The China Advertising Association officially released its newest set of self-discipline rules on Tuesday.
The rules stipulate that advertising must be true and legal and should not cheat or mislead customers, Beijing Youth Daily reports.
Suggestions include stating that milk powder advertisements must contain phrases in support of breast feeding and sanitary towel advertisements should not advocate long period usage without changing.
Breast feeding should not be intentionally discouraged by milk powder advertisements. "Breast-feeding Encouraged" or similar phrases should be marked clearly on milk powder packages, and images of children should be upright standing at least.
As for sanitary towel advertisements, Phrases suggesting that they can treat or prevent disease must be removed. The phrase "no change of the sanitary towels for long time" is strongly prohibited for hygiene reasons.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Fringe autism treatment could get federal study
Eight-year-old Charlie Blakey, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3, says a prayer before eating dinner with his family at their home on Oak Park, Ill., on April 23, 2008.[Agencies]
Pressured by desperate parents, government researchers are pushing to test an unproven treatment on autistic children, a move some scientists see as an unethical experiment in voodoo medicine.
The treatment removes heavy metals from the body and is based on the fringe theory that mercury in vaccines triggers autism — a theory never proved and rejected by mainstream science. Mercury hasn't been in childhood vaccines since 2001, except for certain flu shots.
But many parents of autistic children are believers, and the head of the National Institute of Mental Health supports testing it on children provided the tests are safe.
"So many moms have said, `It's saved my kids,'" institute director Dr. Thomas Insel said.
For now, the proposed study, not widely known outside the community of autism research and advocacy groups, has been put on hold because of safety concerns, Insel told The Associated Press.
The process, called chelation, is used to treat lead poisoning. Studies of adults have shown it to be ineffective unless there are high levels of metals in the blood. Any study in children would have to exclude those with high levels of lead or mercury, which would require treatment and preclude using a placebo.
One of the drugs used for chelation, DMSA, can cause side effects including rashes and low white blood cell count. And there is evidence chelation may redistribute metals in the body, perhaps even into the central nervous system.
"I don't really know why we have to do this in helpless children," said Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was invited to comment on the study to a review board of the national institute.
Despite lawsuits and at least one child's death, several thousand autistic children are already believed to be using chelation (pronounced kee-LAY'-shun), their parents not content to wait for a study.
Among those parents is Christina Blakey of suburban Chicago, who uses chelation and a variety of other alternative therapies, including sessions in a hyperbaric chamber, on her 8-year-old son, Charlie.
Before he started chelation at age 5, Charlie suffered tantrums. When she took him to school, she had to peel him off her body and walk away. But three weeks after he began chelation, his behavior changed, she said.
"He lined up with his friends at school. He looked at me and waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign and walked into school," Blakey said. "All the moms who had been watching burst into tears. All of us did."
There is no way to prove whether chelation made a difference or whether Charlie simply adjusted to the school routine.
Autism is a spectrum of disorders that hamper a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. Most doctors believe there is no cure.
Conventional treatments are limited to behavioral therapy and a few medications, such as the schizophrenia drug Risperdal, approved to treat irritability.
Frustrated parents use more than 300 alternative treatments, most with little or no scientific evidence backing them up, according to the Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md.
"With a lot of mothers, if they hear about a treatment, they feel like they need to try it," said project director Dr. Paul Law. "Anything that has a chance of benefiting their child, they're willing to give it a shot."
More than 2 percent of the children tracked by the project use chelation. If that figure holds for the general population, it would mean more than 3,000 autistic children are on the treatment at any time in the United States.
Chelation drugs can be taken in pill form, by rectal suppository and intravenously.
Dr. Susan Swedo, who heads the federal institute's in-house autism research and wants to study chelation, gained notoriety by theorizing that strep throat had caused some cases of obsessive compulsive disorder. The theory was never proved.
She proposed recruiting 120 autistic children ages 4 to 10 and giving half DMSA and the other half a dummy pill. The 12-week test would measure before-and-after blood mercury levels and autism symptoms.
The study outline says that failing to find a difference between the two groups would counteract "anecdotal reports and widespread belief" that chelation works.
But the study was put on hold for safety concerns after an animal study, published last year, linked DMSA to lasting brain problems in rats. It remains under review, Insel told the AP.
Insel said he has come to believe after listening to parents that traditional scientific research, building incrementally on animal studies and published papers, wasn't answering questions fast enough.
"This is an urgent set of questions," Insel said. "Let's make innovation the centerpiece of this effort as we study autism, its causes and treatments, and think of what we may be missing."
Last year, the National Institutes of Health spent less than 5 percent of its $127 million autism research budget on alternative therapies, Insel said. He said he is hopeful the chelation study will be approved.
Others say it would be unethical, even if it proves chelation doesn't work.
Federal research agencies must "bring reason to science" without "catering to a public misperception," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and author of an upcoming book on autism research. "Science has been trumped by politics in some ways."
Offit is concerned vaccination rates may fall to dangerous levels because some parents believe they cause autism.
Dr. Martin Myers, former director of the federal National Vaccine Program Office, said he believes giving chelation to autistic children is unethical — but says the government can justify the study because so many parents are using chelation without scientific evidence.
"It's incumbent on the scientific community to evaluate it," he said.
Actress Jenny McCarthy, whose bestseller "Louder Than Words" details her search for treatments for her autistic son, Evan, told thousands of parents at a recent autism conference outside Chicago that she plans to try chelation on him this summer.
"A lot of people are scared to chelate ... but it has triggered many recoveries," she said.
But those claims are only anecdotal, and there are serious risks.
Of the several drugs used in chelation, the only one recommended for intravenous use in children is edetate calcium disodium. Mixups with another drug with a similar name, edetate disodium, have led to three deaths, including one autistic child.
A 5-year-old autistic boy went into cardiac arrest and died after he was given IV chelation therapy in 2005. A Pennsylvania doctor is being sued by the boy's parents for allegedly giving the wrong drug and using a risky technique.
No deaths have been associated with DMSA, which can cause rashes, low white blood cell count and vomiting. It is also sold as a dietary supplement, which is how some parents of autistic children get it.
A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said the agency is "is looking into how these products are marketed."
Pressured by desperate parents, government researchers are pushing to test an unproven treatment on autistic children, a move some scientists see as an unethical experiment in voodoo medicine.
The treatment removes heavy metals from the body and is based on the fringe theory that mercury in vaccines triggers autism — a theory never proved and rejected by mainstream science. Mercury hasn't been in childhood vaccines since 2001, except for certain flu shots.
But many parents of autistic children are believers, and the head of the National Institute of Mental Health supports testing it on children provided the tests are safe.
"So many moms have said, `It's saved my kids,'" institute director Dr. Thomas Insel said.
For now, the proposed study, not widely known outside the community of autism research and advocacy groups, has been put on hold because of safety concerns, Insel told The Associated Press.
The process, called chelation, is used to treat lead poisoning. Studies of adults have shown it to be ineffective unless there are high levels of metals in the blood. Any study in children would have to exclude those with high levels of lead or mercury, which would require treatment and preclude using a placebo.
One of the drugs used for chelation, DMSA, can cause side effects including rashes and low white blood cell count. And there is evidence chelation may redistribute metals in the body, perhaps even into the central nervous system.
"I don't really know why we have to do this in helpless children," said Ellen Silbergeld of Johns Hopkins University's Bloomberg School of Public Health, who was invited to comment on the study to a review board of the national institute.
Despite lawsuits and at least one child's death, several thousand autistic children are already believed to be using chelation (pronounced kee-LAY'-shun), their parents not content to wait for a study.
Among those parents is Christina Blakey of suburban Chicago, who uses chelation and a variety of other alternative therapies, including sessions in a hyperbaric chamber, on her 8-year-old son, Charlie.
Before he started chelation at age 5, Charlie suffered tantrums. When she took him to school, she had to peel him off her body and walk away. But three weeks after he began chelation, his behavior changed, she said.
"He lined up with his friends at school. He looked at me and waved and gave me a thumbs-up sign and walked into school," Blakey said. "All the moms who had been watching burst into tears. All of us did."
There is no way to prove whether chelation made a difference or whether Charlie simply adjusted to the school routine.
Autism is a spectrum of disorders that hamper a person's ability to communicate and interact with others. Most doctors believe there is no cure.
Conventional treatments are limited to behavioral therapy and a few medications, such as the schizophrenia drug Risperdal, approved to treat irritability.
Frustrated parents use more than 300 alternative treatments, most with little or no scientific evidence backing them up, according to the Interactive Autism Network at the Kennedy Krieger Institute in Baltimore, Md.
"With a lot of mothers, if they hear about a treatment, they feel like they need to try it," said project director Dr. Paul Law. "Anything that has a chance of benefiting their child, they're willing to give it a shot."
More than 2 percent of the children tracked by the project use chelation. If that figure holds for the general population, it would mean more than 3,000 autistic children are on the treatment at any time in the United States.
Chelation drugs can be taken in pill form, by rectal suppository and intravenously.
Dr. Susan Swedo, who heads the federal institute's in-house autism research and wants to study chelation, gained notoriety by theorizing that strep throat had caused some cases of obsessive compulsive disorder. The theory was never proved.
She proposed recruiting 120 autistic children ages 4 to 10 and giving half DMSA and the other half a dummy pill. The 12-week test would measure before-and-after blood mercury levels and autism symptoms.
The study outline says that failing to find a difference between the two groups would counteract "anecdotal reports and widespread belief" that chelation works.
But the study was put on hold for safety concerns after an animal study, published last year, linked DMSA to lasting brain problems in rats. It remains under review, Insel told the AP.
Insel said he has come to believe after listening to parents that traditional scientific research, building incrementally on animal studies and published papers, wasn't answering questions fast enough.
"This is an urgent set of questions," Insel said. "Let's make innovation the centerpiece of this effort as we study autism, its causes and treatments, and think of what we may be missing."
Last year, the National Institutes of Health spent less than 5 percent of its $127 million autism research budget on alternative therapies, Insel said. He said he is hopeful the chelation study will be approved.
Others say it would be unethical, even if it proves chelation doesn't work.
Federal research agencies must "bring reason to science" without "catering to a public misperception," said Dr. Paul Offit, chief of infectious diseases at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and author of an upcoming book on autism research. "Science has been trumped by politics in some ways."
Offit is concerned vaccination rates may fall to dangerous levels because some parents believe they cause autism.
Dr. Martin Myers, former director of the federal National Vaccine Program Office, said he believes giving chelation to autistic children is unethical — but says the government can justify the study because so many parents are using chelation without scientific evidence.
"It's incumbent on the scientific community to evaluate it," he said.
Actress Jenny McCarthy, whose bestseller "Louder Than Words" details her search for treatments for her autistic son, Evan, told thousands of parents at a recent autism conference outside Chicago that she plans to try chelation on him this summer.
"A lot of people are scared to chelate ... but it has triggered many recoveries," she said.
But those claims are only anecdotal, and there are serious risks.
Of the several drugs used in chelation, the only one recommended for intravenous use in children is edetate calcium disodium. Mixups with another drug with a similar name, edetate disodium, have led to three deaths, including one autistic child.
A 5-year-old autistic boy went into cardiac arrest and died after he was given IV chelation therapy in 2005. A Pennsylvania doctor is being sued by the boy's parents for allegedly giving the wrong drug and using a risky technique.
No deaths have been associated with DMSA, which can cause rashes, low white blood cell count and vomiting. It is also sold as a dietary supplement, which is how some parents of autistic children get it.
A Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman said the agency is "is looking into how these products are marketed."
Berry delicious recipe recommendations
Chinese Bayberries (yang mei) have high levels of vitamin B and vitamin C.
At my parents' home, the family has perfected the art of stockpiling and freezing berries to get us through the winter months. My parents grow a bountiful crop of raspberries and blackberries. My patient father spends countless hours gathering berries from the hedgerows in the late summer months.
Not everyone is so lucky. Sadly, in China fresh berries now carry a hefty price tag, and buying enough to make a respectable batch of jam would necessitate a small bank loan.
Nevertheless, the country has some intriguing and lesser-known native berries that are worth trying. Many have fantastic health properties.
Nearly all types of berries are rich in polyphenols, a kind of anti-oxidant that can help to reduce risks of heart disease and cancer.
Indeed, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in February recorded significant improvements in HDL (good cholesterol) levels, blood pressure and blood platelet function among people who consumed small portions of berries over a two-month period.
The Chinese Bayberry (yang mei), which is now referred to amusingly as the "Yumberry" in the US, is the fruit of the Myrica Rubra tree, a plant native to southern China. These berries are very distinctive-looking, almost like Christmas tree decorations, with a shiny round shape, and a variety of colors. These berries grow in shades of white, pink, red, and purple; many consider purple berries to be the most delicious. The flavor is sweet yet also tart, and quite refreshing.
Recently, a company in the US called "Frutzzo" began marketing the "Yumberry" as the new "super food", believed to be the next pomegranate of the health food world.
In addition, these fruits have very high levels of vitamin B and vitamin C.
In China, Chinese Bayberries are typically served as fresh fruit, but they can also be dried or preserved. Hardened yang mei consumers like to steep the fruits in bai jiu (alcohol).
While strolling down the leafier avenues of many Chinese cities at this time of year, you may come across the mulberry (sang shen), the fruit of the Fructus Mori tree. This is a particularly delicate fruit, resembling an elongated blackberry. It does not travel well and requires extremely careful handling. Its dark pigmentation indicates an abundance of beneficial phyto-chemicals, and it is especially rich in resveratrol (also present in grapes), which has anti-cancer properties.
Large quantities of mulberries are grown in China because they are the major food of the silk worm. But so far, only small amounts of this fruit are marketed for human consumption.
In Beijing, during the summer you often find vendors selling them outside subway stations. When you spot them, I would certainly recommend buying a generous quantity. Initially the berries can be served fresh with breakfast or for dessert. Later, you can freeze them and then stew the berries to make compotes, fruit pies and crumbles.
Mulberry jam is a great way to extend their length of use. Combine equal amounts in weight of sugar and mulberries in a pan with some lemon juice and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming any residue from the surface. Test for setting ability on a saucer and when ready, ladle the mixture into sterilized jars - and enjoy.
At my parents' home, the family has perfected the art of stockpiling and freezing berries to get us through the winter months. My parents grow a bountiful crop of raspberries and blackberries. My patient father spends countless hours gathering berries from the hedgerows in the late summer months.
Not everyone is so lucky. Sadly, in China fresh berries now carry a hefty price tag, and buying enough to make a respectable batch of jam would necessitate a small bank loan.
Nevertheless, the country has some intriguing and lesser-known native berries that are worth trying. Many have fantastic health properties.
Nearly all types of berries are rich in polyphenols, a kind of anti-oxidant that can help to reduce risks of heart disease and cancer.
Indeed, a study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in February recorded significant improvements in HDL (good cholesterol) levels, blood pressure and blood platelet function among people who consumed small portions of berries over a two-month period.
The Chinese Bayberry (yang mei), which is now referred to amusingly as the "Yumberry" in the US, is the fruit of the Myrica Rubra tree, a plant native to southern China. These berries are very distinctive-looking, almost like Christmas tree decorations, with a shiny round shape, and a variety of colors. These berries grow in shades of white, pink, red, and purple; many consider purple berries to be the most delicious. The flavor is sweet yet also tart, and quite refreshing.
Recently, a company in the US called "Frutzzo" began marketing the "Yumberry" as the new "super food", believed to be the next pomegranate of the health food world.
In addition, these fruits have very high levels of vitamin B and vitamin C.
In China, Chinese Bayberries are typically served as fresh fruit, but they can also be dried or preserved. Hardened yang mei consumers like to steep the fruits in bai jiu (alcohol).
While strolling down the leafier avenues of many Chinese cities at this time of year, you may come across the mulberry (sang shen), the fruit of the Fructus Mori tree. This is a particularly delicate fruit, resembling an elongated blackberry. It does not travel well and requires extremely careful handling. Its dark pigmentation indicates an abundance of beneficial phyto-chemicals, and it is especially rich in resveratrol (also present in grapes), which has anti-cancer properties.
Large quantities of mulberries are grown in China because they are the major food of the silk worm. But so far, only small amounts of this fruit are marketed for human consumption.
In Beijing, during the summer you often find vendors selling them outside subway stations. When you spot them, I would certainly recommend buying a generous quantity. Initially the berries can be served fresh with breakfast or for dessert. Later, you can freeze them and then stew the berries to make compotes, fruit pies and crumbles.
Mulberry jam is a great way to extend their length of use. Combine equal amounts in weight of sugar and mulberries in a pan with some lemon juice and simmer for 30 minutes, skimming any residue from the surface. Test for setting ability on a saucer and when ready, ladle the mixture into sterilized jars - and enjoy.
UK charities urge revamp of sexual education policies
Two leading sexual health charities in the UK are advocating a controversial change to the nation's sexual education curriculum.
Simon Blake, chief executive of the Brook charity organization, says: "All the evidence shows that if you start sex and relationships education early - before children start puberty, before they feel sexual attraction - they start having sex later. They are much more likely to use contraception and practice safe sex."
Blake also says: "If we get high-quality sex and relationships education in every primary and secondary school across the UK, all the evidence shows teenage pregnancy rates will continue to fall and we will improve young people's sexual health."
He wants every primary and secondary school in the UK to provide a preliminary form of sex and relationship education to pupils.
At the moment, Blake says he is worried that "another generation of children and young people do not get the education they need to form healthy relationships and protect their sexual health."
The UK Department for Children, Schools and Families issued new draft guidance on wellbeing education in schools on Friday.
The Sex Education Forum, the national authority on sex and relationships teaching, called for personal, social, health and economic education, which includes sex and relationships.
Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, another UK charity, says: "This is not about teaching 4-year-olds how to have sex ... it's like maths - in primary school children learn the basics, so that they can understand more and more complex concepts at a later stage."
She adds: "Parents are concerned that if students are told about sex they will go straight out and have it, but the research shows the complete opposite. They have sex later and when they do, they have safer sex."
Simon Blake, chief executive of the Brook charity organization, says: "All the evidence shows that if you start sex and relationships education early - before children start puberty, before they feel sexual attraction - they start having sex later. They are much more likely to use contraception and practice safe sex."
Blake also says: "If we get high-quality sex and relationships education in every primary and secondary school across the UK, all the evidence shows teenage pregnancy rates will continue to fall and we will improve young people's sexual health."
He wants every primary and secondary school in the UK to provide a preliminary form of sex and relationship education to pupils.
At the moment, Blake says he is worried that "another generation of children and young people do not get the education they need to form healthy relationships and protect their sexual health."
The UK Department for Children, Schools and Families issued new draft guidance on wellbeing education in schools on Friday.
The Sex Education Forum, the national authority on sex and relationships teaching, called for personal, social, health and economic education, which includes sex and relationships.
Julie Bentley, chief executive of the Family Planning Association, another UK charity, says: "This is not about teaching 4-year-olds how to have sex ... it's like maths - in primary school children learn the basics, so that they can understand more and more complex concepts at a later stage."
She adds: "Parents are concerned that if students are told about sex they will go straight out and have it, but the research shows the complete opposite. They have sex later and when they do, they have safer sex."
Mother of all exercise routines
Just a few years ago expectant mothers were told to lay off the treadmill. But health experts now believe that exercise during pregnancy is beneficial to the health of both mother and child.
A moderate amount of exercise improves the mother's overall condition, strengthens the cardiovascular system and stimulates blood circulation. "If their gynecologist gives the green light, pregnant women should go ahead and participate in sports," says Christian Albring, president of the Munich-based Association of Gynaecologists (BVF).
The appropriate amount of exercise depends upon the stage in the pregnancy, as well as the mother's prior level of physical activity.
Endurance exercises, as opposed to high-impact competitive sports, are particularly beneficial during pregnancy.
"Jogging, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, dancing, and swimming in water with a temperature over 20 C are all well-suited to people who don't care for sports," Albring says.
Working out in a pool is an especially attractive option. "Water is felt to be particularly pleasant because it buoys the body and takes weight off the joints," notes Marion Sulprizio, a sports psychologist at the German Sport University Cologne's Department of Health Research.
Also, studies show that strenuous activities are possible in water without raising the heart rate. "So in water you can really let loose," she says.
Another option is the fitness studio. "On the treadmill, cross trainer and ergometer, the training intensity is regulated individually and the amount of strain is monitored," Sulprizio says. This allows pregnant women to continually adjust the intensity of their exercise regimen according to their condition.
Sports involving sudden jumps or movements are less advisable. Pregnant women should be cautious about sports, such as tennis and squash, which require quick bursts of exertion.
Strength training is also permissible - not for the abdomen, but for arms and legs. The weights and resistances should be greatly reduced, however.
"Deep-sea diving is the only thing that's really taboo," says Edith Wolber of the Karlsruhe-based German Midwives Association. She points out that women who dive during pregnancy have a significantly higher rate of children with deformities.
Whatever kind of exercise is chosen, the basic guidelines for pregnant women remain the same: Avoid heavy strain, lower intensity, take regular breaks, drink a lot of fluids, and adapt according to one's comfort level.
"Expectant mothers are not competing. That means, among other things, that they can allow themselves to engage in sports less than they did previously, or reduce their performance level," Wolber says.
It is suitable for expectant mothers who were active before their pregnancy to exercise at least half an hour three times a week. The regularity of workouts is more important than the duration.
Exercise becomes more restricted as the pregnancy advances. "During the last trimester, a supine position should be avoided because it disrupts blood circulation in the uterus," Wolber warns.
In every phase of pregnancy, how the woman feels is the main factor in determining the amount of exercise.
"A workout should stop immediately in cases of blurred vision, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, nausea or pain," Albring says. These symptoms should be promptly discussed with the treating physician or midwife, he adds.
A moderate amount of exercise improves the mother's overall condition, strengthens the cardiovascular system and stimulates blood circulation. "If their gynecologist gives the green light, pregnant women should go ahead and participate in sports," says Christian Albring, president of the Munich-based Association of Gynaecologists (BVF).
The appropriate amount of exercise depends upon the stage in the pregnancy, as well as the mother's prior level of physical activity.
Endurance exercises, as opposed to high-impact competitive sports, are particularly beneficial during pregnancy.
"Jogging, hiking, Nordic walking, cycling, dancing, and swimming in water with a temperature over 20 C are all well-suited to people who don't care for sports," Albring says.
Working out in a pool is an especially attractive option. "Water is felt to be particularly pleasant because it buoys the body and takes weight off the joints," notes Marion Sulprizio, a sports psychologist at the German Sport University Cologne's Department of Health Research.
Also, studies show that strenuous activities are possible in water without raising the heart rate. "So in water you can really let loose," she says.
Another option is the fitness studio. "On the treadmill, cross trainer and ergometer, the training intensity is regulated individually and the amount of strain is monitored," Sulprizio says. This allows pregnant women to continually adjust the intensity of their exercise regimen according to their condition.
Sports involving sudden jumps or movements are less advisable. Pregnant women should be cautious about sports, such as tennis and squash, which require quick bursts of exertion.
Strength training is also permissible - not for the abdomen, but for arms and legs. The weights and resistances should be greatly reduced, however.
"Deep-sea diving is the only thing that's really taboo," says Edith Wolber of the Karlsruhe-based German Midwives Association. She points out that women who dive during pregnancy have a significantly higher rate of children with deformities.
Whatever kind of exercise is chosen, the basic guidelines for pregnant women remain the same: Avoid heavy strain, lower intensity, take regular breaks, drink a lot of fluids, and adapt according to one's comfort level.
"Expectant mothers are not competing. That means, among other things, that they can allow themselves to engage in sports less than they did previously, or reduce their performance level," Wolber says.
It is suitable for expectant mothers who were active before their pregnancy to exercise at least half an hour three times a week. The regularity of workouts is more important than the duration.
Exercise becomes more restricted as the pregnancy advances. "During the last trimester, a supine position should be avoided because it disrupts blood circulation in the uterus," Wolber warns.
In every phase of pregnancy, how the woman feels is the main factor in determining the amount of exercise.
"A workout should stop immediately in cases of blurred vision, shortness of breath, headache, dizziness, nausea or pain," Albring says. These symptoms should be promptly discussed with the treating physician or midwife, he adds.
'Drugs for kids' fury
Some experts stress diet and exercise should play an important role in reducing the risk of heart disease in overweight children.
Children as young as 8 with high cholesterol levels should be put on drugs to reduce their risk of heart disease, doctors in the United States have recommended.
The move by the American Academy of Paediatrics has triggered a furor, because there is little long-term data on the risks and benefits of the recommended drugs, statins, in children, and no evidence that the drugs can prevent heart attacks when they are adults.
But the number of obese and overweight children is soaring on both sides of the Atlantic and experts in the UK, who are already treating small numbers of very high-risk children with statins, say it is time wider use of the drugs was discussed.
Most doctors agree that the use of statins for some children whose genetic inheritance puts them seriously at risk of a fatal heart attack in their 20s or 30s is justified.
The UK's National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) wants statins to be given after the age of 10 to the one in 500 children who have the FH ("familial hypercholesterolaemia") gene with a high risk of heart disease.
The American academy, however, is taking it further. It wants cholesterol screening for all children with a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease; for children whose family history is unknown; and for those with obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes between the ages of 2 and 10. Statins should be considered, it says, if any of those over the age of 8 have particularly high cholesterol levels.
The academy also says reduced-fat milk should be given to babies in whom obesity or overweight condition is considered a problem by the age of 12 months.
"We are in an epidemic," says Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the academy's nutrition committee, which made the recommendation, and professor and chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. "The risk of giving statins at a lower age is less than the benefit you're going to get out of it."
But a number of doctors in the US have expressed strong reservations about giving drugs to children whose most urgent need is to get more exercise and eat a more healthy diet.
"Where are the data that show this is helpful in preventing heart attacks?" says Darshak Sanghavi, a paediatric cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
"How many heart attacks do we hope to prevent this way? There's no data regarding that."
Others express concern at the public health message the prescription of pills to overweight children might give, but experts in the UK say that statins are already being given to children as young as 6 who have the FH gene and that discussion of their use is welcome.
Chris Hendriksz, consultant in inherited metabolic disorders at Birmingham Children's Hospital, accepts the US guidelines are controversial but agrees with them.
"I lost an 8-year-old with hypercholesterolaemia about 15 years ago," he says. "I could never believe it could happen that early. Things like that change your view."
Hendriksz says the FH gene might not be the only genetic reason that some fathers die of a heart attack at 25 or 30. In his clinic, about a third of the children are, indeed, on statins but two-thirds on diet and lifestyle modifications only.
George Rylance, of the UK's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says he would expect the public to be worried if the college produced a statement like that of the US academy, but he welcomes their recommendation - "not only the text, but the debate it engenders", he says.
He also feels the FH gene is not the only reason why children should be prescribed statins to keep their cholesterol down. "We see families all the time where people are dying of coronary artery disease and they may not have a gene we recognize," he says.
Cathy Ross, a cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation, says that it is important to be sure there is a genetic component to the high cholesterol reading. "We should always eliminate other possible reasons, like a child's diet and lack of activity and weight in proportion to their height," she says.
Ross stresses parents should first be counseled on diet and exercise, adding: "You don't give an adult statins without implementing lifestyle interventions."
Children as young as 8 with high cholesterol levels should be put on drugs to reduce their risk of heart disease, doctors in the United States have recommended.
The move by the American Academy of Paediatrics has triggered a furor, because there is little long-term data on the risks and benefits of the recommended drugs, statins, in children, and no evidence that the drugs can prevent heart attacks when they are adults.
But the number of obese and overweight children is soaring on both sides of the Atlantic and experts in the UK, who are already treating small numbers of very high-risk children with statins, say it is time wider use of the drugs was discussed.
Most doctors agree that the use of statins for some children whose genetic inheritance puts them seriously at risk of a fatal heart attack in their 20s or 30s is justified.
The UK's National Institute for Healthcare and Clinical Excellence (NICE) wants statins to be given after the age of 10 to the one in 500 children who have the FH ("familial hypercholesterolaemia") gene with a high risk of heart disease.
The American academy, however, is taking it further. It wants cholesterol screening for all children with a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease; for children whose family history is unknown; and for those with obesity, high blood pressure or diabetes between the ages of 2 and 10. Statins should be considered, it says, if any of those over the age of 8 have particularly high cholesterol levels.
The academy also says reduced-fat milk should be given to babies in whom obesity or overweight condition is considered a problem by the age of 12 months.
"We are in an epidemic," says Jatinder Bhatia, a member of the academy's nutrition committee, which made the recommendation, and professor and chief of neonatology at the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta. "The risk of giving statins at a lower age is less than the benefit you're going to get out of it."
But a number of doctors in the US have expressed strong reservations about giving drugs to children whose most urgent need is to get more exercise and eat a more healthy diet.
"Where are the data that show this is helpful in preventing heart attacks?" says Darshak Sanghavi, a paediatric cardiologist and assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School.
"How many heart attacks do we hope to prevent this way? There's no data regarding that."
Others express concern at the public health message the prescription of pills to overweight children might give, but experts in the UK say that statins are already being given to children as young as 6 who have the FH gene and that discussion of their use is welcome.
Chris Hendriksz, consultant in inherited metabolic disorders at Birmingham Children's Hospital, accepts the US guidelines are controversial but agrees with them.
"I lost an 8-year-old with hypercholesterolaemia about 15 years ago," he says. "I could never believe it could happen that early. Things like that change your view."
Hendriksz says the FH gene might not be the only genetic reason that some fathers die of a heart attack at 25 or 30. In his clinic, about a third of the children are, indeed, on statins but two-thirds on diet and lifestyle modifications only.
George Rylance, of the UK's Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, says he would expect the public to be worried if the college produced a statement like that of the US academy, but he welcomes their recommendation - "not only the text, but the debate it engenders", he says.
He also feels the FH gene is not the only reason why children should be prescribed statins to keep their cholesterol down. "We see families all the time where people are dying of coronary artery disease and they may not have a gene we recognize," he says.
Cathy Ross, a cardiac nurse with the British Heart Foundation, says that it is important to be sure there is a genetic component to the high cholesterol reading. "We should always eliminate other possible reasons, like a child's diet and lack of activity and weight in proportion to their height," she says.
Ross stresses parents should first be counseled on diet and exercise, adding: "You don't give an adult statins without implementing lifestyle interventions."
Turn to drink this summer
The intense summer heat brings thirst, dry throats and loss of energy. Water resolves all these problems and, for the health-conscious, does not have any calories. Luckily, there are many more kinds of water to choose from nowadays than just tap and carbonated bottled water.
Alternatives include natural artesian water from Fiji, spring water from Norway, water that is flavored or has added minerals, ready-to-drink fruit spritzers, energy drinks and old-fashioned green tea.
Take your pick; it really doesn't matter. There is only one golden rule this summer: Drink plenty of it! After all, water is not only a trendy lifestyle product. It is also, and most importantly, the main ingredient of life.
Every day we ingest a liter or more liquid via food, for example, by eating watery fruits and vegetables like melons and tomatoes. The German Nutrition Society (DGE), based in Bonn, recommends intaking at least an extra 1.5 liters in the form of liquids. "When temperatures exceed 35 C, you'd also do well to drink double that amount," says DGE spokeswoman Antje Gahl.
She stresses that even athletes should increase their water intake in summer: A glass of water or apple spritzer a half or quarter-hour before the athletic activity is generally sufficient.
But during activities that last longer than an hour, such as running, she recommends drinking a half-glass or glass "in small swallows" every 15 minutes, even when temperatures are normal.
Another useful tip is not to wait until you're thirsty before having a drink, and this is especially true for older people. With advancing age, the sensation of thirst diminishes, says Wolfgang Wesiack, president of the Wiesbaden-based Association of German Internists (BDI).
The risk of dehydration is especially high in summer because perspiration causes the body to lose more liquid. If the lost liquid is not replenished, the blood can thicken. This reduces the body's ability to function and can lead to confusion and even loss of consciousness or kidney failure.
"The best time to drink water is between meals," advises Barbara Hendel of Munich, a holistic medical doctor and author of the book Water and Salt, Wellspring of Life. The ideal time would be about 15 minutes before a meal or an hour or two afterwards.
"You can also drink water during meals, of course, but too much dilutes the digestive juices and delays or hampers digestion," she says.
The kind of liquid you drink is also important. Although coffee and alcohol consist largely of water, Hendel says, "They also contain other substances, so the water has fewer free docking places to bind toxic substances and excrete them." High-proof spirits even take water from the body.
Wesiack recommends natural mineral water because it contains salts that the body loses through perspiration, but the most popular mineral water is still the carbonated kind, with medium-fizzy varieties not far behind.
Non-carbonated and slightly flavored waters are also enjoying increasing popularity, but Wesiack sees no physical benefits in the latter. He says that lifestyle products with, say, strawberry flavors are "not medically indicated", in other words, unnecessary.
Soft drinks are unsuitable thirst quenchers because of their high sugar content, which makes you thirstier, the DGE notes. It says that herbal or fruit teas, fruit spritzers and low-calorie refreshing drinks are better.
The DGE's Gahl suggests a simpler and cheaper alternative: tap water! Foreigners should note, however, that the DGE was targeting German consumers, and they would do well to stick to the bottled version while in China.
Alternatives include natural artesian water from Fiji, spring water from Norway, water that is flavored or has added minerals, ready-to-drink fruit spritzers, energy drinks and old-fashioned green tea.
Take your pick; it really doesn't matter. There is only one golden rule this summer: Drink plenty of it! After all, water is not only a trendy lifestyle product. It is also, and most importantly, the main ingredient of life.
Every day we ingest a liter or more liquid via food, for example, by eating watery fruits and vegetables like melons and tomatoes. The German Nutrition Society (DGE), based in Bonn, recommends intaking at least an extra 1.5 liters in the form of liquids. "When temperatures exceed 35 C, you'd also do well to drink double that amount," says DGE spokeswoman Antje Gahl.
She stresses that even athletes should increase their water intake in summer: A glass of water or apple spritzer a half or quarter-hour before the athletic activity is generally sufficient.
But during activities that last longer than an hour, such as running, she recommends drinking a half-glass or glass "in small swallows" every 15 minutes, even when temperatures are normal.
Another useful tip is not to wait until you're thirsty before having a drink, and this is especially true for older people. With advancing age, the sensation of thirst diminishes, says Wolfgang Wesiack, president of the Wiesbaden-based Association of German Internists (BDI).
The risk of dehydration is especially high in summer because perspiration causes the body to lose more liquid. If the lost liquid is not replenished, the blood can thicken. This reduces the body's ability to function and can lead to confusion and even loss of consciousness or kidney failure.
"The best time to drink water is between meals," advises Barbara Hendel of Munich, a holistic medical doctor and author of the book Water and Salt, Wellspring of Life. The ideal time would be about 15 minutes before a meal or an hour or two afterwards.
"You can also drink water during meals, of course, but too much dilutes the digestive juices and delays or hampers digestion," she says.
The kind of liquid you drink is also important. Although coffee and alcohol consist largely of water, Hendel says, "They also contain other substances, so the water has fewer free docking places to bind toxic substances and excrete them." High-proof spirits even take water from the body.
Wesiack recommends natural mineral water because it contains salts that the body loses through perspiration, but the most popular mineral water is still the carbonated kind, with medium-fizzy varieties not far behind.
Non-carbonated and slightly flavored waters are also enjoying increasing popularity, but Wesiack sees no physical benefits in the latter. He says that lifestyle products with, say, strawberry flavors are "not medically indicated", in other words, unnecessary.
Soft drinks are unsuitable thirst quenchers because of their high sugar content, which makes you thirstier, the DGE notes. It says that herbal or fruit teas, fruit spritzers and low-calorie refreshing drinks are better.
The DGE's Gahl suggests a simpler and cheaper alternative: tap water! Foreigners should note, however, that the DGE was targeting German consumers, and they would do well to stick to the bottled version while in China.
Poison kiss: lead alert
US research shows may leading brands of lipstick contain dangerously high levels of lead.
Women are being warned about using some lipsticks after concerns were raised several big-name brands could contain lead.
The warnings come in the wake of last week's ruling that a class action in the United States against luxury goods giant LVMH - the manufacturer of Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick, which has been found to contain lead - could proceed.
The blood-red Dior lipstick was among dozens of lipsticks found to contain lead, after US lobby group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test lead levels in 33 brand-name lipsticks.
The results, made public in a report last October, revealed 61 percent of the lipsticks tested had detectable lead levels. One-third of the lipsticks exceeded the US Food and Drug Administration's accepted level of lead (0.1 parts per million) for products that are ingested. The Dior lipstick was found to contain 0.21ppm of lead.
Peter Dingle, an environmental toxicologist from Perth-based Murdoch University and author of the Dangerous Beauty booklet, has called for regulatory change to ban lead from cosmetic products to protect consumer health.
"It is ridiculous that we have any lead in our cosmetics at all," he said. "For the last 50 years we have campaigned to get lead out of everything and here we are putting it in lipstick. It's crazy."
Mr Dingle says companies which claim the levels of lead in their products are too low to cause harm are talking nonsense.
"We've known for 200 years that lead is toxic and the research now is showing that lead, even at the absolute lowest concentration, still has a toxic effect on our body … not to mention the cumulative effect it could have."
Exposure to lead can result in intellectual and behavioural problems and has also been linked to kidney damage, infertility and miscarriage, among other adverse health affects. It has been estimated that the average woman ingests about 4.5kilograms of lipstick in a lifetime.
The Australian Government's industrial chemical watchdog, the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme said, in a statement on Friday, it was aware of "ongoing concerns about the presence of lead in cosmetics" but said investigations to date had not identified any cosmetic products containing lead, besides known uses as hair colourants.
It would not confirm whether it would investigate the claims being made that the Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick contains unsafe levels of lead.
Women are being warned about using some lipsticks after concerns were raised several big-name brands could contain lead.
The warnings come in the wake of last week's ruling that a class action in the United States against luxury goods giant LVMH - the manufacturer of Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick, which has been found to contain lead - could proceed.
The blood-red Dior lipstick was among dozens of lipsticks found to contain lead, after US lobby group Campaign for Safe Cosmetics commissioned an independent laboratory to test lead levels in 33 brand-name lipsticks.
The results, made public in a report last October, revealed 61 percent of the lipsticks tested had detectable lead levels. One-third of the lipsticks exceeded the US Food and Drug Administration's accepted level of lead (0.1 parts per million) for products that are ingested. The Dior lipstick was found to contain 0.21ppm of lead.
Peter Dingle, an environmental toxicologist from Perth-based Murdoch University and author of the Dangerous Beauty booklet, has called for regulatory change to ban lead from cosmetic products to protect consumer health.
"It is ridiculous that we have any lead in our cosmetics at all," he said. "For the last 50 years we have campaigned to get lead out of everything and here we are putting it in lipstick. It's crazy."
Mr Dingle says companies which claim the levels of lead in their products are too low to cause harm are talking nonsense.
"We've known for 200 years that lead is toxic and the research now is showing that lead, even at the absolute lowest concentration, still has a toxic effect on our body … not to mention the cumulative effect it could have."
Exposure to lead can result in intellectual and behavioural problems and has also been linked to kidney damage, infertility and miscarriage, among other adverse health affects. It has been estimated that the average woman ingests about 4.5kilograms of lipstick in a lifetime.
The Australian Government's industrial chemical watchdog, the National Industrial Chemicals Notification and Assessment Scheme said, in a statement on Friday, it was aware of "ongoing concerns about the presence of lead in cosmetics" but said investigations to date had not identified any cosmetic products containing lead, besides known uses as hair colourants.
It would not confirm whether it would investigate the claims being made that the Dior Addict Positive Red lipstick contains unsafe levels of lead.
Study: Compound in human saliva can speed wound healing
Researchers from The Netherlands have identified a compound in human saliva that greatly speeds wound healing, according to their report published Wednesday in The Journal of Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB).
The research team found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for wound healing.
This research may offer hope to people suffering from chronic wounds related to diabetes and other disorders, as well as traumatic injuries and burns. In addition, because the compounds can be mass produced, they have the potential to become as common as antibiotic creams and rubbing alcohol.
"We hope our finding is ultimately beneficial for people who suffer from non-healing wounds, such as foot ulcers and diabetic ulcers, as well as for treatment of trauma-induced wounds like burns," said Menno Oudhoff, first author of the report.
"This study not only answers the biological question of why animals lick their wounds," said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, "it also explains why wounds in the mouth, like those of a tooth extraction, heal much faster than comparable wounds of the skin and bone. It also directs us to begin looking at saliva as a source for new drugs."
The research team found that histatin, a small protein in saliva previously only believed to kill bacteria was responsible for wound healing.
This research may offer hope to people suffering from chronic wounds related to diabetes and other disorders, as well as traumatic injuries and burns. In addition, because the compounds can be mass produced, they have the potential to become as common as antibiotic creams and rubbing alcohol.
"We hope our finding is ultimately beneficial for people who suffer from non-healing wounds, such as foot ulcers and diabetic ulcers, as well as for treatment of trauma-induced wounds like burns," said Menno Oudhoff, first author of the report.
"This study not only answers the biological question of why animals lick their wounds," said Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of The FASEB Journal, "it also explains why wounds in the mouth, like those of a tooth extraction, heal much faster than comparable wounds of the skin and bone. It also directs us to begin looking at saliva as a source for new drugs."
"It isn't that we're going to completely stop and turn around 180 degrees, but we're going to torque or turn the knob on the system much more toward a
According to a top US AIDS scientist, research is about to go back to laboratory basics, following setbacks in the search for an elusive vaccine.
Dr Anthony S Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and his colleagues announced the turnabout in an article in the magazine Science.
Fauci says that his federally funded institute, which distributes about 80 percent of the money spent worldwide on vaccine research, will "rev up the burners" to tackle the decades-old puzzle of how to create antibodies against the disease without causing an actual infection.
That means less money will be spent on human trials of vaccines that might work in less conventional ways, a hope that once buoyed researchers' efforts, only to later disappoint.
More use will be made of animals in research. "The emphasis right now will be on improving the non-human primate model," Fauci says. "What is the best animal model that we can perfect? Why does the body not make adequate neutralizing antibodies in response to natural infections?"
The shift in focus follows intense discussion within the HIV/AIDS research community, and the announcement comes just a week after Fauci decided to cancel a large human trial of the institute's own PAVE vaccine, which is similar to one privately produced and tested by Merck pharmaceuticals, and later dropped, in September 2007.
The Merck vaccine was found to be ineffective and in fact appeared to have inadvertently increased the HIV infection rate. Trials were dropped midway.
Dr Anthony S Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and his colleagues announced the turnabout in an article in the magazine Science.
Fauci says that his federally funded institute, which distributes about 80 percent of the money spent worldwide on vaccine research, will "rev up the burners" to tackle the decades-old puzzle of how to create antibodies against the disease without causing an actual infection.
That means less money will be spent on human trials of vaccines that might work in less conventional ways, a hope that once buoyed researchers' efforts, only to later disappoint.
More use will be made of animals in research. "The emphasis right now will be on improving the non-human primate model," Fauci says. "What is the best animal model that we can perfect? Why does the body not make adequate neutralizing antibodies in response to natural infections?"
The shift in focus follows intense discussion within the HIV/AIDS research community, and the announcement comes just a week after Fauci decided to cancel a large human trial of the institute's own PAVE vaccine, which is similar to one privately produced and tested by Merck pharmaceuticals, and later dropped, in September 2007.
The Merck vaccine was found to be ineffective and in fact appeared to have inadvertently increased the HIV infection rate. Trials were dropped midway.
'Unwanted' side-effects can indicate 'wanted' ones
The "unwanted" side-effects of certain medications can provide clues to new uses of those medications which otherwise could go unnoticed, according to a team of German researchers.
The classic example is the anti-impotence drug Viagra, which started out as a treatment for angina - pain caused by too little blood reaching the heart. One of the "unwanted" side-effects of that drug was spontaneous erections in male patients.
By adjusting the medication's effects on biological molecules, scientists were able to enhance the anti-impotence components of the drug.
It was one of those serendipitous discoveries. The search for an anti-impotence drug might have gone on for years if this chance side-effect had not been detected.
But looking for such "unwanted" side-effects is not done often enough, according to researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany.
They have developed a way of standardizing this rule to predict the common targets of different drugs. They now scrutinize hundreds of pharmaceutical drugs for "unwanted" side-effects which could have desirable new uses.
Dr Peer Bork, from the EMBL's Structural and Computational Biology Unit, says: "Such a correlation not only reveals the molecular basis of many side-effects, but also bears a powerful therapeutic potential.
"It hints at new uses of marketed drugs in the treatment of diseases they were not specifically developed for."
Out of a total of 746 marketed drugs, the researchers have found 261 which look as if they might have similar unsuspected applications.
Twenty of these drugs have been tested and 13 showed they targeted molecules predicted by the similarity of their side-effects.
Finding new uses for already marketed drugs is much faster than developing newly discovered medicines, which may take 15 years.
"With some more tests and refinement our method could in future be applied on a bigger scale," says Dr Bork, whose research appears in the journal Science.
"New drugs could routinely be checked in the computer for additional hidden targets and potential use in different therapeutic areas. This will save a lot of money and would speed up drug development tremendously."
The classic example is the anti-impotence drug Viagra, which started out as a treatment for angina - pain caused by too little blood reaching the heart. One of the "unwanted" side-effects of that drug was spontaneous erections in male patients.
By adjusting the medication's effects on biological molecules, scientists were able to enhance the anti-impotence components of the drug.
It was one of those serendipitous discoveries. The search for an anti-impotence drug might have gone on for years if this chance side-effect had not been detected.
But looking for such "unwanted" side-effects is not done often enough, according to researchers at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany.
They have developed a way of standardizing this rule to predict the common targets of different drugs. They now scrutinize hundreds of pharmaceutical drugs for "unwanted" side-effects which could have desirable new uses.
Dr Peer Bork, from the EMBL's Structural and Computational Biology Unit, says: "Such a correlation not only reveals the molecular basis of many side-effects, but also bears a powerful therapeutic potential.
"It hints at new uses of marketed drugs in the treatment of diseases they were not specifically developed for."
Out of a total of 746 marketed drugs, the researchers have found 261 which look as if they might have similar unsuspected applications.
Twenty of these drugs have been tested and 13 showed they targeted molecules predicted by the similarity of their side-effects.
Finding new uses for already marketed drugs is much faster than developing newly discovered medicines, which may take 15 years.
"With some more tests and refinement our method could in future be applied on a bigger scale," says Dr Bork, whose research appears in the journal Science.
"New drugs could routinely be checked in the computer for additional hidden targets and potential use in different therapeutic areas. This will save a lot of money and would speed up drug development tremendously."
Eating fish may thwart 'silent' brain damage
Older adults who regularly eat fish may have a lower risk of subtle brain damage that contributes to stroke and dementia, as long as the fish isn't fried, researchers reported on Monday.
In a study that followed 3,660 adults age 65 and older, Finnish researchers found that those who ate more fish were less likely to show certain "silent" brain infarcts, tiny areas of tissue that have died because of an insufficient blood supply, on an MRI scan.
The tissue damage is considered silent, or "subclinical," because it causes no obvious symptoms and can only be detected through brain scans. It can, however, raise a person's longer-term risk of having a stroke or developing dementia.
Among older adults in the current study, those who said they ate tuna and "other" baked or broiled fish at least three times per week were one-quarter less likely than those who rarely ate fish to have subclinical brain infarcts at the study's start.
Fish eaters also tended to be less likely to develop new infarcts over the next five years.
No such benefits were linked to consumption of fried fish, however, the researchers report in the journal Neurology.
While the study cannot conclusively point to the reason for the brain benefits, it's likely that omega-3 fatty acids, the healthy fats found mainly in oily fish, play a key role, according to Dr Jyrki K. Virtanen and colleagues at the University of Kuopio.
Breakfast benefits may differ
A new study suggests adolescents and young adults may be less attentive in school when they skip breakfast. Moreover, the effect of missing this meal is different in boys and girls, the researchers found.
Dr Katharina Widenhorn-Mueller of Ulm University and her colleagues note in the medical journal Pediatrics that males reported being in a worse mood when they went without breakfast, and their visuospatial memory was also negatively affected, but the same wasn't true of girls.
While parents and teachers often argue that eating breakfast is essential for school success, one review of more than 50 years of research on the topic found that "evidence in support of breakfast is equivocal," Widenhorn-Mueller and her team note.
To examine the effects of eating breakfast on learning in students' natural environment, the researchers looked at 104 boarding school students aged 13 to 20. Half of them ate a standardized breakfast on the first day of the study and half didn't, after which both groups completed several tests of cognitive function and a questionnaire designed to gauge their mood. A week later, the breakfast group fasted and underwent the tests, and vice versa.
Eating breakfast had no effect on students' ability to sustain attention, but all of the students reported feeling more alert after eating breakfast. Boys said their mood was better after they ate breakfast, while they also scored better on tests of visuospatial memory.
There are several ways that eating breakfast might be helpful, the researchers note; it could give people the energy and nutrients they need to produce brain signaling chemicals known as neurotransmitters, while the protein, carbohydrate and fat composition of the meal might also effect mood.
In a study that followed 3,660 adults age 65 and older, Finnish researchers found that those who ate more fish were less likely to show certain "silent" brain infarcts, tiny areas of tissue that have died because of an insufficient blood supply, on an MRI scan.
The tissue damage is considered silent, or "subclinical," because it causes no obvious symptoms and can only be detected through brain scans. It can, however, raise a person's longer-term risk of having a stroke or developing dementia.
Among older adults in the current study, those who said they ate tuna and "other" baked or broiled fish at least three times per week were one-quarter less likely than those who rarely ate fish to have subclinical brain infarcts at the study's start.
Fish eaters also tended to be less likely to develop new infarcts over the next five years.
No such benefits were linked to consumption of fried fish, however, the researchers report in the journal Neurology.
While the study cannot conclusively point to the reason for the brain benefits, it's likely that omega-3 fatty acids, the healthy fats found mainly in oily fish, play a key role, according to Dr Jyrki K. Virtanen and colleagues at the University of Kuopio.
Breakfast benefits may differ
A new study suggests adolescents and young adults may be less attentive in school when they skip breakfast. Moreover, the effect of missing this meal is different in boys and girls, the researchers found.
Dr Katharina Widenhorn-Mueller of Ulm University and her colleagues note in the medical journal Pediatrics that males reported being in a worse mood when they went without breakfast, and their visuospatial memory was also negatively affected, but the same wasn't true of girls.
While parents and teachers often argue that eating breakfast is essential for school success, one review of more than 50 years of research on the topic found that "evidence in support of breakfast is equivocal," Widenhorn-Mueller and her team note.
To examine the effects of eating breakfast on learning in students' natural environment, the researchers looked at 104 boarding school students aged 13 to 20. Half of them ate a standardized breakfast on the first day of the study and half didn't, after which both groups completed several tests of cognitive function and a questionnaire designed to gauge their mood. A week later, the breakfast group fasted and underwent the tests, and vice versa.
Eating breakfast had no effect on students' ability to sustain attention, but all of the students reported feeling more alert after eating breakfast. Boys said their mood was better after they ate breakfast, while they also scored better on tests of visuospatial memory.
There are several ways that eating breakfast might be helpful, the researchers note; it could give people the energy and nutrients they need to produce brain signaling chemicals known as neurotransmitters, while the protein, carbohydrate and fat composition of the meal might also effect mood.
Aging men worry about body odor
Japanese men are worrying about more than mere sweat as summer temperatures rise: talk of body odor caused by ageing is adding to anxiety in a land that prizes being squeaky clean.
Being Japan, it has also sparked a range of new products, from odor-eating suits to special chewing gum.
"My wife tells me that I stink," said company manager Atsushi Asami, 47, interviewed on a typically hot and humid Tokyo street. "I am concerned about ageing odor and know there are anti-ageing odor products, but have not bought them myself."
An on-line survey by CBIC Corp, a Tokyo-based company that sells deodorant products, found that 89 percent of 700 Japanese women in their 20s and 30s found men smelly in commuter trains.
Shiseido Research Centre, a laboratory affiliated with Japanse cosmetics maker Shiseido Co Ltd, sparked the trend to anti-odor products for older men when it discovered eight years ago a substance that it named "kareishu", or ageing odor.
The lab identified nonenal, a type of fatty acid, as the cause, saying unsaturated fatty acids and oxidative decomposition increase from around 40 years of age.
"Increasingly, people are becoming concerned about their body odor," said Tsuneaki Gomi, a plastic surgeon who runs a clinic on body odor in Tokyo.
"Japan is becoming more of a cleanliness and odorless society. And the name, kareishu, fits right in with that trend of the times," Gomi said.
Being Japan, it has also sparked a range of new products, from odor-eating suits to special chewing gum.
"My wife tells me that I stink," said company manager Atsushi Asami, 47, interviewed on a typically hot and humid Tokyo street. "I am concerned about ageing odor and know there are anti-ageing odor products, but have not bought them myself."
An on-line survey by CBIC Corp, a Tokyo-based company that sells deodorant products, found that 89 percent of 700 Japanese women in their 20s and 30s found men smelly in commuter trains.
Shiseido Research Centre, a laboratory affiliated with Japanse cosmetics maker Shiseido Co Ltd, sparked the trend to anti-odor products for older men when it discovered eight years ago a substance that it named "kareishu", or ageing odor.
The lab identified nonenal, a type of fatty acid, as the cause, saying unsaturated fatty acids and oxidative decomposition increase from around 40 years of age.
"Increasingly, people are becoming concerned about their body odor," said Tsuneaki Gomi, a plastic surgeon who runs a clinic on body odor in Tokyo.
"Japan is becoming more of a cleanliness and odorless society. And the name, kareishu, fits right in with that trend of the times," Gomi said.
All U.S. adults could be overweight in 40 years
If the trends of the past three decades continue, it's possible that every American adult could be overweight 40 years from now, a government-funded study projects.
The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.
"Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible" for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.
However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, "that is the direction we're going."
Already, she and her colleagues point out, some groups of U.S. adults have extremely high rates of overweight and obesity; among African- American women, for instance, 78 percent are currently overweight or obese.
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.
If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.
Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.
All of this rests on the "big assumption" that the trends of recent decades will march on unabated, Liang acknowledged.
"This is really intended as a wake-up call to show what could happen if nothing changes," she said.
Waistlines aren't the only thing poised to balloon in the future, according to Liang and her colleagues. They estimate that the healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 -- accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the
U.S.
Those financial projections are based on Census data and published estimates of the current healthcare costs attributed to excess weight -- and they are probably a "huge underestimate" of what the actual costs will be, Liang said.
The findings highlight a need for widespread efforts to improve Americans' lifestyles and keep their weight in check, according to the researchers. Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not enough, Liang noted.
Broader social changes are needed as well, she said -- such as making communities more pedestrian-friendly so that people can walk regularly, or getting the food industry to offer healthier, calorie-conscious choices.
"It really needs to be more than an individual effort," Liang said. "It needs to be a societal effort."
The figure might sound alarming, or impossible, but researchers say that even if the actual rate never reaches the 100-percent mark, any upward movement is worrying; two-thirds of the population is already overweight.
"Genetically and physiologically, it should be impossible" for all U.S. adults to become overweight, said Dr. Lan Liang of the federal government's Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, one of the researchers on the study.
However, she told Reuters Health, the data suggest that if the trends of the past 30 years persist, "that is the direction we're going."
Already, she and her colleagues point out, some groups of U.S. adults have extremely high rates of overweight and obesity; among African- American women, for instance, 78 percent are currently overweight or obese.
The new projections, published in the journal Obesity, are based on government survey data collected between the 1970s and 2004.
If the trends of those years continue, the researchers estimate that 86 percent of American adults will be overweight by 2030, with an obesity rate of 51 percent. By 2048, all U.S. adults could be at least mildly overweight.
Weight problems will be most acute among African-Americans and Mexican- Americans, the study projects. All black women could be overweight by 2034, according to the researchers, as could more than 90 percent of Mexican-American men.
All of this rests on the "big assumption" that the trends of recent decades will march on unabated, Liang acknowledged.
"This is really intended as a wake-up call to show what could happen if nothing changes," she said.
Waistlines aren't the only thing poised to balloon in the future, according to Liang and her colleagues. They estimate that the healthcare costs directly related to excess pounds will double each decade, reaching $957 billion in 2030 -- accounting for one of every six healthcare dollars spent in the
U.S.
Those financial projections are based on Census data and published estimates of the current healthcare costs attributed to excess weight -- and they are probably a "huge underestimate" of what the actual costs will be, Liang said.
The findings highlight a need for widespread efforts to improve Americans' lifestyles and keep their weight in check, according to the researchers. Simply telling people to eat less and exercise more is not enough, Liang noted.
Broader social changes are needed as well, she said -- such as making communities more pedestrian-friendly so that people can walk regularly, or getting the food industry to offer healthier, calorie-conscious choices.
"It really needs to be more than an individual effort," Liang said. "It needs to be a societal effort."
Expats tapped for rare blood
Shanghai has begun a major campaign to encourage expatriates to become blood donors.
The city collected 80,000 liters of blood last year, but only about 100 liters came from expats.
The Shanghai Blood Center plans to invite expats to visit the center and carry out more activities to encourage foreigner donors, who have a much higher incidence of rare blood like Rh negative.
"More expatriate donors can mean bigger stocks of rare blood, which is always scarce in the city," said Lu Yao from the center.
"We had two cases of foreign patients requiring a large quantity of rare blood last year. Our storage couldn't meet the demand, but we managed to get the extra blood after information about the problem was spread in local expat circles.
"Most expatriates don't donate blood because they worry about safety and hygiene, especially after the reports of AIDS spreading through blood sold in Henan Province."
But Lu said administration was now very strict across the nation to ensure blood safety.
The center has recruited foreign volunteers to call expats and ask for donations and to serve in blood-collecting vehicles or at the center.
Kim Boo Youn from South Korea and Brian Kenny from the United States are working at the center. Kim, an 18-year-old student at an international school in Suzhou, neighboring Jiangsu Province, said she had called many South Koreans for blood donations.
"But few of them actually took action even though most of them agreed on the phone," she said. "I even failed to persuade my friends to do so."
Kenny, also 18, said his experience was the same.
"Most foreigners consider it unsafe to give blood in China," he said.
"Even when giving blood, most people just give full blood instead of platelets because of safety concerns and poor knowledge of the procedure, in which a machine separates out the needed platelet and returns the rest of the blood to the donor."
According to the blood center, only three expatriates donated platelets last year.
Kenny said he had planned to donate blood on Thursday as an example to his friends, but he didn't pass the physical check.
"I think it is safe to give blood here, even safer than in my country, after witnessing the working environment, the procedures and the equipment here," he said.
Only three to four in every 1,000 Chinese have Rh negative blood, but 10 to 15 percent of Western people have that type.
An elderly Indian woman hemorrhaged during surgery in the city last year. The center sent its 2,000-milliliter stock of Rh negative A type blood to the hospital immediately and the woman was saved after a family member called for friends to donate blood.
The city collected 80,000 liters of blood last year, but only about 100 liters came from expats.
The Shanghai Blood Center plans to invite expats to visit the center and carry out more activities to encourage foreigner donors, who have a much higher incidence of rare blood like Rh negative.
"More expatriate donors can mean bigger stocks of rare blood, which is always scarce in the city," said Lu Yao from the center.
"We had two cases of foreign patients requiring a large quantity of rare blood last year. Our storage couldn't meet the demand, but we managed to get the extra blood after information about the problem was spread in local expat circles.
"Most expatriates don't donate blood because they worry about safety and hygiene, especially after the reports of AIDS spreading through blood sold in Henan Province."
But Lu said administration was now very strict across the nation to ensure blood safety.
The center has recruited foreign volunteers to call expats and ask for donations and to serve in blood-collecting vehicles or at the center.
Kim Boo Youn from South Korea and Brian Kenny from the United States are working at the center. Kim, an 18-year-old student at an international school in Suzhou, neighboring Jiangsu Province, said she had called many South Koreans for blood donations.
"But few of them actually took action even though most of them agreed on the phone," she said. "I even failed to persuade my friends to do so."
Kenny, also 18, said his experience was the same.
"Most foreigners consider it unsafe to give blood in China," he said.
"Even when giving blood, most people just give full blood instead of platelets because of safety concerns and poor knowledge of the procedure, in which a machine separates out the needed platelet and returns the rest of the blood to the donor."
According to the blood center, only three expatriates donated platelets last year.
Kenny said he had planned to donate blood on Thursday as an example to his friends, but he didn't pass the physical check.
"I think it is safe to give blood here, even safer than in my country, after witnessing the working environment, the procedures and the equipment here," he said.
Only three to four in every 1,000 Chinese have Rh negative blood, but 10 to 15 percent of Western people have that type.
An elderly Indian woman hemorrhaged during surgery in the city last year. The center sent its 2,000-milliliter stock of Rh negative A type blood to the hospital immediately and the woman was saved after a family member called for friends to donate blood.
Fit and fat: Study shows it's possible
It may be possible to be both fat and healthy, researchers reported on Monday, for at least half of overweight adults, and close to a third of obese men and women, have normal blood pressure, cholesterol and other measures of heart health.
And being lean does not necessarily protect people, either. Close to a quarter of normal-weight U.S. adults in one study had risk factors for heart disease or diabetes.
"We really don't know as much about obesity as we think we do," Judith Wylie-Rosett of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who oversaw the study, said in a telephone interview.
"A considerable proportion of overweight and obese U.S. adults are metabolically healthy, whereas a considerable proportion of normal-weight adults express a clustering of cardiometabolic abnormalities," Wylie-Rosett and Rachel Wildman and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Wylie-Rosett's team looked at data on 5,440 men and women who were examined and filled out questionnaires for the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys between 1999 and 2004. Most did not exercise very much.
They found just over 51 percent of those who were overweight, and 31.7 percent of those who were obese, had healthy levels of cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and other measures linked to heart disease.
These measures have been shown in many other studies to predict heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and other heart disease, although this particular study did not look at whether people suffered any of these problems.
More than 23 percent of those who were at a healthy weight, as measured by body mass index, had two or more unhealthy readings, the researchers found.
"Our study shows you can still be healthy even if you are obese," Wylie-Rosett said.
Her team did not look at people's diets, but she believes the location of body fat is as important as how much there is. Many studies have shown that having visceral fat, in and among the internal organs, may be more dangerous than having fat thighs or buttocks.
But when Wylie-Rosett's team measured waist circumference, a common way to estimate visceral fat, more than 36 percent of the obese people with what should have been dangerously large waists had healthy blood test results.
A second study suggested that the liver may be the key.
Dr. Norbert Stefan and colleagues at the University of Tubingen in Germany closely examined 314 people, using magnetic resonance imaging to look at precisely how much body fat they had and where it was.
They also found that obese men and women could have healthy hearts and arteries and suggested that having fat on the liver may be what makes the difference.
"Altogether, 10 percent of the study population and 25 percent of the obese subjects had a high insulin sensitivity phenotype or 'metabolically benign obesity,'" they wrote in their Archives report.
"Our data suggest that ectopic fat accumulation in the liver may be more important than visceral fat in the determination of such a beneficial phenotype in obesity," they wrote.
"That's an area that we are very intrigued with as well," Wylie-Rosett said," adding: "If you start stuffing people with calories, it is very much like making pate from goose liver."
Geese are often force-fed to make their livers fatty and thus more suitable for pate-making.
And being lean does not necessarily protect people, either. Close to a quarter of normal-weight U.S. adults in one study had risk factors for heart disease or diabetes.
"We really don't know as much about obesity as we think we do," Judith Wylie-Rosett of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, who oversaw the study, said in a telephone interview.
"A considerable proportion of overweight and obese U.S. adults are metabolically healthy, whereas a considerable proportion of normal-weight adults express a clustering of cardiometabolic abnormalities," Wylie-Rosett and Rachel Wildman and colleagues wrote in their report, published in the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
Wylie-Rosett's team looked at data on 5,440 men and women who were examined and filled out questionnaires for the National Health and Nutritional Examination Surveys between 1999 and 2004. Most did not exercise very much.
They found just over 51 percent of those who were overweight, and 31.7 percent of those who were obese, had healthy levels of cholesterol, blood sugar, blood pressure and other measures linked to heart disease.
These measures have been shown in many other studies to predict heart attacks, strokes, diabetes and other heart disease, although this particular study did not look at whether people suffered any of these problems.
More than 23 percent of those who were at a healthy weight, as measured by body mass index, had two or more unhealthy readings, the researchers found.
"Our study shows you can still be healthy even if you are obese," Wylie-Rosett said.
Her team did not look at people's diets, but she believes the location of body fat is as important as how much there is. Many studies have shown that having visceral fat, in and among the internal organs, may be more dangerous than having fat thighs or buttocks.
But when Wylie-Rosett's team measured waist circumference, a common way to estimate visceral fat, more than 36 percent of the obese people with what should have been dangerously large waists had healthy blood test results.
A second study suggested that the liver may be the key.
Dr. Norbert Stefan and colleagues at the University of Tubingen in Germany closely examined 314 people, using magnetic resonance imaging to look at precisely how much body fat they had and where it was.
They also found that obese men and women could have healthy hearts and arteries and suggested that having fat on the liver may be what makes the difference.
"Altogether, 10 percent of the study population and 25 percent of the obese subjects had a high insulin sensitivity phenotype or 'metabolically benign obesity,'" they wrote in their Archives report.
"Our data suggest that ectopic fat accumulation in the liver may be more important than visceral fat in the determination of such a beneficial phenotype in obesity," they wrote.
"That's an area that we are very intrigued with as well," Wylie-Rosett said," adding: "If you start stuffing people with calories, it is very much like making pate from goose liver."
Geese are often force-fed to make their livers fatty and thus more suitable for pate-making.
Smoking doubles stroke risk in younger women
Younger women who smoke have more than double the risk of stroke compared to nonsmokers, with the heaviest smokers among them having nine times the risk, according to a U.S. study published on Thursday.
The research assessed stroke risk in women 15 to 49 years old who smoked cigarettes. Current smokers were 2.6 times as likely to have a stroke than women who never smoked, according to researchers led by Dr. John Cole of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Women who smoked the most faced the highest increased risk, said the study, published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.
For example, women who smoked 21 to 39 cigarettes a day had a risk of stroke 4.3 times higher than a nonsmoker, while those who puffed at least two packs a day -- 40 cigarettes -- had a stroke risk 9.1 times higher than a nonsmoker.
It has been known for a long time that smoking increases the risk of stroke, along with many other health dangers such as lung and other types of cancer, lung disease and heart disease.
But Cole said less was known about how stroke risk was affected by the number of cigarettes a person smokes.
Strokes typically occur in people older than this study population but the research demonstrated that, even in younger women, stroke risk is greatly increased.
"The more you smoke, the more likely you are to have a stroke," Cole said in a telephone interview. "Certainly quitting is the best thing you could do. But cutting back does offer some benefit."
The researchers tracked 466 women in the United States who had already had a stroke and 604 women who had not had a stroke who were of similar age, race and ethnicity.
About a fifth of U.S. women ages 18 to 24 are current smokers, the researchers said.
Cole said he is planning a similar study focusing on stroke risk in younger male smokers.
The research assessed stroke risk in women 15 to 49 years old who smoked cigarettes. Current smokers were 2.6 times as likely to have a stroke than women who never smoked, according to researchers led by Dr. John Cole of the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore.
Women who smoked the most faced the highest increased risk, said the study, published in the American Heart Association's journal Stroke.
For example, women who smoked 21 to 39 cigarettes a day had a risk of stroke 4.3 times higher than a nonsmoker, while those who puffed at least two packs a day -- 40 cigarettes -- had a stroke risk 9.1 times higher than a nonsmoker.
It has been known for a long time that smoking increases the risk of stroke, along with many other health dangers such as lung and other types of cancer, lung disease and heart disease.
But Cole said less was known about how stroke risk was affected by the number of cigarettes a person smokes.
Strokes typically occur in people older than this study population but the research demonstrated that, even in younger women, stroke risk is greatly increased.
"The more you smoke, the more likely you are to have a stroke," Cole said in a telephone interview. "Certainly quitting is the best thing you could do. But cutting back does offer some benefit."
The researchers tracked 466 women in the United States who had already had a stroke and 604 women who had not had a stroke who were of similar age, race and ethnicity.
About a fifth of U.S. women ages 18 to 24 are current smokers, the researchers said.
Cole said he is planning a similar study focusing on stroke risk in younger male smokers.
Cheap guide to exercise
Are you tired of your tired body? Ready to get up off the couch and start burning fat? You don't have to spend big bucks to start the burn. Here are some easy, fun ways to get fit and firm.
Get into step
Getting fit doesn't mean you have to wear the latest fancy joggers while trudging away on an expensive treadmill. All it takes is putting one foot in front of the other.
A brisk walk to the park or the shops is just as effective. Plus, it's more natural for the body. The great outdoors doesn't come with handrails or rubber treadmills, so walking in the open air helps to improves your body's ability to balance and stabilise itself.
And on a beautiful day, wouldn't you rather be out in the fresh air anyway?
Adopt a dog
No joke. Having a dog means having to walk it and walking is a fabulous way to stay in shape. Most likely the dog will take you for a walk (the bigger, the better), meaning you aren't going to be limply strolling along. Try to keep the dog and yourself outside for a full half hour at least four times a week, and gradually take longer walks, seeking out uphill routes.
Take a hike
Don't get swept up into all those confusing (and expensive) cardio cross-training classes. Trail walking is a great way to vary the intensity of your cardio routine. The variation in terrain not only changes the cardiovascular workout but also the muscles used, which can offer a more thorough lower-body workout.
Ride into the sunset
Remember how much you loved your bike when you were a child? It was a great way of getting around town and it still is - no petrol, no parking worries, and it gets you fit too.
But you don't need a glitzy mountain bike; look in your local small ads for a second-hand boneshaker, pump up the tyres, oil the chain, and you're off! (Drop it round to the bike shop for a service if you're at all concerned, it won't cost much.)
Stick to cycle lanes and off-road paths where possible, use your road sense and wear a helmet. You'll save yourself a fortune in travel costs. Why pay for expensive dance classes when you can dance the night away with friends? It's fun, it's social, and it's a great fat burning activity.
Get into step
Getting fit doesn't mean you have to wear the latest fancy joggers while trudging away on an expensive treadmill. All it takes is putting one foot in front of the other.
A brisk walk to the park or the shops is just as effective. Plus, it's more natural for the body. The great outdoors doesn't come with handrails or rubber treadmills, so walking in the open air helps to improves your body's ability to balance and stabilise itself.
And on a beautiful day, wouldn't you rather be out in the fresh air anyway?
Adopt a dog
No joke. Having a dog means having to walk it and walking is a fabulous way to stay in shape. Most likely the dog will take you for a walk (the bigger, the better), meaning you aren't going to be limply strolling along. Try to keep the dog and yourself outside for a full half hour at least four times a week, and gradually take longer walks, seeking out uphill routes.
Take a hike
Don't get swept up into all those confusing (and expensive) cardio cross-training classes. Trail walking is a great way to vary the intensity of your cardio routine. The variation in terrain not only changes the cardiovascular workout but also the muscles used, which can offer a more thorough lower-body workout.
Ride into the sunset
Remember how much you loved your bike when you were a child? It was a great way of getting around town and it still is - no petrol, no parking worries, and it gets you fit too.
But you don't need a glitzy mountain bike; look in your local small ads for a second-hand boneshaker, pump up the tyres, oil the chain, and you're off! (Drop it round to the bike shop for a service if you're at all concerned, it won't cost much.)
Stick to cycle lanes and off-road paths where possible, use your road sense and wear a helmet. You'll save yourself a fortune in travel costs. Why pay for expensive dance classes when you can dance the night away with friends? It's fun, it's social, and it's a great fat burning activity.
Chinese netizens hail Olympic Opening as "masterpiece"
Chinese netizens give high praises to the long-awaited opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympics Games, hailing it as "masterpiece" and "very dramatic".
"The idea of rolling out a Chinese painting scroll in the center of the stadium gives very tranquil and vacant atmosphere. With graceful Kun Opera and other ancient melodies, it explains well the inner tranquility of Chinese people," "Flying bird" commented in a forum at Xinhuanet.com.
"Zhang Yimou has artfully put the country's 5000-year-old history into a painting, and it was really a masterpiece. He's really ambitious, and he did it," wrote "terra cotta warrior" in its blog, adding that the opening is even better than his films.
Most netizens described the opening as a visual "epic" which expressed the powers of civilization. From paper-making to printing, from compass to gunpowder, from Kun opera to modern starry night, the opening is said to present all the touching parts in the Chinese history.
The twenty-nine "big foot prints", representing the twenty-nine Olympic Games, is listed among the most beloved parts by netizens.
"The firework footprints strolled all the way along the central line of the capital to the Bird's Nest. It was like I saw a historical giant striding," said "Pilot" in Baidu.com, one of the most popular portal website in the country.
A netizen named "red fox" said it even climbed on the roof of their house building to witness the fireworks. "The fireworks blossomed right above my head. I was so astonished and completely speechless."
According to an online survey at people.com 24 hours after the ceremony, among the 13,658 respondents, 31 percent give it 60 out of 100 points while 24 percent give it marks above 90.
"A huge number of people participated in the opening performances as a symbol of collective efforts rather than individuals. It really comes from our populous country," wrote "deer".
However, among the 253 million Chinese netizens, criticism is inevitable and also positive.
Some complained that the stage was too small to express the real feelings and the idea of Peking opera puppets was overlapped with other parts of the ceremony.
Many called upon the country to continue its efforts in carrying out a successful Olympics and avoid errors as best as it can.
"The idea of rolling out a Chinese painting scroll in the center of the stadium gives very tranquil and vacant atmosphere. With graceful Kun Opera and other ancient melodies, it explains well the inner tranquility of Chinese people," "Flying bird" commented in a forum at Xinhuanet.com.
"Zhang Yimou has artfully put the country's 5000-year-old history into a painting, and it was really a masterpiece. He's really ambitious, and he did it," wrote "terra cotta warrior" in its blog, adding that the opening is even better than his films.
Most netizens described the opening as a visual "epic" which expressed the powers of civilization. From paper-making to printing, from compass to gunpowder, from Kun opera to modern starry night, the opening is said to present all the touching parts in the Chinese history.
The twenty-nine "big foot prints", representing the twenty-nine Olympic Games, is listed among the most beloved parts by netizens.
"The firework footprints strolled all the way along the central line of the capital to the Bird's Nest. It was like I saw a historical giant striding," said "Pilot" in Baidu.com, one of the most popular portal website in the country.
A netizen named "red fox" said it even climbed on the roof of their house building to witness the fireworks. "The fireworks blossomed right above my head. I was so astonished and completely speechless."
According to an online survey at people.com 24 hours after the ceremony, among the 13,658 respondents, 31 percent give it 60 out of 100 points while 24 percent give it marks above 90.
"A huge number of people participated in the opening performances as a symbol of collective efforts rather than individuals. It really comes from our populous country," wrote "deer".
However, among the 253 million Chinese netizens, criticism is inevitable and also positive.
Some complained that the stage was too small to express the real feelings and the idea of Peking opera puppets was overlapped with other parts of the ceremony.
Many called upon the country to continue its efforts in carrying out a successful Olympics and avoid errors as best as it can.
TVB stars to cover Olympic news
Hong Kong entertainers Carol Cheng, Hacken Lee and Alex Fong are among a dozen celebrities who are set to update local citizens with the latest news from Beijing during next month's Olympics.
The stars, representing Hong Kong's leading broadcaster TVB, will join thousands of journalists in Beijing during the August 8-24 Games, Wen Wei Po reported on Tuesday.
On Monday TVB rallied members of its Olympic reporting team before their departure for Beijing.
Veteran actress Carol Cheng, who will be the major host in TVB's Beijing studio, expressed her excitement, saying that she felt both honored and lucky to take the job and was enhancing her Olympic knowledge.
Hacken Lee, who will be a guest host, has to leave behind his nine-month-old son in Hong Kong, but he thought "it is a rare opportunity, and my son will understand."
Other participating stars include former Miss Hong Kong winners Shirley Yeung and Kayi Cheung.
TVB has invested 80 million Hong Kong dollars (US$10.26 million) in an effort to cover the Olympics around the clock. Its studio at the International Broadcast Center in Beijing, where the star reporters will be based, stretches 700 square meters, according to a report by Xinhua news agency.
Besides the Beijing studio, there will be one in Hong Kong, chaired by veteran entertainer Natalis Chan.
The stars, representing Hong Kong's leading broadcaster TVB, will join thousands of journalists in Beijing during the August 8-24 Games, Wen Wei Po reported on Tuesday.
On Monday TVB rallied members of its Olympic reporting team before their departure for Beijing.
Veteran actress Carol Cheng, who will be the major host in TVB's Beijing studio, expressed her excitement, saying that she felt both honored and lucky to take the job and was enhancing her Olympic knowledge.
Hacken Lee, who will be a guest host, has to leave behind his nine-month-old son in Hong Kong, but he thought "it is a rare opportunity, and my son will understand."
Other participating stars include former Miss Hong Kong winners Shirley Yeung and Kayi Cheung.
TVB has invested 80 million Hong Kong dollars (US$10.26 million) in an effort to cover the Olympics around the clock. Its studio at the International Broadcast Center in Beijing, where the star reporters will be based, stretches 700 square meters, according to a report by Xinhua news agency.
Besides the Beijing studio, there will be one in Hong Kong, chaired by veteran entertainer Natalis Chan.
Lindsay Lohan to marry
Lindsay Lohan and girlfriend Samantha Ronson are reportedly set to marry. The 'Mean Girls' actress - who only recently confirmed she was in a same-sex relationship with DJ Samantha - is planning to exchange vows with her lover at a private ceremony in Los Angeles later this year, and her mother Dina has already started planning a lavish party.
A source said: "They've been keeping the relationship quiet for months and trying to pass each other off as 'just good friends'. "But they've decided it isn't a fling, it's for life - so they want to make their romance public.
Dina is still working on the date of the party but it's looking like towards the end of the year." It is believed the nuptials could take place in November around the same time Lindsay releases her new album 'Spirit In The Dark'.
The 22-year-old star has already bought a white Chanel mini-dress for the ceremony, while Samantha - the sister of super-producer Mark Ronson - is toying with the idea of wearing a black suit and top hat. Friends and relatives will attend the special day, with Dina determined to make the event the perfect way to "welcome Sam into the family". Meanwhile, Lindsay blasted a Los Angeles police chief who joked she had "gone gay" last week.
She said: "Police chiefs shouldn't get involved in everyone else's business when it comes to their personal life. It's inappropriate." Chief William Bratton made the remark as he explained why he did not support new rules to curb paparazzi in Los Angeles.
He said: "If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody - thank God - and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue."
A source said: "They've been keeping the relationship quiet for months and trying to pass each other off as 'just good friends'. "But they've decided it isn't a fling, it's for life - so they want to make their romance public.
Dina is still working on the date of the party but it's looking like towards the end of the year." It is believed the nuptials could take place in November around the same time Lindsay releases her new album 'Spirit In The Dark'.
The 22-year-old star has already bought a white Chanel mini-dress for the ceremony, while Samantha - the sister of super-producer Mark Ronson - is toying with the idea of wearing a black suit and top hat. Friends and relatives will attend the special day, with Dina determined to make the event the perfect way to "welcome Sam into the family". Meanwhile, Lindsay blasted a Los Angeles police chief who joked she had "gone gay" last week.
She said: "Police chiefs shouldn't get involved in everyone else's business when it comes to their personal life. It's inappropriate." Chief William Bratton made the remark as he explained why he did not support new rules to curb paparazzi in Los Angeles.
He said: "If you notice, since Britney started wearing clothes and behaving, Paris is out of town not bothering anybody - thank God - and evidently, Lindsay Lohan has gone gay, we don't seem to have much of an issue."
Madonna's birthday tribute
Madonna's husband Guy Ritchie paid tribute to her at her 50th birthday celebrations on Saturday. The director threw a lavish 100,000 party for 90 guests to celebrate his wife reaching the landmark age at the weekend and, in an emotional speech, spoke of his love and pride for the singer.
Guy - who has been dogged by rumours his marriage to the pop superstar is on the rocks - told partygoers at the Volstead nightclub in London: "She looks better now than she has ever done. I'm so proud. I love her so much." Despite organising the party, Guy spent most of the day working as he hosted a private industry screening of his new movie 'RocknRolla'.
An insider commented: "It was as if he was trying to make a point by not being at her beck and call." The 'Give It 2 Me' singer was moved to tears when her 11-year-old daughter Lourdes performed a surprise rendition of 'Never Alone' from the musical 'Fame' at the venue's grand piano.
Madonna was left disappointed after her closest friends - including Stella McCartney and Gwyneth Paltrow - failed to attend the party. In a 40-minute speech, she thanked Guy, Lourdes, eight-year-old son Rocco, and adopted son David, two, before adding: "I'm really disappointed. There are a lot of people who are not here tonight, but thanks to everyone who did make it."
Guy - who refused to dance with his wife - also poked fun at the absence of Madonna's friends in his speech, noting that many of the guests worked for her. Around 40 partygoers were her dancers, who joined the star and her children to gyrate to her back catalogue on the dance-floor, which had a huge M in the middle.
A friend said: "She loved it when her songs came on. Her dancers were pulling out all the moves, it was like the final rehearsal for her tour."
Guy - who has been dogged by rumours his marriage to the pop superstar is on the rocks - told partygoers at the Volstead nightclub in London: "She looks better now than she has ever done. I'm so proud. I love her so much." Despite organising the party, Guy spent most of the day working as he hosted a private industry screening of his new movie 'RocknRolla'.
An insider commented: "It was as if he was trying to make a point by not being at her beck and call." The 'Give It 2 Me' singer was moved to tears when her 11-year-old daughter Lourdes performed a surprise rendition of 'Never Alone' from the musical 'Fame' at the venue's grand piano.
Madonna was left disappointed after her closest friends - including Stella McCartney and Gwyneth Paltrow - failed to attend the party. In a 40-minute speech, she thanked Guy, Lourdes, eight-year-old son Rocco, and adopted son David, two, before adding: "I'm really disappointed. There are a lot of people who are not here tonight, but thanks to everyone who did make it."
Guy - who refused to dance with his wife - also poked fun at the absence of Madonna's friends in his speech, noting that many of the guests worked for her. Around 40 partygoers were her dancers, who joined the star and her children to gyrate to her back catalogue on the dance-floor, which had a huge M in the middle.
A friend said: "She loved it when her songs came on. Her dancers were pulling out all the moves, it was like the final rehearsal for her tour."
Daniel Radcliffe's dyspraxia confession
Actors Jim Broadbent (L) and Daniel Radcliffe are shown in a scene from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" in this undated publicity photo released to Reuters August 14, 2008. The release date of the sixth Harry Potter movie has been pushed back on Thursday to July 2009 from its original date of November 2008, movie studio Warner Bros. said. [Agencies]
Daniel Radcliffe struggles to tie his own shoelaces - because of a medical condition. The 'Harry Potter' star has revealed he has the condition dyspraxia - a common neurological problem which causes sufferers to have difficulties planning any sequence of coordinated movements - and can sometimes struggle to complete the most basic of tasks.
He said: "Sometimes I think, 'Why, oh, why, has Velcro not taken off?' " Despite his difficulties, Daniel admits his condition has been a blessing - because it was the inspiration for his acting career.
The 19-year-old actor - who can next be seen playing the lead character in 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth instalment in the film franchise based on J.K. Rowling's hugely popular book series - was allowed to start going to film auditions after his mother decided he needed a confidence boost because he was struggling academically.
Daniel added: "I was having a hard time at school in terms of being c**p at everything." The actor's spokeswoman said: "Yes, Daniel does have dyspraxia. This is something he has never hidden.
Thankfully his condition is very mild and at worst manifests itself in an inability to tie his shoe laces and bad handwriting."
Actor Daniel Radcliffe is shown in a scene from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" in this undated publicity photo released to Reuters August 14, 2008. The release date of the sixth Harry Potter movie has been pushed back on Thursday to July 2009 from its original date of November 2008, movie studio Warner Bros. said. [Agencies]
Daniel Radcliffe struggles to tie his own shoelaces - because of a medical condition. The 'Harry Potter' star has revealed he has the condition dyspraxia - a common neurological problem which causes sufferers to have difficulties planning any sequence of coordinated movements - and can sometimes struggle to complete the most basic of tasks.
He said: "Sometimes I think, 'Why, oh, why, has Velcro not taken off?' " Despite his difficulties, Daniel admits his condition has been a blessing - because it was the inspiration for his acting career.
The 19-year-old actor - who can next be seen playing the lead character in 'Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth instalment in the film franchise based on J.K. Rowling's hugely popular book series - was allowed to start going to film auditions after his mother decided he needed a confidence boost because he was struggling academically.
Daniel added: "I was having a hard time at school in terms of being c**p at everything." The actor's spokeswoman said: "Yes, Daniel does have dyspraxia. This is something he has never hidden.
Thankfully his condition is very mild and at worst manifests itself in an inability to tie his shoe laces and bad handwriting."
Actor Daniel Radcliffe is shown in a scene from "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" in this undated publicity photo released to Reuters August 14, 2008. The release date of the sixth Harry Potter movie has been pushed back on Thursday to July 2009 from its original date of November 2008, movie studio Warner Bros. said. [Agencies]
Poker players take 15,000-ft risk
In the skies over the desert outside Las Vegas, three amateur players and a would-be pro tried to keep their poker faces at 15,000 feet.
The rules: whoever won didn't have to parachute out of a plane. The losers did.
Jamie Glasser screams as the and his tandem master, Jim Dolan, fall out of an airplane in Jean, Nev. on Wednesday, July 26, 2006. Glasser was playing in the Loser's Leap Poker Tournament sponsored by Interpoker.com where participants must jump out of the airplane after losing. [AP]
The Wednesday event was part of InterPoker.com's Extreme Poker series and was scheduled during the World Series of Poker tournament, which began June 25.
In Extreme Poker, novice players battle in online tournaments for the right to play Texas Hold 'em in strange locations. The first was played underwater. The second was played on a polar ice cap in Finland.
This time Patrick Neary, 23, from Prince Edward Island, Canada, Jamie Glasser, 24, from Chicago and Fraser Linkleter, 28, from London and Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien, 29, from New York, piled into a Short's Skivan plane to try their hand against Phil "the Unabomber" Laak.
Grudzien was the lucky player who didn't have to hit the silk. But Grudzien wasn't about to fold 'em. No stranger to risk, he went back up for a free jump.
The rules: whoever won didn't have to parachute out of a plane. The losers did.
Jamie Glasser screams as the and his tandem master, Jim Dolan, fall out of an airplane in Jean, Nev. on Wednesday, July 26, 2006. Glasser was playing in the Loser's Leap Poker Tournament sponsored by Interpoker.com where participants must jump out of the airplane after losing. [AP]
The Wednesday event was part of InterPoker.com's Extreme Poker series and was scheduled during the World Series of Poker tournament, which began June 25.
In Extreme Poker, novice players battle in online tournaments for the right to play Texas Hold 'em in strange locations. The first was played underwater. The second was played on a polar ice cap in Finland.
This time Patrick Neary, 23, from Prince Edward Island, Canada, Jamie Glasser, 24, from Chicago and Fraser Linkleter, 28, from London and Nick "Stoxtrader" Grudzien, 29, from New York, piled into a Short's Skivan plane to try their hand against Phil "the Unabomber" Laak.
Grudzien was the lucky player who didn't have to hit the silk. But Grudzien wasn't about to fold 'em. No stranger to risk, he went back up for a free jump.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Environment remains priority
The environment must remain a top priority as the country forges ahead in its development, Premier Wen Jiabao said during a visit to an industrial base in the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region over the weekend.
Wen cited the coal-rich Ning Dong industrial area, earmarked to become a major power-generation base, as one example under the ongoing green drive.
"We will not only build a coal, chemical, and power base, but also develop a recycling base here," Wen said while visiting the Ning Dong Energy and Chemical Industrial Base.
The premier's three-day visit, starting last Friday, came two months before the 50th anniversary of the founding of the autonomous region, which took place on October 23, 1958.
Lying about 60 km to the southeast of Yinchuan, Ningxia's capital, the construction of the Ning Dong base was named the region's "No 1 project" in 2003, with its largest power base situated in the area.
Explored coal reserves in Ningxia are reportedly 31 billion tons alone, while estimated coal reserves are 200.7 billion tons, ranking sixth and fifth, respectively, in the country.
While Ning Dong' explored coal reserves form 88 percent of the region's total, the large supplies have also posed a major challenge to environmental protection in the area.
During his visit to the base, Wen said building a recycling economy is a key feature of industrialization in these times.
"Apart from outstanding quality, technology, and efficiency, we must reach the same high standards in conservation," Wen told workers, adding that they should pay special attention to water conservation.
During his stop on Saturday in the Pengyang township of Guyuan - a major impoverished city in south Ningxia, Wen told officials that they must have a comprehensive plan to achieve a coordinated approach in economic development and environmental protection.
Water shortage is a major a problem facing Ningxia, where the southern regions are covered by desert and highland.
Pengyang also suffers from serious water and soil erosion. Eroded land stretched over 2,333 sq km, forming 92 percent of the township's total area, in 1983.
Since then, the area has enhanced efforts to build an "ecological township", in part by encouraging tree planting. By the end of last year, its total forest coverage hit 1.24 million hectares - growing by more than seven times in the past two decades.
"A long term blueprint and the determination to treat ecological problems is needed in order to improve the environment here and help improve local farmers' lives," Wen said.
Wen cited the coal-rich Ning Dong industrial area, earmarked to become a major power-generation base, as one example under the ongoing green drive.
"We will not only build a coal, chemical, and power base, but also develop a recycling base here," Wen said while visiting the Ning Dong Energy and Chemical Industrial Base.
The premier's three-day visit, starting last Friday, came two months before the 50th anniversary of the founding of the autonomous region, which took place on October 23, 1958.
Lying about 60 km to the southeast of Yinchuan, Ningxia's capital, the construction of the Ning Dong base was named the region's "No 1 project" in 2003, with its largest power base situated in the area.
Explored coal reserves in Ningxia are reportedly 31 billion tons alone, while estimated coal reserves are 200.7 billion tons, ranking sixth and fifth, respectively, in the country.
While Ning Dong' explored coal reserves form 88 percent of the region's total, the large supplies have also posed a major challenge to environmental protection in the area.
During his visit to the base, Wen said building a recycling economy is a key feature of industrialization in these times.
"Apart from outstanding quality, technology, and efficiency, we must reach the same high standards in conservation," Wen told workers, adding that they should pay special attention to water conservation.
During his stop on Saturday in the Pengyang township of Guyuan - a major impoverished city in south Ningxia, Wen told officials that they must have a comprehensive plan to achieve a coordinated approach in economic development and environmental protection.
Water shortage is a major a problem facing Ningxia, where the southern regions are covered by desert and highland.
Pengyang also suffers from serious water and soil erosion. Eroded land stretched over 2,333 sq km, forming 92 percent of the township's total area, in 1983.
Since then, the area has enhanced efforts to build an "ecological township", in part by encouraging tree planting. By the end of last year, its total forest coverage hit 1.24 million hectares - growing by more than seven times in the past two decades.
"A long term blueprint and the determination to treat ecological problems is needed in order to improve the environment here and help improve local farmers' lives," Wen said.
Govt's deep pockets
A huge fiscal surplus can leave the Chinese government ample leeway to preempt a post-Olympic economic slowdown experienced by many other host nations.
Yet, it is more important that the government should make better use of its growing financial muscle to improve people's living standards.
With China's fiscal surplus hitting 1.19 trillion yuan ($174 billion) in the first half of the year, the government is well prepared to boost fiscal spending to stimulate investment and thus keep the country's fast economic growth on track.
Thanks to severe natural disasters, credit tightening and weaker external demand, China's economic growth cooled from 10.6 percent in the first quarter to 10.1 percent in the second quarter.
A worsening global growth outlook that hits Chinese exporters hard and the rise of international food and oil prices that keeps fuelling domestic inflation have triggered fears about a post-Olympic slowdown.
Some recent policy shifts to increase tax rebate for textile exporters with paper-thin profit margins and raise loan quota for small- and medium-sized enterprises confirmed increasing concerns over the country's growth prospect.
Now, the trillion-yuan worth of fiscal surplus makes it almost a sure bet that the government can use its deep pockets for investment to offset external drags and maintain stable and fast economic growth.
Statistics showed the country's budget revenue totalled 3.48 trillion yuan from January to June, up 33.27 percent compared with the same period last year; budget expenditure stood at 2.28 trillion yuan, up 59.52 percent year on year.
A rapid fiscal expansion will meet the financing need of both post-disaster reconstruction and infrastructure investment scheduled in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).
But such fiscal support is not enough to facilitate the change of the country's growth pattern.
China has long relied on export and investment for economic growth. To pursue energy-saving, environment-friendly and sustainable development, the country has to focus on developing domestic consumption into a bigger growth engine. To this end, people's income as a share of the country's gross domestic product must be significantly increased.
Undoubtedly, the massive fiscal surplus will enable the government to deliver needed tax and fiscal policy changes that considerably raise people's purchasing power.
Some people have suggested that the interest tax be scrapped. Some pleaded for a rise in the individual income tax threshold. Some others have called for larger government subsidies to cushion low-income families against inflation.
With the rapid accumulation of fiscal surplus, it is high time for policymakers to consider these options seriously.
Yet, it is more important that the government should make better use of its growing financial muscle to improve people's living standards.
With China's fiscal surplus hitting 1.19 trillion yuan ($174 billion) in the first half of the year, the government is well prepared to boost fiscal spending to stimulate investment and thus keep the country's fast economic growth on track.
Thanks to severe natural disasters, credit tightening and weaker external demand, China's economic growth cooled from 10.6 percent in the first quarter to 10.1 percent in the second quarter.
A worsening global growth outlook that hits Chinese exporters hard and the rise of international food and oil prices that keeps fuelling domestic inflation have triggered fears about a post-Olympic slowdown.
Some recent policy shifts to increase tax rebate for textile exporters with paper-thin profit margins and raise loan quota for small- and medium-sized enterprises confirmed increasing concerns over the country's growth prospect.
Now, the trillion-yuan worth of fiscal surplus makes it almost a sure bet that the government can use its deep pockets for investment to offset external drags and maintain stable and fast economic growth.
Statistics showed the country's budget revenue totalled 3.48 trillion yuan from January to June, up 33.27 percent compared with the same period last year; budget expenditure stood at 2.28 trillion yuan, up 59.52 percent year on year.
A rapid fiscal expansion will meet the financing need of both post-disaster reconstruction and infrastructure investment scheduled in the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).
But such fiscal support is not enough to facilitate the change of the country's growth pattern.
China has long relied on export and investment for economic growth. To pursue energy-saving, environment-friendly and sustainable development, the country has to focus on developing domestic consumption into a bigger growth engine. To this end, people's income as a share of the country's gross domestic product must be significantly increased.
Undoubtedly, the massive fiscal surplus will enable the government to deliver needed tax and fiscal policy changes that considerably raise people's purchasing power.
Some people have suggested that the interest tax be scrapped. Some pleaded for a rise in the individual income tax threshold. Some others have called for larger government subsidies to cushion low-income families against inflation.
With the rapid accumulation of fiscal surplus, it is high time for policymakers to consider these options seriously.
Long dream fulfilled, but miles still to go
In June in Beijing, when I got into a taxi, I was amazed to see the white cotton seat cover, the kind I would hesitate to use on my home sofa. When I complimented the driver on the shining clean seats, he smiled shyly. There are many small things like this that reflect the eagerness of the people in Beijing be a good host. The taxi-driver, along with a quarter of the world's population, is ready to welcome the world to China for the Olympics and Paralympics in Beijing. Just as President Hu Jintao said: all that the Chinese people want is to host them successfully.
It was in 1932 that China had its first Olympian. Liu Changchun, a sprinter, made an exhausting, 25-day sea journey to the Los Angeles Games, only to be eliminated in the first round. It was not until 1984, again in Los Angeles, that Xu Haifeng won China's first Olympic gold medal - in shooting.
Hosting the world's greatest sporting event for the first time, 114 years after the first modern Olympics, is a matter of great pride for the 1.3 billion Chinese people, particularly the young generation born in the 1980s and 90s, who grew up in an era of rising prosperity and the information explosion.
According to a survey conducted by American-based Pew Research Center in China in March and April, 90 percent of respondents in Beijing said the Games were personally important for them and 96 percent believed that they would be a success and help to improve China's image.
Beijing has never seen such a huge gathering. It will include 11,000 athletes, 450,000 overseas visitors and 2 million domestic spectators, in addition to 30,000 journalists. The enthusiasm for the Games is high, so, too, is the level of preparation in terms of venues and facilities.
More than 200 measures have been taken in Beijing to control air pollution. For the first time the central Olympic area will be a zero-emission zone as all the 500 buses run on electricity or fuel cells. Latest technologies and materials, renewable energies, and energy-efficient technology were applied in the construction of venues and the Olympic village. Although the services and organizational part of the Games are yet to be fully tested, the organizers have reason to be confident about staging an event that is safe, clean and of a high standard.
One million volunteers, including more than 900 from overseas, will be offering their services. Among the oldest is Shang Muzhou, who recently celebrated his 85th birthday. Like people across the world, many Chinese are big fans of the Olympic movement, which stands for equality and fair play regardless of color, religion and per capita GDP. The Olympics in turn will further stimulate the love of sports among the Chinese people.
All the 250,000 tickets were sold out in three days. One elderly couple from Jiangsu were all smiles, Olympic tickets in hand, which they bought after queuing for many hours.
There is a lot of pressure on the Chinese team, which is 639-strong, the largest ever. Seventy percent of them will be first-time Olympians. While the home crowd will be looking intensely at their medal count, the country understands that the ultimate judgment for success lies in how well Beijing hosts the Games. It is sincerely hoped that the Olympics will leave a lasting legacy of friendship and understanding between the Chinese and people across the world.
The chief architect of China's reform, Deng Xiaoping, said in 1984 that China was both big and small, strong and weak. This is still true of the country today, though it has come a long way. China is big in terms of population, land mass, total GDP and foreign exchange reserves. Yet it is small in terms of per capita GDP, which is less than one 20th that of Britain. Having lifted 250 million people out of poverty in three decades, China still has 200 million people living on under $1 a day. About 65 percent of its population is in rural areas. The effort to bring electricity to every village has been a huge success, but 10 million people are yet to be reached. There are also 83 million people with disabilities, whose well-being needs to be further promoted. The coming of the Paralympics to Beijing will raise social awareness for their cause.
For a country of this size, food has always been the primary concern. I remember, until the early 1980s, instead of saying hello, the Chinese would greet each other with: "Have you had the meal?" Today this would no longer make any sense to my daughter's generation. The Chinese are proud that, for the first time, people are not hungry and they are expecting even greater prosperity for their children.
Admittedly, China is only half-way through its reforms. In addition to rising uncertainty and risks in the global economy, the country is faced with the challenges of a widening income gap, serious pollution, an ageing society and growing pressure of employment, to name a few. China will continue to take its reform process forward with a stronger commitment to opening up to the world.
There is greater awareness of the international responsibilities China should undertake. In 1992 I was among the first civilians to join peace-keeping missions. Since then China has sent a total of 10,000 peace-keepers to different parts of the world, including 315 in Darfur. One, who arrived in Sudan on July 17, is Sergeant Ma Shijian from Sichuan, which was hit by an earthquake in May. For seven days, he had no news about his parents and his wife, who was five months pregnant. Fortunately they were safe and Sergeant Ma decided to carry on with his mission in Darfur.
Beijing will go down in Olympic history as the largest effort ever undertaken for a wonderful Olympic experience. Afterwards Beijing will pass on the torch to the next host, London, which will surely stage its own spectacular Games.
The author is China's ambassador in London
It was in 1932 that China had its first Olympian. Liu Changchun, a sprinter, made an exhausting, 25-day sea journey to the Los Angeles Games, only to be eliminated in the first round. It was not until 1984, again in Los Angeles, that Xu Haifeng won China's first Olympic gold medal - in shooting.
Hosting the world's greatest sporting event for the first time, 114 years after the first modern Olympics, is a matter of great pride for the 1.3 billion Chinese people, particularly the young generation born in the 1980s and 90s, who grew up in an era of rising prosperity and the information explosion.
According to a survey conducted by American-based Pew Research Center in China in March and April, 90 percent of respondents in Beijing said the Games were personally important for them and 96 percent believed that they would be a success and help to improve China's image.
Beijing has never seen such a huge gathering. It will include 11,000 athletes, 450,000 overseas visitors and 2 million domestic spectators, in addition to 30,000 journalists. The enthusiasm for the Games is high, so, too, is the level of preparation in terms of venues and facilities.
More than 200 measures have been taken in Beijing to control air pollution. For the first time the central Olympic area will be a zero-emission zone as all the 500 buses run on electricity or fuel cells. Latest technologies and materials, renewable energies, and energy-efficient technology were applied in the construction of venues and the Olympic village. Although the services and organizational part of the Games are yet to be fully tested, the organizers have reason to be confident about staging an event that is safe, clean and of a high standard.
One million volunteers, including more than 900 from overseas, will be offering their services. Among the oldest is Shang Muzhou, who recently celebrated his 85th birthday. Like people across the world, many Chinese are big fans of the Olympic movement, which stands for equality and fair play regardless of color, religion and per capita GDP. The Olympics in turn will further stimulate the love of sports among the Chinese people.
All the 250,000 tickets were sold out in three days. One elderly couple from Jiangsu were all smiles, Olympic tickets in hand, which they bought after queuing for many hours.
There is a lot of pressure on the Chinese team, which is 639-strong, the largest ever. Seventy percent of them will be first-time Olympians. While the home crowd will be looking intensely at their medal count, the country understands that the ultimate judgment for success lies in how well Beijing hosts the Games. It is sincerely hoped that the Olympics will leave a lasting legacy of friendship and understanding between the Chinese and people across the world.
The chief architect of China's reform, Deng Xiaoping, said in 1984 that China was both big and small, strong and weak. This is still true of the country today, though it has come a long way. China is big in terms of population, land mass, total GDP and foreign exchange reserves. Yet it is small in terms of per capita GDP, which is less than one 20th that of Britain. Having lifted 250 million people out of poverty in three decades, China still has 200 million people living on under $1 a day. About 65 percent of its population is in rural areas. The effort to bring electricity to every village has been a huge success, but 10 million people are yet to be reached. There are also 83 million people with disabilities, whose well-being needs to be further promoted. The coming of the Paralympics to Beijing will raise social awareness for their cause.
For a country of this size, food has always been the primary concern. I remember, until the early 1980s, instead of saying hello, the Chinese would greet each other with: "Have you had the meal?" Today this would no longer make any sense to my daughter's generation. The Chinese are proud that, for the first time, people are not hungry and they are expecting even greater prosperity for their children.
Admittedly, China is only half-way through its reforms. In addition to rising uncertainty and risks in the global economy, the country is faced with the challenges of a widening income gap, serious pollution, an ageing society and growing pressure of employment, to name a few. China will continue to take its reform process forward with a stronger commitment to opening up to the world.
There is greater awareness of the international responsibilities China should undertake. In 1992 I was among the first civilians to join peace-keeping missions. Since then China has sent a total of 10,000 peace-keepers to different parts of the world, including 315 in Darfur. One, who arrived in Sudan on July 17, is Sergeant Ma Shijian from Sichuan, which was hit by an earthquake in May. For seven days, he had no news about his parents and his wife, who was five months pregnant. Fortunately they were safe and Sergeant Ma decided to carry on with his mission in Darfur.
Beijing will go down in Olympic history as the largest effort ever undertaken for a wonderful Olympic experience. Afterwards Beijing will pass on the torch to the next host, London, which will surely stage its own spectacular Games.
The author is China's ambassador in London
In true spirit of the Games
Just as the Olympic Charter says that the Games is not only about winning, but also about participating, we should cheer for both winners and losers who try their best, says an article in Guangzhou Daily. The following is an excerpt:
Surprises mingled with pity on the first competition day for the Chinese team as some won with new records and some failed under unbearable pressure.
Of course every one in a game wants to win, but to the millennium-old Olympics, winning is just a small part of its connotations.
Though we pursue to be higher, faster and stronger through the Games, what we care more about from the Games are participation, mutual understanding, friendship, unity and fairness.
Looking back, we should have been more tolerant with our athletes' errors in the Games. In 1988, Seoul, gym legend Li Ning's injury and loss were not excused by many Chinese spectators, who might have had too much anticipation after the country rejoined the Games.
Now, we have achieved great success economically, socially and culturally, and after joining in, competing for and experiencing numerous international games, compatriots have known much more about competitions' ideals.
Once Pierre de Coubertin said the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle; not to have conquered but to have fought well. Therefore, let's clap for all in the Games.
Surprises mingled with pity on the first competition day for the Chinese team as some won with new records and some failed under unbearable pressure.
Of course every one in a game wants to win, but to the millennium-old Olympics, winning is just a small part of its connotations.
Though we pursue to be higher, faster and stronger through the Games, what we care more about from the Games are participation, mutual understanding, friendship, unity and fairness.
Looking back, we should have been more tolerant with our athletes' errors in the Games. In 1988, Seoul, gym legend Li Ning's injury and loss were not excused by many Chinese spectators, who might have had too much anticipation after the country rejoined the Games.
Now, we have achieved great success economically, socially and culturally, and after joining in, competing for and experiencing numerous international games, compatriots have known much more about competitions' ideals.
Once Pierre de Coubertin said the most important thing in life is not the triumph but the struggle; not to have conquered but to have fought well. Therefore, let's clap for all in the Games.
A good system can do it best
Mobile phone users in Jiangxi province got an unexpected text with the numbers of their governor and vice-governor. They were told that they could reach the province's two heavyweights if they found irregularities in the low-rent and affordable houses markets. The two had their phones flooded with incoming calls because the local residents wanted to see whether they were accessible. Seemingly, the two officials were ready to look into the hardships of the local residents.
But the idea was not novel. Earlier this year Qiu He, Party chief of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, asked for all the numbers of heads of the local Communist Party and government departments to be published. Also, hotlines set up by government institutions were innumerable. Jiangxi's governor and vice-governor were the highest in ranking and have invited curiosity and interest from the local residents and busybodies outside. We have no idea whether the two numbers are specially set for this purpose. Having made their numbers public, the two government officials dare to "talk" to the local people calmly and confidently. This alone earns them salute and applause. Wait. One more question that is not that peachy. Why does the issue have to count on the two officials? It is unrealistic to leave the problems in the hands of some officials. When the system is sound, we will find the right place to pour out our woes.
* * *
How high can a ferris wheel be? And how long can it keep itself as the world's highest? Whatever. Several experts suggested that Hainan province at the country's southern tip build the world's highest ferris wheel. With the race for the highest tower throughout the world, a new game is brewing. What is the wheel for? A better view of the sea and the sand beaches? The experts believed that the wheel could help the island attract tourists just like London Eye and the copycats in many parts of the world. Hainan had better turn to Chinese cities for advice rather than offshore metropolises. The large wheels that some Chinese cities have built have failed to lure viewers.
* * *
It is never too late to mend. A redeveloped part of Qianmen near the Tiananmen Square opened to the public the night before the opening of the Olympic Games. The neighborhood has the gray-brick storefronts with red and gold curved eaves - the look of traditional Chinese architecture. The street is now re-crammed with traditional Chinese brand names including roast duck, tea house and hotpot. This was a bustling area in imperial days, with brothels, opium dens and shops peddling cures, calligraphy and silk. Sure, the redevelopment project has set aside no space for the harmful things but helped to restore the feel of old Beijing. While more and more hutong - old alleyways - are giving way to new residential buildings, the remedial approach like the one in Qianmen may work no small wonders for the city.
* * *
"If our team beats the US Dream Team 8, I would quit," said NBA center Yao Ming before their first match Sunday night. Thank goodness, his teammates did not play that well to make it happen.
* * *
While their sports men and women compete for medals in Beijing, Russia and Georgia are exchanging fire. The ancient Games featured an Olympic truce, during which time no wars were fought. People of modern times care less about this.
But the idea was not novel. Earlier this year Qiu He, Party chief of Kunming, capital of Yunnan province, asked for all the numbers of heads of the local Communist Party and government departments to be published. Also, hotlines set up by government institutions were innumerable. Jiangxi's governor and vice-governor were the highest in ranking and have invited curiosity and interest from the local residents and busybodies outside. We have no idea whether the two numbers are specially set for this purpose. Having made their numbers public, the two government officials dare to "talk" to the local people calmly and confidently. This alone earns them salute and applause. Wait. One more question that is not that peachy. Why does the issue have to count on the two officials? It is unrealistic to leave the problems in the hands of some officials. When the system is sound, we will find the right place to pour out our woes.
* * *
How high can a ferris wheel be? And how long can it keep itself as the world's highest? Whatever. Several experts suggested that Hainan province at the country's southern tip build the world's highest ferris wheel. With the race for the highest tower throughout the world, a new game is brewing. What is the wheel for? A better view of the sea and the sand beaches? The experts believed that the wheel could help the island attract tourists just like London Eye and the copycats in many parts of the world. Hainan had better turn to Chinese cities for advice rather than offshore metropolises. The large wheels that some Chinese cities have built have failed to lure viewers.
* * *
It is never too late to mend. A redeveloped part of Qianmen near the Tiananmen Square opened to the public the night before the opening of the Olympic Games. The neighborhood has the gray-brick storefronts with red and gold curved eaves - the look of traditional Chinese architecture. The street is now re-crammed with traditional Chinese brand names including roast duck, tea house and hotpot. This was a bustling area in imperial days, with brothels, opium dens and shops peddling cures, calligraphy and silk. Sure, the redevelopment project has set aside no space for the harmful things but helped to restore the feel of old Beijing. While more and more hutong - old alleyways - are giving way to new residential buildings, the remedial approach like the one in Qianmen may work no small wonders for the city.
* * *
"If our team beats the US Dream Team 8, I would quit," said NBA center Yao Ming before their first match Sunday night. Thank goodness, his teammates did not play that well to make it happen.
* * *
While their sports men and women compete for medals in Beijing, Russia and Georgia are exchanging fire. The ancient Games featured an Olympic truce, during which time no wars were fought. People of modern times care less about this.
Golden surprises
The higher expectation of an athlete's good shape and perfect performance would quite often exert greater pressure on him or her, which would sometimes be too heavy for the athlete. Often this pressure, for former medalists in particular, is self-inflicted as they are more eager to get the medal again and more anxious of losing.
Yet, this is exactly where the charm of this international sporting event lies.
It would be unimaginable of an Olympic Games with only old faces standing on the podium to receive their gold medals time and again, and neither will it be possible.
With the spectators always taken by surprise and their guesswork proved wrong, the global gathering of sports people has been refreshed all the time.
Abhinav Bindra, sharpshooter from India, took the first gold medal for his country by beating all his rivals including last Games' medalist Zhu Qinan from China in the men's 10m air rifle. And this medal is also India's first individual title in Olympic history.
People differ in their expectations of the competitions. Some are obsessed with their favorite athletes and become excited even at the sight of their icons. They naively expect that their loved athletes would remain young and energetic forever.
But it is not without fun for them to get disappointed at the less-than-expected performance of their icons. Only such disappointments would make it possible for them to become obsessed with new icons.
For the media, attention has always been on the medal hopefuls before competitions. But the most impressive is always the unexpected medalist.
There was a great deal of guesswork about who was going to grab the first gold medal of this Games. To our surprise and joy, the Czech sharpshooter Katerina Emmons bagged the first gold medal in the women's 10m air rifle.
Chinese girl Chen Xiexia, who took the first gold for the Chinese team in the women's 48kg weight category, said that she had never expected that she would become the country's first gold medalist.
There are unexpected factors that affect the performance of an athlete or a team, and such factors do not always match viewers' expectations. No athlete comes to the Olympics without cherishing some hope of winning a medal. But anything could happen in a competition. Think of those who stumble on the running track or fall from the bars.
The degree of unpredictability adds to the charm of sports competitions and makes the Olympics attractive to sport fans all over the world.
Yet, this is exactly where the charm of this international sporting event lies.
It would be unimaginable of an Olympic Games with only old faces standing on the podium to receive their gold medals time and again, and neither will it be possible.
With the spectators always taken by surprise and their guesswork proved wrong, the global gathering of sports people has been refreshed all the time.
Abhinav Bindra, sharpshooter from India, took the first gold medal for his country by beating all his rivals including last Games' medalist Zhu Qinan from China in the men's 10m air rifle. And this medal is also India's first individual title in Olympic history.
People differ in their expectations of the competitions. Some are obsessed with their favorite athletes and become excited even at the sight of their icons. They naively expect that their loved athletes would remain young and energetic forever.
But it is not without fun for them to get disappointed at the less-than-expected performance of their icons. Only such disappointments would make it possible for them to become obsessed with new icons.
For the media, attention has always been on the medal hopefuls before competitions. But the most impressive is always the unexpected medalist.
There was a great deal of guesswork about who was going to grab the first gold medal of this Games. To our surprise and joy, the Czech sharpshooter Katerina Emmons bagged the first gold medal in the women's 10m air rifle.
Chinese girl Chen Xiexia, who took the first gold for the Chinese team in the women's 48kg weight category, said that she had never expected that she would become the country's first gold medalist.
There are unexpected factors that affect the performance of an athlete or a team, and such factors do not always match viewers' expectations. No athlete comes to the Olympics without cherishing some hope of winning a medal. But anything could happen in a competition. Think of those who stumble on the running track or fall from the bars.
The degree of unpredictability adds to the charm of sports competitions and makes the Olympics attractive to sport fans all over the world.
Manufacturing might
Forecasts that China is set to overtake the United States as the world's largest manufacturer next year will surely be eye-catching, if not as much as the Olympic Games in Beijing.
A top slot in global manufacturing may speak volumes for the remarkable rise of China's manufacturing-led economy over the past three decades.
But it tells little about the challenges the Chinese economy faces now, not to mention its reliability as a guide to how the country's manufacturing capability will develop in the long run.
According to a recent report by Financial Times, next year China will account for 17 percent of global manufacturing value-added output of $11,783 billion and the United States will make up for 16 percent. Last year the latter was still easily in the top slot and accounted for a fifth of the total while the former was second with 13.2 percent.
Given that China accounted for a meager 3 percent of global manufacturing just two decades ago, the recent surge of China as the world's workshop appears quite impressive. Considering the historical dominance of China in industry before modern industrialization began in the early 19th century, the ongoing great leap seemingly lends credence to the forecast of a jump of China's share of value-added global manufacturing from 15 percent in 2008 to more than one-third of the total in 2025.
As the world's fourth largest economy and third largest trade power, China is indeed positioned to further increase its manufacturing prowess.
The country's reliance on labor-intensive manufacturing to provide jobs for the world's largest population, the majority of which are still farmers, makes it necessary to continue to stimulate industrial investment growth. If the country's industrialization level catches up with the world average, China will account for about one-fifth of global manufacturing given the size of its population.
However, China's expected largest share of global manufacturing does not guarantee superiority for Chinese manufacturers in the face of global competition.
In fact, the country's efforts to cut energy intensity and pollutant emission have persuaded policymakers to focus more on expanding the service sector as a share of the GDP. Meanwhile, rising input costs and weakening external demand are exerting ever more pressure on Chinese manufacturers' profit margins.
It is fairly predictable that more and more Chinese manufacturers will struggle hard to move up along the industrial value chain for survival. And as a whole, they will even account for a larger share of global manufacturing in coming years.
Yet, taking into consideration the Chinese government's determination to pursue sustainable growth, it is far too early to lock China's growth in a track featuring manufacturing expansion at any cost.
A top slot in global manufacturing may speak volumes for the remarkable rise of China's manufacturing-led economy over the past three decades.
But it tells little about the challenges the Chinese economy faces now, not to mention its reliability as a guide to how the country's manufacturing capability will develop in the long run.
According to a recent report by Financial Times, next year China will account for 17 percent of global manufacturing value-added output of $11,783 billion and the United States will make up for 16 percent. Last year the latter was still easily in the top slot and accounted for a fifth of the total while the former was second with 13.2 percent.
Given that China accounted for a meager 3 percent of global manufacturing just two decades ago, the recent surge of China as the world's workshop appears quite impressive. Considering the historical dominance of China in industry before modern industrialization began in the early 19th century, the ongoing great leap seemingly lends credence to the forecast of a jump of China's share of value-added global manufacturing from 15 percent in 2008 to more than one-third of the total in 2025.
As the world's fourth largest economy and third largest trade power, China is indeed positioned to further increase its manufacturing prowess.
The country's reliance on labor-intensive manufacturing to provide jobs for the world's largest population, the majority of which are still farmers, makes it necessary to continue to stimulate industrial investment growth. If the country's industrialization level catches up with the world average, China will account for about one-fifth of global manufacturing given the size of its population.
However, China's expected largest share of global manufacturing does not guarantee superiority for Chinese manufacturers in the face of global competition.
In fact, the country's efforts to cut energy intensity and pollutant emission have persuaded policymakers to focus more on expanding the service sector as a share of the GDP. Meanwhile, rising input costs and weakening external demand are exerting ever more pressure on Chinese manufacturers' profit margins.
It is fairly predictable that more and more Chinese manufacturers will struggle hard to move up along the industrial value chain for survival. And as a whole, they will even account for a larger share of global manufacturing in coming years.
Yet, taking into consideration the Chinese government's determination to pursue sustainable growth, it is far too early to lock China's growth in a track featuring manufacturing expansion at any cost.
Widening income gaps could hinder growth
The income data of employees in all sectors in the last three decades suggested that the income gap between different industries was widening, especially after 2002. And such a gap is believed to be casting its shadow on economic growth.
This is the conclusion of a State-sponsored study on income policies, and researchers attributed the widened income gap to industrial upgradation and several other elements.
Gu Yan, a PhD degree holder with Renmin University of China and a participant in the study, pointed out that the average income of employees in the industries of electricity, gas and water was the highest across the society in 1978, which was about 2.17 times of that in social services, which was the lowest at that time.
In 2006, the industry of information transfer, computer services and software gave the best pay to its employees, which was 4.69 times of the income for people in agriculture. In some provinces, the difference was as dramatic as 6 times.
Over the past three decades, the income difference once narrowed, while it became more extensive after the mid-1990s.
Such a change stemmed from the changing positions of different industries in the income hierarchy.
Employees in the social services, medical care, sports and social security and education, entertainment and broadcast media used to get the lowest income. Since the 1980s, however, they have all witnessed unprecedented growth in their incomes. They achieved an annul income growth rate ranging between 16 and 24 percent between 1978 and 1992.
As a result, their accelerated income rise narrowed the overall income gap for the whole society. And the momentum of their income rise was carried on after that period.
Besides the industries mentioned above, the finance and insurance industries, real estate industry, and science and technological research also caught up with other industries in terms of income rise since the mid-1990s. All of them have an annul income rise between 12 and 20 percent.
About the same time, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail distribution, all of which were traditionally low-paying industries, did not have impressive income rises.
Agriculture, which offered the least income, had a 9 percent annual growth in income rise between 2002 and 2006.
Looking into these changes, Gu Yan thought the primary reason was industrial upgradation. Along with economic development, the industry structure is sure to upgrade to adapt to the new needs of the economy.
The new sectors of the economy, especially the service sector, are sure to offer higher pay than the traditional ones. Finance, science and technological research are both examples of this.
As to agriculture, it is not likely to give attractive income to employees in addition to safeguarding the country's grain security.
Another important element behind the income changes lies in the markets of different sectors. For most industries, they face a market of competition. After the central government launched a reform to State-owned enterprises in the 1980s, the market competition became intensive for most industries.
In these industries, the businesses had to slow down salary rises to control their costs.
By contrast, the businesses in monopoly sectors do not have the same pressure. With a higher-than-average increase in business income, profit and overall payment, the monopoly players did not have a considerable increase in the number of their employees. Therefore, the per capita income in monopoly industries saw dramatic growth over the past decades.
In 2006, the social services, construction and wholesale and retail distribution, all of which were competitive industries, took about 20 percent in the whole society in the jobs they offered. But their overall payments to employees took only 15 percent.
In the same year, industries of electricity, gas and water, finance and insurance, transportation and post services, all of which were under different degrees of monopoly, offered about 10 percent of the total jobs while their total payments were 15 percent of all.
Quan Heng, a researcher with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, thought the widened income gap will have a negative influence on sustained economic growth.
Acknowledging the authorities' efforts in narrowing the income differences, Quan said that China is seeing a rise in income gap faster than many developing countries.
According to Quan, the income gap has directly reduced consumption. The shrinkage in consumption, coupled with the investment fever of the better-offs, might be a cause of deflation, which will be a shock for economic growth.
Quan suggested that the authorities adopt more policies to ensure a fair income distribution and include narrowing income gap into its economic policy targets.
Schemes should be established to ensure the average income earners, especially those of middle and low income groups, can see a regular rise in their income. And the government should also increase its fund allocations in social security, employment promotion and in assisting the lives of disadvantaged groups.
This is the conclusion of a State-sponsored study on income policies, and researchers attributed the widened income gap to industrial upgradation and several other elements.
Gu Yan, a PhD degree holder with Renmin University of China and a participant in the study, pointed out that the average income of employees in the industries of electricity, gas and water was the highest across the society in 1978, which was about 2.17 times of that in social services, which was the lowest at that time.
In 2006, the industry of information transfer, computer services and software gave the best pay to its employees, which was 4.69 times of the income for people in agriculture. In some provinces, the difference was as dramatic as 6 times.
Over the past three decades, the income difference once narrowed, while it became more extensive after the mid-1990s.
Such a change stemmed from the changing positions of different industries in the income hierarchy.
Employees in the social services, medical care, sports and social security and education, entertainment and broadcast media used to get the lowest income. Since the 1980s, however, they have all witnessed unprecedented growth in their incomes. They achieved an annul income growth rate ranging between 16 and 24 percent between 1978 and 1992.
As a result, their accelerated income rise narrowed the overall income gap for the whole society. And the momentum of their income rise was carried on after that period.
Besides the industries mentioned above, the finance and insurance industries, real estate industry, and science and technological research also caught up with other industries in terms of income rise since the mid-1990s. All of them have an annul income rise between 12 and 20 percent.
About the same time, agriculture, manufacturing, construction, wholesale and retail distribution, all of which were traditionally low-paying industries, did not have impressive income rises.
Agriculture, which offered the least income, had a 9 percent annual growth in income rise between 2002 and 2006.
Looking into these changes, Gu Yan thought the primary reason was industrial upgradation. Along with economic development, the industry structure is sure to upgrade to adapt to the new needs of the economy.
The new sectors of the economy, especially the service sector, are sure to offer higher pay than the traditional ones. Finance, science and technological research are both examples of this.
As to agriculture, it is not likely to give attractive income to employees in addition to safeguarding the country's grain security.
Another important element behind the income changes lies in the markets of different sectors. For most industries, they face a market of competition. After the central government launched a reform to State-owned enterprises in the 1980s, the market competition became intensive for most industries.
In these industries, the businesses had to slow down salary rises to control their costs.
By contrast, the businesses in monopoly sectors do not have the same pressure. With a higher-than-average increase in business income, profit and overall payment, the monopoly players did not have a considerable increase in the number of their employees. Therefore, the per capita income in monopoly industries saw dramatic growth over the past decades.
In 2006, the social services, construction and wholesale and retail distribution, all of which were competitive industries, took about 20 percent in the whole society in the jobs they offered. But their overall payments to employees took only 15 percent.
In the same year, industries of electricity, gas and water, finance and insurance, transportation and post services, all of which were under different degrees of monopoly, offered about 10 percent of the total jobs while their total payments were 15 percent of all.
Quan Heng, a researcher with the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, thought the widened income gap will have a negative influence on sustained economic growth.
Acknowledging the authorities' efforts in narrowing the income differences, Quan said that China is seeing a rise in income gap faster than many developing countries.
According to Quan, the income gap has directly reduced consumption. The shrinkage in consumption, coupled with the investment fever of the better-offs, might be a cause of deflation, which will be a shock for economic growth.
Quan suggested that the authorities adopt more policies to ensure a fair income distribution and include narrowing income gap into its economic policy targets.
Schemes should be established to ensure the average income earners, especially those of middle and low income groups, can see a regular rise in their income. And the government should also increase its fund allocations in social security, employment promotion and in assisting the lives of disadvantaged groups.
The XY games: Sex tests since Stella Walsh
In the 1936 Olympic Games, the sprinter Stella Walsh -running for Poland and known as the fastest woman in the world - was beaten by Helen Stephens of St. Louis, who set a world record by running 100 m in 11.4 seconds. After the race, a Polish journalist protested that Stephens must be a man. After all, no woman in the world could run that fast.
Olympic officials performed a "sex test" on Stephens, who was found, in fact, to be female, proving once and for all that a person could be incredibly fast and female at the same time.
Forty-four years later, Walsh, who had become an American citizen, was shot to death in the parking lot of a discount store in Cleveland. Her autopsy revealed a surprise: It was Stella Walsh, and not Helen Stephens, who turned out to have been male all along, at least according to the Cuyahoga County Coroner's office.
On the surface, it seems reasonable for there to be some sort of system by which Olympians can be certain that female medalists really are female. The problem is that the tests are likely to produce the wrong answers.
It would be nice to live in a world in which maleness and femaleness were firm and unwavering poles. People can be forgiven for wanting to live in a world as simple as this, a place in which something as basic as gender didn't shift unsettlingly beneath our feet.
But gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it.
At the original Olympic Games, no gender testing was considered necessary. Back in 776 BC, the Games were for men only, and they were conducted in the nude (with female spectators prohibited).
The modern era of gender testing began in 1968, at the Games in Mexico City, when it was believed that some countries were using male athletes in women's competitions.
The test, which began as a crude physical inspection, has become more sophisticated over the years. In the 1970s and 80s, the test was performed by a buccal smear - the scraping of cells from the inside of the mouth - and the sample studied for chromosomal material.
Over the past 40 years, dozens of female athletes tested in this manner have tested "positively" for maleness. That's because these tests don't measure "maleness" or "femaleness." They measure - and not always reliably - the presence of a Y chromosome, or Y chromosomal material, which no small number of females have.
The condition, known as androgen insensitivity, occurs in about 1 in 20,000 individuals. Basically, a woman may have a Y chromosome, but her body does not respond to the genetic information that it contains. Some women with androgen insensitivity live their lives unaware that they have it. By any measure, though (except the measure of the Olympic test), they are women.
In 1996, eight female athletes at the Atlanta Games tested positively. Seven of these women were found to have some degree of androgen insensitivity, and one an enzyme defect. All were subsequently allowed to return to competition.
Ten years later, however, Santhi Sundarajan, a runner from India, was stripped of her silver medal in the 800 meters at the Asian Games for "failing" a sex test. An Indian athletics official said Sundarajan had "abnormal chromosomes". She was ridiculed in the press, and her career was destroyed. In the wake of her global humiliation, she attempted suicide.
You might think that gender testing at the Olympics is conducted to weed out transsexual women, who might be perceived to have some sort of physical advantage over natal females.
Yet this is not the case. Since 2004, the International Olympic Committee has allowed transsexuals to compete as long as they have had sex-reassignment surgery and have gone through a minimum of two years of post-operative hormone replacement therapy.
As for the advantages that people born male supposedly have in competing against people born female, the combination of surgery and hormones appears to eliminate it entirely. Studies show that postoperative transsexual women perform at or near the baseline for female athletes in general.
In the four years since the ruling, there have been no transsexuals - or at least no athletes who are open about it - in Olympic competition. But this year, Kristen Worley, a Canadian cyclist, came close to qualifying. If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially, and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what is such testing for?
Most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail. For every supposedly unmovable gender marker, there is an exception. There are women with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes. There are women who have had hysterectomies, women who cannot become pregnant, women who hate makeup, women whose object of affection is other women.
So what makes someone female then? If it's not chromosomes, or a uterus, or the ability to get pregnant, or femininity, or being attracted to men, then what is it, and how can you possibly test for it?
Maybe this means that Olympic officials have to learn to live with ambiguity, and make peace with a world in which things are not always quantifiable and clear.
That, if you ask me, would be a good thing, not just for Olympians, but for us all.
The author is a professor of English at Colby College
The New York Times Syndicate
Olympic officials performed a "sex test" on Stephens, who was found, in fact, to be female, proving once and for all that a person could be incredibly fast and female at the same time.
Forty-four years later, Walsh, who had become an American citizen, was shot to death in the parking lot of a discount store in Cleveland. Her autopsy revealed a surprise: It was Stella Walsh, and not Helen Stephens, who turned out to have been male all along, at least according to the Cuyahoga County Coroner's office.
On the surface, it seems reasonable for there to be some sort of system by which Olympians can be certain that female medalists really are female. The problem is that the tests are likely to produce the wrong answers.
It would be nice to live in a world in which maleness and femaleness were firm and unwavering poles. People can be forgiven for wanting to live in a world as simple as this, a place in which something as basic as gender didn't shift unsettlingly beneath our feet.
But gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it.
At the original Olympic Games, no gender testing was considered necessary. Back in 776 BC, the Games were for men only, and they were conducted in the nude (with female spectators prohibited).
The modern era of gender testing began in 1968, at the Games in Mexico City, when it was believed that some countries were using male athletes in women's competitions.
The test, which began as a crude physical inspection, has become more sophisticated over the years. In the 1970s and 80s, the test was performed by a buccal smear - the scraping of cells from the inside of the mouth - and the sample studied for chromosomal material.
Over the past 40 years, dozens of female athletes tested in this manner have tested "positively" for maleness. That's because these tests don't measure "maleness" or "femaleness." They measure - and not always reliably - the presence of a Y chromosome, or Y chromosomal material, which no small number of females have.
The condition, known as androgen insensitivity, occurs in about 1 in 20,000 individuals. Basically, a woman may have a Y chromosome, but her body does not respond to the genetic information that it contains. Some women with androgen insensitivity live their lives unaware that they have it. By any measure, though (except the measure of the Olympic test), they are women.
In 1996, eight female athletes at the Atlanta Games tested positively. Seven of these women were found to have some degree of androgen insensitivity, and one an enzyme defect. All were subsequently allowed to return to competition.
Ten years later, however, Santhi Sundarajan, a runner from India, was stripped of her silver medal in the 800 meters at the Asian Games for "failing" a sex test. An Indian athletics official said Sundarajan had "abnormal chromosomes". She was ridiculed in the press, and her career was destroyed. In the wake of her global humiliation, she attempted suicide.
You might think that gender testing at the Olympics is conducted to weed out transsexual women, who might be perceived to have some sort of physical advantage over natal females.
Yet this is not the case. Since 2004, the International Olympic Committee has allowed transsexuals to compete as long as they have had sex-reassignment surgery and have gone through a minimum of two years of post-operative hormone replacement therapy.
As for the advantages that people born male supposedly have in competing against people born female, the combination of surgery and hormones appears to eliminate it entirely. Studies show that postoperative transsexual women perform at or near the baseline for female athletes in general.
In the four years since the ruling, there have been no transsexuals - or at least no athletes who are open about it - in Olympic competition. But this year, Kristen Worley, a Canadian cyclist, came close to qualifying. If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially, and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what is such testing for?
Most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail. For every supposedly unmovable gender marker, there is an exception. There are women with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes. There are women who have had hysterectomies, women who cannot become pregnant, women who hate makeup, women whose object of affection is other women.
So what makes someone female then? If it's not chromosomes, or a uterus, or the ability to get pregnant, or femininity, or being attracted to men, then what is it, and how can you possibly test for it?
Maybe this means that Olympic officials have to learn to live with ambiguity, and make peace with a world in which things are not always quantifiable and clear.
That, if you ask me, would be a good thing, not just for Olympians, but for us all.
The author is a professor of English at Colby College
The New York Times Syndicate
Enjoy the sports but also learn from China
A person's involvement in the Olympics can be overwhelming and a major memory for the whole life. From medalist to TV audience, enjoy and be excited and emotional.
But Olympic years are milestones in history, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic year will be remembered centuries on. This is a chance to savor a big historical picture and understand where our world is headed. China can give direction to the world.
Savor the fact that China is a developing country to host the Olympic Games. China can show it has "caught up" with West, and in selected fields, surpassed it.
Ventures into radical and gravity-defying architecture are one manifestation. In key fields such as computer chips, carbon fiber and enzyme production, foreign experts come to China to marvel and learn and buy for the world market. Foreign reserves (dollars in the bank) will soon pass the 2 trillion mark. China has averaged about 10 percent economic growth yearly for 30 years.
Reflect on the fact that China is relatively safe, compared with quite a few countries. Its backstreets, restaurants, bars and discos have no handguns. You can walk down an alley in a Chinese city at 3 am and it should be safer than cities in most developed nations.
Compare the drama of hurricane Katrina and the Sichuan earthquake - the government response, community response. After Katrina a refugee raped a refugee in New Orleans stadium. Policemen unable to enforce order and common sense handed in their badges in droves. The federal government was paralyzed with bureaucratic infighting.
No doubt China played the media differently, but they showed the premier on site within hours, soldiers selflessly serving, even a policewoman breastfeeding orphans.
But the global attention on China for the Olympics deserves a much more profound critique. What China has found out, the hard way, during the past three decades, is that the Western model of development is a sleight of hand, and all the goods produced are done so at a net increase of "bads".
When England discovered this a few decades into its industrial revolution, smoke stack industries were simply exported to America's east coast, and each successfully developed region just kept the benefits and shifted the nasty factories and furnaces to somewhere more remote, where poor people welcomed job creation.
But despite environmental problems and the oil crises, the global economies continued to bounce along and the optimists' mantra was that markets will adjust, and can drive technological innovation to new solutions.
What no one pointed out was that at this time China was a vacuum to the global economy, and just when the global environment should start to choke, China opened its doors and started to become the world's sweathouse. Western households could buy $100 DVD players.
Now, in 2008, there is no place on the planet left to hide pollution or exploit cheap resources.
China, as one of the latest major regions on the planet to achieve development, has got to solve its crippling resource shortages and pollution issues basically without the luxury of seeking new parts of the world.
There are some smart people in China who know this and are working on it. China is leading the world in some aspects of renewable energy technologies and applications, energy efficiency, and waste recycling.
The mindset of Chinese leaders, policy makers and implementers is the antithesis of the current US petroleum club leadership's mindset. China is setting this paradigm shift, and they are half way through it before Germany, the Netherlands and Japan began to appreciate what they are doing.
Tsinghua University in the northwest corner of Beijing provides policy advice to the government. The president of China and quite a few leaders are its alumni. Tsinghua has clout and is dedicated to leading China to lead the world in fields of science, and therefore rational policy. The Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering is now pioneering entropy analysis through a case study of China's steel production.
In 2007 China produced 489 million tons of steel, an astounding figure. The iron ore mined and refined, the coal burnt, the polluting gases emitted, are all world records and certainly effect global atmosphere and climate.
China is now entering a very sobering, soul-searching era. The Olympics is but a blip, mentioned one time in the voluminous Eleventh Five Year Plan of 2007. What China is feeling for now is a search back to roots in millennia of tradition, in the Chinese traditional concept on harmony with nature.
One of the founding fathers of Western economics, David Ricardo (1772-1823), wrote that water and other gifts of nature are free. Well, that was when economy was on a small scale to the global environment. Now we really are on a finite and in material terms, self-contained, Spaceship Earth.
Olympic visitors, enjoy the Games, enjoy your favorite events. But check the big picture, savor the change happening in China, and what it means to the Chinese to be the last piece in the jigsaw of the earth's sphere, and to be holding the can in the global economy. For China there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The author is an independent researcher from Australia, currently living in Beijing
But Olympic years are milestones in history, and the 2008 Beijing Olympic year will be remembered centuries on. This is a chance to savor a big historical picture and understand where our world is headed. China can give direction to the world.
Savor the fact that China is a developing country to host the Olympic Games. China can show it has "caught up" with West, and in selected fields, surpassed it.
Ventures into radical and gravity-defying architecture are one manifestation. In key fields such as computer chips, carbon fiber and enzyme production, foreign experts come to China to marvel and learn and buy for the world market. Foreign reserves (dollars in the bank) will soon pass the 2 trillion mark. China has averaged about 10 percent economic growth yearly for 30 years.
Reflect on the fact that China is relatively safe, compared with quite a few countries. Its backstreets, restaurants, bars and discos have no handguns. You can walk down an alley in a Chinese city at 3 am and it should be safer than cities in most developed nations.
Compare the drama of hurricane Katrina and the Sichuan earthquake - the government response, community response. After Katrina a refugee raped a refugee in New Orleans stadium. Policemen unable to enforce order and common sense handed in their badges in droves. The federal government was paralyzed with bureaucratic infighting.
No doubt China played the media differently, but they showed the premier on site within hours, soldiers selflessly serving, even a policewoman breastfeeding orphans.
But the global attention on China for the Olympics deserves a much more profound critique. What China has found out, the hard way, during the past three decades, is that the Western model of development is a sleight of hand, and all the goods produced are done so at a net increase of "bads".
When England discovered this a few decades into its industrial revolution, smoke stack industries were simply exported to America's east coast, and each successfully developed region just kept the benefits and shifted the nasty factories and furnaces to somewhere more remote, where poor people welcomed job creation.
But despite environmental problems and the oil crises, the global economies continued to bounce along and the optimists' mantra was that markets will adjust, and can drive technological innovation to new solutions.
What no one pointed out was that at this time China was a vacuum to the global economy, and just when the global environment should start to choke, China opened its doors and started to become the world's sweathouse. Western households could buy $100 DVD players.
Now, in 2008, there is no place on the planet left to hide pollution or exploit cheap resources.
China, as one of the latest major regions on the planet to achieve development, has got to solve its crippling resource shortages and pollution issues basically without the luxury of seeking new parts of the world.
There are some smart people in China who know this and are working on it. China is leading the world in some aspects of renewable energy technologies and applications, energy efficiency, and waste recycling.
The mindset of Chinese leaders, policy makers and implementers is the antithesis of the current US petroleum club leadership's mindset. China is setting this paradigm shift, and they are half way through it before Germany, the Netherlands and Japan began to appreciate what they are doing.
Tsinghua University in the northwest corner of Beijing provides policy advice to the government. The president of China and quite a few leaders are its alumni. Tsinghua has clout and is dedicated to leading China to lead the world in fields of science, and therefore rational policy. The Faculty of Environmental Science and Engineering is now pioneering entropy analysis through a case study of China's steel production.
In 2007 China produced 489 million tons of steel, an astounding figure. The iron ore mined and refined, the coal burnt, the polluting gases emitted, are all world records and certainly effect global atmosphere and climate.
China is now entering a very sobering, soul-searching era. The Olympics is but a blip, mentioned one time in the voluminous Eleventh Five Year Plan of 2007. What China is feeling for now is a search back to roots in millennia of tradition, in the Chinese traditional concept on harmony with nature.
One of the founding fathers of Western economics, David Ricardo (1772-1823), wrote that water and other gifts of nature are free. Well, that was when economy was on a small scale to the global environment. Now we really are on a finite and in material terms, self-contained, Spaceship Earth.
Olympic visitors, enjoy the Games, enjoy your favorite events. But check the big picture, savor the change happening in China, and what it means to the Chinese to be the last piece in the jigsaw of the earth's sphere, and to be holding the can in the global economy. For China there is no such thing as a free lunch.
The author is an independent researcher from Australia, currently living in Beijing
Keeping the torch of hope alive
For thousands of reporters combing for off-beat stories at the Games host city, those of a cancer-afflicted athlete and an Olympic cheering squad battling the same disease could be just the right stuff.
They are a testament to the fact that each and every person, athlete or average, could grab a medal for themselves - in their own way.
The athlete, swimmer Eric Shanteau from the US, has in fact made headlines in his home and host countries by deciding to put off surgery so as to compete in Beijing, after being diagnosed with testicular cancer only two months ago.
It was not known whether Shanteau had kept Pierre de Coubertin's message in his mind when he took the tough decision. The message, as everyone knows by now, reads, "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part".
But the 24-year old has proved that he understood better the second half of the famous saying by the principal organizer of the modern Olympic Games: "The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well."
Shanteau has "taken advantage" of the illness to "fight well".
"A lot of times when you get to an event like the Olympic Games, you can put too much pressure on yourself," Shanteau told reporters on Monday. "I've kind of got an out with cancer."
It is fair to say that Shanteau's courage of not letting anything stand in his way of reaching the Olympics deserves everyone's respect every bit as much as any of the gold-winning US swimmers, even though he may leave China without a medal around his neck.
So it is encouraging to know that while the world press cast the spotlight on his colleagues like super swimming fish Michael Phelps, the Chinese media has singled out Shanteau as "a figure whose name must be remembered" in the records of Beijing Olympics.
For Shanteau it is perhaps even more encouraging to know that he is not alone in competing with cancer at the Games in Beijing.
A special Olympic cheering squad comprising cancer patients from Shanghai is lending its support to Shanteau and other athletes, waving the Olympic banners in venues .
Nearly 200 visitors, organized by the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club, made their way to Beijing yesterday, fulfilling a five-year goal they set themselves in 2003 - that they would survive to watch the Beijing Olympics.
Perhaps no doctor would prescribe waiting for and watching the Olympic Games as a therapy for cancer victims. But Qiu Haidi and other members of the cheering squad said they believe it works.
Over the past five years, the Shanghai cancer club had asked Qiu and other patients to deposit 2 yuan a day to their savings pot, a way of amassing money for a trip to Beijing and also a way of seeding hope during down times.
"What has supported my life to go on is the ambition of coming to Beijing to watch the Olympics," Qiu, 68, with lung cancer, said. "This is the last and the most important thing in my life."
It is true that China has stunned the world with an intoxicating opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, impressive skylines of the host cities, and an improved sense of environmental conservation among its businesses and decision-makers.
But the Chinese media report on the US swimmer and the Olympic cheering squad seem to illustrate another aspect of how the Olympics is reshaping the lives of Chinese people and how far the spirit of the Games has penetrated.
For Qiu and her colleagues, the Olympics is a source of strength to sustain their lives and the modern Olympic motto -"faster, higher, stronger" - best captures their everyday "competition", that is to endure.
It is this message of the Olympics that has empowered many people throughout China, one that began its journey seven years ago, when our nation was chosen to host the world's greatest sporting event.
They are a testament to the fact that each and every person, athlete or average, could grab a medal for themselves - in their own way.
The athlete, swimmer Eric Shanteau from the US, has in fact made headlines in his home and host countries by deciding to put off surgery so as to compete in Beijing, after being diagnosed with testicular cancer only two months ago.
It was not known whether Shanteau had kept Pierre de Coubertin's message in his mind when he took the tough decision. The message, as everyone knows by now, reads, "The most important thing in the Olympic Games is not to win but to take part".
But the 24-year old has proved that he understood better the second half of the famous saying by the principal organizer of the modern Olympic Games: "The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well."
Shanteau has "taken advantage" of the illness to "fight well".
"A lot of times when you get to an event like the Olympic Games, you can put too much pressure on yourself," Shanteau told reporters on Monday. "I've kind of got an out with cancer."
It is fair to say that Shanteau's courage of not letting anything stand in his way of reaching the Olympics deserves everyone's respect every bit as much as any of the gold-winning US swimmers, even though he may leave China without a medal around his neck.
So it is encouraging to know that while the world press cast the spotlight on his colleagues like super swimming fish Michael Phelps, the Chinese media has singled out Shanteau as "a figure whose name must be remembered" in the records of Beijing Olympics.
For Shanteau it is perhaps even more encouraging to know that he is not alone in competing with cancer at the Games in Beijing.
A special Olympic cheering squad comprising cancer patients from Shanghai is lending its support to Shanteau and other athletes, waving the Olympic banners in venues .
Nearly 200 visitors, organized by the Shanghai Cancer Recovery Club, made their way to Beijing yesterday, fulfilling a five-year goal they set themselves in 2003 - that they would survive to watch the Beijing Olympics.
Perhaps no doctor would prescribe waiting for and watching the Olympic Games as a therapy for cancer victims. But Qiu Haidi and other members of the cheering squad said they believe it works.
Over the past five years, the Shanghai cancer club had asked Qiu and other patients to deposit 2 yuan a day to their savings pot, a way of amassing money for a trip to Beijing and also a way of seeding hope during down times.
"What has supported my life to go on is the ambition of coming to Beijing to watch the Olympics," Qiu, 68, with lung cancer, said. "This is the last and the most important thing in my life."
It is true that China has stunned the world with an intoxicating opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, impressive skylines of the host cities, and an improved sense of environmental conservation among its businesses and decision-makers.
But the Chinese media report on the US swimmer and the Olympic cheering squad seem to illustrate another aspect of how the Olympics is reshaping the lives of Chinese people and how far the spirit of the Games has penetrated.
For Qiu and her colleagues, the Olympics is a source of strength to sustain their lives and the modern Olympic motto -"faster, higher, stronger" - best captures their everyday "competition", that is to endure.
It is this message of the Olympics that has empowered many people throughout China, one that began its journey seven years ago, when our nation was chosen to host the world's greatest sporting event.
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