Often we don't think of how our individual health impacts the environment, but a recent investigation found alarmingly high rates of not just pesticides, but pharmaceuticals in a river in which people swim and from which people fish. From high levels of caffeine to high levels of acetaminophen, and even high levels of the anti-convulsive carbamazepine were found in the water. Emerging contaminants not only effect the environment and wildlife, but also your food sources...and there are few standards to protect us.

A Rising Tide of Contaminants

By Deborah Blum

September 25, 2014 2:13 pmSeptember 25, 2014 2:13 pm

 

Scientists are concerned by the increasing variety of contaminants in the environment. Traces of pesticides and caffeine were found in the Zumbro River, above, in Minnesota.Credit Brent Frazee/Kansas City Star, via MCT, via 

Deborah Swackhamer, a professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Minnesota, decided last year to investigate the chemistry of the nearby Zumbro River. She and her colleagues were not surprised to find traces of pesticides in the water. 

Neither were they shocked to find prescription drugs ranging from antibiotics to the anti–convulsive carbamazepine. Researchers realized more than 15 years ago that pharmaceuticals – excreted by users, dumped down drains – were slipping through wastewater treatment systems. 

But though she is a leading expert in so-called emerging contaminants, Dr. Swackhamer was both surprised and dismayed by the sheer range and variety of what she found. Caffeine drifted through the river water, testament to local consumption of everything from coffee to energy drinks. There were relatively high levels of acetaminophen, the over-the-counter painkiller. Acetaminophen causes liver damage in humans at high doses; no one knows what it does to fish.

“We don’t know what these background levels mean in terms of environmental or public health,” she said. “It’s definitely another thing that we’re going to be looking at.” 

Or, she might have said, one of many, many other things.

The number of chemicals contaminating our environment is growing at exponential rate, scientists say. A team of researchers at the U.S. Geological Survey tracks them in American waterways, sediments, landfills and municipal sewage sludge, which is often converted into agricultural fertilizer. They’ve found steroid hormones and the antibacterial agent triclosan in sewage; the antidepressant fluoxetine (Prozac) in fish; and compounds from both birth control pills and detergents in the thin, slimy layer that forms over stones in streams. 

“We’re looking at an increasingly diverse array of organic and inorganic chemicals that may have ecosystem health effects,” said Edward Furlong, a research chemist with the U.S.G.S. office in Denver and one of the first scientists to track the spread of pharmaceutical compounds in the nation’s waterways. “Many of them are understudied and unrecognized.” 

In an essay last week in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, titled “Re-Emergence of Emerging Contaminants,” editor-in-chief Jerald L. Schnoor called attention to both the startling growth of newly registered chemical compounds and our inadequate understanding of older ones. 

The American Chemical Society, the publisher of the journal, maintains the most comprehensive national database of commercially registered chemical compounds in the country. “The growth of the list is eye-popping, with approximately 15,000 new chemicals and biological sequences registered every day,” Dr. Schnoor wrote. 

Not all of those are currently in use, he emphasized, and the majority are unlikely to be dangerous. “But, for better or worse, our commerce is producing innovative, challenging new compounds,” he wrote.

Dr. Schnoor, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Iowa, also noted rising concern among researchers about the way older compounds are altered in the environment, sometimes taking new and more dangerous forms. 

Some research suggests that polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are broken down by plants into even more toxic metabolites. Equally troubling, scientists are finding that while PCBs are banned, they continue to seep into the environment in unexpected ways, such as from impurities in the caulk of old school buildings. 

PCBs have long been identified as hazardous, but not every contaminant is so risky, Dr. Schnoor emphasized.

“Out of the millions of chemical compounds that we know about, thousands have been tested and there are very few that show important health effects,” he said in an interview. 

But, he added, the development of new compounds and the increasing discovery of unexpected contaminants in the environment means that the nation desperately needs a better system for assessing and prioritizing chemical exposures. 

That includes revisiting the country’s antiquated chemical regulation and assessment regulations. The Toxic Substances Control Act went into effect in 1976, almost 40 years ago, and has not been updated since. 

The law does require the Environmental Protection Agency to maintain an inventory of registered industrial compounds that may be toxic, but it does not require advance safety testing of those materials. Of the some 84,000 compounds registered, only a fraction have ever been fully tested for health effects on humans. The data gap includes some materials, like creosote and coal tar derivatives, which are currently manufactured at rates topping a million pounds a year. 

Not surprisingly, Dr. Schnoor and other scientists want to see the act updated and transformed into a mechanism for science-based risk assessment of suspect compounds. Indeed, everyone from researchers to environmental groups to the American chemical industry agree that the law is frustratingly inadequate. 

“Our chemical safety net is more hole than net,” said Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, an advocacy group. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, doesn’t regulate the environmental spread of pharmaceuticals. And the toxic substances law ignores their presence in waterways. 

“Where does that leave us in terms of scientific understanding of what drugs to regulate?” Mr. Cook said.

Anne Womack Kolton, vice president for communications at the American Chemistry Council, an organization representing chemical manufacturers, agreed. “Think about the world 40 years ago,” she said. “It was a vastly different place. It’s common sense to revise the law and make it consistent with what we know about chemicals today.”

The two sides don’t agree on what standards for chemical testing are needed or what kind of protective restrictions should be put in place for chemicals deemed hazardous. And they are in deep disagreement about whether a revised federal law should preempt actions taken by tough-minded states like California. 

The council argues for federal standardization as the most efficient route; environmental groups believe that such an action would weaken public protection. Legislators have so far not been able to resolve those differences. This month yet another proposed update to the act stalled in a Senate committee. 

“Congress has not sent an environmental law to the president’s desk in 18 years,” Mr. Cook said. “And in the current environment, it’s very difficult to get something through.”

Still, Dr. Swackhamer, who recently stepped down as chair of the E.P.A.’s science advisory board, notes that despite the lack of legislation, scientists have been working toward better ways to assess the risks posed by the increasing numbers of chemicals in our lives. Some may help whittle the inventory of T.S.C.A. compounds down to a priority list that focuses on less than a thousand products. 

That’s still a daunting number of chemical unknowns. But given the tens of thousands of materials in the inventory, it’s a start.

As in the classic case of the chicken and the egg, a new study demonstrates a correlation between drinking and exercise. So did those extra beers lead to more exercise, or did the exercise provide the excuse to knock down a few more pints?

To Your Health

Working out? Drink! Your gym days are also your booze days, study shows

By Elahe Izadi September 23 at 4:08 PM

 

 

For all you do, this run's for you. (Bigstock)

 

 

Do you work out hard and then party hard as well? Join the club.

People tend to exercise more than usual on the same days they drink more alcohol than usual, according to a new study published this month in Health Psychology and funded by the National Institute on Aging.

Researchers had 150 participants between 18 to 89 log their daily physical activity and alcohol consumption over a span of 21 days. The group did this at three different periods during the year.
Whereas previous studies had participants try to think back on their habits over a 30-day time span, or concluded that people who exercise more also drink more, this study zeroed in on individual, day-to-day behaviors. Participants were considered "low-risk" folks, who typically had a couple of drinks every few days.

"Something is happening on those days that's leading people to drink more," said David Conroy, the study's lead author and a professor at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine.

So what gives? Conroy said a number things could be at play. Perhaps people who like to work out also like to drink with the same people with whom they've exercised. Or maybe people are rewarding themselves for hitting the gym. Or maybe they've used up all the willpower they can muster to just get themselves to the gym, and they've got none left to refuse a drink later in the day.

Most of the alcohol consumption recorded by the study's participants came in the form of beer.
The "why" behind this exercise-drinking link will be the subject of future research, which could have an impact on how we go about encouraging exercise, Conroy said. "If we're going to promote physical activity,. . . we would be wise to think about whether there are any unintended consequences that could occur," he said.

The finding is unusual because healthy behaviors tend to cluster, and this is one of the few instances in which diametrically opposed behaviors (working out and drinking) are linked, Conroy said. For example, people who tend to exercise also tend to eat well and not smoke.

The link held for people whether they were younger or older adults. Researchers also attempted to adjust for the day of the week and the well-known "social weekend" effect which results in people drinking more Thursday through Sunday because their calendars allow for it. "It's not just that both are peaking at the same time," Conroy said -- but rather there is a link between the two behaviors.

Could it be that people are just trying to mitigate the calories they consumed from drinking the night before? Nope. Researchers found the link between exercising and drinking occurred on the same day, which they assume happened in that order. Given the effects of alcohol, "it seems unlikely that people would knock back a six-pack and then hop on a treadmill," Conroy said.

Elahe Izadi is a general assignment national reporter for The Washington Post. She can be reached at elahe.izadi@washpost.com and on Twitter @ElaheIzadi.

So, you think you've been living alone all this time. Got the new condo, decorated it to suit your personal taste, and enjoy the alone time. Well, it turns out you're not living alone. In fact, you're living with five or more viruses everyday.

Medical News Today - 

Healthy humans 'harbor an average of five viruses'

Last updated: Today at 12am PST

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It is well established that our bodies possess gut bacteria that is beneficial for health. Now, researchers from Washington University in St. Louis, MO, have found that our bodies are also home to an average of five viruses responsible for numerous illnesses, although it is unclear whether they have positive or negative implications for health.

Strains of HPV were found in around 75% of participants' skin samples and 50% of nose samples, while new strains of the virus were found in both skin and nose samples.

"Most everyone is familiar with the idea that a normal bacterial flora exists in the body," says study co-author Dr. Gregory Storch, a virologist and chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at the university. "Lots of people have asked whether there is a viral counterpart, and we haven't had a clear answer. But now we know there is a normal viral flora, and it's rich and complex."

The findings, which form a part of the Human Microbiome Project funded by the National Institutes of Health, were recently published in the journal BMC Biology.

The research team, led by Kristine M. Wylie, PhD, an instructor of pediatrics at the university, collected 706 samples of bodily fluids from 102 healthy adults aged 18-40. The samples were taken from participants' nose, skin, mouth, vagina and stools.

All participants were closely screened to ensure they had no viral infections, and they were eliminated from the study if they had had been diagnosed with human papillomavirus (HPV) in the past 2 years, or had a form of active genital herpes in the last 2 months.

For each sample, the researchers used high-throughput DNA sequencing that enabled them to detect a wide range of viruses.

Seven families of viruses identified, including HPV and herpesvirus

Among 92% of participants, at least one virus was detected, with some participants harboring around 10-15 viruses. On average, each participant harbored five viruses. The researchers say they were surprised to find so many. "We only sampled up to five body sites in each person and would expect to see many more viruses if we had sampled the entire body," says Wylie.

From the samples, the team detected seven families of viruses. These included viruses responsible for non-sexually transmitted herpes - herpesvirus 6 and 7. These viruses were detected among 98% of participants who were sampled from the mouth.

Strains of HPV were found in around 75% of skin samples and 50% of nose samples, while new strains of the virus were found in both skin and nose samples. Around 38% of female participants had HPV strains in vagina samples, with many of these harboring strains associated with increased risk of cervical cancer, such as HPV 16 and HPV 18.

The researchers also identified adenoviruses - responsible for pneumonia and the common cold - in the majority of samples.

It is possible, the researchers note, that the viruses identified were lurking infections from years before. But Wylie says that dormant viruses usually reside in cells rather than bodily fluids, which is where the viruses were found in this study.

Commenting on their findings, the team says:

"This study is the first to use high-throughput DNA sequencing to describe the diversity of eukaryotic DNA viruses in a large cohort of individuals who were sampled at multiple body sites. This analysis demonstrates that there is a 'normal viral flora' in generally healthy, asymptomatic individuals."

They admit that it is unclear as to whether the viruses are beneficial or detrimental to health, but they hypothesize that the viruses may boost the immune system's response to harmful pathogens in some cases, while increasing the risk of infection in others.

"It's very important to know what viruses are present in a person without causing a problem and what viruses could be responsible for serious illnesses that need medical attention," says Dr. Storch. "While more research remains, we now have a much clearer picture of the communities of viruses that naturally exist in healthy people."

Medical News Today recently reported on a study claiming viruses can spread to 40-60% of a building and its occupants within 2-4 hours.

Why would we allow a class of corporations to slowly poison us leading to our ultimate health demise? Let's face it, most of us grew up drinking soda. We just didn't realize that the fructose corn syrup ingredient would be the thing that causes fatty liver. Not to mention that the left-over fatty-acids from the fructose breakdown enter the bloodstream to cause metabolic syndrome (increased girth, blood sugar, insulin resistance and diabetes). Perhaps its time the public start looking at these food additives the same way they look at tobacco and the health issues it causes.

Phys Ed

Drink Soda? Take 12,000 Steps

By Gretchen Reynolds

September 10, 2014 12:01 amSeptember 10, 2014 3:04 pm

 

Credit Getty Images

 

People who consume the sweetener fructose — which is most people nowadays — risk developing a variety of health problems. But the risk drops substantially if those people get up and move around, even if they don’t formally exercise, two new studies found. 

Most of us have heard that ingesting fructose, usually in the form of high-fructose corn syrup, is unhealthy, which few experts would dispute. High-fructose corn syrup is used to sweeten many processed foods and nearly all soft drinks.

The problem with the sweetener is that, unlike sucrose, the formal name for common table sugar, fructose is metabolized primarily in the liver. There, much of the fructose is transformed into fatty acids, some of which remain in the liver, marbling that organ and contributing to nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. 

The rest of the fatty acids migrate into the bloodstream, causing metabolic havoc. Past animal and human studies have linked the intake of even moderate amounts of fructose with dangerous gyrations in blood sugar levels, escalating insulin resistance, Type 2 diabetes, added fat around the middle, obesity, poor cholesterol profiles and other metabolic disruptions.

But Amy Bidwell, then a researcher at Syracuse University, noticed that few of these studies had examined interactions between physical activity and fructose. That was a critical omission, she thought, because movement and exercise change how the body utilizes fuels, including fructose. 

Dr. Bidwell sought out healthy, college-aged men and women who would agree to drink soda in the pursuit of science. They were easy to find. She gathered 22.

The volunteers showed up at the university’s physiology lab for a series of baseline tests. The researchers assessed how their bodies responded to a fructose-rich meal, recording their blood sugar and insulin levels, and other measures of general and metabolic health, including cholesterol profiles and blood markers of bodily inflammation. The students also completed questionnaires about their normal diets and activity levels and subsequently wore an activity monitor for a week to gauge how much they generally moved. 

Then half of the volunteers spent two weeks moving about half as much as they had before. The other 11 volunteers began moving around about twice as much as before, for a daily total of at least 12,000 steps a day, or about six miles. 

After a rest period of a week, the groups switched, so that every volunteer had moved a lot and a little. 

Throughout, they also consumed two fructose-rich servings of a lemon-lime soda, designed to provide 75 grams of fructose a day, which is about what an average American typically consumes. The sodas contained about 250 calories each, and the volunteers were asked to reduce their nonfructose calories by the same amount, to avoid weight gain. 

After each two-week session, the volunteers returned to the lab for a repeat of the metabolic and health tests. 

Their results diverged widely, depending on how much they’d moved. As one of two new studies based on the research, published in May in Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, reports, after two weeks of fructose loading and relative inactivity, these young, healthy volunteers displayed a notable shift in their cholesterol and health profiles. There was a significant increase in their blood concentrations of dangerous very-low-density lipoproteins, and a soaring 116-percent increase in markers of bodily inflammation. 

The second study, published this month in The European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, focused on blood-sugar responses to fructose and activity, and found equally striking changes among the young people when they didn’t move much. Two weeks of extra fructose left them with clear signs of incipient insulin resistance, which is typically the first step toward Type 2 diabetes. 

But in both studies, walking at least 12,000 steps a day effectively wiped out all of the disagreeable changes wrought by the extra fructose. When the young people moved more, their cholesterol and blood sugar levels remained normal, even though they were consuming plenty of fructose every day.

The lesson from these studies is not that we should blithely down huge amounts of fructose and assume that a long walk will undo all harmful effects, said Dr. Bidwell, who is now an assistant professor of exercise science at the State University of New York in Oswego. “I don’t want people to consider these results as a license to eat badly,” she added.

But the data suggests that “if you are going to regularly consume fructose,” she said, “be sure to get up and move around.” 

The study did not examine how activity ameliorates some of the worst impacts of fructose, but it’s likely, Dr. Bidwell said, that the “additional muscular contractions” involved in standing and taking 12,000 steps a day produce a cascade of physiological effects that alter how the body uses fructose. 

Interestingly, the young people in the study did not increase the lengths of their normal workouts to achieve the requisite step totals, and most did not formally exercise at all, Dr. Bidwell said. They parked their cars further away from stores; took stairs instead of elevators; strolled the campus; and generally “sat less, moved more,” she said. “That’s a formula for good health, in any case,” she added, “but it appears to be key,” if you’re determined to have that soda.

Two primary causes of diabetes - obesity and inactivity. Sadly, many people are clueless that they are a diabetic, or are what is considered prediabetic. Can you stop being prediabetic? Sure can. Can you reverse being a diabetic? Possibly, and at least you can bring your lab levels to the normal range and do so without drugs. Can you die from complications of diabetes? Sure can...particularly if you do nothing but sit around and gain weight without a clue as to whether or not you're a diabetic.

Personal Health

Averting Diabetes Before It Takes Hold

By JANE E. BRODY

September 8, 2014 1:06 amSeptember 9, 2014 1:21 pm

Credit Scott Bakal

After a routine test of her blood sugar eight years ago, Randi Sue Baker, a seriously overweight 64-year-old, learned that Type 2 diabetes was bearing down.

With that test result, she joined the 79 million Americans over the age of 20 who have prediabetes. Up to 70 percent of them will go on to develop diabetes, but 90 percent don’t even know they are at risk. In fact, as many as 28 percent of adults with full-blown diabetes don’t know they have it, according to Edward W. Gregg, a senior epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Ms. Baker, who lives in Brooklyn, considers herself lucky to have been forewarned. She realized that while she was still relatively healthy, she could make a concerted effort to stay that way.

For the last several years she has kept track of her caloric intake, the kinds and amounts of the carbohydrates she eats, and the overall healthfulness of her diet. She exercises five days a week, walking for 30 minutes and then swimming for an hour at the local Y. She is down 50 pounds from her top weight.

Ms. Baker also daily monitors her blood sugar, or glucose, level and takes a drug called metformin to help keep it within a normal range. Periodically, her doctor checks her blood level of hemoglobin A1C, another indicator of diabetes, to be sure it hasn’t risen.

Could Ms. Baker do more? If she were willing to undergo bariatric surgery, perhaps. The operation has risks but has been shown to “cure” diabetes in about a third of patients.

But what Ms. Baker already is doing to keep diabetes at bay is far more than most people who are likely to develop it do.

Diabetes is now an out-of-control epidemic responsible for a devastating toll in health, lives and medical care costs. In 2012 the condition accounted for $245 billion in health care expenses, about one in five health care dollars.

Among its serious complications are heart disease, stroke, kidney damage, nerve damage, eye disease (which can lead to blindness), foot damage (which can lead to amputations) and hearing loss.

Diabetes is the No. 1 cause of blindness, kidney failure and amputations, Dr. Elizabeth Seaquist, an endocrinologist and diabetes expert at the University of Minnesota, said in an interview. The condition even has been linked to dementia, including Alzheimer’s disease.

The two primary causes of Type 2 diabetes — obesity and inactivity — have thus far resisted countless efforts to reverse or prevent them. National data from 2000 to 2011 show that about 40 percent of adults face a lifetime risk of developing diabetes, an increase of up to 20 percent since the late 1980s, Dr. Gregg and his colleagues recently reported.

If this tsunami continues to roll forward, experts predict that by 2050 the number of adults with diabetes will reach one in three.

The risk of developing diabetes rises with age. Currently about one in four Americans ages 65 and older has diabetes, and the number will grow as the population ages.

In theory, it is possible to avert the impending health crisis. Because complications typically take 20 years to become apparent, identifying people at risk of diabetes early and taking corrective action could delay onset of the disease and its devastating consequences, perhaps for the rest of their lives.

The American Diabetes Association has created a simple seven-question test to help people assess their risk; a paper copy can be found at www.diabetes.org. Important factors include a family history of the disease, prior gestational diabetes, being overweight or obese, physical inactivity and older age.

A dozen years ago in its journal, Diabetes Care, the association noted “growing evidence that at glucose levels above normal but below the threshold diagnostic for diabetes, there is a substantially increased risk of cardiovascular disease and death.”

A person with prediabetes has a blood glucose level higher than normal but not yet in the range of diabetes. While not everyone with the condition will progress to full-blown diabetes, over time, prediabetes can cause much the same underlying damage to body tissues and organs.

The trouble starts even before glucose levels begin rising, when the body becomes resistant to the effects of insulin, the pancreatic hormone that regulates how much glucose circulates freely in blood.

Insulin’s main job is to move glucose from the blood into cells to be used for energy or stored for future needs. Insulin resistance, the portend of prediabetes, prompts the beta cells of the pancreas to produce more and more of this hormone to keep blood glucose levels normal.

Gradually, pancreatic cells wear out, setting the stage for rising blood glucose, prediabetes and diabetes.

The risk of developing diabetes is highest among African-Americans, Hispanics and Native Americans, but no ethnic or racial group is spared.

While excess weight is the leading risk factor, even people of normal weight can develop the disease if they carry too much fat in their abdomen. So-called central obesity may explain why the Japanese and others of Asian descent often develop diabetes at weights well below the range of obesity, Dr. Seaquist said.

She called prediabetes “a wake-up call” and emphasized that “modest weight loss can help. You don’t have to lose 100 pounds to prevent diabetes.” A loss of 7 percent to 10 percent of body weight can be effective.

Nor do you have to become an exercise fanatic. “Moderate activity, 30 minutes a day five or more days a week, is helpful and can even be broken up into 10-minute segments,” Dr. Seaquist said. “More is better, but it’s a place to start.”

She also offered advice for Americans in general: “Probably we all should consider ourselves at risk. We eat too much, more than we need, and that’s not healthy even if we don’t get diabetes.”

“We should be avoiding drinks that are high in calories,” she added. “They make it too hard to regulate food intake. Drinking water is safest all around — it’s natural and organic.”

For those of us involved in our communities, creating neighborhood spaces and cultural livability are keys to revitalization. Yes, we can improve our health by improving the quality of the neighborhoods we live in and yes, we can follow a shared vision toward this accomplishment. From the Project for Public Spaces, here are 11 principles for creating great community places.

From the Project for Public Places -

 

Eleven Principles for Creating Great Community Places

Effective public spaces are extremely difficult to accomplish, because their complexity is rarely understood. As William (Holly) Whyte said, “It’s hard to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.”

PPS has identified 11 key elements in transforming public spaces into vibrant community places, whether they’re parks, plazas, public squares, streets, sidewalks or the myriad other outdoor and indoor spaces that have public uses in common. These elements are:

1.  The Community Is The Expert

   The important starting point in developing a concept for any public space is to identify the talents and assets within the community. In any community there are people who can provide an historical perspective, valuable insights into how the area functions, and an understanding of the critical issues and what is meaningful to people. Tapping this information at the beginning of the process will help to create a sense of community ownership in the project that can be of great benefit to both the project sponsor and the community.
   

2. Create a Place, Not a Design

   If your goal is to create a place (which we think it should be), a design will not be enough. To make an under-performing space into a vital “place,” physical elements must be introduced that would make people welcome and comfortable, such as seating and new landscaping, and also through “management” changes in the pedestrian circulation pattern and by developing more effective relationships between the surrounding retail and the activities going on in the public spaces. The goal is to create a place that has both a strong sense of community and a comfortable image, as well as a setting and activities and uses that collectively add up to something more than the sum of its often simple parts. This is easy to say, but difficult to accomplish.
   

3. Look for Partners

   Partners are critical to the future success and image of a public space improvement project. Whether you want partners at the beginning to plan for the project or you want to brainstorm and develop scenarios with a dozen partners who might participate in the future, they are invaluable in providing support and getting a project off the ground. They can be local institutions, museums, schools and others.
   

4. You Can See a Lot Just By Observing

   We can all learn a great deal from others’ successes and failures. By looking at how people are using (or not using) public spaces and finding out what they like and don’t like about them, it is possible to assess what makes them work or not work. Through these observations, it will be clear what kinds of activities are missing and what might be incorporated. And when the spaces are built, continuing to observe them will teach even more about how to evolve and manage them over time.
   

5. Have a Vision

   
   The vision needs to come out of each individual community. However, essential to a vision for any public space is an idea of what kinds of activities might be happening in the space, a view that the space should be comfortable and have a good image, and that it should be an important place where people want to be. It should instill a sense of pride in the people who live and work in the surrounding area.
   

6. Start with the Petunias: Lighter, Quicker, Cheaper

   The complexity of public spaces is such that you cannot expect to do everything right initially. The best spaces experiment with short term improvements that can be tested and refined over many years! Elements such as seating, outdoor cafes, public art, striping of crosswalks and pedestrian havens, community gardens and murals are examples of improvements that can be accomplished in a short time.
   

7. Triangulate

   “Triangulation is the process by which some external stimulus provides a linkage between people and prompts strangers to talk to other strangers as if they knew each other” (Holly Whyte). In a public space, the choice and arrangement of different elements in relation to each other can put the triangulation process in motion (or not). For example, if a bench, a wastebasket and a telephone are placed with no connection to each other, each may receive a very limited use, but when they are arranged together along with other amenities such as a coffee cart, they will naturally bring people together (or triangulate!). On a broader level, if a children’s reading room in a new library is located so that it is next to a children’s playground in a park and a food kiosk is added, more activity will occur than if these facilities were located separately.
   

8. They Always Say “It Can’t Be Done”

   One of Yogi Berra’s great sayings is “If they say it can’t be done, it doesn’t always work out that way,” and we have found it to be appropriate for our work as well. Creating good public spaces is inevitably about encountering obstacles, because no one in either the public or private sectors has the job or responsibility to “create places.” For example, professionals such as traffic engineers, transit operators, urban planners and architects all have narrow definitions of their job – facilitating traffic or making trains run on time or creating long term schemes for building cities or designing buildings. Their job, evident in most cities, is not to create “places.” Starting with small scale community-nurturing improvements can demonstrate the importance of “places” and help to overcome obstacles.
   

9. Form Supports Function

   The input from the community and potential partners, the understanding of how other spaces function, the experimentation, and overcoming the obstacles and naysayers provides the concept for the space. Although design is important, these other elements tell you what “form” you need to accomplish the future vision for the space.
   

10. Money Is Not the Issue

    This statement can apply in a number of ways. For example, once you’ve put in the basic infrastructure of the public spaces, the elements that are added that will make it work (e.g., vendors, cafes, flowers and seating) will not be expensive. In addition, if the community and other partners are involved in programming and other activities, this can also reduce costs. More important is that by following these steps, people will have so much enthusiasm for the project that the cost is viewed much more broadly and consequently as not significant when compared with the benefits.
    

11. You Are Never Finished

    By nature good public spaces that respond to the needs, the opinions and the ongoing changes of the community require attention. Amenities wear out, needs change and other things happen in an urban environment. Being open to the need for change and having the management flexibility to enact that change is what builds great public spaces and great cities and towns.

With autumn coming soon, your thoughts might turn to Thanksgiving and sweet potatoes. Well, mine do. The thing is, sweet potatoes should be considered year round. Good in lowering diabetes episodes of insulin resistance, helpful in lowering blood pressure and decreasing the risk of colon cancer, and gosh darn they taste good too. The following article from Medical News Today explains why they should be eaten often.

What are the health benefits of sweet potatoes?

Monday 25 August 2014 - 12am PST

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Sweet potatoes pack a powerful nutritional punch. They have got over 400% of your daily needs for vitamin A in one medium spud, as well as loads of fiber and potassium. They have got more grams of natural sugars than regular potato but more overall nutrients with fewer calories.
 
Despite the terms sweet potato and yam often being used interchangeably, they are actually not even botanically related. Yams are almost exclusively grown in Africa and are more dry and starchy compared to a sweet potato. So how did these two vegetables become so intertwined?

There are two different varieties of sweet potatoes, firm and soft. When soft sweet potatoes were being cultivated in the Americas, African slaves began calling them yams because of their resemblance to their familiar native vegetable. The name caught on as a way to distinguish between the two types of sweet potatoes. Today, you are unlikely to find a true yam in the grocery store unless you are shopping in an international market.

This MNT Knowledge Center feature is part of a collection of articles on the health benefits of popular foods. It provides a nutritional breakdown of the sweet potatoes and an in-depth look at its possible health benefits, how to incorporate more sweet potatoes into your diet and any potential health risks of consuming sweet potatoes.

Nutritional breakdown of sweet potatoes

One medium sweet potato (2" diameter, 5" long, approximately 114 grams) provides 162 calories, 0 grams of fat, 37 grams of carbohydrate (including 6 grams of fiber and 12 grams of sugar), and 3.6 grams of protein according to the USDA's national nutrient database.

Sweet potatoes pack a powerful nutritional punch. They have got over 400% of your daily needs for vitamin A in one medium spud, as well as loads of fiber and potassium. 

One medium sweet potato will provide well over 100% of your daily needs for vitamin A, as well as 37% of vitamin C, 16% of vitamin B-6, 10% of pantothenic acid, 15% of potassium and 28% of manganese. You'll also find small amounts of calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, vitamin E, thiamin, riboflavin and folate.

Sweet potatoes are a great source of beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant known to give orange vegetables and fruits their vibrant color, which is converted to vitamin A in the body. Consuming foods rich in beta-carotene may reduce the risk of developing certain types of cancer, offer protection against asthma and heart disease and delay aging and body degeneration.

Keep the skin on! The color of sweet potato skin can vary from white to yellow, purple or brown but no matter what color it is, make sure you do not peel it off. A sweet potatoes skin contributes significant amounts of fiber, potassium and quercetin.

Possible health benefits of consuming sweet potatoes

Consuming fruits and vegetables of all kinds has long been associated with a reduced risk of many adverse health conditions. Many studies have suggested that increasing consumption of plant foods like sweet potatoes decreases the risk of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and overall mortality while promoting a healthy complexion, increased energy, and overall lower weight.

 

Diabetes

Sweet potatoes are considered low on the glycemic index scale, and recent research suggests they may reduce episodes of low blood sugar and insulin resistance in people with diabetes. The fiber in sweet potatoes makes a big difference too. Studies have shown that type 1 diabetics who consume high-fiber diets have lower blood glucose levels and type 2 diabetics may have improved blood sugar, lipids and insulin levels. One medium sweet potato provides about 6 grams of fiber (skin on).

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends 21-25 grams of fiber per day for women and 30-38 grams per day for men, which most people do not reach.

 

Blood pressure

Maintaining a low sodium intake is essential to lowering blood pressure, however increasing potassium intake may be just as important. According to the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, fewer than 2% of US adults are meeting the daily 4,700 mg recommendation for potassium.³ One medium sweet potato provides about 542 milligrams.

Also of note, high potassium intake is associated with a 20% decreased risk of dying from all causes.⁷

 

Cancer

Among younger men, diets rich in beta-carotene may play a protective role against prostate cancer, according to a study conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health's Department of Nutrition.⁴ Beta-carotene has also been shown to have an inverse association with the development of colon cancer in the Japanese population.³

 

Digestion and regularity

Because of its high fiber content, sweet potatoes help to prevent constipation and promote regularity for a healthy digestive tract.

 

Fertility

For women of childbearing age, consuming more iron from plant sources appears to promote fertility, according Harvard Medical School's Harvard Health Publications. The vitamin A in sweet potatoes (consumed as beta-carotene then converted to vitamin A in the body) is also essential during pregnancy and lactation for hormone synthesis.

 

Immunity

Plant foods like sweet potatoes that are high in both vitamin C and beta-carotene offer an immunity boost from their powerful combination of nutrients.

 

Inflammation

Choline is a very important and versatile nutrient in sweet potatoes that helps with sleep, muscle movement, learning and memory. Choline also helps to maintain the structure of cellular membranes, aids in the transmission of nerve impulses, assists in the absorption of fat and reduces chronic inflammation.⁶
In a study published by the Journal of Medicinal Food, purple sweet potato extract was found to have positive anti-inflammatory and antilipogenic effects as well as free radical scavenging and reducing activity.

 

Vision

According to Duke ophthalmologist Jill Koury, MD, vitamin A deficiency causes the outer segments of the eye's photoreceptors to deteriorate, damaging normal vision. Correcting vitamin A deficiencies with foods high in beta-carotene will restore vision.⁵
 
Also of note, the antioxidant vitamins C and E in sweet potatoes have been shown to support eye health and prevent degenerative damage.

A higher intake of all fruits (3 or more servings per day) has also been shown to decrease the risk of and progression of age-related macular degeneration.

How to incorporate more sweet potatoes into your diet

Avoid buying sweet potatoes with soft skin or wrinkles, cracks or soft spots. Store in a cool, dry place for up to 3-5 weeks.

Roast sweet potatoes to bring out their natural flavor. There is no need to add in marshmallow topping or loads of butter, sweet potatoes have a naturally sweet and creamy taste that can be enjoyed all on their own. To add a little spice without extra calories, try sprinkling on cinnamon, cumin or curry powder.

Roast sweet potatoes to bring out their natural flavor. To add a little spice without extra calories, try sprinkling on cinnamon, cumin or curry powder. 

The fastest way to prepare a sweet potato is in the microwave. Prick the potato with a fork and then microwave on high until soft. Make sure to let it cool for several minutes, and then drizzle with olive oil or top with fat-free plain Greek yogurt.

Try adding roasted sweet potatoes and pecans to a salad and top with balsamic vinegar. You also can try adding sweet potato to your favorite pancakes or hash browns.

Try these simple and healthy recipes to incorporate more sweet potatoes into your diet:
Roasted Sweet Potato Fries
Sweet Potato Chips
Heart Healthy Chipotle Chili
Sweet Potato Hummus

Potential health risks of consuming sweet potatoes

Beta-blockers, a type of medication most commonly prescribed for heart disease, can cause potassium levels to increase in the blood. High potassium foods should be consumed in moderation when taking beta-blockers.

Consuming too much potassium can be harmful for those whose kidneys are not fully functional. If your kidneys are unable to remove excess potassium from the blood, it could be fatal.
 
It is the total diet or overall eating pattern that is most important in disease prevention and achieving good health. It is better to eat a diet with variety than to concentrate on individual foods as the key to good health.

Written by Megan Ware, RDN, LD, registered dietitian and nutritionist