Odds and Ends

It occurs to me that though I end my Sunday by writing the odds and ends, you may not read them until Monday. So whether you are ending a week or starting one - here they are - my leftover points from a busy news week.

Cenegenics – I have heard and seen a commercial about men who are 70 but have the bodies of 30 year olds – well, healthy fit 30 year olds. “How do they do it?” the announcer asks. The commercial says that Cenegenics is not a fad diet and doesn’t use pills and such, but alas, it DOES. I went to the website today to see just what the Cenegenics program was and learned that it does involve supplements and in some cases, hormones. Well, let me just tell you there is plenty of evidence that those things do not work and could in fact cause harm, while there is not evidence to suggest that they help in any way. The website and commercial also talk about the program being created by a doctor. Well, whoop tee do. Almost anyone can get a medical degree – but not just anyone can get it from an accredited and prestigious institution and furthermore, she said with passion, just because a person is a doctor doesn’t mean they are a good one. You might also note that the DHHS is going to release a new food guide and food guide pyramid next year that does NOT recommend even a multi vitamin for most persons. IN fact, nutrition is best received from your plate – from whole foods, and aging with grace and sluggishness is more about what you do, not about what you take.

Marriott – Hurray! This hotel chain is joining the restaurant owners who post calorie content on their menu. Marriott has already begun to do so in some of the lobby bistros and I am looking forward to taking advantage of this needed information. Here is their webpage in case you want to give them a word of kudos or thanks.

Oil spill – A few weeks ago when the USA began to hear all about tar balls on the local and cable news, we were told NOT to touch them without protection. There has been a lot of coverage regarding clean up crews and their work collecting these remnants of the tragic Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Imagine then this NPR story I heard the other day. A woman in Florida, near the panhandle, was swimming and saw these spheres under the water. She collected them in her hands and mashed or squished them between her fingers and in her palms. Oh my – they were tar balls. YES – what part of don’t touch them didn’t she quite understand.

HSDD/Drug failure – Here is another one for the “are they crazy?” section. Or maybe the “do they think we are that stupid?” blog. I am referring to the application for new drug status on a medicine that is supposed to reverse or cure or ameliorate the lack of libido that some women appear to have after a certain age. In fact, we call this Hypoactive (hypo is low, hyper is high) Sexual Desire Disorder. We don’t really call it that – drug companies call it that. Because if you can make it a disease then you can make a drug for it. The FDA panel reviewing a German drug company’s offering quickly gave it a thumbs down – unanimously. As I was doing something around my house this week, I heard a pundit on TV saying something about drug companies creating illnesses so they could make something to treat them and my thought, actually, my out loud response was, “Ya Think?”

Vitamin D – Okay – Vitamin D is a supplement that HAS been well received by esteemed nutritionists and physicians, so much so that the RDA or recommended daily allowance is likely to be increased. Most experts now recommend 1000 IU of D-3 per day. I take this for my bones and because as some suggest, it might be protective of health overall. At the store today all I could find were pills for the old dose of 400 IU and then bottles and bottles and bottles of pills that were 2000 IU each. Also there was some gummy, flavored Vit D with sugar added. Sometimes I get so frustrated…. I didn’t buy any.

Tampons – Sorry, but they were right by the Vitamins. I was sort of struck by the boxes of a certain brand. A black box with different but sharp colors, pink, blue etc. Reminded me of the Camel No 9 cigarette packs that are targeted at young women. Too funny – the competing world of menstruation products. We are certainly a long way from when the pharmacy wrapped the boxes in brown paper, eh?