Teens Turn to Protein Shakes to Pump Up
















Teens may be chugging protein shakes and taking other muscle-enhancing supplements more often than previously thought, a new study found.


According to a self-reported survey conducted among adolescent males and females, nearly 35 percent said they used protein powders and shakes, while almost 6 percent reported using steroids, according to study author Maria Eisenberg of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and colleagues. Both both behaviors were more common among boys versus girls.













Read this story on www.medpagetoday.com.


In comparison, recent studies with population-based samples of U.S. youth have indicated that 8 percent of females and 10.2 percent of males reported the use of protein supplements.


Use of muscle-enhancing products or behaviors to bulk up, such as different eating habits or exercising more, were significantly associated with grade level, Asian race, body mass index, and sports team participation, the current authors wrote in Pediatrics online.


Women and how media images impact thinness and body image has been the subject of a great deal of research, but images of men depicted in the popular media show people who are increasingly large, lean, and muscular, the authors pointed out.


“Boys’ body dissatisfaction has simultaneously increased, and research has demonstrated that exposure to images of extremely muscular models contributes to body dissatisfaction and muscle dysmorphia in young men,” they wrote.


For the current study, they gathered data through the Eating and Activity in Teens (EAT 2010) study, a large, population-based study of weight status, dietary intake, physical activity, weight control behaviors, and related factors for adolescents from the Minneapolis and St. Paul metropolitan area during the 2009 to 2010 school year.


The study included a 235-question self-report survey and physical measurements of participants height and weight.


The authors focused on participant response to questions related to frequency of participation in any of five muscle-enhancing behaviors over the year prior to the survey, including altered eating behaviors and exercising more — considered “healthy” behaviors as well as use of protein powder or shakes, use of steroids, or use of other muscle-building substances, such as creatine, amino acids, or growth hormones, considered “unhealthy” behaviors.


Participants also reported their school level, gender, race, socioeconomic status based on parental educational attainment, body mass index (BMI), sports team participation, and weight status.


The study population consisted of 2,793 students with a mean age of 14.4 and almost equally divided among females (53.2 percent) and males (46.8 percent). Nearly 30 percent of the participants were black and about 20 percent were white or Asian.


Almost 60 percent of the study population played at least one after-school sport.


Among boys, the authors found that more than two-thirds reported changing their eating to increase their muscle size or tone, and 90 percent exercised more to increase their muscle mass or tone. In terms of the prevalence of “unhealthy” behaviors:


5b88a  img bullet bluedot Teens Turn to Protein Shakes to Pump Up34.7 percent reported using protein powders or shakes


5b88a  img bullet bluedot Teens Turn to Protein Shakes to Pump Up5.9 percent reported using steroids


5b88a  img bullet bluedot Teens Turn to Protein Shakes to Pump Up10.5 percent reported using some other muscle-enhancing substance


Among the girls, 21.2 percent reported using protein powders, while 4.6 percent said they used steroids, and 5.5 percent used other muscle-enhancing substances.


The authors also found that overweight and obese girls had significantly greater odds of using protein powders or shakes than girls of average BMI.


Health News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Wall Street rises on budget talk optimism
















NEW YORK (Reuters) – Stocks rose more than 1 percent on Monday, rebounding after last week’s decline, on signs of progress in talks to resolve the fiscal crunch.


Adding to optimism, U.S. home resales unexpectedly rose in October, a sign that the slow improvement in the job market is helping the housing sector.













In another positive report on housing, sentiment among home builders rose for a seventh straight month in November to the highest level in over six years as demand for new homes increased.


Over the weekend, leading Democratic and Republican lawmakers expressed confidence that they could reach a deal to avert the “fiscal cliff” even as they laid down markers on raising taxes and spending cuts that may make any agreement more difficult.


“While not our base case, we believe that stocks could rise substantially if U.S. policymakers can negotiate a ‘grand bargain’ that credibly addresses long-term tax, spending and entitlement reforms,” said Jonathan Golub, strategist at UBS in New York.


“Unfortunately, our sense is that the most important structural issues will be pushed off into the future, leaving significant uncertainty about the long-term direction of the economy and corporate profits.”


Reflecting the uncertainty, UBS introduced a cautious outlook with a year-end 2013 price target on the S&P 500 at 1,425.


The Dow Jones industrial average <.DJI> was up 152.40 points, or 1.21 percent, at 12,740.71. The Standard & Poor’s 500 Index <.SPX> was up 20.35 points, or 1.50 percent, at 1,380.23. The Nasdaq Composite Index <.IXIC> was up 39.37 points, or 1.38 percent, at 2,892.50.


U.S. financial markets will be closed on Thursday for the Thanksgiving holiday.


Stronger-than-expected earnings also contributed to the market’s advance.


Shares of Lowe’s Cos Inc , the world’s No. 2 home improvement chain, rose 7.3 percent to $ 34.28 after the company reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit and raised its full-year sales forecast.


Shares of Tyson Foods Inc jumped 7 percent to $ 18.07 after the company reported higher-than-expected quarterly earnings, helped by higher prices.


But Intel shares fell 0.7 percent to $ 20.06 on news that the company’s Chief Executive Paul Otellini will retire in May, and that the board will consider internal and external candidates to choose Otellini’s successor.


(Reporting by Angela Moon; Editing by Kenneth Barry)


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Canada pledges again to balance budget by 2015
















OTTAWA/NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Canadian government on Friday reiterated its intention to balance its budget by 2015, three days after projecting there would be deficits until 2016-17.


In separate appearances in Quebec City and New York, Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty were at pains to say they still intended to end the red ink by 2015.













“It remains the government’s plan, intention, to balance the budget prior to the next federal election. The recent economic and fiscal update by the minister indicates we are actually very close to that objective,” Harper told reporters in Quebec City. The next election is in October 2015.


Flaherty’s fall fiscal update on Tuesday had pushed back the target date for eliminating the deficit by a year, to 2016-17, citing a weak global economy.


But the minister said in a speech in New York that the government was on track to balance the budget in the next two to three years, barring major external events, and he later clarified that he intended a balanced budget by 2015.


“The prime minister’s always correct,” he chuckled.


He sought to explain the discrepancy by saying the fiscal update had built in a C$ 3 billion ($ 3 billion) contingency cushion, meaning there was an underlying surplus of C$ 1.2 billion for 2015-16. He said the projection of a C$ 1.8 billion deficit amounted to about half a percent of the C$ 275 billion federal budget.


“There’s lots of water to go under the bridge between now and then,” he said.


The opposition New Democratic Party noted the discrepancy in a release headlined: “Stephen Harper makes stuff up about balancing the budget.”


It pointed out that balancing the budget by the next election was not the same as balancing it by 2016-17.


As it is, even the 2015-16 timetable is a year later than offered in the Conservative campaign for reelection in May 2011. They had promised a balanced budget by 2014-15, followed by major personal income tax relief before the 2015 election.


Flaherty’s timetable drew criticism this week from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which said the minister had become expert at kicking the can down the road.


The projections could be thrown out of whack if the United States goes off the fiscal cliff, a set of automatic tax hikes and spending cuts that are to be triggered on January 2 if legislators and the White House cannot agree on a more nuanced budget deal.


Flaherty said U.S. failure to avert the fiscal cliff would cause a significant and immediate decline in Canada’s gross domestic product, and he would counter it.


Referring to a possible economic shock from Europe or the United States, he said: “If that were to happen and if the Canadian economy were to be pushed back into recession with the resulting danger for higher unemployment and the danger always of a prolonged recession, then we would act.”


He added: “We would not stand by and let that happen. The kinds of measure we can take: there are various tax measures we can take, there are measures with respect to stimulus we can take, these are things that we have done before and we can do again.”


On Tuesday, Flaherty spoke of having prepared various contingency plans.


(Additional reporting by Louse Egan; Editing by David Gregorio)


Canada News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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So, Here’s That ‘Big Bang Theory’ Flashmob You Wanted
















We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:


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Psychologist Richard Wiseman has an interactive game for you to let you know you’re just predictable. To be fair, a couple of us tried it out and were not as predictable as Wiseman thought we were going to be. But without further ado, here it is (have some screen cleaner ready):


RELATED: A ‘Mad Men’ Rickroll and the Man That Destroys Carnival Games


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We too are very excited for the Disney installments of Star Wars. New movies, Ewoks, whatever count us in. We’re just not this excited: 


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If you don’t know, The Big Bang Theory is basically a show about a bunch of really smart, really nerdy dorks. Now when it comes to the actual cast of The Big Bang Theory, we’re only pretty sure (and happy to be proven wrong) only one of those things apply:


And finally, do you have $ 37? If so, would you mind donating it to The Atlantic Wire robot fish aquarium fund? We promise, it’s totally a great cause. Thanks in advance!


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Questions of Blame Linger 34 Years After Jonestown
















From the age of 13, Leslie Wagner Wilson had been indoctrinated in the California-based Peoples Temple, led by the charismatic Jim Jones, whose mission was to foster racial harmony and help the poor.


But on Nov. 18, 1978, she and a handful of church members fought their way through thick jungle in the South American country of Guyana, escaping a utopian society gone wrong where followers were starved, beaten and held prisoner in the Jonestown compound.













She walked 30 miles to safety with her 3-year-old son, Jakari, strapped to her back and a smaller group of defectors. But just hours later, the mother, sister and brother and husband she left behind were dead.


“I was so scared,” said Wagner, now 55. “We exchanged phone numbers in case we died. I was prepared to die. I never thought I would see my 21st birthday.”


Today, on the 34th anniversary, Wilson said it’s important to remember the California-based Peoples Temple Jonestown massacre, especially the survivors who have wrestled with their consciences for decades.


PHOTOS: Jonestown Massacre Anniversary


Nine members of her family were among the 918 Americans who died that day, 909 of them ordered by Jones to drink cyanide-laced Kool-Aid in the largest ritual suicide in history.


Her husband, Joe Wilson, was one of Jones’ top lieutenants who helped assassinate congressman Leo Ryan and his press crew when they tried to free church members who were being held against their will.


After arriving back in the United States, Wilson said she “went through hell” — three failed marriages, drug use and suicidal thoughts she describes in her 2009 book, “Slavery of Faith.”


“I was like Humpty Dumpty, but you couldn’t put me back together again,” she said.


Survivors, many of them African-American like Wilson, say they felt guilt and shame and faced the most agonizing question surrounding the nation’s single largest loss of life until 9/11: Was it suicide or murder?


Full Coverage: Jonestown Massacre


In the now-famous “death tape,” supporters clapped and babies cried as Jones instructed families to kill the elderly first, then the youngest in protest against capitalism and racism. Mothers poisoned 246 children before taking their own lives.


“We really can’t understand the Peoples Temple without looking at the historical time period when it arose,” said Rebecca Moore, a professor of religious studies at San Diego State University.


“With the liberation movements of the ’60s and ’70s, the collapse of the black-power movement, the Peoples Temple was the main institution in the San Francisco Bay area that promoted a message of integration and racial equality.”


Moore lost her two sisters and her nephew, the son of Jim Jones. “They were hardcore believers,” she said of her siblings.


Jim Jones, who was white, came from a “wrong side of the tracks,” poor background in Indiana where in the 1950s he became known as a charismatic preacher with an affinity for African-Americans.


“A number of survivors, including those who defected, believe to this day he had paranormal abilities,” said Moore, who met him years later. “He could heal them and read their minds.”


In the 1960s, Jones moved to San Francisco, where at the height of the Peoples Temple there were about 5,000 members.


WATCH: A Look Back at Jonestown Massacre


“They wanted my parents to join,” she said. “Like most outsiders, we didn’t have any idea what was happening outside closed doors.”


Jones ingratiated himself with celebrities and politicians, mobilizing voters to help elect Mayor George Moscone in 1975 and becoming chairman of the city’s housing authority.


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Cable attacks company ‘tax abuse’



















Vince Cable: “It is completely unacceptable when there is systematic abuse taking place”



Business Secretary Vince Cable has condemned corporate tax avoidance as “completely unacceptable”, saying there are “appalling stories of abuse”.


He told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show UK authorities should do more to stop it.


However, he said that tackling the issue required international agreement as well as domestic action.


His comments came after executives from Starbucks, Google and Amazon were grilled by MPs, although the firms say they operate within the tax rules.


The executives were questioned earlier this month by the Public Accounts Committee about how they used favourable European tax jurisdictions for their UK businesses.


Starbucks, for example, has made a taxable profit only once in its 15 years of operating in the UK. As a consequence, the company is thought to have paid just £8.6m in corporation tax over the period.


During the hearing with MPs, Starbucks admitted the Dutch government had granted a special tax deal on its European headquarters, which receives royalty payments from its UK business.


‘Intensive investigation’


Mr Cable told Andrew Marr: “The best off in society have got to contribute more, and that includes companies.”




Amazon’s Andrew Cecil was condemned by MPs for failing to answer questions



He acknowledged that smaller companies, many of which face competitive pressures from the major firms, will be angered by the situation.


“There’s nothing more galling to small and medium-sized enterprises when they are paying (tax), and others are dodging it,” Mr Cable said. “Our own tax authorities have got to be very tough on things like royalty payments, which is where a lot of the subterfuge takes place.”


However, he said that finding a solution was difficult, especially as the UK had to make itself attractive to inward investors. “The big question is whether you can get wider (international) agreement,” he said.


As companies are using favourable tax jurisdictions overseas there needs to “a combination of action at the international level as well as beef up our own capacity to deal with it”.


Mr Cable said: “It is quite difficult to drill down to what the problems are. Starbucks claims they are actually making losses in the UK. I don’t know whether they are not but you would need some pretty intensive investigation by the Inland Revenue to establish what exactly is going on, whether their transfer prices and their royalties are being fiddled or not.”


All the companies under fire over the amount of corporation tax paid said that they operated within the tax rules and regulations and have done nothing wrong.


BBC News – Business



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Israel, Gaza fighting rages on as Egypt seeks truce
















GAZA/JERUSALEM (Reuters) – Israel bombed Palestinian militant targets in the Gaza Strip from air and sea for a fifth straight day on Sunday, preparing for a possible ground invasion though Egypt saw “some indications” of a truce ahead.


Militant rocket fire into Israel subsided during the night but resumed in the morning with three rockets fired at the nearby coastal city of Ashkelon, the Israeli army said.













“As of now we have struck more than 1,000 targets, so Hamas should do the math over whether it is or isn’t worth it to cease fire,” Israeli Vice Prime Minister Moshe Yaalon, over Twitter.


“If there is quiet in the South and no rockets and missiles are fired at Israel’s citizens nor terrorist attacks engineered from the Gaza Strip, we will not attack.”


Forty-eight Palestinians, about half of them civilians, including 13 children, have been killed in Israel’s raids, Palestinian officials said. More than 500 rockets fired from Gaza have hit Israel, killing three people and injuring dozens.


Israel unleashed intensive air strikes on Wednesday, killing the commander of the Hamas Islamist group that governs Gaza and spurns peace with the Jewish state. Israel’s declared goal is to deplete Gaza arsenals and press Hamas into stopping cross-border rocket fire that has plagued Israeli border towns for years.


Air raids continued past midnight into Sunday, with warships shelling from the sea. A Gaza City media building was hit, witnesses said, wounding 6 journalists and damaging facilities belonging to Hamas’s Al-Aqsa TV as well as Britain’s Sky News.


An Israeli military spokeswoman said the strike had targeted a rooftop “transmission antenna used by Hamas to carry out terror activity”.


Two other predawn attacks on houses in the Jabalya refugee camp killed two children and wounded 13 other people, medical officials said.


These attacks followed a defiant statement by Hamas military spokesman Abu Ubaida, who told a news conference: “This round of confrontation will not be the last against the Zionist enemy and it is only the beginning.”


The masked gunman dressed in military fatigues insisted that despite Israel’s blows Hamas “is still strong enough to destroy the enemy”.


An Israeli attack on Saturday destroyed the house of a Hamas commander near the Egyptian border.


Casualties there were averted however, because Israel had fired non-exploding missiles at the building beforehand from a drone, which the militant’s family understood as a warning to flee, and thus their lives were spared, witnesses said.


Israeli aircraft also bombed Hamas government buildings in Gaza on Saturday, including the offices of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh and a police headquarters.


Among those killed in air strikes on Gaza on Saturday were at least four suspected militants riding motorcycles, and several civilians including a 30-year-old woman.


ISRAELI SCHOOLS SHUT


Israel said it would keep schools in its south shut on Sunday as a precaution to avoid casualties from rocket strikes reaching as far as Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in the past few days.


Israel’s “Iron Dome” missile interceptor system destroyed in mid-air a rocket fired by Gaza militants at Tel Aviv on Saturday, where volleyball games on the beach front came to an abrupt halt as air-raid sirens sounded.


Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on Tel Aviv, the third against the city since Wednesday. It said it had fired an Iranian-designed Fajr-5 at the coastal metropolis, some 70 km (43 miles) north of Gaza.


In the Israeli Mediterranean port of Ashdod, a rocket ripped into several balconies. Police said five people were hurt.


Israel’s operation has drawn Western support for what U.S. and European leaders have called Israel’s right to self-defense, but there was also a growing number of calls from world leaders to seek an end to the violence.


British Prime Minister David Cameron “expressed concern over the risk of the conflict escalating further and the danger of further civilian casualties on both sides,” in a conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a spokesperson for Cameron said.


London was “putting pressure on both sides to de-escalate,” the spokesman said, adding that Cameron had urged Netanyahu “to do everything possible to bring the conflict to an end.”


Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said the United States would like to see the conflict resolved through “de-escalation” and diplomacy, but also believes Israel has a right to self-defense.


Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi said in Cairo as his security deputies sought to broker a truce with Hamas leaders, that “there are some indications that there is a possibility of a ceasefire soon, but we do not yet have firm guarantees.”


Egypt has mediated previous ceasefire deals between Israel and Hamas, the latest of which unraveled with recent violence.


A Palestinian official told Reuters the truce discussions would continue in Cairo on Sunday, saying “there is hope,” but it was too early to say whether the efforts would succeed.


In Jerusalem, an Israeli official declined to comment on the negotiations. Military commanders said Israel was prepared to fight on to achieve a goal of halting rocket fire from Gaza, which has plagued Israeli towns since late 2000, when failed peace talks led to the outbreak of a Palestinian uprising.


Diplomats at the United Nations said Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is expected to visit Israel and Egypt in the coming week to push for an end to the fighting.


POSSIBLE GROUND OFFENSIVE


Israel, with tanks and artillery positioned along the frontier, said it was still weighing a ground offensive.


Israeli cabinet ministers decided on Friday to more than double the current reserve troop quota set for the Gaza offensive to 75,000 and around 16,000 reservists have already been called up.


Asked by reporters whether a ground operation was possible, Major-General Tal Russo, commander of the Israeli forces on the Gaza frontier, said: “Definitely.”


“We have a plan. … It will take time. We need to have patience. It won’t be a day or two,” he added.


A possible move into the densely populated Gaza Strip and the risk of major casualties it brings would be a significant gamble for Netanyahu, favored to win a January election.


The last Gaza war, a three-week Israeli blitz and invasion over the New Year of 2008-09, killed 1,400 Palestinians, mostly civilians. Thirteen Israelis died in the conflict.


But the Gaza conflagration has stirred the pot of a Middle East already boiling from two years of Arab revolution and a civil war in Syria that threatens to spread beyond its borders.


One major change has been the election of an Islamist government in Cairo that is allied with Hamas, potentially narrowing Israel’s maneuvering room in confronting the Palestinian group. Israel and Egypt made peace in 1979.


(Writing by Allyn Fisher-Ilan; Editing by Douglas Hamilton)


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Honey Boo Boo Gets Trashy and Some Really Cute Dumb Ways to Die
















We realize there’s only so much time one can spend in a day watching new trailers, viral video clips, and shaky cell phone footage of people arguing on live television. This is why every day The Atlantic Wire highlights the videos that truly earn your five minutes (or less) of attention. Today:


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So, we’re not quite sure what kind of spirit moved artist Jason Mecier to create a Honey Boo Boo portrait from 25 pounds of trash. But it did. And we’re thankful (sort of?): 


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And thank god for YouTube. Besides going to America’s shopping malls, how else would we find terrible parents and gullible children? And how else would we know that we were entertained by these fascinating creatures? 


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Now that the Dark Knight trilogy is over, aren’t you in the mood for something lighter? Another prequel? How about a fan-made video (which we’re guessing took hours and hours and footage from the 90s and beyond) which imagines all Dark Knight‘s characters in high school?


OMGosh Melbourne Metro this is like the cutest video on earth! You guys are adorable, like we’re talking totes adorable squeeeee—Oh wait. We take that back. We take all of it back. 


Wireless News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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At Washington’s James Bond exhibit, villains are forever
















WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Fans of fictional super spy James Bond rely on the durable film franchise for must-have elements, such as jaw-dropping stunts, great clothes, sultry women – and villains who are drop-dead evil.


An exhibition that opened on Friday makes clear that the nasty types that 007 has battled for five decades have changed but one constant remains. The only true match for the world’s greatest secret agent are characters that moviegoers love to hate.













“Exquisitely Evil: 50 Years of Bond Villains” at the International Spy Museum in downtown Washington, is dedicated to the most memorable bad guys and gals in the 23-film series.


From the eponymous “Dr. No” in 1962 to the just-released “Skyfall,” the exhibit shows links between fact and fiction and how villains have kept pace with an evolving world.


“Bond seems the same, but the villains have all changed. They have changed to reflect the changing times,” Anna Slafer, the museum’s director of exhibitions, told a news conference.


In “Dr. No,” the villain schemes against the U.S. space program. Probing the nuclear fears of the 1970s, tycoon Karl Stromberg plots genocide in “The Spy Who Loved Me” (1977).


The information age turns up with Max Zorin, who lusts to corner the microchip market in “A View to a Kill” (1985). In “Skyfall” cyberterrorist Silva tries to hack British intelligence computers.


THINK BIG


But some things have remained the same for the Bond villain, said Alexis Albion, a guest curator and intelligence historian.


They are highly successful, often charming, live in isolated places, generate fanatical loyalty, and think big, she said. “They are on a level that we have to send someone like James Bond after them.”


They also “are off physically,” Albion said. Le Chiffre in “Casino Royale” (2006) weeps blood, Dr. No has a magnetic claw in place of a hand, and the hitman Jaws in “The Spy Who Loved Me” and “Moonraker” (1979) is a giant with steel teeth.


A galaxy of well-known actors – and a few actresses – from around the world have faced off against the six men who have played Bond, from Sean Connery to Daniel Craig.


Yaphet Kotto, Max von Sydow, Sean Bean, Javier Bardem, Donald Pleasence, Christopher Lee, Michael Lonsdale, Lotte Lenya, Mads Mikkelsen, Jeroen Krabbe, Christopher Walken and Telly Savalas all have gone mano-a-mano with 007, and lost.


The International Spy Museum‘s show was timed to the release of “Skyfall” and done in cooperation with EON Productions, which makes the Bond movies.


The exhibit, which includes more than 110 movie and historical artifacts, including Jaws’ teeth, interactive stations, and videos, runs through 2014. General admission to the museum is $ 19.95.


(Reporting by Ian Simpson; Editing by Paul Simao)


Movies News Headlines – Yahoo! News



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Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care

















Weil spoke as part of the Tulsa Town Hall series of speakers.













The United States has an expensive health-care system that doesn’t produce good results, he said.


“Something is very wrong with this picture,” he said. “We’re spending more and more and we have less and less to show for it.”


Changes in diet can be an effective treatment for many conditions, but American physicians are functionally illiterate in nutrition, he said.


“The whole subject of nutrition is omitted in medical education,” he said.


There are many ways of managing diseases other than drugs, he said. Integrative medicine, which can include dietary supplements and practices like meditation, is the future of health care, he said.


The health system is resistant to change because of entrenched vested interests. That includes pharmaceutical companies that do direct-to-consumer advertising, which should be stopped, he said.


“As dysfunctional as our health-care system is at the moment – and it is very dysfunctional – it is generating rivers of money,” he said. “That money is going into very few pockets.”


Weil has developed an anti-inflammatory diet based on the Mediterranean diet but with Asian influences.


Inflammation is associated with some heart disease, Alzheimer’s disease and some cancers, he said. And as a result, people should be eating real, unprocessed foods and whole grains. They should stay away from sugar-sweetened beverages, including fruit juice, he said.


“The new research that’s being done on sugar is not very comforting,” he said.


The aging process can’t be avoided, but age-related diseases can be avoided by proper care, he said.


“The goal should be to live long and well with a big drop off at the end,” he said.


Weil is the director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Integrative Medicine.


Tickets to the Tulsa Town Hall series are sold as a $ 75 subscription and cover five lectures. Tickets for individual lectures are not available.


To subscribe, visit tulsaworld.com/tulsatownhall, call 918-749-5965 or write to: Tulsa Town Hall, Box 52266, Tulsa, OK 74152.


Future speakers include journalist Ann Compton on Feb. 8; author James B. Stewart on April 5; historian and cinematographer Rex Ziak on May 10.


Original Print Headline: Speaker highlights nutrition



Shannon Muchmore 918-581-8378
shannon.muchmore@tulsaworld.com3ed48  basic Tulsa Town Hall: Nutrition a valuable tool in health care
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