High school basketball star dies after making game-winning shot in overtime

Friday, Fennville, Michigan high school athlete Wes Leonard, 16 years old, suddenly collapsed on the basketball court after making the game-winning shot in overtime. His play had cinched a perfect season for his undefeated Fennville High School basketball team before an exuberant crowd.

As Leonard lay motionless on his back, the audience became silent. A witness on the court said Leonard had ceased to breathe and his heart had stopped. Attempts to revive him failed and he was transported to a nearby hospital where he died a little over an hour later. An autopsy revealed that Leonard had an enlarged heart, causing the cardiac arrest that killed him.

It is unclear from media reports whether the school had an automated external defibrillator (AED) available for emergencies, or if the ambulance personnel had employed such equipment. Also unknown is how much time elapsed from the moment the player collapsed until the time a defibrillator was employed. 

Many schools have acquired defibrillators for such emergencies, according to Michigan High School Athletic Association spokesman John Johnson. He said the devices at schools are not mandated by law nor by the association's regulations. There is evidence that if, in the first 10 minutes of a cardiac arrest, an AED is used, up to 80% of the victims can survive. Emergency responders usually need at least seven minutes to arrive on the scene.

News media describes Leonard’s death as shocking the community. His coach described him as a healthy and disciplined athlete who was the top scorer on his basketball team as well as the quarterback of the school's football team which won its conference's championship this season.

Dr. Marc Lahiri, a specialist in disorders of heart rhythm for Detroit's Henry Ford Hospital, said that detecting underlying heart abnormalities is difficult and such defects may not become apparent until the occurrence of a sudden and perhaps fatal event. 

Lahiri said many doctors are encouraging schools to make extensive testing of the heart routine for physicals given to school athletes. Such testing is controversial, not only because of the cost but because of possible false-positives that may lead to the need for additional testing.

Stay Slim, Eat Right

More than working out three times a week, staying slim involves eating the right food. Everyone knows that it is really important to exercise to stay fit, but eating right is as important, too. You cannot exercise and continue eating the wrong kinds of food if you want to stay fit. Lifestyle changes should be made that will result in better health. Healthy eating means that you don’t just minimize your calorie intake but also eat the right kinds of food to maintain good cholesterol and blood sugar levels.

 

One of the problems people face these days is the time needed to prepare and eat healthy food. The fast paced lifestyle means that they cannot prepare their salad and instead just take out a burger. However, they do not realize that they can still choose to eat healthy while still maintaining their busy schedule.

Here are some tips to eat healthy and maintain your fit body:

• Eating right means consuming enough fruits and vegetables. For variety, you might choose to select from all the five vegetable groups: dark green, legumes, orange, leafy, and starchy vegetables.

• When buying poultry, meat, beans, or milk products, choose the lean part (for meat) and the low-fat or fat-free (for milk). This minimizes your fat intake.

• When on the go or when traveling, consume three cups of fat-free or low fat-milk or add their equivalent to your beverages such as sugar-free coffee or tea.

• Eat three or more ounces of whole grain products a day or its equivalent. Just remember that half the grains you eat should be whole.

• Keep your calories from saturated fat to less than 10% of the total calories and consume less than 300 mg per day of cholesterol. Try to keep your trans-fat consumption to as low as you can.

• Make sure to keep your total fat intake to between 20 and 35 % of your total calories.

• If you really have limited time, cook your food for several days and freeze it. This allows you to allocate less time for cooking your healthy meals.

• If you like to snack, try eating fruits instead of chocolate bars, and vegetables instead of chips.

No matter how busy your schedule might be, you should find time to eat the right food. Do this with regular exercise to stay fit and healthy.

Probiotics Health Information – Benefits Of Probiotics

 

Did you know that other cultures have been aware of and using probiotics for many generations? It is only in the last fifteen years that countries like America have started to believe in the power of probiotics health. If you’re wondering about the interactions of probiotics and health, and whether you could live a happier life with probiotics health supplements, it’s important to learn a little bit more about what they are and how they work. With some research, it’s likely you’ll agree that taking probiotics on a daily basis is one of the best 

You Are What You Eat

It might seem like that this simple saying is only useful for getting little kids to eat their vegetables, but when you start to investigate the issues of probiotics and health, you start to see that your digestive system is one of your body’s most violent battle grounds.

• Harmful toxins, bacteria, and other organisms try to get into your digestive tract and make trouble for your body.
• If you’ve had trouble with stomach pains, irritable bowels, or indigestion, there’s a good chance it’s because of what you’re eating.
• Probiotics health advocates know that a daily probiotics health supplement can help improve the balance of good bacteria against bad bacteria.

What Are Probiotics For Health?

Did you know that there are some foods that just naturally contain probiotics for health? Yogurt, miso soup, tempeh, and other similar foods are chock full of probiotics for health. The only problem is that for most people, these are foods eaten once or twice a month, and maybe even less. If you want to understand how powerful probiotics and health can be, it’s important to think about drastically changing your diet, or purchasing a probiotics health supplement.

What Are The Probiotics Health Benefits?

If you’re starting to be pretty convinced that probiotics could change the way you feel and digest food, you’re probably excited to try a probiotic supplement. But did you know the benefits of probiotics don’t stop with a better digestive system? Taking a probiotics supplement can actually help you to get more nutrients out of the food you eat, resulting in healthier bowels, immune booster, and less risk of digestive upsets. Who knew that the secret to staying young and living longer was located in the supplement aisle of you local grocery store? If you’re tired of feeling sluggish and ill, try probiotics for health today.

Are There Probiotics Health Risks?

Although some people assume that because a supplement claims to be “natural” there can’t possibly be any negative effects, it’s important to point out that in very rare cases, individuals can experience negative results when using probiotics for health. However, unlike conventional pharmaceuticals, these side effects minimal and go away within a few days as you’re body gets used to probiotic bacteria. Instead, the most common complaint of people who are new to using probiotics for health is that they experience extra gas and possibly some bloating when they first begin the regimen.

Healthy Food – Three Food Groups

Have you read some of the food labels from your local supermarket today? Some of these labels are downright deceitful. A can of yogurt can be labeled “low-fat” when it contains tones of sugar, and so can “energy drinks” be just 90% sugar water. The consumption of all these foods sum up to where the majority of where the average American citizen is now: Overweight.

Healthy Food

Its time to boycott these food labels and really make good food choices by yourself. If you want to maintain a healthy lifestyle and a healthy weight, try consuming these three kinds of healthy foods:

1. Whole Grains: There are several choices you can choose from in this category. This category of healthy food is perfect for the weight watcher, because you can really use this to fill your stomach, and yet not put on a lot of pounds. Grains like oatmeal, rye and barley contains so much fiber in them that most of the time, you body simply passes them out.

2. Fresh Fruits: Most fruits are packed full with great nutrients and vitamins. When your body is fed with great nutrients and vitamins, it does not crave for those “sinful” foods! In fact, fruits can be used as a total meal replacer on days that you don’t want to cook – using carbohydrate rich fruits like bananas and mangoes, or be used as a dessert (remember to leave time between your main meal and fruits) after your meal. High fiber foods like papayas, apples and pears can also be used as snacks!

3. Low Carbohydrate Vegetables: Contrary to popular belief, some types of vegetables might be misleading. For example, stuff like corn and potatoes are just packed with unhealthy carbohydrates and should really be taken in moderation. When choosing vegetables, a great guideline to stick to is this: go for something that is green and leafy, like spinach or lettuce. These vegetables not only make great ingredients as part of a quick stir fried or steamed dish, but can also be great for salads as well.

Of course, diet is just one part of the healthy weight loss plan. The other main component is your regular exercise. If you keep 80% of your meals to these three fruit groups and do some form of regular exercise everyday, coupled with sufficient fresh water and sleep, you can be assured that your pounds will come off the scales quickly! Start today!

7 Things You Didn't Know About HSUS

1) The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is a “humane society” in name only. It isn’t affiliated with any hands-on “humane society” organizations, and it doesn’t operate a single pet shelter or pet adoption facility anywhere. During 2008, HSUS contributed barely $450,000— less than one-half of one percent of its budget—in grants to dog and cat shelters. By comparison, that same year it gave $2.25 million to a political campaign committee behind an anti-meat ballot initiative in California, and put $2.5 million into HSUS’s executive pension plan. HSUS is the wealthiest animal-rights lobbying organization on earth. It agitates for the same goals as PETA and other radical groups, but uses fewer naked interns.

2) Beginning on the day of NFL quarterback Michael Vick’s 2007 dogfighting indictment, HSUS raised money online with the false promise that it would “care for the dogs seized in the Michael Vick case.” The New York Times later reported that HSUS wasn’t caring for Vick’s dogs at all. And HSUS President Wayne Pacelle told the Times that his group urged government officials to “put down” (that is, kill) the dogs rather than adopt them out to suitable homes. HSUS later quietly altered its Internet fundraising pitch. Vick now gives HSUS “sponsored” speeches. And most of his dogs have been rehabilitated—without any help from HSUS.

3) HSUS’s senior management includes a former spokesman for the Animal Liberation Front (ALF), a criminal group designated as “terrorists” by the FBI. HSUS president Wayne Pacelle hired John “J.P.” Goodwin in 1997, the same year Goodwin described himself as “spokesperson for the ALF” while he fielded media calls in the wake of an ALF arson attack at a California veal processing plant. In 1997, when asked by reporters for a reaction to an ALF arson fire at a farmer’s feed co-op in Utah (which nearly killed a family sleeping on the premises), Goodwin replied, “We’re ecstatic.” That same year, Goodwin was arrested at a UC Davis protest celebrating the 10-year anniversary of an ALF arson at the university that caused $5 million in damage.

4) A 2008 Los Angeles Times investigation found that HSUS receives less than 12 percent of the money raised on its behalf by California telemarketers. Professional fundraisers keep the rest. If you exclude two campaigns run for HSUS by the “Builda-Bear Workshop” retail chain—which consisted of the sale of surplus stuffed animals (not really “fundraising”)—HSUS’s yield shrinks to just three percent. This is typical. In 2004, HSUS ran a telemarketing campaign in Connecticut with fundraisers who promised a return of “zero percent” of the proceeds. The campaign raised over $1.4 million. Not only did none of that money go to HSUS, but the group paid $175,000 for the telemarketing work. Similar filings exist in Massachusetts, New York, and other states. In 2008 HSUS collected more than $86 million in contributions, but spent more than $24 million on fundraising.

5) HSUS’s heavily promoted U.S. “boycott” of Canadian seafood—announced in 2005 as a protest against Canada’s annual seal hunt—is a phony exercise in media manipulation. A 2006 investigation found that 78 percent of the restaurants and seafood distributors described by HSUS as “boycotters” weren’t participating at all. Nearly two-thirds of them told surveyors they were completely unaware HSUS was using their names in connection with an international boycott campaign. Canada’s federal government is on record about this deception, saying: “Some animal rights groups have been misleading the public for years … it’s no surprise at all that the richest of them would mislead the public with a phony seafood boycott.” A documentary director also caught an HSUS film crew abusing a dying seal while they shot a 2007 fundraising video on the ice floes of Atlantic Canada.

6) HSUS raised $34 million in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, supposedly to help reunite lost pets with their owners. But comparatively little of that money was spent for its intended purpose. Louisiana’s Attorney General shuttered his 18-month-long investigation into where most of these millions went, shortly after HSUS announced its plan to contribute $600,000 toward the construction of an animal shelter on the grounds of a state prison.  In 2009, Atlanta ABC affiliate WSB-TV reported that public disclosures of the disposition of the $34 million in Katrina-related donations added up to less than $7 million.

7) After gathering undercover video footage of improper animal handling at a Chino, CA slaughterhouse during November of 2007, HSUS sat on its video evidence for three months, even refusing to share it with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. HSUS’s Dr. Michael Greger may have perjured himself before Congress, testifying that the San Bernardino County (CA) District Attorney’s office asked the group “to hold on to the information while they completed their investigation.” The District Attorney’s office quickly denied that account, declaring that HSUS refused to make its undercover spy available to investigators if the USDA were present. Ultimately, HSUS chose to release its video footage at a politically opportune time, as it prepared to launch a livestock-related ballot campaign in California. Meanwhile, meat from the slaughterhouse continued to flow into the U.S. food supply for months.

The Naturopathy Movement

Naturopathy refers to a doctrine of “natural medicine” that teaches that the body’s “vital force” is the most important factor in healing and maintaining health. The approach has been criticized as largely pseudo-scientific, relying on dogma rather than data. One doctor describes the difference between naturopathy and medical science:

Scientific research has identified measurable, causative factors and specific methods of preventing and/or treating hundreds of health problems. Naturopaths have done little more than create glib generalities. [Their] theories are simplistic and/or clash with science-based knowledge of body physiology and pathology.

Naturopathy’s claims that abstract ideas of “balance” and “vitality” can help the body fight disease have been widely criticized. (For example, some diseases have a genetic link—something that abstractions can’t fight.)
Naturopathy also promotes the belief that “natural” foods are inherently better than so-called “processed” foods that are common in our diets. Some naturopaths claim that sugars like table sugar or HFCS raise the risk of obesity and diabetes. Naturopathic recommendations on an alternative medicine website include advice to completely avoid sugar in order to prevent or treat health problems, including diabetes, premenstrual syndrome, arthritis, and ear infections. Kimball C. Atwood, M.D., debunks anti-sugar scare tactics by naturopaths, writing:

When a naturopath claims that "toxins" or "food allergies" or dietary sugar or "candidiasis" are the underlying causes of ear infections, learning disorders, fatigue, arthritis or numerous other problems, it is a misrepresentation of facts.

In 2003 Dr. Kimball conducted a review for Medscape and found that naturopaths have less training than primary care medical doctors. A review of naturopathic literature “reveals that it is replete with pseudoscientific, ineffective, unethical, and potentially dangerous practices.” Atwood also presented testimony to a Massachusetts state legislative healthcare committee about the “bizarre, irrational, and unsafe” practices of naturopathy.
Dr. Barry L. Beyerstein and Susan Downie concluded in a review of the field that naturopathy does not hold up to medical science:

Throughout, we found underestimation of the power of the placebo. At the same time, our own bibliographic searches failed to discover any properly controlled clinical trials that supported claims of naturopathy, except in a few limited areas where naturopaths' advice concurs with that of orthodox medical science. Where naturopathy and biomedicine disagree, the evidence is uniformly to the detriment of the former. We therefore conclude that clients drawn to naturopaths are either unaware of the scientific deficiencies of naturopathic practice or choose to disregard them on ideological grounds.

In other words, naturopathy has a lengthy history of being rejected by the scientific community. The U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare said as much in 1968:

Naturopathic theory and practice are not based on the body of basic knowledge related to health, disease, and healthcare that has been widely accepted by the scientific community. Moreover, irrespective of its theory, the scope and quality of naturopathic education do not prepare the practitioner to make an adequate diagnosis and provide appropriate treatment.

Why Food and Drink Bans Won't Solve Childhood Obesity

Despite the fact that almost all the research on in-school nutrition indicates that food bans are ineffective (and sometimes counterproductive), the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and food activists from groups like the Center for Science in the Public Interest are pushing government regulations on everything from chewing gum to potato chips.

The IOM's narrow standards for foods that should be available in schools effectively squeeze everything but fruit juice, nuts, and a small assortment of produce out of the cafeteria snack bar. And the guidelines outline where and when "permissible" foods can be sold, which athletic teams can have sports drinks like Gatorade or Powerade, and whether fundraisers and bake sales qualify as "nutritionally beneficial." Food provided at booster clubs, PTA meetings, parent-teacher nights, and other adult activities held on school grounds would also be subject to government scrutiny.

Dietary decrees like these may seem surreal, but many schools have already taken things to their absurd conclusion. School birthday celebrations are nearly a thing of the past, with cupcakes banned in classrooms across the country. Some schools forbid parents from bringing fast food to their kids. And in October a British boy was sent to the principal's office because the lunch his parents packed for him did not meet the school's guidelines.