The Pea Patch

Anemia Drug Limits

2008-03-13T19:50:00.000-07:00

A committe that advises the FDA suggests that new drug limits be put in place. But the two companies avoided the outcome they most feared: a recommendation that the drugs not be used by any cancer patients. That probably would have meant the loss of at least $1 billion in sales for each company.

fast-food outlets are cheap and plentiful

2008-03-13T19:40:00.000-07:00

You may want to buy healthy food for your family, but if the good grocery stores are far away and pricey and the fast-food outlets are cheap and plentiful, it may be harder to make the healthy choice :

The startling rise in obesity rates in North America over the past two
decades has led to calls for more effective approaches to help people achieve
healthy weights. The State of the Evidence Review on Urban Health and Healthy
Weights, recently released, synthesizes the findings of hundreds of population
health studies published over the years and shines a spotlight on aspects of our
urban environments that can either inhibit or promote our ability to maintain a
healthy weight.

"Two key areas we looked at were economic environments and built
environments--meaning the ways in which the neighbourhoods and the cities in
which we live are planned and developed," said Kim Raine, director of the
University of Alberta's Centre for Health Promotion Studies and lead author of
the report.

Childhood Obesity

2007-03-06T11:22:00.000-08:00

It has become an epidemic, leading to the very early development of Type 2 Diabetes. However, obesity in children is also causing something else:

The growing rates of child obesity in the United States may be causing girls to
reach puberty at an increasingly younger age, a study released Monday concluded.
After following 354 girls, University of Michigan researchers found those who were fatter at age 3 and continued to gain weight reached puberty, as defined by breast development, by age 9.
Earlier evidence has shown that girls are entering puberty at younger ages than they were 30 years ago.

This simply adds to the growing health and social problems of childhood obesity and is avoidable in the live of so many kids.

That garden ...

2007-03-06T01:17:00.000-08:00

Do you want to create a kitchen garden that's as beautiful to look at as it is productive? Start by banishing the idea of a single, vast patch of upturned earth with regiment after regiment of linearly disposed vegetables marching across it. Instead embrace the idea of growing vegetables in a decorative, multiple-parterre planting within a fenced or walled space. You have now opened the door to a far more pleasurable experience on every level. More soothing to be in. Far easier to work. The first step on this journey is to eliminate the prototypical rectangle from your vocabulary and let your mind wander freely over all the other geometric possibilities. Picture an octagonal garden. Or a square one with semicircular island beds, or one further divided into pie-wedged beds, or even a quartet of rooms. How about an enfilade of smaller plots linked by fruit trees trained into arbor form, chaining across a lawn or encircling a central water feature? - more