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from the hoping-for-a-speedy-recovery dept.
The observant among you may have noticed I'd been posting fewer stories recently.
On October 27th I went to the hospital. After a physical examination, CT scan, and MRI, it was determined that I had had a minor stroke. I had mild loss of use of the pinky and ring finger of my left hand as well as some loss of fine motor control in my left arm and leg. A couple days later saw me in the operating room with a stent being inserted in my right carotid artery. I was released on Halloween day for a few days' recuperation at a relative's home and am now cleared to go back to work. I'm starting easy with slightly shortened work days, as I lack the stamina I had before.
Still, as these things go, I can't help but think of how fortunate I am. Nothing internal seems to have been affected (heart, lungs, etc. all working fine.) I am right-handed, so no problems there. No problem with talking or swallowing, so that's a huge plus. Thanks to neural plasticity and prescribed exercises, I have already mostly recovered. The lack of stamina manifests as my just being too tired after a day at work to be able to do much in the way of posting stories out to the site. As for my mind, I can attest that I am still as tarp as a shack! =)
As much as I would like to think I'll just bounce back to normal in no time, I acknowledge that my activities here will be at a somewhat diminished capacity for a while; time will tell.
With my absence, the rest of the editorial team rose to the occasion and kept the main page fed with stories. This meant extra time and effort on their part. Please join me in thanking Fnord666, Janrinok, cmn32480, takyon, chromas, NotSanguine, and CoolHand for their efforts to help push out stories to the main page. There were probably others whom I failed to notice; please accept my apologies for their omission. Call them out in the comments, and join me in thanking them for their efforts.
On a related note, it is my pleasure to announce that Fnord666 has accepted my invitation to step up to fill the position of Alternate-Editor-in-Chief. When janrinok was Editor-in-Chief (EiC), I accepted becoming Alternate-EiC, and when he stepped down as EiC, it was a privilege to take on becoming the EiC. I foresee no imminent demise on my part, but recent events made it abundantly clear to me the value of having this position filled. Please join me in congratulating Fnord666 on his promotion!
(For completeness' sake, I wish to point out that all of the staff at SoylentNews are volunteers. Nobody here has ever been paid anything for their work on the site. Any monies received when you subscribe go towards paying hosting fees, domain name registration, tax preparation expenses, and other costs required to keep this site running. Speaking of which, we are at nearly 70% of our goal for this half of our fiscal year—many thanks to those who have already subscribed!)
Lastly, I now place a request to the community. With the holiday season coming, my free time will become even more limited by work demands. It would be such a help to us to see story submissions from members of the community. It's really not that hard to do. Take a look at what the general layout of each article looks like on the site. Nothing very fancy or elaborate is needed. Click the Submit Story link in the SlashBox on the left-hand side of the main page of this site. Provide a title for the story, select a topic, provide a link to what you are writing in about, and a few paragraphs from the linked story would prove extremely helpful to us! We aim for mostly tech-oriented stories, but that is not an absolute requirement. Please submit your story in English (either North American, British or other variant is fine). Do be aware that we aim for balanced reporting here; attempts to push an agenda with one-sided, biased, or slanted submissions will likely result in the story being declined. The story submission page provides a link to the Submission Guidelines that, if followed, greatly improves the chance that your story will be accepted. (NB: We tend to relax the standards a bit on the weekend so as to include slightly offbeat or humorous stories; we appreciate a good laugh, too!
(Score: 2) by pdfernhout on Sunday November 10 2019, @07:20PM (3 children)
http://healthland.time.com/2013/04/01/unhealthy-teens-could-lead-to-rise-in-heart-disease-rates/ [time.com]
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20081010/child-heart-disease-risks-rise [webmd.com]
"The rate of premature heart disease among obese teens is set to triple, and the increasing prevalence of high blood pressure in children is a major culprit, experts warned at a news conference sponsored by the American Society of Hypertension. "The presence of child obesity results in higher rates of high blood pressure," which is a major risk factor for stroke and heart attack, said Bonita Falkner, MD, a professor of medicine and pediatrics at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia. "This is a problem that is not going to magically go away, and it puts children at risk for premature cardiac events at an earlier period in their adult lives.""
If what you said about evolutionary pressures was entirely correct, why are many children now getting heart disease when they did not used to?
See also Dr. Joel Fuhrman's writings for more evidence on how humans are adapted to eat a certain diet (mostly plants, especially leafy greens, but also fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, and so on, with lots of omega 3s and no refined sugar) -- and why the further we stray from diet that the more health issues we see of all sorts.
Of from another direction (including more lifestyle aspects like inadequate sleep):
https://tlc.ku.edu/ [ku.edu]
"We were never designed for the sedentary, indoor, sleep-deprived, socially-isolated, fast-food-laden, frenetic pace of modern life. (Stephen Ilardi, PhD)"
The biggest challenge of the 21st century: the irony of technologies of abundance used by scarcity-minded people.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday November 10 2019, @07:53PM (2 children)
Humans need a certain activity level to stay healthy, same as they should not smoke or take narcotics. All these will increase plaques deposits in the coronary arteries.
But a normal level of activity, a healthy diet, etc, aren't sufficient to prevent deposits of plaques, they just hold it off from developing prematurely.
Otherwise, statins should be sufficient, but while they lower serum cholesterol, they have zero influence on cardiovascular disease. You are your genetic destiny, and for many humans, until we find ways of increasing creation of HDL, we have a problem that is going in to continue inflicting damage among the 40-60 crowd.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 10 2019, @11:27PM (1 child)
You are making the same mistake most people do, as a result of heavy media marketing, that all calories are created equal. Just sitting around all day consumes way more calories than you would use in a single 30min exercise session. A seditary lifestyle is bad for many reasons, but one should not be anywhere near obese on a healthy diet.
Your point about Jim Fixx, fitness guru who ran up to 80 miles a week and died of a heart attack at 52, is the point, excersise is not the deciding factor. Genetics plays some role, but diet is the key.
(Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Sunday November 10 2019, @11:52PM
As for all calories not being the same, so what? LDL serum levels don't affect the buildup of fatty plaques on the arteries , or drugs that reduce serum cholesterol would reduce the rate of death from coronary artery disease. The only thing that reduces plaques is increasing production of HDL. Too bad we don't have drugs for that. But if you have the right mutations, you can eat fried eggs and hash browns every day, junk food, processed food, etc and have clean arteries. All that will happen is increased "bad" lipid intake will result in much higher HDL, while barely budging LDL levels.
Unfortunately, most people with a mutation that affects LDL levels don't get the HDL mutation as well, so while their levels may be lower, they don't get the benefits - plaques still build up.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.