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(WebMD) New research on marriage and health shows that married couples who express anger may outlive those who suppress anger.

The key is for both spouses to be comfortable expressing anger, rather than one or both suppressing anger, University of Michigan researchers report.

"The key matter is, when the conflict happens, how do you resolve it?" asks Ernest Harburg, PhD, professor emeritus with the University of Michigan's School of Public Health and psychology department. "If you bury your anger, and you brood on it … and you don't try to resolve the problem, then you're in trouble."

Harburg's team found a higher death rate among married couples in which both spouses suppress anger, compared with other married couples. Their findings appear in the Journal of Family Communication.

Expressing Anger

Harburg and colleagues studied 192 married couples in Michigan for 17 years, starting in 1971.

When the study started, the husbands and wives were 35-69 years old. They were asked to imagine being yelled at by their spouse or a policeman about something that wasn't their fault.

Each spouse answered questions about how he or she would handle that situation. They were considered to suppress their anger if they would do at least two of these things:
Not show their anger.

Not protest the verbal attack.

Feel guilty later on if they showed their anger.
In 14% of the couples, both spouses suppressed their anger. Their death rate was almost twice as high during the study, compared to other couples.

The findings held when age, smoking, weight, heart risks, and other factors were considered.

Still, the study has some limits. For instance, it's not clear if the findings would be similar in younger couples or in a more diverse study. And the researchers couldn't control for every possible influence; perhaps couples that express anger had other healthy traits.

Friday, January 25, 2008
CDC reports that more than 100, most of them kids, have been stricken in 33 states
Jia-Rui Chong, Los Angeles Times

A strain of salmonella carried by small pet turtles has sickened more than 100 people and hospitalized at least 24 nationwide in the largest recorded outbreak of its kind, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday.

Cases have been reported in 33 states, mostly in California, Texas, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Most of the patients have been children.

No one has died in the outbreak, which began in August. But some patients have suffered severe symptoms, including acute kidney failure. The most common symptoms reported to the CDC included bloody diarrhea, abdominal cramping, fever and vomiting.

The median age of patients was 7 1/2 years.

"With over 100 cases reported, that's fairly substantial," said Mark Sotir, a CDC epidemiologist in Atlanta. "For every case that's reported to the CDC, we estimate 30 or 40 sick people that haven't been reported."

Dr. Jonathan Fielding, Los Angeles County's public health director, said he has simple advice for parents thinking about buying a pet turtle: "Don't."

"If you have them, make sure you're washing your hands a lot after you're touching them," he said.

Salmonella bacteria are most often associated with food poisoning, but about 6 percent of infections come from contact with turtles. Turtles can carry a variety of salmonella without symptoms and shed them in their feces.

Small turtles have been particularly problematic because they are often bred in crowded conditions and are more likely to be given to children as pets. A 3-week-old baby girl in Florida died in 2007 from a different strain of salmonella carried by a mini turtle.

Since 1975, federal law has prohibited the sale of turtles with carapaces less than 4 inches as pets. But public health officials say enforcement is spotty.

The most recent outbreak was detected after two teenage girls were taken to different hospitals in North Carolina and South Carolina on the same day. The girls had been swimming together in an unchlorinated pool in which two pet turtles also were swimming.

A salmonella strain known as Paratyphi B variant Java was isolated from one of the girls and in the water of the turtles' habitat.

Of the 103 cases reported so far, nearly half of the patients remembered being exposed to a turtle, and many others were friends or relatives of turtle owners. Many of the patients reported feeding, kissing or playing with a turtle. In one case, a baby was bathed in a sink where turtle waste had been disposed of, the CDC said.

The turtles most often came from pet shops, but others were bought at flea markets or from street vendors. The CDC is investigating whether the outbreak can be traced to a common turtle distributor or farm.

Of the 12 cases reported by California, 11 came from Southern California.

This article appeared on page A – 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle

As precious as powdered gold, enzymes are extremely valuable for anyone interested in health. Simply said, they prolong life! Although best known for their power as a digestive aid, their hidden potential far surpasses that function. Let me explain.There are two types of enzymes produced by and in our body:

(1) Digestive enzymes – to digest food

(2) Metabolic enzymes – which we depend on for life

Metabolism is the total of all chemical changes that take place in a cell or an organism to produce energy and basic materials needed for important life processes. Metabolic enzymes, perfectly named, are involved in every process of the human body. In fact, even digestive enzymes start as metabolic enzymes. Besides our day-to-day life processes of build up and breakdown, these little powerhouses are catalysts that take an active role in repairing any damage done to our body through injury, stress, poor eating or lifestyle habits, environmental contaminants, and the passage of time.

Unfortunately, we don't have an unlimited supply of metabolic enzymes. We are born with a certain reserve of these petite miracles, and when we run out, our life ends. Our body does, to some extent, replenish metabolic enzymes, but the numbers used versus the numbers added still makes them something to cherish.

When you take any type of enzyme, you are conserving your storehouse of metabolic enzymes. Enzymes taken with food, for example, save the metabolic enzymes that would have needed to convert into digestive enzymes. Although raw food retains its natural enzymes, it is good to remember that within an hour of picking, a great percentage of the enzymes are lost. It's a sad affair to know that when we buy produce from the health food store, it has voyaged by truck (god knows how many miles), and has likely been sitting on the shelf for days. Therefore, it is a life-prolonging practice to take digestive enzymes with meals.

Enzymes taken on an empty stomach serve an incredibly different function than digestion. These enzymes are immediately directed to the metabolic processes of our bodies. There are experiments that involve coupling radioactive particles with ingested enzymes, allowing scientists to track the path of enzymes. Results prove that enzymes taken on an empty stomach do indeed assist the metabolic functions of our body, including the miraculous repair of any damage sustained by the body. Translation: More life – we age slower and have more energy!

Our bodies are designed in such a way that we do not have to consciously play a part in the trillions of actions taking place in the body. However, oftentimes, we miss out on the effect our actions have, good or bad. If you take enzymes today, you may not notice any phenomenal immediate change. In the long run, you will appreciate your enzyme-rich prolonged life. You could live a long and healthy life without ever taking enzymes . Yet, what could your life be like with them? I feel it is foolish to not use this powdered gold every day for the rest of our lives.

It has been over 6 years since the atrocities of September 11 were committed and there are still some very basic measures that need to be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice and make America safer.  I have proposed legislation to help with these efforts and will continue to fight in Congress for the safety and security of the American people.
My legislation entitled The Marque and Reprisal Act of 2007 (HR 3216) makes the surgical strike option available to the President in our mission to capture Bin Laden.  Our military has been pursuing him without result for far too long now, and it is high time ALL constitutional tools were utilized in the hunt for this dangerous madman.  As an American it sickens me to know that Bin Laden and top leaders of al Qaeda remain at large and thumbing their noses at us, while we unravel the sacred fabric of our constitution out of fear.  It is Osama Bin Laden and the perpetrators of terrorist attacks that ought to be afraid of us, not the other way around.  The answers are found in the Constitution.  We should boldly root out the perpetrators and not let them get away with their crimes against us.  As the home of the brave we should use Letters of Marque and Reprisal to bring Bin Laden to justice.  

Also, we need to take serious steps to prevent terrorists from gaining easy access to targets on our soil.  Quite alarmingly, even with the knowledge that the 19 terrorist hijackers entered our country legally, and that 15 of them were from Saudi Arabia , student visas from terrorist sponsoring countries are still far too easily obtained.  In a baffling move President Bush struck a deal with Saudi King Abdullah in 2005 to allow 21,000 more Saudi young men into the US on student Visas.  Of course, not all students from terror sponsoring countries are terrorists, but I place a higher premium on the security of the American people than the convenience of citizens of hostile countries.  We should not be making the goals of would-be terrorists easier to accomplish, but rather should be vigilant about defending against enemies at every turn.  They should not be slipping through our doors so easily, using our immigration laws against us, and that is why I proposed the Terror Immigration Elimination Act (HR 3217) to toughen standards for VISAS from countries on the State Department's list of terrorist sponsoring countries in addition to Saudi Arabia .  Just as you decide who to invite to a dinner party in your home, we should be in charge of who we allow in this country, without apology.

A lot has been done to fight the War on Terror and much of it has been misdirected, but there are some tools still needed and more progress to be made.  My bills The Marque and Reprisal Act of 2007 and The Terror Immigration Elimination Act are logical steps in the right direction.

Yet more good news for sun worshippers and those who eat plenty of oily fish: the vitamin D derived from either activity reduces your risk of heart disease and increases your survival chances if you have cancer.
These latest benefits from the "sunshine vitamin" follow the discovery announced several weeks ago that the vitamin also reduces the risks of epilepsy.

In one study involving 1,739 participants, researchers discovered that those with low levels of vitamin D are twice as likely to suffer a cardiovascular problem such as heart attack, heart failure or stroke.

In a separate study, researchers found that sunshine also reduces your chances of dying from cancer. The vitamin D produced by solar radiation in countries below the Equator was 3.4 times greater than in northern countries such as the UK. Although the incidence of major cancers was higher in lower latitudes, the survival rate was dramatically better.

(Sources: Circulation doi: 10.1161.circulationaha,107.706127 (heart study); Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America doi:10.1073/pnas.0710615105 (cancer study)).

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – France, Japan and Australia rated best and the United States worst in new rankings focusing on preventable deaths due to treatable conditions in 19 leading industrialized nations, researchers said on Tuesday.

If the U.S. health care system performed as well as those of those top three countries, there would be 101,000 fewer deaths in the United States per year, according to researchers writing in the journal Health Affairs.

Researchers Ellen Nolte and Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine tracked deaths that they deemed could have been prevented by access to timely and effective health care, and ranked nations on how they did.

They called such deaths an important way to gauge the performance of a country's health care system.

Nolte said the large number of Americans who lack any type of health insurance — about 47 million people in a country of about 300 million, according to U.S. government estimates — probably was a key factor in the poor showing of the United States compared to other industrialized nations in the study.

"I wouldn't say it (the last-place ranking) is a condemnation, because I think health care in the U.S. is pretty good if you have access. But if you don't, I think that's the main problem, isn't it?" Nolte said in a telephone interview.

In establishing their rankings, the researchers considered deaths before age 75 from numerous causes, including heart disease, stroke, certain cancers, diabetes, certain bacterial infections and complications of common surgical procedures.

Such deaths accounted for 23 percent of overall deaths in men and 32 percent of deaths in women, the researchers said.

France did best — with 64.8 deaths deemed preventable by timely and effective health care per 100,000 people, in the study period of 2002 and 2003. Japan had 71.2 and Australia had 71.3 such deaths per 100,000 people. The United States had 109.7 such deaths per 100,000 people, the researchers said.

After the top three, Spain was fourth best, followed in order by Italy, Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, Sweden, Greece, Austria, Germany, Finland, New Zealand, Denmark, Britain, Ireland and Portugal, with the United States last.

PREVIOUS RANKINGS

The researchers compared these rankings with rankings for the same 19 countries covering the period of 1997 and 1998. France and Japan also were first and second in those rankings, while the United States was 15th, meaning it fell four places in the latest rankings.

All the countries made progress in reducing preventable deaths from these earlier rankings, the researchers said. These types of deaths dropped by an average of 16 percent for the nations in the study, but the U.S. decline was only 4 percent.

The research was backed by the Commonwealth Fund, a private New York-based health policy foundation.

"It is startling to see the U.S. falling even farther behind on this crucial indicator of health system performance," Commonwealth Fund Senior Vice President Cathy Schoen said.

"The fact that other countries are reducing these preventable deaths more rapidly, yet spending far less, indicates that policy, goals and efforts to improve health systems make a difference," Schoen added in a statement.

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