Every month the FDA sends out warning letters to make certain companies aware of violations. Nine letters have been sent out this month alone, to companies all over the country. Many of these letters informed companies that their products are “misbranded” or “unapproved.”

Believe it or not, these letters are actually really important to everyone. If you’re interested in what you’re putting on or into the bodies of yourself and your loved ones, you may want to start checking them out.

These letters highlight specific aspects of FDA law when they are violated. It’s good for consumers because it allows us to be aware of frequently violated sections. With each newly publicized FDA warning there are many things to be learned.

Take, for example, the recent Zicam controversy. Many people claimed to be losing their sense of smell from using Zicam. The FDA gently reminded people that homeopathic drugs aren’t necessarily regulated. What we learned from that is to do our research before taking anything.

By just taking the time to skim any of these letters, you may be surprised at how much you’ll learn. Let’s take a look at the most recent warning letter was sent out on Tuesday to American Cellular Laboratories, Inc. in Pacifica, Calif. (You can check out the actual letter here.) The subject is dietary supplements that have been “misbranded.”

The gist of the letter was this:
- your products are labeled and advertised as something that they’re not
- your steroids are not dietary supplements
- if you say something is a dietary supplement it MUST meet the actual definition of a dietary supplement
– According to the FDA’s Cosmetic Act, a product claiming to be a dietary supplement must have at least one dietary ingredient like a vitamin, mineral, amino acid or any ingredient of the other categories.
- your products are “new drugs” that aren’t generally recognized as safe and effective
- your products are prescription drugs because they have a potentially toxic or harmful effect and must be taken under direct supervision of someone director
- the products’ directions are inadequate

You can stay up-to-date on all of the FDA’s recent warning letters by checking its Web site. Who knows? You may even learn something.

The first of the two studies took place over the course of eight years, taking more than 20,000 beer drinkers and their beer-boasting habits into review. The results: although heavy drinkers were shown to put on some weight, it wasn’t necessarily on, around, or even near the belly.

It was those who drank more than 33 ounces, or two-and-a-half bottles, per day, that packed on the most pounds.

This study was published in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition and reported by Fox News in a recent article.

The second study found that moderate drinkers are wealthier, more educated and less likely to be disabled than those who choose a fixed seat on the wagon, which would also relate to all those studies published about how alcohol has been shown to increase life expectancy.

According to Dr. Sei J. Lee of San Francisco VA Medical Center and his colleagues, one drink a day halved a person’s risk of dying over the next four years, as reported by Fox News. Even after taking into account several factors that could influence alcohol use and mortality, the effect was weakened, but moderate drinkers were still 28 percent less likely to die than non-drinkers.

Believe it or not, the very first study to demonstrate this information was published more than 70 years ago, back in 1923. I guess that makes sense, taking into consideration that whole Prohibition bit….

What is still uncertain, however, is whether moderate drinkers (and I have to stress MODERATE here, that doesn’t include Mr. “I can drink a case of Bud and be fine” Dude) are healthier, overall, than non-drinkers.

I personally think it has something to do with the fact that moderate drinkers may just be overall less stressed than non-drinkers. Alcohol is a depressant, and drinking it in social situations lowers people’s inhibitions and allows many to relax and enjoy themselves more. If one never takes it too far, I think a life a little more relaxed would be better than one a little more stressed. Not to mention, stress is one of the biggest causes of death in the United States. It helps skyrocket cholesterol and blood pressure, and even aids in increasing weight because of its relation to cortisol production in the body.

And as far as the moderate drinkers likely to have more money and more education, that study took into account functional disability and socioeconomic status.

Going back to Lee and his colleagues, they discovered that people who downed one drink a day had a significantly higher socioeconomic status than non-drinkers, as measured by income, wealth and years of education. As an example, 37 percent of drinkers had a college education, compared to 14 percent of non-drinkers, and 52 percent of drinkers had $300,000 in assets, while 21 percent of non-drinkers did.

They also found that non-drinkers also were more likely to have functional disabilities, such as difficulties in completing self-care activities like getting dressed or going to the bathroom, as well as problems with more complex activities such as making meals or managing their finances.

(This all goes back to what I touched on earlier…more relaxed and stress-free means less likely to develop problems. It’s all psychological.)

All this new information makes happy hour sound even, well, happier. Now, if I can only make it ’til 5:00….

Well, obviously they weren’t “alive,” but they used to be not too long ago. As I walked through the Body Worlds exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) in Tampa, Fla., created by Dr. Gunther von Hagens, there was so much to take in. I’m not one to be freaked out by anatomical stuff like that or dead bodies, but I couldn’t get over the fact that the bodies posed in educational positions were actual, real human bodies.

The muscles I saw were their actual muscles. The facial structures I saw were their actual facial structures.

Was I creeped out? Well, yes and no.

Surprisingly, the actual bodies themselves didn’t weird me out as much as looking at the various body parts that were laid out in display cases. There were livers, pancreases, hearts, lungs, you name it, and it was there.

The Body Worlds exhibit “The Story of the Heart” has been in Tampa for the past few months and I’ve been dying (no pun intended) to get in and see it. According to their Web site, this exhibit has been seen by more than 25 million people worldwide and will continue to travel around when it leaves Tampa in a few weeks. Among other exhibits are “The Mirror of Time,” a look at the aging process, and “Our Three-Pound Gem,” an in-depth look at the human brain.

Currently, there are similar exhibits in Asia, other parts of the U.S. and Europe.

The way that Body Worlds is able to transport and display these pieces of the human body is through a process called plastination, which was developed by Dr. Gunther von Hagens. The process is consists of five steps and takes about one year to complete.

1. Embalming and Anatomical Dissection – This includes placing formalin in the body to stop decaying. Also at this time, the skin, fatty and connective tissues are removed.
2. Removal of Body Fat and Water – This one’s pretty self-explanatory. It’s done by submersing the body in an acetone bath
3. Forced Impregnation – (I’m not sure why they couldn’t have chosen less awkward terminology.) At this time, they change the acetone in for “a reactive polymer” like silicone rubber. Then, the body is placed in a vacuum sealer. This makes it so that all the acetone is sucked out and the silicone rubber penetrates (since we’re using awkward terminology) every last cell in the body.
4. Positioning – Each body in the exhibit is positioned in a certain way, which is the purpose of the plastination stage. Everything is aligned at this time with the help of wires, needles, clamps and foam.
5. Curing (Hardening) – This is done either with gas, light or heat.

The result is an impressive, but dark look at the human body. I can’t say that I would like to go again, but I definitely recommend it for adults.

(One note: some may be especially freaked out by the dead babies section where you can see each and every stage of human infancy, in the flesh, including the stage when a baby looks something like a mini shrimp.)

So if you’re in the Tampa area, I strongly suggest checking this exhibit out before it leaves on June 28. Or, check out the Web site to see when it might be heading your way.

Then there’s the countless adoptions of Angelina Jolie and the new births of kids named Apple, Martini, Dewdrop, Lollygag, and whatever else the Hollywood folk can deem to punish their unwitting children before they learn to speak.

But what perhaps is the biggest mockery of the celebrities and their somewhat questionable habits is one that isn’t questionable at all.  Kate Gosselin, from the first successful venture in a real life Brady Bunch family setting, Jon and Kate Plus Eight, was caught on camera spanking one of her kids by the paparazzi.  The child was blowing a whistle while her mother was on the phone and was asked to stop, but continued anyway.  Doing what parents have been doing up until recently when children began to receive more rights than educated, well-meaning adults, she disciplined the child.  There is a saying: “Spare the rod, spoil the child.”

Most children these days are spoiled beyond belief, and it’s largely due to the media’s desperation for anything that resembles news to report on.  Its almost reached the point where any discipline whatsoever is frowned upon, including timeouts and scolding.

So how are any parents supposed to discipline an unruly child these days?

It seems the answers are Sesame Street and Nickelodeon.  TV has become a more effective parent than those responsible for feeding, clothing, and providing shelter for a child.  Parents’ hands are tied behind their backs, chained to the ceiling, with a hood over their heads, suspended over flaming coals.

Psychologists will argue that spanking can cause psychological trauma.  Sorry.  Psychology as a field started when Freud decided that boys want to have sex with their mothers, known as the Oedipus complex, just prior to 1900.  As far as a medical science is concerned, psychology is theory.  Theories are guesses.  Look into history and take into consideration how long physical discipline has been in practice and then determine how detrimental to society it was when it was widely accepted as the standard of punishment for a disobedient child.

There is a limit to spanking, and that’s when it starts to become abuse.  Broken bones, lacerations, and strikes to the face are all pretty commonly understood as excessive.  There is a line between losing your temper and abusing a child, and what is considered proper discipline.

Timeout is something middle and upper class citizens created when they were either unwilling to strike a child, too lazy, feared breaking a nail or getting their hands dirty, or now the societal repercussions.  Try putting a 17-year-old in ‘timeout’ or grounding them.  It’s impossible to ground a teen in today’s world because of how much of their education is dependent on that as their sole source of contact to the outside world.  Lets face it, kids today are deprived of the things they need like parents and friends.

Kids come home to watch TV, or play World of Warcraft.  Parents are afraid to interact with their children, or are simply unwilling to.  Journalism as a whole has slid from respectable reporting to thriving on the gossip of private lives, and as the hedonists we are, we soak up every little juicy tabloid garbage story.

Kate Gosselin spanking her child is just the latest story in the ongoing cycle of tabloids opting the way of Hulu advertising: to turn our brains into a jello-like pudding.