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John 14:23
8 hours ago
Saturday, February 20, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Productive Living: Your mind has better things to do - by David Allen
YOUR MIND HAS BETTER THINGS TO DO
My systems are set up and maintained with a standard of thinking as little as possible.
It looks to the casual observer just the opposite. The perception is often something like, "You have so many lists! Isn't it confusing and a lot of work to remember where to put things and to maintain all that?" They think their mind has better things to do.
That might be true, if I had arbitrarily created all that at one time. But it didn't happen that way.
It took years of experimentation to discover that putting anything but what
Scanning an email and leaving it in "In" because it's not as important as other emails at the moment creates double reading, double thinking, and double decision-making (not to mention the nagging it creates in the psyche in the meantime.)
My mind has better things to do.
"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do."
-Goethe
Friday, January 29, 2010
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
The Vita Myth
The Vita Myth
Do supplements really do any good?
Posted Wednesday, Jan. 6, 2010, at 12:31 PM ET
Deciding what to eat for dinner can be mind-bending. How do we keep track of the ever-evolving recommendations for what to put on, and leave off, the plate? Red meat might cause cancer! But don't replace it with tofu—soy concoctions might be carcinogenic, too! Don't even try to figure out where carbs stand this week. And the verdict on coffee, chocolate, and alcohol changes faster than you can order a mocha martini.
Vitamins—with their promise to bridge the gap between the nutrients our bodies need and those they get—have always seemed reassuringly simple: Just pop a multivitamin and let your body soak in those extra nutrients. But not any longer. During the past few years, study after study has raised doubts about what, if any, good vitamins actually do a body. They could even pose some real medical risks.
Half of all American adults take some sort of nutritional supplement. But research on a wide variety of patient populations and medical conditions has failed to find much evidence that multivitamins, the most commonly used of the lot, prevent major chronic diseases in healthy people. The most recent knock came this spring, when a study of more than 160,000 post-menopausal women, published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, found that the all-in-one pills did not prevent cancer, heart attacks, or strokes and did not reduce overall mortality.
Individual vitamins and minerals haven't fared much better under scientific scrutiny, with research debunking some of the reputed benefits of vitamin B6, calcium, niacin, and others. In 2006, the National Institutes of Health convened an independent panel of experts to evaluate the evidence that vitamins could prevent chronic disease. The scientists ultimately issued a report stating that studies "do not provide strong evidence for beneficial health-related effects of supplements taken singly, in pairs, or in combinations."
The news on antioxidants, the darlings of the vitamin menagerie, is even more troubling. These compounds, which include vitamins A, C, and E, selenium, beta carotene, and folate, fight free radicals, unstable compounds thought to damage cells and contribute to aging. But not only do antioxidant supplements fail to protect against heart disease, stroke, and cancer; they actually increase the risk of death, according to a 2007 analysis of research on more than 232,000 people, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, as well as other studies.
Exactly why they might increase mortality is unclear, but doctors at prominent research institutions—including New York's Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Seattle's Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center—have highlighted some unsettling connections between supplemental antioxidants and an increased risk of a variety of cancers. Popping certain kinds of antioxidant pills can feed latent cancers growing in the body, for instance, and reduce the effectiveness of chemotherapy. These observations make a certain intuitive sense, since vitamins and minerals play an important role in the replication of healthy cells—why shouldn't they be doing the same for cancerous cells? (Feeding mice a diet poor in antioxidants, on the other hand, can actually help shrink their brain tumors.) Scientists are also beginning to suspect that the body may actually need free radicals—which help kill cancer cells, ensure optimal immune function, and regulate blood sugar, among other things—so we shouldn't necessarily be mopping them all up.
The list of worrisome findings goes on, but it doesn't seem to have put a dent in the $25 billion supplement industry. Sales are not only robust but rising in the United States. Doctors still recommend multivitamins as part of basic preventative care. Despite the demonstrated risk, as many as 80 percent of cancer survivors swallow a daily dose, according to a study published in theJournal of Clinical Oncology in 2008.
Vitamins have a powerful psychological hold over us. As precautionary health measures go, supplements are easy. Compare the two seconds required to swallow a pill with the constant vigilance necessary to exercise and eat right. And the fact that vitamins are available without a prescription makes them seem safe—even though it probably makes them less so, since they're not regulated by the FDA and manufacturers are not required to prove that they're effective at treating disease.
But the risk-benefit calculus has changed. We know more about the risks, and it's clear that there's also less potential benefit. During the early 20th century, diseases like scurvy and rickets were common until researchers began to isolate compounds in food—which became known as vitamins—that could altogether cure these ailments. It must have been remarkable to see devastating diseases alleviated with common foodstuffs.
During an era when many people legitimately had nutritional deficiencies, placing your bets on a multi might have been reasonable. But today, of course, actual deficiencies are much less common. Our salt, milk, flour, juice, cereal, and more are all fortified with extra nutrients, and a 2009 study published in the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine suggests that most of the kids who end up taking vitamins in the United States today don't actually need them.
If vitamins are useful for anything, it's probably for tapping into our old friend the placebo effect. In a 2008 survey, 38 percent of doctors confessed to recommending vitamins because they believed the pills could promote health purely through the power of positive expectations. Consider a famous 1975 study designed to probe whether vitamin C supplements alleviated colds better than a placebo, an inert lactose tablet. It turned out that it didn't matter much which pill the subjects were actually taking. What mattered was what they thought they were getting: Those who believed they were taking vitamin C had fewer and milder cases of the sniffles than those who believed they were just swallowing lactose. That would be reason enough to pop a supplement—there are worse things than deceiving yourself into better health—if it weren't for the emerging evidence that the pills might be capable of causing real harm.
That's not to say that vitamins aren't important. Vitamins are critical to all sorts of bodily functions, and we have to get them through diet because our bodies can't make them on their own. The Office of Dietary Supplements at the NIH recommends that we get certain levels of a variety of kinds of vitamins, and that recommendation is sound. But encouraging us to get a complete suite of vitamins is not the same as suggesting that we get them by popping a pill.
In fact, the reports littering the ODS site seem to converge upon the same point: There is some good news for supplements, but it's extremely limited. The 2006 NIH panel, for instance, concluded that postmenopausal women should probably take calcium and vitamin D to safeguard their bones; that pregnant women should keep taking folate; and that adults with age-related macular degeneration, an eye disease, should take a combination of antioxidants and zinc. But beyond that, the panel's strongest recommendation was that scientists conduct further research on the risks and benefits of vitamins. For every study that turns up disconcerting vitamin side effects, there seem to be two more that conclude that we simply don't know enough yet about supplements to make evidence-based recommendations.
Until we do, we should stop treating supplements like health candy and more like prescription meds, to be used only when there's a demonstrated need. Doctors should create individualized regimes, tailored to a particular patient's deficiencies. As for the rest of us, we can put the pills back on the shelf and save our cash for one of those martinis.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
He calls himself REVERAND and encourages extramarital affairs.... what Bible does he read?
Al Sharpton Blasts Tiger Woods for Lack of Mistress Diversity
The Rev. Al Sharpton held a press conference today to blast Tiger Woods for the lack of diversity among his mistresses. Sharpton claims that the lack of African-American women among Woods’ harem will have a negative affect on the black community, specifically young black girls.“Why is it that a man who calls himself black can’t bring himself to cheat on his wife with a black woman?” said Sharpton, speaking to a group of supporters in Harlem . “What does it say to young black girls everywhere when you pass them over? Shame on you, Tiger Woods. What would your daddy say?”Sharpton, who has long championed taking black women as mistresses, said that today’s black athletes need to stop neglecting black women when it comes to extramarital affairs, and should follow the examples of positive black role models such as Jesse Jackson and Martin Luther King, Jr., both of whom cheated on their wives with black women. Sharpton also stressed that cheating with African-American women would help the black community financially by giving black girls the chance to sell their stories to tabloids and gossip magazines.Added Sharpton, “I’m not asking you to not cheat on your wives, I’m just asking you to give back to your own community.”
Thursday, November 26, 2009
HAPPY THANKSGIVING
A Prayer of Thanksgiving Almighty God, we give you thanks for this life and all its blessings, for joys great and simple, for gifts and powers more than we deserve, for love at the heart of your purpose and wisdom in all your works, for light in the world brought once in Christ and always shining through your Spirit. Giving thanks to you we pray for that light to dawn upon us daily that we may always have grateful hearts, and a will to love and to serve you to the end of our days. Hear our prayer and our praises, through Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN
--The Book of Common Prayer
Thankful because of the stability you provide
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Happy ThanksgivingWe Are So Blessed!What does it mean to be thankful? Usually moving and grooving with a world that seems busy keeps us from pausing to let others know how appreciated they really are. The last two years have truly been crazy in our country... the economy, elections, housing markets, banks, etc. Stability is not a word you would use to describe this time at all, but there has been stability. That makes me thankful....stability brings a feeling that we have something foundational from which we can build. A place of strength which serves as an anchor to allow us to maintain homeostasis while we move through "seasons". Those "seasons" are the |
Stability can be seen in many things
- a stable GOD who never changes and loves us unconditionally (He even died for us), is bigger than any problem, provides for eternal salvation, provides the power to do the things He calls us to do, knows ALL things, provides His Word for us to know Him, includes us in His big plan for mankind, and is the King of Kings and in HisKingdom I live!
- a Family that is a blessing that loves me and I can love... a Family that pursues God together... a Family whose next generation looks brighter than the previous
- relationships that God has gifted us with that we can walk this life with together, and those with whom we can share an eternal relationship that will never end because of our common belief in His redemption... old relationships that continue to grow deeper and new relationships that spawn new horizons and new territories
- health that allows us to vitally pursue and live an abundant life... health that allows us to offer health to others whose health is weak....
- a business that is not about houses, mortgages, banks, the stock market, government decisions (or lack there of), but instead about relationships with a network of awesome people who become friends and connect and pursue common goals and purposes.... a business whose value is so much more in the people than the systems, product, service, or assets that crumble in economic Winters... a business that is so stable because of the people who are stable and resilient beyond comprehension.... a business with a leader who is a visionary..... a business where health is received and given away..... a business that is a platform that supplies the income to pursue the purpose God has revealed to each of us...and more.
- a warm house when its cold, cool when its hot, a car that gets us from place to place, shoes, clothes, technology, water, food, and so much more we just take for granted
- a puppy dog that has unconditional loyalty and trust (what a cool example of unconditional love)
- and Oh so much more that will not be remembered for the moment
It is from this stability that we can pursue those God revealed Kairos moments of time. Those open doors and windows like Esther's moment ... "for such a time is this" when she stepped up to the plate and swung the bat. It is encouraging to see all of the opportunities that arise in times of stress and crisis. Some wait for the crisis to pass while others see the kairos moments that exist because of the crisis. Many new "empires" had their foundations built and were born from times like these. Lets be thankful for where we are and even more thankful for what we can be a part of in the future.You are getting this email because my family and I are thankful for you... and for you being a reason that stability is present in our lives, and we can be a part of that stability for you. We are grateful that we can move forward with you and build on the platform God has given us together.
Thank You for being so much more than friends, but relationships that stand the storms and tests of time that allow the future to be brighter than today!
We love and appreciate you,
The Beavers
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