Random Thoughts

I've been tending to just collect clips of what I want to write about instead of just writing them due to a lack of time. So, I decided to just squish up a whole bunch of longer posts into shorter ones. Here's what I'm thinking about (be prepared for some politics).

Dengue fever stinks.

 There's no cure, it's potentially fatal, and its region grows larger day by day. But science is cool! Scientists have recently discovered a way to infect mosquitoes with a bacteria that renders them unable to carry the dengue virus, and have released hosts of these mosquitoes into the wild. The idea is that these mosquitoes will breed with wild mosquitoes (is that the right term?), resulting in offspring that can no longer carry the virus as well. Theoretically, this could eventually halt dengue virus altogether.

Eating processed red meats has been linked to heart failure and early death. Click here.

 In a recent study in Sweden, men who ate processed red meats (the meat that comes in that little plastic tub) had an 8% increased chance of death, and a 38% increased chance of heart failure compared to men that don't eat processed red meat. Scary. An earlier study showed that those who ate plastic tub meat had a 23% increased risk of stroke, and a 18% increased risk of cerebral infarction. Lesson learned. Avoid processed red meat.

Medical tourism from China is booming (bad for China, good for us)

China, a country known for its nationalized healthcare, is losing patients to overseas doctors. Why? Because nationalized health care is a stupid idea. Chinese civilians are realizing that their current healthcare situation stinks, that their doctors provide lackluster care, that corruption is present, and that they will suffer the consequences personally. As a result they're traveling abroad for important surgeries and procedures.

Many U.S. states are contemplating minimal wage increases

Resulting in employees who were previously above minimum-wage want a raise as well, resulting in everything you could ever want to buy increasing in price as well, resulting in people getting placed right back where they were at in the first place. Plus, there's inflation (the American dollar isn't worth as much). If you want to make above minimum wage, make something of yourself. The disgusting thing here isn't that people want to make more money, but that they want to be rewarded for their poor life decisions. If you want to make more money, work harder, earn a promotion, or go to school. Life isn't a Sam's Club on Sunday afternoon (ooo, free samples).

Ebola is spreading

Which is kind of spooky. Scientists are working like crazy on vaccines at the moment though.

Calling insurance companies is my new hobby

I got into a car wreck about two weeks ago (their fault, not mine), and ever since then I've spent about an hour on the phone every day trying to get the insurance stuff straightened out.

AND...We're looking for a new apartment

That's my other new hobby. Why can't my new hobbies be fun?

Johnny Cash Got Me in Trouble

Forget talking about politics or religion.

If you really want to make a room full of 80-year-olds mad, tell them that you think Johnny Cash just moans into the microphone and wasn't that good of a singer.

Holy smokes, you'd have thought I'd just insulted their spouse. You've never seen an 80 something year old hop off a treadmill so fast.

"Johnny was a... GENIUS!"

80 is Young?

I work in local gym personal training. What's that mean? It means that typically I'm working with older people all day (or people with life experience, as they like to say). I'm helping a client through their workout today, as they're telling me about their neck problems

Client: "Yes, as you get older, your body can't do what it used to do when you were young."

Me: "Yeah. People keep saying that around here."

Client: "I have to keep telling myself, 'You're not 80 years old anymore! You can't do those things!'"

CVS Stockholders Beware (But Maybe Not?)

I think we can all agree that smoking can have pretty devastating outcomes on your health. Odds are you know of somebody that's been destroyed by their choices with tobacco.

I see it all the time. I work in a cardiopulmonary rehab center. Patients come in every day hooked up to oxygen tanks, barely able to walk across the room without stopping to catch their breath.

Tobacco kills. 

But nevertheless, it's here to stay. Why? Well, first, because it's addictive. And second, there's good money to be made off of tobacco. I know of people with engineering degrees who went into tobacco farming. Why? Because you can pull in somewhere around $1500/acre (1).  And if you own a 50 (pretty average) acre farm that's nothing but tobacco planted throughout, you can net somewhere in the neighborhood of $75,000/year.

That's pretty stinkin' good.

Farming tobacco brings in big money because tobacco products bring in big money. The tobacco industry is somewhere around $35 billion (2). You can make good money selling this stuff.

And that's why I find CVS's decision so surprising. 

CVS, your local drugstore, has decided to pull all tobacco products from its shelves, forgoing around $2 billion dollars in annual sales. That's amazing. I don't even know what to make of this.

The hope is that by getting rid of all tobacco products, other corner drugstores will follow suit leading to a much healthier America. Conscious driven customers will hopefully respect CVS's decision and shop their more as well.

What's going to happen is completely up in the air, but I personally applaud CVS for taking such a huge step to forgo the sales of a product not in line with its mission. We'll see what happens.

Christians Have Lower Mortality Than Atheists

Here's some exciting research for ya:

Religious people tend to have lower mortality rates than non-religious people.

Yep, it's true. And from pretty much all causes too. Those who regularly attend church services, and practice private religion have:

• a decreased risk of suicide
• lower rates of cancer
• lower rates of circulatory diseases
• less digestive diseases
• less respiratory diseases
• and pretty much just a decreased risk of death all over (1, 2)

Pretty cool, huh? But why is this the case? Well, that's pretty easy when you get to thinking about it. 

Let's focus on Christians. 

 Christians believe the Bible is God's Word, that Jesus was real, and that He's the boss. They also believe in a lot of other things as well. Like how drunkenness, sexual immorality/homosexuality/pre-marital sex, and a host of other factors are a sin. 

Christians are also much less likely to get into fights, use drugs/alcohol/tobacco, engage in violent behavior, have less depression, have higher rates of self-esteem, and have a more positive outlook on life than atheists.

Now if you take a look at the root causes of different diseases and death, a lot of these go hand in hand. Don't want AIDS? Don't emulate anybody from 'How I Met Your Mother' or 'The Big Bang Theory'. Don't want liver cirrhosis? Don't drink. Don't want to die from lung or mouth cancer? Avoid tobacco. 

It's all pretty common sense, really. And if you'll notice, pretty much all of it's in the Bible. 

I don't think that God put all of those rules in the Bible just to suck the fun out of our lives. I think He did it for a reason. He knows the consequences of sinful choices, and He cares about us. Just like a good parent will never let his child play out in the street, God doesn't want us to play with sin. 

And that's something we should be able to live with. 

Why I Don't Think Milk Causes Diabetes

So, I just finished up one of my summer classes called 'Diabetes'. It was an excellent class, and one of the required textbooks for it was an ebook called 'Diabetes Rising' (note: ebooks make excellent textbooks for essays. "Where's that reference again? Oh, look! A search bar!").

Anyway, the book goes over 5 theories as to why diabetes is on the rise in America, which I previously  blogged about here.

Basically, the milk theory says that humans, specifically babies, aren't designed to be able to digest milk. The cells of the pancreas have a hard time with this, and the beta cells that produce insulin are destroyed as a result.

That's a giant container of barbeque sauce, by the way. Yellowhed's idea. We've had it over a year.

Sounds scary, right?

Well, it's certainly a theory, but I don't know how much stock I would put into it. Why? Because of my own little pet theory, which involves the Bible.

Now first of all, the Bible is not a medical textbook. You're not going to find surgical techniques in it, or specific instructions as to how to treat the flu. But it does cover a lot of public health issues. The book of Leviticus is considered the first recorded public health law. Personal hygiene, food safety, community sanitation issues, and a whole host of other potential problems are discussed within the Bible.

1 Timothy 4:4-5 - "For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer."

Now before you go out saying, "Alrighhhht!!! Bring out the marijuana!!!", let me say that I think you have to exercise a bit of discretion here. Obviously God created tobacco, but that doesn't mean He intended for us to fill our lungs with its smoke. God cares about our being responsible, and making wise and God-honoring decisions, and I think we need to be mindful of that.

But when I saw this verse, it got me thinking about the Israelites.

In Exodus 3:17, God told Moses that He was going to lead the Israelites to the Promised Land. "A land flowing with milk and honey."

The Promised Land was supposed to be pretty sweet. God had everything planned out for them there. Why on earth would He lead His people to a land filled with something that causes diabetes? That doesn't make any sense to me.

This isn't the only example either. Over and over again in the Bible, milk is referenced in a positive manner. Jeremiah 11:5, Proverbs 27:27, 1 Corinthians 9:7, Exodus 13:5, Jeremiah 32:22, and Numbers 13:27 are but a few of the many verses that talk about the presence of milk as a positive factor.

 I've heard the arguments before about how if the earlier doctors had just read their Bible, they would have seen Deuteronomy 12:23 which mentions blood being the source of life, and as a result would have never bled their patients, which often resulted in death. George Washington, and a host of other important figures would have probably lived and done other good things as a result, all if doctors had just read their Bibles.

Is that possible? I don't know. And I'm not saying that my theory is absolutely, positively sound either. There may be some truth to the fact that newborns should probably stay away from cow milk and formula.

All I know is that it wouldn't make sense for God to seem to advocate something that would lead to a very devastating disease.

And that's why I don't think that milk causes diabetes.