Ipswich Launches Campaign Against Cheap Super Strength Alcohol
Ipswich is an independent town in the very independent county of Suffolk and it has always been thus for both of them. Today though it is reported, that they are launching a campaign to ban cheap super strength alcohol. It’s all here in the East Anglian Daily Times. I heard of it on Radio 5 and they said it was the first town in England to do so.
Let’s hope it all succeeds in its objectives.
I suppose the real problem is to get all of the small off-licences to comply.
Faith Healers Claim HIV Cure
BBC London is leading with this story this morning and giving it the due respect it deserves. In other words, saying it’s a load of old religious bunkum and the best thing you can do is take your anti-retroviral drugs. The BBC is also saying that there have been at least three deaths, because people stopped taking their drugs.
Painkillers Can Make Headaches Worse
This has been said on the television this morning. There’s more here.
I used to suffer from bad migraines brought on by flashing lights and exercise, but since being diagnosed as a coeliac and going on a gluten-free diet, I don’t get them any more.
I haven’t taken a painkiller since C died, except when I was suffering two years ago from bad pain in my face due to a tooth and when I had the tooth out.
If I have a slight pain, I use a measure of Scottish falling down liquid, diluted with London tap water.
Homerton Hospital
I’d never been to Homerton Hospital until this morning, although I did have my vasectomy in a private capacity at the old Hackney Hospital.
Today though, I needed my INR to be tested, as I’m changing doctors.
My main reaction was that I was pleasantly surprised and how professional they were. I was on the train to Stratford and Eastfield, forty-five minutes after arriving at the hospital.
The INR result was what it should be too!
A Thought About Coeliac Disease
After reading yet again, about a coeliac in hospital, where they really weren’t too professional about what he could eat, I’ve had this thought.
Is coeliac disease the most common disease, that can be cured by diet alone?
To take this further, am I right to think, that this fact gets up the average medic’s craw, as it means the disease can’t be cured by the two most common treatment methods; drugs or surgery?
Does A Gluten-Free Diet Help Your Hair?
My last hairdresser always said that my hair grew very fast and in fact for a sixty-five-year-old man, I have a pretty good head of hair.
But what got me thinking was that yesterday The Times showed a list of the best dressed older people. What stood out was their compliments for Katherine, the Duchess of Kent. They said of her that potentially she has the best hair in the Royal Family (including Kate Middleton’s, yes).
And she is 79! It is well-known that she is a coeliac, so it can be assumed that like me she sticks to her gluten-free diet.
I posted this on a coeliac list on the Internet and others said that there could be a connection from personal experience.
Over the past forty years, I’ve had a lot to do with flat race jockeys.
Obviously, to keep their weight down, they eat frugally and the typical gluten-rich snacks, beloved of the general population, are probably never eaten. I remember one meal with Michael Roberts, where he ate baked salmon and peas, followed by some fruit.
But you’ll rarely find a flat race jockey, without a full head of hair! And many are riding well into their forties. The best hair on the current crop of top jockeys must be on Hayley Turner. But then she’s a woman. And a coeliac!
And then we could look at people like Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and others, whose diet is mainly rice-based. They generally seem to my untrained eye to have better hair as they get older, than the average Caucasian.
I do wonder if there is a serious link here. It probably isn’t to coeliac disease, but the diet may be the key. After all, Nottingham University have shown that coeliacs, who stick to the gluten-free diet, have a twenty-five percent less chance of getting cancer. Why this is, no-one knows, but it could just be that a healthy diet, which looks after your gut, gets the maximum amount of good vitamins and minerals into your body.
A Good Reason For All Types Of Marriage
I did a trawl of the Internet and found this article about William Farr in the New York Times.
He was one of the founders of medical statistics and to quote his Wikipedia bio.
In 1858, he performed a study on the correlation of health and marriage condition, and found that health decreases from the married to the unmarried to the widowed.
The only problem with the study is that it was done 154 years ago. But if he got his statistics right, I suspect his results still hold.
I’m surprised that no-one has invoked William Farr in the argument on gay marriage. After all, the longer we live healthy lives can only be to the good of everybody in the population.
Let’s Stop Smoking At The Top
I am a militant anti-smoker. You will be, if you’ve lost a son because of his smoking. They’ve just had a government minister on 5 Live starting another campaign.
But it needs an example at the top of society!
Why not state on the ballot paper for all elections, whether the candidate is a smoker or not! I would never vote for a smoker!
Marmite Fights MRSA
They’ve now proven that an ingredient in Marmite fights MRSA. It’s all here in the Daily Telegraph.
C was a great eater of Marmite and never got MRSA. I haven’t had it either, so perhaps sleeping with a Marmite eater for forty years is good protection.
The Price Of Wheat
The BBC is reporting that the price of wheat is going up, due to the bad weather.
Do I care?
Not really! As wheat and its dreaded gluten are a poison to me.
The Anonymous Widower 