson was spectacularly bankrupt, reportedly in the range of $800-million, which is rather a lot for an individual. Had he lived on a few more years, he might have qualified for his own TARP program — another piece of expensive dead-weight down in the economy’s bilges — since it is our established policy now to throw immense sums of so-called "money" at gigantic failing enterprises (while millions of ordinary citizens wash overboard, without so much as a life-preserver). Anyway, Michael Jackson was on the receiving end of one huge bank loan after another long after his pattern of profligacy was set and obvious. They threw money at him for the same reason that the federal government throws money at entities like CitiBank: the desperate hope that some miracle will allow debt servicing to resume. Michael could burn through $50-million in half a year. It didn’t seem to affect his credibility as a borrower. When his heart stopped last week, he was living in a Hollywood mansion that rented for several hundred thousand dollars a month. You wonder how the landlord cashed those checks.
Like the USA, Michael Jackson was a has-been. He hadn’t recorded a song worth listening to in over two decades. He had done almost nothing but spin his wheels, hop around the globe from one place to another at enormous expense, and make himself available for award ceremonies to stoke his ego (and give advertisers a reason to promote some televised award show). He existed strictly on image, an anorectic figure nourished by moonbeams of attention, famous for saying that he loved his worshippers when the truth was he merely sucked the life out of them. In his last years, he even looked a bit like Nosferatu, the personification of the un-dead, and his fascination with ghouls was the basis for his biggest hit way back in…

Tags: death, media response, Michael Jackson, nation's fate
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