Lifestyle Blog

The first comprehensive review in five years of the world’s 634 kinds of primates found that almost 50 percent are in danger of going extinct, according to the criteria of the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Issued at the 22nd International Primatological Society Congress in Edinburgh, Scotland, the report by the world’s foremost primate authorities presented a chilling indictment on the state of primates everywhere. In Asia, more than 70 percent of primates are classified on the IUCN Red List as Vulnerable, Endangered or Critically Endangered – meaning they could disappear forever in the near future.

The main threats are habitat destruction, particularly from the burning and clearing of tropical forests that also emits at least 20 percent of the global greenhouse gases causing climate change, and the hunting of primates for food and an illegal wildlife trade.

“We’ve raised concerns for years about primates being in peril, but now we have solid data to show the situation is far more severe than we imagined,” said Russell A. Mittermeier, president of Conservation International (CI) and the longtime chairman of the IUCN Species Survival Commission’s Primate Specialist Group. “Tropical forest destruction has always been the main cause, but now it appears that hunting is just as serious a threat in some areas, even where the habitat is still quite intact. In many places, primates are quite literally being eaten to extinction.”

The review funded by CI, the Margot Marsh Biodiversity Foundation, Disney’s Animal Kingdom and the IUCN is part of an unprecedented examination of the state of the world’s mammals to be released at the 4th IUCN World Conservation Congress in Barcelona in October.

With the input of hundreds of experts worldwide, the primate review provides scientific data to show the severe threats facing animals that share virtually all DNA with humans. In both Vietnam and Cambodia, approximately 90 percent of primate species are considered at risk of extinction. Populations of gibbons, leaf monkeys, langurs and other species have dwindled due to rampant habitat loss exacerbated by hunting for food and to supply the wildlife trade in traditional Chinese medicine and pets.

“What is happening in Southeast Asia is terrifying,” said Jean-Christophe Vié, Deputy Head of the IUCN Species Program. “To have a group of animals under such a high level of threat is, quite frankly, unlike anything we have recorded among any other group of species to date.” Read the rest of Extinction threat growing for mankind’s closest relatives »

Group-based diet and exercise lifestyle interventions over six years can prevent or delay diabetes for up to 14 years after the intervention period. But whether lifestyle interventions also lead to reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality remains unclear. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article in this week’s Diabetes Special Issue of The Lancet.

While several major clinical trials around the world have shown the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions to reduce diabetes incidence in people with impaired glucose tolerance*, questions remain over how long post-intervention these strategies remain effective. Professor Guangwei Li, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China, and Dr Ping Zhang, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and colleagues did the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcome Study (CDQDPOS), which followed-up patients 20 years after enrolment.

In 1986, 577 adults with impaired glucose tolerance from 33 clinics in China were randomly assigned to the control group or one of three lifestyle intervention groups (diet, exercise, or diet plus exercise). Active intervention took place over six years until 1992, and in 2006 study participants were followed-up to assess the long-term effect of the interventions. Primary outcomes were diabetes incidence, CVD incidence and mortality, and all-cause mortality.

The researchers found that compared with control participants, the combined lifestyle interventions reduced the incidence of diabetes by about a half (51%) during the active intervention period, and by 43% over the whole 20-year period. The average annual incidence of newly diagnosed diabetes was 7% for intervention participants and 11% in control participants. At the end of the 20 years, 80% of the intervention group had diabetes, compared with 93% of the control group. Those in the intervention group spent an average of 3.6 fewer years with diabetes than those in the control group. While there was no significant difference between intervention and control groups in the rate of first CVD events, CVD mortality and all-cause mortality, the study had limited statistical power to detect differences for these outcomes.

The authors conclude: “This study has shown that, in Chinese people with impaired glucose tolerance, group-based interventions targeting lifestyle changes such as diet and exercise produce a durable and long-lasting reduction in incidence of type 2 diabetes…Since around 3 million excess deaths a year are attributable to diabetes worldwide, lifestyle interventions seem to be a justifiable public-health action both in developed and developing nations.”

In an accompanying Comment, Dr Jaana Lindström, National Public Health Institute, Helsinki and University of Helsinki, Finland, and Professor Matti Uusitupa, University of Kuopio, Finland, say: “We propose that lifestyle intervention should start much earlier, when people are normoglycaemic, to achieve true primary prevention of type 2 diabetes and its main consequence, cardiovascular disease. In this regard, both population-based strategies and those targeted at high-risk groups should be applied.”

Source : Lancet

Refference : Weightloss Guide

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In this day and age, with the advent of the Internet, it is no longer a valid excuse. There are many schools online where you can get your education in the comfort of your own computer. There are many advantages to online education. You can spend countless hours with your kids, and get your studies while relaxing after putting them to bed. You can still work a full-time job and then spend a few hours a week learning for the future. I could go on the list of benefits for pages and pages, but then I would slow you down, potentially taking the first step and continue your education online.

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Here you are, The following spelling games can be used by parents to reinforce spelling in children…

SPELLING GAME 1: USE BOARD GAMES, SUCH AS MONOPOLY

Play any game that is normally played with dice with the child — Monopoly, for example. The parent can continue to move her token forward in the normal way by throwing the dice, but the child must orally spell a word to move forward.

To select words that can be used, the parent can use words from the child’s schoolwork that he often misspells. She must make word cards of these words. It is best to use not fewer than 20 words and not more than 30. When playing a board game, the same 20-30 words can be used, or if the child already knows how to spell them, other words can be selected. The parent must thoroughly shuffle the word cards, and then put them in a pile upside down on the table between the two (or more) players.

When it is the child’s turn to play, the parent must take a word from the top of the pile and then say the word aloud. The child must spell the word. If the child spells the word correctly, he may move his token the same number of spaces as there are letters in the word. For example, for a word of seven letters he may move his token forward seven spaces. The word card is then put aside. If, however, he misspells the word, the parent must show the word to the child, and the child must spell the word aloud three times while looking at the word, and then three times without looking at it. Then the word is put at the bottom of the pile, so that it will come up again later. If the child misspells a word, he may also not move his token for that turn. Read the rest of Spelling Games »

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