Looking at recent health news online; one particular article caught my attention right away, which was an article about the new alcoholic beverage Four Loko. Four Loko’s are a malt beverage combining caffeine and alcohol in one drink. These drinks have been becoming increasingly popular on college campuses across the country. Recently they have been in the news because of the danger they pose by combing caffeine and alcohol together. A Four Loko contains 12% alcohol and 135 milligrams of caffeine. There have been many reports of students getting alcohol poisoning because of these beverages. They are so dangerous because people do not realize how much alcohol they are consuming because the caffeine tricks your body not allowing it to get sleepy like it normally would. One doctor in the article said this was one of the most dangerous alcohol drinks they had ever seen. With Four Loko’s being under a lot of scrutiny lately the Food and Drug Administration is reviewing whether or not this drink is safe. Many states have looked into banning the beverage but no legislation has passed yet. Another issue with these drinks is that many people say they are targeted towards underage drinking because the can is colorful and looks similar to energy drinks. The appeal to college students are that they are very inexpensive being sold at $2.50 for a 23.5 ounce can. I thought this article was very interesting because these drinks have become very popular here at Westfield and there has been a lot of talk about them being ban. We will have to keep our eye out to see what the end result is going to be for Four Loko’s. To read the full article: click here.
In recent years there has been many recalls on various vegetables because of salmonella, E. coli and other bacteria. As a result of these dangerous outbreaks there has been research done on new ways to ensure the cleanliness of produce. An article I found talked about the recalls of lettuce, spinach and other bagged greens. Fresh Express who is the nations leading producer of bagged salad greens has come up with a new way to clean vegetables a more efficient way. Fresh Express itself has had three separate issues with recalls this year alone on packaged salad greens. In the past greens have been cleaned with a chlorine rinse. Fresh Express has come up with a new wash formula of a mild acid solution called FreshRinse, which they claim to be much more successful at destroying harmful bacteria. The Fresh Produce Association which is a trade group stated that if this does prove to be more effective it would be a significant advancement in the safety of fresh-cut vegetables. I found this article to be interesting because we have been hearing about more and more food recalls in the news lately. I thought I was nice to finally read about the preventative steps that they are taking to prevent future recalls. If you would like to read the whole article click here.
A common issue many people have is not getting enough sleep. Recently in the news there has been a lot of talk about sleep deprivation and the negative effects it can have on a person. How tired is too tired when it can become dangerous. One reason it has drawn concern is because there is still no way to measure how tired/sleepy someone is. The article I found about this topic stated some very interesting facts about how tiredness is becoming a very serious issue. The article stated 1 in 5 car accidents are related to “drowsy” driving and most people can’t recognize when they are too tired to operate a vehicle safely. Recently a conference was held that had 150 academic and industry researchers to try to come up with a solution on how to measure sleepiness. The end result of the conference was there is still currently no solution. I was surprised to learn that sleep deprivation can impair a person’s performance as much or more than alcohol. I think many college students think that if they get 6 hours of sleep they had a good night, but this is not true. Only getting 5 to 6 hours of sleep a night for a week can have the same effect on you as if you pulled an all-nighter said Dr. Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Another myth is that coffee can help wake us up and improve our performance but that is not true. Caffeine might help make us feel less sleepy but actually being deprived of sleep still negatively affects your ability to function normally. Being a college student myself, I need to start being more aware of the amount of sleep I am actually getting to avoid making my performance level decrease, too read more click here.
