Hope

"Of all the forces that make for a better world, none is so powerful as hope. With hope, one can think, one can work, one can dream. If you have hope, you have everything."

[from Thinking of You card by Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, 2009]

The Food Additive That Fuels Lung Cancer

By James B. LaValle

Familiarizing yourself with the ingredient list on food labels is now more important than ever. While some additives are fairly benign, too many of them can cause significant health problems. Take "inorganic phosphates," for example, which are used to improve food texture and water retention in processed foods (including meats, cheeses, and baked goods).

It has already been shown that the phosphates in soft drinks and snack chips cause calcium to leach from the bones, linking them to osteoporosis and kidney stones. Now we can add cancer to that list.

Research conducted at Seoul National University has determined that inorganic phosphates have been associated with both the development and growth of lung cancer in laboratory rats. These effects were found at levels that mimicked our intake on a typical American/Westernized diet.

In a study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, researchers observed lung cancer tumors in mice fed with either a 0.5 percent or 1.0 percent phosphate diet. At the end of four weeks, the mice on the higher-phosphate diet had an increase in the formation of new lung tumors as well as an increase in the size of existing tumors. The researchers think it may be due to the role phosphates have in biochemical signaling pathways.

Although naturally occurring phosphates are necessary for human nutrition, the researchers noted that the consumption of phosphates in processed foods has more than doubled since the 1990s. Our hectic American lifestyle - which leaves little time or energy for home cooking - often forces us to rely on convenient pre-packaged foods and restaurant meals full of health-harming substances.

While food industry experts have downplayed this study, I would strongly recommend limiting your intake of inorganic phosphates. Doing so will help protect your bones, and could even lower your risk of lung cancer.

Stick to foods in their most natural state. Especially limit high-carb processed foods laden with cancer-causing phosphates. If you want to save on prep time for meals, choose precut veggies and salads and frozen vegetables. But always read the labels to make sure they have no additives.

[Ed. Note: Making wise choices when it comes to diet and lifestyle can have a dramatic effect on your health. James B. LaValle, RPh, ND, CCN - founder of the LaValle Metabolic Institute and a nationally recognized expert on natural therapies - can give you easy-to-understand directions for living the healthy life you've always wanted.]

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The Language Perfectionist: The Perfect Blend

By Don Hauptman

You hear and use them every day, perhaps without realizing why they're special. I'm referring to what linguists call blends: new words created via the marriage of two other words.

Familiar words of this type include the computer term bit (binary + digit), brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), and Spam - the edible kind (spiced + ham).

They've also been called telescope words and centaur words. Lewis Carroll called them "portmanteau words." That reference is now rather obscure, but back in the day, a portmanteau was a traveling bag that opened into two compartments. Thus, as Carroll defined the term in Through the Looking-Glass: "two meanings packed up into one word." And, by the way, several of Carroll's own blended-word coinages are still used, most notably chortle (chuckle + snort).

Decades ago, Time magazine and the gossip columnist Walter Winchell were known for devising new blends, some of which survived while others faded away. Among them: cinemactress, frauditor, genethics, guesstimate, and infanticipating.

If you keep your eyes and ears open, you'll discover that the list of blend words is surprisingly long: advertorial, camcorder, Chunnel, glasphalt, infomercial, Jazzercise, minicam, pixel, and sitcom, for example. Because new things are constantly being created, and they all need names, the roster will surely continue to grow.

Here are a few more, the origins of which may not be immediately apparent:

• guacamole: from the Aztec ahuacamolli - a conflation of ahucatl (avocado) + molli (sauce or paste).
• happenstance: from happen + circumstance.
• Tanzania: from the names of two countries, Tanganyika and Zanzibar, that merged in 1964.
• Velcro: from the French velours (velvet) + croche (hooked). The ubiquitous fastener was invented in Switzerland.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]

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It's Fun to Know: Pepper Spray ATMs

A few weeks ago, we told you about Eastern European criminals installing "skimmers" to steal personal information from ATMs. Now, it looks like those thieves won't be trying their scam in South Africa... at least, not for long.

Cameras trained on cash machines detect when somebody tampers with the card slot. And then the troublemaker gets a face full of pepper spray from nozzles on the ATM. The idea is for police to rush to the scene and arrest the incapacitated thief. So far, however, only maintenance personnel on their rounds have been hit.

A promising approach. But some kinks still need to be worked out.

(Source: The Guardian)

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Word to the Wise: Conflation

"Conflation" (kun-FLAY-shun) - from the Latin for "to blow together" - is the process or result of fusing several elements into one entity.

Example (as used by Don Hauptman today): "[The origin of the word guacamole]: from the Aztec ahuacamolli - a conflation of ahucatl (avocado) + molli (sauce or paste)."
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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2736, 08-01-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

"An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest."
- Benjamin Franklin

"The real contest is always between what you've done and what you're capable of doing. You measure yourself against yourself and nobody else."

Geoffrey Gaberino

"If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything."

- John Wooden

It's Good to Know: The New Generation of ATM Skimmers

Skimmers are small electronic devices that identity thieves attach to ATMs, gas pump card readers, and other places where you swipe credit or debit cards. They are used to steal card numbers, expiration dates, and PINs. And now criminals in Eastern Europe have come up with a new twist: a software skimmer that is inserted in the operating code (usually Windows-based) of the ATM's computer. The program allows them to access all the personal data for all the cards used in the machine.

Security experts predict that the new skimmers could make an appearance in the U.S. soon.

(Source: Scientific American)

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Word to the Wise: Occiput

The "occiput" (AHK-sih-put) - from the Latin for "against the head" - is the back part of the skull.

Example (as used by Alan Falk in Michigan Lawyers Weekly): "So let me suggest that everyone put away their pitchforks and firebrands and stop trying to 'bury the hatchet' by planting it in the other fellow's occiput."

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2723, 07-17-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

"How little has situation to do with happiness."

- Fanny Burney

"Progress lies not in enhancing what is, but in advancing toward what will be."

- Kahlil Gibran

"Nothing can stop the man with the right mental attitude from achieving his goal; nothing on earth can help the man with the wrong mental attitude."

Thomas Jefferson

Eat More... and Lose Weight?

By Michael Masterson

This is a fat country. And that means Americans are prone to a long list of fat-related health problems. Heart disease and high blood pressure are two of the big ones.

Dr. Al Sears, my personal physician, has helped me lose more than 25 pounds of fat, reduce my blood pressure, and strengthen my heart with an amazingly easy "eating program" he has developed over several years. It's based on relatively large quantities of high-quality protein (wild salmon, grass-fed beef, and organic eggs, cheese, milk, beans, and nuts).

How does it work? By exceeding your body's daily protein requirement, you boost your metabolism. As a result, you stop storing fat and start burning it.

For an active person like me, Dr. Sears recommends 1 gram of protein per day per pound of lean body mass (LBM).

Lean body mass is the weight of your body minus the fat. (There are several simple ways you can measure your own LBM. I'll explain how to do it in a future issue.). So a 180-pound man with 15 percent body fat would have an LBM of 153 pounds. And he should be eating 153 grams of protein a day. To give you an idea of what that means, an egg has 7 grams of protein, 6 ounces of fish has 42 grams, and a cup of cashew nuts has 21 grams.

I crave protein, so this is easy for me. I eat eggs every morning for breakfast and all sorts of high-quality protein throughout the day. My snacks are high-protein. And my dinners are a combination of proteins and organic vegetables.

One big benefit you will notice right away: By eating more protein and less starchy carbs, your appetite will decrease dramatically. Try it. Let me know how it works for you.

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Today's Words That Work: Eighty-six

"Eighty-six" is diner slang for taking an item off the menu or canceling an order. It's also used by bars and restaurants when they refuse to serve an unruly or drunk customer. By extension, it can mean rejecting, discarding, or getting rid of anything or anyone (especially gangster style).

No telling where the term really originated. Some sources say it was a rhyme for "nix." Others say it came from Article 86 of the New York Liquor Code. Perhaps the best story points to Chumley's, a prohibition era bar in Greenwich Village. The place had a back door that exited at 86 Bedford Street -- and when the bar got raided, everyone made a dash for it. ("Quick! Eighty-six it!")

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2789, 10-14-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

The Language Perfectionist: Whose Rules?

By Don Hauptman

If you're old enough, you may recall a song that contains the lyric, "So it's the meantime, meantime / All they gave me is that in-between time."

The words meantime and meanwhile are handy transitional devices, but they are sometimes misused.

For all practical purposes, the words are interchangeable. Both mean simultaneously or during a brief intervening time. Both words may be used alone. But always write or say in the meantime, never in the meanwhile. To begin a sentence, use Meanwhile, not Meantime.

The following are correct:

• "I'm waiting for an important e-mail message to arrive. In the meantime, I'm reading the headlines."

• "The sheriff pursued and captured the two bank robbers. Meanwhile, back at the ranch..."

A final tip: In The Careful Writer, Theodore M. Bernstein advises his readers to be certain that the two events under discussion really are simultaneous or close in time. An example of what to avoid: "The play opened in Chicago a year ago. Meanwhile, the producers are raising money to transfer it to Broadway."

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]

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This article appears courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2791, 10-16-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

"Some people regard discipline as a chore. For me, it is a kind of order that sets me free to fly."

Julie Andrews

"Don't sit down and wait for the opportunities to come. Get up and make them!"

Madam C.J. Walker

"There are few, if any, jobs in which ability alone is sufficient. Needed also are loyalty, sincerity, enthusiasm and team play."
- William B. Given, Jr.

"One of the greatest pains to human nature is the pain of a new idea." - Walter Bagehot

"Whatever creativity is, it is in part a solution to a problem."
- Brian Aldiss

"Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much."
- Helen Keller

"If you believe in unlimited quality and act in all your business dealings with total integrity, the rest will take care of itself."
- Frank Perdue

Don't Let the Recession Make You Overweight

By Craig Ballantyne

I'm no economics genius, so I can't help solve the recession. But I do know that times of stress cause some folks to eat more than they need - and that means weight gain for many.

Japanese scientists studied 122 workers between the ages of 21 and 60. They found that work stress (in the form of tension, anxiety, and depression) was associated with an increase in what they called "eating to satiety" (meaning eating until they were completely full). Unfortunately, eating to satiety was also associated with weight gain.

The researchers concluded that work stress can negatively impact your eating patterns, causing you to gain weight. And in today's stressful world, that is not good news.

So here's what you need to do. If stress is making you eat more, make sure you keep high-calorie, energy-dense processed carbohydrates (chips, cookies, baked goods, etc.) out of your house and office. Load up on whole, natural foods - fruits, vegetables, and raw nuts. (Yes, nuts!) These foods will fill you up before you can eat too many calories, and you'll limit your risk of gaining weight, even if you eat to satiety due to stress.

The Language Perfectionist: Present Perfect

By Don Hauptman

Here are three sentences, drawn from an Internet search:

• "Legalizers suggest that heroin should be used much in the same way as is morphine presently... ."
• "[I] am from India, presently residing in the United States."
• "Where are you presently in your career?"

The above uses of presently are incorrect - or at least dicey enough to warrant rephrasing the sentences. The word is used correctly in this sentence: "Bill is almost finished with the Thompson audit and he will presently begin work on the Witherspoon report."

Hundreds of years ago, presently meant "now." But it subsequently came to mean "soon," "later," "in a while." Today, once again, people frequently use it in the "now" sense. But the "later" meaning is regarded as standard.

It's easy to imagine how this ambiguity might result in confusion. Understanding whether something is happening now or will occur later could be important. So it's best to avoid the word entirely and substitute now, currently, or at present. These alternatives are simpler and clearer. In communication, that's always a good thing.

Can you recall when and where you first encountered certain words?

As a kid in the 1950s and early '60s, I was a fan of superhero comic books. A convention of the genre was to caption the top of a panel "Presently..." I was puzzled by it at first, but quickly realized that the action in the captioned panel was happening at a later time, not simultaneously with the previous sequence. That's how I learned the word and its proper meaning.

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]

It's Fun to Know: Entrepreneurship in a Pill

Instead of building a profitable business the ETR way - by learning through experience, practice, and with the help and advice of others who have "been there, done that" - Cambridge University researchers would like to think you will one day be able to do it by taking a pill.

The esteemed scientists are exploring the possibility of creating a drug that would replicate the brain chemistry of successful entrepreneurs. According to Barbara Sahakian, Ph.D., leader of the research team, such a drug has the potential to enhance risk tolerance (necessary for decision making) and cognitive flexibility (necessary for problem solving).

Right. That'll do it.

(Source: CNN)

Word to the Wise: Frowsy

"Frowsy" or "Frowzy" (FROW-zee) - possibly related to the Old English for "smelly" - means dirty and untidy or musty.

Example (as used by Charles Dickens in Oliver Twist): "The cold wet shelterless midnight streets of London; the foul and frowsy dens, where vice is closely packed and lacks the room to turn; the haunts of hunger and disease; the shabby rags that scarcely hold together; where are the attractions of these things?"

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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2628, 03-28-09], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.

"A man of financial wealth who values himself by his financial net worth is poorer than the poor man who values himself by his intrinsic self worth."

Sydney Madwed

"We are what we repeatedly do." - Earl Nightingale

"Live a balanced life -- learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some."

Robert Fulghum

Holiday Fun Fact: Baby New Year

By Michael Masterson

The New Year is often personified as a baby wearing a diaper and a top hat -- but there's nothing new about it. Using a baby as a symbol of rebirth has its roots in ancient Greece and Egypt.

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The Language Perfectionist: The Cohort Retort

By Don Hauptman

From a U.S. Department of Justice news release:

"The following morning, when the first employee of the day entered the bank,
Smith and his cohort, armed with handguns, confronted the employee and demanded
money contained in the bank's vault."

It's common for an individual, especially one engaged in unsavory activities, to be described as a cohort of someone else. In this sense, the word is intended to mean an associate, companion, or accomplice.

But the proper meaning of cohort is a group that shares a demographic characteristic: "Great Depression cohort" or "Generation X cohort," for example. Sociologists and statisticians frequently use such terms in their studies. It's also correct to say "a cohort of Stanford faculty members" or to use the word in reference to any other distinctive group.

Notes Bryan Garner, in his useful style guide Garner's Modern American Usage: "This newer meaning [companion] has remained a rather informal one for this respectable word, which in formal writing should retain its older sense."

But remember that even in informal contexts, as applied to an individual, cohort has acquired a pejorative connotation. No one ever says, "I'm headed for the big game with my best cohort."

[Ed Note: For more than three decades, Don Hauptman was an award-winning independent direct-response copywriter and creative consultant.]
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These articles appear courtesy of Early to Rise [Issue #2846, 01-01-10], the Internet's most popular health, wealth, and success e-zine. For a complimentary subscription, visit http://www.earlytorise.com/.