Caffeine and tylonal is bad for you.. no really?!

IS THIS NEWS?

Dear god. You know when you go get a tooth out, or have minor surgery, or sprain your ankle? Well, they give you a little pill to make the ouchey go away. That pill is usually a combination of codeen, acetaminophen and caffeine. Now they're saying caffeine and tylonal causes liver damage!? well duh! tylonal causes liver damage you asshats. But anyway... I have a funny story about that combination drug. A friend of mine in med-school once told me that the only reason that caffeine is even in the no-ouchey pill,is because the doctor responsible for creating it needed to cut the acetomenophen and codeen with something. His genious wife..(who's lack of medical expertise may not make her un-genious) suggest "why not use caffeine! since coffee relives headaches" back then, it was widely thought that coffee did relieve headaches.... and apparently that is why we still have this stupid pill that has caffeine in it. *sigh*

Get Pretty or Get Dead.

"No Surgery is Trivial" an article published in the Toronto Star yesterday talks about the tragic death of a Toronto women who passed away last week after having liposuction in New York by a general practitioner, a family doctor....

Estimates of risk vary, but researchers surveying board-certified plastic surgeons in the United States calculated a mortality rate of 20 deaths per 100,000 liposuction cases. That is higher than the U.S. death rate from motor vehicle crashes. Because the survey covered only certified specialists, the actual death rate could well be higher.

yeah, uh scary. We all know some people will do anything to have the right look, but man....

Liposuction is of special concern. Any procedure with the potential to kill an otherwise healthy person must be taken more seriously.

I absolutely agree. Although anyone who knows me understands that I see plastic surgery as a tool to promote fascism. I think plastic surgery was originally intended to reconstruct body parts damaged in accidents or fires, not to serve as tool to promote some otherwise unattainable standard of beauty. It's almost as if the media is really a bunch of little Hitlers out there running around telling you to get purdy or get off the face of the earth. With your life hanging in the balance of a procedure that will benefit your health in now way after, what are they really telling us? Get purdy or get dead.

HPV Vaccine Controversy

It never ceases to amaze me how people are willing to throw away a good thing in the face of a little contraversey. We all know (or I should hope we all do) about the HPV vaccine and how Canada is about to (and in some provinces already has) launch mandated vaccine's for their girls grade 6 to 9. Of course someone's gotta complain about it.

So there's some questions surrounding the effectancy of the vaccine to protect against cervical cancer.. okay well lets consider HPV, an STD responsible for infecting over 70 percent of the population with at least one of it's over 100 different strains, hmmm let's look at those number. Granted the the vaccine only protects against 4 of the over 100 strains but by doing so illiminates the contraction of the 4 most common ones that a.) give you genital warts and b.) cause cervical cancer c.) have recently shown also may be a leading cause of throat cancer.

For a 400$ cost to our health care system, your wanting to risk your chances here? Damn are you retarded? Furthermore let's look at how easy it is to contract HPV. A condom cannot protect you from HPV. It can be passed by oral sex, it can be passed by simple skin to skin contact. That's how easy it is to catch HPV. And yes it is true that some instances of HPV can clear up and "cure" themselves but those aren't the ones you should be worried about. You should be worried about the ones that cause re-occuring bouts of cancerous cells on your cervex,causing cervical cancer. You should be worried about constant outbreaks of genital warts. Thats what your protecting yourself and others against by getting the vaccine. And do keep in mind, you aren't just doing this for yourself, your doing this for other people.

As for the other worries about sudden HPV vaccine death :

As of May of this year, more than 2,000 adverse Gardasil-related events were filed with the US FDA, including 239 cases of syncope (fainting and temporary loss of consciousness) and seven deaths. Whether or not these incidents were caused by the vaccine remains open to study, but suffice to say that any treatment has the potential for adverse effects, ranging from the merely unpleasant to the deadly.

Please note that bold sentence. Lots of people still have adverse reactions to their boosters vaccine. But everyone still gets their boosters.

You Know How Some People Seem to be Naturally Skinny? Well, they think they proved why.

Researchers say they've found the cure forobesity in a gene that apparently controls the level of fat your body stores similar to a volume nob. I'm skeptical but who knows. Although scientists claim to see a dramatic recovery in obese flies, it looks like the human race is going to have to wait some amount of "years" before getting to thinnify themselves with some kind of miracle drug. Surprise. Looks like we'll just have to you know, eat properly and get excercise.

You know on a seperate note, I'm fucking tired of people who don't know the difference between being fit and just being skinny. It's really agrivating. So for all you numb nuts out there that think having the body of a 13 year old girl means your healthy, I would like to interject with a peice of info from a good friend of mine in med school who stated : "an accurate way to educate ones health is not by weight and BMI testing, but by hip to waist ratio."

which makes a lot of damn good sense to me. I know a lot of volumptious ladies who some would more callously label as fat who are actually in better health than most skinny people because of a healthy hip to waiste ratio. You take you hips and devide by your waist and presto ratio (hope I got that right Erin) My friend tells me that 8 is an average healthy ratio. I'll get a quote from her momentarily rather than my re-interpreted jargen.

Another Mom Blaiming Article.

Blaming pregnant mommy.
Researchers say kids likely to crave unhealthy fare if their mothers ate junk food while pregnant

Hear that ladies? Your bad! Bad women! You have determined that your child's fate as a fatty with your horrible lust for junk food while pregnant!! (insert sarcasm please)

Okay, let's just review this article for a moment..it begins with:

A little ice cream and the occasional pickle is one thing.

(wait whats wrong with pickles?and ice cream has calcium right? But if the London Royal Veterinary College says so...

A Harvard University study released earlier this year showed that women who gain excessive weight while expecting were four times more likely to bear children who were overweight by age three than those who remained slimmer during gestation

no way?! you mean if you put on weight then the baby growing inside you will too?

But it's also been suggested that these mothers raise fatter kids because they continue poor eating habits long after giving birth, and pass these on to their children.

really?! poor eating habits cause children to be overweight!? no... it couldn't be.. I mean, noo.... your joking..

OKay, then the study claims that mothers who eat fatty, salty, sweet foods will actually "re-wire" a babies brain while in utero, to crave those food all their lives! So wait, I guess that means that before said mother ate deliciously unhealthy food, that the baby would have grown up as a perfect being who would be pre-disposed to enjoy only food of the utmost healthy quality.

oh and the researchers used rats for this... which they say "removed human social, cultural and psychological factors that could prompt youngsters to choose burgers, chips and doughnuts." Because they have done this, they are saying that it proves a direct link between a maternal junk food diet and the development of the appetite. I'm sorry but this sounds like horse-shit to me. I can't believe they'd waste money on something like this. Are they not taking in account that humans have their free will and ability to choose what tastes they find preferable?

Why are people constantly looking for a way to explain obesity when the answer is obvious? I'm so sick of these damn studies. Not a day goes by before I see another one. And apparently we must now blame mothers everywhere for "re-programming" their children to be fatty,sugary,salty eating machines before they even have a chance to try solid food! Bad mothers! Your fattify-ing the entire population! If only you could show more restraint while pregnant and horrible uncomfortable, and starving constantly, and puking, and not sleeping, and being kicked by your child, poked and prodded by doctors we wouldn't have fat kids everywhere!!!

The fact of the matter is, shit does get passed to your baby in utero. Stuff that fucks it up, like drugs for instance. But what they're suggesting is "re-wiring" of the brain and that's just silly. You want a baby that's not overweight then get a copy of the Canadian food guide. Don't blame yourself because you binged on some french fries. The messed up this also, is that the article never states how much weight gain during pregnancy is "excessive".

Apparently now Low-cal sweet make kids obese

This study just sounds fishy to me... there talking about over-eating in relation to high and low calorie foods but they don't mention anything about the type of exercise they receive. Let's speculate for a moment and wondering what kind of environment these rats would be in.. tiny cages, possibly with other rats? possibly with no room to run around. I'm just speculating of course, but being in a cage sounds pretty damn boring.. and I know that when I'm bored, I tend to wander towards the fridge and get creative with some ingredients.. hence I like to eat when I'm bored. If you eating because food is put in front of you.. (which most scavenger animals do) and then don't get proper exercise, aren't you.. ahem, pardon me, going to gain weight!? The fact of the matter is the damn rats ate both the high and low calorie food pretty readily. Then there's this statement:

For one of the studies in their research paper, published Wednesday in the journal Obesity, four-week-old lab rats were conditioned over 16 days to associate certain sweet or salty flavours with low-calorie food.

Sorry what's this conditioning? The article doesn't specify and I don't get it... the damn animals over-ate both high and low cal right!? this is just stupid... what does this prove? That a scavenger animal over-ate food that was put in front of it... because oh I dunno.. years of evolution has passed down the instinct that it better stock up when it sees food cause you never know how long it'll be until you get to eat again!?! I'm confused.


All this worry about the calorie content of diet food, shouldn't we be more worried about the preservative crap and replacements that go into diet food?

Furthermore, isn't it more logical to conclude that we simply over-eat because most HUMANS agree that food tastes good? Certainly it must be more logical to conclude, that our western society and it's obsession with instant gratification might just be a leading cause of obesity?! Maybe that's it? Or our office jobs? Or our "you get more bang for your buck" restaurant industry?

I see what they're trying to say here... and the whole "I can eat more because there are less calories" excuse is probably the rationale of a lot of "dieters"... but seriously, as much as I despise diet products (mostly because of it's processed and artificial ingredients) I hardly think they are the cause of obesity. Everyone knows that dieting alone doesn't work and a healthy diet doesn't include a whole bunch of crappy diet products, like soda and low-cal cookies. So WTF?!

Oh Vodka

Well, I'm done argueing about racism. Especially since I was basically told I can't have an opinion.

Anyway, I haven't got much whine about today. It's actually fairly pleasant today, I mean it is friday! I'm looking forward to opening a big bottle of vodka tonight. I'm back on my "no-beer" diet. So if I wanna drink, I gotta drink vodka which is basically 100 calories an ounce and none of that carb stuff. Oh tbw, I've heard people going on about how there is no calories in vodka and other hard liqours and they are full of shit. Of course there are calories in them, it's what you mix that counts tho. You go vodka tonic and you got double that cal!! (i don't like tonic anyway, I'm a club soda girl) You know one or two beers isn't the issue for me. I can still happily have one or two. It's just that I'm use to having between 6 and 12 on any given night, whether I'm out or in. So as to keep myself from loosing control of my thighs and stomach, I've decided to try and skim down on the amount of beer I intake, cause lets just face it, beer is full of cal and carbs. As much as I love it, it is responsible for my weight gain over the last year.

I was searching the net to see if I could find any health benefits from drinking vodka.. none.. figures. Besides any amount I would consume would more likely diminish the life of my liver than benefit me in any way.

I did however find wikipedia's definition of a hangover!

A hangover (veisalgia) describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most common reported characteristics of a hangover are headache, nausea, lethargy, sensitivity to light and noise, and thirst.

Hypoglycemia, dehydration, Acetaldehyde intoxication, and vitamin B12 deficiency are all theorized causes of hangover symptoms. Hangovers usually last 12 to 36 hours,[1] although some have been reported to last 48 to 72 hours after alcohol was last consumed.

This probably explains why I'm B12 anemic. I never knew this.. hmm. I'm having a revelation. (because I've been B12 anemic for the last 4 years I have to take high doses of B12 everyday. Thankfully not by needle. I'm taking 1000mcg everyday which is considerably high but doesn't mean I'm in a life-threatening state of course. I'm just always freaking tired)

Wikipedia also has "possible remedies" to hangovers. One is replintishing B6. It also advises against taking acetaminophen while your drunk... which I do all the time and now realise why I shouldn't. I mean poeple always tell me not to, but people tell me not to do a lot of things and I mean "who cares right?". But after learning why, I dont think I'll do that anymore. Actually reading up on the whole "drinking" thing kinda makes you not wanna do it anymore. But dealing with life sober everyday does not sound like an option to me...

Mentrual Cycle Suppression

So I was reading this article mentioned on Feministing.com about women giving up their menstrual cycle. I just have to say I found a lot of point in the article quite entertaining.

But others view their periods as fundamental symbols of fertility and health, researchers have found. Rather than loathing their periods, women evidently carry on complex love-hate relationships with them.

Right because get horrible cramps, bloating, headaches, sore back, muscle pain and in worse situations diarrhea and nausea are the perfect fundamental symbols of health. Not to mention psychological well-being!

But let's not poo all over the menstrual cycle yet! We must consider the only key benefit to getting your period "thank god I'm not knocked up".

Then there is Ms. Chesler in the article saying how women aren't sick and don't have to control their periods.. okay, but Ms. Chesler, a lot of women are sick from their periods. A hell of a lot of women suffer horrible psychological problems around the week before and of, their period.

So really after I finished the article the only thing I read that was negative about the suppression of the menstrual cycle was that there must be health risks involved. This just seems stupid to me, because look at the health risks involved in taking ANY hormonal therapy. Everyone know that BC can cause a whole slew of problems and that if women had any other choice, they probably wouldn't take them. But guess what, we don;t! Because for some stupid reason, no decided it would be a good idea to remove the SPERM component from sex.

So really, whats the big deal with risking your health (that you've already agreed to do by taking hormonal therapy as BC method) and saving yourself a little hassle a few times a year? Because I just disagree that there are women out there, loving their period for anything more than a sigh of relief that they are without child.