Live longer, have a pet (4 legged)

Owning a pet may help you live longer. No, not a Playboy Bunny. Real pets. A just-completed ten-year study at the University of Minnesota’s Stroke Research Center found cat owners were 40 percent less likely to die from a stroke than their catless counterparts. Researchers believe feline companionship helps alleviate heart-harming stress and anxiety. Research also shows that dog owners received similar health benefits.

Having pets as companions can DECREASE your blood pressure, cholesterol, and triglyceride levels as well as assuage your feelings of loneliness. They also promote a routine in the household and give their owner a feeling of responsibility and validation.

More good stuff: Pets can also increase your opportunities for exercise and outdoor activities and create more opportunities for socialization (like meeting the widow next door, or striking up a conversation with shoppers or visitors to the local park). I am not kidding. It’s incredible how some dogs and cats are ‘chick magnets’.

It’s all quite simple. The conversation flows spontaneously and goes something like this: “Hi. I think my dog/cat/rat really likes you. Oh, I’m sorry, did he dirty your leg? Here, let me wipe that off. Do you have a pet? No? that’s surprising. my pet definitely feels you are a warm, loving person. Listen I’m going to the Spay Panama fundraiser tomorrow and I know you would love to see all the animals and help a good cause. Would you like to come with me? “

I’ll leave the rest to your imagination and budget.

SWING LOW, SWEET CHARIOT. First the good news. Life expectancy has grown throughout the ages: Cro-Magnons (25 years); Ancient Greeks (28 years); Europeans in the Middle Ages (31.3 years); Americans in 1900 (47.3 years); and Americans today (78 years). But don’t get too cocky over these figures. Citizens in 41 countries live longer than Americans and people living in the Southern United States and the Midwest have their life expectancy on the decline, mainly due to smoking, obesity and high blood pressure. Take solace, though, in knowing that if you are 50 today, you should live until 80.5. Turn 65, and you will likely make it to 83.4 years —unless you are half drunk walking down Calle J. There, feel better?

THE BLOOD TYPE DIET. I don’t care if naturopath physician Peter D’Adamo’s book was a New York Times bestseller and five million copies are in print. I just cannot believe that different human +blood types—A, B, AB, and O (the most common) —require different foods to stay healthy. D’Adamo postulates that the different blood types react differently to certain food proteins called lectins and knowing which types complement which foods can lead to optimal health. Yet, there is no hard evidence that shows any relationship between blood type molecules and lectins. Dr. Andrew Weil another best-selling nutritional expert says D’Adamo’s diet plan is bunk.

PANAMANIANS ARE OBSESSED BLOGGERS who love reporting on sex and politics. No, I won’t list the web-sites; Google them yourself. Nevertheless, be careful when you use confidential sources in your blogs, because the US governments can force you to reveal your sources because bloggers aren’t considered journalists.

That’s what two versions of a bill winding its way through Congress say. This means bloggers will have to disclose who told them what, thereby, blowing the cover of any whistle-blower used in a story. Sure, Congress will enshrine a legitimate journalist’s right to keep his or her sources confidential, but bloggers, aren’t given this protection.

The government reserves the right to force them to tell all or face prison Hugo Chavez would be proud.