I've been making myself this awesome steel-cut Irish oatmeal for breakfast.  My diet says to eat oatmeal, so I have been.  I add two tablespoons of wheat germ (which isn't as bad as I thought it would be), raisins, cut up dried apricots, chopped pecans, 2 Equals, a little bit of milk, cinnamon and a tablespoon of real maple syrup.  This is some seriously yummy stuff but it takes a half hour to cook the oats.  Under normal circumstances, it's totally worth it and I don't mind the wait.  This morning I was behind schedule and feeling crummy so I took out two packets of instant Weight Control oaltmeal from Quaker.  

This stuff sucked SO BAD.  Blech! Instead of the firm, nutty-tasting oatmeal I've grown to love, I had this cardboard flavored mush. 

Yuck.   Tomorrow, back to the Irish oats.

Last night I finally got my temporary bridge installed.  The process was long and tedious and left me with an aching jaw and another annoying problem.  When the lab made the bridge, it was supposed to be 2 caps with a full tooth in the middle to replace the one that broke.  Instead, they made it with three caps bust since the dentist had already sculpted two of my teeth to receive the bridge sje had to install it.

So, now I literally have a bridge over the open space where the broken tooth was removed.  On top of that, it feels too wide.  I have a suspicion that they gave me a bridge intended for someone else. 

Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 07/4/06

BY AMANDA GARDNER
HEALTHDAY

The ingredients, which have an estrogenlike effect, are found in various shampoos, lotions, soaps and other products.

"There's definitely an association between exposure to lavender oil and tea tree oil and gynecomastia (abnormally large breasts in men)," said Derek Henley, lead author of the research and a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

Henley stopped short of declaring a cause-and-effect relationship, but did emphasize that the information could help physicians identify cases of gynecomastia that have no readily apparent cause.

"It may help steer physicians in a direction they wouldn't have thought of," Henley said. "The message is to raise awareness, so the public is aware of the association, and physicians are aware of it."

Dr. Edward Reiter, chairman of pediatrics at Bay State Children's Hospital in Springfield, Mass., added, "The issue is a Sherlock Holmes kind of thing. This was a pretty good pick-up. It's old-fashioned science sleuthing. You have a problem, and you figure out what's going on."

Henley presented the findings at the just-completed annual meeting of the Endocrine Society, in Boston. Reiter was moderator of a press conference announcing the findings.

Gynecomastia is associated with an imbalance of estrogens (so-called female hormones) and androgens (so-called male hormones). Young boys don't produce much testosterone, so there is nothing in the body to counteract extra estrogen, such as might come from mistakenly taking a mother's birth control pill or, more concerning, an estrogen-secreting tumor.

The condition is unusual. "I may see a patient every year or every other year with this, a prepubertal boy who has some breast development," Reiter said. "Usually, it's a tiny amount, and you never find out what it is, then it goes away."

But when Dr. Clifford Bloch, co-author of the study and a pediatric endocrinologist in Denver, saw five boys with the problem, he decided to investigate. All of the boys, he soon realized, had used over-the-counter health care products containing lavender and/or tea tree oil on their hair or skin.

When tested on human breast cancer cells, the oils appeared to mimic the activity of estrogen and also suppressed male hormone responsiveness. After discontinuing use of the lavender and tea tree oils, all of the boys saw the problem resolved.

And even though the condition is relatively uncommon, experts think this information will help clear other "mystery" cases.

"My guess is that this sort of thing occurs in a scattered way in little boys all the time," Reiter said. "It may well be that someone wouldn't even think of this. Now, doctors can ask if the patient is using any products."

ON THE WEB: For more information on gynecomastia from the American Academy of Family Physicians, visit familydoctor.org/080.xml.

I know it's healthier for me.  I know it is.  But damn, why does turkey bacon have to be so funky and weird. 

It looks like bologna when you put it in a pan.  It smells weird.  

I like my regular old pork belly bacon.  This stuff is a feeble substitute.   I think I prefer to just do without. 

blech!