Sitting is the new smoking,” says Anup Kanodia, a physician and researcher at the Center for Personalized Health Care at Ohio State University‘s Wexner Medical Center.
As evidence, he cites an Australian study published in October 2012 in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that compared the two pastimes.
Every hour of TV that people watch, presumably while sitting, cuts about 22 minutes from their life span, the study’s authors calculated. By contrast, it’s estimated that smokers shorten their lives by about 11 minutes per cigarette. Â More information
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Firenze Sage:  Here it comes the new sitting tax along with the exhale tax to stop global warming.   jaj48@aol.com   Four More Obama Years
Helping kids with  Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)  connect with animals helps kids connect in general  with people.  This makes sense for regularly developing children. And  it also makes sense for children with developmental delays.
See article below from Medical News.
“Animals help children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) interact better; they show increased positive social behaviors when an animal is present.
The finding came from a new study by researchers, led by Marguerite E O’Haire, from the University of Queesland, Australia and was published in the journal PLOS ONE.
Kids between the ages of five and thirteen with ASD were involved in the investigation. The experts analyzed their interaction with adults and with peers who were developing normally, while two guinea pigs were present. The interactions were compared a second time with toys instead of the guinea pigs.
According to the results, when the animals were present, the kids with ASD displayed more social behaviors such as:
talking
making physical contact
looking at faces
Compared to when they were playing with toys, the kids with ASD were more receptive to social advances from their peers when the animals were in sight.
The children laughed and smiled more when the animals were present compared to the toys, and also reduced behaviors of:
frowning
whining
crying
Prior research has indicated that people have a higher probability of receiving overtures of friendship from strangers when taking a dog for a walk as opposed to when they walk unaccompanied.
Comparable outcomes have also been examined for individuals who have smaller animals, such as rabbits or turtles with them.
This ‘social lubricant’ effect of animals on human social interactions may be especially critical for people with socio-emotional disabilities, according to the researchers.
The capability of the animals to assist boys and girls with ASD communicate with adults may also be used to help them interact with teachers, therapists, and other adults in their life.
Animal-assisted interventions may also benefit the classroom dynamics as well, the scientists said.
The authors concluded:
“For children with ASD, the school classroom can be a stressful and overwhelming environment due to social challenges and peer victimization. If an animal can reduce this stress or artificially change children’s perception of the classroom and its occupants, then a child with ASD may feel more at ease and open to social approach behaviors.”
Obama’s immigration policy shows about as much skill level as Obama recently demonstrated in basket ball (2 out of 22 shots made the basket). Laughable.
Everybody knows that you don’t put the cart before the horse. But Obama does so with immigration.
A sensible Immigration Policy:
1) Close the border with Mexico.
2) Require E-verify to ensure that employees are legally in the U.S.A.
3) Create a flexible Guest Worker program based on supply and demand for agriculture, restaurants and tourist industries. See Wall Street Journal, Green-Card Path Seen for Farm Help, April 6-7, 2013.
4) Fine adults & require community service hours for adults who break the existing immigration laws.
5) Do these steps and then put in place a legal pathway to citizenship such as Rubio suggests. CNN Politics, Jan 12, 2013
The first step is Close the Border.
 Can Obama get behind sensible Immigration Reform?  Nope. No way can we close the border with Mexico says Obama. Janet Napolitano, in charge of Homeland Security, agrees with her boss.
In my view, Obama’s goal is to turn the 11 million illegals into Democrats who can vote in 2014. Obama is forever the campaigner and never the national leader of sensible reform.
Other countries successfully do close their borders. For example, Israel successfully closed its border with Egypt and just about nobody gets through.
Research discussed in Medical News article below suggests that a mile walked provides the same health benefit as a mile run.
So, put down the TV clicker or computer mouse and move, move, move!
DrCameronJackson@gmail.com
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“Brisk walking can reduce a person’s risk of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol just as much as running can.
The finding came from a new study published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology which examined 33,060 runners in the National Runners’ Health Study and 15,045 walkers in the National Walkers’ Health Study.
During the six-year study period, the investigators discovered that the same energy used for moderate intensity walking and vigorous intensity running lead to comparable reductions in the likelihood for diabetes, high blood pressure, and potentially coronary heart disease.
Paul T. Williams, Ph.D., leading author and staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Life Science Division in Berkeley, Calif., said:
“Walking and running provide an ideal test of the health benefits of moderate-intensity walking and vigorous-intensity running because they involve the same muscle groups and the same activities performed at different intensities.”
Walking and running expenditure was evaluated by distance, unlike previous research, which used time. The volunteers were given questionnaires in order to provide their activity data.
“The more the runners ran and the walkers walked, the better off they were regarding health benefits. If the amount of energy expended was the same between the two groups, then the health benefits were comparable,” Williams explained.
The experts compared energy expenditure to self-reported, doctor-diagnosed incident hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes, and coronary heart disease.
Results showed:
The risk for first-time hypertension was notably reduced 4.2% by running and 7.2% by walking.
The risk for first-time high cholesterol was reduced 4.3% by running and 7% by walking.
The risk for first-time diabetes was lowered 12.1% by running and 12.3% by walking.
The risk for coronary heart disease was lowered 4.5% by running and 9.3% by walking.
Williams revealed:
“Walking may be a more sustainable activity for some people when compared to running, however, those who choose running end up exercising twice as much as those that choose walking. This is probably because they can do twice as much in an hour.”
Subjects were between 18 and 80 years old, the majority were in their 40s and 50s. Twenty-one percent of the walkers and 51.4% of the runners were male. A study from 2012 indicated that regular exercise in middle age protects the heart.
“People are always looking for an excuse not to exercise, but now they have a straightforward choice to run or to walk and invest in their future health,” Williams said.
Avoid ‘mental defeat’, try alternative therapies for chronic pain
Do you think that people who feel defeated are more likely to feel depressed and anxious? Of course!
What to do about chronic back pain? For sure, don’t give in to feelings of “mental defeat”.
And per the study below, it may be best to avoid going to specialists.
So what to do? Look into the plethora of alternative therapies that do improve quality of life for all persons.
The following study can be found at the Medical News website:
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“A new study of Hong Kong chronic pain patients suggests that targeting feelings of mental defeat could prevent severe depression, anxiety and interference with daily activiti
The concept of mental defeat has previously been associated with post-traumatic stress disorder, but the new study applies it to the experience of chronic pain.
Mental defeat occurs when pain patients view their pain as an ‘enemy’ which takes over their life and removes their autonomy and identity.
The study, published in the Clinical Journal of Pain, analysed three groups of individuals living in Hong Kong – people with chronic pain who had sought specialist treatment, people with chronic pain who did not require specialist treatment and people with acute pain.
The chronic pain individuals reported pain in a variety of sites, with the majority in both groups identifying back pain as their predominant complaint.
The researchers monitored levels of mental defeat through how much the participants agreed with statements such as ‘because of the pain I felt destroyed as a person’ and ‘I felt humiliated and that I was losing my sense of inner dignity’.
When the two groups of individuals with chronic pain were compared, those who were seeking specialist treatment for their pain were found to have higher levels of mental defeat than those who did not require such treatment.
Both chronic pain groups had higher levels of mental defeat than the acute pain group.
The study also found that people who had a sense of mental defeat because of pain also reported higher levels of depression and anxiety as well as a higher incidence of the pain interfering with their daily lives.
The findings of the Hong Kong study reflect earlier studies carried out in the United Kingdom, which suggests that mental defeat is common across cultures.
The study’s lead author Dr Nicole Tang from the Department of Psychology at the University of Warwick said: “The presence of mental defeat in both Western and Eastern populations suggests that aspects of the psychological impact of pain on people’s sense of self and identity are shared across geographical boundaries.
“We know from work in the UK that mental defeat is a significant factor differentiating chronic patients who thrive despite pain from those who develop high levels of distress, depression and interference from pain in their every-day lives.
“These findings suggest that early screening for mental defeat can predict whether a patient will go on to suffer from severe anxiety and depression.
“Standard group pain management programmes do not have a treatment component targeting the sense of mental defeat. “The current development of multidisciplinary pain management services in Hong Kong presents an opportunity to address this gap with a view towards enhancing overall treatment effectiveness.”
The National Science Foundation has given a grant that could wind up totaling almost a million dollars to a University of Iowa study researching which is better for New Zealand mud snails: reproducing sexually or asexually. The grant, awarded in 2011 to last until 2015, has already cost $502,357, and could wind up costing taxpayers $876,752 before all is said and done.
pot belly and short gets Vietnam police moved from job as traffic police.
Pot belly & short Vietnam traffic police are moved to office jobs
Short, pot-bellied policemen will be banned from traffic duty in Vietnam’s capital Hanoi and given office jobs in a bid to improve the force’s public image, police said Wednesday. See complete story:Â Â politically incorrect police
Police with pot-bellies, or who are too small, will be moved to office work to avoid their coming into contact with the public.
Vietnam’s traffic police — which were voted the “most corrupt” institution in the communist country according to a recent World Bank-funded survey — have long been dogged by a poor public image.
In 2011, authorities banned traffic police from wearing sunglasses on duty and warned them not to hide behind trees in order to ambush motorists and extract fines.
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The worker’s paradise is corrupt and insensitive to the  weight challenged.
Shirley Williams ignorant that all Jews left Gaza in 2005
Shirley Williams, Baroness Williams of CrosbyPC (born 27 July 1930) is a British politician and academic. Williams also serves as Professor Emerita of Electoral Politics at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
Shirley Williams told the audience that Gaza is ‘a slum’ and then went on to say the following:
‘It’s crowded out to the gills. It’s full of people struggling to find a box in which to live.
It’s full of people who see their land slowly eaten up by more and more Israeli settlements.’
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Firenze Sage comments:    There is not a Jew in Gaza. Not a Jewish family, not a Jewish settlement, not a Jewish house, not a Jew. The place is – as the Palestinians have said they would like the West Bank to be if it comes under their full control – wholly and absolutely Judenrein.         jaj48@aol.com
Fort Hood Islamic jehad murders called ‘work place injury’ by Obama
Obama waves a magic wand and there’s no home grown terrorism, there’s no need to work for welfare, it’s fine to have a mosque at Ground Zero and the massacre at Ford Hood was just a ‘work place related injury’?
Really? Scream in Arabic that Allah is Great and murder people and the public can be hood winked that its just a work place injury? Just because Obama says so — does not make it so.
There is no home grown terror —  because Obama says so!  That is Obama’s position on the massacre at Fort Hood.
And yes, we must have a mosque at Ground Zero but Catholics cannot practice their religious beliefs. Why? Because Obama says so.
General Motors is alive  — and Bin Laden is dead. Also dead  is our U.S. Ambassador Stevens to Libya.
What is Obama’s foreign policy?  America is to blame for whatever. The US must apologize for whatever. Per Obama, the US must lead from behind with the UN must take leadership.
Think how Obama’s actions towards religious freedom  are connected to his foreign policies:
Remember the Mosque at Ground Zero supported by President Obama. What were Obama’s words?  We must support a mosque because this nation protects religious freedom said President Obama.  Does Obama know any  Islamic history?  Historically, when Islam claimed military  territory the first thing they did  was  put a mosque there.
A mosque at Ground Zero is one  way to spread jihad – the holy war – and show who has won. A mosque at Ground Zero shows religious dominance not religious freedom.
Remember Obama riding rough shod over the Catholic bishops who provide substantial charity in America and world wide  based on Catholic teachings?  The ObamaCare regulation written by HHS Sibelius  requires all charities including Catholic to provide all forms of contraceptives to women – including sterilization, abortion and contraceptives.
When the Republicans held a hearing whether the ObamaCare regulation violated freedom of religion, Nancy Pelosi held her own separate news conference and  brought out Sandra Fluke who said she and graduate students like her  should have free contraceptives paid for by the government.
Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats shifted  a discussion of protection of religious freedom for Catholics and other religions into into a War on Women waged  by the Republicans who  according to Pelosi  want to take away contraceptives from women.
Remember Fort Hood and that crazy MD who gunned all those people down shouting praise of Allah while he did so? Now we learn that per Obama’s policies,  it  was a ‘workplace related injury’ not an act of terror. So no Occupational Therapy or therapy for those injured by that crazy Islamic extremist MD.
No one getting welfare has to work any more Why? Because Obama says so!  So what that Democrat President Clinton signed a law requiring work as part of receiving welfare. No matter that the welfare rolls were cut in half and people reported that they felt better about themselves.
Maybe it is time for Americans to say no more of Obama’s policies. No more  waving a magic, pro-Islam wand and implementing policies that weaken freedoms abroad and here at home.
For two weeks, Obama blamed an anti-Islam video made by an American as the cause of Am. Stevens’ death. From Obama’s viewpoint, it had to be some act of stupidity by an American and not more jehad, not more Islamic extremists making a holy war against America and Western values. The New York Times reported that the man responsible for murdering Am. Stevens is bragging about it while sipping mango juice.
Then in the last debate, Obama gets on TV and walks back the narrative. Now he called Am. Stevens death an act of terrorism from day one. Obama just waved his magic wand and he makes it so! Supposedly.
Let’s hope Romney on Monday asks some pointed questions:
Sir, Mr. President, who in the White House read the cables coming in from Am. Stevens saying he was in danger and security not sufficient?
When Ms. Lamb testified that “the assets were sufficient” did she know that the one plane there had been removed and two groups of security had been removed? Did Ms. Lamb know there were 200 acts of terrorism the last year and that the Am. from Great Britain was attacked and that the Red Cross had withdrawn?
And Sir, exactly now many of the daily security briefings did you attend this last 3 months? And why did you attend less than half? Just too busy trying to get re-elected?
Sir, why did 6-7 days pass and a news agency picks up Am. Stevens diary and only then did the public learn that Am. Stevens thought his life was threatened and security lax?
Why no marines sent in based an hour or so away? Yes or no Mr. President – before you flew to Las Vegas, did you call a meeting of the agencies in charge of security and State Department? And why not?
There are a lot of foreign and domestic policy questions that need to be asked and answered.
Why a TRILLION dollar deficit each of the last four years?
Why NO immigration reform during the first two years when the Democrats held the Senate and House and could pass any bill they wanted?
Why do you support importing Brazilian oil yet kill the pipeline from Canada which means jobs for Americans and oil for Americans instead of oil for China?
Why Mr. President do Democrats like Gore increase their wealth from 2 to 100 million after making investments in green corporations that you subsidized and subsequently went belly up?
Let’s hope that the American public asks for answers to these and other questions. And no more waving of magic wands by Obama!
