Absolute Horizon

Penny Red: Panic on the streets of London.

2011-08-14T10:11:00.000-07:00

Penny Red: Panic on the streets of London.: "

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2011-07-13T17:28:00.001-07:00

Created by: Online Schools

What You Need to Know About Sunscreen In One Infographic [Infographic]

2011-07-12T18:06:00.000-07:00

What You Need to Know About Sunscreen In One Infographic [Infographic]: "

We've mentioned how to apply sunscreen for the best protection before, but nothing beats an infographic for creatively conveying a wealth of information. The Sunscreen Smokescreen covers the what, why, and how of sunscreen protection in beautiful detail. More »

Weight Loss Psychology: Why Your Brain Might be Holding You Back

2011-07-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

Weight Loss Psychology: Why Your Brain Might be Holding You Back: "If you gave a test to a million people and three-quarters of them flunked, would you attribute their failure to a lack of willpower or laziness? Or would you wonder if the test was flawed?

If the test measured the ability to lose weight, the results would parallel the failure rates for Americans who are trying to reduce their girth. According to the 2011 Food & Health Survey conducted by the International Food Information Council Foundation, 77 percent of Americans are trying to lose weight or avoid gaining weight. Despite their efforts, nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese.

Given the inability of the majority of us to manage our weight, are we all just weak-willed slackers? Or are other factors operating to make failure the most likely outcome?

For the most part, the test takers do not blame others for their failure; they blame themselves. Desperate to succeed despite a history of dangerous scams and diet schemes, consumers continue their search for a magical solution to weight loss and willingly throw money at the problem. Growing at an annual rate of nearly 11 percent for the past five years, the market for weight-loss products (food, drugs, supplements, services, ingredients, devices, accessories and cosmetics) in 2014 is projected to reach $586 billion.

Designed to Eat

So why is it so difficult to lose weight? Obesity psychologist Jim Keller, Director of Behavioral Health at the WeightWise Bariatric Program in Oklahoma City, asserts that the human body and brain are designed to eat -- thus explaining why losing weight proves so challenging for so many.

Keller, who has conducted 14,000 psychological interviews of individuals considering bariatric surgery, says that the causes of obesity are complex. Obesity is not simply a function of laziness or an indication of emotional instability. In addition, genetic and biological factors do not act in isolation, but are constantly interacting with an array of environmental factors. Keller notes that both the availability and persuasive advertising of unhealthy food contribute to the obesity epidemic.

Why Is Changing Eating Habits So Difficult?

While external and genetic factors play a role, no one questions that individuals are in charge of their daily decisions about what and how much to eat. So once we make up our minds to change a habit, why do we find ourselves falling back into old ones? Why can't we simply make a decision and get on with it? What puzzles and frustrates many trying to lose weight is why changing one's eating habits is so darn hard.

According to Dr. Howard Rankin, an expert on behavioral change, a key part of the problem is that we believe we have more control over our behavior than we really do. Stress, anxiety and addiction can limit the conscious control we have over our choices. Dr. Rankin asserts:

What drives our behavior is not logic but brain biochemistry, habits and addiction, states of consciousness and what we see people around us doing. We are emotional beings with the ability to rationalize -- not rational beings with emotions. If we are stressed, depressed or addicted, no matter how good the advice we are given, chances are that we will not be able to act on it. The more primitive, emotional brain generally has precedence over the newer, more rational brain.

But even if we removed those individuals who are stressed, depressed or addicted from the test group, we still would be left with a large population of individuals who are unable to stick with their resolve to lose weight.

I speak from personal experience. I've started many a day resolved to eat healthfully for the rest of my life. But by late evening, a piece of chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream has somehow found its way into my stomach.

One possibility is that I have multiple personalities. Another is that resolve is not constant. According to Dr. Rankin, resolve ebbs and flows like the tide. One moment we can be fired up to be mindful of our eating, but in the next instant, our mood, our state of consciousness or the context has changed. Much to our chagrin, we find ourselves indulging in unhealthy treats.

Dr. Rankin also has a healthy respect for people's extraordinary ability to rationalize almost any behavior. We can persuade ourselves to do almost anything we want to do -- especially when the behaviors are ones that our brains are used to doing. But trying to persuade ourselves to do things that we don't really want to do -- behaviors our brain is not used to -- is not easy. We are very adept at making wonderful (and plausible) excuses as to why we can't do what we don't want to do.

Five Tips to Help You Lose Weight

The obstacles to losing weight, however, are not insurmountable. The National Weight Registry is tracking over 5,000 individuals who have lost an average of 66 pounds and kept the weight off for five years. Insights from their success stories are consistent with these five tips from Dr. Rankin:

1.) Focus on a change of heart, not a change of mind. Losing weight through changing what and how much you eat doesn't happen because you rationally decide to lose weight. You have to have a change of heart; that is, you must get in touch with your deepest, heartfelt desires.

Your motivation may not be positive. Indeed, it may stem from a fear of loss. For example, you may not want to get sick. Or you may not want to be ostracized. To get in touch with your motivation, think about the negative consequences of not changing as well as the positive ones. Getting fit must become a priority and your life must be organized accordingly. Nobody can change you but you, and once you've made the changes, you need to stay focused. Successful individuals keep their motivation in the forefront of their minds all the time.

2.) Practice self-discipline. Self-control is a muscle that, like other muscles, needs exercise and strengthening. Change doesn't happen because you want it to happen. Each time you resist temptation, you are developing greater self-control. Success breeds success. Facing down temptations builds strength for future decision moments. Some of my clients throw away their favorite food as a symbolic act that shows they have control over the food and not the other way round.

Self-discipline is required for behavior change, but does that mean that the lack of self-discipline causes obesity? No. That would be like saying aspirin helps a headache go away, so headaches are caused by a lack of aspirin -- which is nonsense!

3.) Eliminate or reduce sugary, fat-laden foods. Such foods create physical changes at a cellular level that alter how our brains and bodies react. When analyzing your level of addiction, consider both physical dependence (changes at the cellular level) and psychological dependence (the habitual repetition of a behavior in an attempt to satisfy an emotional need). For example, how often do you use a sugary treat to lift your spirits?

What is often misunderstood is that these dependences exist on a continuum. You can be mildly, moderately or severely dependent, and the degree of dependence determines how difficult it will be to change.

4.) Make history your teacher, not your jailer. You can learn from your mistakes. Instead of [beating yourself up] when you fail to keep your promises to yourself, seek to gain self-knowledge so you won't repeat the error. No one is perfect. Be sure to acknowledge what you are doing right, not just what isn't working.

5.) Surround yourself with friends, family and colleagues who will support your effort. Getting fit and losing weight absolutely require others. Although you alone can make the changes you need to make, you can't make the changes alone. Not only in terms of eating, but in all areas of our lives, we are much more influenced by other people than we imagine. One of the most potent forces for positive change is the emotional support of the individuals who surround you.

You must, however, ask for the support you need. Don't assume that others know what would be most helpful to you. Similarly, you need to avoid those people who aren't on the same page as you. Social pressure can work for you or against you. Hang out with the right people.

Change is difficult, and whoever finds a way to bottle and market motivation and self-discipline will make a fortune. In the absence of such a product, however, the next best thing is helpful insights into the process of changing our behavior.

Dr. Rankin reminds us that, for better or worse, our core, emotional values will ultimately determine our choices. Once we identify our heartfelt desires, we can use them to create a healthy lifestyle that reflects our best self. Our deepest values can be summoned to keep us on track, especially when we are facing temptations and distractions. They can also serve as our compass when we go astray.

If we are willing to remain diligently committed to our emotional values, we can be confident that we will succeed in realizing our health and fitness goals. And when we do, maybe some of us will go one step further and give support to family and friends so that they can join us in becoming healthier and happier.

What Is Enlightenment?

2011-02-27T08:16:00.000-08:00

What Is Enlightenment?: "'There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.' -- Thic Nhat Hanh

What is this enigmatic and exalted state called 'enlightenment'? Why is everyone so enamored by this word? Why is everyone so eager to attain it? Does anyone really understand the essence of it? Many speak of it as if they do, and while others use it to enhance their status. I have been in the presence of such people, and I am always astounded at the level of ignorance guiding their behavior. Such people are nowhere near awakened, let alone enlightened, and this includes both teacher and student. It is like the blind leading the blind. The irony is that the effort they expend on becoming enlightened only impedes the realization that they already are. Enlightenment is not something you do; it is about being.

This beingness seems to be the hardest lesson to master, for it involves a gradual, developmental and cumulative process of growth through steps and stages. It emerges as a natural consequence of allowing, rather than by any egoic effort to attain it, because it involves surrendering and the ultimate dissolution of the ego in order to realize it. You can read the world's greatest mystical and spiritual literature, become very knowledgeable on techniques, rites and rituals, and yet remain completely unchanged. Accumulation of knowledge is not enlightenment, and neither is the prowess of mystical vocabulary the proof.

What we need is a new definition of what enlightenment means within the context of modern existence. The popular version is depicted as a sudden state of rapture and ecstasy, accompanied by luminous light and visions, an end of suffering and the dawning of bliss, thus permanently enlightening the aspirant. All this may very well be true, but does this depiction really explain what enlightenment is?

This state of beingness is easy to attain or maintain in an ashram, monastery or somewhere up in the mountains far removed from the challenges of modern life. There's nothing wrong with pursuing a monastic life or dedicating your life to simplicity and seclusion; this has its time and value on the journey. But how much of that pursuit is authentic, versus escaping the demands of the world? When you live in seclusion, you bet it's easier to maintain a consciousness of love and compassion.

So what is enlightenment? How about coming down from that mountain and putting your unity consciousness to the test amidst mortgage payments and credit card debt, divorce lawyers and aging parents, nasty bosses and health problems, wars and poverty? Such conditions, as the alchemist knows, burns away the dross to reveal who we are not. Yes, in the midst of the madness we awaken, grow comfortable with our dualistic nature and develop mystical stamina so that we can handle our sobriety. Illusions are like drugs and enlightenment is like rehab.

An enlightened person neither seeks the light, nor remains inactive in the darkness. Their goal is not enlightenment, but of conduct toward self, life and others. When you're in the presence of such a person, no verbal exchange is necessary to know who you are dealing with. Such people can serve in monasteries or stock markets, run corporations or run for office, walk the desert or walk to work. They have the ability to see things as they really are, to accept what is and remain open to all of life. This is done not out of naiveté or denial, but out of profound understanding of how life really works.

'After enlightenment, the laundry.' -- a Zen proverb
"

2011-02-05T14:50:00.000-08:00

7 Tips to Fix Your Cholesterol Without Medication

2011-01-30T10:36:00.000-08:00

7 Tips to Fix Your Cholesterol Without Medication: "The singular focus on treating cholesterol as a means to prevent heart attacks is leading to the deaths of millions of people because the real underlying cause of the majority of heart disease is not being diagnosed or treated by most physicians.

For example, I recently saw a patient named Jim who had 'normal' cholesterol levels yet was taking the most powerful statin on the market, Crestor. Despite this aggressive pharmaceutical treatment, this man was headed for a serious heart attack. Jim's doctors had missed his real disease risks by focusing on and treating his cholesterol levels. All the while they were ignoring the most important condition that put him at dramatically higher risk of heart attacks, diabetes, cancer and dementia. In a moment I will explain what this condition is and what you can do about it.

This craze for treating cholesterol has lead to an onslaught of pharmaceuticals designed to 'lower cholesterol.' Statins are now the number one selling class of drugs in the nation and new cholesterol medications are produced every day. The latest in a new class of 'super' cholesterol drugs, CETP inhibitors, now in the drug approval pipeline from Merck (anacetrapib) burst into the news recently with exclamations from typically restrained scientists. Data on this new drug was recently published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the American Heart Association conference in Chicago.

The study found a 39.8 percent reduction in LDL (or bad cholesterol) and a 138 percent increase in HDL or good cholesterol.(i) Sure, the medications lowered cholesterol. However, the study was not large enough or long enough to answer the most important question: Did the drug result in fewer heart attacks and deaths? Despite this glaring omission, the scientists reporting on these results used words such as 'spectacular,' 'giddy,' 'enormous,' 'most excited in decades' to describe their enthusiasm over the medication. Of course, the researchers (as I described in a recent post 'Dangerous Spin Doctors') were on the payroll of Merck who funded the study.

Why Lowering Cholesterol May Not Lower the Risk of Death

Unfortunately, these scientists seemed to have short-term memory loss. Just three short years ago in 2007, another new 'wonder' drug from Pfizer (torcetrapib) which worked on the same mechanism that anacetrapib does, was found to dramatically lower LDL and raise HDL cholesterol, just like this new drug from Merck. There was only one small problem -- in those taking the drug, deaths from heart attacks increased 25 percent, deaths from heart disease increased 40 percent and overall deaths increased 200 percent.(ii) After spending $800 million in development Pfizer had to walk away from the drug. Oops. How can a drug that does all the right things (dramatically lowering bad cholesterol and raise good cholesterol) actually cause more heart disease and deaths?

The answer is simple. Drugs don't treat the underlying causes of chronic illness. It is not our genes which haven't changed much in 20,000 years, although they may predispose us to environmental and lifestyle triggers of illness. The causes of chronic disease are rooted in what we eat, how much we move, how we face stress, how connected we are to our communities and toxic chemicals and metals in our environment.

A wry editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine many years ago remarked that doctors should use new drugs as soon as they come on the market before side effects develop. Perhaps that's what the authors of this study are proposing we do with anacetrapib.

At best this new 'super cholesterol' drug will lower cholesterol numbers without killing too many people while increasing health care costs by billions of dollars as millions of new prescriptions are written for this new 'super cholesterol drug.' Worse it may end up in the same garbage dump Pfizer's drug from three years ago did. Even worse scenarios exist and the reason is startling simple.

These drugs do not address the fundamental underlying cause of heart disease. Heart disease is not a Lipitor or Crestor or even an 'anacetrapib' deficiency. It is a complex end result of multiple factors driven by our diet, fitness level, stress and other lifestyle factors such as smoking, social connections, and, increasingly, environmental toxins. Taking a pill won't fix these problems that push our biology steadily along the trajectory of disease. The idea of putting statins at the check out counter of McDonald's is the epitome of reductionist thinking. The problem isn't cholesterol -- it's all the stuff we are putting in our mouths!

Jim, my patient, is a perfect example of how doctors treat the symptoms, not the cause of disease. As I have written about in a previous blog, most doctors focus on the wrong target for preventing and treating heart disease. Abnormal cholesterol levels are just a downstream problem that is mostly a result of 'diabesity' or the continuum of blood sugar and insulin imbalances that range from pre-diabetes to full-blown end stage diabetes. Taking a statin or a CETP inhibitor cannot reverse this change in our biology. We cannot use a drug to correct what happens to our biology because of a high sugar and refined flour, low fiber, processed diet, a sedentary lifestyle, excessive stress, lack of sleep or the harmful effects of pollution.

Let's take a closer look at Jim. On 10 mg of Crestor, the most powerful statin on the market, his total cholesterol was a beautiful 173, and his LDL was a respectable 101. But the good news ended there. His triglycerides were 176 (normal is less than 100), and his HDL was 37 (normal is greater than 50).

Jim's number belie a deeper truth about cholesterol that most conventional doctors are ignoring today: Given the current state of scientific understanding, the cholesterol numbers doctors measure today are increasingly irrelevant.

The Real Cause of Heart Disease

Instead of looking just at the cholesterol numbers, we need to look at the cholesterol particle size. The real question is: Do you have small or large HDL or LDL particles. Small, dense particles are more atherogenic (more likely to cause the plaque in the arteries that leads to heart attacks), than large buoyant, fluffy cholesterol particles. Small particles are associated with pre-diabetes (or metabolic syndrome) and diabetes and are caused by insulin resistance. Recent research (see my 'Do Statins Cause Diabetes and Heart Disease' blog) indicates that statins may actually increase diabetes.

While measuring cholesterol particle size is a simple blood test that can be done at Labcorp, most doctors do not look at it, even though it is the only meaningful way to evaluate cholesterol numbers. You can have a LDL cholesterol that looks normal, like Jim did at 101, but you may have over 1000 small LDL particles which are very dangerous. On the other hand, you can have the same LDL number of 101, and it may be made up of only 400 large particles which cause no real health risk. Your health risk has less to do with your cholesterol numbers than it does the quantity and size of your cholesterol particles.

Again, we can take Jim as an example. His cholesterol particles were all small and dense because he had severe pre-diabetes. This is also not hard to diagnose. Jim was obese at 285 pounds with a BMI (body mass index) of 36. You are considered obese if your BMI is greater than 30. His waist-to-hip ratio was 1.04 (normal is less than 0.9 for men). He had very high insulin and blood sugar levels after we gave him a test drink of glucose (sugar). All this added up to tell us he had severe pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome. As I mentioned before, he also had high triglycerides and low HDL -- another clue that he had metabolic syndrome. We also found he had very low testosterone and growth hormone, further symptoms of pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome.

Jim reported that despite working with a trainer he kept losing muscle and he was always hungry. This is why.

Let me reiterate: These are measurements and tests that can be done in any doctor's office, but are rarely done. These are not esoteric or expensive labs that can only be done at specialty clinics.

The condition that Jim suffered from, metabolic syndrome, is the most common medical condition in America, but the most rarely diagnosed. It affects over half the population. It is the major cause of heart disease, diabetes, and aging, and it is one of the major causes of dementia and cancer, not to mention infertility and sexual dysfunction. Yet, it is mostly ignored by doctors. Why? The answer is simple and tragic: There are no drugs to treat it effectively, and doctors tend to focus on what they can treat with medications, even if it is the wrong target. This is one of the reasons statins are so popular in America despite the vast research against them.

Seven Tips to Fix Your Cholesterol (and Reverse Metabolic Syndrome Without Medication)

Luckily, this doesn't mean you are doomed, even if you are already suffering from metabolic syndrome and heart problems. High cholesterol and pre-diabetes or metabolic syndrome can be successfully diagnosed and treated. I have reviewed this in previous blogs, but here are seven tips to help you get big large fluffy cholesterol particles and reverse metabolic syndrome.

1. Get the right cholesterol tests. Check NMR particle sizes for cholesterol by asking your doctor for this test at Labcorp or LipoScience. You want to know if you have safe light and fluffy cholesterol particles, or small dense, artery damaging cholesterol particles. A regular cholesterol test won't tell you this.

2. Check for Metabolic Syndrome.

• Do you have a fat belly? Measure you waist at the belly button and your hips at the widest point -- if your waist/hip is greater than 0.8 if you are a woman or 0.9 if you are man, then you have a problem

• If you have small LDL and HDL particles, you have metabolic syndrome.

• If your triglycerides are greater than 100 and your HDL is less than 50, or the ratio of triglycerides to HDL is greater than four, then you have metabolic syndrome.

• Do a glucose insulin challenge test. This is very important and most physicians do not test for insulin and glucose. To read more about how to do the right type of testing for metabolic syndrome or pre-diabetes please see www.drhyman.com for my information.

• Check your hemoglobin A1c, which measures blood sugar over the last six weeks. If it is greater than 5.5, you may have metabolic syndrome

3. Eat a Healthy Diet. Eat a diet with a low glycemic load, high in fiber, and phytonutrient and omega-3 rich. It should be plant based, and you should consume plenty of good quality protein such as beans, nuts, seeds, and lean animal protein (ideally organic or grass fed). I have described specific diets that abide by these parameters in my books 'UltraMetabolism' and 'The Diabesity Prescription.'

4. Exercise. Enough Said.

5. Get Good Quality Sleep. Sleep is essential for healing your body, maintaining balanced blood sugar, and your overall health.

6. Use Supplements to Support Healthy Cholesterol Particle Size. These include:

• A multivitamin including at least 500 mcg of chromium, 2 mg of biotin and 400 mg of lipoic acid. For most you will take three capsules twice a day.

• 1000 mg of omega-3 fats (EPA/DHA) twice a day.

• 2000 IU of vitamin D3 a day at maximum. (Some people recommend less -- consult your doctor.)

• 1200 mg of red rice yeast twice a day.

• 2-4 capsules of glucomannan 15 minutes before meals with a glass of water.

• Broad-range, balanced concentration of plant sterols. You will usually take one capsule with each meal.

7. Consider Using High Dose Niacin or Vitamin B3. This can only be done with a doctor's prescription. It is useful to help raise HDL cholesterol, lower LDL cholesterol and triglycerides, and increase particle size.

8. Use Low-Dose Statins ONLY If You Have Had Heart Disease or are a male with multiple risk factors, while carefully monitoring for muscle and liver damage.

For the vast majority of people this approach is better than simply taking a cholesterol medication. To reduce your risk of heart disease you need to address metabolic syndrome, and that can ONLY be done effectively with a comprehensive diet and lifestyle approach like the one outlined above.

For more information on metabolic syndrome, heart disease, cholesterol, and other essential health topics, please visit www.drhyman.com.

Now I'd like to hear from you ...

Have you taken statins, what has been the effect and do you have muscle pain or any neurologic side effects?

Do you think metabolic syndrome is an important factor to address to reduce the risk of heart disease? Why or why not? Has your doctor ever said, your sugar is a little high and we will watch it? What for what -- until it is so bad you are eligible to take diabetes medication?

What do you think of conventional medicine's tendency to prescribe medications over dietary and lifestyle change for chronic health conditions?

I would love to hear your thoughts. Share them by leaving a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, MD

References

(i) Cannon, C.P., Shah, S., Dansky, H.M. et al. 2010. Safety of anacetrapib in patients with or at high risk for voronary heart disease. N Engl J Med. 363(25): 2406-2415.

(ii) Barter, P.J., Caulfield, M., Eriksson, M. et al. 2007. Effects of torcetrapib in patients at high risk for coronary events. N Engl J Med. 357(21):2109-2122.

Mark Hyman, M.D. is a practicing physician, founder of The UltraWellness Center, a four-time New York Times bestselling author, and an international leader in the field of Functional Medicine. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on YouTube, become a fan on Facebook, and subscribe to his newsletter.

Kaalam kaiviralaal...

2010-12-22T16:47:00.000-08:00

kaalam kaiviralaal kalamezhuthum kanimalaro
thumbikal thaaraattum kaliveenaa pallaviyo
ee soonam viriyunna poovaniyil
ee gaanam vilayunnu mulamkuzhalil
(kaalam kaiviralaal)

ee vasantham ivide oro eenam ekumbozhum
(ee vasantham)
manassile poovukal madhukanam peytheedum
mounamaay mookamaay
(kaalam kaiviralal)

greeshmamaayum shishiramaayum prakrithi maarumbozhum
(greeshmamaayum)
surabhiyaay maadhavam sirakalil neytheedum
pulakavum lahariyum
(kaalam kaiviralaal)

Ordinary Garden Herbs That Can Save Your Life!

2010-12-15T19:00:00.000-08:00

Ordinary Garden Herbs That Can Save Your Life!: "

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The Hacker’s Guide to Tea [Tea]

2010-11-23T15:21:00.000-08:00

The Hacker’s Guide to Tea [Tea]: "

Coffee gets a lot of attention, but if tea's more your style, tea guru Tony Gebely offers this guide to understanding and brewing better tea—discussing the process, the kinds, and the care necessary to cultivate a great taste for tea. More »

2010-11-14T10:39:00.001-08:00

Infographic by Food Coupons

2010-11-08T10:07:00.000-08:00

Interactive game and best cell phone plans from BillShrink.com

2010-10-31T08:39:00.000-07:00

2010-10-30T11:54:00.000-07:00

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Hype Cycle for Emerging Technologies 2010

2010-10-15T16:36:00.000-07:00

7 Drinks That Boost Performance

2010-10-04T19:49:00.000-07:00

7 Drinks That Boost Performance

2010-10-03T16:00:00.000-07:00

Dr. Joseph Mercola: If You Want to Age Gracefully, Don't Eat This

2010-09-26T17:16:00.000-07:00

Dr. Joseph Mercola: If You Want to Age Gracefully, Don't Eat This: "

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2010-09-25T14:38:00.000-07:00

Infographic by College Scholarships.org

2010-09-12T19:38:00.001-07:00

Created By TheirToys.com Sex Toys

2010-09-10T13:06:00.000-07:00

By: eLearners.com

10 Natural Superfoods You Can Eat Every Day

2010-09-10T12:43:00.000-07:00

10 Natural Superfoods You Can Eat Every Day: "I have a love/hate relationship with “superfoods.” What I love about them is that they’re multi-taskers—brimming with various disease-fighting nutrients, usually without providing too many calories, and delivered in a delicious form (think: blueberries). What I dislike is that some foods deemed “super” are exotic (ahem, the goji berry?!) or something—like, say, sardines—that you’d only have once in a while. Healthy? Yes. Would you eat them every day? Probably not. With all the other healthy-eating recommendations we need to remember (eat fish twice a week; replace half your grains with whole grains), I don’t want to have to remember a list of eat-this-once-a-week or once-a-month foods. So, I’m keeping it simple: here are 10 easy-to-eat, easy-to-find, everyday “super” foods. Related Link: Superfoods for $1 or Less

What’s the most ridiculous superfood you've heard of?

By Brierley Wright, M.S., R.D.

Brierley's interest in nutrition and food come together in her position as nutrition editor at EatingWell. Brierley holds a master's degree in Nutrition Communication from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University. A Registered Dietitian, she completed her undergraduate degree at the University of Vermont.

Related Links from EatingWell:

6 of the Best Fish and Shellfish to Eat, 6 to Avoid 12 Foods You Should Buy Organic 7 Anti-Aging Superfoods Get a free trial issue when you subscribe to EatingWell Magazine and sign up for our free e-newsletters!

Use these high-voltage routines to burn away flab...

2010-09-06T14:19:00.000-07:00

11 Fast Cardio Workouts

Morning nectar

2010-09-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Morning nectar: "Blitz your way to better health with good-for-you smoothies and juices that are easy to make and effective over the long term"

a brief guide to life | zen habits

2010-08-29T13:44:00.000-07:00

a brief guide to life | zen habits: "

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2010-08-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

Via: Credit Score

2010-08-14T21:33:00.000-07:00

Via: Term Life Insurance

Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart: Scientific American

2010-06-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

Carbs against Cardio: More Evidence that Refined Carbohydrates, not Fats, Threaten the Heart: Scientific American: "

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Tea: The Elixir of a Long Life

2010-06-12T16:15:00.000-07:00

Tea: The Elixir of a Long Life: "Lengthen your years, starting with this one simple tip: drink more tea. Delicious, low-calorie and brimming with antioxidants, tea is one of the most commonly enjoyed beverage by centenarians around the world, second only to water. Even in the US, its popularity is rapidly growing. With the healthy longevity benefits you stand to gain, you too will want to drink up.

What is tea and what makes it so healthy?

Technically speaking, 'tea' is the dried and processed leaves of Camellia sinensis, a tree that is indigenous to Asia. There are four main varieties of tea: black, oolong, green, and white tea. (Yellow and pu-erh are two other varieties of tea, but are not as widespread.)

Black tea, produced when tea leaves undergo an oxidizing process that turns the leaves black, has the strongest flavor and the highest caffeine content -- about one third the caffeine you would get from the same cup of coffee. Oolong tea is slightly less oxidized and has less caffeine. Green tea is steamed, rolled and dried immediately after harvest, which halts the oxidation process, allowing the leaves to retain their green color. White tea undergoes the least processing -- the young tea buds are picked and air-dried. All of these varieties have different health benefits, with green tea and white tea leading the pack.

According to studies published in the Journal of American Medical Association, tea lowers your risk of death from all forms of cardiovascular diseases. And, there is growing evidence that tea potentially has cancer-fighting properties, plays a role in improving beneficial intestinal microflora, wards off diabetes, and helps protect your brain from free-radical damage. Also, the amino acid L-theanine, found almost exclusively in the tea plant, actively alters the attention networks of the brain, stimulating the production of alpha waves in the brain and producing feelings of well-being. Because it crosses the blood/brain barrier, it can increase levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which benefits mood while improving learning and concentration.

While all the choices are good, in many ways, green tea brings the most benefits to the table. Research has found that green tea has the power to effectively protect against Alzheimer's disease and other forms of mental degeneration with its natural anti-oxidative and anti-inflammatory properties. Green tea is packed with polyphenols, antioxidants that have been found to increase cognitive acuity and learning ability. One particular polyphenol is responsible for these beneficial brain effects: catechin. The concentration of catechins in green tea is four times that of black tea. Researchers aren't exactly sure why, but some conjecture that the minimal processing used for green tea may help to preserve a higher concentration of the antioxidants.

How to get the benefits into your body? A study from Purdue University found that more antioxidant catechins are absorbed in the bloodstream when citrus is added to the tea, so for best effects, squeeze a little lemon in your teacup.

What about herbal tea?

Well, herbal tea is not really tea at all, but actually an infusion or tisane made from various leaves, flowers, fruit or herbs. For thousands of years, the Chinese have blended specialized herbal teas from plants that exhibited medicinal properties to maintain health and prevent illness.

While 'real' tea has many health benefits, a major pro to herbal tea is that it is caffeine-free. Originating from plants, herbal tea also offers many of the same polyphenol antioxidants that benefit your long-term health. Also, you can tailor your tea to your needs by selecting herbs and plants that address the health issue you want to target. To soak up some of the health benefits, try the following key herbal teas for health and longevity.

Peppermint has many well-documented properties: it increases healthy gastric secretions, relaxes the intestines, soothes spasms, settles the stomach, and alleviates gas.

Ginger, also extensively studied, has been shown to soothe the digestive lining and balance gastric juices. It will also naturally fire up your energy. Make ginger tea by slicing fresh ginger root into two inch long slices and boil in one cup of water for five minutes. Strain out the ginger and sip the tea slowly.

Chamomile is another excellent herb for settling the stomach. It also soothes the nervous system and relaxes the muscles, making it a perfect choice for the evening, an hour before bed.

For maximum health benefits, I suggest you work with a licensed acupuncturist or traditional Chinese medicine practitioner to find an herbal blend tailored specifically to your health needs. Among my patients, a very popular herbal tea is Internal Cleanse Tea, which is specially combined to detoxify, calm nerves, clear the mind, balance emotions and ease digestion.

Here are some brewing tips for the best health benefits:

• Tap water affects the taste of tea, so it is better to use water from a high-performance filtration system, such as Aquasana.

• To extract the most beneficial compounds from the tea leaves or bags, let them steep for three to five minutes.

• It is best to drink tea unsweetened and without milk, which can minimize some of the health benefits. Forgo the sugar and try instead honey, stevia products, or a stick of cinnamon.

I hope you drink to your health for years to come! May you live long, live strong, and live happy!

Blueberries and Kale Placed on Most Toxic List

2010-06-04T20:32:00.000-07:00

Blueberries and Kale Placed on Most Toxic List: "The 'dirty dozen' list of the 12 fruits and vegetables with the highest content of pesticides is published by the Environmental Working Group at their allied site www.foodnews.org. For years I have been recommending that my patients, friends and family use this list to choose which foods they should purchase organically. If you like to eat any of the dirty dozen, then these are the foods you should be using your 'organic food budget' money to purchase, rather than using it for foods that are not high in insecticide content (they also list the 'clean 15').

The classics that have been on the list for the last decade are still on there: strawberries, peaches, apples, celery, bell peppers, spinach, cherries, imported grapes and potatoes. But this year, two new ones made it onto the list: blueberries and kale. Kale is the first of the brassica family (broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts and kale) to hit the list. Many of its relatives have been on the 'least toxic' list in the past, so this is quite surprising -- as is the presence of one of my most favorite foods on the list: blueberries.

But, what is the deal with blueberries?

The EWG's dirty dozen list is based upon the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Pesticide Data Program. The most recent report, published in December of 2009, comprised all the data they had accumulated in 2008. It turns out that this was the first year that they had included blueberries in their study. This provides part of the explanation for its presence on the current list. However, I was really puzzled because I used to have blueberry bushes at my home in the Seattle area. I had four bushes that were over 75 years old, and they produced a lot of wonderful blueberries. Now, I did raise my entire garden organically, but I did not need to use any pest control on the blueberries with the sole exception of bird netting. So, I have been quite baffled by the addition of blueberries to the most toxic list, as pesticides shouldn't be necessary on them in the first place.

When I reviewed the Pesticide Data Program annual summary for 2008 I did find that the information was given by pesticide, not by food. So, there was no easy way to read all of the pesticide compounds that were found on blueberries. But, there was a table that gave basic information about many of the foods, including blueberries.

Here is what they said about blueberries:

They began with 726 samples of blueberries. Of those 726 they ran 166 analyses each for a total of 120,797 measurements (each for a different insecticide compound). Of those 120,797 tests 1,736 were positive and 119,061 were negative. They found a total of 46 different pesticide residues -- which is why blueberries made the list.

When I studied the report (by going through all the insecticides to see how the blueberries rated, I found that 17 out of those 46 pesticides were only found on less than one percent of all the blueberries tested. Another 14 of the 46 were found in less than nine percent of all blueberries tested, which means that 31 of the 46 pesticides that were found most likely drifted from other agricultural areas. Such infrequent contamination would have also been found on my backyard organic blueberries! Of the 46 insecticides found, seven were present in 15 percent or more of all samples with two fungicides found in over 30 percent. All but one of those seven commonly found compounds were fungicides, which makes much more sense for berry crops (but is still unnecessary). While I will still buy organic blueberries, I feel better knowing blueberries are not as toxic as I thought after reading the new list.

The other piece of good news that I found in this hunt was that frozen blueberries had less than half the number of insecticides present as the fresh berries. Since frozen blueberries deliver a much higher load of the health-giving berry pigments than fresh berries, this is the form that I typically recommend people consume.

Are Your Weight Issues Tied to Insulin Resistance?

2010-06-04T20:29:00.000-07:00

Are Your Weight Issues Tied to Insulin Resistance?: "Frequently, a new client will walk into my office knowing he or she needs to lose weight, get in shape and improve their health. Perhaps they feel sluggish and are hungry a good part of the day, and nothing they do makes a difference. Multiple diet regimes, exercise programs, lose-weight-quick gimmicks -- they've tried them all and are just fed up.

With no visible results, many are still searching for the root of the problem, which could actually be insulin resistance. Not until the last 10 years did many health care professionals really understand what it is and its impact on the body. It affects metabolism, hunger levels and zeal for life, and if untreated, can turn into diabetes.

A Key That Won't Turn

Simply put, insulin is the key that unlocks the cell for sugar to get in, which in turn enables your body to use the food you consume. However, somewhere along the line, the key either gets stuck or has difficulty getting into the lock. Or, if it does get in, it can't turn the lock, hence the term 'resistant.' If your body develops a resistance to insulin, you are not able to utilize the food you take in, which can increase your fatigue and your cravings for ever-increasing amounts of carbohydrates.

Why is this a problem? Well, if your insulin is not working properly, it sets up a cascade of effects which are not in your favor. This includes the ability to store fat more easily, as well as increases in blood pressure and cholesterol or triglycerides, which can lead to fatty liver.

Lifestyle or Lifelong?

Is insulin resistance a lifestyle issue? The answer is yes, but ...

Insulin resistance is associated with a sedentary lifestyle -- a diet high in processed carbohydrates and calories beyond one's metabolism -- but it can be present at birth.

Research now shows what a mother eats or how much she exercises during pregnancy affects the child's genetic tendencies toward weight issues, insulin resistance or possibly diabetes.

The classic insulin-resistant body has thin arms and legs and stores much of its fat in the abdominal region, which many of us know as 'belly fat.' This type of body is also known as apple-shaped. If you have a different body shape, you may still be insulin resistant, but to a lesser degree.

Get the Facts and Turn the Tide

What can you do if you think you are insulin resistant and want to avoid diabetes as well as lose weight and increase your energy? Work with your doctor to get some data.

Have your physician monitor not only your cholesterol panel, but your fasting blood sugar, insulin levels and your three month average blood sugar, called the glycosylated hemoglobin A1C.

Here's what you want to see:

* A fasting blood sugar less than 100 mg/dl. (A level of 100-115 mg/dl. indicates pre-diabetes)

* Fasting insulin levels should be less than 10

* The glycosylated hemoglobin A1C should be within a range of four to six

Changing three major ingredients of your lifestyle -- eating healthy meals, exercising and getting enough high-quality sleep -- can make a huge impact on these values.

Make Systematic, Healthy Meals

A proper diet is very effective at calming the system down, and can be achieved by eating regular, nutritionally-rich meals.

A healthy way to put together a meal is:

1. Start with a healthy source of protein such as organic and/or grass-fed meat, poultry, wild fish, organic eggs, plain yogurt, cheese, raw nuts/seeds and natural nut butters.

2. Balance it with a natural carbohydrate, such as fresh fruit and vegetables. Carbohydrates coming from fruits and vegetables seem to have less of an effect on insulin resistance than starches, even if they are whole grains.

3. Round out the meal with a healthy fat such as avocado or olive oil.

Foods that contain omega-3 fats such as olive oil, nuts, fish, fish oil and ground flax seed have been shown to make insulin more efficient, which can lead to increased fat loss.

Exercise Turns the Key

Research shows that exercise can make your insulin work up to 50 percent better.

According to Glen Gaessar, Ph.D., a professor of kinesiology at the University of Virginia, 'Exercise is essential because muscle is the biggest tissue in the body, making up 30-40 percent of body mass. It's the major site of glucose (sugar) disposal. Inactive muscle is not as sensitive to insulin.'

Exercise literally opens up the flood gates of the cells and allows the glucose or sugar to get in. When people ask if there is a magic pill for insulin resistance, I tell them that exercise is that pill!

Count Your Sheep

What if your diet and exercise are in line, but you don't get enough rest? If you are lacking sleep, the hormone that increases your appetite -- called ghrelin -- increases. Higher levels of ghrelin in combination with insulin resistance are a perfect combination for weight gain and fatigue.

So, where does all this information leave us? Even if you have a genetic tendency for insulin resistance and diabetes you can still control the symptoms and have good health. You may have to work harder than those who are insulin sensitive and naturally thin, but results are achievable.

Your recipe for life is a combination of lifestyle factors that include diet, exercise and sleep. The goal is to have these elements work together in concert to achieve optimal health and vitality.

For more information on insulin resistance visit: http://www.susandopart.com

Obesity and the Fastness of Food - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com

2010-05-20T15:35:00.000-07:00

Obesity and the Fastness of Food - Economix Blog - NYTimes.com: "

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2010-04-25T19:32:00.000-07:00

Via: Online Schools

7 Anti-Aging Tips to Keep Your Brain Young: The No. 1 Thing You Can Do? | Anti-Aging | Reader's Digest

2010-03-27T09:54:00.000-07:00

7 Anti-Aging Tips to Keep Your Brain Young: The No. 1 Thing You Can Do? | Anti-Aging | Reader's Digest: "

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3 reasons your workouts aren't working - Healthy Living on Shine

2010-03-07T19:40:00.000-08:00

3 reasons your workouts aren't working - Healthy Living on Shine: "

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Google

2010-02-25T19:20:00.001-08:00

Quick Fix Diets - How Many Calories Do You Really Need a day

2009-11-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

Quick Fix Diets - How Many Calories Do You Really Need a day: "Find out exactly how many calories YOU need a day to help you lose weight... Everybody is different depending on their metabolic rate... Work your calories out using this easy method."

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush

2009-10-24T16:52:00.000-07:00

Polluting the earth

Amazing Pictures, Pollution in China | ChinaHush: "

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World Animal day 2009

2009-10-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

world animal day

Autumn scenes - The Big Picture - Boston.com

2009-10-16T08:54:00.000-07:00

Autumn scenes - The Big Picture - Boston.com: "

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Maximizing Methylation: The Key to Healthy Aging

2009-10-09T21:11:00.001-07:00

Maximizing Methylation: The Key to Healthy Aging: "

Taking just a few vitamins CAN optimize the function of ALL your body's systems. It’s true. But you have to know what to take and you have to know why these supplements work ...

That’s why, in this week’s blog, I am going to discuss one of the most important biochemical processes for long-term health and how you can keep it running at its very best with supplements and other measures.

Unfortunately, many people suffer from one or more of the 8 factors that negatively impact this biochemical process, so problems in this area are widespread though many don’t realize they are suffering.

The good news is that there are MANY things that you can do right now to optimize this critical biochemical process that may have a dramatic impact on your health. In today’s blog I will review the 8 factors that can lead to problems in this area, and outline 12 tips that will help you optimize this essential part of your biology.

But first, I'd like to tell you about two of my patients with seemingly unrelated health problems that were actually caused by a breakdown in this biochemical process. And I want to share a study done on Chinese babies who had a birth defect known as spina bifida.

You'll be amazed at how all three -- my two patients and these Chinese babies -- were affected by the exact same thing ...

What an Elderly Golfer, a College Professor, and Chinese Babies have in Common

One of my patients, Mr. Roberts, was an 88-year-old businessman who didn't let his age slow him down. He still golfed three times a week, worked two days a week, flew around the world in his private jet, and was 'romantic' once a week with a wife 30 years his junior. He also loved his 6 ounces of Grey Goose vodka every night.

Of course, he did have some health problems. Mr. Roberts had been treated well for mild heart disease. His doctor even recommended 800 mcg of folic acid and 250 mcg of vitamin B12 -- megadoses by any standard.

Mr. Roberts also had a check-up at the Mayo Clinic and was told that he was healthy, despite having mild anemia and large red blood cells. Yet he still complained of mild fatigue and trouble with his short-term memory. Plus, I noticed a slightly wide gait common in someone with poor balance.

Then there was Mr. McNally, a Boston college professor who was 50 years old, fit, and lean but wore a worried look as he walked into my office.

He recounted the sad tale of his 7 brothers. Four had died of a heart attack and three others had had bypass operations at a young age. Concerned about his own fate, he ate a low-fat diet, exercised regularly, didn't smoke, had normal blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and took antioxidants and a multivitamin. Perhaps his only vice was the multiple Starbuck's grande lattes he downed each day. Living under a constant state of impending doom, Mr. McNally came to me asking for a stress test to see how his heart was doing.

Strange as it may seem, these two men reminded me of my time in China. When I lived in Beijing, a study was done on a group of women in Harbin, the northern most industrial city in the Gobi desert, just north of Beijing. It seemed that there was an unusually high rate of birth defects in the area, specifically spina bifida.

The Chinese have a tradition of holding weddings during the Chinese New Year in February. In Harbin, many of the babies born 9 months later had birth defects. This study sought to determine what the link was and found that the major factor was the lack of fresh greens or vegetables in the Gobi desert in the middle of winter.

Interestingly, these Chinese babies, Mr. Roberts, and Mr. McNally all have something very important in common. They all have inadequate levels of specific vitamins, either acquired or genetic, and their methylation systems are not working properly as a result. I'll explain more about what 'methylation' is in a second. First let’s analyze the similarities in these cases.

Take Mr. Roberts. Our romantically active 88-year-old took high doses of B vitamins. But he still had very high levels of homocysteine and methylmalonic acid -- indicators of folic acid and B12 deficiency.

Mr. McNally had similar problems. Our college professor had a genetically sluggish metabolism of homocysteine which caused extremely high levels of this toxic amino acid to build up in his blood. This was the likely cause of all the heart disease in his family.

Again we see a similar set of problems in those Chinese babies. Their mothers were conceiving in the middle of winter -- when their folate intake was low from the absence of fruits and vegetables. This is what triggered such a high rate of birth defects.

The common link in all three of these cases is a problem with methylation. Let me tell you more about that that actually means.

Methylation is a key biochemical process that is essential for the proper function of almost all of your body's systems. It occurs billions of times every second; it helps repair your DNA on a daily basis; it controls homocysteine (an unhealthy compound that can damage blood vessels); it helps recycle molecules needed for detoxification; and it helps maintain mood and keep inflammation in check.

To keep methylation running smoothly you need optimal levels of B vitamins. Without enough B vitamins methylation breaks down, and the results can be catastrophic. In these cases we see more birth defects like spina bifida (as with the Chinese babies), more cases of Down's syndrome, and more miscarriage.

A breakdown in methylation also puts you at higher risk for conditions like osteoporosis, diabetes, cervical dysplasia and cancer, colon cancer, lung cancer, depression, pediatric cognitive dysfunction ( mood and other behavioral disorders), dementia, and stroke. And like Mr. Roberts and Mr. McNally, you may be at higher risk for cardiovascular disease.

To avoid all of these problems, the key is to maximize methylation. That means avoiding the things that cause your methylation to break down, testing to find out how well your methylation is working, and including the things that support proper methylation. Let’s look at how to do that.

8 Factors that Affect Your Methylation Process

8 major factors negatively impact methylation. They are:

1. Genetics.

2. Poor diet. The word 'folate' comes from 'foliage.' You need to eat plenty of leafy greens, beans, fruit, and whole grains to get adequate levels of vitamins B6 and B12, betaine, and folate. Egg yolks, meat, liver, and oily fish are the main dietary sources of vitamin B12 -- so long-term vegan diets can be a problem. Plus, certain compounds can raise levels of homocysteine and deplete the B vitamins. These include excess animal protein, sugar, saturated fat, coffee, and alcohol. Irradiation of food depletes nutrients, so foods treated this way may be lower in B vitamins, too.

3. Smoking. The carbon monoxide from cigarette smoke inactivates vitamin B6.

4. Malabsorption. Conditions like digestive diseases, food allergies, and even aging can reduce absorption of nutrients.

5. Decreased stomach acid. Aging and other conditions can reduce stomach acid -- and therefore absorption of vitamin B12.

6. Medications. Drugs like acid blockers, methotrexate (for cancer and arthritis and other autoimmune diseases), oral contraceptives, HCTZ (for high blood pressure), and Dilantin (for seizures) can all affect levels of B vitamins.

7. Other conditions. These include hypothyroidism, kidney failure or having only one kidney, cancer, and pregnancy.

8. Toxic exposures. Some toxins can interfere with vitamin production.

Watch out for these factors and you will go a long way toward protecting your methylation.

Measuring Your Own Methylation Process

To find out if your methylation process is optimal, ask your doctor for the following tests:

1. Complete blood count.

2. Homocysteine. This is one of the most important tests you can ask for. The normal level is less than 13, but the ideal level is likely between 6 and 8.

3. Serum or urinary methylmalonic acid. This is a more specific test for vitamin B12 insufficiency. Your levels may be elevated even if you have a normal serum vitamin B12 or homocysteine level.

4. Specific urinary amino acids. These can be used to look for unusual metabolism disorders involving vitamins B6 or B12 or folate, which may not show up just by checking methylmalonic acid or homocysteine.

12 Tips to Optimize Your Methylation Process

Just as there are many causes of poor methylation, there are lots of things that support its proper functioning. Here's how to maximize methylation -- and prevent conditions like heart disease, cancer, dementia, depression, and more.

1. Eat more dark, leafy greens.

2. Get more Bs in your diet. Good food sources include sunflower seeds and wheat germ (vitamin B6); fish and eggs (vitamin B6 and B12); cheese (B12); beans and walnuts (vitamin B6 and folate); leafy dark green vegetables; asparagus, almonds, and whole grains (folate); and liver (all three).

3. Minimize animal protein, sugar, and saturated fat. Animal protein directly increases homocysteine. Sugar and saturated fat deplete your body's vitamin stores.

4. Avoid processed foods and canned foods. These are depleted in vitamins.

5. Avoid caffeine. Excess amounts can deplete your B vitamin levels.

6. Limit alcohol to 3 drinks a week. More than this can deplete your B vitamin levels.

7. Don't smoke. As noted above, smoking inactivates vitamin B6.

8. Avoid medications that interfere with methylation. See notes on this above.

9. Keep the bacteria in your gut healthy. Take probiotic supplements and use other measures to make sure the bacteria in your gut are healthy so you can properly absorb the vitamins you do get.

10. Improve stomach acid. Use herbal digestives (bitters) or taking supplemental HCl.

11. Take supplements that prevent damage from homocysteine. Antioxidants protect you from homocysteine damage. Also make sure you support methylation with supplements like magnesium and zinc.

12. Supplement to help support proper homocysteine metabolism. Talk to your doctor to determine the best doses and forms for you. Here are a few suggestions:

• Folate (folic acid):

• Vitamin B6: Take 2 to 5 mg a day. Some people may need up to 250 mg or even special 'active' B6 (pyridoxyl-5-phosphate) to achieve the greatest effect. Doses higher than 500 mg may cause nerve injury.

• Vitamin B12: Doses of 500 mcg may be needed to protect against heart disease. Oral vitamin B12 isn't well absorbed; you may need up to 1 or 2 mg daily. Ask your doctor about B12 shots.

• Betaine: This amino acid derivative is needed in doses from 500 to 3,000 mg a day, depending on the person.

By working to optimize your methylation you can protect yourself from virtually all the so called 'diseases of aging.' When you do, you will be well on the road to lifelong vibrant health.

Now I'd like to hear from you ...

Do you have symptoms of poor methylation?

What are you doing to optimize this process?

Do you take B-vitamin supplements? Have you noticed any results?

Please share your thoughts by adding a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

Vitamin D: What You Need To Know

2009-10-08T17:59:00.000-07:00

Vitamin D: What You Need To Know: "Hardly a day goes by without some groundbreaking news about Vitamin D. Originally known for it's crucial role in maintaining calcium levels for bone health, it is rapidly becoming apparent that we have vastly underestimated Vitamin D's significant importance for our overall health and wellbeing. In short, judging by what I see in my practice and speaking with colleagues around the country, it's looking very much like we're facing an epidemic of Vitamin D deficiency, with potential grave consequences. This Vitamin D FAQ will help to get you up to speed on this important topic.

What diseases are associated with Vitamin D deficiency?

Vitamin D deficiency has been shown to play a role in almost every major disease, including:

Osteoporosis and Osteopenia

17 varieties of Cancer (including breast, prostate and colon)

Heart disease

High blood pressure

Obesity

Metabolic Syndrome and Diabetes

Autoimmune diseases

Multiple sclerosis

Rheumatoid arthritis

Osteoarthritis

Bursitis

Gout

Infertility and PMS

Parkinson's Disease

Depression and Seasonal Affective Disorder

Alzheimer's Disease

Chronic fatigue syndrome

Fibromyalgia

Chronic Pain

Periodontal disease

Psoriasis

What is vitamin D?

Although it's called a vitamin, vitamin D is really a hormone not a vitamin. Vitamins cannot be produced by your body, we get them from dietary sources, whereas hormones like vitamin D are made in your body. It's your body's only source of calcitrol (activated vitamin D), the most potent steroid hormone in the body.

What does vitamin D do?

Like all steroid hormones, vitamin D is involved in making hundreds of enzymes and proteins, which are crucial for preserving health and preventing disease. It has the ability to interact and affect more than 2,000 genes in the body. It enhances muscle strength and builds bone. It has anti-inflammatory effects and bolsters the immune system. It helps the action of insulin and has anti-cancer activity. This is why vitamin D deficiency has been linked with so many of the diseases of modern society. Because of its vast array of benefits, maintaining optimal levels of D is essential for your health.

Where do I get vitamin D from?

The only 2 reliable sources of vitamin D are the sun and supplements. Sunlight exposure is the only reliable way for your body to generate vitamin D. Vitamin D is produced by your skin in response to exposure to ultraviolet radiation from the sun. In fact, this is such an efficient system that most of us make approx. 20,000 units of vitamin D after only 20 minutes of summer sun without suntan lotion (or clothes!) That's 100 times more than the government recommends per day! There must be a good reason why we make so much in so little time.

You do not generate vitamin D when sitting behind a glass window, whether in your car or at home because these UV rays cannot penetrate glass to generate vitamin D in your skin Also sunscreens, even weak ones, almost completely block your body's ability to generate vitamin D.

The other reliable source is vitamin D3 supplements (not vitamin D2)

Only about 10% of your vitamin D comes from diet, so it is nearly impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from your food.

What are the food sources of vitamin D?

1. Fish liver oils, such as cod liver oil.  Fatty wild fish like mackerel, salmon, halibut, tuna, sardines and herring

2.  Fortified milk, orange juice and cereal

3. Dried Shitake mushrooms

4. Egg yolks

But to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from food, you would have to eat at least 5 servings of salmon a day or drink 20 cups of fortified milk

My Doctor told me to avoid the sun, what do you think?

There is an old Italian saying 'Where the sun does not go the doctor does.'

For about the last 25 years, doctors (dermatologists in particular) have demonized sun exposure and repeatedly told us it is bad for you and causes cancer. But is that true? In the last few years, numerous studies have shown that modest exposure to sunlight may actually be good for you, helping the body produce the vitamin D it needs to keep bones healthy and protect against cancer, including skin cancer. Though repeated sunburns--in children and very fair-skinned people--have been linked to melanoma, there is no credible scientific evidence that moderate sun exposure causes it. Since it's almost impossible to get adequate amounts of vitamin D from food alone (including fortified milk and fatty wild fish), the sun is your best source. I'm not suggesting you go bake in the sun with your suntan oil or go to tanning salons. But getting some sun without getting sunburned makes healthy sense.

 We evolved in the sun; we were made to get some sun, not to live our lives indoors and slather on sunscreen every time we go outside. If the sun is shining where you are today, get out and enjoy it, talk about a free natural treatment! All you need is a little common sense when heading outdoors, do it gradually and always avoid sunburn.  

Special Note: Remember to take antioxidants when you sit in the sun, as these can help prevent skin cells from sun damage.

How much sunshine do I need?

All living things need sun, the key is balance. Too much sun exposure can cause melanoma and skin aging, while too little creates an inadequate production of vitamin D. The amount needed depends on the season, time of day, where you live, skin pigmentation and other factors. As a general rule, if you are not vitamin D deficient, about 20 minutes a day in the spring, summer and fall on your face and arms or legs without sunscreen is adequate. It doesn't matter which part of the body you expose to the sun. Many people want to protect their face, so just don't put sunscreen on the other exposed parts for those 20 minutes.

 If you live north of 37 degrees latitude (approximately a line drawn horizontally connecting Norfolk, Virginia to San Francisco, California) sunlight is not sufficient to create Vitamin D in your skin in the winter months, even if you are sitting in the sun in a bathing suit on a warm January day! The further you live from the equator, the longer exposure you need to the sun in order to generate vitamin D

How much vitamin D do I need?

How much vitamin D you need varies with age, body weight, percent of body fat, latitude, skin coloration, season of the year, use of sun block, individual variation in sun exposure, and - probably - how ill you are.

As a general rule, old people need more than young people, big people need more that little people, fat people need more than skinny people, dark-skinned people need more than fair skinned people, northern people need more than southern people, winter people need more than summer people, sun block lovers need more than sun block haters, sun-phobes need more than sun worshipers, and ill people may need more than well people.

What I and many of my colleagues around the country are finding is that even people spending what we thought was adequate amount of time in the sun, are still showing up with low blood vitamin D levels. I am not sure why at this stage but there is an easy and cheap solution...vitamin D supplementation.

How much vitamin D should I supplement with?

Most important is that you take vitamin D3, (cholecalciferol) the active form of vitamin D. Do not take vitamin D2 as it is not as biologically active nor as effective, and nor as safe as vitamin D3. And taking the right amount is crucial, most doctors tend to under dose. The current recommendations from the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S. Institute of Medicine: from 200 to 600 IU/day depending on one's age, are way too low. These values were originally chosen because they were found to prevent osteomalacia (bone softening) and rickets

Here are some guidelines

If your blood level is above 45ng/ml and for maintenance, I recommend 2,000-4,000 IU daily depending on age, weight, season, how much time is spent outdoors, where one lives, skin color and obviously blood levels

In other words if you are older, larger, living in the northern latitudes during the winter, are not getting sun and have dark skin, I recommend the higher maintenance dose.

If your blood level is 30-45 ng/ml, I recommend you correct it with 5,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day for 3 months under a doctor's supervision and then recheck your blood levels.

If your blood level is less than 30 ng/ml, I recommend you correct it with 10,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day under a doctor's supervision and then recheck your blood levels after 3 months. It takes a good 6 months usually to optimize your vitamin D levels if you're deficient. Once this occurs, you can lower the dose to the maintenance dose of 2,000 - 4,000 IU a day.

What are the symptoms of vitamin D deficiency?

There is no clear pattern of symptoms. In fact many people remain asymptomatic despite low levels. But here are some of the more common symptoms:

Fatigue

General muscle pain and weakness

Muscle cramps

Joint pain

Chronic pain

Weight gain

High blood pressure

Restless sleep

Poor concentration

Headaches

Bladder problems

Constipation or diarrhea

 What about vitamin D toxicity?

It is impossible to generate too much vitamin D in your body from sunlight exposure: your body will self-regulate and only generate what it needs. Although very rare, it is possible to overdose and become toxic with supplementation as vitamin D is a fat soluble vitamin and therefore stored in the body for longer periods of time. Therefore if you are taking 5,000 IU or more daily, you should have your blood levels monitored approximately every 3 months. 

What blood test should I have to check my vitamin D levels?  

The only blood test that can diagnose vitamin D deficiency is a 25-hydroxy-vitamin D (25 OH vitamin D). Unfortunately, some doctors are still ordering the wrong test, 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D. In fact a common cause of high 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D is a low 25(OH)D or vitamin D deficiency. So when doctors see the 1,25-dihydroxy-vitamin D is normal or high and tell their patients that they are OK, they are often vitamin D deficient.

Your doctor should do this test for you. Unfortunately even some of the labs, in particular Qwest, have had problems with correct results, usually giving erroneously high results.

If you don't want to go through your doctor, the ZRT lab does a blood spot test that you can order without going through a doctor.

What is the ideal blood level of 25 hydroxy vitamin D?

The current ranges for 'normal' are 20 to 55 ng/ml. These are much too low!!! They may be fine if you want to prevent rickets or osteomalacia, but not for optimal health. The ideal range for optimal health is 50-80 ng/ml.

How often should I have a 25 hydroxy vitamin D blood test?

At least once a year especially at the beginning of winter. If you are supplementing, I suggest you monitor your vitamin D levels approximately every 3months until you are in the optimal range. If you are taking high doses (10,000 IU a day) your doctor must also check your calcium, phosphorous, and parathyroid hormone levels every 3 months

My doctor prescribed Drisdol, 50,000 IU per week. What is it?  

Drisdol is a prescription of 50,000 IU tablets of vitamin D2 or ergocalciferol. Ergocalciferol is not vitamin D but it is similar. D2 is not normally found in humans and most studies show it does not raise 25(OH)D levels as well as (cholecalciferol or vit D3) does. If you are vitamin D deficient, the best thing to do, is to take vitamin D3.

Can I take cod liver oil to get my vitamin D?

  Although Cod liver oil contains a fair amount of vitamin D, it also contains high amounts of vitamin A. Vitamin A antagonizes the action of vitamin D and can be toxic at high levels.

Why is there an epidemic of vitamin D deficiency?

It is estimated that anywhere from 30 to 100% of Americans, depending upon their age and community living environments, are deficient in Vitamin D. More than half of all American children are vitamin deficient. Supposedly almost 3/4s of pregnant women are vitamin D deficient, predisposing their unborn children to all sorts of problems. Worldwide, it is estimated that the epidemic of vitamin D deficiency affects one billion people. In my practice over 80% of patients whose vitamin D levels I check are deficient. No one is exactly sure why this is happening apart from the fact that we spend too much time indoors and when we go out into the sun, we lather sunscreen on ourselves. I think it must be more than that. But whatever the reason, the reality is we have a major epidemic on our hands.

What about the use of tanning beds to get my vitamin D?

I tend not to recommend them because we don't really know if they are safe. Because the light sources vary with different tanning beds, it makes them unpredictable and possibly unsafe. In addition, most commercial tanning beds emit an unknown amount of EMF and because one is so close to the actual bed, it may be an unnecessary high dose. Theoretically both these problems could be overcome, but in reality they usually are not.   

For more information on vitamin D, go to http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/

Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).

Swine Flu: What To Do?

2009-09-27T08:32:00.000-07:00

Swine Flu: What To Do?: "Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, 'what do I do about Swine flu?' My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!

From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.

From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.

This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine

1) At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.

Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It's not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who've been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there's no need for mass vaccination.

2) We don't know if the vaccine will be effective.

Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.

3) We don't know if the vaccine is safe.

The FDA has authorized an expedited approval process for the swine flu vaccine but we don't know yet if it is safe. Even GlaxoSmithKline, one of the vaccine manufacturers has said, 'The total population studied in clinical trials will be limited, due to the need to provide the vaccine to governments as quickly as possible. Additional studies will therefore be required and conducted after the vaccine is made available.'

In other words, the only thing that is safe, is to say that no one knows. Since it's never been used before and they have not had time to conduct any sufficient human testing, by getting vaccinated you are being a human guinea pig.

4) Vaccine manufacturers have been insulated from liability by the government.

The Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sibelius has granted legal immunity not only to the makers of the 2 drugs being used to treat swine flu, Tamiflu and Relenza, but also to the swine flu vaccine makers, for damages due to their use against swine flu. By effectively manipulating the legal system, the Pharmaceutical Industry through their powerful lobbyists have acquired almost complete and total insulation from any liability for their vaccines and adjuvants, which are additives added to generate a stronger immune response. It is believed that it is these adjuvants which often cause the problems. The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign against a new swine flu was in 1976. Thousands filed claims for side effects such as paralysis caused by the vaccine and a number of people died. I am sure that the researchers know more now than they did last time and no one can say for certain that bad things will happen again or that you will suffer dire consequences if you get vaccinated. But this time you have no legal recourse even though this vaccine involves new factors, which makes it therefore experimental and unpredictable.

By shielding the manufacturers from any responsibility for any harm caused, the pharmaceutical firms have no financial incentive to make the safest product. In fact, they have a negative incentive to test it for safety, because if they are aware of problems, then they could potentially be held liable for willful misconduct.

Instead I advise my patients to build up and strengthen their immune systems to prevent viral infections.

Here are my top 10 recommendations:

1) Optimize your vit D level

Adequate levels of Vitamin D are essential for our immune systems to function optimally. Unfortunately there are no significant dietary sources of Vitamin D, most of our intake comes from exposure to sunlight. If you live far from the equator, you simply don't get enough sun through Fall and Winter to make all the vitamin D you need. So unless you supplement during this period, your innate immunity will be compromised. Vitamin D plays such a crucial role in so many aspects of your body's functioning, that supplementing with it makes sense whether you decide to get the flu shot or not.

We know that influenza always gets worse during the winter months. Now there is good evidence to suggest that this is because as sunlight hours lessen during the winter, the people living in the northern hemisphere become vitamin D deficient and are susceptible to influenza infections of all kinds. Here's a great article available at NIH pertaining to this topic.

There is also some evidence that supplementation with a sufficient amount of vitamin D can help to prevent the onset of a flu or cold.

The current recommendations from the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S. Institute of Medicine: from 200 to 600 IU/day depending on one's age, are way too low. These values were originally chosen because they were found to prevent osteomalacia (bone softening) and rickets. It is now recognized that vitamin D has many additional physiological functions, for which these levels are totally inadequate. A number of scientists are therefore calling for the Food and Nutrition Board in the U.S. and its counterparts abroad to reassess their current recommendations.

To optimize your vit D levels, you will need to

Take at least 2,000 IU of a Vitamin D3 supplement daily.

Get your 25 hydroxy Vitamin D level checked by your doctor (if that is not an option, you can self test your level with ZRT labs)

Although the current normal range is between 20 and 50ng/ml, this is much too low for optimal health. You want your level to be between 50 and 70ng/ml. This is the most important step you can take to prevent the flu!! It may require a number of months taking 5,000 to 10,000 IU of Vit D3 daily (especially during winter) under a doctor's supervision, to optimize your blood level. Monitor your 25 hydroxy vitamin D status every 3 months until you are in the optimal range, then cut back to a maintenance dose of at least 2,000 IU a day.

2) Get adequate sleep, this is an indispensable requirement for a strong immune system.

3) Get adequate exercise, this keeps you robust.

4) Take actions to lower your stress levels

Do breathing exercises, meditate, practice yoga, spend time doing something that makes you happy. Feeling spent, overwhelmed, and/or mentally run down has a causal relationship to your physical health.

5) Wash your hands frequently but not excessively

It decreases your likelihood of spreading a virus to your nose, mouth or other people. Be sure you don't use antibacterial soap because of the risk of creating resistant bacteria. Rather use a simple chemical-free soap.

6) Avoid sugar and processed foods as they decrease your immune function dramatically.

7) Eat phytonutrient rich meals (lots of colorful salads and dark greens)

8) Eat lots of garlic, it works as a broad spectrum antibiotic.

9) Take a probiotic daily (look for one with 10-20 billion organisms).

A strong immune system relies heavily on having a strong foundation in the gut.

10) Keep a supply of antiviral herbal supplements on hand.

As opposed to antiviral drugs, antiviral herbs do not cause resistant strains because they are multifaceted and contain literally thousands of different medicinal compounds. Thus they are able to attack viruses with a full spectrum of synergistic substances. Andrographis, Olive leaf extract, Grapefruit seed extract and Elderberry extract, all have antiviral properties. Use one or a combination of some of them as a prophylactic measure, for ex.whenever you travel (airports) or enter a potentially compromised environment such as a large office, auditorium, stadium, theater etc.

And if you really want to go all out, here are 4 more tips:

11) Take 1-2 grams of fish oils daily, its beneficial for immune function.

12) Take 2 grams of Vitamin C daily, yes it does help.

13) Stock your home pharmacy with an immune building formula.

Look for one that contains Cordyceps and Astragulus. Take it throughout the flu season.

14) Keep homeopathic Oscillococcinum on hand

Take it at the earliest sign of a cold or flu. Early intervention is essential. If you are exposed to someone with the flu directly, you can take one dose twice a day for two days. You can also take one vial once a week throughout the winter, and two or three times a week during flu season, as a preventative measure.

Frank Lipman MD, is the founder and director of the Eleven Eleven Wellness Center in NYC a center whose emphasis is on preventive health care and patient education. His personal blend of Western and Eastern Medicine combined with the many other complimentary modalities he has studied, has helped thousands of people recover their energy and zest for life. He is the author of the recent SPENT: End Exhaustion and Feel Great Again (2009) and Total Renewal; 7 key steps to Resilience, Vitality and Long-Term Health (2003).

Your Guide to Music on the Web, Part II

2009-09-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Your Guide to Music on the Web, Part II: "

Last month, I published Part 1 of my Guide To Music On The Web, which covered music recommendation sites, Web radio, independent music sites, playlists, and music visualizations. Today, in Part II we’ll take a tour of music search engines, Web players, ways to share music on Twitter, and music mixing apps.

I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading all of your comments and insights on my previous post and of course, took them under consideration while creating this second part. Please bear in mind that I can’t list ALL the music applications out there. I really tried to find the best and the most used applications that will probably still be here to serve you tomorrow too.

So readers’ main concern was the companies’ business model. You are right. A few of the services might make an exit, and most of them are probably not going to have one, and some are just for fun. I think music services can make money by being innovative enough to get it. Anyway, I don’t want to get into the business model stuff too much, but I will tell you this: The Internet is too competitive, you may be succeed by just being simple, but you may also need to be sophisticated. The era where creating an application first, then two years later thinking how to make money from it, is bygone now, and companies will need to think how to make money sooner than later if they aim for it – This is where innovation comes in and usually wins.

Music Search Engine:

Back in 2007, SkreemR was truly my favorite MP3 search engine. SkreemR locates MP3 files on blogs and webpages, then indexes them on its site, allowing anyone to listen to their favorite music right on the spot. There is no registration required, all you need to do is to search for your desired song/artist, and browse the results. See something that you like? You can play it, rate it, buy it on Amazon, get the song lyrics, watch the video, find related photos on flickr, find concert tickets, download as a ringtone, and finally – yes – you can also share and tweet about it. Unfortunately, now SkreemR has jumping ads all over the site. I understand the need to make money, but did they have to choose the most annoying way to achieve that goal?

I remember the hype around Songza when it first launched… it is a slick Ajax-designed service, which makes it easy to stream music on the web. Well, it still does. Songza became popular for its great usability and the fact that you can easily create playlists, and share music with your friends. At first Songza aggregated music from Seeqpod, then switched to YouTube videos and imeem (where imeem = 30 seconds of a song, and Youtube = full video, low quality). Somewhere around October 2008, the service was acquired by Amie Street for its marketing potential.

Another acquired service is FoxyTunes, this time by Yahoo! in February 2008. FoxyTunes Firefox toolbar extension (launched in 2004) enables control of your favorite music player from the Firefox browser. It supports almost any media player and lets you also find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more – all from the comfort of your browser. Today, it has more than 50,000 weekly downloads, and a cumulative total of nearly 11,000,000 downloads! FoxyTunes also released an additional add-on called TwittyTunes, which allows you to post your currently playing songs to Twitter with a click. On their behalf I have to say, they where the first to offer that. Their search engine: FoxyTunes Planet, is a mashup Netvibes-like page, that gathers music information from Rhapsody, Yahoo!, Flickr, Last.fm, Youtube, Pandora, Amazon, and more.

I sure noticed the difference when I tried Mufin. Looks like they put an emphasis on the site’s usability and design. The interface is so clean and easy to use. Like other services, Mufin will search for your favorite music and will play it on the spot, via Youtube (what else?) It also lets you create playlists in a snap. But what makes it unique is its visualization tool (vision) that lets you discover more music, based on similar artists. Mufin also provides a player which can be downloaded to your desktop for free. The player will help you organize your music, create playlists, find similar music, share tracks with friends on Last.fm, Twitter or Facebook, and so much more.

Fizy’s search engine has no special feature really, it’s just built really well. The service has a simple look & feel, which allows you to listen to music that streams from Youtube, and create playlists if you are logged in. You can connect your Twitter, Friendfeed or Facebook accounts, and share with your friends’ music in realtime. There’s not much to say other than that.

Qloud has quite an impressive history since they launched way back in 2006; At first, it was just a plug-in allowing you to organize your own library better, so you would be able to find the right song at the right time. Then Qloud released ‘My-Music’: A music app for social networks (Facebook, Bebo, Hi5, Myspace, etc), which led them to 1M Facebook users! And finally today, it’s all of the above, plus a real-time music search engine, and a pretty good one. You can search and find music that you like, save and organize your favorites, share music with friends, or find new friends based on shared music taste. You can also import your iTunes or Windows Media Player library, and play your playlist directly from your browser. There’s a rumor that Qloud was acquired by Buzznet last year, but I couldn’t find any formal confirmation about this at either site (Qloud or Buznet).

And finally MySpace Music: A massive hub of free music on the web. MySpace Music gathers all of its music accounts into one searchable page by genre. You can see the entire discography of your favorite artists from anywhere on the globe: view the artists’ music pages, listen to their music, track local concerts and much more. You can also search entire collections of free-to-watch video uploaded by artists or users. Read reviews by users, blog posts by both users and artists, and basically dive into an endless amount of content. Addictive.

Worth mentioning: Wearehunted, which is a playable chart of the most popular songs on the Web..

Web Players:

From your Desktop to the Web, Moof allows you to have a full back up of your own music. Export an xml file of your iTunes library, and listen to your favorite music from any computer. If you don’t want to do that, you can still browse through the Moof music library and play any song you like on-demand from the Web. Moof looks and behaves like a desktop player, with the additional ability to share and see music from friends. If your friends are on Moof, you can browse their entire collection of music, and add favorites to your own personal library. Overall, it’s a great way to find new music. Note that Moof has the coolest registration form ever

Spool.fm is so awesome, but fails to explain the service to its users. What you see when you enter the site is a Web Music Player that lets you find the music you want, then play it right away. What you don’t see is the powerful feature that allows you to see what your friends are listening to in real-time! How it works: Just sign up for the service, invite your friends to join in, and each time you play music on the site, your friends will be able to see what you’re listening to as you listen to it, and vice versa. The music streams from all kinds of free sources—not Youtube.

Like most of the Web Players, Grooveshark allows users to find any song in the world and listen to it instantly. But there are several things that makes it different than the rest; first off, the application’s UI is stunning, and the experience using this site is absolutely a joy. Other than that, there’s so much that you can do: search, find, organize, favorite and add music that you like. Also interact with people in the community, and discover new music from others’ choices. With a team of 40 people they must have a business model (or a lot of VC cash). Grooveshark has a paid VIP version with some exclusive features, and a special interface for VIP users ($3/month or $30/year)

Youtube probably has the largest music database in the Internet, but finding music can be very frustrating since it’s not well organized. I’ve already recommended Jogli as a service that gathers Youtube music into albums in the first part of this guide. JukeFly does the same but also lets you listen to the music as if it was on your desktop music player, only it’s on the Web. JukeFly prepares everything for you, so you don’t really need to create playlists, you just need to choose from a variety of content already made for you. Additionally, JukeFly can stream music from your desktop, but you’ll have to download their plug-in to be able to do so. The player has more features and functionality, which you may or may not need, so don’t be surprised if eventually you find yourself using it as your new music center on the Web. JukeFly is working on a newer version, which will include an iPhone app, concert information, chat, fan-clubs, and Internet radio.

MixTape.me searches an entire database of songs in addition to the millions of songs indexed by MP3 search engine SkreemR to bring you the best results possible. If you sign up for the service you will be able to save your favorite songs, create playlists by simply dragging & dropping tracks into a box, and share playlists with anyone. Users can upload custom album art to any playlist, then embed the playlist at their blog/site. All from a sexy web interface.

How disappointing is it to find out that Lala works only in the U.S when everyone keeps telling me how great this service is… Anyway, I can give you a brief overview of the service from the information I picked up on the site. Windows users can move their entire music collection from the desktop to Lala on the web. Most of your music will be matched to Lala’s catalog and will be available online in minutes; The rest and unmatched music can be uploaded to Lala. If your personal music collection is not enough, you can play over 7 million songs once for free. If you’d like to add songs to your collection, it’ll cost 10 cents per song, and your first 25 songs are free.

JustHearIt plays music over a nicely done application with a great visual experience. The application was created by two students trying to change the stereotype that access to free music is an illegal activity while immersing the user in a unique visual experience. So what can you do at the site? You can listen to music you like, create online music collections & multiple playlists, and hopefully share favorite tracks with friends (it doesn’t say this anywhere, but I presume it does) – not much different from the rest of the services here, except for its nifty UI. BTW, even with their goal to show the world that music can be free and legal, they use Youtube like most services, so I’m not sure what’s unique about that.

Since Seeqpod.com’s service is mostly dead, every service that used them switched to Youtube instead. The pros: Its video ability. The cons: The music quality (but hey, at least we have free music). Same applies to Streamzy, an Ajax-based media player that lives on the web and allows users to create quick playlists from their favorite music. Streamzy says it merely provides search results for media being hosted elsewhere on the Internet – Well, I can’t argue with that. Anyhow, sign in if you want to save playlist, or use it as an alternative music player occasionally.

Post Music on Twitter:

Blip.fm is by far my favorite Twitter music service. It is also the first service that allowed people to send music to twitter in a very easy way, which is what made it what it is today. What makes it so great is that you can use it with or without a Twitter account. Some use it via the Twitter connection, other use it as their main music playlist and enjoy the community within the site only. Anyhow, you can discover new music, and new friends based on your collections. Once you sign up to the site, you can set Twitter to send notifications each time you suggest a new song to friends. It looks like Twitter, it behaves like Twitter, but angled around music only.

Grooveshark’s project Twisten.fm, came out a bit later than Blip.fm and offers pretty much the same service. Sign-up with your Twitter credentials, and share music with your friends on Twitter. The site streams music from Grooveshark, allowing you to enjoy the quality of music played there (blip.fm streams music mostly from Youtube). Overall, it’s a cool place to save your music into playlists, and share directly with your Twitter friends. I wish that both Blip.fm & Twisten.fm would allow people to buy mixed CDs created from their playlist, instead of having to buy each song separately.

Funnel is the new kid on the block, basically the same as Blip.fm and Twisten.fm except with a killer tool—a nifty Bookmarklet! While you play songs on Youtube or Myspace, you can immediately add them to your playlist in Funnel. Another unparalleled feature is the ability to integrate your Twitter account or Tweet only the songs that you want. This way, you don’t feel bad about inundating your Twitter stream with too many of those annoying music updates. Also, you can easily comment on songs that you like.

If you wish to share MP3 links with your Twitter friends, you can do it with the help of Song.ly. Enter an MP3 link, and Song.ly will generate a small player for easy listening over the web. I have to admit that the whole process is somewhat an unnecessary hassle. After all, who’s uploading songs these days when everything is searchable on the web already? On the other hand, you can enjoy a list of songs that’s already been uploaded by others, and are of very good quality, of course. I’d summarize it as a user generated MP3 search engine.

Another successful service, is Twt.fm which finds music that you like and posts it to Twitter in a cool way. All you need to do is to log in via Twitter, type in an artist/track and click preview. Twt.fm then generates a track page using your Twitter page design. Post it on Twitter and your friends will be able to leave you comments on the same page – Example.

Worth mentioning: Listento.fm, and Twones.

Mix & Share:

Not a pure mix service but it still falls into this category, 8tracks allows you to create a Mix (playlist) with your favorite songs. It’s actually very similar to a service that already shut down, Mixwit—so if you missed it, you might as well try 8tracks. Once you sign up to the service you can start searching for music, or uploading it from your computer to build your Mix. You can publish a Mix of no more than 8 tracks and only two of these can be from the same artist. Visitors at the site can listen to Mixes without signing into the service—but for creation and music uploads, you’ll have to become a member.

A fun service to close the list with, Jamglue brings music and fans together. Any artist can sign up for a free Jamglue account and upload music in multi-track format for others to remix. There are several Creative Commons licenses to choose from. These licenses allow others to share and remix work, as long as they follow the artist’s restrictions. Fans can remix other folks’ stuff, and share the results.

Conclusion:

To summarize this whole guide, I have to admit that I’m somewhat concerned: Let’s say Youtube closes its doors tomorrow or decides to stop streaming music—there goes about 80% of what I’ve listed. Which brings me to my next point, the future of music on the Web doesn’t looks so bright right now. Not if every service depends on Youtube so heavily as its music source. For once, I wouldn’t mind paying a yearly fee if it meant listening to an unlimited source of any music that I like with good streaming & with awesome quality. And, I don’t even need to download the songs to my computer, all I really want is a place where I can play my favorite music based on monthly/year fee. Is it too much to ask? Oh wait, this is exactly what Rhapsody offers; Unfortunately, only in the U.S. . . .

For now, I suggest you try the services above and enjoy them as long as they last. For some reason, music services don’t stay around very long but I guess that’s the way they roll.

Since I can’t list them all, please feel free to add services that I’ve missed in your comments and make them handy for everyone.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

It Took A Year, But Fitness Gadget Fitbit Will Finally Launch

2009-09-24T17:31:00.000-07:00

It Took A Year, But Fitness Gadget Fitbit Will Finally Launch: "

Fitness gadget Fitbit was a hit at last year’s TechCrunch50, where it created a ton of buzz and was a runner-up for the top prize. Of course, we all know that it takes hardware companies longer to launch than software startups and since last September, Fitbit has been working tirelessly to refine the product, establish distributions channels and tweak its online platform. Now we won’t have to wait any longer, since Fitbit will officially open up to the public on Tuesday. The site you see currently is the beta version and will feature a redesign as well on Tuesday.

So what does Fitbit do? The sleek little device clips onto your clothing and tracks your movement, sleep and calorie burn throughout the day and night. Fitbit, which costs $99, uses the information it gathers about your movement to help you determine how much exercise you’ve been getting and how many calories you’ve burnt. It can also tell you how many steps you have taken and how well you’ve slept, all based on its internal motion detector. By clicking a little button on the device, you’ll see a small blue LED screen that will alternate between the steps you’ve taken, the calories you’ve burned, your distance, and gives you a gauge of how high your activity level is. This is shown via a small flower that will grow as you exercise more (though I’m told that you will be able to switch your icon).

Here’s the really innovative part—the device is wireless so all data gets automatically synchronized to your computer and then the web through a wireless base station, so you don’t even have to plug it in. If you are within 10 feet of the device (it plugs into your computer via a USB cord), the station will sync with your device. In order for the wireless functionality to work you need to install a syncing software that runs on both Macs and PCs. Once synced, you can view your health dashboard online.

The dashboard is fairly simple and organized. You input your age, height, weight, and gender and are given basic info of how many steps you’ve made in a day and a breakdown of how active you are within the day, showing the highs and lows of your activity. The site will even break down particular activities and measure the intensity of workout. In terms of caloric burn and intake, Fitbit will calculate how many calories you burn in a given day, and if you log in your nutritional info, will also compare that to how much your intake was, making it ideal for anyone who wants to lose weight. And Fitbit has made it easy to input any type of food by already integrating the nutritional value of most types of food, cuisine and even restaurant chain foods, which cuts out a large amount of work for you.

One of the features that I find particularly compelling is the ability to monitor your sleep pattern. If you wear the device while sleeping, it will give you a snapshot of your “sleep health.” As you fall in and out of sleep, the Fitbit tracks the movements that your body makes and can tell you how long it took you to fall asleep, how many times you woke up throughout the night and the actual time you were asleep vs the time you were in bed. You will be able to see all of this detailed information on your dashboard. And to make sure that the device is comfortable for people to wear during the night, you can slide Fitbit onto a wristband that is provided.

Fitbit’s co-founder and CEO, James Park, told me that when it comes to running and walking, Fitbit is 99 percent accurate in its reporting of steps and 90 percent accurate for caloric burn. But Fitbit isn’t as accurate for other types of activities, like weight-lifting and biking. To mitigate this problem, the online dashboard lets you input exercise types and times manually and Fitbit will calculate how many calories you burned based on health information it has collected.

On Tuesday, the site will be open to the public and all of those individuals who pre-ordered the device over the past year will finally receive their Fitbit. While the site will be the only place you can order the Fitbit, Park says that in Q4 you’ll be able to buy the Fitbit online and in retail stores but declined to name which stores he’s partnered with. Fitbit raised a cool $2 million last October and Park says they are looking to raise more to up manufacturing and distribution channels.

Fitbit will also become more social, letting users form groups where they can compare their fitness goals and activities. The site will also take a page out of Mint.com’s book by letting you compare your activity and fitness with other anonymous people who have similar weight, height, and gender. While using the personalized dashboard is free, Fitbit will soon be rolling out premium paid features such as customized fitness coaching and guidance.

So what’s the competition? There are similar products on the market that offer the same functionality as Fitbit, such as the Philips Activity Monitor or the BodyBugg or Nike/iPod gear (which doesn’t measure sleep patterns). But the beauty of fitbit is in it’s pricing and in its sleek structure. It fits in any pocket and is so small and unobtrusive that it could be hooked into a bra. Both the Philips and BodyBugg products are bulky, making it difficult to wear 24-hours per day. The advantage of the BodyBugg is that it measures calories burn by heat, which is a more efficient and accurate way of measuring calorie burn. Fitbit counts calories via motion, but that’s also why it’s easy to wear.

I wasn’t at TechCrunch50 last year but after seeing a demo, I’m already excited about this product after being frustrated with the limitations of pedometers that I’ve used. The ability to wirelessly connect to the online dashboard takes a lot of the work out of actually making sense of the data. And being able to understand your optimal balance of diet, workouts and sleep is valuable. It seems that Fitbit was worth the wait.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

Dust storm in Australia - The Big Picture - Boston.com

2009-09-24T15:28:00.000-07:00

Dust storm in Australia - The Big Picture - Boston.com: "

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2009-09-17T16:59:00.000-07:00

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

5 Apps Tap the Internet's Infinite Playlist

2009-09-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

5 Apps Tap the Internet's Infinite Playlist: "

It used to be you needed a ginormous hard drive to build and store your digital music collection. But now that most songs exist somewhere in the cloud—on YouTube, one-stop streaming sites like imeem, or blog aggregators like Hype Machine—services have emerged that help you squeeze the Internet for any track you need. Wherever music lives, you can now play, collect, and share it without downloading any audio files. None of these sites is pitch-perfect, and their fidelity isn't as high as your meticulously encoded lossless library. But in these lean times, free jams are sounding better by the minute.

5 Sites That Tap the Music in the Cloud

Fizy

This Turkish site compiles audio from around the Net into a database from which you can curate your own playlists. It's fast as blazes (for now, anyway) and boasts a fat catalog.

Wired Simple profile pages facilitate playlist-sharing. Reports recently played songs to FriendFeed, RSS, or just your profile. Shuffle function.

Tired Bare-bones user profiles limit social utility.

Muziic

Developed by high schooler David Nelson with help from his dad, this upstart accesses the songs on YouTube via an iTunes-like interface.

Wired Makes the music on YouTube feel local. Sharing feature helps you add your own MP3s to the cloud.

Tired Requires Windows XP or Vista. Seizure-inducing design. Catalog limited to what's on YouTube. Special software installation necessary.

Songza

Songza wraps the music of imeem and YouTube in a sweet, simple Web interface, the work of Scott Robbin and Aza Raskin—whose father, Jef Raskin, sired the Apple Macintosh.

Wired With a click, Play, Share, Rate, and Add to Playlist tools unfold like a clover. Can use services other than imeem and YouTube. Playlist appears on profile page and RSS feed.

Tired Only one playlist per user.

Spotify

A P2P streaming architecture lets users in supported countries create collections from a massive in-house music archive.

Wired Fast, free playback through an efficient interface that rivals iTunes. Smooth, robust streaming. Live tech support. $14 per month removes ads.

Tired Currently restricted to Europe (a US rollout is being negotiated). Requires software installation.

Twones

Prefer to use iTunes or other downloadable software for your local playback? Twones has you covered. It also tracks your activity on multiple online services and offline players through a single Web interface.

Wired Small-fry sites can sign up to be included in the search, theoretically giving you access to a wider variety of tracks.

Tired Limited playback on the site itself.

Redbeacon Homepage

2009-09-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Redbeacon Homepage: "

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Autoimmune Disease: How To Stop Your Body From Attacking Itself

2009-09-13T19:41:00.000-07:00

Autoimmune Disease: How To Stop Your Body From Attacking Itself: "

4 Sites Where You Can Download Old PC Games For Free

2009-09-12T12:20:00.000-07:00

4 Sites Where You Can Download Old PC Games For Free: "

There are sufficient free games available for the budget gamer, many of which we’ve already reviewed on MakeUseOf, but it’s not the only alternative.

Sometimes, developers choose to re-release their games as freeware, or sometimes they simply neglect to support their creations and let the support dwindle away. Whatever the reason, a lot of commercial games – which, admittedly, often work with a bigger team on a bigger budget – become free over time.

Today we’ll take a look at the best sites to download old PC games for free. These will include (abandonware) DOS games, but also newer releases that are thrown to the masses by publishers in a good mood.

Abandonia

Abandonia is an index of abandonware, “dedicated to classic DOS games”. Abandonware titles are games (or software) with expired copyright, or games which are no longer supported by the publisher.

The site was founded in 1999, when the concept of abandonware was merely two years old. After a few inactive years, it was and has continued to blossom, with new ‘abandoned’ games added nearly every day. At the time of writing, the Abandonia database hosts 1,063 downloadable games and counts a total of more than 100.000 members.

Most games get a thorough review, screenshots, an editor rating as well as a user rating. You can browse and download old pc games by name, year, rating and category. As the game’s focused on DOS games, you won’t find any of the ‘newer’ abandonware games here, but the vast DOS archive should satisfy most of your gaming needs — at least for a while.

DOS Museum

Another DOS focused site – the name gives it away – is DOS Museum. Their goal is to preserve old DOS games and make sure they won’t be lost over time. Through one of their other initiatives, they try to encourage other copyright into making their work available, “either for sale or as freeware”.

With over 1,600 resources (although this includes various patches and save-games), DOS Museum offers an even wider array of games. Through an easy, graphical interface, you can browse the games by name, rating, date or popularity. Although you won’t find excessive reviews like on Abandonware, basic information (usually in two or three sentences) is provided.

Wikipedia

One of the best sites to look for an ex-commercial video game is Wikipedia. That’s right – on one of their pages, they keep a pretty up-to-date list of abandonware (loose interpretation) titles.

The list shows less games than these other sites, but from a wider array. You’ll find games from 1988 to 2008, all of them with a short descripton, most of them worth a try. If you think there’s a game ‘missing’ from the list that should be there, you can add it yourself – after all, that’s what wikis are for.

Remain In Play

Another site that takes on a wider array of (also non-DOS) games is Remain In Play. This site refuses to take in abandonware and games that were free from the start. They only focus on commercial games that were deliberately released as freeware.

Even though site navigation is not optimal, they host plenty of great games – both new and old. If your search is superfluous, you might want to consider their ‘top 10 games’ in the sidebar, for it is the only way of sorting titles by rating. Otherwise, you can search their database by name, data (type), genre, or OS.

I hope you’ve found some great new sites today and will continue to discover cool free games to waste your precious time. If you’ve got any other “abandonware” recommendations, or have anything else to add in that direction, feel free to take advantage of the comments section below.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

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QuickWiki– Wikipedia & Wiktionary Addon for Firefox (2)

Adding Pictures To Your Twitter Stream With Twitpic & Flickr

2009-09-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

Adding Pictures To Your Twitter Stream With Twitpic & Flickr: "

I love using Twitter and in general it’s a near-perfect service. The 140 character service means that people are forced to be precise and coherent (no windy blowhards!) and you can also include other things in your tweets such as links to other sites.

But the one thing that Twitter does NOT allow, by default, is the ability to post pictures. That is where TwitPic and Flickr comes in. By posting your pictures to one of these services, a short URL is automatically generated and then posted on your Twitter stream in seconds.

Let’s take a look at both services and see how they stack up against one another.

TwitPic

TwitPic is not new but it is one of those services that I constantly heard about but never got around to trying it out. I finally tried it out today and I am amazed at how easy it is to use. With just a few clicks, you can start posting pictures to Twitter for all to see.

You need to give TwitPic your Twitter credentials and after logging in, you will see a Photo Upload page. I decided to upload a photo of me in my new A-Team t-shirt :

After uploading the picture to TwitPic, a unique URL is created and that URL is then posted to your Twitter account for people to click on and view. Easy. Nothing to it.

But TwitPic also has a few other features worth mentioning. They also collects the replies to your TwitPic tweet and lists them on the unique TwitPic page underneath your photo. As you can see here, I have got one reply already to my A-Team t-shirt picture. You can also reply on the TwitPic page to everyone who sent Tweets and those replies will then also be posted to your Twitter stream.

TwitPic also gives you a unique email address which you can use to email pictures in. It says on the site that it is for “sending pictures from your phone” but I tested it from my Gmail address on a normal PC and it worked fine. The picture appeared on my TwitPic account within 5 minutes of sending it.

You can also choose to not have your pictures show up on Twitter but to be honest, why would you choose that option? The whole point of using TwitPic is to send your photo links to Twitter. Not having the picture links posted to Twitter would be like going to the airport but refusing to get on the plane.

TwitPic also has a Public Timeline of all the photos passing through their site. You can also subscribe by RSS to have all the photos sent to you if photo gazing is your thing (and if you have the time to look at them all).

The one downside to Twitpic is that they don’t have their own branded search engine to look for other pictures. Your own pictures are neatly laid out in your account but if you want to search for other peoples pictures, Twitpic doesn’t offer a search engine. This seems to be a rather amazing oversight.

You will have to look for pictures using a Twitter image search engine, two of which I will briefly look at towards the end of this article. But if you want to search the Twitpic site, you will have to go to Google and use the site: search term. So to find actress Demi Moore’s pictures (Demi is a big user of Twitpic), go to Google and type :

site:twitpic.com Demi Moore

Flickr

Now there are probably a lot of people out there who don’t want to give out their Twitter details. In that case, another possibility is Flickr. Flickr connects to your Twitter account using their API and so no password is inputted. It’s all done through “tokens”.

I tried looking to see if it was possible to post to Twitter using Picasa Web Albums but I was unable to find a solution. If you know of one, please do let us know in the comments.

Anyway, back to Flickr. Here’s how to post to Twitter using Flickr.

Go to the picture on Flickr that you want to post to Twitter. You need to be logged into Flickr first and it doesn’t have to be your picture. You can tweet any picture on Flickr you want.

Click on “Blog This” on the bar above the picture

If you don’t have Twitter set up yet on your Flickr account, you can click through to a menu asking you which blog you want to send the picture to. Twitter is near the bottom.

Flickr will then connect to Twitter and Twitter will ask you if you want to grant access to Flickr. Say yes and then you will be redirected back to the Flickr photo page. When you click on “Blog This” again, you should now see this :

Now just click on that Twitter link and you’ll be taken to a preview page where you will see the photo along with a text box to write your Tweet. As you can see, the link to the photo has already been shrunk into a short Flic.kr URL.

Click “post entry” and then go to your Twitter stream. You should now see the Tweet there along with the link to the picture. It’s all done in seconds.

Like Twitpic, Flickr also gives you a unique email address to email your pictures into your Twitter account.

As far as I can see, these are the two easiest ways to send pictures to Flickr. As I said, if you know of a way to do this with Picasa Web Albums, please do let us know in the comments how to do it.

There are two Twitter picture services which I like if you want to see what people are uploading – Twitcaps and Twicsay although I slightly prefer Twitcaps because it connects my pictures with my last tweet. Twicsy just generates lots of random, sometimes pointless, tags for the pictures. But both offer good search and realtime updating of pictures to Twitter.

Do you upload your pictures to Twitter? If so, how do you do it? Do you know of any other good alternative methods apart from Twitpic and Flickr? Or any good alternatives to Twitcaps and Twicsay? Let us know all about them in the comments.

Did you like the post? Please do share your thoughts in the comments section!

New on Twitter ? Now you can follow MakeUseOf on Twitter too.

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Become A Star In The Plurk Universe With These Tips (1)

Seriously Sick: Food For When You're Under the Weather | Serious Eats : Recipes

2009-09-08T11:55:00.000-07:00

Seriously Sick: Food For When You're Under the Weather | Serious Eats : Recipes: "

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How To Design Your Own Fail-Safe Exercise Program - Dumb Little Man

2009-09-06T18:14:00.000-07:00

How To Design Your Own Fail-Safe Exercise Program - Dumb Little Man: "

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As Other Real-Time Search Engines Fizzle, OneRiot Gets Some Early Traction

2009-09-06T09:16:00.000-07:00

As Other Real-Time Search Engines Fizzle, OneRiot Gets Some Early Traction: "

While there have been many real-time search engine launches over the past few months (Scoopler, Topsy, Collecta, CrowdEye), most of them so far have fizzled (see Google Website Trends chart above). After an initial burst of curiosity, interest tends to dive. One exception, however, is OneRiot, which appears to be gaining some early traction in the real-time search race.

This race has just begun, of course, and other real-time search startups are chasing hard. But OneRiot is already serving up results for more than one million search queries a day (see chart below). This would be a rounding error for any major search engine, but at least it is going in the right direction. Its investors think so. They ponied up another $7 million in a new round at the end of last month

OneRiot started to be noticed when it added link search from Twitter last May. But its search volume didn’t really take off until it launched its API, allowing other sites to tap into its real-time search and add it as a feature to their own Web app or site. OneRiot has 40 API partners, including Microsoft (sometimes bundled with IE)., browser add-ons Yoono and Shareaholic, and desktop apps like Nambu and EventBox.

All of these API partnerships add up. In fact, about 80 percent of OneRiot’s searches are coming through its APIs rather than directly on its site. OneRiot is building up market share by offering real-time search to others. (Rival Collecta is preparing to do the same thing by offering its own APIs soon). Search is a volume game, where the more search queries you can process, the better your results become. So OneRiot wants to power as many real-time searches as possible.

To the extent that OneRiot can familiarize people with the concept of real-time search in as many places as possible, that’s a good thing. But ultimately it needs to drive people back to OneRiot.com where it can control the entire experience (and the cash).

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

TechCrunch50 Conference 2009: September 14-15, 2009, San Francisco

American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins

2009-09-03T19:03:00.000-07:00

American Vice: Mapping the 7 Deadly Sins: "

We're gluttons for infographics, and a team at Kansas State just served up a feast: maps of sin created by plotting per-capita stats on things like theft (envy) and STDs (lust). Christian clergy, likely noting the Bible Belt's status as Wrath Central, question the "science." Valid point—or maybe it's just the pride talking.

Greed

Average income compared with number of people living below the poverty line.

Envy

Total thefts (robbery, burglary, larceny, and grand theft auto) per capita.

Wrath

Number of violent crimes (murder, assault, and rape) per capita.

Sloth

Expenditures on art, entertainment, and recreation compared with employment.

Gluttony

Number of fast-food restaurants per capita.

Lust

Number of STD cases reported per capita.

Pride

Aggregate of the other six offenses—because pride is the root of all sin.

Kansas State University Geography/USACE

Vacuum Firefox databases for better performance, now with no restart - Mozilla Links

2009-08-30T20:08:00.000-07:00

Vacuum Firefox databases for better performance, now with no restart - Mozilla Links: "

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11 useful Windows apps that tie in to your GMail account

2009-08-29T12:40:00.000-07:00

11 useful Windows apps that tie in to your GMail account: "

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Does Interval Training Lead to Faster Weight Loss?

2009-08-26T18:15:00.000-07:00

Does Interval Training Lead to Faster Weight Loss?: "

Going to the gym and slogging it out for a half hour a day is the Health Blog’s standard fitness M.O. As it turns out, though, we may be missing some benefits offered by interval training — short bursts of intense effort punctuated by periods of lower-intensity exercise.

Now, we’re generally wary of fitness fads. But interval training has been around forever, though it’s typically been used more by those at the hard-core end of the fitness spectrum. Now, NPR reports this morning, there’s some interesting research into the benefits of the practice for those of us who are more moderate in our exercise habits.

In one four-month study, people who rode an exercise bike for 20 minutes and alternated between eight-second sprints and 12-second slow periods lost more fat than those who rode for 40 minutes at a steady pace, NPR says.

“The eight-second sprint is doable by all the groups we’ve looked at — old people, overweight people, everybody so far we’ve tested has been able to do it,” the researcher behind that study told NPR. “And in the 20-minute bout, the actual hard exercise is only eight minutes, so it’s not actually that much exercise.”

Image: iStockphoto

How to Live Without the Clock

2009-08-22T08:25:00.000-07:00

How to Live Without the Clock: "

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5 Steps To Reversing Type 2 Diabetes And Insulin Resistance

2009-08-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

5 Steps To Reversing Type 2 Diabetes And Insulin Resistance: "Breaking news!

Some newly discovered compounds have just been found to turn off all of the genes that cause diabetes.

Are these compounds found in a pill bottle? No!

Instead, you'll find them on your dinner plate -- in rye bread and pasta.

(As I recently wrote in one of my blogs, rye contains special phytonutrients that turn off all the genes responsible for diabetes -- in just a few weeks.)

Last week, I explained how to find out if you are pre-diabetic or diabetic. Half of the 24 million people with diabetes don't know they have it and nearly all the 60 million people with pre-diabetes don't know they have it.

Today, I want to share with you more information about what you can do NOW to prevent and reverse diabetes and pre-diabetes.

And rye bread isn't the only answer -- I've got a lot more good advice, too.

But first I want to emphasize new research that should be headlines news but never saw the light of day. Do our current drugs treatments for diabetes actually work to prevent heart attacks and death?

Surely lowering blood sugar in diabetics is an effective strategy for reducing the risk of death and heart disease. It would seem obvious that if diabetes is a disease of high blood sugar, then reducing blood sugar would be beneficial.

However elevated sugar is only a symptom, not the cause of the problem. The real problem is elevated insulin unchecked over decades from a highly refined carbohydrate diet, a sedentary lifestyle and environmental toxins.

Most medications and insulin therapy are aimed at lowering blood sugar through increasing insulin. In the randomized ACCORD trial of over 10,000 patients, this turns out to be a bad idea.

In the intensive glucose-lowering group, there were no fewer heart attacks, and more patients died. Yet we continue to pay $174 billion annually for this type of care for diabetes, despite evidence that lifestyle works better than medications. We also pay for cardiac bypass and angioplasty in diabetics when evidence shows no reduction in death or heart attacks compared to medication.

So now that we know what doesn't work, let me review what does work.

Dietary Recommendations to Reverse Diabetes

Eating in a way that balances your blood sugar, reduces inflammation and oxidative stress, and improves your liver detoxification is the key to preventing and reversing insulin resistance and diabetes.

This is a way of eating that based on a whole foods diet that's high in fiber, rich in colorful fruits and vegetables, and low in sugars and flours, with a low glycemic load.

It is a way of eating that includes anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and detoxifying foods. It includes plenty of omega-3 fats and olive oil, soy products, beans, nuts, and seeds.

All these foods help prevent and reverse diabetes and insulin resistance. This is the way of eating than turns on all the right gene messages, promotes a healthy metabolism, and prevents aging and age-related diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

Here are more specifics.

Meal Timing

• Eat protein for breakfast every day, such as whole omega-3 eggs, a soy protein shake, or nut butters.

• Eat something every 4 hours to keep your insulin and glucose levels normal.

• Eat small protein snacks in the morning and afternoon, such as a handful of almonds.

• Finish eating at least 2 to 3 hours before bed. If you have a snack earlier in the day, you won't be as hungry, even if you eat a little later.

Meal Composition

• Controlling the glycemic load of your meals is very important.

• You can do this by combining adequate protein, fats, and whole-food carbohydrates from vegetables, legumes, nuts, seeds, and fruit at every meal or snack.

• It is most important to avoid eating quickly absorbed carbohydrates alone, as they raise your sugar and insulin levels.

Travel Suggestions

• Two handfuls of almonds in a zip-lock bag make a useful emergency snack. You can eat them with a piece of fruit. Remember, real food is the best.

What to Eat

Choose from a variety of the following real, whole foods:

• Choose organic produce and animal products whenever possible.

• Eat high-quality protein, such as fish -- especially fatty, cold-water fish like salmon, sable, small halibut, herring, and sardines -- and shellfish.

• Cold-water fish such as salmon, halibut, and sable contain an abundance of beneficial essential fatty acids, omega-3 oils that reduce inflammation. Choose smaller wild Alaskan salmon, sable, and halibut that are low in toxins. Canned wild salmon is a great 'emergency' food.

• Eat up to eight omega-3 eggs a week.

• Create meals that are high in low-glycemic legumes such as lentils, chickpeas, and soybeans (try edamame, the Japanese soybeans in a pod, quickly steamed with a little salt, as a snack). These foods slow the release of sugars into the bloodstream, which helps prevent the excess insulin release that can lead to health concerns like obesity, high blood pressure, and heart problems.

• Eat a cornucopia of fresh fruits and vegetables teeming with phytonutrients like carotenoids, flavonoids, and polyphenols, which are associated with a lower incidence of nearly all health problems, including obesity and age-related disease.

• Eat more low-glycemic vegetables, such as asparagus, broccoli, kale, spinach, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts.

• Berries, cherries, peaches, plums, rhubarb, pears, and apples are optimal fruits. Cantaloupes and other melons, grapes, and kiwifruit are suitable; however, they contain more sugar. You can use organic frozen berries (such as those from Cascadian Farms) in your protein shakes.

• Focus on anti-inflammatory foods, including wild fish and other sources of omega-3 fats, red and purple berries (these are rich in polyphenols), dark green leafy vegetables, orange sweet potatoes, and nuts.

• Eat more antioxidant-rich foods, including orange and yellow vegetables, dark green leafy vegetables (kale, collards, spinach, etc.), anthocyanidins (berries, beets, grapes, pomegranate), purple grapes, blueberries, bilberries, cranberries, and cherries. In fact, antioxidants are in all colorful fruits and vegetables.

• Include detoxifying foods in your diet, such as cruciferous vegetables (broccoli, kale, collards, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, bok choy, Chinese cabbage, and Chinese broccoli), green tea, watercress, dandelion greens, cilantro, artichokes, garlic, citrus peels, pomegranate, and even cocoa.

• Season your food with herbs such as rosemary, ginger, and turmeric, which are powerful antioxidants, anti-inflammatories, and detoxifiers.

• Avoid excessive quantities of meat. Eat lean organic or grass-fed animal products, when possible. These include eggs, beef, chicken, pork, lamb, buffalo, and ostrich. There are good brands at Whole Foods and other local health-food stores (also see mail order sources).

• Garlic and onions contain antioxidants, enhance detoxification, act as anti-inflammatories, and help lower cholesterol and blood pressure.

• A diet high in fiber further helps to stabilize blood sugar by slowing the absorption of carbohydrates and supports a healthy lower bowel and digestive tract. Try to gradually increase fiber to 30 to 50 grams a day and use predominantly soluble or viscous fiber (legumes, nuts, seeds, whole grains, vegetables, and fruit), which slows sugar absorption from the gut.

• Use extra virgin olive oil, which contains anti-inflammatories and anti-oxidants, as your main cooking oil.

• Soy Products such as soymilk, soybeans, and tofu are rich in antioxidants that can reduce cancer risk, lower cholesterol, and improve insulin and blood sugar metabolism.

• Increase your intake of nuts and seeds, including raw walnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, and pumpkin and flax seeds.

• And yes ... chocolate can be healthy, too. Choose only the darkest varieties and eat only 2 to 3 ounces a day. It should contain 70 percent cocoa.

Decrease (or ideally eliminate) your intake of:

• All processed or junk foods

• Foods containing refined white flour and sugar, such as breads, cereals (cornflakes, Frosted Flakes, puffed wheat, and sweetened granola), flour-based pastas, bagels, and pastries

• All foods containing high-fructose corn syrup

• All artificial sweeteners (aspartame, Sorbitol, etc.) and caffeine

• Starchy, high-glycemic cooked vegetables, such as potatoes, corn, and root vegetables such as rutabagas, parsnips, and turnips

• Processed fruit juices, which are often loaded with sugars (Try juicing your own carrots, celery, and beets, or other fruit and vegetable combinations, instead)

• Processed canned vegetables (usually very high in sodium)

• Foods containing hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated oils (which become trans fatty acids in the bloodstream), such as most crackers, chips, cakes, candies, cookies, doughnuts, and processed cheese

• Processed oils such as corn, safflower, sunflower, peanut, and canola

• Red meats (unless organic or grass-fed) and organ meats

• Large predatory fish and river fish, which contain mercury and other contaminants in unacceptable amounts, including swordfish, tuna, tilefish and shark

• Dairy -- substitute unsweetened, gluten free soymilk, almond milk, or hazelnut milk products

• Alcohol -- limit it to no more than 3 glasses a week of red wine per week

Balance Blood Sugar with Exercise

Exercise is critical for the improvement of insulin sensitivity. It helps reduce central body fat, improving sugar metabolism. Regular exercise will help prevent diabetes, reduce your risk of complications, and even help reverse it.

Ideally you should do 30 minutes of walking every day. Walking after dinner is a powerful way to reduce your blood sugar.

More vigorous exercise and sustained exercise is often needed to reverse severe insulin resistance or diabetes. Doing sustained aerobic exercise for up to 60 minutes 5 to 6 times a week is often necessary to get diabetes under full control. You want to work at 70 to 85 percent of your target heart rate, which you can find by subtracting your age from 220 and multiplying that number by 0.70 to 0.85.

Interval training can be an added benefit to helping improve your metabolism and mitochondrial function. It helps to increase the efficiency calorie burning so that you burn more calories and energy during the time you are NOT exercising. This is described in detail in UltraMetabolism.

Strength training also helps maintain and build muscle, which can help also with your overall blood sugar and energy metabolism.

Supplements that Can Help Reverse Diabetes

Nutritional supplements can be very effective for Type 2 diabetes and insulin resistance. I recommend a number of different supplements, depending on the severity of the problem:

1. A multivitamin and mineral.

2. Calcium and magnesium and vitamin D.

3. Fish oil (1,000 to 4,000 mg) a day improves insulin sensitivity, lowers cholesterol, and reduces inflammation.

4. Extra magnesium (200 to 600 mg a day) helps with glucose metabolism and is often deficient in diabetics.

5. Chromium (500 to 1,000 mcg day) is very important for proper sugar metabolism.

6. Antioxidants (such as vitamins C and E) are important in helping to reduce and balance blood sugar.

7. B-complex vitamins are important and are part of a good multivitamin. Extra vitamin B6 (50 to 150 mg a day) and B12 (1,000 to 3,000 mcg) are especially helpful in protecting against diabetic neuropathy or nerve damage.

8. Biotin (2,000 to 4,000 mcg a day) enhances insulin sensitivity.

9. I also encourage people to use alpha-lipoic acid (300 mg twice a day), a powerful antioxidant that can reduce blood sugar significantly. It also can be effective for diabetic nerve damage or neuropathy.

10. Evening primrose oil (500 to 1,000 mg twice a day) helps overcome deficiencies common in diabetics.

11. I encourage people to use cinnamon as a supplement. One to two 500 mg tablets twice a day can help blood sugar control.

12. Other herbs and supplements that can be helpful include green tea, ginseng, bitter melon, gymnema, bilberry, ginkgo, onions, and garlic. Fenugreek can also be used to help improve blood sugar ,although large amounts must be taken.

13. Banaba leaf (Lagerstroemia speciosa) can be an effective herb. Take 24 mg twice a day.

14. I recommend konjac fiber, such as PGX (WellBetX), four capsules 10 minutes before meals with a glass of water. This helps reduce blood sugar after meals and improves long-term blood sugar control while reducing appetite and cholesterol.

Manage Diabetes by Managing Stress

Stress plays a dramatic role in blood sugar imbalances. It triggers insulin resistance, promotes weight gain around the middle, increases inflammation, and ultimately can cause diabetes. So it's essential to engage in relaxation practices on a regular basis, such as yoga, breathing, progressive muscle relaxation, guided imagery, hot baths, exercise, meditation, massage, biofeedback, hypnosis, or even making love. Your survival depends on it.

Use Medications if Necessary

A number of medications may be helpful for diabetes. There are several specific classes of medications, each with their own effects. Sometimes combinations are helpful.

These are the main classes.

1. The biguanides, especially metformin (Glucophage), is one of the best medications to improve insulin sensitivity. It can help lower blood sugars by improving your cells' response to insulin.

2. Thiazolidinedione drugs are a new class of diabetes medication and can help improve uptake of glucose by the cells by making you more insulin-sensitive. They also reduce inflammation and help improve metabolism working on the PPAR, a special class of cell receptors that control metabolism. They can cause weight gain and liver damage. Thiazolidinediones include rosiglutazone (Avandia) and pioglitazone (Actos).

3. Alpha-glucosidase inhibitors include acarbose and miglitol, which can help lower the absorption of sugar and carbohydrates in the intestines, reducing the absorption of sugar after meals. And there are newer medication on the market every day.

Older medications include sulfonylureas include glipizide, glyburide, and glimepiride. I strongly recommend against these medications because they only reduce your sugar in the short term and cause further insulin production, which actually worsens diabetes over the long term. They have also been linked to high risk of heart attacks, which you are trying to prevent.

They treat the symptoms rather than the cause.

Insulin is the last resort after all other measures have failed and often leads to a slippery slope of weight gain and increased cholesterol and blood pressure. Many patients have been able to come off insulin entirely if they are treated early and aggressively through the other methods I've listed.

Diabetes and its precursor, insulin resistance, are looming as the major threat to our health in the 21st century. It will affect 1 in 3 children born today, and 1 in 2 minority children. This is a tragic consequence of our toxic food environment, our unmitigated exposure to stress, our sedentary lifestyle, and environmental toxins.

However, these problems are completely preventable and often reversible through aggressive lifestyle changes, supplements, and exercise and stress management.

Diabetes is the biggest health epidemic triggered by the obesity epidemic, but all of our medical efforts to treat it are focused on medications and insulin.

It is simply the wrong approach.

If you follow these guidelines instead, you will see a dramatic change very quickly in your health, your weight, and your diabetes.

Just try it!

Now I'd like to hear from you ...

Have you been diagnosed with pre-diabetes or diabetes?

Have you been told that you must take drugs to treat it?

Which of these steps do you plan to take and which are you already trying? What are the results?

Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

Mark Hyman, M.D. practicing physician and founder of The UltraWellness Center is a pioneer in functional medicine. Dr. Hyman is now sharing the 7 ways to tap into your body's natural ability to heal itself. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on Youtube and become a fan on Facebook.

New Web App ‘Makes Sweet Love’ To Bing APIs, Lets You Search As You Type

2009-08-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

New Web App ‘Makes Sweet Love’ To Bing APIs, Lets You Search As You Type: "

Meet the Real Live Search, a web app with the tagline, “your browser and Bing’s AJAX APIs make sweet love“. No, this isn’t real-time in the sense that you can search services like Twitter (though Bing has been making headway in that respect). Instead, it’s a seach engine that displays results almost immediately after you type each character in a query. For example, if I was to run a query for “TechCrunch”, it would rapidly display results for “T”, “Te”, “Tec”, and so on as I typed out each letter. It’s flashy, fun, and even useful (sometimes).

The search engine shows results for images, video, and text, as well as related searches. In my testing I found that the app was helpful sometimes, especially for quick image searches, but for the most part this is a fun diversion more than anything — there aren’t too many search queries that yield good results when you’ve only entered half of a word. Update: As comments below note, this actually is quite useful when you’re subtly modifying the same search query to get even more specific.

The app was built by developer Long Zheng of www.istartedsomething.com. In his blog post describing the app, he says that it was built in a few hours and may be prone to bugs (don’t be surprised if increased traffic to the site slows it down for a while).

From Zheng’s post:

Inspired by the realtime-ness of Google Wave, I wanted to build a prototype search engine that did away with a search button and page loads. Instead, search queries are sent character-by-character to the lightning fast Bing AJAX APIs which returned JSON results easily processed and formatted by Javascript on the page. The UI experience is driven solely by the browser.

If nothing else, it’s a reminder that Bing has a solid set of APIs available, though there hasn’t been much attention paid to them recently. Bing is notable for having a less restrictive API than Google — Bing lets you reorder results from the web, while Google does not (Yahoo’s BOSS also gives developers quite a bit of freedom).

Crunch Network: CrunchBase the free database of technology companies, people, and investors

Afghanistan....

2009-08-10T18:43:00.000-07:00

Pics

The death of a city.....

2009-08-08T09:46:00.000-07:00

Detroit

If microsoft had its way in everything...

2009-06-12T18:55:00.000-07:00

Google Wave....

2009-06-12T06:55:00.000-07:00

Simply astounding...

Nature...

2009-05-25T07:16:00.000-07:00

10 most magnificent trees in the world

In your face...

2009-05-17T08:15:00.001-07:00

Abandoned places...

2009-05-10T20:11:00.000-07:00

Pripyat, Ukraine....

Guitar sounds - Incredible II

2009-05-04T17:34:00.000-07:00

Karplus strong guitar

Simply incredible !!!

2009-04-07T18:49:00.000-07:00

ToneMatrix

Nature's power & beauty...

2009-03-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

An undersea volcano explosion of the coast of Tonga

Smoking Pot...

2009-01-17T05:29:00.000-08:00

Guide to from around the world...

Life....2008....

2008-12-25T03:26:00.000-08:00

Part1

Part2

Part 3

Mumbai attack pics....

2008-11-29T18:33:00.000-08:00

http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/11/mumbai_under_attack.html

A shattering moment in America's fall from power...

2008-10-01T19:05:00.000-07:00

The global financial crisis will see the US falter in the same way the Soviet Union did when the Berlin Wall came down. The era of American dominance is over

Stunning pics...

2008-09-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

Some serene pictures of Islam....

The LHC...

2008-09-10T17:30:00.000-07:00

The Large Hadron Collider will put to test 5 major physics theories...

And the LHC is operational !!!

80''s music videos

2008-09-05T19:19:00.001-07:00

Tons of em.....

Google Chrome tips....

2008-09-05T19:11:00.000-07:00

Check it out

Google chrome....

2008-09-05T07:23:00.000-07:00

I have started using this & it is blazingly fast.... Especially when it comes to downloads. Even faster than firefox... the page loads are also equally fast. the layout is plain & clean as other google products.... a must try out...

Making moonshine....

2008-08-22T18:30:00.000-07:00

Moonshine...

War in south Ossetia....

2008-08-14T15:17:00.000-07:00

29 pics in total...

15 Exercise Video Tutorial Sites to Pump You Up...

2008-08-03T19:31:00.001-07:00

There’s no need to invest in expensive DVDs you’ll watch only once when you have a wealth of instructional videos at your fingertips. Try these sites instead...

Great article...

2008-07-30T16:14:00.000-07:00

8 steps that question the socially accepted & estabilished.... & ya it will take real guts to stick to this

Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams....

2008-07-27T20:06:00.000-07:00

Carnegie Mellon Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008) gave his last lecture at the university Sept. 18, 2007, before a packed McConomy Auditorium. In his moving presentation, "Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams," Pausch talked about his lessons learned and gave advice to students on how to achieve their own career and personal goals. For more, visit www.cmu.edu/randyslecture.
Randy died July 25 of complications from pancreatic cancer. He was 47. At the time of giving this lecture he knew he will die...

New Short Films from the hottest moviemakers - Hungry Man TV!

2008-07-27T15:23:00.000-07:00

A film buff tells a friend that he's finally broken "the code" - the mystery behind the character & story threads that bleed from one Quentin Tarantino movie or screenplay into the next. His friend is less than impressed. Starring Seu Jorge (The Life Aquatic) and Selton Mello (Tarja Preta). A short film by Brazilian directing duo 300ml.

Stream....

2008-07-27T15:03:00.001-07:00

Stream your data to others....

Quite enlightening....

2008-07-27T14:44:00.000-07:00

An interview with Linus Torvalds....

wooooooooo.....Yummy..

2008-07-27T14:20:00.000-07:00

Slurp......

NASA Images....

2008-07-27T14:07:00.001-07:00

Mind Blowing

Nuclear explosions....

2008-07-27T13:54:00.000-07:00

Creations of man.....

The most dangerous roads in the world.....

2008-07-18T20:52:00.000-07:00

& i thought nothing could beat the ones i've seen till now....

check it out

Password generator....

2008-07-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

Create passwords using easy to remember phrases & words. Since it is online you can retrieve the password anywhere...

This what life is all abt...

2008-07-13T06:42:00.001-07:00

Where the Hell is Matt? (2008) from Matthew Harding on Vimeo.

20 Abandoned Cities from Around the World: Deserted Towns and Other Derelict Places

2008-07-07T18:53:00.000-07:00

There are many reasons why cities are abandoned; some, like the ghost towns of the American West, have become tourist destinations while others have been condemned or simply forgotten. These 20 abandoned cities of the world share an eerie, haunted quality that is part of what makes them so fascinating.

* Environment * Travel and transport America's love affair fades as the car becomes burden of suburbia....

2008-07-06T15:10:00.000-07:00

Nice article on how the something that was reveled for the past 5 , 6 decades, that which shaped the very image of a country has turned out to be its biggest bane now. Americans are waking up to the realization of the end of the car era....

some stuff..the world's scariest drug.....

2008-07-03T20:38:00.000-07:00

Colombian drug called scopolamine. For those who haven't heard, it's some pretty frightening stuff...... 9 part series

Fucking awesome...

2008-07-02T19:55:00.000-07:00

IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees

IT Guy Vs Dumb Employees - Watch more free videos

High Intensity Interval Training

2008-07-02T19:33:00.000-07:00

Best way to lose that belly fat....
Take Your Fitness and Fat Loss to the Next Level