I am devastated.
I love my dog, Maggie. I adopted her 10 years ago at the Santa Monica Animal shelter and it was love at first sight. A few months ago, we spent 120 days on the road traveling across the USA in my little 4x9 teardrop trailer. These pictures are from that trip. I rushed her to the hospital today and found out that she has an enormous growth in her spleen. Tonight, she is having surgery to remove the growth. I don't want to project. This is all I know so far. I will keep you updated on her status as I know more. She is my baby. I miss her being out of the house already.
At first I was horrified. After a coffee(magic in a paper cup), I became amused. We, as Americans (yes, I am going to clump you into this generalization) are obsessed with “skinny.” In our society, it’s a compliment to be skinny. I have curves. I thought all women had curves. But, we can’t have curves in the clothes being sold today. I know that this isn’t a scientific study, but I went to 3 
retailers browsing around with my coffee in tow, looking at what styles were in today. All I saw were descriptors of clothes as “skinny,” “toothpick,” “pencil,” and my favorite…”destroyed.” 
at J.Crew to pick up a pair of destroyed pencil skinny jeans for me? Pleeeeezzzeeee…. Oh yeah, and a pair of toothpick destroyers in a size 0.” 
Have you ever even seen “the back?” I have no idea what is there, but a lot of the time, even the salesperson is scared of it. You can tell it’s a nightmare there when they sigh and say,” oh, everything is out here” and turn to chew their gum, twirl their hair and carry on the conversation with another employee on how so and so did this or that.
greeted with a 10 X 15 foot black and white picture of a man reaching in his pants looking for something. What are we selling? Jeans, yeeeah…right… So, the music is loud, the stench comes at you before you get in and obviously by the looks of the 12 year old salesgirl (wearing a top no bigger than one you would put on a barbie), I greatly surpassed the age maximum to get in the store and for them to care. Doesn't matter what you need or want, the music level is loud enough they can pretend not to hear you. Anyway, they don’t have my size and there is no “back.” I had to laugh at the men’s jeans with holes all over it selling for $100. At $8 an hour, that kid has to work 12.5 hours + to buy those jeans. In this day and age, do you think kids think like that?
me...smiled. He looked back at the postcards and then back at me. Under his breath, said, “um… wow, this is from 2002...we don’t even carry this product anymore… (Smile...nervous laughter), this is expired (as he ripped the postcard in 10 pieces), and then finally, “this I can do!” He said that just about when I was starting to walk away...whew...saved.
There is general agreement among medical men that the susceptibility of mankind to many types of infection is closely related to the state of nutrition. The difficulty arises, when closer examination is given to this general proposition, as to what constitutes good and bad nutrition, and the problem is not rendered easier by recent advances in nutritional science.Dr. Mellanby was primarily concerned with the effect of fat-soluble vitamins on infectious disease, particularly vitamins A and D. One of his earliest observations was that butter protected against pneumonia in his laboratory dogs. He eventually identified vitamin A as the primary protective factor. He found that by placing rats on a diet deficient in vitamin A, they developed numerous infectious lesions, most often in the urogenital tract, the eyes, the intestine, the middle ear and the lungs. This was prevented by adding vitamin A or cabbage (a source of beta-carotene, which the rats converted to vitamin A) to the diet. Mellanby and his colleagues subsequently dubbed vitamin A the "anti-infective vitamin".
The high incidence of bronchitis, pneumonia, tropical ulcers and phthisis among the Kikuyu tribe who live on a diet mainly of cereals as compared with the low incidence of these diseases among their neighbours the Masai who live on meat, milk and raw blood (Orr and Gilks), probably has a similar or related nutritional explanation. The differences in distribution of infective disease found by these workers in the two tribes are most impressive. Thus in the cereal-eating tribe, bronchitis and pneumonia accounted for 31 per cent of all cases of sickness, tropical ulcers for 33 per cent, and phthisis for 6 per cent. The corresponding figures for the meat, milk and raw blood tribe were 4 per cent, 3 per cent and 1 per cent.So they set out to test the theory under controlled conditions. Their first target: puerperal sepsis. This is an infection of the uterus that occurs after childbirth. They divided 550 women into two groups: one received vitamins A and D during the last month of pregnancy, and the other received nothing. Neither group was given instructions to change diet, and neither group was given vitamins during their hospital stay. The result, quoted from Nutrition and Disease:
The morbidity rate in the puerperium using the [British Medical Association] standard was 1.1 per cent in the vitamin group and 4.7 in the control group, a difference of 3.6 per cent which is twice the standard error (1.4), and therefore statistically significant.This experiment didn't differentiate between the effects of vitamin A and D, but it did establish that fat-soluble vitamins are important for resistance to bacterial infection. The next experiment Dr. Mellanby undertook was a more difficult one. This time, he targeted puerperal septicemia. This is a more advanced stage of puerperal sepsis, in which the infection spreads into the bloodstream. In this experiment, he treated women who had already contracted the infection. This trial was not as tightly controlled as the previous one. Here's a description of the intervention, from Nutrition and Disease:
...all patients received when possible a diet rich not only in vitamin A but also of high biological quality. This diet included much milk, eggs, green vegetables, etc., as well as the vitamin A supplement. For controls we had to use the cases treated in previous years by the same obstetricians and gynecologists as the test cases.In the two years prior to this investigation, the mortality rate for puerperal septicemia in 18 patients was 92%. In 1929, Dr. Mellanby fed 18 patients in the same hospital his special diet, and the mortality rate was 22%. This is a remarkable treatment for an infection that was almost invariably fatal at the time.
It is probable that, as in the case of vitamin D and rickets, the question is not simple and that it will ultimately be found that vitamin A works in harmony with some dietetic factors, such as milk proteins and other proteins of high biological value, to promote resistance of mucous membranes and epithelial cells to invasion by micro-organisms, while other factors such as cereals, antagonise its influence. The effect of increasing the green vegetable and reducing the cereal intake on the resistance of herbivorous animals to infection is undoubted (Glenny and Allen, Boock and Trevan) and may well indicate a reaction in which the increased carotene of the vegetable plays only a part, but an important part.
I grew up in Southern California and have always lived close to where the “magic” happens. I am 6 feet tall, but I have never considered modeling or anything of the sort. Well, once my mom took me to a model agency when I was in 6th grade I think (because I was a foot taller than everyone else) and they told me I needed to lose around 20 pounds. What??? I’m 13 years old! Needless to say, I left and never went back. I would rather play sports anyway. Humph! I showed them!
of the women in the background sitting on a picnic blanket. We started the shoot about 3 hours late in overcast, cloudy and windy conditions. Was I complaining? Heck no!
Sorry to say that David did not make it in the picture. I sure did enjoy his company, though! Thank you Dave for making the drive down to experience this with me. I look forward to visiting you up north and watching you doing stand up comedy!
Here are some pictures I took to give you an idea of the day... yes, that's "Niky Stevens" from the L Word.
I am tired of “things.”
is another box full of corks somewhere, but I dumped out the one I had to count 644 corks (at an average of $15 bucks a bottle…these corks represent $9,660…I feel sick for some reason..AND there is another box). I saved them to do some sort of project, but I can’t even think of anything now that I did the calculation of cost. Ugh. Anyway, moving right along…
I love being spontaneous.
did not agree with me. For those of you who are “lucky” enough to know what I am talking about, food poisoning feels like you are going to die. That’s how I felt anyway. For how horrible it was, I am fortunate it only lasted a day.
Here's the text that accompanies the figure:The hardening of carious areas that takes place in the teeth of children fed on diets of high calcifying value indicates the arrest of the active process and may result in “healing” of the infected area. As might be surmised, this phenomenon is accompanied by a laying down of a thick barrier of well-formed secondary denture. Illustrations of this healing process can be seen in Figs. 21 (b), (c) and (d). Summing up these results it will be clear that the clinical deductions made on the basis of the animal experiments have been justified, and that it is now known how to diminish the spread of caries and even to stop the active carious process in many affected teeth.The following reference contains a summary of Dr. May Mellanby's experiments on healing tooth decay in children using diet: Mellanby, M. et al. British Medical Journal. Issue 1, page 507. 1932. The diet they used was typically a combination of some source of vitamin D (cod liver oil or irradiated ergosterol), plus liberal full-fat dairy, meats, eggs, vegetables, potatoes and grains low in phytic acid such as white bread. The most effective version of his diet, however, did not include grains.
Whole grains are a very instructive case. Dr. Dennis Burkitt was one of the originators of the idea that fiber is good for health. He spent a number of years in eastern Africa, where he observed that natives on their traditional high-grain-fiber diets were free of many modern degenerative conditions, particularly those involving the digestive system. He found that as these cultures began to rely on Western foods such as white flour and sugar, their health declined dramatically. This is similar to the observation Dr. Weston Price made, however the two men interpreted their findings differently. Price attributed the effect to a loss of micronutrients, while Burkitt attributed it to the loss of fiber. Higher whole-grain intake was associated with having more education, a lower body mass index and waist-to-hip ratio [and] being a non-smoker, doing more regular physical activity, and using vitamin supplements and hormone replacement therapy.Do whole grains prevent smoking too? An alternative explanation is that the women who were eating whole grains were all-around more conscientious and concerned about their health than those eating refined grains. And why not? They "knew" from mainstream diet advice that whole grains are healthier than refined grains. When is the last time you saw someone smoking a cigarette while eating whole grain muesli with skim milk and half a grapefruit for breakfast? Is it easier to imagine someone smoking while eating a donut and sweetened coffee? Women who eat whole grains, on average, are those that care about their health and adopt patterns that they perceive as healthy throughout their lives. This includes behaviors large and small, both measurable and unmeasurable. The investigators factored smoking into their model, but you can't factor in things you didn't measure or don't understand.
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As compared to men eating the least red meat, men eating the most were three times more likely to smoke, half as likely to exercise regularly, and 22% less likely to take vitamin supplements! These are clearly people who are less concerned about their health in general. The investigators adjusted their model for a number of potential confounding factors: education, marital status, family history of cancer, race, body mass index, smoking history, exercise, alcohol intake, vitamin supplementation, fruit and vegetable intake, and hormone replacement therapy. This adjustment weakened but did not eliminate the association between red meat intake and mortality.
The one fifth (n = 521, 21.4%) of men who shaved less frequently than daily were shorter, were less likely to be married, had a lower frequency of orgasm, and were more likely to smoke, to have angina, and to work in manual occupations than other men.So what actually caused the increase in disease incidence? That's where plausibility comes in. I think we can rule out a direct effect of shaving on heart attacks and stroke. The authors agree:
The association between infrequent shaving and all-cause and cardiovascular disease mortality is probably due to confounding by smoking and social factors, but a small hormonal effect may exist. The relation with stroke events remains unexplained by smoking or social factors.In other words, they don't believe shaving influences heart attack and stroke directly, but none of the factors they measured explain the association. This implies that there are other factors they didn't measure that are the real cause of the increase. This is a critical point! You can't determine the impact of factors you didn't measure! And you can't measure everything. You just measure the factors you think are most likely to be important and hope the data make sense.
It was a wild ride. I'd like to send out a big thanks to whoever posted the article to Reddit, and everyone who voted for it. I appreciate you helping to spread the message.
When enamel is poorly formed and the diet isn't adequate, enamel demineralizes and decay sets in. Tooth decay is an opportunistic infection that takes advantage of poorly built or maintained teeth. If the diet remains inadequate, the tooth has to be filled or removed, or the person risks more serious complications.Since the days of John Hunter it has been known that when the enamel and dentine are injured by attrition or caries, teeth do not remain passive but respond to the injury by producing a reaction of the odontoblasts in the dental pulp in an area generally corresponding to the damaged tissue and resulting in a laying down of what is known as secondary dentine. In 1922 M. Mellanby proceeded to investigate this phenomenon under varying nutritional conditions and found that she could control the secondary dentine laid down in the teeth of animals as a reaction to attrition both in quality and quantity, independently of the original structure of the tooth. Thus, when a diet of high calcifying qualities, ie., one rich in vitamin D, calcium and phosphorus was given to the dogs during the period of attrition, the new secondary dentine laid down was abundant and well formed whether the original structure of the teeth was good or bad. On the other hand, a diet rich in cereals and poor in vitamin D resulted in the production of secondary dentine either small in amount or poorly calcified, and this happened even if the primary dentine was well formed.Thus, in dogs, the factors that affect tooth healing are the same factors that affect tooth development:
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In group 1, oatmeal prevented healing and encouraged new cavities, presumably due to its ability to prevent mineral absorption. In group 2, simply adding vitamin D to the diet caused most cavities to heal and fewer to form. The most striking effect was in group 3, the group eating a grain-free diet plus vitamin D, in which nearly all cavities healed and very few new cavities developed. Grains are the main source of phytic acid in the modern diet, although we can't rule out the possibility that grains were promoting tooth decay through another mechanism as well.The hardening of carious areas that takes place in the teeth of children fed on diets of high calcifying value indicates the arrest of the active process and may result in “healing” of the infected area. As might be surmised, this phenomenon is accompanied by a laying down of a thick barrier of well-formed secondary denture... Summing up these results it will be clear that the clinical deductions made on the basis of the animal experiments have been justified, and that it is now known how to diminish the spread of caries and even to stop the active carious process in many affected teeth.Dr. Mellanby first began publishing studies showing the reversal of cavities in humans in 1924. Why has such a major medical finding, published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals, faded into obscurity?
About four ounces of tomato juice or orange juice and a teaspoonful of a mixture of equal parts of a very high vitamin natural cod liver oil and an especially high vitamin butter was given at the beginning of the meal. They then received a bowl containing approximately a pint of a very rich vegetable and meat stew, made largely from bone marrow and fine cuts of tender meat: the meat was usually broiled separately to retain its juice and then chopped very fine and added to the bone marrow meat soup which always contained finely chopped vegetables and plenty of very yellow carrots; for the next course they had cooked fruit, with very little sweetening, and rolls made from freshly ground whole wheat, which were spread with the high-vitamin butter. The wheat for the rolls was ground fresh every day in a motor driven coffee mill. Each child was also given two glasses of fresh whole milk. The menu was varied from day to day by substituting for the meat stew, fish chowder or organs of animals.Dr. Price provides before and after X-rays showing re-calcification of cavity-ridden teeth on this program. His intervention was not exactly the same as Drs. Mellanby, but it was similar in many ways. Both diets were high in minerals, rich in fat-soluble vitamins (including D), and low in phytic acid.
