Stefano and I, and two of our best friends, are leaving tomorrow for the UK. We’re mainly going to visit Cornwall, but also parts of Devon, Somerset and an itty-bitty sliver of the Jurassic coast (I want to come home with a fossil! ;)).

I’ll be checking my e-mail and blog today…but for the next two weeks I doubt I’ll be able to get online much, perhaps not at all. We’re not taking a laptop with us this time…However, if we stay in a place that has a computer, I might just sneak a peek, hehe…

I’m not leaving, however, without publishing a few links that should give us some food for thought…

Here’s an interesting article on statins: http://goo.gl/5mf9u. I’ve never taken any, but a couple of members of my family have, luckily not for long. I thought this sentence was of particular interest: “Several lifestyle factors also play a role in a healthy heart. Exercise regularly. Stop smoking. Spend time with supportive family and friends. That includes your animal friends too — a study showed that owning a cat is almost 25 times more effective in lowering the risk of dying from heart disease than taking a statin!” (Click on the “a study” link to read the “cat” article). So, OWNING A CAT REDUCES ONE’S RISK OF DEVELOPING HEART DISEASE, huh? Hmmm, let’s see…since I have FIVE cats, does that lower my heart disease risk by 125%???? 😉 

Next item. This one’s scary, reaaaaaaaaally scary, but please pay attention, especially if you take supplements of any sort. Dick (no comment…) Durbin, a U.S. senator from Illinois, has recently introduced a super sneaky bill that would crack down on the testing, labeling, and sale of dietary supplements nationwide. See: http://goo.gl/UXEzU. Now, as you know, I’m all in favour of testing and whatnot. However, this bill smells a lot like a disgustingly rotten pile of anchovies to me. It looks like the big drug companies are trying to get rid of our relatively cheap supplements so that they can take over the market with their own, more expensive & probably less effective stuff. Okay, I’m worried, I must admit, since I buy all of my curcumin in the U.S., then bring it (or have it brought) over to Italy. The Alliance for Natural Health has created an Action Alert that you can sign (easy peasy), see here: http://goo.gl/UkYOw Please please please contact your senator/s about this squeaky sneaky bill!!!

And finally, here’s a Myeloma Beacon article on myeloma and fatigue: http://goo.gl/cL1Vt 

Soooo, I hope everyone has a wonderful August…and…I’ll see you here in two weeks (if not sooner…yeah, probably sooner…)! Ciao! 🙂