Recharger The Dog » health

Amazing weight-loss machine! Lose five pounds in two hours!!

Recharger — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 18:37:01 +0000

At the Nao Salon and Spa, a revolutionary machine helps clients shed pounds before the holiday parties. World famous Japanese con man, er, healer Sensei Kazuo Maeda brought his Ryu- Jitsu (“Dragon Magic”) machine to town, and for $350—pocket change—the two hour treatment has attracted so many blubber-crazed customers that the spa already has a four-year wait list.

The Ryu-Jitsu, the first of its kind in the United States, is a three-step treatment that starts with 15 minutes “on the passive treadmill.” The vibrating treadmill reputedly stimulates the whole body, including the always-problematic eyelids and lips. Treadmill time, according to the spa, is equal to 45 minutes of aerobics. During step 2—called the “stone spa”—the client lies for 10-20 minutes on a bed of Hokkaido stone, silica and Fuji lava stone, a treatment which, the maker claims, sweats toxins from the body, like a sauna or steambath. The third and final step is a twisting, stretching massage that relaxes the muscles and maintains the body’s balance.
Recharger, who, because of an addiction to French fries with mayonaise, potatoes with butter, and Subway heroes with BBQ sauce, refuses to get naked even in the bathtub, and would like to test the Ryu-Jitsu treatment, but isn’t sure he can, before midnight tomorrow, save enough coins from his grocery-packing job.

– Anjalee Daryani

Jeter and A-Rod Domestic Partners?

Recharger — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 22:15:33 +0000

CARS MEAN 52,000 FEWER JOBS IN NEW YORK CITY AND A $13 BILLION HOLD IN THE CITY’S BUDGET, says a prominent business coalition. “Traffic congestion is now a brake on the economy,” said the brilliantly eloquent Kathryn S. Wylde, chief executive of the Partnership for New York City.

The equally sound-bite savvy Environmental Defense Fund claims less cars would “cut air pollution and, as a result, illnesses like asthma.”

One proposal to reduce traffic: a $7 fee on all cars and trucks driving below 60th street.

Just a wild guess, but Recharger, a former cabby, thinks this proposal has roughly same chance as Jeter and A-Rod becoming domestic partners.

– Russell Karpov

Is anyone NOT gay?

Recharger — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:49:31 +0000

According to New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene 10% of men who say they are straight had sex with at least one man during the past twelve months; 70% of these are married. Many of these same men admit they don’t use condoms and have not been tested for HIV. In fact, researchers found that straight men who sexed other men during the previous year were less likely to use a condom than sexually-active gay men.

The Dept. of Health study also found that a large proportion of the straight men who had sex with men are from low income groups and have less schooling, are foreign born, or have grown up outside the Manhattan area. Researchers say that public health prevention messages should target risky sexual activities, rather aim exclusively at gay men.

– Michael Rego

Another Paris Hilton Video!

Recharger — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 21:23:45 +0000

THE SCHOOL CONSTRUCTION AUTHORITY NOW SAYS IT WON’T BUILD FOUR NEW BRONX SCHOOLS ON THE LAND BETWEEN CONCOURSE VILLAGE WEST AND EAST 156TH STREET (map) because, inexplicably, the site is a mercury and benzene dumping ground, says NYI. The Mott Haven Campus schools were to house 2,200 students, and the city promised to spend $30 million to clean up the site, but parents are skeptical. Some say health problems have already started since construction began. Chaira Salem says that soon as work crews broke ground, her son broke out in a rash. She told NY1 “I also have had to be put on asthma medication without ever having any precedence of any asthma in my family or in my history.”

After long debate, the City Council nixed the plan, halting construction until experts can assess the danger.

– Teshia Sooklal

Nightmare On Tenth Avenue

Recharger — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 23:22:39 +0000

Recharger, at Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn last week to visit his uncle recovering from a heart attack, noticed that “the pre-eminent treatment facility and academic medical center in the Borough of Brooklyn” gives garbage a good name. “I don’t want to be here anymore- you’re lucky. You get to leave,” said Rose Chen, in for chronic depression. Then she showed us her room. Because orderlies hadn’t cleaned for three days, trash was piled up, her bed was unmade, old sheets and blankets were encrusted with filth. Yevgeniya Funk had her own horror story. The nine hours prior to her uncle’s surgery were spent trying to find him a waiting room. “He was shuffled around like a hockey puck.”

Hey Maimonides: you a hospital or dumpster?

– Susan Cruz

Food from Dumpsters Healthier, Tastier than McDonalds.

Recharger — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 10:04:43 +0000

Ever since reading Travels with Lisbeth, the memoir by Lars Eighner, an obese college professor who spent three homeless years eating from Dumpsters, Recharger has understood that the poor are fatter. They also have more diabetes, according to a new report from The New York City Coalition Against Hunger. Obesity and diabetes rates are higher in poor neighborhoods because, says the NYCCAH report, instead of fruit and vegetable stands, poor people eat cheap, fried food from fast-food restaurants and bodegas.

Two reasons: in poor areas, supermarkets are far apart, and healthier products are too pricey for people with limited incomes.

We think another reason is that advocates for the poor talk like our college Psychology 101 professor: “Rather than patronizingly lecturing low-income New Yorkers on the need to eat better,” says the fascinating Joel Berg, executive director of the NYCCAH. “our public institutions should devote more resources to giving low-income families the tools to enable them to do so.”

A slightly more sound-bite savvy City Council Speaker Chrstine Quinn proposes that farmers’ markets accept food stamps, a move that might attract supermarkets to iffy neighborhoods. “No one wants to feed their kids chips from the corner store as dinner.”

– Darren Xu

Superbug Returns

Recharger — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 18:56:22 +0000

According to an August 2004 “repeated surveillance” study done by The Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), re-released this month, 85,386 people in New York City live with HIV, and the disease is on the rise in most New York City communities.

Homosexual men made up the largest percentage with a reported 61% of an estimated 27,689 new cases. Among females, 77% were infected through heterosexual contact. The infection rate through intravenous drug use accounted for 15% of male infections and 21.5% of female infections.

Hugh Beckford the Executive director of Caribbean and American family service in Brooklyn said “a community with a high level of unemployed and substance abuse forces many persons to seek assistance and relationship with others who might provide financial means to function.” In less sympathetic words: sex for money.

The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene re-released a January, 2005 that shows approximately 1 in 70 New Yorkers is infected with HIV

The HIV infection rate by borough:
Manhattan 28.4%
Brooklyn 28.2%
Bronx 23%
Queens 14.7%
Staten Island 1.7%

New York City has the highest AIDS case rate in the country, with more AIDS cases than Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, and Washington DC combined. HIV is the 3rd leading cause of death below age 65 in New York City.

– Cheryl Campbell

Black and Puerto Rican Babies Die

Recharger — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 05:58:45 +0000

The NYC Health Department reports that while infant mortality rates (IMR) decreased in New York City last year, from 6.1 infant deaths to 6.0 (per thousand), minorities still suffer. African-Americans mortality rates have dropped from 11.6 in 2004 to 9.7 (per thousand), and 7.5 to 6.7 among Puerto Ricans. Yet these groups have the highest IMR rate in New York City, though not as high as the national average of 6.8 deaths per 1000.

– Nicole De Leon

Immigrants Live Longer

Recharger — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 06:16:15 +0000

It’s a true fact, according to the city’s health department. Compared to New Yorkers born here, immigrants smoke less, drink less, are thinner, and are less likely to contract HIV. And, they are less likely to have a regular doctor, mainly because of language barriers.

Weirdly, the DOH study recommends ways for immigrants to improve their health, including access to medical literature printed in their langauge.

Fat American protesting skinny immigrants.

Here’s a link.

– Aye Hnin Phyu