Vodka's 'health benefits'

Image via WikipediaThis is needing no other comments than the news article itself...
-----

Firm chided for touting vodka's 'health benefits'

by The Daily Telegraph

A Russian company has been criticised after claiming that vodka helps cure everything from head colds to indigestion.

Russia's advertising watchdog, FAS, ruled that an online ad promoting leading vodka brands had overstepped the mark by suggesting that vodka was good for one's health and mood.

The advertiser, a company called Direct Line in Moscow, claimed the grain-based spirit was an instant cure for both fatigue and a bad mood, improved digestion and helped fight head colds, sore throats and headaches.

The FAS said it had banned the offending ad and opened an investigation that could result in a heavy fine for the company.


Taken from TODAYOnline.com; source article is below:
Firm chided for touting vodka's 'health benefits'

Related articles

• Russian company promotes vodka's 'health benefits' (telegraph.co.uk)
• Ad says Vodka has health benefits (upi.com)
• Take a culture shot at Vodka History Museum (rt.com)
• Vodka producers fined for booze that "cures and makes you happy" (rt.com)
• Hellish Squirrel - Адская белочка (osocio.org)
• Russian Standard Vodka Carries New Proof of Origin (luxist.com)
• finally, a vodka that makes you look dorky! (zdnet.com)
• Nets partner with Russian vodka company (nba.com)
• Medea Vodka (and its radical programmable LED bottle) now ready to party (engadget.com)
• Do This: Watch Dan Aykroyd Shill Vodka at Zanie's Friday (chicagoist.com)

A shorter and emptier life?

Is this just the present generation's status, or is this the beginning of the short lifespan generation? Again, a race issue?

Have we been doing many things, except live longer and fuller?
-----

US life expectancy falls

WASHINGTON: Life expectancy has dropped slightly for all Americans except for black men, who gained around two and a half months in longevity, a report released Thursday found.

Data gathered by the National Centre for Health Statistics showed that life expectancy for most American men was 75.3 years in 2008, down by one-tenth of a year from 2007.

Women also saw a drop in the number of years they can expect to live, from 80.4 years to 80.3 years, the data show.

Black men, on the other hand, bucked the trend and reached a record-high life expectancy of 70.2 years in 2008, up by 0.2 years compared to 2007.

They were still the shortest-lived Americans, though, with life spans around 10 years less than white women, who have the highest life expectancy, followed by black women and white men.

The pattern of white women enjoying the longest lives and black men the shortest has held true for nearly three decades, but life expectancy for all groups has generally increased over those 30 years.

Arialdi Minino, a statistician who worked on the report, told the Washington Post that officials have no idea what may have caused the fall in longevity in 2008.

"I would take this with a grain of salt," he told the Post.

"These are preliminary numbers. You can never tell whether this is a little blip or some trend that will stay there and linger there for some time. You can't tell until you have more data points."

The best state to live in, in terms of mortality, was Hawaii, which had an age-adjusted death rate of 589 deaths per 100,000 people in 2008.

The worst state for mortality was West Virginia, where the age-adjusted death rate was more than one-and-a-half times greater than in Hawaii -- 958 per 100,000 people.

Heart disease remained the leading cause of death in the United States, followed by cancer, chronic lower respiratory diseases, stroke and accidental injury.

The sixth leading cause of death was Alzheimer's disease, one of six diseases or causes for which the age-adjusted death rate increased significantly, the study says.

A study released in October said the United States ranked 49th in the world for male and female life expectancy, a precipitous drop from the fifth place it held in 1950.

-AFP/wk


Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:US life expectancy falls

Related articles

• You: US life expectancy falls (nation.com.pk)
• US life expectancy falls - study (newsinfo.inquirer.net)
• Life expectancy slips, stroke dips to No. 4 killer (thehimalayantimes.com)
• Steve Joyce: Life Expectancy in U.S. Shows Surprising Decline in New 2008 CDC Data; Up for Blacks (seniorjournal.com)
• After Inching Up for Years, Life Expectancy Drops Slightly (aolhealth.com)
• U.S. Life Expectancy Drops Slightly (nlm.nih.gov)
• Life expectancy in U.S. dips slightly (sfgate.com)
• Life expectancy slips; stroke dips to No. 4 killer (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• U.S. Life Expectancy Down (webmd.com)
• Stroke Drops to Fourth Leading Cause of Death in 2008 (nlm.nih.gov)

Complacency fuels new AIDS surge in West: UN

UNITED NATIONS: Complacency among young people is causing a new surge of the AIDS epidemic in the United States and European nations like Britain and Germany, a top UN expert said ahead of World AIDS Day on Wednesday.

The worrying sexual behaviour of young adults, particularly men, in rich nations and a surge of the spread of AIDS in Eastern Europe and Central Asia linked to drug use, officials said, has tainted positive signs such as dramatic cut in the number of infections passed from mothers to their newborn babies.

Agencies including the UN's HIV/AIDS program UNAIDS have cautiously highlighted a fall in the number of global infections in figures released ahead of World AIDS Day on Wednesday.

But Paul De Lay, deputy executive director of UNAIDS, said: "There seem to be secondary and tertiary waves of the epidemic, particularly the sexually transmitted side.

"You have a young people who don't know enough about AIDS, there is less of a fear factor about it."

He said it was a particular problem in Britain, Germany and the United States. Without giving specific figures, he said infection rates among young people are three times what they were in the early 2000s.

"We find that every five to seven years we need to go through a new re-energized education campaign. We are doing that in the UK and Germany. Here in the US we have had a huge resurgence of sexually transmitted AIDS."

According to the UNAIDS annual report released last week there were an estimated 54,000 new infections in the United States last year and 3,900 in Germany. There are an estimated 1.2 million AIDS sufferers in the United States, 85,000 in Britain and 67,000 in Germany.

In Eastern Europe and Central Asia "there has been been an explosion of young people who are experimenting with injected drugs," according to the UN expert.

This is "ripe" for spreading HIV/AIDS and pregnant addicts pass on the infection to their children extending "an ongoing transmission cycle," said De Lay.

Russia and Ukraine together account for almost 90 per cent of new HIV/AIDS infections in recent years, said the UNAIDS report. Ukraine now has the highest adult AIDS rate in Europe and Central Asia.

UNAIDS said "there is strong evidence of resurgent HIV epidemics among men who have sex with men" in North America and Western Europe, where there are now an estimated total of 2.7 million sufferers, up 30 per cent since 2001.

The 3,160 new HIV diagnoses among men who have sex with men in Britain in 2007 were the most ever reported. In the United States, new HIV infections attributed to unprotected sex between men increased by more than 50 per cent from 1991-1993 to 2003-2006.

Around the world there were an estimated 2.6 million new infections last year, down from about 3.3 million at the peak of the AIDS epidemic in 1999, according to De Lay.

"It is a slow, steady decrease," said De Lay, who predicted that at the current rate it would take about 50 years to conquer Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome.

The 370,00 babies a year born with AIDS is down from 500,000 a year at the start of the decade and a new UN report said it would be possible to eradicate mother-to-baby transmission of AIDS by 2015.

Virtually no babies are born with AIDS in Europe and North America now as wealthier countries launched aggressive screening and prevention programs in the the 1990s.

But in Africa, 1,000 babies a day are still infected with HIV/AIDS through mother-to-child transmission.

Anthony Lake, executive director of the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) called the figure "outrageous" and demanded greater efforts for "the hardest hit communities."

But, highlighting the greater use of anti-viral drugs and other treatments, World Health Organisation director general Margaret Chan said "we have strong evidence that elimination of mother-to-child transmission is achievable."

-AFP/ac


Taken from ChannelNewsAsia.com; source article is below:Complacency fuels new AIDS surge in West: UN

Related articles

• Complacency fuels new AIDS surge in West: UN - AFP (news.google.com)
• Complacency fuels new AIDS surge in West: UN (calgaryherald.com)
• HIV/AIDS bill shelved in ministry for a year (thehimalayantimes.com)
• Global AIDS report shows drops in new HIV cases, AIDS-related deaths (cnn.com)
• World AIDS Day comes amid progress, concern (cnn.com)
• HIV infections declining, says UN (vanguardngr.com)
• AIDS epidemic slows, HIV infections drop 20 per cent over past decade (theglobeandmail.com)
• White House Marks World AIDS Day (medicalnewstoday.com)
• UNAIDS Report Finds New HIV Infections Dropped By 20% Over 10 Years, Deaths From AIDS-Related Illness Dropped By 20% Over 5 Years (medicalnewstoday.com)
• UN says AIDS epidemic slowing, infections dropping (ctv.ca)

Why not stop it from the roots?

I see news about second hand smoking, and even third hand smoking, and how it affects those who are not even smoking, even those who are too young to even know what would be killing them...

I am stumped by the very fact that while the authorities are putting up slogan and drafting campaigns and programs to quit smoking, it persists. And why not? cigars and cigarettes are available for the smokers, that is!

Here's my point. Why not stop smoking from the roots?

Stop producing, stop planting tobaccos. But this is something even harder to do than for a smoker to quit smoking, right?

Again, my 2-cents worth... think so?

Related articles

• Quitting Smoking Cuts Depression, Too (abcnews.go.com)
• 9 tools to help you successfully quit smoking (holykaw.alltop.com)
• Combining PTSD, Stop-Smoking Therapies Works (webmd.com)
• Depressed Smokers Less Likely to Quit Successfully (nlm.nih.gov)
• Treating PTSD and Smoking Together Best Way to Help Vets Kick Cigarettes (nlm.nih.gov)
• Resources to Help Veterans to Quit Smoking (vabenefitblog.com)
• Health Buzz: E-Cigarettes Win in Court (health.usnews.com)
• Quit Smoking Support (healthlifestyleforever.com)
• Anxiety Makes Quitting Smoking Harder (fyiliving.com)
• Nicotine Replacement Products To Break off Smoking (healthlifestyleforever.com)