WASHINGTON — The number of obese American adults outweighs the number of those who are merely overweight, according to the latest statistics from the federal government. Numbers posted by the National Center for Health Statistics show that more than 34 percent of Americans are obese, compared to 32.7 percent who are overweight. It said just under 6 percent are ‘extremely’ obese. ‘More than one-third of adults, or over 72 million people, were obese in 2005-2006, the NCHS said in its report. The numbers are based on a survey of 4,356 adults over the age of 20 who take part in a regular government survey of health, said the NCHS, which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The figures come from the 2005-2006 survey and are the most current available. ‘During the physical examination, conducted in mobile examination centers, height and weight were measured as part of a more comprehensive set of body measurements,’ the NCHS report said. ‘Although the prevalence of obesity has more than doubled since 1980, the prevalence of overweight has remained stable over the same time period,’ it said. Obesity and overweight are calculated using a […]
SEATTLE — Hearst Corp. put Seattle’s oldest newspaper, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, up for sale on Friday and said that if it can’t find a buyer in the next 60 days the paper would likely close or continue to exist only online. If it does become an Internet-only operation, the P-I, as the paper is known locally, would have a ‘greatly reduced staff,’ Hearst said in a statement. Hearst is a major media company that also owns TV stations, other newspapers and magazines including Cosmopolitan. ‘In no case will Hearst continue to publish the P-I in printed form’ once the 60 days are up, Hearst said. Steve Swartz, the head of Hearst’s newspaper division, broke the news to employees in a meeting Friday. Seattle is one of two major cities on the verge of losing its second daily newspaper as the industry tries to pull out of a tailspin brought on by falling circulation and advertising revenue. Denver’s Rocky Mountain News recently put itself up for sale in the face of steep losses and could close if a buyer isn’t found soon. Hearst said it is not considering buying The Seattle Times, the city’s other daily […]
The brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but sucks down roughly 20 percent of our daily calories. It needs glucose, but of a certain kind and in the right doses. Image credit: Dreamstime Brain food The brain accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but sucks down roughly 20 percent of our daily calories. It needs glucose, but of a certain kind and in the right doses. Image credit: Dreamstime Human brain Weighing in at an average of 2.7 pounds (1,200 grams), the human brain packs a whopping 100 billion neurons. Every minute, about three soda-cans worth of blood flow through the brain. Credit: dreamstime. It’s common to resolve to lose weight, but any sane person dreads a diet’s dulling effect on the brain. In fact, many studies have shown that counting calories, carbs or fat grams, is truly distracting - to the point that it taxes short-term memory. But how we eat can affect our minds at more fundamental levels, too. Here are five things you should know about feeding your brain: 1. Fuel it up The brain, which […]
Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world’s population facing serious food shortages, new research shows. To compound matters, the population of this equatorial belt – from about 35 degrees north latitude to 35 degrees south latitude – is among the poorest on Earth and is growing faster than anywhere else. ‘The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn’t take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures,’ said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor. Battisti is lead author of the study in the Jan. 9 edition of Science. He collaborated with Rosamond Naylor, director of Stanford University’s Program on Food Security and the Environment, to examine the impact of climate change on the world’s food security. ‘This is a compelling reason for us to invest in adaptation, because it is clear that this is the direction we are going in terms of temperature and it will take decades to develop new food crop varieties that can better withstand a warmer climate,’ […]
Not long ago, I took care of an elderly man with congestive heart failure. A few days into his stay in the hospital, he told me he was not going to make it out alive. ‘I am going to die here,’ he whispered, as if letting me in on a secret. I tried to reassure him: on the scale of disease I normally treat, his case was relatively mild. But then he became sicker. His bloated legs dripped fluid, soaking his bed sheets and puddling on the tile floor. His blood pressure dropped. He became delirious. I was perplexed by the precipitous downturn. What did my patient know that I did not? After several days of keeping round-the-clock vigil in the intensive care unit, his wife of nearly 50 years could no longer bear his suffering and requested hospice care. A few hours before he died, groggy from morphine, he managed to summon a few moments of lucidity. Gripping his wife’s hand, he said to her, ‘You’re doing the right thing. Every day in medicine there are examples of patients who know they are about to die, even if no one else does. They often have […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
