Disease

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

NEW YORK - Carnival Cruise Lines prices have taken a dip this spring, according to pricing data, and some industry observers blame headlines about problems on several Carnival ships. Todd Elliott, owner of Cruise Vacation Outlet, said his agents had seen a drop in price of 20 percent or more for equivalent cruises. "Rates are far lower than I have seen in a while; for example, the Carnival Dream, seven nights, Eastern Caribbean out of Port Canaveral, May 4 is $299 per person," he said.

For decades, it's been a rite of spring. You hop in the car, head for the nearest garden center, and load up on impatiens, the best-selling, candy-colored annuals that thrive in shade, mound up like half a beach ball, and bloom their heads off till frost, asking little in return. But this year, disaster looms. There will be far fewer impatiens for sale. Gardeners who do buy them will be taking a risk that experts say isn't worth it. The plants will probably die, and the shade-loving alternatives being offered up may not cut it for many who depend on the easygoing, affordable impatiens to brighten their summer landscape.

HARRISBURG - Hunters in part of south-central Pennsylvania will be subject to extra restrictions when deer season starts Monday, as state wildlife officials work to ensure the wild whitetail population has not contracted a deadly disease. Those who kill deer within a 600-square-mile area covering parts of York and Adams Counties must take the carcasses to a checkpoint to be tested for chronic wasting disease. The neurological infection is fatal to elk, moose, and deer, though it can't be transmitted to humans.

The Palmyra High School Panthers played the Phillies' wives at Legion Field in a benefit softball game for the ALS Association. It was the second year for the event; last year, $6,000 was raised to help fight Lou Gehrig's disease. A three-kilometer walk was held before the game Saturday.

I was amazed to read the Dec. 30 Letter to the Editor from the president of Horizon House, a respected rehabilitation program for the seriously mentally ill, denying that serious mental illnesses (e.g., schizophrenia, manic depressive psychosis) are brain diseases. In the last decade research evidence has become overwhelming that these are indeed brain diseases, just as multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease are brain diseases. That is the real tragedy of the homeless and street-people - that approximately one-third of them have diseases that are, in the majority of cases, treatable.

Amyloidosis is an extremely rare blood disorder that produces an excess of proteins that build up in the body's tissues and vital organs. There are several forms of the disease. Some are so devastating that they kill patients in less than two years. In others, patients can live for years without symptoms. One of the world's leading amyloidosis experts, Merrill Benson, professor of medicine and medical genetics at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, said yesterday that Gov. Casey appeared to have a mild form.

DOES GEORGE Bush intend to expand the American empire to the moon and Mars? How can he propose spending hundreds of billions of dollars on these escapist fantasies when so many of us in both this country and the world are suffering and in need, much because of his politics? Only someone with mad politician's disease could be in such denial of reality, such inhumane blankness to people's hurting, such misunderstanding of real progress and such insensitivity to the common values of all the world's great religions and superior philosophies!

Five men who lived near contaminated land on the old Valley Forge Army Hospital property off Charlestown Road have developed Hodgkin's disease within the last 15 years, the Schuylkill Township Board of Supervisors was told last week. Three of the men, accompanied by family members, asked the supervisors Wednesday night to prod federal, state and/or county authorities to investigate a possible connection between their lymphatic cancer and toxic metals found on the land. The Phoenixville Area School District, which leases a 35-acre piece of the property on Township Line Road near Coldstream Road from the federal government, announced it had discovered abnormally high levels of lead, zinc and silver on a depressed 6-by-20-foot section in January.

Everything seemed to be going perfectly in Michael and Julie Barrons' four- year marriage. Then, last December, doctors told them that their youngest son, Brian, then 4 months, had a rare congenital disease and probably would not live to see his first birthday. "I don't even remember what the doctor said after he told us," said Julie Barron, 25. "I saw his mouth moving, but I heard nothing . . . I guess I was in shock. It felt as if someone had just punched me in the stomach. " Brian had begun to experience seizures that made his little body shake, his eyes roll toward the back of his head, and his breathing turn shallow and sporadic.

NEW YORK - Scientists have finally recovered stem cells from cloned human embryos, a goal that could lead to new treatments for such illnesses as Parkinson's disease and diabetes. A prominent expert called the work a landmark but noted that a different, simpler technique now under development may prove more useful. Stem cells can turn into any cell of the body, so scientists are interested in using them to create tissue for treating disease. Pancreatic tissue, for example, might be used to treat diabetes.

IF I SAY "vegan rock star," Chrissie Hynde or Moby or Jason Mraz might come to mind. You wouldn't immediately think of T. Colin Campbell, 79, professor emeritus of nutritional biochemistry at Cornell University. But Campbell's half-century of research in nutrition, hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and a key role in the world's most comprehensive study of health and nutrition, the "China Study," have surely made him a rock star in the plant-eating world. He summarized that groundbreaking study (which the New York Times called "the Grand Prix of epidemiology")

An elderly woman who was found dead inside her burning South Philadelphia home Monday afternoon had died of heart disease before the fire occurred, the Medical Examiner's Office said Wednesday. Jeff Moran, a spokesman for the Medical Examiner, identified the woman as Dorothy Powell, 84. Firefighters encountered heavy fire on the first floor of the home on the 2100 block of Pierce Street in Point Breeze, Executive Chief Richard Davison said. He said firefighters found Powell dead inside the home.

By Ann Connor Parkinson's is a chronic, progressive neurological disease. It is hard to live with, yet there are far worse diseases to have. Nevertheless, since April is Parkinson's Awareness Month, let's, for a few paragraphs, shine a bright light on the dark, sobering realities of this disease. Some of the questions your neurologist asks while Parkinson's is in its early stages pull the curtain back on what's ahead: Can you dress yourself? Do you drool excessively? Only at night or during the day?

WHAT WOULD you say if I told you that you could profoundly cut your risk for cardiovascular disease, diabetes and cancer? Significantly decrease your risk for Alzheimer's disease, too? And, better yet, that you could do all this without spending a single dime? Impossible, right? Wrong. All that and more may be possible simply by following the sage advice of Dr. Michael Mosley, a British medical journalist and co-author of The FastDiet: Lose Weight, Stay Healthy, and Live Longer with the Simple Secret of Intermittent Fasting . The "Fast Diet" is all the rage in Britain and could take flight here as well.

You know you're in trouble, Maria Kefalas said sadly, when you're fast-tracked for the Make-a-Wish Foundation. Kefalas, 45, is a St. Joseph's University sociologist whose daughter Calliope, 3, has a rare and untreatable genetic disease, MLD. It's a diagnosis without hope: Most patients don't live beyond age 5. Kefalas, along with her husband, Patrick Carr (also a sociologist), and their three children were sponsored for a trip to Martha's Vineyard over the summer by the foundation, which attempts to enrich the lives of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

1Colorectal cancer (cancer of the colon and rectum) is the second-leading cancer killer in the United States. 2Colon cancer is an equal opportunity disease, affecting men and women of all racial and ethnic groups and socio-economic backgrounds. 3Colon cancer is most often found in people older than 50, but some people may get the disease at a younger age, especially those with genetic predispositions. 4About 60 percent of colorectal cancer deaths could be prevented with regular screenings.

DEAR ABBY: I always knew high blood pressure ran in my family, but I never realized that it could cause kidney disease. Because I felt healthy, I hadn't worried about my "borderline" hypertension. Turns out, my kidneys were silently being damaged. I have since made lifestyle changes to control my blood pressure and prevent further damage. These include daily exercise and cutting back on salt, sweets and fast food. March is National Kidney Month, and March 14 is World Kidney Day. The National Kidney Foundation is urging Americans to learn their risk factors for kidney disease and to get their kidneys checked with a simple urine and blood test.

For decades, it's been a rite of spring. You hop in the car, head for the nearest garden center, and load up on impatiens, the best-selling, candy-colored annuals that thrive in shade, mound up like half a beach ball, and bloom their heads off till frost, asking little in return. But this year, disaster looms. There will be far fewer impatiens for sale. Gardeners who do buy them will be taking a risk that experts say isn't worth it. The plants will probably die, and the shade-loving alternatives being offered up may not cut it for many who depend on the easygoing, affordable impatiens to brighten their summer landscape.

If you're worried about the recent study linking aspirin use to an age-related disease that leads to blindness , specialists at Wills Eye Institute have some reassuring advice. The Australian study, published last week in JAMA Internal Medicine, found that taking aspirin at least once a week more than doubled the chance of macular degeneration, including the more damaging "wet" type, among 2,389 adults followed for 15 years. But the 15-year incidence was still relatively small - about 5.8 percent of regular aspirin users compared with 2.2 percent of nonusers.