r2i forum

Phys Ed: Can Touching Your Toes Test Your Arteries?

Link

[QUOTE]
A provocative new study published this year in the journal Heart and Circulatory Physiology suggests, however, that there may be a novel way to test at least one element of your heart?s health right in your own living room, right in the middle of the holidays. Sit on the floor with your legs stretched straight out in front of you, toes pointing up. Reach forward from the hips. Are you flexible enough to touch your toes? If so, then your cardiac arteries probably are also flexible......

What the researchers found was a clear correlation between inflexible bodies and inflexible arteries in subjects older than 40. Adults with poor results on the sit-and-reach test also tended to have relatively high readings of arterial stiffness. In short, the study concluded that ?a less flexible body indicates arterial stiffening, especially in middle-aged and older adults.? No such correlation was found in those under 40, even when gender and fitness were considered as factors.

These results do not mean, of course, that people in the inflexible group were in imminent danger of a heart attack on Christmas Day. Arterial stiffening does not indicate or inevitably lead to arterial disease, Mr. Yamamoto emphasizes. In fact, some degree of arterial stiffening is inevitable with age. But the stiffer your arteries are, the less efficient your heart.

How it is that stiff muscles in the back and legs are linked to stiff tissues near the heart is an issue that hasn?t been fully elucidated, Mr. Yamamoto says, although arterial walls are composed of the same kinds of elastic tissues as muscles elsewhere in the body. So it?s likely, he says, that alterations in the composition of muscle tissues in the lower back (including aging-related alterations in the amount of collagen within the muscles) could be occurring in the arterial walls at the same time.

What is surprising are some early indications that increasing your flexibility might somehow loosen up your arteries, too. That was the accidental and, as yet unreplicated finding of a small 2008 study at the University of Texas at Austin. The study was designed to examine whether weight lifting increased arterial stiffness. (It didn?t, at least on this occasion.) The control group consisted of people who stretched. They were not expected to show any change in cardiac function, but over the course of 13 weeks they in fact increased the pliability of their arteries by more than 20 percent.

http://www.dnaindia.com/world/report_twin-blasts-in-lahore-cantonment-kill-4_1358296

Two blasts strike Lahore Cantt: police
Friday, 12 Mar, 2010||Rabi-ul-Awwal 25, 1431

LAHORE: Two explosions ripped through a market in Lahore as crowds gathered for Friday prayers, police said.

At least 18 people have been killed in the blasts and dozens were injured.

Rescue workers and paramedics rushed to the R A Bazaar. The area was crowded as the blasts occurred shortly before the main Friday prayers were to start. The second blast was reported from the Saddar roundabout.

The RA Bazaar is a residential and commercial neighborhood where several army and security agencies have facilities. TV channels showed security forces swarming the area as bystanders rushed the injured into ambulances.

?We have sent our teams to the site to ascertain the kind of blasts, where they took place and the losses,? police official Mohammad Shafiq-ur-Rehman told AFP. Another police official also confirmed two explosions were heard.

Eye witnesses reported that there was firing before the blast.

According to police officials two suicide bombers detonated themselves in a parking lot and mosque in the area.

According to military sources, military officials are among the critically injured. Sources claimed that an army convoy was targeted but most of the dead were civilians.

The blasts came four days after a suicide car bomber destroyed offices used to interrogate suspected militants in an upmarket district of Lahore.

................

MARCH 14, 10

TERROR PLOT FAILED IN MUMBAI

http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/mumbai-2-men-arrested-by-maharashtra-ats-17674.php

Two held for plotting attack on Mumbai oil tanks (ONGC)
[INDENT]
[/INDENT]MUMBAI,Mar 14, 2010 : Two persons were on Sunday arrested by Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) for allegedly planning to set one of the ONGC establishments here on fire, police said.

The accused, identified as Abdul Latif Rashid (29) and Riyaz Ali (23), have been arrested from the city, they said.

"The two were preparing to set one of the ONGC establishments in the city on fire following instructions from someone called 'Uncle'," an ATS officer said adding "we are probing if the directions had come from across the border".

The two terror suspects were granted police custody till March 18 by a local court.

The duo had conducted a recce of the sensitive Nhava-Sheva area of the Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust (JNPT) in south-east Mumbai, an ATS official said.

Police have recovered several maps of the areas they were planning to strike from them. They are suspected to have links with international terror outfits, the official said.



The JNPT is among the most sensitive installations in the city and barely a few kilometres away from Colaba, which was the landing point of the 10 Pakistani terrorists who had attacked Mumbai Nov 26, 2008.


------------------------

Gujarat ATS arrests terror suspects
Mar 14, 2010



AHMEDABAD: Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) has arrested terror suspects believed to be linked to the banned Hizbul Mujahideen, ATS sources said on Sunday.

"We have arrested some people who were involved in unlawful activities in the state from the city," ATS chief Ajay Tomar said here.

However, he refused to divulge further details. Sources in the ATS said that the arrested persons were terror suspects who were active in the state and were supposed to have links with Hizbul Mujahideen militant outfit.

..............

Yeh hai mera India - > SC did well to reject government blackmail

Depending on whether you want to be charitable to the government, you could call it arm-twisting - blackmail, however, is a more honest way of describing it. While most lacked the courage to take on the government after it played favourites in the award of telecom licences in 2008, STel (a joint venture between the Sivasankaran group and Bahrain Telecom) went to the Delhi [ Images ] high court arguing it had been hurt by the arbitrary cut-off dates announced by the telecom ministry under A Raja.

The company had applied for licences for 16 telecom circles on September 28, 2007, well before the last date of application (October 1, 2007); on January 10, 2008, however, the telecom ministry said only those firms that had applied before September 25, 2007, would be considered.
.....................

Tamil Nadu: Public money going down the drain..

The Tamil Nadu government has allotted Rs 1800 crore in the state budget to build three lakh free concrete houses for those living in mud houses with thatched roofs.

http://www.ndtv.com/news/videos/video_player.php?id=1210712

'I arranged five meetings between Nawaz Sharif and Osama'

Lahore, Mar 21: In a stunning disclosure that once again confirmed the nexus between Pakistan?s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and banned militant outfits, a former ISI official, Khalid Khwaja, has claimed to have arranged at least five meetings between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden.

In an interview with a private television channel, Khwaja said Sharif has met several Islamic movement leaders around the world, including Osama and asked him to provide fund for ?development projects?.

Khwaja said that he had arranged three meeting between Sharif and Osama in Saudi Arabia.
?Nawaz insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with Osama, which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz was looking for a 500 million rupees grant from Osama. Although Osama provided a comparatively smaller sum ... he secured for Nawaz a meeting with the Saudi royal family,? The Daily Times quoted Khwaja, as saying

He also claimed that Osama had provided him funds to hand over to the incumbent Punjab Chief Minister to overthrow the then Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto?s government.

?I still remember that Osama provided me funds that I handed over to then Punjab chief minister Nawaz to topple Benazir Bhutto?s government,?Khwaja said.
Khwaja claimed that he maintained a close relationship between Osama, as after being ?forced? to retire he went to Afghanistan in 1987 and fought against the Soviet troops ?alongside Osama.?

...............

Freida Pinto still the only one in Bond babe race -- Slumdog Millionaire




Sam Mendes, who is directing the 23rd installment of the 007 series, is looking for the next Bond babe, and as of now it's only Freida Pinto's name that has surfaced in the list of contenders.The new Bond film is fast tracked for a 2011 release, reports the New York Post.
The new flick, starring Daniel Craig as the licensed-to-kill British agent, will be in 3-D.

Frieda Pinto, Mumbai’s Slumdog Millionaire actress, who went to the Oscars but never made it in Bollywood, has apparently signed a multi-million pound deal to play James Bond’s love interest in the 23rd Hollywood film on the suave British Secret Service agent.

Frieda was said to be approached by director Sam Mendes to play the role in the film which is set in Afghanistan. A source said: “Sam is excited, the project has been in the pipeline for months, and Freida was always the dream Bond girl. But initially she was nervous about accepting the role. This is going to be the most ambitious 007 yet. Sam plans to reinvent the genre.”

Peter Morgan, who wrote The Queen, has penned the first draft of the script and it promises to be visually stunning. Freida will star alongside Daniel Craig, who will be reprising his role as Bond once more, while US actress Olivia Wilde has been approached to play a double-crossing UN worker based in Afghanistan.

Frieda, who is currently dating her Slumdog Millionaire co-star Dev Patel, was unavailable for comment. But Dev said he is thrilled his girlfriend has won such a high-profile role. A source told a London newspaper: “It will be a typically glamorous and raunchy role and Dev has been joking to friends he is cool with seeing Freida rolling around with 007.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/entertainment/bollywood/news-interviews/Freida-the-next-Bond-girl/articleshow/5708207.cms


....