Shirley

I thought of you and sun salutations in Cabo for a mo’ while doing beach yoga. You would’ve loved it!

On countdown for an all day fashion show so catch you on the flip!

Luv, Zen Lilli – several friends have started calling me this name, I’m digging it 2.

Did you like other Chamorros leave Guam because you are sick and tired of what the white man has done to our Island. They have killed off all our bird population. The white brought snakes that ate them. They have polluted our beaches with sewage, oil and other military waste products.

They have brought their cigarettes to the Island and using their advertisement hooked most of our youth on the coolness of smoking.

Report: Guam has nation’s highest smoking rate
BY CONNOR MURPHY • PACIFIC DAILY NEWS • MARCH 16, 2009
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About one out of every three people on Guam smoke cigarettes, giving the island the highest smoking rate in the nation, according to a new national report.

This past week’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 31.1 of adults on island are current smokers. The median rate nationally was about 20 percent, the report stated.

Renee Veksler, a health educator at Guam Memorial Hospital, said the number, based on a 2007 survey, seems too low.

“Unfortunately, it’s too acceptable on Guam to smoke,” Veksler said. “I think people know they should do something about their smoking, but I don’t know if people are as concerned as they could be as far as what smoking does to you.”

The high smoking rate is tied to other health records Guam holds — among the highest in the nation for diabetes, heart disease and cancer — said Patrick Luces, the Department of Public Health and Social Services acting administrator of the bureau overseeing the Tobacco Free Guam program.

Smoking affects not only the respiratory system, Veksler said, but the circulatory system as well, by raising blood pressure and impairing circulation.

More Male Smokers

Significantly more men than women here are smokers, according to the report — 38.5 percent of men report being current smokers, vs. 23.3 percent of women.

Groups with the highest proportion of smokers on island were those ages 24 to 34, people with incomes between $35,000 and $50,000, and people with some college education, but less than four years, according to Public Health based on 2007 figures.

The CDC report states that after Guam, the next highest areas of current smokers were Kentucky, with 28.3 percent, West Virginia, 27 percent, and Oklahoma, 25.8 percent.

Areas with the fewest numbers of smokers were the U.S. Virgin Islands, at 8.7 percent, Utah, 11.7 percent, and Puerto Rico, 12.2 percent.

The report is based on a 2007 survey of more than 430,000 homes across the country. People who said they smoked “every day” or “some days” were counted as current smokers.
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Soon we will be but bystanders on our homeland.

Peter

What’s up? Anybody?

Helena

We’re accustomed to thinking of viruses as “bad guys” that the world would be better without — but now that scientists have used a virus to transform a non-insulin-producing pancreatic cell into one that produced insulin, we may need to reconsider that position. Adding to the achievement is that the “programming” of the cell was done without use of sometimes controversial stem cells. This is a major breakthrough in the field of regenerative medicine, which aims to regrow or repair missing or damaged tissue.
In the study, which was published last year in the journal Nature, Douglas A. Melton, PhD, co-director of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, and his fellow researchers used a modified virus to activate three key genes in non-insulin-producing pancreatic cells in mice. Within three days, the “infected” cells started producing insulin — far faster than the several weeks it’s known to take to transform stem cells into specific organ tissues.
The findings are incredibly exciting for other researchers in the field of regenerative medicine as well. “This paper really got a lot of people’s attention,” says M. William Lensch, PhD, affiliate faculty at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, who wasn’t himself involved with Melton’s research. “It expands the possible universe of where regenerated cells can come from and how to get there — that’s exciting.”
Though remarkable, it’s important to note that this type of cell reprogramming is still a long way from becoming a viable mainstream treatment — it has yet to be tried in humans, and long-term safety is still to be determined. Nonetheless it deserves attention because the thinking behind it — the idea that you can quickly, relatively easily and with no political debate, change a cell that’s close to what’s needed into exactly what’s needed, perhaps to treat cancer, liver disease, cardiovascular disease and more — is absolutely groundbreaking, worth watching and certainly something to be excited about.

Source(s): ??M. William Lensch, PhD, Affiliate Faculty, Harvard Stem Cell Institute, HHMI/Children’s Hospital Boston, Harvard Medical School.?