Tag: health

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Life Expectancy and Despair

Life Expectancy and Despair
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has just released its latest annual report on American life expectancy. The report shows that for the third year life expectancy in the United States has not grown and has declined. The last time that this happened was in World War I when a flu pandemic killed 675,000 people.

The report says that drugs and suicide are the main culprits now with the overdose rate up 356% since 1999. The 2017 death toll is 70,237 far outstripping the total American fatalities in Vietnam.

It is interesting that everyone studying this life expectancy issue seems to agree on what the cause is, and what the solution is. The NationalReview.com says that “we are facing not so much a drug problem as a heartbreak problem.” An AARP study found that one-third of Americans report chronic loneliness and conclude that isolation is a state “about as deadly as smoking.” David Brooks writing in the New York Times says “It’s not jobs, jobs, jobs or better welfare programs that will save us from this ongoing social catastrophe; it’s human relationships and a society that cares about people more than money.”

We suggest that people need to read and follow the example in Acts 2:41-47. People had a common faith in God, and they took care of each other. They “CONTINUED DAILY WITH ONE ACCORD” and spent time together focusing on meaningful relationships. The result was that “they had favor with all the people.”

This reminds me of a comment I heard Carl Sandburg make when someone asked him what he thought about Christianity. His response was “I don’t know, I have never seen it tried.” Christianity is not a legalistic way of restricting human behavior. It is a way of life that blesses everyone who is a part of it and everyone around those who live it.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

Reference: The Week, December 14, 2018, page 17

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Amazing Human Eye

Amazing Human Eye
Eyes are among the great challenges to those who insist that unguided, naturalistic evolution created all living things. Eyes are complex devices that display engineering design skill. A significant problem for naturalists is that some very complex eyes appear early in the fossil record, such as the trilobite eye. Each animal has eyes well-designed for the life they live. That is certainly true of the amazing human eye.

Many things about human eyes make them amazing. One of those is the cornea, the clear front covering of our eyes. Corneas must be perfectly clear to allow light to pass through for an unobstructed view of the world around us. Because of the need for complete transparency, they have no blood vessels. Our corneas get their nourishment from the aqueous humor (the liquid inside the eye) and the tear fluid on the outside. They get oxygen from direct contact with the air.

Corneas must be designed to fit a curving surface full of a fluid which maintains the critical pressure inside the eye. However, there is a problem with the cornea being exposed to the air with all of the contaminants it contains – pollen, dust, chemicals, and grit. Corneas can become scratched. Over time, any surface exposed to dirt and grit, and sometimes bumps and blows, can get tiny scratches. How is it possible for corneas to remain transparent with so much abuse?

When you cut your skin, as the cut heals, scar tissue forms. Scratches in our corneas must heal without scar tissue. When the outer layer of the cornea gets scratched, the surrounding cells move toward one another and close the scratch leaving no scar tissue. This is only one feature of corneas which consist of five different layers each having an important function and showing evidence of design.

Think what it would be like if scar tissue formed every time the surface of our corneas got scratched. By the time we reached middle-age, we would certainly be looking through cloudy lenses. If you can read this, you should be thankful for just one of the features of the amazing human eye!
–Roland Earnst © 2018

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Sex Recession Cause

“Sex Recession” Cause
There is little doubt that there has been a radical change in sexual behavior in the past 25 years. Moral acceptance of premarital sex is at an all-time high. Birth control is easily accessible for all ages. People can find hook-up partners on dating apps without leaving home. Online porn is a major industry in today’s world. Websites are selling sex toys and vibrators to promote masturbation. How can there be a sex recession?

Liberals maintained that all this was good and that freedom from old norms would lead to what they called “sexual fulfillment.” What the numbers are showing is just the opposite. The number of sexually active high school students has dropped from 54% to 40% in the past 25 years. People in their early 20s are 2.5 times as likely to be abstinent as GenXers were at that same age. Dating apps have turned out to be addictive games that produce more frustration than connection.

The New York Times recently published a report on the “sex recession.” Writer Ross Douthat said that the trend mentioned above “has led to the growing alienation of the sexes from one another. In our new sterility, ‘virtual sex’ has become the opiate of the frustrated masses.” Editorials in the media have blamed everything from porn to the record number of people under 35 who are living with their parents.

When God gave the beautiful oneness that marriage brings, He then gave admonitions about how to use the gift of sex. When we follow God’s guidelines, sex can give fulfillment, relationships, security, and freedom. Genesis 2:24 stated the relationship God intended, and the Bible is full of teaching about avoiding the corrupted misuse of sexual relationships.

Atheists and skeptics have challenged these teachings saying they are unrealistic and merely an attempt to deprive us of potential pleasure, but just the opposite is true. God’s instructions are to designed to give us freedom, joy, and the maximum pleasure. When we misuse the power of sex, the result is catastrophic. The “sex recession” is proof of what happens when we fail to follow God’s instructions.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data from The Week, November 30, 2018, page 17.

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Self-Imposed Plagues

Self-Imposed Plagues
We have received several emails bemoaning the cost of the storms and wildfires that have caused significant damage and some deaths in every country in the world. Some of the writers have suggested that God is responsible for all the bad things that have been happening. We have pointed out in previous articles how the massive destruction of hurricanes and wildfires are really a product of human mismanagement. But an even greater issue is the cost of self-imposed plagues.

Popular Science in the winter 2018 issue on page 26 published some data on what the magazine calls “The Plagues We Made.” The article uses data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are some of the numbers:

-Cost of the opioid crisis in 2015 – $504 billion
-Cost of firearm violence – $229 billion
-Opioid overdose deaths in 2016 were five times what they were in 1999
-Years of life lost to opioids in 2016 – 1,681,359
-Years of life lost to gun violence in the U.S. in 2016 – 916,869
-Americans killed by guns in the U.S. per day – 96.2 – 59% of those are suicides

These self-imposed plagues are taking more lives than the so-called “natural” disasters. As our country moves away from God and deeper into a “survival of the fittest” mentality, these numbers are guaranteed to increase.
–John N. Clayton© 2018

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Homeopathic Medicine Lawsuit

Homeopathic Medicine Inventor
Homeopathy is a medical system based on the belief that a substance that causes disease in a healthy person can cure a sick person if it is diluted enough. Homeopathic medicine was invented in the late 1700s by a German named Samuel Hahnemann (pictured).

Some religious groups embrace homeopathy or the related naturopathy believing that God created all life with the ability to heal itself. They frequently quote Genesis 9:1-3 as the starting point for the need for plants and minerals to sustain human health, because the meat now included in human diets would not meet the medical requirements. They also quote Acts 10:9-16 as part of the change that took place in the human diet that made it necessary for plants and minerals to provide supplements.

We would suggest that the hermeneutics of using those passages in that way is dubious. There is no doubt that nutrition is a part of good health, and supplements can be useful in maintaining health. But whether a plant or mineral could replace the effectiveness of penicillin or modern antibiotics is debatable. Some today are making claims about homeopathic medicine for curing disease with no scientific support. CVS is the largest pharmacy chain in the United States with 9800 stores, and they promote homeopathy by placing homeopathic remedies on their shelves alongside scientifically-proven medications.

The Center for Inquiry (CFI) on June 29, 2018, filed a lawsuit against CVS. They told the Superior Court of the District of Columbia that homeopathy is a pseudoscience and that CVS is in violation of the Consumer Protection Procedures Act. They are demanding that CVS provide “corrective advertising, marketing, labeling.” The suit says that CVS persists in deceiving its customers about the effectiveness of homeopathic products. “Homeopathics are shelved right alongside scientifically proven medicines, under the same signs for cold and flu, pain relief, sleep aids, and so-on.” An example given by the CFI is Arnicare Arthritis which I have seen in drug stores as providing relief for arthritis pain. Tests have shown that a placebo gave as much relief as Arnicare Arthritis.

Some religious groups in our area have stores that sell homeopathic medicine and make claims that are not backed up by scientific testing. Greed and a lack of integrity among promoters of homeopathic cures have caused a lot of pain and a few deaths among religious people who think homeopathy is a biblical injunction. Read all labels carefully and pay attention to data offered by medical organizations before trusting any drug or supposed medication.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

Data from Skeptical Inquirer, November/December 2018, page 5-6.

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Beneficial Fungus Called Smut

Beneficial Fungus Called Smut
Those of us who have grown sweet corn have almost always had to fight smut. That black and gray growth on corn looks disgusting. It is actually a fungus known scientifically as Ustilago maydis, and it has been around for a long time. Even though we dislike it, in some ways smut is a beneficial fungus.

Archaeologists studying ancient Puebloan people have found significant amounts of corn smut spores in their feces. That indicates that maize (corn) made up as much as 80% of the diet of ancestral Puebloan people and it included a great deal of the fungus.

One of the mysteries of ancient peoples in America is why they didn’t have nutritional diseases that were common in the world at that time. The most serious of those was the skin disease pellagra which is caused by a lack of niacin (vitamin B3) in the diet. The amino acid that prevents pellagra is missing from the maize but is present in high concentrations in the smut.

We generally have a negative attitude toward fungi, but there are many examples of beneficial fungus. Remember that penicillin was derived from a fungus. Now we find corn smut also offers a benefit. God has a use for everything He created, but sometimes it takes us a while to figure out what that use is.

We have a children’s book about beneficial fungi, and you can see it online HERE.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Reference: Archaeology, November/December 2018, page 20.

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Ultimate Food Source

Ultimate Food Source - Antarctic Krill
One of the great necessities that a planet must have to support life is an ultimate food source that everything can eat. It must be highly nutritious, exist over a long time, and have very little waste. Modern oceanography has uncovered such a food source in an unlikely place. They found it in the frigid Antarctic ocean waters. The form of life is a small shrimp-like creature called Antarctic krill (Euphasia superba).

The amazing thing about these creatures is their abundance. Scientists found one swarm that covered several square miles and ranged in depth from 60 to 600 feet (12 to 180 m). They estimated the total weight of this one swarm is 10 million metric tons. That is equivalent to one-seventh of the entire planet’s weight of fish and shellfish caught in a whole year. It would amount to 98 pounds for every person in the United States.

Krill are rich in protein and have negligible bone and shell material. They consume microscopic animal and plant organisms as their primary food. Krill are near the bottom of the ocean food chain providing food directly or indirectly to everything in the ocean, including whales.

The Scripps Institution of Oceanography did the original studies of this particular swarm. Data from other oceanographic research ships show that krill swarms are common in the ocean. Since they can even be turned into food for humans, Antarctic krill seem to be God’s ultimate food source for all living things on this planet.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Hamburgers Without Beef

Is Hamburgers Without Beef in Your Future?
There has been a lot of hype about red meat and its potential damage to our health. The FDA held its first public hearing about growing meat in the laboratory instead of using cattle–or for that matter fish or birds. The challenge is to produce hamburgers without beef.

One process that scientists are experimenting with involves growing “cultured meat” in the laboratory from real animal cells. The other idea is to create “meat” from plants with the protein and taste of real beef hamburgers without beef. Beef production is the top emitter of greenhouse gases, and growing beef from cows emits over 100 times more greenhouse gases than plant material would emit to produce the same amount of meat. Patrick Brown of Impossible Foods in Redwood City, California says “Animals happened to be the technology that was available 10,000 years ago for making meat. We stuck with that technology, and it’s incredibly inefficient by any measure–and destructive”.

When Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot introduced the first combustion steam-powered vehicle in 1771, it offered significant advantages over the horse. In 1898 urban planners in New York were concerned about the 50,000 tons of horse excrement that 175,000 horses in New York City were producing every month. Ten years later Henry Ford introduced the Model T which eventually eliminated the problem. How long will it take for plant-produced beef to solve the environmental and health problems caused by the use of cows to produce food? The beef industry is huge in America, hamburgers without beef are likely to be available in Europe and Asia before they are accepted here.

Some people believe that Christians cannot eat manufactured meat on religious grounds. Even those who go back to the meat prohibitions of the Old Testament will find no support for forbidding plant-produced hamburgers. In Genesis 9:3, God told Noah that he could eat of any “green plant,” but the law placed massive restrictions on eating animal-based protein. In 1 Corinthians 8:8-13 and in Romans 14:1-5 Paul expressed concern over the influence of Christians who because of their freedom to eat anything, might pose a problem for those who don’t understand that food is not a religious issue. Romans 14:17 summarizes this by saying, “The kingdom of God is not about meat and drink; but righteousness and peace…” In 1 Corinthians 10:25-27 Paul tells Christian to eat whatever is set before them “asking no questions.”

The silly aspect of religious concerns about eating manufactured foods is that we already do it. Think of the list of manufactured foods that we eat now. They include artificially produced fruits and vegetables such as tangelos, and hybrid apples, corn, and tomatoes. Other food substances include margarine, soy milk, artificial sweeteners, butter spray, etc. We copy God’s design of the foods we eat to enlarge the food supply of the planet and avoid waste.

Food chemistry is highly complex, but the more we understand the creation, the closer we get to the Creator. Let us thank God that we don’t go to bed hungry. Also let us thank God He has given us the ability to meet the needs of the hungry as we understand how we can produce and use these new foods, including hamburgers without beef.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

Data: Science News for September 29, 2018, page 11, “Dreaming Up Tomorrow’s Burger” or read it online HERE.

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Beating a Child?

Beating a Child?
Sometimes skeptics of the Bible tell us that the Bible teaches child abuse and therefore is not relevant to the 21st century. In this day of concern about violence and child abuse, they say the Bible is just an abusive, male-dominated book. The passage usually cited is Proverbs 23:13-14. In the KJV it says, “Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou beatest him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and shalt deliver his soul from hell.” Proverbs 29:15 adds, “The rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.” There is no question that these passages have been used by angry parents to justify whipping or even beating a child–sometimes brutally. Is that what the Bible tells parents to do?

The answer to that question is definitely “no.” The first point is that Solomon wrote the passage in Proverbs to the people of his day. It was a society in which a man had many wives and many children. In Solomon’s case the number was in the hundreds, but virtually all Old Testament characters had a multiplicity of children. The basis of the society both religiously and politically was the father and his rule.

When Jesus came, he changed things. Jesus said that what God had allowed was “because of the hardness of your hearts” (Matthew 19:8). He reinstituted God’s original plan which was: “A man shall leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh.” The structure of the family changed under the teachings of Jesus, and the basis of raising children was love, not control. Ephesians 6:4 told fathers, “Provoke not your children to wrath, but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” Colossians 3:21 added, “Fathers, don’t provoke your children to anger lest they become discouraged.”

Does the passage in Proverbs tell fathers to beat a child into submission? Again, beating a child is not what the passage says, and we need to do a word study to see that. There are two different Hebrew words translated as “rod.” One is the Hebrew “matteh” which refers to a piece of wood used as a club, a staff, or a weapon. An example is Exodus 4:2-4 where Moses threw down his rod which became a serpent.

The word for rod that is used in Proverbs is “shebet” which is never used destructively. Isaiah 11:1 is an example: “And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of his roots.” Rod is used this way many times in Isaiah such as “the rod of his mouth” in 11:4, and “tool of freedom” in 10:15. Jeremiah 48:17 translates “shebet” as “beautiful rod.” Job 9:34 uses “shebet” as “discipline” in modern translations but as “rod” in the King James.

What Solomon is saying is that a child needs discipline, not brutality. The fact that the word normally associated with discipline and promise is chosen in proverbs and not the word that conveys violence and abuse should clarify what Solomon is saying. Proverbs 29:15 would perhaps be more accurately translated “Discipline and reproof give wisdom, but an abandoned child will bring his parents to shame.” Verse 17 of that passage goes on and says, “Correct your son, and He will give you rest, yes he will bring delight to your soul.” Beating a child never accomplishes its purpose and is not a part of God’s plan for raising children.
–John N. Clayton © 2018

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Does Earth Have Enough Food?

Does Earth Have Enough Food?
When God put the first man upon the Earth, He told him to take care of the garden–to dress it and keep it (Genesis 2:15). We have not done a very good job of keeping the Earth, and the result has been disastrous in a variety of ways. When Noah left the Ark, God told him, “Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. As I gave you green plants, I give you everything.” (Genesis 9:3). Did God give us enough? Does Earth have enough food to feed our growing population?

The first point we need to make is that we waste most of the food we grow. Various research groups give different estimates of what percentage of our food is either discarded, spoiled, or not harvested properly. All studies of this topic have shown numbers indicating that we waste more than 75% of the food that is available.

One area where we do not use food efficiently involves plants and animals that grow at astronomical rates. Some fish and water invertebrates can produce many thousands of eggs from a single female. The Ocean Conservancy has called attention to the growth rates of mahi-mahi, an ocean fish found in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. That species offers a vast supply of meat for harvesting. In one year of growth, the mahi-mahi can attain a length of over four feet, and the fish can reproduce as early as four months of age.

God has provided a wide variety of food sources for us. Does Earth have enough food to feed a growing population? Yes, we do have the potential to produce enough food for all people on Earth to eat. World starvation issues are due to our failure to develop food resources and to our massive waste of food. It is not because God didn’t give us enough to supply our needs.
–John N. Clayton © 2018
Data from Splash published by the Ocean Conservancy for Fall 2016, page 3.