20 cups of select fluids a day will make you live forever.

You Are Also What You Drink: NYTimes Article (Subscription Required)

A run down of several studies based on beverage consumptions and their health effects.

First of all, if you're going to bitch about having to sign up with NY Times online, you're silly. I've been a member since 1999 (8 years) and have had zero problem with spam (unlike the Chicago Tribune membership, which thinks I should attend colleges in Illinois). Secondly, there are ways around registering, such as using a shared log-in or if the article is archived/retained elsewhere. But seriously, sign up and keep reading. I only wish I had $1,000 to spend on the annual paper subscription. MADNESS.

FIVE CUPS A DAY is key to your health.

According to the article, "Mice prone to an Alzheimer’s-like disease were protected by drinking water spiked with caffeine equivalent to what people get from five cups of coffee a day." It also mentions a human study that suggested that memory deficiencies can also be prevented with three cups. I can only hope that they mean the literal measurement of cup.

And if five cups to keep you from going senile isn't enough fluid, get five more cups of black tea to keep your arteries open! Bone density, kidneys and teeth are also eligible for benefits with black tea.

Hold on before you start reaching for you 5 cups of red wine, though. Red wine is no better than beer, vodka or rubbing alcohol when it comes to having perceived health benefits. Daily, one serving for women, two servings for men (how predictable that men get all the fun and luxuries!) have a whole grocery list of benefits (unless you're drinking for two, which at that point, you're cut off completely. bitches) regardless of what the original ingredient was before distillation. But those are all nulified if you're, surprise, a heavy drinker. Oh, moderation, what can't you be applied to?

Other beverages covered in the original article include sugar drinks, water and milk if you're curious how they all rank on the list of "you ought to be drinking to save your life".

Conclusion: Water is better than soda and kids are getting obese and gross because this lesson is lost on American consumers.

Seven Months Later...

So, I've drank more Coca-Cola products than PepsiCo. brand, but I blame cherry flavouring for that. But PepsiCo. is the better company.

I have yet to be asked if I wanted to be on a test circuit for PD-1 suppressants, but I have learned that foreskin increases men's chances of HIV infection, and may lower a woman's odds. There's another argument for male genital mutilation for mysogynists to use. That, my friends, is called "irony".

Special juvenille bonus: The director of the World Health Organization's AIDS department is named Dr. Kevin De Cock.

The Crane Wife rose to the top of my favourite albums of 2006, but in doing so also put Decemberists fans at the bottom of my favourite list of 2006. How did they manage to get into the high schools? We must ban mixed tapes, CDs and iPods immediately to prevent good music from falling into immature hands! [/curmudgeon]

Another argument against the glass ceiling was released at some point in the past month: Boys are just as good at quitting as women. Take that Human Resources Departments! Equality in job hating! We have to start somewhere.

If you didn't think you were gonna get cancer before...

You probably should now.

I don't find the pictures as esthetically pleasing as I do REALLY KIND OF SCARY. So much radiation.

This link argues, or at least gives the argument that Babyboomers really suck.

The argument has two distinct parts:
1) They are largely responsible for the excessive consumption of our current culture, and thus the destruction of the environment.
2) The free-sex and experimentation that they practiced broke down the sense of respect and social norms, causing the degeneration of society.


It's odd to see one paper arguing both from the left and right for the same point. I largely agree with the first argument, but the second one reeks of fear and social conservatism. It was just funny to see in the same plave. I guess noone likes the poor bastards.

PD-1 and Me!

CBC's article on HIV advancement has piqued my interest in its other applications.

First of all, the article is simplified, but I'm going to run under the premise that it can be taken literally and logically. Second, if you're too lazy to read the really short article: Harvard, the US National Institute of Health and the University of Montreal (I had no idea they had such a facility!) have all found that a protein called PD-1 is over-produced in HIV patients. The more PD-1 in the system, the less active the white T cells are (those are essentially your immune system).

That aside, now to get to the "me" aspect. For absolutely anyone who knows anything about my health record and nothing about my sexual record, I probably have the HIV (I don't). When I get knocked down, I go down hard. Frighteningly so (remember the CDC incident?). I don't just get sick, I go to the hospital (although I loathe almost all doctors and hospitals; no offense to all the MDs in the house!). The idea of a PD-1 suppressant sounds as delicious as candy. If I could get my T cells to do their job more often I'd have half as many medical mysteries as I do now (probably wouldn't assist in the cerebral or hormonal inflictions, though). I think my T cells are just slow swimmers, so to speak. They are the couch potatoes of my system.

If PD-1 is the cause of lazy immune systems, I want mine suppressed.