In a talk about how we can build a robust future without wrecking the planet, sustainability expert Johan Rockström debuts the Earth3 model -- a new methodology that combines the UN Sustainable Development Goals with the nine planetary boundaries, beyond which earth's vital systems could become unstable. Learn more about five transformational policies that could help us achieve inclusive and prosperous world development while keeping the earth stable and resilient.
This talk was presented at “We the Future,” a special event in partnership with the Skoll Foundation and the United Nations Foundation.
About the speaker
Johan Rockstrom · Sustainability expert
Johan Rockström works to redefine sustainable development.
Dressed all in black — a long cardigan and velvet scarf
over wide-leg pants and boots — and sporting her signature white bob and
dark-rimmed glasses, designer Eileen Fisher looked as if a model from
one of the ads for her eponymous brand had come to life.
She floated around the room filled with women with a luminous smile before taking the stage.
“What’s happening with the patriarchy these days? It’s a
very difficult moment, isn’t it?,” said Fisher, 68. “I’ve been
struggling for a couple of years now. So we know November is a really
important time.”
Eileen Fisher talks with guests
at the Rivertowns Women's Networking event at the Eileen Fisher Learning
Lab in Irvington Oct. 15, 2018.
Peter Carr/The Journal News
Held on Monday evening at the Eileen Fisher Learning Lab,
an event space and studio in Irvington, it was not a typical women’s
networking event for the Rivertowns Chamber of Commerce. MADAME WALKER: First female self-made millionaire
ALICE WALKER: On black lives, Spielberg, Trump and writing in New Rochelle EDITH WINDSOR: Love story and landmark lawsuit of gay rights heroine comes to Nyack
Antoinette Klatzky, executive
director of the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute, speaks at the
Rivertowns Women's Networking event at the Eileen Fisher Learning Lab in
Irvington Oct. 15, 2018.
Peter Carr/The Journal News
The evening started with mindfulness exercises led by
Antoinette Klatzky, the executive director of the Eileen Fisher
Leadership Institute, during which she encouraged audience members to
find a partner, chat and get to know each other at a deeper level.
It was a continuation of a conversation Fisher had with her mindfulness partnerearlier at the event that got her ruminating about the state of patriarchy in the country
.
And it dovetailed perfectly with a new initiative her
company’s educational arm, LifeWork, had launched to bring women
together on work-life balance issues called “We The Change Women
Together.”
“We believe it is time for women to show up and create
the change this world needs. It’s not that we are better but that we
have been left out of too many things,” said Fisher, the business
powerhouse known for her simple, sophisticated and timeless designs of
women's clothing, shoes, accessories and bed linens and other home
goods.
“We’ve been left out of business. It’s only 1 percent of
women’s business that make it past a million dollars. It’s crazy how
many women don’t get loans, don’t get venture capital.”
Guests attend the Rivertowns
Women's Networking event at the Eileen Fisher Learning Lab in Irvington
Oct. 15, 2018.
Peter Carr/The Journal News
She talked about attending Fortune 500 CEO forums and the dismal female representation.
“It's disturbing. Look at our Senate, look at our
Congress. It’s not good enough. We know it's our time,” she said. “So we
are trying to do what we can to help women come together.”
She credits her own career to female camaraderie.
A native of Des Plains, Illinois, Fisher attended the
University of Illinois as a math major. She ended up sharing a dorm room
with a high school friend, who happened to be design major.
“So I would hang out with her on the floor playing with
colors and fabrics and one day I said, ‘Wow, if I study design, I might
actually get through college,” said Fisher, who graduated with a degree
in interior design and later found her way into designing clothes.
“Thanks to my friend … I found myself on a path that I
never would have gone on. So I think the surprise of what can happen
when you meet someone, when you share what you are working on or
struggling with or just life in general, you don’t know what kind of
magic can happen. Just anytime women get together, there’s some magic
that happens.”
That’s a mantra Fisher seems to have taken to heart.
Eileen Fisher speaks at the
Rivertowns Women's Networking event at the Eileen Fisher Learning Lab in
Irvington Oct. 15, 2018.
Peter Carr/The Journal News
More than 80 percent of the employees of Eileen Fisher, which employs about 1,200 people, are women.
Over the years, the company has also provided grants to
women-owned business and sought to develop the leadership potential of
girls through the Eileen Fisher Leadership Institute.
In an exclusive interview with The Journal News at the event, Fisher spoke about her company’s philosophy.
“About 12 years ago, we gave a $10,000 grant to a woman
who started a company called Happy Family (which sold organic baby food)
and it became bigger than Eileen Fisher,” Fisher told the Journal
News/lohud.com. “She said it was one of the important grants that got
her going. It’s inspiring to think that you give a little bit of money
to someone and they can make a big business.”
At a time when fast fashion has taken over the industry,
Fisher has bucked the trend by continuing to invest in sustainable and
recycled fashion. It comes at a price:At the high end of her line, an organic cotton chenille long cardigan retails for $388; a pair of satin wide-leg pants retails for $458.
The average person buys 60 percent more items of clothing
every year and keeps them for about half as long as 15 years ago,
producing immense volumes of textile waste, according to a 2016 study by
environmental organization Greenpeace International.
"We create simple, timeless clothes that last. We
encourage our customers to bring back their clothing. We resell them, we
make them into other things, we are all about thinking holistically
about clothing and helping women get dressed with simple things and
things that last over time," Fisher said.
In 2015, the company became a certified B Corp, or
benefit corporation, which means it has a legal commitment to work
toward positive social and environmental impact, in addition to profit.
“There are certain standards we have to measure up to —
and it’s our own standards — but it’s great to be a part of a community
of other companies that are trying to do things differently and take
full responsibility for the things we make and the environment along the
way,” said Fisher.
For instance, in 2017, 95 percent of the cotton the
company used was recycled or organic. The company has set a goal to make
that 100 percent in 2020.
What’s the best business advice she has received?
“It’s about being confident in my own style. I’m a slow
processor. I am not real decisive like ‘do this, do that’ kind of
person. A consultant once told me, it’s really OK to tell the group ‘let
me think about it. I’ll get back to you.’ You shouldn’t feel like you
must decide before you are ready.”
Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is the new audience
strategist and a member of the Editorial Board for The Journal
News/lohud, part of the USA Today Network.
One question that scientists and fitness experts alike would love to answer is whether exercise or nutrition has a bigger positive impact on bone strength.
University of Michigan researchers
looked at mineral supplementation and exercise in mice, and found
surprising results––nutrition has a greater impact on bone mass and
strength than exercise. Further, even after the exercise training
stopped, the mice retained bone strength gains as long as they ate a
mineral-supplemented diet.
"The
longer-term mineral-supplemented diet leads to not only increases in
bone mass and strength, but the ability to maintain those increases even
after detraining," said David Kohn, a U-M professor in the schools of
dentistry and engineering. "This was done in mice, but if you think
about the progression to humans, diet is easier for someone to carry on
as they get older and stop exercising, rather than the continuation of
exercise itself."
The
second important finding is that the diet alone has beneficial effects
on bone, even without exercising. This surprised Kohn, who expected
exercise with a normal diet to fuel greater gains in bone strength, but
that wasn't the case.
"The
data suggests the long-term consumption of the mineral-supplemented
diet could be beneficial in preventing the loss of bone and strength
with age, even if you don't do exercise training," he said. Combining the two amplifies the effect.
Most
other studies look at effects of increasing dietary calcium, Kohn said.
The U-M study increased calcium and phosphorous, and found benefits to
increasing both.
This isn't
to suggest that people run out and buy calcium and phosphorus
supplements, Kohn said. The findings don't translate directly from mice
to humans, but they do give researchers a conceptual place to start.
It's
known that humans achieve peak bone mass in their early 20s, and after
that it declines. The question becomes how to maximize the amount of
bone when young, so that when declines do begin, people start from a
better position, Kohn said.
In
addition to testing bone mass and strength, Kohn and colleagues
performed a full battery of mechanical assessments on the bone, which is
important because the amount of bone doesn't always scale with or
predict the mechanical quality of the tissue.
They
tested the mice after eight weeks of training and supplemented diet or
normal diet, and then after eight weeks of detraining.
The study was published online in PLOS One. Co-authors included Michael Friedman and Robert Szczepankiewicz of the U-M College of Engineering.
It is high time that the issue of waste is getting attention!
Our latest Women’s Agenda
podcast is away, this week featuring a conversation that’s all about
saving the planet and the small actions we can take to reduce our impact
on the planet.
Natalie Isaacs joins Angela Priestley and Georgie
Dent in the Eagle Waves studio. She’s the founder of 1 Million Women, a
global movement connecting women determined to fight the climate crisis
at home, and she’s the author of the new book, Every Woman’s Guide to Saving the Planet.
Natalie
was named Australian National Geographic’s 2017 Conservationist of the
Year. She’s a former cosmetics manufacturer who started 1 Million Women almost ten years ago, following a personal ‘epiphany’ in which she realised how much she saved on her energy bills by taking small actions at home.
“The
thing that actually changed my life forever was that I got my
electricity bill down by 20 per cent, just by being more vigilant around
the house,” she says. “When I saw I’d saved all this pollution and all
this money, that’s when I took ownership.”
We discuss the every
day, little things we can all do to reduce our household emissions, and
tips for combatting overconsumption habits.
Also, we discuss
‘stuff’, including fast fashion, plastic toys and kids’ clothing, and
the many days we’ll spend over our lifetimes searching for stuff,
because we simply have so much of it.
“Over consumption has just
gone crazy and I think it’s a lot about the affluent society and this
misguided belief that stuff makes us happy,” says Isaacs.
“It
isn’t stuff that makes us happy, it’s loving the earth and experiences.
We have to get back to that because if the world lives like we do here
in Australia we would need four and a half planets… We need to take a
breath before we buy stuff.”
And we discuss food waste, with
Isaacs quoting figures that we waste one in five shopping bags of food —
also why lolly bags/party bags have become so frustrating for parents.
“The
only people who can change these things are us. At 1 Million Women we
try to show that when you are part of a collective, millions of us doing
the same thing, it shifts systems.”
Isaacs also shares some great
ideas on energy efficiency at home. “Instead of looking at ten top tips
on reducing your energy consumption, look at the rhythms of your house
and the way you use energy. What are the lights you put on? Do you have
to use a dryer, one of the biggest energy guzzling items in the
household?”
Isaacs says getting your energy down by 20% is easy —
it’s simply about addressing the low hanging fruit, the things that are
left on or can be used less.
This week’s conversation comes as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its report calling on “urgent transformative” change needed to fight climate change.
While
the scale of the problem can leave some of us feeling helpless, Isaacs
is adamant that our everyday contributions are powerful and meaningful.
Listen to the podcast below. You can subscribe and listen to previous episode by searching for Womens Agenda on iTunes.
October is
national Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the U.S. National Mammography
Day is October 19. Vitamin D optimization could potentially eliminate a
vast majority of breast cancers, yet this key information is completely
ignored by conventional breast cancer awareness campaigns
Most cancers
occur in people with a vitamin D blood level between 10 and 40 ng/mL,
and the optimal level for cancer protection has been identified as being
between 60 and 80 ng/mL
Research shows
having a vitamin D blood level above 60 ng/mL lowers your risk of breast
cancer by more than 80 percent, compared to having a level below 20
ng/mL
Recent research
shows postmenopausal women who receive a diagnosis of breast cancer are
more likely to have low vitamin D and be overweight than women who
receive a negative diagnosis
This year, do
your breast health a real favor and get your vitamin D level checked.
One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of doing this is to
enroll in the D*Action Breast Cancer Prevention project, which now
includes both vitamin D and omega-3 testing
October is national Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the U.S., and with it comes the annual clarion call of pink-ribboned1 breast cancer awareness campaigns.2 National Mammography Day3 falls on the third Friday of October, which this year is the 19th.
Chances are, you've been barraged with reminders that mammograms save
lives. Unfortunately, little effort is made to educate women about
actual prevention. Detecting cancer has nothing to do with prevention.
At that point, it's already too late. Mammograms also have serious health risks, none of which are addressed by the conventional breast cancer awareness
campaigns. Importantly, vitamin D optimization could potentially
eliminate a vast majority of breast cancers, yet this key information is
being completely ignored.
Vitamin D Optimization Could Eliminate a Majority of Breast Cancer Cases
Generally speaking, research has shown that once you reach a minimum
serum vitamin D level of 40 nanograms per milliliter (ng/mL), your risk
for cancer diminishes by 67 percent, compared to having a level of 20
ng/ml or less.4
Research shows most cancers occur in people with a vitamin D blood
level between 10 and 40 ng/mL, and the optimal level for cancer
protection has been identified as being between 60 and 80 ng/mL.
Vitamin D also increases your chances of surviving cancer if you do get it,5,6,7,8 and evidence suggests adding vitamin D to the conventional treatment for cancer can boost the effectiveness of the treatment.9
Several studies also show that higher vitamin D levels are protective against breast cancer specifically. Importantly, a 2005 study10
showed women with vitamin D levels above 60 ng/mL have an 83 percent
lower risk of breast cancer than those below 20 ng/mL, and I cannot
think of any other strategy that can offer that kind of risk reduction.
Mammograms certainly cannot.
More recently, a pooled analysis11
published in June 2018 of two randomized trials and a prospective
cohort study came to a near-identical conclusion. The objective was to
assess whether there are any benefits to having a vitamin D level above
40 ng/mL, as most studies do not venture into these higher levels.
Indeed, mirroring the 2005 findings, women with vitamin D levels at
or above 60 ng/mL had an 82 percent lower incidence rate of breast
cancer than those with levels of 20 ng/mL or less.
Pooled data were analyzed in three different ways. First, incidence
rates were compared based on vitamin D levels ranging from 20 to 60
ng/mL. Next, statistical analysis using Kaplan-Meier plots were done.
Third, multivariate Cox regression was used to examine the association
between various vitamin D levels and breast cancer risk. According to
the authors:
"Results were similar for the three analyses. First, comparing
incidence rates, there was an 82 percent lower incidence rate of breast
cancer for women with 25(OH)D concentrations ≥60 vs <20 ng/mL.
Second, Kaplan-Meier curves for concentrations of <20, 20–39,
40–59 and ≥60 ng/mL were significantly different, with the highest
proportion breast cancer-free in the ≥60 ng/ml group (99.3 percent) and
the lowest proportion breast cancer-free in the <20 ng/ml group (96.8
percent). The proportion with breast cancer was 78 percent lower for
≥60 vs <20 ng/mL.
Third, multivariate Cox regression revealed that women with
25(OH)D concentrations ≥60 ng/ml had an 80 percent lower risk of breast
cancer than women with concentrations <20 ng/mL, adjusting for age,
BMI, smoking status, calcium supplement intake, and study of origin …
Higher 25(OH)D concentrations were associated with a
dose-response decrease in breast cancer risk with concentrations ≥60
ng/mL being most protective."
Other Studies Linking Vitamin D Status With Cancer Risk
Several other studies also support the hypothesis that higher vitamin
D levels are powerful cancer prevention, including but not limited to
the following:12
Menopause, 2018 — Just last month, research13,14
published in the journal Menopause found that postmenopausal women who
receive a diagnosis of breast cancer are more likely to be vitamin D
deficient and overweight than women who receive a negative diagnosis.
Overall, breast cancer patients were 1.5 times more likely to have low
vitamin D.
The BMJ, 201815
— Earlier this year, a Japanese study published in The BMJ concluded
that higher vitamin D levels were associated with a 20 percent lower
relative risk of internal cancers in both sexes. Equally important, they
found there was no increased risk for any type of cancer associated
with higher vitamin D levels.
PLOS One, 201616,17
— This pooled analysis of a randomized trial and a prospective cohort
study found that women aged 55 and older who had a vitamin D serum level
of 40 ng/ml or greater had a 67 percent reduced risk of cancer compared
to those with a vitamin D level of 20 ng/ml or less.
Cancer Causes & Control, 201318
— In this case control study, those who had a vitamin D level of 35
ng/mL or higher were 70 percent less likely to develop breast cancer
compared to those with a level of 15 ng/mL or less.
PLOS One, 201119
— Here, women with a vitamin D level of 30 ng/mL or higher had a 60
percent lower risk of breast cancer than those with a level of 20 ng/mL
or below. Among post-menopausal women, the risk was 71 percent lower.
Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, 200920
— In this case control study, premenopausal women with a vitamin D
level of 34 ng/mL or higher had a greater than 60 percent reduction in
breast cancer risk compared to those with a level of 24 ng/mL or lower.
Carcinogenesis, 200721
— Postmenopausal women with a vitamin D level of 30 ng/mL had a nearly
70 percent reduced risk of breast cancer compared to those with levels
of 12 ng/mL or less.
American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 2007
— Women over 55 who raised their average serum level to 38 ng/mL
lowered their risk of all invasive cancers, including breast cancer, by
77 percent.22
Anticancer Research February 2011 — In this study, breast cancer patients with high vitamin D levels were twice as likely to survive than those with low levels.23,24,25 (Higher vitamin D levels are also associated with a lower risk of severe peripheral neuropathy in cancer patients.26)
This Breast Cancer Awareness Month, Get Your Vitamin D Level Checked
This year, do your breast health a real favor and get your vitamin D
level checked. One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways of doing
this is to enroll in the D*Action Breast Cancer Prevention project, which now includes both vitamin D and omega-3 testing.
Their new myData-myAnswers personalized health software is now able
to "give you feedback on your health conditions compared to thousands of
others so you can make more informed decisions on your actions."
GrassrootsHealth also has a handy vitamin D calculator that can help you determine how much vitamin D you need per day to get to 60 ng/mL or above.
You can enroll in this cancer prevention project either on the GrassrootsHealth website, or by ordering the vitamin D testing kit, either alone or in combination with the omega-3 test,
from my online store. All revenues from these kits go directly to
GrassrootsHealth. I make no profit from these kits and only provide them
as a service of convenience to my readers.
As noted on GrassrootsHealth's D*Action Challenge27
webpage, before you donate money to a breast cancer prevention group,
find out whether the group has any focus on primary prevention, opposed
to just mammograms. Are they actually trying to eliminate breast cancer,
or are they just pushing for detection? Secondly, check to see whether
the group recommends vitamin D testing as a key prevention strategy.
Again, research has clearly demonstrated that having a vitamin D
level of at least 40 ng/mL, and ideally between 60 and 80 ng/mL,28 can massively reduce your risk of breast cancer.
As noted by GrassrootsHealth, "If the answers are 'YES' to both
challenges, then the women stand to gain quickly, significantly, safely
and inexpensively." If not, your money is probably not going to do much
good, seeing how there's been no change in breast cancer incidence in
over a decade, despite the many millions collected in donations.
According to data published in the Archives of Internal Medicine,29
75 percent of American adults and teens are deficient in vitamin D,
based on a sufficiency level of 30 ng/mL. This means at least
three-quarters of the female population in the U.S. could lower their
risk of breast cancer by 60 to 80 percent.
If the sufficiency cutoff were to be moved to 40 or 60 ng/mL,
deficiency rates in the U.S. would likely be in the high 90 percent
bracket. The take-home message is that the vast majority of people do
not have vitamin D serum levels that are high enough to prevent cancer,
and this is so easy and inexpensive to fix!
So, please, if you haven't done so already, make vitamin D
optimization your goal during this year's breast cancer awareness month,
and share the news with all the other women in your life.
Be Mindful of the Interplay of Vitamins D and K2, Calcium and Magnesium
As for how to raise your vitamin D level, remember that the best way is through sensible sun exposure. That said, many will need oral supplementation to achieve an optimal level, especially if you're pregnant in the wintertime.
Just remember that if you take high-dose oral vitamin D, you may also need to increase your intake of calcium, magnesium and vitamin K2
as well, as these four nutrients work in tandem and rely on sufficient
amounts of each to work properly. Importantly, inadequate levels of
vitamin K2 in combination with high vitamin D intake may cause
overabsorption of calcium, which in turn can result in calcium deposits
in your heart and kidneys.
Maintaining an appropriate calcium-to-magnesium ratio30
is also important, as magnesium helps keep calcium in your cells so
they can function better. A ratio of 1-to-1 appears to be ideal.
Magnesium is also required for the activation of vitamin D. Without
sufficient magnesium, taking a vitamin D supplement may be ineffective,31,32
essentially making it appear you need unnecessarily high amounts. If
your magnesium level is too low, the vitamin D will simply get stored in
its inactive form, doing you absolutely no good.
According to recent research,33
as many as 50 percent of Americans taking vitamin D supplements may not
get significant benefit due to insufficient magnesium levels. On the
other hand, when you have an optimal magnesium level, your vitamin D
level will rise even if you're taking a much lower dose.34 To learn more about this, see "Without Magnesium, Vitamin D Supplementation May Backfire."
Pink-Washing — Beware the Pink Ribbon Scam
While there are many different breast cancer prevention charities, the Susan G. Komen Foundation35
is perhaps the most well-known. It has done a great deal of harm to
women by obfuscating the authentic preventative measures available to
combat breast cancer and downplaying the preventive role of a healthy diet, vitamin D optimization and limiting chemical exposures, while heavily promoting mammography.
By ignoring the role your lifestyle plays in the development of
cancer, organizations such as these can continue to collect billions of
dollars of donations in the name of "finding a cure." Meanwhile,
effective prevention could eliminate the need for finding a cure
altogether. As noted in a 2014 article by Karuna Jaggar, executive
director of Breast Cancer Action:36
"Few people realize that Breast Cancer Awareness Month (BCAM) was
launched by Astra Zeneca, a pharmaceutical company that sells cancer
treatments on the one hand and carcinogenic pesticides on the other. So
BCAM has all along been one big marketing campaign — arguably the most
successful marketing campaign of the 20th century.
This is why at Breast Cancer Action, we call October 'Breast
Cancer Industry Month,' the month when corporations make money
professing how much they care about breast cancer by selling pink ribbon
products ...
How many of the ingredients contained in a random selection of
pink products are toxic and bad for our health? No one knows because of
weak chemical regulation in the United States that's outdated ...
We can't waste another October watching corporations make money
off pink ribbon products that contain toxins linked to breast cancer. If
you are outraged, take a stand to protect all of us from toxic
chemicals that are making us sick because the manufacturers of pink
ribbon products certainly won't."
Mammograms Do More Harm Than Good and Have No Impact on Mortality Rates
Mammography can detect invasive breast cancer in women. This is not
in dispute. What is in dispute is whether or not routine mammograms are
really the right tool to reduce breast cancer rates, and whether it
might harm more women than it helps in the process.
A growing body of evidence suggests that it does in fact, on the
whole, do more harm than good by generating high rates of false
positives that lead to unnecessary treatment and associated emotional
trauma.37 Those who opt for aggressive treatment such as a mastectomy, radiation and/or chemotherapy after a false positive diagnosis undergo physical pain and suffering "for nothing."
However, since you're unlikely to ever find out that you didn't have
life-threatening cancer after all, women who believe their lives were
saved by mammography will be hard-pressed to buy into the idea that
routine mammograms are more harmful than helpful.
Still, statistics suggest many breast cancer survivors are not
actually survivors of breast cancer, they're survivors of breast cancer
treatment.38 Several studies have completely demolished the notion that mammograms save lives. For example:
• A 2015 study published in JAMA Internal Medicine39
found mammography screenings lead to unnecessary treatments while
having virtually no impact on the number of deaths from breast cancer. • Another 2015 study40
published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine declares its
conclusion right in the title, which reads: "Mammography screening is
harmful and should be abandoned."
In short, decades of routine breast cancer screening
using mammograms has done nothing to decrease deaths from breast
cancer, while causing more than half — 52 percent — of all women
undergoing the test to be overdiagnosed and overtreated. According to
lead author Peter C. Gøtzsche, had mammograms been a drug, "it would
have been withdrawn from the market long ago." • A 2012 study41
in The Lancet concluded that for every life saved by mammography
screening, three women are overdiagnosed and treated with surgery,
radiation, or chemotherapy for a cancer that might never have given them
trouble in their lifetimes. Additionally, no positive correlation with
mortality could be found.
Computer Analysis Does Not Improve Accuracy of Mammograms
Research42
also shows the use of computer-aided detection (CAD) for mammography,
which is used in 90 percent of U.S. mammograms at a cost of $400 million
a year, does nothing to improve the accuracy of the test.
The study looked at more than 625,000 mammograms from nearly 324,000
women to determine whether CAD actually improves a radiologist's
interpretation of a mammogram or not. As it turns out, CAD had no
beneficial impact on mammography interpretation, leading the authors to
conclude that: "These results suggest that insurers pay more for CAD
with no established benefit to women."
In fact, radiologists were actually more prone to miss cancer when
using CAD compared to when not using it. Overall, radiologists correctly
identified cancer 90 percent of the time when CAD was not used, and
only 83 percent of the time when they used CAD.
Take Control of Your Cancer Risk
In closing, remember to get your vitamin D level checked, and if
below 60 ng/mL, take steps to raise your blood level. If you're looking
for a scientifically proven way to avoid being a breast cancer
statistic, optimizing your vitamin D is at the very top of the list.
Again, the level you're aiming for is between 60 and 80 ng/mL, with
40 ng/mL being the low cutoff point for sufficiency to prevent a wide
range of diseases, including cancer.
As for dosage, you need to take whatever dosage required to get you into the optimal range. Research43
suggests it would require 9,600 IUs of vitamin D per day to get 97
percent of the population to reach 40 ng/mL, but individual requirements
can vary widely. As mentioned, your magnesium status is a very
important factor that can play a role in your required dosage, but there
are many other individual factors as well.
If you've been taking a certain amount of vitamin D3 for a number of
months and retesting reveals you're still not within the recommended
range, then you know you need to increase your dosage. Over time, with
continued testing, you'll find your individual sweet spot and have a
good idea of how much you need to take to maintain a healthy level
year-round.
This post may help decide startups in business how using Cryptocurrency can be beneficial!
We're living in a golden era of innovation, says entrepreneur Ashwini Anburajan -- but venture capital hasn't evolved to keep up, and startups aren't getting the funding they need to grow. In this quick talk, she shares the story of how her company became part of an entirely new way to raise capital, using the powers of cooperation and cryptocurrency.
This talk was presented at an official TED conference, and was featured by our editors on the home page.
About the speaker
Ashwini Anburajan · Entrepreneur, writer
Ashwini Anburajan using blockchain to democratize access to capital.
We should all ensure that our arteries are clear of blockages by eating the right foods!
Jill Waldbieser
You’re never too young to start eating for your arteries—blockages
can start early. Science shows that these foods could be your ticker’s
best friend.
Keep your heart healthy
Tinydevil/Shutterstock
The number one killer in the United States is heart disease: According to the CDC,
610,000 people die from it every year—that is about one out of every
four deaths. The cause is clogged arteries, and things like calcium,
plaque, and fatty acids can do the damage. “There is no one magic food
that acts like Drano and cleans out the accumulated plaque,” says
Florian Rader, MD, a cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “But good habits can help
slow down that process, and maintaining a healthy weight and diet is one
factor you can control to a great degree. And,” he says, “It’s never
too late to start.”
Oats
Jiri Hera/Shutterstock
It’s been more than 20 years since the FDA approved heart-healthy
claims for these whole grains, and research keeps uncovering new
benefits. The main one, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It: Taking You from Label to Table,
is their rich supply of soluble fiber, which has been shown to lower
bad LDL cholesterol levels. Why that’s good for your arteries, according
to Dr. Rader: “Cholesterol can seep into the inner layer of blood
vessels and form plaque over time.” Since most Americans fall
chronically short on fiber, the four grams per cup that oats deliver are
a welcome addition.
Beans
Dennis Jacobsen/Shutterstock
In addition to being a great source of soluble fiber—black beans have
three times as much of it per cup as oats—studies have found that
bean-rich diets may help make arteries more elastic, contributing to
lower blood pressure. Another perk: Antioxidants, which are especially
abundant in colorful varieties such as black beans and red kidney beans,
may fight the inflammation that contributes to heart disease. Check out
these 10 heart-healthy meals cardiologists make for themselves.
Lentils
GalapagosPhoto/Shutterstock
These protein-packed discs come from the same legume family as beans,
which means that they pack many similar benefits. Preliminary research in rats
found that lentils appear to reverse the damage to blood vessels caused
by high blood pressure. Plus, lentils are at the top of the food
spectrum for protein and fiber content, with very little fat, and
contain calcium, potassium, and magnesium—all minerals that can help
lower blood pressure. Find out the best and worst diets for heart health.
Fish
ND700/Shutterstock
A lot of the research on omega-3 fatty acids focuses on brain health,
but these potent anti-inflammatories have benefits for your ticker,
too. Research links inflammation inside your body to a number of chronic
diseases and conditions, including plaque buildup, says Dr. Rader. So
there’s speculation that reducing inflammation might reduce plaque in
your arteries. Eating fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel is one way
to get your fill of omega-3s, so try to eat some at least twice a week,
says Taub-Dix.
Avocados
Aleksandr Gavrilychev/Shutterstock
Fat of any kind used to be at the top of the list of things that are
bad for your heart. Not anymore: Research reveals that mono- and
polyunsaturated fats, like those found in avocados, are heart healthy
because they help lower bad LDL cholesterol and raise good HDL
cholesterol, says Taub-Dix. These green fruits also contain a decent
amount of fiber. Read more about the heart-healthy benefits of avocados.
Held on Monday evening at the Eileen Fisher Learning Lab,
an event space and studio in Irvington, it was not a typical women’s
networking event for the Rivertowns Chamber of Commerce.
The evening started with mindfulness exercises led by
Antoinette Klatzky, the executive director of the Eileen Fisher
Leadership Institute, during which she encouraged audience members to
find a partner, chat and get to know each other at a deeper level.
She talked about attending Fortune 500 CEO forums and the dismal female representation.
More than 80 percent of the employees of Eileen Fisher, which employs about 1,200 people, are women.
The number one killer in the United States is heart disease: According to the CDC,
610,000 people die from it every year—that is about one out of every
four deaths. The cause is clogged arteries, and things like calcium,
plaque, and fatty acids can do the damage. “There is no one magic food
that acts like Drano and cleans out the accumulated plaque,” says
Florian Rader, MD, a cardiologist at the Smidt Heart Institute at
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. “But good habits can help
slow down that process, and maintaining a healthy weight and diet is one
factor you can control to a great degree. And,” he says, “It’s never
too late to start.”
It’s been more than 20 years since the FDA approved heart-healthy
claims for these whole grains, and research keeps uncovering new
benefits. The main one, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It: Taking You from Label to Table,
is their rich supply of soluble fiber, which has been shown to lower
bad LDL cholesterol levels. Why that’s good for your arteries, according
to Dr. Rader: “Cholesterol can seep into the inner layer of blood
vessels and form plaque over time.” Since most Americans fall
chronically short on fiber, the four grams per cup that oats deliver are
a welcome addition.
In addition to being a great source of soluble fiber—black beans have
three times as much of it per cup as oats—studies have found that
bean-rich diets may help make arteries more elastic, contributing to
lower blood pressure. Another perk: Antioxidants, which are especially
abundant in colorful varieties such as black beans and red kidney beans,
may fight the inflammation that contributes to heart disease. Check out
these 10 heart-healthy meals cardiologists make for themselves.
These protein-packed discs come from the same legume family as beans,
which means that they pack many similar benefits. Preliminary research in rats
found that lentils appear to reverse the damage to blood vessels caused
by high blood pressure. Plus, lentils are at the top of the food
spectrum for protein and fiber content, with very little fat, and
contain calcium, potassium, and magnesium—all minerals that can help
lower blood pressure. Find out the best and worst diets for heart health.
A lot of the research on omega-3 fatty acids focuses on brain health,
but these potent anti-inflammatories have benefits for your ticker,
too. Research links inflammation inside your body to a number of chronic
diseases and conditions, including plaque buildup, says Dr. Rader. So
there’s speculation that reducing inflammation might reduce plaque in
your arteries. Eating fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel is one way
to get your fill of omega-3s, so try to eat some at least twice a week,
says Taub-Dix.
Fat of any kind used to be at the top of the list of things that are
bad for your heart. Not anymore: Research reveals that mono- and
polyunsaturated fats, like those found in avocados, are heart healthy
because they help lower bad LDL cholesterol and raise good HDL
cholesterol, says Taub-Dix. These green fruits also contain a decent
amount of fiber. Read more about the heart-healthy benefits of avocados.