Month: April 2004

Triglycerides May Lead to Obesity

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

Researchers at Saint Louis University have discovered what may be one of the primary causes of obesity. The hormone leptin normally tells the brain to stop eating but triglycerides may block leptin from reaching the brain:

The scientists used mice to look at how leptin, a hormone secreted by fat cells that tells us to stop eating, gets into the brain. They found that in obese mice, high triglycerides, a type of fat in the bloodstream, prevents leptin from getting into the brain, where it can do its work in turning off feeding and burning calories.

“High triglycerides are blocking the leptin from getting into the brain. If leptin can’t get into the brain, it can't tell you to stop eating,” says Banks, who is principal investigator and a staff physician at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in St. Louis. […]

Before reading about this study, I hadn’t even heard of triglycerides. But, this sounded like a significant discovery and so I looked for more information on them. And, I found this page at the Duke Student Health Center which offered some tips on lowering triglycerides:

Lifestyle changes are the key to change:

  • Reduce intake of saturated fat and cholesterol in your diet. (saturated fat should account for no more than 7-10% of total calories and cholesterol intake should be reduced to < 300mg/day).
  • Increase physical activity to 30 minutes of moderate intensity activity on most days.
  • Increase intake of monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats such as those found in canola oil, olive oil and nuts, while decreasing intake of saturated fats such as those found in butter, red meats and bakery foods.
  • Consume the majority of your carbohydrate calories in the form of whole grains, vegetables and fruits.
  • Keep in mind that substituting carbohydrates for fats may actually raise triglyceride levels and decrease HDL levels in some people.
  • Include fish high in Omega-3 fatty acids at least 2 times per week. Fatty fish such as salmon, swordfish, mackerel, and sardines are good sources of omega-3 fatty acids.

After reading more about it, I feel better about my triglyceride outlook — I watch my saturated fat intake, I eat fish (a tuna sandwich) every day, and I exercise regularly. And now that I’m aware of their impact on general health, I’ll keep an eye open for more research on triglycerides.

Seafood Club at Cafe Brazil

Ashley Bischoff1 Comment

I’ve been busy with freelance work over the past week and I haven’t been able to post as many entries as I’d like. In any case, after heading home from the office on Saturday evening, I suggested to Mike that we could head off to Cafe Brazil for some cake or ice cream (what better way to end the workday?).

My initial plan was to go for some cake, though I hadn’t quite decided on chocolate cake or cheesecake at the time. However, after looking at the menu their Brownie Espresso Sundae caught my eye as a dessert encompassing both chocolate and ice cream. Mike wisely noted that the espresso could keep me up at night and so I ordered the sundae sans espresso.

Mike was much less hungry than I was and he was initially going to order just a cheese potato from the side-orders section. However, I suggested to him that he needn't limit himself to just smaller dishes as I could always split a larger entree with him (in addition to the sundae, natch).

So, Mike decided on the Seafood Club from the Sandwiches side of the menu. They describe it as a club sandwich with salmon, bacon, lettuce, tomato and mayo. I was concerned a bit about how a fish-based club sandwich would turn out, but we decided to give it a try.

It wasn’t much of a “club sandwich” in the traditional sense — it only had two slices of bread (not three), it was cut in half (not quarters) and there was only single layer of meat (not interleaved with bacon and tomato). Delusions on club-sandwichness aside, it was actually a delicious sandwich. Really, the salmon made the sandwich — the flaky pink filet would have been suitable as part of any salmon entree.

After enjoying half of Mike’s Seafood Club, I moved on to my Brownie Sundae. Though the salmon was stupendous, the sundae was a bit less than I expected. For one thing, the menu boasted that the sundae was drizzled with Hershey’s chocolate sauce — and it was — but Hershey’s corn syrup chocolate sauce doesn’t exactly raise the bar of chocolate excellence.

And though the ice cream was mostly fine, the brownie had room for improvement. Now, maybe it was just me — Mike actually really liked the brownie. My brownie of choice tends towards a dense and fudgey brownie. On the other hand, this brownie was more crumbly and almost crunchy. It was the type of brownie that, when heated, would probably just become brittle rather than melting into a pleasant chocolate ooze.

In the end, I was still pleased with my meal. Sure, the brownie sundae didn’t quite turn out as I had expected, but the salmon club more than made up for it. Dessert-wise, I’ll probably stick to cakes at Cafe Brazil. And I won’t hesitate to order that Seafood Club again sometime.

If Bush Loses the Wall Street Journal…

Ashley Bischoff5 Comments

USA Today has an article describing what I had suspected for some time — if Bush loses the Wall Street Journal, he loses a strong base of Republican support. Ever since the PATRIOT Act, I’ve not had a good feeling about Bush and I had suspected that others may have felt the same.

This week, there were signs that some of President Bush’s biggest boosters in the media are becoming disillusioned with his handling of Iraq. The Wall Street Journal, the country’s second-largest-circulation newspaper, took these two swipes at Bush:

  • On Monday, a long, critical story followed this Page 1 headline: “Early U.S. Decisions on Iraq Now Haunt American Efforts.”

  • On Tuesday, a WSJ editorial chided Bush’s June 30 Iraq transition plans with this subhead: “The U.S. drops the Iraqis who've been with us from the start.”

To paraphrase LBJ, if Bush loses the WSJ, he will not necessarily lose Middle America, but he might lose “Upperville.” The ultraconservative Wall Street Journal is a bible for upscale or rich, rock-ribbed Republicans. […]

Though I’m not sure I’d say that the WSJ is Republican “bible” — its main content isn’t usually political — I will concede that its editorial pages lean to the right a good portion of the time. In any case, I hope to see more coverage about this topic (from USA Today or elsewhere) as I’d find it fascinating if the WSJ were an accurate barometer of mainstream Republican support.

HTML Altimeter Bookmarklet

Ashley Bischoff3 Comments

I heard about this an intriguing HTML Altimeter bookmarklet via Asa (or “Topographic View”, as the author calls it). It’s a bit hard to describe, but it essentially reassigns the CSS background for each element on the current page to represent the number of nested elements at that point.

Level zero starts at black and each additional nested element gets closer to white (with 16 shades in total). To make use of the bookmarklet, visit the author’s page and drag the “Topographic view” link to your Personal Toolbar. Then, just click that link to see the effect applied to the current page.

As you might expect, well formed CSS-based sites barely get out of black, but table-based layouts can easily approach pink (the color designating nesting past 16). All the same, though this bookmarklet is good for an easy laugh at the expense of poorly built sites, I’m not sure if it has any practical development applications :-/.

Jason & Julie’s Wedding — Photos

Ashley Bischoff2 Comments

It seems to be wedding-season here in blogger-land :). I went to Jason & Julie’s wedding at the end of March and I’m going to Bryan and Lyn’s wedding this Friday. Though Jason and Julie live in Colorado now, they had the wedding in Austin, at the Austin Children’s Museum.

I had a great time and I’m so happy for both of them. I remembered to take my camera along as well and I’ve finished processing the photos. In all, I took 44 photographs that evening and I’ve posted 8 in the gallery. Why so few? Well, the interior of the Children’s Museum — while charming and playful — was rather dark. And, with only a built-in flash, many of my shots didn’t come out.

As usual, all my photos are released under a Creative Commons license which roughly states that you’re free to “copy, distribute, display, and perform the work”. Also, I’ve resized all the images to 1024-width before uploading them as it can be a bit hard to get your head around a full 5 MP image. However, if you want the full-resolution version of any images, just ask.