Brain Food: Good Fats Better for Memory

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

[ [ [['A picture is worth a thousand words', 5]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/why-facebook-bought-instagram-4-theories-160400376.html’, ‘[Related: Why Facebook bought Instagram: 4 theories]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 9]], ‘http://contributor.yahoo.com/join/yahoonews_virginiabeach’, ‘[Did you witness the jet crash? Share your story with Yahoo! News]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], ‘http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj’, ‘[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['Dick Clark', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dick-clark-dies-at-82-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/c/21/c217c61aa2d5872244c08caa13c16ec5.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘Reuters’, ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/’, ‘ ‘, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg’, ’550′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ] ]

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Next on the agenda: Guns-and-butter diplomacy

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: . Leave a Comment

President Barack Obama on Friday kicks off a frenetic four days of guns-and-butter diplomacy, including a pair of high-stakes international summits focused on reviving the sputtering global economy and winding down the unpopular war in Afghanistan.

Both issues will shape Obama’s legacy ? not to mention his hopes for re-election in November. ?And the back-to-back gatherings of the Group of Eight rich countries at Camp David and the NATO summit in Chicago offer vital opportunities to get the United States and its closest allies in closer harmony.

White House officials have worriedly watched Europe’s debt crisis, concerned that a recession there could infect the already-weak American economy. And the president has made a successful handover of security responsibility from NATO-led forces to their Afghan counterparts by the end of 2014 one of his signature foreign policy goals.

Obama’s diplomatic dash opens Friday with a visit from France’s new president, Fran?ois Hollande, who is the first Socialist to hold the post in 17 years. ?The White House is officially neutral on the specifics of Hollande’s campaign pledge to seek government action to stimulate the economy, a break from predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy’s austerity agenda. But they plainly like the principle.

“The United States has an extraordinarily significant stake in the outcome?of the economic discussions in Europe and the steps that are taken in?Europe,” Tom Donilon, Obama’s national security adviser, told reporters Thursday.

The president favors “a comprehensive approach to manage the crisis and get on a sustainable path towards recovery in Europe,” he added, saying the strategy “has to be to preserve the foundations of the eurozone, to address the current crisis facing Europe, particularly as a result of the political events in Greece.”

But Hollande’s campaign pledge to pull France’s 3,400 combat troops from Afghanistan by year’s end ? an accelerated timetable — poses a headache for the Obama administration.Donilon said the two presidents would “work through” the issue but predicted that “the stances that President Hollande took during the course of his campaign?obviously he intends to keep as president.” But he urged France to do so in keeping with NATO’s plan to give Afghan security forces control of their war-torn country next year before withdrawing the alliance’s combat troops by the end of 2014.

“You can make all kinds of contributions. You can make combat troop contributions. You can make train-and-assist kinds of contributions. You can make other kinds of contributions, right? And we’ll have a discussion with the French about where they want to go on this,” Donilon said.

After his t?te-?-t?te with Hollande ? their first ? Obama will host him and?leaders from Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia at Camp David (aka “Naval Support Facility Thurmont”) for the annual Group of Eight summit of industrialized nations. Newly re-elected Russian President Vladimir Putin opted to skip the gathering, sending Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev instead.

Efforts to force Iran to freeze its nuclear program will be a major topic of discussion, as the leaders discuss the tightening economic sanctions on Tehran, Donilon said.

One key issue before the leaders: With Europe closing in on a July 1 embargo on oil imports from Iran, can other global supply keep up, or will developed nations have to tap strategic reserves?

“We have been engaged in an ongoing way and monitoring the global oil situation, particularly in light of the respective sanctions that we’ve had on Iran and its effect on oil markets.? We’ll continue that monitoring.? I’m sure that the leaders will discuss the range of options that they might have before them,” Donilon said.

“They’ll also be pressing the Iranians to take advantage of the diplomatic efforts?that we’re putting forward,” notably May 23 talks in Baghdad between Iran, on the one hand, and the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany (the so-called “P5+!”) on the other.

The leaders will also discuss North Korea, Myanmar and efforts to end Syria’s bloody crackdown on opposition to President Bashar al-Assad.

On Saturday, the summit shifts to the worrisome state of the global economy, amid tensions in Europe over whether to pursue austerity to bring down soaring national debts or couple it with stimulus efforts to boost job growth, and over how to respond to the crisis in Greece.

The spotlight then turns to Chicago for the NATO summit; there, the focus will chiefly be on Afghanistan, America’s longest war. Obama will meet Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. (Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari is expected to attend the summit, but he will not get a separate sit-down with Obama, Donilon said.)

NATO is expected to agree on a path for taking on a supporting role in the war-torn country next year while handing off the bulk of the fighting to Afghan forces. It is also expected to discuss who will cover the costs of the conflict after 2014, expected to run $4 billion per year, though an actual agreement is not expected until a conference in July in Tokyo. And it is expected to take up what sort of presence the alliance will have in Afghanistan after 2014.

“So Chicago is a critical milestone in the next step towards a responsible ending of this war,” Donilon said.

NATO invited Zardari after Pakistani officials signaled that country was prepared to reopen supply lines to alliance forces in Afghanistan, which were shut down after a NATO air strike into Pakistani territory in November killed 24 Pakistani troops.? Islamabad had said it wanted a formal apology from the United States and pushed for an end to drone strikes on its soil.

“We have made real progress, I think, towards resolving the issue around opening up the ground supply lines,” Donilon said. “Whether that will be?done in the next few days or not, I can’t judge at this point. But there’s been a decision, on both sides, to reach a conclusion of this.”

And Donilon played down the absence of an Obama-Zardari meeting on the schedule. “There are 61 countries going to be present there, and the president is not going to have bilaterals with all them?but he will see him,?obviously.”

More popular Yahoo! News stories:

? Gallup poll: Romney’s ‘favorable’ rating jumps

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? Romney rejects using the Rev. Jeremiah Wright against Obama

Want more of our best political stories? Visit The Ticket or connect with us on Facebook, follow us on Twitter, or add us on Tumblr. Handy with a camera? Join our Election 2012 Flickr group to submit your photos of the campaign in action.

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Tale of the tape: Google versus Facebook

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Leave a Comment

Facebook is the hottest Internet company to hit the stock market since Google went public in 2004. The Silicon Valley companies, located seven miles apart, also happen to be locked in a bitter battle for Web surfers’ allegiance and online advertisers’ money. The duel is likely to intensify now that the IPO has given Facebook Inc.’s social network billions of dollars to battle Google Inc.’s dominant search engine.

Here’s the two rivals stack up, based on the latest available data:

ANNUAL REVENUE: Google, $38 billion; Facebook, $3.7 billion.

ADVERTISING REVENUE: Google, $36.5 billion; Facebook, $3.2 billion.

ANNUAL NET INCOME: Google, $9.7 billion; Facebook, $668 million.

SOCIAL NETWORKING USERS: Facebook, more than 900 million; Google, more than 170 million.

EMPLOYEES (as of March 31): Google, 33,100; Facebook, 3,500.

CEO: Google, co-founder Larry Page; Facebook, co-founder Mark Zuckerberg.

AMOUNT RAISED IN IPO: Google, $1.67 billion; Facebook, $16 billion. Figures include shares sold by early investors and exclude bankers’ option to sell more shares.

IPO STOCK PRICE: Google, $85; Facebook, $38.

MARKET VALUATION AT DEBUT: Google, $24.6 billion; Facebook, $104 billion.

DATE OF STOCK MARKET DEBUT: Google, Aug. 19, 2004; Facebook, May 18, 2012.

CLOSING PRICE OF STOCK ON FIRST DAY OF TRADING AND PERCENTAGE GAIN: Google, up 18 percent to $100.34; Facebook, to be determined.

MARKET VALUE: In midday trading: Google, $204 billion; Facebook, $110 billion.

Source: Regulatory filings, Associated Press research

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Remodeling without a contractor | Home Improvement Remodeling …

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Leave a Comment

Under the Radar

As a professional residential remodeler, I feel that it is my job to ensure that all of the other remodelers are playing by the same set of rules. So when I see a project that requires proper permits to accomplish, naturally I get nosy. It is not that I am the only one that is qualified to do the work, but there are folks that have no business doing intricate structural projects, or those jobs in the historic district, without the proper approvals.

That being said, I noticed a fairly involved remodeling project occurring in the neighborhood without a sign indicating that it might be another remodeler attempting to do a project ?under the radar? so to speak. Of course, I checked to make sure that a permit was taken out. I noticed several trucks with out of county license plates, so I figured it was just a couple of friends doing the work. To my surprise, there was a permit. The project involved bearing walls and a rather substantial addition on a pre 1978 home. When I asked which contractor was doing the work, it became obvious what was happening.

Boise City

The home owner had taken out the permit. Stunned, I got to thinking: in whose best interest is it to have the home owner take out the permit?

This is not the typical situation That we have seen over the years, where a ?trunk slammer? handyman that gets the work for cheap and never even gets a permit. This is a new twist and a seriously disturbing case. First off, it minimizes the importance of the remodeling profession. It also opens up the home owner to a boatload of potential problems that I am sure are underappreciated by all parties.

Just because you can doesn?t mean you should.

  • Can you represent yourself in a court of law? Yup. Is it a wise move? Who knows? If you win, you might say so.
  • Can you read about how to surgically remove an appendix? Are you prohibited from taking your own out? Nope, Is it a wise move? I suppose if you survive without complications you would save a bunch of money.
  • Take home birth, however. What could go wrong? It is a game of odds, I suppose. I have delivered lots of healthy babies, and there were minor complications, that I dealt with. Despite that fact, I chose to not take a chance on my own children.

So why not remodel your own home?

BENEFIT

  1. Building Permit

    You get to save a few bucks, because there is no markup on materials or labor.

  2. You are ultimately responsibility or the quality of the project yourself.
  3. You have no one else to blame if something goes wrong.
  4. Everyone is an hourly laborer, so you can yell at them when they go to the bathroom for too long or are taking excessive cigarette breaks.
  5. You can fire the lazy ones and just hire other people when you want.
  6. The permit cost is the same whether you are a contractor or home owner
  7. It may have taken longer, but getting an architect to draw the the plans will be comparable.
  8. Your time getting the permit is free. Or is it?
  9. You as a home owner are not responsible for doing LSWP (lead safe work practices) and can easily con some guys into taking the risk.

PITFALLS

Framing

In a recent case, I took over for an owner that had hired a masonry contractor who was working beyond his capabilities and was about to do something that made no sense to the owner. He was fired and I was hired to complete the work. There was additional cost involved and a wasted several weeks not to mention the confrontation and the anxiety.

  • The home owner most likely had no lead testing done. Odds are that the home that is leaded will be remodeled the old fashioned way and poisoning the family and workers will be a crap shoot.
  • This does not exempt the workers from being responsible for taking all the same lead safe work practices that I have to take. If there is any compensation, you must be a lead safe firm and have at least one lead safe certified worker as well as document the lead safe work practices and do clean verification.
  • There is no general contractor, so they most likely just hired some guys that build homes to come do the work for an hourly wage.
  • One of my clients had a heart attack doing this (fortunately it was a small one)
  • There is no contract so if anything goes wrong there is a enormous liability to the owner.
  • There is no schedule, so it is anyone?s guess as to what is happening. There is? a fairly steep learning curve as to when required inspections are due, but with some help it can be done. The inspectors are reasonably helpful in this area. It is the ones that don?t have inspections that are at a greater risk.
  • Ordering time sensitive materials can be a problem, but with some planning ahead it can be done.
  • Once the place is framed in and sheeted anything on the inside can be done be a handful of other subcontractors out of the phone book. And before you know it, you have completed your first remodeling project.

Here is my take on why this is happening: money is tight, so why pay someone like me to do anything? If cost was not an issue, sure, have the work done by a professional.

RISK

How Much Risk Do You Want?

Those of you that are risk adverse should not consider this. Here are some of the real life concerns that I have:

  1. None of the carpenters have workman?s compensation insurance. If one falls from the roof of cuts a hand off. Who are they going to go after?
  2. Say one of the subcontractors who you pay decides not to pay their concrete bill for instance. Who is going to get the bill?
  3. Say they cut into a water line and flood your home? Who is responsible for that?
  4. Say the roof is done, you?ve saved some money, and the guy seemed really nice, but the roof leaks into your nice new room. So you call the roofer and they say it is the framers fault, who is responsible for that?
  5. Say that a year from now, the addition starts to sink into the earth and the doors don?t fit right anymore.

The point is that I can go on and on. Is the up side of flying under the radar really worth it?

Disclaimer: Some of these images came from the WEB. If they are yours, and you object to them being used, please claim them and I will gladly remove and replace them at once.

?

?

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Donna Summer, China’s ‘Princelings,’ and Greeks Needing Gifts

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: , . Leave a Comment

[ [ [['A picture is worth a thousand words', 5]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/why-facebook-bought-instagram-4-theories-160400376.html’, ‘[Related: Why Facebook bought Instagram: 4 theories]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 9]], ‘http://contributor.yahoo.com/join/yahoonews_virginiabeach’, ‘[Did you witness the jet crash? Share your story with Yahoo! News]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['A JetBlue flight from New York to Las Vegas', 3]], ‘http://yhoo.it/GV9zpj’, ‘[Related: View photos of the JetBlue plane in Amarillo]‘, ‘ ‘, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['Dick Clark', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/dick-clark-dies-at-82-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/c/21/c217c61aa2d5872244c08caa13c16ec5.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘Reuters’, ], [ [['the 28-year-old neighborhood watchman who shot and killed', 15]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/white-house-stays-out-of-teen-s-killing-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120411/martinzimmermen.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['Titanic', 7]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/titanic-anniversary/’, ‘ ‘, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/b/4e/b4e5ad9f00b5dfeeec2226d53e173569.jpeg’, ’550′, ‘ ‘, ‘ ‘, ], [ [['He was in shock and still strapped to his seat', 6]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/navy-jet-crashes-in-virginia-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/cv/ip/ap/default/120406/jet_ap.jpg’, ’630′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ], [ [['xxxxxxxxxxxx', 11]], ‘http://news.yahoo.com/photos/russian-grannies-win-bid-to-sing-at-eurovision-1331223625-slideshow/’, ‘Click image to see more photos’, ‘http://l.yimg.com/a/p/us/news/editorial/1/56/156d92f2760dcd3e75bcd649a8b85fcf.jpeg’, ’500′, ‘ ‘, ‘AP’, ] ]

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NASA, SpaceX Aim To Launch Private Era In Orbit

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

A SpaceX rocket waits to be launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla., in March. If all goes as planned, the private company's rocket will be the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. SpaceX

A SpaceX rocket waits to be launched at Cape Canaveral, Fla., in March. If all goes as planned, the private company’s rocket will be the first commercial spacecraft to visit the International Space Station.

A private spaceship owned by a company called SpaceX is scheduled to blast off from Cape Canaveral in Florida early Saturday morning.

If all goes well, the unmanned capsule will rocket up on a mission to deliver food and other supplies to the International Space Station, becoming the first commercial spacecraft to visit the outpost.

The highly anticipated mission could mark the beginning of what some say could be a new era in spaceflight, with private companies operating taxi services that could start taking people to orbit in just a few years.

SpaceX and NASA have been working hard to make this launch happen ? and that has meant navigating the cultural differences between this small, young startup and the huge veteran space agency.

“I feel very strongly that SpaceX would not have been able to get started, nor would we have made the progress that we have, without the help of NASA,” says Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX in 2002 after making a fortune with the Internet firm PayPal.

Musk says he runs his rocket company like a Silicon Valley tech firm. “That’s the operating system that I have in my head of how to run an organization. And that’s how I’ve created SpaceX,” says Musk. “NASA is obviously coming from a different heritage.”

For five decades, NASA was American spaceflight. Now, the space shuttles are going to museums ? Discovery is already in the Smithsonian. And the government wants NASA to focus on deep space exploration, while relying on private space taxis to take cargo and people back and forth to the nearby space station.

NASA has been working with companies to make sure that vision of the future will happen. It has a cargo delivery contract with SpaceX worth $1.6 billion. The space agency has also been handing out plenty of advice.

Musk says so far, their collaboration has worked well: “No relationship is perfect, certainly. But on balance, it’s really good.”

The relationship involves daily calls and emails between people who live in two different worlds.

For example, the workforce at NASA is generally older. Many top managers cherish their childhood memories of watching the Apollo astronauts on TV.

Not so at SpaceX, where Musk says the average age is around 30. “At age 40, I’m relatively old,” says Musk, who notes that he was born after the moon landing.

Like other tech companies, SpaceX tries to have a flat organizational structure, says Musk. The idea is that everyone can talk to everyone else, without having to go through chains of command.

NASA and SpaceX partnered closely to make the mission to the International Space Station possible. Above, the SpaceX control room. Enlarge SpaceX

NASA and SpaceX partnered closely to make the mission to the International Space Station possible. Above, the SpaceX control room.

SpaceX

NASA and SpaceX partnered closely to make the mission to the International Space Station possible. Above, the SpaceX control room.

“We really try to minimize any unnecessary paperwork or any bureaucratic elements,” says Musk. “I think it’s also easier, if you are a smaller organization than if you’re a larger organization, to be more nimble.”

SpaceX and NASA also have deeper cultural differences. People at NASA feel the weight of the space agency’s long history, which includes heartbreaking tragedies.

Wayne Hale, a former space shuttle program manager who recently retired from NASA after working there for more than 30 years, notes that “you go through life and you have experiences and bad things happen, and from those experiences you learn perhaps to be more contemplative when you have to make choices.”

For engineers, that contemplation means running more tests and doing more analysis. To a certain extent, that’s a good thing, says Hale, but it costs both time and money.

“To build a lower-cost system, you need to perhaps draw the line back and not do so much,” says Hale. “And that’s what we’re seeing with the commercial space people.”

SpaceX founder Elon Musk runs his rocket company like a Silicon Valley tech firm. "That's the operating system that I have in my head of how to run an organization. And that's how I've created SpaceX," he says. SpaceX

SpaceX founder Elon Musk runs his rocket company like a Silicon Valley tech firm. “That’s the operating system that I have in my head of how to run an organization. And that’s how I’ve created SpaceX,” he says.

Michael Horkachuck, a NASA official who has been managing work with SpaceX, has noticed cultural differences.

“They’re a little bit different in that they like to build the hardware and test it, and if it doesn’t work and breaks, then they’ll build another piece with a little change and test it again, and not do quite as much documentation and detailed analysis as necessarily NASA would typically do,” says Horkachuck, who notes that it reminds him a bit of how the Russians approach space technology.

But he says sometimes SpaceX sees the wisdom of NASA’s ways.

“SpaceX is learning how we do things and why we do things,” says Horkachuck, “and I think they are pulling some of the best ideas and methods that NASA has had and applying those to their program.”

One thing that makes this give-and-take go a bit more smoothly is the fact that a fair number of the approximately 1,700 people working for SpaceX used to be employed by NASA ? Musk estimates that’s true of about 10 to 15 percent.

Jon Cowart, a NASA manager assigned to partner with SpaceX as it develops a vehicle that can carry astronauts, says having former NASA colleagues at meetings can really help when agency officials and SpaceX are trying to relate to each other.

“It makes it a lot easier to find that common ground as we struggle to find the right answer on a way they plan do to something that we may or may not be comfortable with,” Cowart says.

Despite their differences, NASA and SpaceX share a set of core convictions. They both have an almost religious belief in the need for humans to venture forth into space, a geeky love for rockets, technical know-how ? plus, they both need each other to succeed.

Some people even say SpaceX reminds them of NASA, back in the good old days.

“I would characterize them as almost being like back during Mercury, and Gemini and Apollo,” says Cowart. “That kind of youthful, you know, young enthusiasm that you have when you’re first starting something.”

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Is There Any Evidence That Meditation Helps Rheumatoid Arthritis?

Posted by on May 19, 2012
Posted in: oust. Tagged: , , . Leave a Comment

Today, arthritis patients are not only more receptive to complementary therapies- what has been called alternative therapy- but actually prefer it to conventional medicines.

There are many reasons for this. These reasons include the adverse publicity surrounding the side effects of medicines such as Vioxx and Bextra, cost of pharmaceutical agents, insurance restrictions that make it difficult for patients to get the types of medicines they need, and the widely held concept that “natural” implies safe.

As has been demonstrated on multiple occasions, a natural remedy is not necessarily safe, nor is it necessarily even effective.

However, there are natural therapies for which there is little evidence supporting their usefulness in conditions like arthritis, but also a paucity of data showing they are harmful.

Such is the case with meditation. Meditation not only is safe but has had beneficial applications in other rheumatic conditions such as fibromyalgia.

A recent study has demonstrated that meditation may also be useful as an adjunctive treatment for rheumatoid arthritis (RA).

A meditation training program, called Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was developed by Dr. Kabat-Zinn and other researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. MBSR teaches participants to focus the mind in a special way. This technique is supposed to increase clarity and calmness.

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine assessed the effect of this meditation therapy on depressive symptoms, psychological distress, general well-being, and disease activity among RA patients. The results of the study indicates that there are potential benefits of MBSR and that it can be used with a conventional course of physical and pharmacological therapy.

Sixty-three adult RA patients were selected to participate in this novel pilot study. The subjects averaged 54 years in age and predominately women. All patients remained under their rheumatologist’s care and continued to take their routine medications throughout the study.

Thirty-one of the participants were randomized to receive MBSR therapy, starting with an 8-week training course followed by a 4-month maintenance program. The remaining 32 participants were assigned to a waiting list, agreeing to attend assessment sessions in exchange for free MBSR training at the study’s conclusion.

Both groups of participants underwent psychological and rheumatological examinations at baseline, and again at 2 months and 6 months into the study. Researchers used the Symptom Checklist-90-Revised, a self-report questionnaire, to evaluate depressive symptoms and psychological distress. Overall well-being was measured by the Psychological Well-Being Scales, made up of questions designed to evaluate positive outlook and approach to coping with difficulties. RA clinical factors were assessed by the Disease Activity Score in 28 joints (DAS-28).

Researchers compared scores of psychological and physical disease symptoms among MBSR participants with those of the control group. Patients receiving MBSR found the program to be enjoyable and continued throughout the follow-up period.

After 2 months, both groups showed improvements in depressive, psychological, and emotional symptoms, with no significant difference between the MBSR group and the control group. By 6 months, however, gains in the control group had largely disappeared, while MBSR participants maintained or improved further in psychological outcomes. By the end of the study, the MBSR group achieved a significant 35 percent reduction in psychological distress.

The meditation program had no impact on RA disease activity, measured by the DAS-28, which is a composite score derived from swollen joints, tender joints, and the erythrocyte sedimentation rate (ESR).

The studies flaws include its small sample size and the relative homogeneity of the control group.

The study showed that patients with RA may benefit from a meditation program such as MBSR class. MBSR is also safe and appealing to participants. The lead investigator, Dr. Elizabeth Pradhan, also states, “For doctors wishing to offer patients a complement to medical management, mindfulness meditation may offer hope for improving psychological distress and strengthening well-being in patients with RA.”

(Pradhan EK, et al. Effect of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction in Rheumatoid Arthritis Patients. Arthritis Care & Research. October 2007).

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