DRINK POISON
Fluoride is a poison. You're not advised to take a bottle of it and swallow it, you'd die. However, in small doses, it's claimed that it has a rare property: it can save your teeth from decay. Research has shown, or so it is claimed, that small quantities of fluoride in the water that we drink can strengthen the enamel in our teeth and prevent the formation of cavities. Since English children have some of the worst teeth in the world, anything that can help to prevent further decay is seen as a good thing, no matter how outlandish. Because of course, it's a strange plan. Here's the proposition: we will add something to your water that is in itself a hazard, but it will avoid an even worse problem, tooth decay. Who could possibly vote against that? Manchester did. They've kept the water free of this metallic additive for almost two generations, while the rest of the ground has lapped it up, literally. There's been mixed results.
In the first place, levels of tooth decay in children are uncomfortably high. Why is that? Are children in Manchester bad at cleaning their teeth? Don't they realise the benefits of flossing? Well, that may be so, but not for want of trying. School nurses regularly lecture the kids on the best way of using a toothbrush, and if you go into any primary school in the city, you will see posters and pictures on the wall of healthy teeth - the aim, after all. Maybe there's another reason: good advice, in itself, doesn't work. That's certainly been the attitude in other parts of the country. We don't want people to have rotten teeth, they say, so we're going to add fluoride to the water and the amount of fillings will go down, whether people want that or that. Of course they want that, you say! It's obvious! But no, that's not obvious. If you, or any member of your family wanted to avoid losing your teeth, the answer is glaring, right in front of your nose: eat less sweets and chocolate, and brush and clean more regularly. Why don't people do that? They say they will, they promise they will, they even resolve to do that, every New Year, when they make Resolutions for the coming twelve months. But just like plans to go to the gym, and great ideas about giving up other self-destructive habits, the common behaviour is that all the good intentions fall by the wayside and the bad habits, and unhealthy ways of life, spring back to the fore in the Spring.
Fluoridation is a good example of doing something FOR people, even though, in a logical world, they wouldn't need it. Because, as every parent knows, there are alternatives. If you agree that fluoride is good for you, you can buy toothpaste with it built-in. You can then apply the potential benefits directly to where it is needed, in your mouth, without involving anyone else in your health binge. No, we can't seem to simply do that. Somehow we know that eating sweet things is bad for us, but we still do it. We know that brushing and flossing is good for our teeth, but we don't do it. So someone, in this case Local Government, steps in and says, Right, we can't trust you to do the right thing. We're going to have to do it for you, (and take the decision out of your hands). We'll add the stuff to water, so you can't avoid it. You will now get the health benefits, (whether you would choose to have them or not). Yep, that's a great way of treating people like children, and forcing 'good behaviour' onto the population, despite all the efforts we make every day to transform ourselves into overweight, unhealthy, ugly and toothless.
The biggest consequence is that this sort of overbearing authority removes consequences from people's lives. In a logical world it would be simple: you eat sweet things, your teeth fall out. Now it's up to you. You choose. You eat those candy bars, you'll get false teeth. Your choice. In our topsy-turvey world, it's all different. Oops, you're eating that bad stuff. Well, we don't want to step in and interfere with your decisions. You've decided to eat it, (despite our good advice), and we can't stop you. Aah, but we can add stuff to the water you drink. That'll cure you, whether you change your way of life, or not. You WILL be healthy.
It's a dangerous step. Once you've added some 'medicine' to the water supply, there's a precedent for finding reasons to add more, and more. In the 1960s some people thought it would be a good idea to add LSD to the reservoirs, because, hey man, we're all too buttoned up. Let's hang loose, baby. Uh, no, we disagreed with those wild hippies, at the time, and since. But in our modern world, there are terrorists trying to add poison to our water too, because they see it as a good way to persuade our governments to follow their manifesto. That seems outrageous, until you realise that the existing water isn't pure anyway, is it? It's already been tampered with, in the name of making us better citizens. The terrorists are perhaps merely following an example set by our very own leaders.
It's a fluid situation. People will always do the unexpected, and then, leave the experts confounded. In recent years, people with lots of money and no sense, have been paying over the odds for bottled water, convinced by advertising that tells them that what's in the plastic bottle will do them a whole world of good. Well, maybe the fluid has been 'filtered by volcanoes' or 'bottled at source', (which means it's full of minerals, apparently), but the important thing is that it isn't tap water. Despite what all the medicators have been trying to do, they have been fooled by the ultimate put-down: fashion. Suddenly, it's just not cool to be seen drinking water out of the tap - no matter how good it is for you - and sucking out of a plastic teat is now all the rage in our modern world. Bad luck, legislators. You're just going to have to find some new way to do people good. They simply aren't downing the medicated water supplies you've prescribed for them. Who could have predicted that?
Like any other day, tomorrow is going to be a day for exercise, and since you are exercising on a regular basis, a few drinks of alcohol won't really hurt anything, right? Before you decide to rush out to the local bar, there are a few things below that you should think about before you make your choice about going out to drink some alcohol.
Research has proven that even small amounts of alcohol with increase muscular endurance and the output of strength, although these types of benefits are very short lived. After 20 minutes or so, the problems will begin to surface. All of the negative side effects associated with alcohol will easily outweigh any possible benefits that it can have. No matter how you look at it, alcohol is a poison that can really harm your body if you aren't careful.
The negative side of alcohol can reduce your strength, endurance, aerobic capability, recovery time, ability to metabolize fat, and even your muscle growth as well. Alcohol will also have an effect on your nervous system and brain. If you use it long term, you can cause severe deterioration of your central nervous system. Even with short term use, nerve muscle interaction can be reduced which will result in a loss of strength.
Once alcohol reaches the blood cells, it can and probably will damage them. With alcohol users, inflammation of the muscle cells is a very common thing. Over periods of time, some of these cells that have been damaged can die which will result in less functional muscle contractions. Drinking alcohol will also leave you with more soreness of your muscles after you exercise, which means that it will take you a lot longer to recuperate.
Alcohol will also have many different effects on your heart and circulatory system as well. When you drink any type of alcohol, you may begin to see a reduction in your endurance capabilities. Anytime you drink, your heat loss will increase, due to the alcohol simulating your blood vessels to dilate. The loss in heat can cause your muscles to become quite cold, therefore become slower and weaker during your muscle contractions.
Drinking alcohol can also lead to digestive and nutrition problems as well. Alcohol cause a release of insulin that will increase the metabolism of glycogen, which spares fat and makes the loss of fat very hard. Due to alcohol interfering with the absorption of several key nutrients, you can also become anemic and deficient with B type vitamins.
Because your liver is the organ that detoxifies alcohol, the more you drink, the harder your liver has to work. The extra stress alcohol places on your liver can cause serious damage and even destroy some of your liver cells.
Since alcohol is diuretic, drinking large amounts can put a lot of stress on your kidneys as well. During diuretic action, the hormones are secreted. This can lead to heightened water retention and no one who exercises will want this to happen.
If you must drink alcohol, you should do it in moderation and never drink before you exercise, as this will impair your balance, coordination, and also your judgement. Think about your health and how you exercise - and you may begin to look at things from a whole new prospective.
It does not matter if you feed your dog from the dinner table only on occasion or on a regular basis - there are dangerous "people" foods that should never be fed to your dog because some of these foods are like poison to your beloved dog.
Therefore you should always take extra caution when choosing the type of dog food to feed your dog. By reading the labels on your dog foods, you can make sure that the food you are giving him is safe and nourishing.
Here are some of the things to watch out for when we are dealing with "people" or table foods:
- As a rule of thumb, usually any food that is acidic is not a good food to be offering your dog. Acidity can damage the GI track of the dog, leading to a number of nasty side effects some of which include; vomiting, panting, fever, restlessness, the list goes on.
- Grapes may result in the kidney failure of your dog, so make sure you don't feed him this fruit.
- Onions are also extremely poisonous to your dog as they affect the balance of red blood cells in the dog's body.
- Coffee is known to intensify your dog's heart rate. This may lead to your dog having seizures and GI track problems.
- Ibuprofen is the second leading cause of canine poisoning in the world. Your dog absolutely like the scent of this drug, so be sure to put it away out of your dog's reach.
- Most dog owners have, at some point in time, given their dogs chocolate. Chocolate contains caffeine which can increase their heart rate, which will in turn lead to seizures.
- The world leader in canine poisoning is rat poison. Always take extra caution when placing rat traps around the house so that your dog will not be able to reach them.
You should not feed your dog with "people" foods. Leave those foods to humans. It is very important that you always provide your dog with a highly nutritious and well-balanced diet. If you are not sure what to feed your dog, seek the advice of an experienced veterinarian.
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