Work Out and Drink Up

A new study of cardiac health has yielded a happy formula: start with moderate exercise, at least 30 min. to 1 hr. a day and add moderate alcohol consumption

By Sanjay Gupta, M.D.


If you want to live a long and healthy life, you're probably trying to eat right, exercise regularly and get enough sleep. Good steps. Now how about adding a little alcohol to your regimen?

That's right. It is well documented that tossing a few drinks back in a week (and that means a few: up to one a day for women, up to two for men) has potential heart benefits. But researchers in Denmark decided to look further. Could drinking alcohol have a benefit similar to that of exercise?

"If you don't want to exercise too much," asks Dr. Morten Gronbaek, epidemiologist with Denmark's National Institute of Public Health, "can you trade it for one to two drinks per day and be fine?" A study Gronbaek and colleagues just published in the European Heart Journal suggests the answer just may be yes. That finding, not surprisingly, has proved to be a crowd-pleaser.

There are a number of reasons a drink can be such a tonic. First, alcohol and exercise affect your heart health in similar ways. "They help increase good cholesterol, or HDL [high-density lipoproteins], and clean the circulatory system's pipes," says Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist and researcher at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. "HDL helps remove fatty deposits, created by bad cholesterol, or LDL [low-density lipoproteins], from blood-vessel walls. The higher the HDL, the less likely vascular disease becomes. The lower the HDL, the more likely."

There are a number of reasons a drink can be such a tonic. First, alcohol and exercise affect your heart health in similar ways. "They help increase good cholesterol, or HDL [high-density lipoproteins], and clean the circulatory system's pipes," says Dr. Arthur Klatsky, a cardiologist and researcher at Kaiser Permanente Northern California. "HDL helps remove fatty deposits, created by bad cholesterol, or LDL [low-density lipoproteins], from blood-vessel walls. The higher the HDL, the less likely vascular disease becomes. The lower the HDL, the more likely."

Gronbaek and his team surveyed 12,000 people over a 20-year period. They found that exercise and drinking alcohol each had an independent beneficial effect on the heart and a compounded effect when practiced together. The investigators got even greater insight when they separated the study participants into four categories.

People who don't drink at all and don't exercise had the highest risk of heart disease. People who drink moderately and exercise had a 50% lower risk. Teetotaling exercisers had a 30% decreased risk, as did moderately drinking couch potatoes. "There's an additional protective effect to doing both," says Gronbaek. "That's the new finding."

This study is part of a growing body of work that makes a medical virtue out of what was once seen as a vice. There is evidence that alcohol in combination with caffeine can limit the damage to your brain after a stroke, even though it may not lower your risk of having a stroke in the first place. Other possible benefits include lowering your risk of diabetes, improving insulin sensitivity in postmenopausal women and decreasing dementia rates in older adults who had been consuming one to six drinks per week.

Before you rush off to hit the bar after your workout, keep in mind that your age matters. Alcohol may do you no coronary good until you reach the age at which heart disease becomes an appreciable risk. "You wouldn't advise everyone to drink," says Gronbaek. "You shouldn't even think about doing it until age 45 or 50. There's absolutely no proof of a preventative and protective effect before age 45." Also, younger women who have a higher risk of breast cancer and anyone who has a family history of alcoholism should pass on the pint and order a soda.

And remember, moderation is everything. Gronbaek's study, like most, stuck to the one-drink-a-day standard for women and up to two a day for men. It did not distinguish between type (wine vs. beer) or size (pint vs. shot). But here common sense must rule. A 10-oz. martini is a lot more than a 6-oz. serving of wine, even if they each fit in one glass. And it goes without saying that you should never drink your weekly allotment all at once.

How to take a holiday in Pakistan

By Hugh Sykes BBC News, Pakistan

Suicide bombs, battles in tribal areas, and states of emergency tend to put off casual tourists. But the impression such events convey can often be misleading and unrepresentative of a country as a whole.

A few days ago I was sitting in a cafe sipping best Italian espresso and reading a news magazine.
The front page was full of furious faces and clenched fists under the headline, The Most Dangerous Nation in the World isn't Iraq, it's Pakistan.

The cafe was in a smart bookshop in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

I sighed and turned to the article inside.

It was a revealing analysis of some penetration of a few places in Pakistan by the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

I pondered the magnifying-glass effect of dramatic news coverage.

The suicide bomb attack on Benazir Bhutto's homecoming parade in Karachi in October, which killed an estimated 140 people, and the assault on a Taleban pocket in the Swat valley, a tourist destination, took place while I was in Pakistan.

But neither event had a noticeable effect on the general sense of security and stability where I was in Islamabad or on the road.

The notion that Pakistan is more dangerous than Iraq is absurd.
Until recently suicide bombs, murder, and kidnapping were routine in Iraq.
And there is no way I would do there what I have just done in Pakistan: take a holiday.

Never alone

I hired a car in Islamabad and headed out onto the partially completed M2 motorway that will eventually connect Lahore (near the Indian border) with Peshawar (the last city on the road to the Khyber Pass and Afghanistan).

But motorways are boring, so I left the M2 and re-joined the ancient Grand Trunk Road, which links most of the main towns of northern Pakistan.

For much of the route it is lined with eucalyptus trees, their almost-autumn leaves and silvery bark shining in the clear October sun as I drove along.
Driving in Pakistan is fast and sometimes chaotic, but not competitive.

They even hoot politely. And one great danger at home you hardly ever have to contend with in Pakistan is drunk drivers and people with concentration blurred by hangovers.

My destinations were Chitral, an isolated valley in the far-north-west on the Afghan border and Gilgit, close to China and Tajikistan.

The round-trip was more than 1,200 miles (nearly 2,000km) and included mountain passes almost half as high as Everest.

And although I was driving alone, I was hardly ever on my own.

There is public transport but not a lot. So, people walk long distances along these high stony roads and if a car passes, they hold out a hand hoping for a lift.

Twelve-year-old Kashif, one of Hugh Sykes' companions on his road trip

One morning, 12-year-old Kashif sat with me for a while.
He had been expecting to walk for more than an hour to the nearest town, to buy a new pair of shoes.

He showed me the pair he was wearing. The right shoe's upper was half split away from the sole.
Kashif spoke almost perfect English, good enough to warn me as we turned a tight bend, "Be careful, uncle, road badly damaged round next corner from earthquake."

Earthquake damage from 2005, still unrepaired.

I spent the night at a hotel next to the old fort at Mastuj, near the snowy Hindu Kush peak Tirich Mir which is 7,690m high (25,200 feet).

The hotel consists of small timber and stone cabins set in a wood of walnut trees and poplars and a plane tree reputed to be 200 years old.

I woke to autumn colours every bit as wondrous as anything I have seen in Kew Gardens or New England.

My next hitch-hiking companion was Mohammed, an English Literature student at Peshawar University.

"So you study Shakespeare?" I asked.

Mohammed, an English Literature student at Peshawar University

"Yes, and Wordsworth."

And John Donne, I wondered?

"Ah, John Donne," he raptured.

"John Donne... the poetry of love."

I do not know any Donne by heart but when I attempted Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man from As You Like It, Mohammed completed every line as we bumped along the dusty road.
Parts of Pakistan are deeply conservative, devoutly Muslim places, and I was not signalled for lifts by many women.

But there were some.

A mother and grandmother, sitting in the back, their heads covered but not their faces and one-year-old Anis and his father Samir in the front with me.

He protested when I took a photograph of the two women but they did not object and posed happily as they waited for the flash.

When I delivered them to the Gilgit hospital where the little boy had an appointment with a heart specialist, his father was so pleased and grateful he gave me a bear hug, and a massive smile that erased his earlier stern objections to taking a picture.

I gave lifts to more than 20 people, learned how to say "You're welcome" in Urdu (Koi Batnahi), and had to hold back tears when two children said thank you for their lift and offered me money to help pay for the petrol.

The 15 Nastiest Rivalries in Sports

From: Maxim, Apr 2007

Sportsmanship doesn’t sell tickets. It’s the expectation of devastation and general hatred that puts asses in chairs. Check out these grudge matches.


1. Matt Hughes vs. Georges St. Pierre





Last November St. Pierre stripped Hughes of his UFC title, evening their vendetta at one win each. “The belt puts a target on him for me and everyone else,” says Hughes. “When I retire, I want to go out on top.” With both fighters in their prime, this could be a best-of-seven series.



2. Andrew Peters vs. Brian McGrattan



“We’ve fought a bunch of times,” says the Sabres’ Peters of the Senators’ McGrattan. “But enforcers aren’t just dumb Neanderthals who drop their gloves and fight. We have a reason and purpose. If our teams need a boost, when the time comes we’re both ready to go.” Makes you want to lace up some skates and grow a mullet, eh?



3. David Stern vs. Mark Cuban








Stern has slapped Cuban with over $1.3 million in fines. Lucky for us Cuban suffers from both diarrhea of the mouth and the checkbook.



4. Levski vs. CSKA



CSKA, a soccer squad initially sponsored by the Bulgarian army, sports a contingent of neo-Nazi skinhead fans known as the CSKA S.S. Front, whose motto, “Drink beer, fuck, and fight,” pretty much sums them up. Fans of the blue-and-white Levski squad antagonize the anti-Semites across the stadium by waving Israeli flags at their crosstown rivals. They do seem to agree on setting their stadiums on fire.




5. Jose Luis Castillo vs. Diego Corrales



In their May 2005 bout, Corrales (left) rose like Freddy Krueger off the canvas twice in the 10th to TKO Castillo. An overweight Castillo returned the favor in their controversial rematch. But the third bout never happened, because Castillo failed to make weight. Start praying Jose makes a stop at fat camp.




6. India vs. Pakistan








The Indo-Paki hatefest got so intense that for 15 years India refused to play in Pakistan. Not to say the Indians don’t have a few world-class hooligans. Before a 1999 match in Calcutta, Hindu fundamentalists threatened to disrupt the match by releasing poisonous snakes into the stadium and setting themselves on fire. No one seems to have figured out it’s just cricket.

7. Takeru Kobayashi vs. Joey Chestnut



Chestnut, the only American eater to truly challenge the “Tsunami,” came within 1.75 wieners of preventing Kobayashi from taking his sixth consecutive Nathan’s Famous title in 2006. At least Joey can still celebrate his two rib eating titles, two chicken wing titles, and the fact that his butthole still manages to keep his guts on the inside.

8. Pete Weber vs. Walter Ray Williams Jr.

Weber sums up their rolling death match: “I have the utmost respect for Walter Ray. But the only thing I can think of is kicking his ass.” As of January, Walt led the all-time PBA Tour money list at $3,801,246, with Weber in second at $3,031,864 earned over his 28-year career. Which tells you, if you want to go pro at a leisure sport, pick golf.

9. Jeff Gordon vs. the Earnhardt Family








Gordon locked fenders with Earnhardt Sr., a family tradition Dale Jr. readily continues. After the Talladega race last October, Dale Jr. responded to Gordon’s complaints about his bump drafting with, “There is so much grip here, my mom could drive these cars. But I guess it makes Jeff Gordon a little nervous.” You gonna take that, Jeff?



10. Ohio State vs. Michigan






Michigan leads 57-40-6, but the interstate conflict predates the sport of football itself. The Toledo War of 1835 between Ohio and the Michigan territory went the Buckeyes’ way, giving them a thin strip of land at their northern border including, as you guessed, Toledo. Does history bore the hell out of you, too?



11. Maria Sharapova vs. Anastasia Myskina

During a 2004 match, Myskina complained about Sharapova receiving coaching from her father on the sideline. “He was yelling and screaming to her, and I thought he just might jump right on the court,” Myskina whined, netting Sharapova a reprimand from the chair. If only they would French-kiss and make up…



12. Travis Pastrana vs. Jeremy “Twitch” Stenberg

The two kings of freestyle compete with respect. When Pastrana hit a double backflip at the 2006 X Games, Stenberg had to watch from the sidelines. His reaction? “I was sitting there in my wheelchair with two broken legs, and I stood up. I give him mad props. He has balls.”


13. Derek Jeter vs. A-Rod

The ice storm hit when A-Rod said of his future teammate, “He’s never had to lead. You never say, ‘Don’t let Derek beat us.’” Still, Alex’s .154 average over the past three postseasons makes him less worrisome than a speed bump in the stadium lot.

14. Longview Lobos vs. Marshall Mavericks



This 96-year East Texas battle, at 50-41-5, is one of the most tightly contested rivalries in the Lone Star State. Catch the real Friday-night lights this fall and see why Texas high school football separates the men from the boys better than most land wars.



15. Bill Belichick vs. Eric Mangini






Now that Bill Parcells and Andy Reid’s jiggly joust to 85 percent body fat is over, the Mangini-Belichick AFC East rivalry is the only NFL coaching clash worth watching.

Is it that time?

wow...

From the BBC:

By Monica Chadha
BBC News, Mumbai

Women civil servants in India have expressed shock at new appraisal rules which require them to reveal details of their menstrual cycles.

Under the new nationwide requirements, female officials also have to say when they last sought maternity leave.

Women civil servants say the questions are a gross invasion of privacy. One told the BBC she was "gobsmacked".

Annual appraisals and health checks are mandatory in India's civil service. The ministry was unavailable for comment.

But one of its most senior bureaucrats was quoted in the press as saying the new questions had been based on advice from health officials.

'No words'

The questions at the root of the controversy are on page 58 of the new appraisal forms for the current year issued by the federal Ministry for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

Women officers must write down their "detailed menstrual history and history of LMP [last menstrual period] including date of last confinement [maternity leave]," the form says.

Women working in the civil service told the BBC the government had no need for this kind of personal information.

"I am completely shocked!" said Sharwari Gokhale, environment secretary in western Maharashtra state.

"I have absolutely no words to describe how I feel and I have no intention of telling them anything about my personal life.

"It's gob smacking."

Ms Gokhale said she had also served in the personnel department at the ministry which drafted the new forms and, while the health of officials was always a concern, asking such questions never crossed their minds.

'Natural phenomenon'

Maharashtra's joint secretary for general administration, Seema Vyas, agreed that the new questions were uncalled for.

"Menstrual cycles are a natural phenomenon, they are not an aberration. One does not object to questions related to fitness levels - they are important as they can affect work.

"But there is no need for these details as this does not have any bearing on our work," she told the BBC.

"When we apply for maternity leave, we put in the appropriate application and the government already has those records so why ask again?"

She said she and her colleagues were thinking of writing a letter to the authorities protesting at the questions.

Despite repeated attempts, the BBC was unable to speak to the head of the personnel department, Satyanand Mishra.

The Hindustan Times newspaper quoted him as saying the questions were based on advice from the Ministry of Health.

"We sought the ministry's help to draw up a health-history format. I assume this will help evaluate the officer's fitness," he told the paper.

Coach Woolmer

Who would have thought that the latest casualty of Pakistan cricket would be the very likable coach, Bob Woolmer. Most Pakistanis like myself might have stopped checking the news after our shock loss to Ireland, expecting nothing but criticism regarding the team's performance. However, what was not expected and never really is, was our coach passing away.

These past few years have been some of the lowest in the Pakistani cricket team's history, and this latest loss might be the lowest yet. All Pakistanis know that Coach Woolmer tried his best with a team that had no shortage of insatiable egos and poor work ethic and we wish we could have told him how much we appreciated his work.

Our prayers are with his family.

Feel good cabbie story!

Bangladesh cabbie is toast of NYC
By Salim Rizvi BBC News, New York

A Bangladeshi immigrant taxi driver in New York is the toast of the Big Apple after returning a $500,000 lost bag of diamond rings to their rightful owner.

Osman Chowdhury's honesty has made him an instant celebrity, propelling him onto the city's airwaves to receive the plaudits of the great and the good.
He says that he is proud of what he did, because cab drivers are honest.
In the same week, a cab driver of Indian origin in New York returned a wallet containing nearly $6,000.

Owner traced

Forty-one-year-old Mr Chowdhury - a Bangladeshi green card holder - was plying his trade as usual in Manhattan on Monday evening, when a female passenger boarded his cab at a midtown Hotel.

The passenger got off at an apartment building on 35th street.

She paid $11 for the $10.70 fare. But she left a bag full of diamonds in the boot of the vehicle.

When the next set of passengers tried to put their luggage in the boot, Mr Chowdhury found the bag. But with the help of the New York City Taxi Workers' Alliance, a cabbies' advocacy group, the bag was opened to reveal around 30 diamond rings, neatly tucked into cases. There were some loose diamond rings too. There was also a laptop and some business papers.

Next Mr Chowdhury, with the help of the taxi workers' alliance, had to contact the owner. Eventually they found a Texas phone number in the bag, and after repeated calls they traced the mother of the bag's owner.

She in turn contacted her daughter, who came over to the alliance office and thanked Mr Chowdhury profusely. She tried to reward him, but he refused, saying that he had only done his duty. "I never thought about any reward or anything in return. I can never keep anything that belongs to any other person. I have been this way all my life," he said.

His honesty has led to a barrage of media interviews, with American newspapers and TV stations - including international channels - wanting to interview the "honest cabbie".

Reward

For the last two days he has also been interviewed by scores of news organisations in the US and across the globe.

In addition, the New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission has honoured him with an Achievement Award for 2007. Even the City Council of New York City has joined in, by given him a citation praising his honesty.

And the word is that the New York City Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, may announce a reward for him.

Mr Chowdhury is unfazed.

At his residence in Sunnyside, Queens in New York, he was his usual humble self.

"I never imagined that I will be the centre of so much media attention.

The cab driver is the talk of the town

"I'm proud of what I did. I hope my next generation will remember what I did and follow me. I also want to tell people that New York taxi drivers are honest," he says.

The members of the Bangladeshi community in New York are proud of this son of the soil.

"There are good and honest people in every community. But with his deeds Osman has made us all Bangladeshis very proud," neighbour Shafiq Alam said.

Mr Chowdhury came to the US in 1992 to work as a taxi driver in New York.


Distraught

Back home in Bangladesh he used to work as a contractor. He is still unmarried, but lost his parents recently and has to provide for his family which includes many sisters.

He does not even own a cab, but rents it for 12 hour shifts.

The job is so stressful that it has affected his health. He suffers from high blood pressure, and kidney problems.

"But I have always maintained that no matter what the problems we face in life, we should not resort to dishonesty," he said.

And in what has been a good month for South Asian taxi drivers in New York, a taxi driver of Indian origin returned a wallet containing $5,950 to a passenger.

"If money doesn't belong to me, I don't keep it," said Vinod Mago, 55, an Indian immigrant.

"I know God is watching everybody, every second." Mr Mago had just started his shift when his taxi controller called to say a distraught man was missing his wallet.

He found the wallet in the back seat and raced to the airport in time to return it to the owner, who gave him and the taxi coordinator $100 each in gratitude.

No cricket in the US for the time being!

According to cricinfo, there will no cricket series in the US in 2007. I haven't been to a cricket match in 6 years, the last being in Singapore between Pakistan and New Zealand, but how awesome would it have been to have a game going on here, especially if it was a Pakistan-India-Australia tri-series.


India-Australia won't be in New York in 2007
Stillborn in the USA

Martin Williamson
January 23, 2007

Contrary to reports at the weekend, it is highly unlikely that a planned one-day series between India and Australia in North America will be able to include matches in the USA. At present, there are no venues in the country approved by the ICC to host a one-day international. In fact, there are none even close to being recognised.

While Canada might conceivably host a few games at the quaintly named Cricket, Skating and Curling Club, the failure of Project USA - which was intended to develop the US market - has set the game back in the continent at least until 2008.

A new deal between the largely dysfunctional USA Cricket Association, whose utter inability to run the game led to its suspension by the ICC, and a marketing company called Centrex should give cricket in the USA a commercial stability hitherto absent. But it won't happen in time for this series.

To many - mainly the marketing men who so dominate the way cricket is run - the USA remains the untapped Holy Grail. Crack that, so the thinking goes, and the rewards are almost unlimited. Millions of dollars of income - up to $6 million per game for up to seven matches - was touted as a likely reward for the venture. Up to 10 million first-generation Asians make for a lucrative market, even if the average American doesn't care one jot for the game.

There are three main centres in the USA - New York , Florida and California. The speculation over the Australia-India series centred on New York, but there is not a venue there that could host a match. There was talk that an NFL stadium might be used, but that shows the lack of credibility of the reports. The major NFL stadiums are astroturf, and even if the organisers laid an artificial wicket, such a surface would not be approved for an ODI. There is one other minor detail. NFL pitches are far too narrow.

That leaves baseball grounds, and only one - the Mets' Shea Stadium - could conceivably be used. However, the cricket season in New York runs slap bang in the middle of the baseball season, so that's not an option. And drop-in-pitches are not a short-term solution as there are strict rules about transportation of soil and grass across state lines. The raw materials available in New York are just not good enough.

With that in mind, California has been earmarked as the ideal centre for the game, with the right climate and good soil. In the short-term, the venue at Burbank is the nearest to being ready. There are two grounds in Florida - at Fort Lauderdale and Broward County - but neither has pitches nearly good enough for international matches. The grass pitches they have crumble too easily. One expert told Cricinfo that soil with the right amount of clay needed to be imported, probably from Georgia, and that meant a mountain of red tape to be overcome before the project could even start.

When Andy Atkinson, the ICC's pitches guru, was consulted by the bosses of Project USA, he estimated that with the right soil and the will, a pitch could be laid and ready in around eight or nine months. Australia and India's commitments mean that the only spare dates for a North American series is June, and there is no way on earth that any grounds in the USA could be ready by then. As the flamboyant boxing promoter Don King loves to say: "it's got two chances ... slim and none, and slim just left town."

That leaves the one ICC-approved venue in Toronto, which hosted several one-day series in the late 1990s. It offers a foothold on North American soil, but a long series there would have limited appeal, and it's the USA not Canada that whets the two boards' appetites. In terms of TV coverage, they might as well play in some more established neutral centres such as Kuala Lumpur or Sharjah.

Martin Williamson is managing editor of Cricinfo