Iron Can Be Detrimental to Your Health, Ironing Can Save You

It's no secret that women tend to live longer than men. On average, women live to be 85 and men live to be 82. It's just been a fact of life. But maybe now we have some answers as to why women kick the bucket later. Part of the reason is women tend to have cardiovascular health issues later than men: women in their 70s and 80s tend to have more heart issues, and men start having them in their 50s and 60s. Part of this is apparently due to iron deficiencies in women. Scientists have been saying for a long time that we need a lot of iron. Iron helps produce hemoglobin and myoglobin in our blood streams. And women store less iron than men; mostly due to loss of iron during menstruation, so doctors have recommended taking daily supplements to produce enough iron. But this new study shows that iron can be bad for you. Red meat is the largest source of iron; and those who are vegetarians or just don't consume very much red meat are healthier and prone to living longer than those who consume red meat. Now is this all due to iron? Probably not. I scoured the internet for information on iron and how much we need. I'm probably missing something because all I found was articles saying how important large levels of iron are. That makes me wonder; is red meat bad for you because of the iron or because of other issues? Meat can be tainted (remember the issues earlier this year with the tainted beef?) with hormones injected into cows, saturated fats naturally found in red meat, not to mention the fact that red meat has been linked to cancers and the glue that holds this all together cardiovascular issues. Maybe women live longer than men because we eat less red meat. Let's think about this. On dates, women tend to get salads and men eat normally (does this mean hamburgers, steak?). I haven't done a formal study but I'd be willing to bet its all about our intakes of heart-unhealthy foods, iron levels in them. But the question still remains: is iron good for you or bad for you? And the only answer I can give is: I'll get back to you when I have my medical degree.

Don't Put These In Your Mouth

Apparently a herpes virus has spread to 8 billion French oysters in the past few weeks. Wow, those oysters really should've been using some protection. Researchers are warning that the Great Oyster Shortage of 2008 will put many shellfish sellers into financial ruin. How did these oysters catch the virus? Apparently global warming has heated up the French waters that these young oysters were cultivated in. The warm waters caused plankton to grow in abundance which the oysters gorged themselves on. Once full they decided to quench another appetite: their sexual organs. That left the rest of their organs vulnerable to the herpes virus Oyster Herpes Virus type 1. Evidently oysters can only utilize one set of organs at a time. Since their sexual organs were busy, their defense organs were not, inviting in the virus, thus killing around 8 billion young oysters in the past month. And according to scientists, we have more viruses affecting our seafood to look forward to. As waters continually stay warm, more viruses will attack and kill our food. At least the kosher rabbis will be happy.