Category: Health

RFI #3: Vitamins

Health

For about ten years now I’ve been taking a multivitamin pill each day — you know, the “Centrum Silver” type for Ye Olde Phartes — but I have to tell you all, I’m not convinced that it does anything.

Reason I’m pondering the topic now is because I just read somewhere that taking fish oil pills (for Omega-3 reasons) is a complete waste of time — the only way fish oil seems to do any good is if you get it from actual fish, which I eat about once a week anyway.

So I ask myself:  what about the multivitamin pill?  Is it too a waste of money?  The consensus around seem to be that at best, it doesn’t do you any harm — but that doesn’t seem to be enough reason to swallow the stuff every day.  Or is there any real value to it?  (I should point out that I eat a fairly balanced diet, and I’m not sure that I need any more.)

Serious / informed answers only in Comments, please.

Irony Alert

Funny Stuff, Health

So former supermodel Elle McPherson is dating a doctor.  Ordinarily, I would not care, and nor should any sentient human being.  But this is not just any doctor, oh no — as the Daily Mail  breathlessly informs us:

Elle Macpherson, 54, is dating discredited former doctor Andrew Wakefield, 60, a driving force behind the anti-vaxxer movement when his debunked theory linked the childhood MMR jab to autism

…and of course there’s a pic:

…which makes me think:  while I certainly do not wish any harm on the Oz bint, wouldn’t be wonderfully ironic if by kissing this charlatan, she contracted a serious yet preventable disease?

(Side note:  kissing with eyes open? eewwww)

 

Settled Science

Health

…when it comes to coffee:

Every day seems to deliver a new story about caffeine. One day it’s good for you, the next it’s to be avoided.
But a recent large scale study suggests not only do coffee and caffeine give us an ‘energy boost’, they also benefit our health.
The British Medical Journal published an umbrella review that showed the health benefits of caffeine and coffee far outweighed the risks.
The optimum health benefits of caffeine come from about 3-4 cups a day.

I know, I know… yer not gonna cut your coffee intake in half, no matter what the scientists say.

For the record, I drink Krispy Kreme “Smooth” blend coffee from K-cups. (yeah, go ahead and call it sacrilege: according to the coffee fanatics, I should grow my own beans, roast them myself, and grind only the freshest ones for my coffee needs. The only problem with that rigmarole is I wouldn’t have time left in the day to do anything else. I don’t distill my own single malt Scotch; why should I do the same for my coffee?)

Then again, no doubt some doctors would take issue with my other approach:

…but they’re just a bunch of old spoilsports.

Under The Knife

Health

My eyes have been getting progressively worse over the past couple years, to the point where looking with my left eye is akin to peering through muslin. Yup; with age comes cataracts. So here’s what awaits me later today (squeamish warning):

…and I’ll be getting the right eye done too, in a couple of weeks. Fortunately, my eyedoc is an absolute artist at this surgery — he’s the same guy who carries a SIG 226 under his white coat… how bad could he be?

After a lifetime of shitty eyesight that not even Lasik could take care of properly, here’s hoping things will get better. Apparently, it does.

Wish me luck, y’all.

Update:  all done, no problems.  See you tomorrow.

Gold Standard?

Health, Politics

The next time some liberal fool tries to convince you that a “single-payer” healthcare system is the bee’s knees and holds up Britain’s NHS as an example of “free” medical care, feel free to point him to this little snippet:

The NHS is struggling with its worst winter ever as A&E waiting times hit their highest on record, damning figures released today reveal.

New data from NHS England shows the health service is operating at a poorer level than at the same point in 2016, which was branded a ‘humanitarian crisis’ and saw the British Red Cross drafted in to help.

The alarming statistics, collected from between New Year’s Day and January 7, show:

  • One in five patients at major casualty units waited longer than four hours – the safe limit set by the Government – to be seen in December
  • The statistics showed that for all A&E units, 85.1 per cent of patients were seen within the four-hour period – equaling last January’s record low.
  • More than 300,000 patients were forced to wait for at least four hours in all A&E units – the highest amount since figures began in 2010.
  • Ambulance delays have also risen to record proportions, with more than 5,000 patients left stuck in the back of the vehicles waiting to be transferred to A&E.
  • While bed occupancy levels have hit their worst point yet this winter, with 24 trusts declaring they had no free beds at some point last week, the figures show.

With government, when there is over-demand there will always be under-supply, and rationing.

Owie

Health

The tear of my left knee’s lateral collateral ligament (LCL) is only partial, according to Doc Russia. Nevertheless, it’s bad enough that I need 6-8 weeks’ “light duty” (as we called it in the army).

This means that I will not be able to make the Portledge high bird shoot in Devon with Mr. Free Market on Wednesday, because the shoot involves scrambling along muddy hillside paths and steep climbs and descents and both he and Doc Russia have banned me from any such foolishness. So High Bird Shooting will remain on Ye Olde Buckette Lyste until sometime in the future, and all my shotgun lessons at Barbury and Royal Bisley were for naught. (Not wasted, of course — lessons and practice are never wasted — but for this event, irrelevant.)

I’m even wearing a knee brace just to get up and down the stairs at Free Market Towers.

Other than a sprained ankle as a boy, this is the first time in my life that I’ve suffered any kind of serious physical injury.

And I don’t bloody like it.