I managed to catch a cold in Italy.
We are not amused.
Tag: health
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A DIET recommending you eat 100g of chocolate a day and drink red wine, which will add six years to your life. Scientists in Australia and The Netherlands have come up with a diet they claim will cut a person's risk of heart disease by 78 per cent. And the good news is, you'll want to be on it.
The diet focuses on seven foods that have been proven to reduce cholesterol and blood pressure. It involves daily consumption of 150ml of red wine, which has been found to cut heart disease risk by 32 per cent. Chocaholics line up, because you have to consume 100g of dark chocolate per day, an amount the scientists calculate will reduce blood pressure.
You have to eat four meals of fish each week (each 114g), which is said to reduce your heart disease risk by 14 per cent. The diet also includes a daily total of 400g of fruit and vegetables, also proven to cut blood pressure, and 68g of almonds to cut cholesterol. You also have to consume 2.7g of garlic per day to reduce your cholesterol levels.
In a paper published in the British Medical Journal, scientists claim that if all these foods are combined in a diet they will lower the risk of heart disease by 78 per cent. The research shows men who stuck to this diet would gain an extra .6 years of life and have an extra nine years free from heart disease. Women would gain an extra 4.8 years of life and have an extra eight years without heart disease.
The proponents, including Anna Peeters from Monash University, claim the only adverse effects from the diet would be body odour from the garlic and raised mercury levels if more than the recommended amount of fish was eaten each week. But they don't calculate whether it will help you lose weight. And they warn that extra alcohol above that prescribed by the diet could reduce the effectiveness of the diet.
They say you can add extra ingredients to the diet to boost its effectiveness, including olive oil, soy beans, tomatoes, oat bran, cereals, nuts, tea and chickpeas.
Link: http://www.news.com.au/story/print/0,10119,16514149,00.html
Bits and pieces
Got my inner eye pressure tested again this morning and all is well. It actually went down. Given the antics of my ophthalmologist in Montreal, I'm betting that his head was up his ass (or headed in that general direction) when he told me that my IEP was elevated that last time. Anyway, its been measured twice by 3 different people here and it's well normal, so I'm happy about that.
I'm working from home today, cause my appointment made me miss my shuttle to the EBI and there's no real way to get there unless I take a very costly cab. So, working from home.
Surreal moment of the day: as I was waiting for the bus, a plane flew ovearhead. Now given that Stansted airport is close by, that's not really an unexpected event. This one was different though. The noise was so loud that I could feel the engines screaming in the pit of my stomach and when i looked up, it filled my field of vision. I thought it would crash just beyond the neighborhood. In the absence of a big boom and a column of flame, I'm assuming that it made it ok but dayum, that's impressive.
Bleeeeargh
Pity me, for I have the debilitating illness known as man flu. I woke up with it yesterday, but it was only a tickle in my throat then. I spent the afternoon in Peterborough with Katy – she had to work and I tagged along – but as the day wore on, it got worse. It's now painful to swallow. Joy.
I had a reasonably fun day though. I got to pet some owls.
I also found a shop that sells a ton of Guiness swag. I'll have to get some for Sara for xmas :D
On a completely different note, I'm a geek. Whenever I get a SMS on my phone, a Dalek yells “EXTERMINATE!”
On a final note, me ears are alight.