Aspirin DOES slash the risk of a heart attack
(But only if it is taken at night, say experts)

A small dose of aspirin may cut the risk of heart attack or stroke in those with rising blood pressure - but only if it is taken at night.

Doctors have discovered that the aspirin lowers blood pressure to normal for up to 24 hours.

The effect only works if the tablet is taken at night, according to Spanish researchers.

It is hoped that a preventive 75mg dose of aspirin - one fifth of the amount found in a standard tablet - could prevent many people with normal to high blood pressure, known as prehypertension, from having to take expensive long-term medication.

An estimated 16million in the UK have high blood pressure, which is a major risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and kidney failure.

Professor Ramon Hermida of the University of Vigo, who led the study, said aspirin reduced blood pressure only when given at night.

"Previously it was thought you could take it any time," he said. "But we have shown that any other time apart from before going to bed it has no effect.

"These results show us that we cannot underestimate the impact of the body's circadian rhythms."

Timing the best moment to give a drug is an emerging science, he added, and more research is needed before doctors could recommend taking aspirin for pre-hypertension.

Patients worried about their blood pressure should check with their own doctor about whether they could safely take regular aspirin, which has side effects, he said.

Professor Hermida, who has specialised in developing treatments linked to the body's internal clock, will present his findings today at the American Society for Hypertension in New Orleans.

Although it is unclear why aspirin works better at night, researchers believe it may slow down the production of hormones and other substances in the body that cause clotting. Many of these are produced while the body is at rest.

It has not been previously reported that aspirin lowers blood pressure, but it is proven to reduce a number of factors linked to heart disease and stroke in high-risk patients.

Millions of heart patients take a daily low-dose pill on the advice of their doctor.

Its anti-blood clotting action has been proved to help cut subsequent attacks and strokes among heart attack survivors.

(From the Daily Mail)

(Click on the image to enlarge to full-screen)

Those of you who read my "poemsandprose" blog will have noted that a couple of days ago I posted a poem by the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh.

This has renewed my interest in Buddhism and today I bought two books on the subject.

One of them was "Sayings of the Buddha Reflections for Every Day" (Published by Arcturus Publishing Limited - £7.99). This gives a wise saying for each day of the year, in calendar order.

Many of them are well worth quoting and I shall be posting some of them as footnotes to "poemsandprose", beginning tomorrow. Please look out for them there.

The other book I have bought is "The Essence of Buddhism" by Jo Durden Smith (Arcturus Publishing Limited - £6.99).

The introduction begins:

"Buddhism is not a religion in the sense in which the term is commonly understood in the West.

Buddhists are indeed the followers of the Buddha and of his teachings, but not in the same way that Christians are said to be the followers of Christ.

The Buddha did not begin to see himself, and is not seen by Buddhists, as a God; nor did he offer his disciples any sort of path to God.

No claims were made by him to any unaalterable truth, nor did he he demqand that his teachings should simply be accepted, taken on trust or acquired through an act of faith.

Instead he encouraged those who wished to make the spiritual journey he himself had undertaken to experiment for themselves as individuals, retaining what was useful to them and abandoning what was not.

As he is reported to have said some 2,500 years ago to the Kalamas people in north-east India (what is now Nepal):

Don't be satisfied with hearsay or tradition or legend, or with what's come down from your scriptures, or wit conjecture or logical inference or weighing evidence or a particular liking for a view . . . or with the thought:'The monk is our teacher'. When you know in yourselves: 'These ideas are unprofitable . . . being adopted and put into effect they lead to harm and suffering', then abandon them. [But] when you know in yourselves: 'These things are profitable . . . ' then you should practise and abide in them.

The goal announced by the Buddha, in other words, might be one and the same - the experience and understanding of ultimate truth - but each man, woman and child is enjoined to follow his or her own path there."

THERE IS ANOTHER WAY

Take a look at this video:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pShf2VuAu_Q&feature=related

Taylors of Harrogate, renowned for their Yorkshire Teas, have started to grow and harvest their own coffee.

Spokesman Neil Howson said: "We have a special section in the factory we have built, to keep the right temperature and humidity to grow the coffee beans. Sadly the beans require a temperature Yorkshire can't provide."

But it may be a while until packets of Yorkshire coffee are in the shops or sampled by the cup in a café.

Coffee buyer Mike Riley said: "It makes a great change for us to be harvesting our coffee in the heart of Yorkshire. The crop will be very small but at least we will have enough for our coffee team to each enjoy a cup of coffee full of local flavour.

"We try to keep the coffee at 27 degrees Centigrade, but on a nice sunny day temperatures can reach 40 degrees in the tropical house.

"We have had the plantation for three years now, but this is the first year we have had a decent harvest of beans.

"I brought some (coffee) cherries back from Kenya and we thought it would be a great idea to plant them. We will pick the cherries in the next few days and prepare them here on-site."

Taylors' spokeswoman Sam Gibson said: "Because they have to be grown in very protected conditions there is no way we could get the quantity to sell in the shops, but it is a way for the staff to learn about coffee and to bring the plants to them.

(Yorkshire Post)

More at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7396437.stm

His name won't ring any bells... but Nathan B. Stubblefield was the man who gave the world its first mobile phone.

Well, almost ...

He patented his amazing invention 100 years ago next week - just 30 years after Thomas Edison made the first proper phone call.

But the Stubblefield portable telephone - which could actually transmit a conversation to a receiver a mile away - never caught on.

The Kentucky melon farmer died a penniless hermit, but a century on he is finally being recognised. A Stubblefield page in his honour is being opened on the Virgin Mobile website, in time for the May 12 anniversary.

But it's hard to imagine a City type bellowing "I'm on the train" into a Stubblefield the size of a wheelbarrow.

And that's after they'd hammered two four-foot metal rods into the ground to carry the signal...

Nathan Stubblefield testing the 'portable' telephone,
which needed a large transmitter

(The Sunday Mirror)