Ariix Canada Daily

"A taxpayer-funded pro-oil lobbying retreat, involving Canada's European diplomats and industry, has urged the federal government to deliver real climate change solutions to restore the country's sagging environmental reputation.
The two-day retreat, held last February 1 and 2 in London, England, concluded that Canada's foreign diplomats don't have enough resources to deliver on the federal government's aggressive lobbying strategy to promote the oilsands and fight foreign climate change policies. But participants at the meeting, including bureaucrats who travelled from Canada, suggested lobbying is not the only answer. ..."

"Car owners with a television are 27 percent more likely to suffer heart attacks than people who have neither, according to a global study on physical exercise and heart disease published Wednesday.
More broadly, the study -- covering more than 29,000 people in 52 countries -- showed that working up a light sweat may be the best preventative medicine against heart failure.
Until now, surprisingly little research has focused on how physical exertion at work and play influences the incidence of heart attacks, and even less has directly compared this data across nations at all income levels.
"This study shows that mild to moderate physical activity at work, and any level of activity during leisure time, reduces the risk of heart attacks," said lead researcher Claes Held, a professor at Uppsala University in Sweden.
It also "extends previous findings of the protective effect of leisure-time physical activity ... to low- and middle-income countries."
Held and colleagues poured over data collected from 1999 to 2003 for the so-called Interheart study.
They compared one group of more than 10,000 middle-aged men and women who had had a single heart attack with an even larger cohort with no history of cardiovascular disease.
Physical activity at work and during leisure time was divided into four levels of exertion: being completely sedentary at one extreme, and, at the other, doing hard physical labour on the job or heart-pounding aerobic exercise while at play.
Not surprisingly, the study, published in the European Heart Journal, found that exercise is good for the heart.
But the effectiveness of physical activity varied depending on the setting and intensity, according to the research.
Any kind of workout during leisure time was shown to be a plus, with heart attack risk -- compared to doing almost nothing -- dropping 13 percent for mild activity and 24 percent for moderate or strenuous exercise.
The advantages were similar for light and moderate levels of physical activity on the job. Unexpectedly, however, heavy physical labour did not reduce risk at all. ..."

"Lab technician Emmanuel Onoapor takes a blood sample from participant Harry Scott on Tuesday during the first day of appointments for Tomorrow Project.

Deceased loved ones and hopes for the health of future generations have inspired city residents and a local MLA to take part in a massive provincial study into the causes of cancer — and now researchers are hoping more Albertans will stand up and be counted.

The province’s health authority is hoping to recruit more than 25,000 Albertans to participate in the long-term research study into the causes of cancer.

A team of health workers set up a temporary clinic Tuesday in a northwest church to give locals the opportunity to join the Alberta Health Services study, which will track the health of almost 50,000 Albertans over the next half-century.

“We collect data from our participants on all aspects of their lives — not just their history and family history but (where they live), where they work (and) what they eat,” said study co-ordinator Ashlee Vennettilli. “We’re looking for what causes cancer, not only genetic and biological (causes) but also lifestyle causes.”

Researchers are hoping to enrol 50,000 Albertans, ages 35 to 69, in the study by 2013. ..."

"A Russian scientific spacecraft whizzing out of control around the Earth, and expected to re-enter the atmosphere on Saturday, may have failed because it was struck by some type of antisatellite weapon, the director of Russia’s space agency said in an interview published Tuesday.

He did not say who would want to interfere with the spacecraft, which was intended to explore a moon of Mars.

The Russian craft, named Phobos-Grunt for the moon and the Russian word for ground, ran into trouble soon after it was launched in November, when its rockets failed to lift it out of low Earth orbit. What was to have been a two-and-a-half-year interplanetary journey to retrieve a soil sample from Phobos will instead end over the weekend, according to Russian engineers.

When the 13-ton Phobos-Grunt breaks up in the atmosphere, debris could potentially fall anywhere along a vast stretch of the Earth’s surface that includes the cities of New York, London and Tokyo. Though the odds are heavily against the debris causing any harm, the spectacle of people around the world anticipating the crash is another embarrassment for Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, which has presided over a series of rocket and satellite failures this year. ..."

"Light to moderate marijuana smokers show no signs of lung damage, in contrast to cigarette smokers, according to results of a study conducted in the United States. A report to be published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that, over a 20-year period, pot smokers generally did not experience a loss in lung functioning. Many actually had enhanced lung capacity, which one researcher involved in the study speculated might come from the common practice of holding one's breath after inhaling cannabis smoke to maximize its intoxicating effects."

"Marijuana may have beneficial effects on pain control, appetite, mood and management of other chronic symptoms," researchers from the University of California, University of Alabama and Northwestern University said in a statement. "Our findings suggest that occasional use of marijuana for these or other purposes may not be associated with adverse consequences on pulmonary function."

There was a decline in lung function found among pot smokers who were using the drug as frequently as 20 times a month, but the median usage rate among the marijuana smokers in this study was two to three times a month. Tobacco smokers in this study at the mid-range smoked eight to nine cigarettes a day.

Stefan Kertesz, a professor of medicine at the University of Alabama who contributed to the study, said the low amount of marijuana generally smoked by subjects in comparison to the tobacco quantities is likely "crucial" to the findings. He said it remains inconclusive whether the substances themselves differ in how harmful they are to people's lungs.

"Tobacco smokers in this study are smoking what is really orders of magnitude more tobacco than marijuana smokers are smoking marijuana," he said.

"

"Doctors are being urged to avoid using "undesirable terms" such as "fatness" or "obesity" when broaching a discussion about excess body fat with their patients.

"Use of such terms may offend or distress some patients and prevent them from continuing to discuss their weight," say researchers who surveyed 390 obese patients in the Philadelphia area and asked them to rate words they found the most, and the least offensive for describing their excess size.

Other undesirable descriptors patients offered up included "you are way too fat" and "you are lazy."

The words "obese" and "fat" too often carry negative and demeaning connotations, the study's authors write in the journal, Obesity.

"Very few physicians - sometimes I've seen numbers as low as 12 per cent - counsel their obese patients to lose weight," said lead author Sheri Volger, project manager at the Center for Weight and Eating Disorders at the University of Pennsylvania's Perelman School of Medicine.

"By identifying how patients prefer to be talked to, we're hoping to facilitate the dialogue."

The new work was part of a larger weight loss research study. All 390 participants were patients at six primary care practices in the Philadelphia area.

Before treatment, each completed a questionnaire asking them to rank, on a scale of one to five - "from very desirable" to "very undesirable" - 11 terms a doctor might use to describe weight: weight, heaviness, obesity, BMI, excess weight, fatness, excess fat, large size, unhealthy body weight, weight problem and unhealthy BMI.

"Fatness" was rated the most undesirable of all. "Excess fat," "large size", "obesity" and "heaviness" were also ranked significantly more negative than the remaining terms, the authors write.

The preferred term was "weight" - perhaps because it's more neutral and non-judgmental, according to the researchers. ..."

"Out of control: Michael Fassbender plays a sex addict in 'Shame', alongside Carey Mulligan who plays his sister, Sissy: Sex addiction is not just for the stars: it’s a real problem for real people.

'I close the curtains, take the phone off the hook, turn off my mobile, and if I have plans – say a dinner with a friend – I just cancel. Then I log onto various websites and look at images, look at movies. It’s pure, unadulterated physical enjoyment. The high of sexual excitement.”
Ash Walker is a clean-shaven, dark-haired dentist in his mid thirties. He is also a sex addict, and Ash is not his real name. I don’t know his real name, or his mobile number or email address. The only way he’s agreed to communicate is by calling my mobile and blocking his number.
These are dark waters, and the consequences for his career, should the truth get out, could be serious. But he wants to meet up and as he walks into the café, it’s clear that he fulfils neither stereotype of the sex addict: the handsome Lothario with a rampant libido, or a dirty old man in a raincoat. He is well-mannered, with a distinguished demeanour.
Sexual addiction first made headlines with the Hollywood actor Michael Douglas in 1990. More recently, the comedian Russell Brand and the golfer Tiger Woods have come out as “sufferers”. Now Hollywood has become intrigued by the idea. Shame, a forthcoming film directed by Steve McQueen, stars Michael Fassbender as a thirtysomething New Yorker unable to control his sex life, while Gwyneth Paltrow is set to play a successful businesswoman and recovering sex addict in a comedy drama, Thanks for Sharing. ..."

"A 2,000-year-old Roman cavalry helmet has shed new light on the conquest of Britain after experts pieced it back together 10 years since its discovery in an Iron Age shrine.

Constructed of sheet iron, the helmet, once decorated with gold leaf, is the only one to have been found in Britain with its silver gilt plating intact.
The helmet features scenes of Roman military victory, including the bust of a woman flanked by lions, and a Roman Emperor on horseback with the goddess Victory flying behind and a cowering figure, possibly a native Briton, being trampled under his horse's hooves.
The object is believed to have been buried in the years around Roman Emperor Claudius's invasion of Britain in AD43.
The ''distinct possibility'' that it belonged to a Briton serving in the Roman cavalry before the conquest of Britain raises questions about the relationship between Romans and Britons.
It is thought that the helmet may have been buried at what was a local shrine on the Briton's return to the East Midlands, as a gift to the gods. ..."

"A dramatic drop in the number of new HIV infections in British Columbia shows that a treatment-as-prevention strategy is making a difference, says a leading AIDS investigator who is frustrated that other parts of the country haven't embraced the concept to the same extent.

"The truth is that there is no reason why we should be seeing a steady decrease in HIV new cases in British Columbia and we should not expect to see the same thing in the rest of the country," said Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the British Columbia Centre for Excellence in HIV-AIDS.

Saskatchewan, in particular, has been struggling with an incremental increase in new cases almost every year since 2004.

In British Columbia, the number of deaths from AIDS since 2005 has steadily declined to 55 in 2010, while the number of people receiving HIV antiretroviral treatment has risen.

New HIV diagnoses fell to a low of 301 in 2010 even as testing for the virus increased, said Montaner as he revealed previously unpublished figures. In 1996, there were more than 700 new diagnoses and throughout the early 2000s, the number of new HIV diagnoses each year was above 400.

Montaner is a strong proponent of a treatment-as-prevention model that involves seeking out people at risk for HIV infection, treating those who are infected with antiretroviral drugs, keeping them on treatment and supporting them. ..."

"Smokers hoping to kick the habit for good this New Year be warned: a new study says the patch is no more effective than quitting cold turkey.

Researchers at Harvard University and University of Massachusetts Boston found that nicotine replacement therapies — including the patch, gum, inhaler or nasal spray — did little to help smokers quit in the long term and in some cases, worsened the habit.

“We would have liked to see that (nicotine replacement therapies) were effective in abstinence because the toll smoking takes is devastating. But unfortunately, we see that this approach is not the answer,” said co-author Hillel Alpert of the Harvard School of Public Health.

Yet these therapies, long supported by medical studies as effective, remain a centrepiece of anti-smoking programs and policies in both the U.S. and Canada.

More than 68,000 smokers in Ontario have received nicotine replacement therapies free since 2005 under the government-funded Smoking Treatment for Ontario Patients program. In July 2011, the Ontario government introduced a $3-million project that provides free, over-the-counter nicotine replacement therapies and counselling to smokers.

But in the first study of its kind, published Monday in the journal Tobacco Control, U.S. researchers examined the long-term effects of nicotine replacement therapies in nearly 800 adults in Massachusetts who had quit smoking in the previous two years — and found little benefit over a six-year period. ..."

"Even minimal amounts of physical activity lower the risk of a heart attack, a major Canadian-led worldwide study has found.

As little as 30 minutes a week — an exercise dose well below guidelines recommending at least 30 minutes most days of the week — lowers the risk of a heart attack by about 30 per cent, according to the study of more than 24,000 men and women of all ages from 52 countries.

The data show that "any level of physical activity during leisure time reduces the risk of heart attack," said first author Claes Held.

According to an accompanying editorial: "Staying physically fit throughout life may well be one of the easiest, cheapest and most effective ways to avoid the coronary care unit."

In another finding, owning both a car and TV was associated with a 27-per-cent higher risk of myocardial infarction, or MI, compared to people who own neither, though the finding was mainly seen in low- and middle-income countries.

The new data, appearing this week in the European Heart Journal, come from the landmark INTERHEART trial led by the Population Health Research Institute at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont. The original study identified the nine most important risk factors for heart attack, including smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes and abdominal fat.

In the latest analysis, researchers looked at one of those nine risk factors in detail — physical inactivity.

They compared the work and leisure time exercise habits of 10,043 people who had a first heart attack, with 14,217 people without a history of cardiovascular disease. ..."

"Rob Morgan says when you wake up after getting drunk on hand sanitizer it feels like your kidney is bulging out of your body.

The longer you drink it, the more you see sparkling light at the edge of your eyes. That’s the first step in going blind from guzzling cheap illicit booze, the doctor tells him.

Morgan, a First Nations man from a reserve near Terrace, B.C., hopes to reduce the harmful impact of addicts ingesting cheap, illicit alcohol by landing funding for a peer-run drinker’s lounge.

The envisioned lounge would offer free legal alcohol in the Downtown Eastside.

Morgan and about 40 members of the Eastside Illicit Drinkers Group for Education see this as the next step in Vancouver’s harm reduction movement, similar to a supervised injection site, for illicit drinkers who typically ingest Listerine, hand sanitizer or rubbing alcohol.

Illicit drinkers can squeeze about 30 standard drinks from a 250 ml bottle of 95 per cent rubbing alcohol by diluting servings with water, experts say, for the cost of about $3.

Morgan says addicts will turn over their welfare cheques to illicit booze brokers, adding he sees “dealers” in the Downtown Eastside carrying large vats of hand sanitizer stolen from hospitals. ..."

"A systematic review of published data reported in the January issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine finds there may be a positive link between physical activity and academic performance of children in school: the ones who are more physically active seem to do better in class. However, the authors are cautious about the certainty of this finding because too few of the studies they reviewed were of sufficiently high quality. They call for further research using more robust measures of physical activity.

Lead author Dr Amika Singh, of Amsterdam's Vrije Universiteit (VU) University Medical Center in the Netherlands, and colleagues carried out their review because of concerns that pressure to do well in academic tests could mean children are being denied time for exercise in favour of extra tuition time.

For their review they searched a number of reputable academic databases for studies that looked at the relationship between physical activity and academic performance and found 10 observational (that follow participants over a period of time), and four interventional studies that met their inclusion criteria.

For example, to be included in the review, the studies had to measure exposure to at least 1 measure of physical activity or fitness and assess the outcome of at least 1 academic performance or cognition measure, during childhood or adolescence.

12 of the studies included in the review were carried out in the US, one was in Canada, and one in South Africa.

The studies varied widely in size, from around 50 to around 12,000 participants, with ages ranging from 6 to 18 years and follow-up from as little as 8 weeks to over 5 years.

Singh and colleagues also rated the quality of the methods used on the studies: they found they ranged from 22% to 75%, with only two of them considered "high" quality.

They also noted that quality of methods was not very high when it came to reliability and validity of the measurement instruments. ..."

"Canadian regulators kicked off historic hearings on Tuesday on the proposed $5.5-billion Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline in Kitimat Village, British Columbia. Critics fear a spill by even one massive tanker could wreak havoc on B.C.'s marine life and coastline.

Two-tug escorts. Double-hulled tankers. Radar at critical stretches of coastline. A spill-response capability more than three times greater than now required by Transport Canada.

That, said Enbridge, is its commitment to ensure the safe movement of tankers associated with its Northern Gateway oil pipeline terminal on the British Columbia coast at Kitimat.

Critics don't buy the assurances.

They fear a spill by even one massive tanker could wreak havoc on marine life and coastline.

Environmentalists opposed to the project say it creates risks that have not previously existed on B.C.'s north coast — specifically, oil-carrying supertankers navigating the same rock-shrouded channels that sank B.C. ferry Queen of the North.

Oil spills are common on the B.C. coast, but they tend to be small and involve petroleum products such as diesel fuel from vessels that disperses relatively quickly.

Canadian Coast Guard statistics show more than 550 "marine pollution incidents" in B.C. in 2011 as of mid-December, about 27 per cent of them level-three incidents requiring "cleanup or threat mitigation measures."

The largest spill — 2,400 litres from a pleasure craft at Port Hardy. ..."

"In an effort to detect the radio emissions from a hypothetical extraterrestrial intelligence, it helps to know where to look. Space, after all, is a very big place and the chances of accidentally stumbling across an alien television signal is very low.

So, using data from the Kepler space telescope, astronomers are becoming more focused on "listening" for radio signals coming from stars known (or at least thought) to have planets orbiting them. And it seems the first "candidate" signals have been detected!

But before you start popping the "we've discovered ET!" champagne corks, this first signal is most likely terrestrial in origin.

"We've started searching our Kepler SETI observations and our analyses have generated some of our first candidate signals," scientists of the University of California, Berkeley announced on Friday. ..."

"Re: Our impact on the environment hotly debated, Letters, Jan. 2

Scientists say the world is heating up much faster than predicted.

Yes, there have been past periods of warming and cooling, but the difference now is the extreme rapidity of this warming.

Planetary scale change is normally quite slow, but anthropogenic warming is happening at an alarming rate.

The fact humanity is pouring 10 billion tonnes of CO2, a key greenhouse gas, annually into the Earth's airshed does not require scientists to tell us this will cause global warming. A child could tell you it's going to have a major effect.

The ocean's ability to absorb CO2 has so far offered some protection, however this is now slowing.

Unfortunately, it's also starting to cause devastating ocean acidification.

At a time when leadership is most critical, our government seems to feel that global warming will be good for Canada.

People who care about the fate of their children, grandchildren and this beautiful planet, our only home, will increase pressure on governments to develop policies to discourage the use of fossil fuels and encourage sustain-able energy.

It is up to us all to reduce our carbon footprint.

Gayle Neilson Gibsons

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