New way of counting calories

Instead of counting daily calories, I just tabulated the last 100 days of food by weight from grocery bills.

On average two of us ate 3700 calories per day with 38% fat, 44% carbohydrates and 17% protein. Omega 6 to 3 ratio is around 3, not taken into consideration of occasional spoonful of flax oil.

My BMI is at 18.8 and Richard is at 22.1; most people “hate” us because we look so thin.

Here are some of the foods we ate:

25 kg of fish
108 eggs
9 kg of nuts
18 kg of cheese
46 kg of grapes
32 kg of apples
Over 100 kg of vegetables
22 liters of red wine
3 kg of chocolate
& etc.

Looking at the amount of foods we ate, I would assume that we are over-eating. In reality, we are 10 to 20% caloric restricted.

I would like to pad myself on the back and say “Keep up the good diet”.

Branched-Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) supplements promote longevity in middle-aged mice

Branched-Chain Amino Acid (BCAA) supplements promote longevity in middle-aged laboratory mice according to the article published in October's Cell Metabolism.

BCAA includes leucine, isoleucine and valine. All three are essential amino acids, which means that our body cannot synthesize them and therefore must be taken in through our diet.

Consuming BCAA supplements is different from consuming proteins containing these three amino acids, as the former enters directly into the blood stream and the latter needs to be digested first.

BCAA are already marketed for human consumption. I would think that it is safe for older males who show signs of sarcopenia. However, one must be careful about the balance of things. Previous studies have shown that protein and methionine restriction increase maximum longevity in rodents, whereas neither carbohydrate nor lipid restriction seem to change rodent longevity.

Additional note regarding this research is that data was compiled on male mice only.

Universal BCAA 2000 Pure Capsules, Free Form BCAAs with Co-Factors, 120-Count Bottles

Optimum Nutrition Instantized Bcaa 5000 Powder, 336 Grams (11.8 Oz)

It's time to phase out codeine

Scientists say that it is time to phase out codeine.

However, only 20 days ago, codeine was handed out to every single patient in a day-surgery ward. Even though RMD vomitted out the 2 pills of codeine (in Tylenol 3 format) and was in extreme pain, he was totally ignored until it was time to kick him out as he became hindrance to workers wanting to go home. He was then given a shot of morphine and was pushed out of the hospital. The beauty of public health care - money saved and life not endangered.

I Am Grateful (1)

Last Friday morning getting up at 8:30, the first thing I went to check was the basement. I had my episode of “Oh, Is this not happiness” already written in my mind. 65 mm of rain had fallen over the night and not a drop of water in the basement; this was what I had imagined. Instead, water over spilled from the gutter. Any water collected by the gutter was supposed to drain down to the city sewer. However, one year the city sewer backed up into our basement and we had water 2 feet deep. So we blocked the exit to the sewage and had not installed a sump pump.

The gutter would not have had collected any water if we had sealed it with a special cement. Installing a sump pump is easy; it is digging a hole deep enough to put the sump pump that is difficult, but feasible.

Therefore, I am still grateful. I am grateful because we have a basement and it can be made sturdy, dry and beautiful.

Richard opened up the connection to the sewer, so water ran down the drain in seconds and moist was dried in a day with a fan.

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“You cannot exercise much power without gratitude because it is gratitude that keeps you connected to the power. … The grateful mind is constantly fixed upon the best, therefore it will receive the best”.

Wallace Wattles The Science of Getting Rich

Cancer drug imatinib may be used to treat Parkinson's Disease

Interesting research by Johns Hopkins scientists ( Parkinson's Disease: Excess of Special Protein Identified as Key to Symptoms and Possible New Target for Treatment with Widely Used Anti-Cancer Drug) shows that a widely used anti-cancer drug imatinib (currently marketed as Gleevec by Novartis) may be effective in controlling symptoms of Parkinson's Disease.

The interesting point is that a single drug is being used to treat different cancers, but now a cancer treating drug is also implicated in Parkinson's disease, which is a degenerative disorder of central nervous system. Of course, most cancers and Parkinson's disease are age related. Ageing as a disease needs to be widely accepted before all age related diseases can be cured.

Another example of multi use cancer drug under clinical trial is Ipilimumab by Bristol & Myers Squibb.

Saturated fat not as bad as previously thought

New evidence shows that saturated fat intake has only a very limited impact on Cardiovascular Disease risk -- causing many to rethink the "saturated fat is bad" paradigm ( via eurekalert).

This probably partly explains the French Paradox, that French people suffer a relatively low incidence of coronary heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.

This in turn causes me to wonder why cheese is so much more expensive in North America than in Europe. I suspect that it is due to low demand caused somewhat by the propaganda that we have been hearing for over 30 years that saturated fat is a major culprit of cardiovascular disease.

Random Quotes

"It is simply a fact of life today that if the young people can text, they will not talk."

Don Kirkham

Think twice about public health care

Check this story out (B.C. man loses right to care for wife). People think that public health care is a better system should think twice. Whenever, a government is allowed too much power to run things, you lose personal freedom.

The public health care system in Canada is also not as "free" as most people assume. In addition to paying higher taxes to cover the health care, there are addition costs at the doctor’s office. For example, the dermatologist we go to charges $40.00 every time he squirts liquid nitrogen on a spot of your skin (not for cosmetic reasons).

Since I am in the mood ranting about public health care system, I might as well add one more comment. There is an article on CNBC about wastefulness of health care (Health Care Wastefulness Is Detailed in Studies). It seems to me that the public health care in Canada encourages wastefulness from my personal experience. I had not needed health care in the last 7 years. When I called up my family doctor in July, I was told that anyone who had not been seen by him for 5 years is considered a new patient and he does not take any new patients. I was rejected on the phone by 5 more other general practitioners. In the 7 years that I had not incurred any health care cost, I paid taxes just the same. The conclusion I was able to make was that if a person does not need frequent cares, he/she does not get one. Isn’t that encouraging wastefulness?

On the other hand, with private health insurance as with any other insurance, how much you pay is at least somewhat related to your past history of claims.

Enough rant,
Have a great day!