Turmeric in Curry Kills Cancer Cells

I once read somewhere that hidden away in the world’s rain forests must be plants whose medicinal properties contain the cure for every disease known to man, and that money needed to be made available for scientists to go out and find those plants.

Right now there is talk of a plant derivative closer to home which also is a magic essence. It’s a spice called turmeric, the ingredient in curry powder that gives the dish its yellow colour. Turmeric apparently kills cancer cells in the oesophagus.

The implications of this discovery are huge. Even by cancer standards oesophageal cancer is a nasty disease. Only about 20% of sufferers survive.

And all these years there’s been me mixing my own curry powder, from ingredients I get from the market, explicitly to keep out turmeric from my curry.

And what made me want to do that?

Well you see, I also read somewhere that people who traditionally eat lots of curry are vulnerable to stomach cancer, and that turmeric was found to be the culprit.

This is an oxymoronic situation.

Supposing both versions are correct, and turmeric kills cancer cells in the oesophagus while promoting them in the stomach, where does that leave us?

In a very not-so-lekker place, is all I can say.

The World’s Top Ten Best Countries to Live in

According to a survey by “the free-market think-tank the Legatum Institute”, the world’s top ten best countries to live in are: 1: Finland, 2: Switzerland, 3: Sweden, 4:Denmark, 5: Norway, 6: Australia, 7: Canada, 8: Netherlands, 9: United States, 10: New Zealand.

Britain is 12th behind Ireland

In coming to its conclusion the Legatum Institute considered data on “economic growth with ratings for democracy, social provision, happiness and quality of life”.

Interesting, is that this survey’s findings are at variance with the United Nation’s human development index which paints a completely different picture.

The top ten countries according to that list are: 1: Norway, 2: Australia, 3: Iceland, 4: Canada, 5: Ireland, 6: the Netherlands, 7: Sweden, 8: France, 9: Switzerland 10: Japan.

The United States is rated 13.

Which version do you think is correct? Or perhaps you can come up with a list different from the above two.

Rethinking the Benefits of Breast and Prostate Cancer Screening

There’s an interesting article in Time about the pros and cons of breast and prostate cancer screening.

Screening technology has come a long way since 1980. Doctors now detect cancer way earlier than ever before. They have diagnosed around twice as many Americans with cancer than they were able to in 1980.

This should mean twice as many successful treatments. Sadly it is not the case for prostate and breast cancer. Mortality rates are almost exactly the same as back then.

It has caused a rethink in the medical professional.

The main reason is that they are picking up benign tumours, or slow growing malignant tumours, which in the early stages would have slipped unnoticed past those early screening devices.

Often surgery and radiation follows — and sometimes even chemotherapy — where none was necessary.

The article is an eye-opener. But it also creates a dilemma. To screen or not to screen? That’s the big question. Either way you’re between a rock and a hard place.

The World Recession is Forcing Ex-Homeowners to Live in Their Cars

CLEVELAND — The first night after she surrendered her house to foreclosure, Sheri West endured the darkness in her Hyundai sedan. She parked in her old driveway, with her flower-print dresses and hats piled in boxes on the back seat, and three cherished houseplants on the floor. She used her backyard as a restroom.

Read this article and be very frightened.

Blind-Dating can be Exciting and Fun … And Deadly Dangerous

Blind-dating can be exciting and fun. But only if you know someone who knows the guy well enough to be able to vouch for his character. That’s the bottom line. Otherwise it’s a game of Russian roulette.

You may think that it’s enough to have a friend accompany you when you meet the guy for the first time. You’ll suss him out before you trust yourself alone with him on a date. That’s also a big no, no. Some of the most dangerous men are the most disarmingly smooth.

People meeting for the first time usually are on their best behaviour, and it’s easy to be taken in. But you’re nobody’s fool, right? He seems like a great guy but you won’t take chances. You’ll go on one date with the guy and check out his behaviour. Anything amiss and you’ll drop him like the proverbial hot potato.

Is that right? Well just you wait and see. It doesn’t work like that. That guy has been there before and knows the ropes. He rocks up with flowers, the perfect gentleman, and the first date goes like a dream come true.

You date again. And again. Now you and he are an item. You can’t believe the wonderful turn your life has taken. Too starry eyed to notice little discrepancies in his behaviour — his short temper with other people, angry flare-ups over little things — you continue to live in blissful ignorance of the cataclysm that is waiting in the wings.

Then one day you come down to earth with a thud. You are the object of his latest temper tantrum. His fists fly your way. Your face in the mirror, staring back at you, is testimony to the turn of events.

Later he is full of remorse, the apologies flow as thick and fast as the fists that beat a tattoo on your face. You forgive him. The relationship splutters on for a while but inevitably the day arrives when you want out.

Only to find he’s a remora fish that you can’t shake loose.

He hounds you, stalks you everywhere you go; even pops up from behind the back seat of your car while you’re driving. If he can’t have you, he says, nobody else ever will.

You better believe it, he’s not kidding.

The best way to get out of a jam like that is not to get into it in the first place.

On the prowl out there, are all kinds of weirdos; they use the internet to home in on the women they prey upon. Why put yourself in harm’s way?

One young woman — in the news now for the worst reason imaginable — has cause to reflect upon the impulse that led her to accept a strange man’s invitation to meet. Her decision led to events that ineradicably changed her life.

The Evil That a Mother Did to Her Own Son

For six years a mother duped everyone, including some who are not just anyone, into believing her son was critically ill. She even pulled the wool over the eyes of the Royal family and impresario Simon Cowell (if you don’t know who he is, think Susan Boyle).

And she did it so she could claim benefits to spent on holidays and home improvements.

The woman went to incredible lengths to achieve her ends; and with complete disregard for her little boy’s wellbeing.

You have to wonder what makes someone like that tick. You also have to wonder where they get the nerve to do what they do. And you have to wonder how a mother can so callously exploit her own child.

Actually to say she callously exploited her child is putting it mildly. We’re talking pure evil here.

Read the article and you’ll get my drift.

Too Late for Anything … But Tears

A 16-year-old schoolgirl drank herself to death at a house-warming party hosted by a friend’s parents.

It’s so tragic. This kid was a brilliant student with nine A* GCSEs. It’s almost incomprehensible that someone so young and vital, with so much promise, should throw her life away in such a manner.

Apparently she drank half a bottle of vodka at the party. What were the party hosts thinking, while this young girl recklessly knocked back drink after drink in double-quick time?

What were her friends thinking ? I know it’s easy to play the blame game, but for crying out loud, someone, if not everyone, must have seen what she was doing. Why didn’t anyone stop her?

And now it’s too late for anything … but tears.

Thugs Attack two Cage Fighters Dressed in Drag … Ouch!

Two thugs who attacked what they thought were a pair of transvestites picked on the wrong men – when their intended victims turned out to be cage fighters on a night out in fancy dress.

At first the two thugs couldn’t believe their luck when they came across the two cage fighters out all on their lonesome, decked out in “wigs, short skirts and high heels”. Now the two thugs are spooked for life.

When you’re fixing to beat up on two transvestites and they morph into cage fighters, you know you didn’t kiss a frog. You also know you’re shit out of luck.

I really cracked myself up over this one.

Why Do Women Have Sex?

While figuring out what women want has stumped men for centuries, understanding how they think about sex may have just gotten easier. Cindy Meston and David Buss, psychologists at the University of Texas, interviewed over a thousand women around the world for their book Why Women Have Sex …

The article is written as a questionaire like so:

Any particularly surprising findings?

I was surprised by the importance of revenge. A few had sex in order to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease. More commonly, women’s revenge sex involved getting back at a cheating partner, or having sex with the partner of a friend who had poached her partner. Actually, the frequency of mate poaching also surprised me — the frequency with which women try to lure men who are already ‘taken,’ either for a short-term sexual liaison or a longer-term relationship. Most women have experienced mate poaching in one form or another, either as the mate poacher or as the victim.

Read the article, it’s a mindblower.

Ground Beef Can be Dangerous

Stephanie Smith ate a hamburger her mother had grilled for her and soon after came down with aches and cramps which she put up with that first day. Then she got diarrhoea which soon turned bloody. Then came convulsions that became so frequent and so violent the doctors had to put her in a chemically induced coma.

Nine weeks later the doctors brought her out of the coma. Now she could not walk. The affliction had left her paralysed.

Minnesota officials traced the cause back to the hamburger she had eaten on that fateful day.

Stephanie still can’t believe what happened to her just from eating a hamburger. But this was no ordinary hamburger. The ground beef in the hamburger was contaminated with the E. coli pathogen. You see eating ground beef is a gamble. The risk is slight, but for those who run out of luck the consequences can be devastating, even fatal.

Ground beef used for frozen hamburgers can be a dicey product. You never know what part of the animal went into it. Sometimes one parcel of hamburger meat can be an amalgam of meats sourced from different parts of cows and even different slaughterhouses. Some of the meat can even contain faeces.

In America in the last three years ground beef seems to be the culprit for 16 outbreaks of food poisoning with the recall of beef from thousands of retail outlets in 41 states.

E. coli is extremely virulent. It takes only a few cells to lay you low. And the pathogen is resistant to the heat from cooking.

Read the New York Times article.