Pregnant? The Horizon programme on BBC2 tonight could be of special interest to you

BBC2's Horizon programme tonight at 9pm is about the crucial importance of those nine months in the womb. Those months may well be the most important time of life, may critically determine the destiny, especially the health, of the unborn baby.

"Horizon explores the secrets of what makes a long, healthy and happy life. It turns out that a time you can't remember - the nine months you spend in the womb - could have more lasting effects on you today than your lifestyle or genes. It is one of the most powerful and provocative new ideas in human science, and it was pioneered by a British scientist, Professor David Barker. His theory has inspired a field of study that is revealing how our time in the womb could affect your health, personality, and even the lives of your children."

Choosing to die: presented by Terry Pratchett on BBC2

Choosing to die: This TV programme shown yesterday and presented by Sir Terry Pratchett was a sensitive and timely consideration of assisted suicide. It had special poignancy because of Sir Terry's own condition of early Alzheimer's Disease. The programme concentrated on giving an airing to the reasons why two men, unrelated except that they were suffering, each chose to go to Dignitas, in Zurich, to have paid-for assistance to die before their suffering became too great to bear. Peter Smedley had Motor Neurone Disease, an incurable and progressive condition. The other, Andrew Colgan, had Multiple Sclerosis, also incurable and progressive. The hour-long programme is available on iPlayer for another 6 days.

Sir Terry travelled to Zurich, and he and we, the viewers, were privileged to watch Mr Smedley's death, with his loving and beloved wife of forty years by his side, and it certainly looked to me a kindly death compared with the alternative of long-drawn-out suffering.

I have been dismayed and shocked, though not surprised, at the volume of criticism the programme has attracted. As ever, there are people who wilfully conflate the personal choice of death in order to put an end to pain/indignity/suffering and the decision by someone else that another person should die. A 'slippery slope' is always envisaged that must be guarded against, however much agony that causes the people who have to bear the unbearable. I was personally incensed by the former Bishop of Rochester, the Rt Rev Michael Nazir-Ali, saying on Radio 4 this morning that pain can always be controlled. - This is completely untrue and it is disgraceful that such untruths are perpetuated by Christians and others, especially doctors. It is all too easy for some to bear another's pain/trivialise it/offer simplistic solutions that do not work. "He jests at scars that never felt a wound."

Neil Oliver - A History of Ancient Britain: Age of Bronze

This was the fourth and last part of this BBC2 series. (See BBC History). I have the presumption to wish that historian, Neil Oliver, would get his hair cut, but I certainly admire his enthusiasm for his subject.

Tonight we left behind the Stone Age to learn of the Beaker People. Their beakers were made of copper - copper found in threads within Irish stone and extracted using high heat. This metal was fine for making beakers, but not strong enough to use for weapons. Later, Cornish tin was mined, and when combined with copper, became bronze, a metal strong enough to be made into swords.

Dr Oliver traced for us the new culture these metals wrought in Britain - social mobility, international trade, early village life. Whereas in the Stone Age status might have been conferred on the priests because of their religious mysteries, say, the people of the Age of Bronze now had status by way of their fine possessions. The Iron Age still lay ahead.

The programme for me stirred old memories of a poem by Padraic Colum, an Irish poet I admired long ago. I knew the poem as "The Woodworker's Ballad", but maybe that title is incorrect, because I search in vain on the internet for the poem or any lines from it. What I remember is this, but I suspect it contains several errors, as well as being incomplete:

The Woodworker's Ballad

All that is moulded of iron

Has led to destruction and blood,

But the things that are honour'd of Zion

Are most of them made from wood.

King Arthur had a wood table

And Our Lord blessed wood, for you see,

He worked at a wooden table

At His wonderful carpentry.

He was born in a wooden stable

And He died on a wooden tree.

Oh all that is moulded of iron

Has led to destruction and blood,

But the things that are honour'd of Zion

Are most of them made from wood.

Note added 28th April 2011:
I've found the complete poem now. It's a lovely poem. You can find it on this page.

Dragons' Den offers are not always what they seemed on the show

Thisismoney.co.uk reports on Dragons' Den deals that appear to have been misleading, despite having been watched by millions of viewers to the BBC2 show. I must confess my sympathies are usually engaged by the underdogs in any situation and that is the case here. I guess the BBC has no legal culpability in these disappointing outcomes for a number of the inventors; they doubtless employ enough solicitors to ensure that. But if you read the article I think that, like me, you will be shocked, for instance, at the apparent misrepresenting of loans as cash investments.

The Dragons will be well shielded by their lawyers and the BBC likewise, but the pawns in the show appear to be insufficiently briefed beforehand and inadequately supported and protected after the show. It seems to me that the programme and its sequelae are exploitative of many of the inventors, without whom there would be no programme. The BBC should make it legally clear during the broadcast whether an offer is a loan or an investment, and that certain follow-up guarantees should be made, and made legally binding, e.g. contact with the Dragons concerned in the deals. I consider there is a moral obligation here.

How to lose excess fat by eating more calcium

BBC2 showed a series of programmes called “The Truth About Food” and I learnt about some Danish research which throws light on this. – See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sn/humanbody/truthaboutfood/slim/calcium.shtml where you will read: "a high calcium intake increases the excretion of fat in the faeces". – In fact, the researchers found that twice as much fat was excreted on a high calcium intake as on a low calcium intake – and this was independent of calorie intake. – They also found that dairy calcium (they suggest low fat yoghurt) is a particularly good source for this extra calcium.

On one of the links - http://www.vitamins-nutrition.org/vitamins/calcium.html - from the BBC The Truth About Food site, it says: "Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Let me repeat that. Calcium is the mineral most likely to be deficient in the average diet. Calcium deficiency is a condition in which we fail to receive or to metabolize an adequate supply of Calcium," and also: "Calcium helps keep the weight off. Research suggests that if you don't get enough calcium in your diet, you're likely to be overweight."

There are a number of reasons that overweight people in particular tend to be deficient in calcium. Overweight people suffer from sodium retention/salt sensitivity/fluid retention and sodium retention/salt sensitivity/fluid retention depletes the body of calcium and is the main reason for the calcium deficiency problem in overweight/obese people.

Here are two other very simple reasons:

1. Most fat people are ‘dieting’ most of the time – i.e. they are eating insufficient food for their body’s needs.

2. Fat people are routinely advised to limit their intake of dairy food like milk because their advisors (wrongly) believe that milk is ‘fattening’.

So to reduce fat retention, if it is present, the most important thing is to alter the diet to reduce the fluid retention which is the initiating cause of excess weight and the primary reason for fat people being short of calcium and for fat people ‘dieting’. That means reducing sodium intake and ensuring plenty of fruit and vegetables in the diet (because their high potassium content helps to displace sodium from the body).

And specifically it also means having a higher intake of calcium, especially, if possible, from dairy yoghurt. – It is also necessary to ensure sufficient vitamin D intake, as this is needed to metabolise the calcium. Insufficiency of vitamin D is quite common, as is widely reported, e.g. here - http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamind.asp

The best source of vitamin D is summer sunshine round about midday. - Go out then if you can, bare-armed, and soak up some summer sunshine...(o: - As well as helping you to get rid of excess fat and therefore lose excess fat, it also strengthens our bones and your muscles and helps you to avoid catching colds and flu.

If you cannot get out into the sun and need to take vitamin D supplements, Vitamin D3 are the best sort to get.

See vulnerable groups and fat retention

I watched Part 2 of Iain Stewart's BBC2 series "Earth: the Climate Wars" this evening (about Global Warming)

Dr Iain Stewart is an academic geologist who is also an excellent presenter of TV programmes involving geology. Here is a link to a BBC site about these "Earth: The Climate Wars" programmes - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00djvq9

I warmed to Dr Stewart years ago when on one of his geology programmes he mentioned en passant that we do not need to eat ANY salt at all because there is sufficient naturally present in food (and I don't mean because a food manufacturer has already added some). - So he, a geologist, spoke more sense than any doctor I have ever heard speak about salt intake. - And he wasn't scared of telling the truth about salt...(o: - I suppose this is because as a geologist he has a long perspective back in time - vast periods of time - and knows well that our early ancestors did not eat salt other than what was naturally present in their natural food and water, and since that is the low sodium intake with which our bodies evolved, it is the natural healthy intake for our species.

Well tonight he was giving views for and against whether global warming is a fact (and concluded that it is a fact) and on what causes global warming - and he concluded that human activity contributes to it. - And he also drew our attention to some scientific fraud that has been going on, and some cynical chicanery that has also been going on with the intention of constantly stirring up doubt and debate rather than allowing the facts to be accepted - parallels here of the currently promulgated misinformation about obesity and the misinformation about salt.

There are 14 days in which you can watch the first two programmes on that BBC link in my first paragraph.

Whatever the cause/s of the global warming, there is 'revolutionary' information and practical measures that would in part help with the problem of global warming on my webpage here - http://www.wildeaboutsteroids.co.uk/socio.html (The website does not sell anything and has no banners or sponsors or adverts - just helpful information.)

Lose weight, reduce your risk of most cancers, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, stroke, heart disease, heart attack, vascular dementia, osteopenia, osteoporosis, hypercholesterolaemia, depression, liver and kidney problems, and improve your health in many other ways without drugs or expense by eating less salt! - Try it! - You will feel so much better!

Read my Mensa article on Obesity and the Salt Connection

And see Sodium in foods and

Associated health conditions