Stop Oxidants? Stop Breathing! The Antioxidant Hoax

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by Kerry Cue

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Evidence gathered over the past few years shows that, at best, antioxidant supplements do little or nothing to benefit our health. dark red quote 2

Lisa Melton,The antioxidant myth: a medical fairy tale, New Scientist, 05 August 2006.

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Eat. Pray. Breathe Oxidants.

We breathe oxygen. The oxygen is carried around our body by red blood cells. And, guess what? Oxygen is an oxidant. It ‘burns’ or ‘oxidises’ fuel in our cells. We get energy. The red blood cells then carry the carbon dioxide produced by oxidation back to our lungs and we breath it out. Sometimes, these oxidising reactions are incomplete producing free radicals or, as scientists like to call them, Reactive Oxygen Species, ROS.

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Lisa Melton attacked the popular belief that anti-oxidants have magical health benefits in the New Scientist. In the article biochemist Barry Halliwell from the National University of Singapore explains that “One per cent of the oxygen we consume turns into ROS.” Other free radical producing factors include X-rays, smoking, air pollutants, bacteria and intensive exercise. When subjects with diets high in fruit and veg were found to suffer lower incidence of heart disease, diabetes, dementia, stroke and some cancers the theory that antioxidants mop up free radicals was born. It has sponsored a $US 23 Billion supplement industry and that is not even including superfoods.

According to Melton ‘Time and again, however, the supplements failed to pass the test. ‘True, they knock the wind out of free radicals in a test tube. But once inside the human body, they seem strangely powerless.’ Evidence suggests that sometimes anti-oxidants can even do harm. One study involving 18,000 subjects had to be stopped when researchers found the cancer rates rose in those given beta carotene supplements.

Even antioxidants should be consumed in moderation.

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Drinking 8 glasses of water a day for Dummies

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Navy quote 1You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him water ski.

ff………….Kerry Cue, Sibylesque (Just made that one up to be annoying)

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Even as I write these lines some self-proclaimed health adviser will be insisting that for optimum health you should drink 8 glasses of water a day.

This assumes two things:

1. You are incapable of deciding if you are or are not thirsty. Answer this question. What day is it? Correct. As you do not appear to have dementia, you will remember to drink fluids.

2. That 8 glasses is the correct fluid intake for you. How do they know?

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Meanwhile, the claim that you need eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day has been debunked.

Drs. Dan Negoianu and Stanley Goldfarb at the University of Pennsylvania reviewed published clinical studies on the topic and found no data to suggest people need to stick to the “8 x 8″ rule.

“Indeed, it is unclear where this recommendation came from,” they write in an editorial in the June 2008 issue of the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.

Photo source: Vintage Hairdryers pinterest

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Winning the Salt Wars or never trust a statistician!

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by Kerry Cue

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“There is little evidence for long-term benefit from reducing salt intake.”

Navy quote 2f………….Cochrane Collaboration, 2003

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Stop the maths and pass the salt!

salt and pepper wizards eBbayIn 2006, the New York Times article titled ‘The War over salt’, Melanie Warner (13 Sept 2006) reported that the American Medical Association, AMA, had called on the Food and Drug Administration, FDA, to limit the amount of salt in food. This was the first time the AMA had called for the regulation of a food ingredient.

The article stated: ‘In 2004, researchers at the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute published a study in The American Journal of Public Health concluding that 150,000 lives could be saved annually if sodium levels in packaged and restaurant foods were cut in half.’

Hold that thought.

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In 2011, the Scientific American ran this headline : It’s Time to End the War on Salt. ( Melinda Wenner Moyer, 8 JUL 2011)

Meta-studies by the Cochrane Collaboration, an international, independent, not-for-profit health care research organization concluded as early as 2003 “there is little evidence for long-term benefit from reducing salt intake.” Moreoever, the Cochrane Institute found that reducing salt intake does not reduce blood pressure significantly. The groups hypersensitive to salt include some elderly and some Afro-Americans.

Hillel Cohen, an epidemiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine noted ‘A great number of promises are being made to the public with regard to this enormous benefit and lives saved’, but it is ‘based on wild extrapolations.’ That’s simply bad maths!

In other words, take extreme recommendations about your salt intake with a grain of salt.

Photo source: 1. eBay, 2. spidersden blog

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How marketing controls your mind or, would you eat buttons? Guess what? Millions do.

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by Kerry Cue

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I’m on a maroon quote-130 day diet, so far I’ve lost 15 days.dark red quote 2

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Button sandwich anyone?

casein button 2 etsyThe chemistry I studied at university long, long ago included the industrial uses of casein. Now casein is the protein in milk. It is used to make buttons.

Traditionally, buttons were made from shells, wood, metal, glass and bone. The advantage of casein is that it can be moulded and coloured. (See Plastics Historial Society for the history of casein buttons.)

Casein buttons, buckles and knitting needles were first produced in the UK in the 1914 and continued through until the 1980s!!!! Casein buttons are still manufactured in small batches today.

creepy kid grilled cheesery blogNow cheese consists of three major ingredients.: fat, protein and water. If you remove the fat, then all you have left is the protein, casein, and water. If you place a piece of low fat cheese in the sun to dry our all you have left is the casein (and some fat). It is a little rubbery. Pop it into a solvent (Nail polish remover. That sort of thing.) to remove the residual fat. Bingo! You get a button.

Of course, the marketing folk want us to believe that low fat cheese is healthy. But,would you eat a button?

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Photo Source:1.  etsy, 2. grilled cheesery blog.

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The Twelfth Raven: A memoir of stroke, love and recovery

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maroon quote-1All sorrows can be borne if you put them into stories.

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……………………………Isak Dinesen, Author, Out of Africa quoted in The Twelfth Raven

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Sibylesque Sibyls Books
REVIEW by Kerry Cue

 

thetwelfthravenThe Twelfth Raven:

A memoir of stroke, love and recovery

Doris Brett

UWA Publishing (2014)

The Twelfth Raven, according to an old English rhyme, brings joy for tomorrow. Sometimes, I wish poets wrote news headlines then, instead of the ‘Syrian Bloodbath’ headline, you might read something like ‘Trickster God’s Toy with Us Again’. The Trickster God’s certainly overthrew all that defines normality in Doris Brett’s life. Firstly, Brett’s husband Martin suffered, at 59, a stroke followed by a superbug, heart valve failure and open-heart surgery. Then Brett needed a radical mastectomy.

Doris_Brett_2014_smallRead this book if you want to learn how to defend yourself against the Healthcare system. But Brett is a poet. The language is lyrical. Dreams untangle knots in reality to reveal some profound truths. Read this book, if you want to gain some insight into the inner journey of an insightful writer in a family crisis. Brett is ruthlessly honest and very generous in this regard.

A recommended read.

We, THE SIBYLS, declare Doris Brett an Honorary Sibyl for her ruthless honesty, her unflinching endurance and her ability to provide insights into life’s hardships by weaving her brand of lyrical magic.

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Anti-Wrinkle Creams: When Hope Conquers Experience

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by Kerry Cue

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Most men running the major beauty corporations,

where you undoubtedly have spent

a lot of money,

think you’ve lost it at 50.

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– Andrea Robinson, Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+

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Apply daily and avoid gravity for the next 40 years?

“Toss the Gloss- Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+” CropIn the New York Times this week Bea Shipiro interviews Andrea Robinson, who worked in the cosmetic industry developing products for Revlon (Ultima II Naked collection ) and L’Oreal. The cosmetic industry veteran has just published a book titled “Toss the Gloss: Beauty Tips, Tricks & Truths for Women 50+”

Her book, according to Robinson, intends to “unconfuse” older women whom the industry has already dismissed. (We’re well aware of being dismissed by the industry.)

The person to ‘unconfuse’ 50+ women is Bobbi Brown, 56, the author of “Living Beauty”. According to Bobbi Brown, whose book has remained in print since 2007:

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“There is no cream that is ‘anti-aging’ ……. There is no cream that fixes wrinkles.”

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In fact, in Australia it is illegal to claim that a cream can reduce wrinkles. If an anti-wrinkle cream can do anything it is not a cosmetic.

It is a pharmaceutical product and must be tested. As a result, ads for cosmetic creams have developed a convoluted language to convince women that they do something that, legally, they are not allowed to do.  A Multi Revitalifting Visage Night Creme will provide ‘hydradiance’ or ’luminescence’. Obviously, such creams do not reduce wrinkles, but you get to glow in the dark.

If you pay big money for an ‘anti-aging’ cream remember it doesn’t do anything, but at least you can be comforted in the knowledge that, philosophically speaking, it is opposed to the concept of aging.

Photograph of 1920s Flapper from Liz Pecot pinterest.

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At my age, doctor, John Glen was an astronaut!

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by Kerry Cue

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dark red quote 1 The United States contains more people aged 65 and older than the total population of Canada.dark red quote 2

…………………………….The Demographics of Aging Report

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At your age, what do you expect?


When consulting with your doctor about some illness or injury, you may hear the words, “Well, at your age, what do you expect?” In other words, your illness is ‘your age’. You may want to respond, “At my age, Doctor, John Glen was an astronaut”. John Glen went into space at 77 years of age! Unfortunately, your health provider would more than likely mumble [under their breath], “You’re no John Glen”.

Pelvic Floor Exercises on Beach Now imagine you are a 70-year -old American with a painful knee. What does it actually mean if your doctor glibly comments ‘Well, at your age, what do you expect?’ According to the statisticians there are 18 million Americans in your 65 – 74-year-old age group. As there are 18 million Americans ‘your age’ does that mean they are all limping about the place because of painful knees? The flaw in this logic is simple. You cannot make assumptions about the health of one person from group statistics. When the sample size is 18 million, such assumptions become a joke.

If your doctor thinks YOUR AGE is the disease, he or she might miss a more specific diagnosis. How do you respond to this type of comment by a medical practitioner? One 70-year-old had the answer. In her book, [published over 30 years ago!], ‘Mirror, Mirror, The Terror of Not Being Young’, author, Elissa Melamed, tells the story of a 70-year-old who visited her doctor with a painful right knee. “You’re 70 years old, what do you expect?” he insisted. “My left knee is 70 too”, she replied, “and it’s fine”.

Photograph from USA Social History Archives

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Welcome

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We cannot let others define aging for us.

….We must, as we have done before,

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…………….redefine this stage for ourselves.…

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What the media doesn’t tell you!

Frankly, my dear, they’re over you!

the-tibertine-sibylIf you have found little of interest in the lifestyle pages across all media platforms, there is a reason. After 54-years of age we are of no interest to Marketing. Apparently, we are ‘too set in our ways’. So, apart from some tragic and cheap ads spruiking pre-paid funerals and incontinence pads, we do not attract the advertising dollar. Therefore editors of magazines, newspapers, websites and blogs aimed at women couldn’t care less about our issues.

There are lots of ads for dubious anti-aging and slimming products, much like the 1950s ads (below) but with their own Facebook Page. But the anti-wrinkle creams and slimming products do not target us. They are aimed at 40, 30 and even 20 year olds. They have more to fear from aging and being overweight than us.50s chin strap We’ve already had to face certain realities. Besides, we’ve been applying goops for 40+ years and we must have tried scores of diets with little success!!! We’ll look at the real science ( and not the ‘radiessence’ or ‘luminosity’) of face creams and rubbish diets later.

But there are many issues such as health, sex and self-perception that change after 54 years of age and that we want to discuss. If you are looking at retirement and your daughter wants the BIG wedding, do you have to pay for it? What if you are divorced? What if it’s her 2nd wedding?

How do you deal with a neurotic daughter-in-law? Or a control-freak son-in-law? Or vice-versa?

Cole Swimsuit Ad 1953 And we wanted those curves!

Cole Swimsuit Ad 1953
And we wanted those curves!

Are you prepared to look after grandchildren one day a week? Two days? How would you react if your daughter handed you a spread sheet scheduling every minute of that one day?

If you didn’t have children, are you now being swamped by the 2nd wave of child-centric conversations as your friends become grandparents?

Moreover, how did any of us even produce children with the hilariously vague ‘sex education‘ we received in the 60s or 70s?

We, The Sibyls, are smart, vibrant and interesting women. It is the intention of this blog to reinvent aging. We’re doing this for ourselves. Welcome.

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