NEW YORK — The company started by the late nutrition guru Dr. Robert C. Atkins to promote a low-carb lifestyle has filed for bankruptcy court protection, a further sign of the waning popularity of the diet. — Low-Carb Pioneer Atkins Files Chapter 11 Yippee! Maybe common sense isn’t completely dead in America after all. Read more →
EppsNet Archive: Health
Transcendental Meditation
Slate summarizes an article from the American Journal of Cardiology (emphasis added): Transcendental meditation may prevent death from hypertension. In a study, hypertensive elderly people who used TM were 23 percent to 30 percent less likely to die than those who relied on other relaxation methods or drugs. What is the difference between transcendental meditation and regular meditation? It must be pretty good if it makes people “less likely to die.” Read more →
I Don’t Feel Good
James Brown has prostate cancer — CNN.com Read more →
Into the Digital Abyss
The Globe and Mail reports that a “small but determined group of computer geeks [is] trying to translate open-source software into African languages, in an effort to reach the continent most isolated by the digital divide.” Read more →
Obesity vs. Thought
Obesity Could Be More Widespread Than Thought — New York Sun I believe that. I run into a lot more fat people than thoughtful people . . . Read more →
Atkins Died
Dr. Robert Atkins, who died last year, made a nice living promoting the effects of diet — specifically, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet — on health. According to his widow, however, Atkins’ own history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension was “completely unrelated to his diet.” Go figure . . . Read more →
Why I Hate Stretching at Home
When I do my stretching regimen at the gym, I don’t have a self-appointed, jive-talking personal trainer, age 10: — You call dat a stretch? We got a big problem here. — Is dat da best you can do? — What in da name a Jimmy da Jet kind of a stretch is dat? — Who’s Jimmy the Jet? — I dunno. Who is he? Read more →
A Bruce Lee Christmas
I’ve been reading Bruce Lee’s Tao of Jeet Kune Do, in which he says that most athletes are not willing to drive themselves hard enough, and that only through extraordinary effort can one unlock the potential of the human body. Read more →
The Latte Factor
Is $1 million really better than a good cup of coffee? Someone has trademarked the phrase “The Latte Factor,” referring to his claim that you could save the $3.50 a day you’re spending on little things like coffee, invest it, and wind up with millions of dollars. I don’t doubt that under a certain set of assumptions, that’s true — although under another set of assumptions, you could invest the money and lose it all, in which case you’ve got no lattes and no money). Read more →
Atkins Dies
Dr. Robert Atkins, creator of the high-fat, low-carb “Atkins Diet,” died today, not from a heart attack or stroke, as I’d hoped, but by slipping on a sidewalk outside his office. Maybe that crazy diet affects your balance . . . Read more →
Fat Gene
Fat Gene: It Really Exists — MSN.com I don’t believe this at all. There aren’t enough genes to cover all the human frailties we’ve blamed on genetic causes. Read more →
Jack LaLanne at 88
From a Dateline NBC interview with fitness guru Jack La Lanne, who will be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on Sept. 26, his 88th birthday: Keith Morrison: A lot of people, once they start to get older, have things like strokes and heart attacks, high blood pressure, arthritis, those kinds of diseases that are associated with age. Have you had a heart attack? Jack La Lanne: I can’t afford to. It’d wreck my image. I can’t afford to die, man. Read more →