A report on the covid-19 pandemic as of 20:30 GMT on Friday, 25 September 2020.
Category: Health
Terroir is the French term for the distinctive flavors and scents from artisanal crops such as wine, coffee, and chocolate.
There are at least as many microbes in the human body as there are cells. These naturalized commensal citizens guide development, provide nutrition, and help fight infection. Indeed, by way of resident bacteria, diet may be a significant determinant of susceptibility and virulence of the virus which causes covid-19.
Our microbiomes are indispensable partners in both sickness and health. Their performance in the face of attack by V2 goes a long way in explaining the diversity of covid-19 virulence.
Since antiquity man has sought to conquer Nature rather than peaceful coexistence. Covid-19 is simply a reminder by Nature that it cannot be overcome. How humanity has responded to covid-19 has hastened its demise later this century.
Our bodies are naturally radioactive because of the foods we eat.
The human body is a noisy environment which may only be consciously sensed with attention or when bodily rhythms are abnormal. The integration of the mind-body complex means that noise level has knock-on effects.
Coffee alters the taste of foods eaten contemporaneously. Caffeine has nothing to do with it.
In exposing inept governance, the virus which causes covid-19 proved itself a political muckraker – as the American response amply illustrated.
Covid-19 has infected the world’s peoples, showing most poignantly humanity’s interconnectedness. To demonstrate their ineptness, most governments chose self-defeating shutdown as a response.
Clean water is the elixir of life – as essential for keeping clean as for drinking. Its shortage during the covid-19 pandemic is putting more than half of the global population at risk.
Disease and pollution have long been linked in people’s minds. The word “malaria” means “bad air” in Italian.
Wars bring societies together. Plagues pull them apart.
The Great War was grinding to an end. Nearly 20 million were dead over the past 4 years. Then a new killer arrived.
Influenza outbreaks are often seasonal – but their seasons vary. Whether Covid-19 has a season is uncertain.
The foot is a critical organ in locomotion. So often shoes give a foot protection, but no respect.
For decades, corporations have been promoting foods from genetically modified organisms (GMO) as a way to enhance their profits and garner monopoly power. GMO proponents claim that genetic modifications promise food abundance safely. History has already shown otherwise.
Awareness that chlorinating water kills pathogens dates to the mid-19th century. Only recently has the discovery been made that chlorination creates toxic byproducts.
Sitting can be too comfortable. How, and how long, you sit have health implications.
Breathing through the nose is yogic.
For our muscles to stay in shape, we must exercise them. Rodents face a similar situation. But the need for physical exercise to stay fit is not the norm among animals.
Studies in the UK and US found declines in the nutritional quality of commercial produce since the mid-20th century, when agriculture became more industrialized in the wake of the so-called Green Revolution.
Milk is a mammal’s first food. Mother’s milk is the natural diet of infants. Breast feeding confers health benefits that last a lifetime. Beyond infancy, and aside from mother’s milk, the bodily damage from milk exceeds its nutritional benefit.
2.8 million Americans are sickened by antibiotic-resistant pathogens each year. 35,000 die for lack of effective treatment. Meanwhile, companies doing their best to develop effective new drugs are going bankrupt. The situation illustrates one way in which capitalism is misaligned with the well-being of society.
There is a correlation between physical fitness and mental acuity as we age. To stay keen, stay lean.