In less than a generation, we have managed to successfully pollute our planet by discarding more than 8.3 billion metric tons of plastics; 6.3 billion tons of which has become waste. This was the condemning conclusion made in a new study published in Science Advances. Researchers from the University of Georgia studied data on the amount of plastic waste thrown away since the synthetic material was mass produced during the early 1950s. They found that not only have billions of toxic waste been carelessly thrown into the natural environment, the rate of escalation has only been increasing in the last few years. From 1950 to 2015, half of the waste was produced in just the last 13 years.
Speaking to Science Daily, co-author of the study, Jenna Jambeck, said, “most plastics don’t biodegrade in any meaningful sense, so the plastic waste humans have generated could be with us for hundreds or even thousands of years.”
Jambeck and her team found that of the total waste recorded, only nine percent was recycled, while 12 percent was incinerated and 79 percent was left to rot in landfills or in the environment. Should current trends continue, the authors believe that 12 billion metric tons of plastic waste would be left in landfills by 2050. Translated another way, this amount is 35,000 times as heavy as the Empire State Building.
“Our estimates underscore the need to think critically about the materials we use and our waste management practices,” Jambeck concluded.
The scientists also reported that of the varied synthetic products produced on a large scale since 1950, plastics remained the most popular. Global production of plastics jumped from two million metric tons in 1950 to more than 400 million tons in 2015. This exceeds the numbers for other materials such as resins, fibers, and other additives used by a variety of industries. The only notable materials to even compete with plastic were steel and cement which are used by the construction industry.
However, the team noted that steel and cement are more efficiently used than plastics. These materials are incorporated into buildings and different structures, which can last for years. Plastics, on the other hand, are used mostly for packaging. People typically only use them once and then throw them away. The way we are currently using plastics is not sustainable and is contributing to the ever-increasing concern of environmental damage.
This same team published a similar study in 2015, this time in Science. Jambeck and the other co-authors noted that eight million metric tons of plastic had been left in the oceans since 2010. This number, they warned, would only increase unless safety and management guidelines are made now. (Related: Microplastic pollution is the REAL threat to our oceans, warn scientists.)
The team did caution that their conclusions are not a call to absolutely eliminate the production of plastics in society. These materials do serve a function and are critical in some markets, especially those that are dependent on working with durable materials. Nonetheless, the researchers say that policies should be examined or made regarding plastic use and their end-of-life value.
“I think we need to take a careful look at our expansive use of plastics and ask when the use of these materials does or does not make sense,” said Kara Lavender Law, another co-author.
Plastics, like diamonds, are forever
This synthetic material is a double-edged sword. Industries use them because they are strong and have a long shelf-life. But these same qualities also make them dangerous to nature. Plastics do not decompose normally, and even when (or if) they do, they release toxic chemicals in the air or soil that damage organisms. Unfortunately, we have not helped this situation. According to The World Counts, the U.S. alone throws out enough plastic bottles in a week to encircle our planet five times.
There are ways to mitigate this though. Remember to recycle as much plastic materials as possible. Speak with your local recycling plant to know more about how you can help.
As if we needed another reason to change our diet. Scientists are now saying that washing down that cheeseburger with a cold soda changes the way your body burns fat. In analyzing the direct impact that sugary drinks have on body metabolism when paired with a high-protein meal, researchers observed an amplified effect in weight gain. Not only were these meals typically calorie-rich, but the combination also slowed down the fat-burning process all the while not adding anything to satiety. In essence, the typical American diet makes us fatter because we feel hungry easier while not burning anything off.
This small study, published in BMC Nutrition, concluded that around a third of the additional calories found in sugary drinks were not spent while reducing metabolism. This, the study’s authors said, “primed” the body to store more fat. The effect was particularly evident when the drinks were paired with a protein-rich meal. On average, metabolism was slowed by eight percent when a sugar-sweetened drink was taken with a meal that was 15 percent protein. This rate was further exacerbated when protein content was increased. Taking a 30 percent protein meal with a sugary drink, for example, decreased metabolism by 12.6 percent. The researchers also noted that while sugary drinks increased the amount of energy used to metabolize meals, the increase was not enough to even out the additional calories found in the drink.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Shanon Casperson, wrote on Science Daily, “We were surprised by the impact that the sugar-sweetened drinks had on metabolism when they were paired with higher-protein meals. This combination also increased study subjects’ desire to eat savory and salty foods for four hours after eating.”
These results are interesting, to say the least. Previous studies have implicated a higher protein intake to an increase in the body’s fat-burning abilities. However, this effect may become negligible when taken along with a sugary drink. (Related: These 15 sugary drinks are almost as bad as soda.)
For the purposes of this study, the researchers recruited 27 healthy-weight adults (13 male, 14 female) who were, on average, 23-year-olds. Participants were given special meals and placed in special isolated rooms called “room calorimeters”. The rooms were calibrated to measure the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels as well as the temperature and air pressure. These data would allow the researchers to determine how specific meals affected the participant’s metabolism, including how many calories they burned and how fat, protein, and carbohydrates were broken down.
Participants spent two 24-hour periods in these rooms. Each period began at 4 p.m., with dinner being served at 5 p.m. There was then a fasting period until breakfast the next morning.
During one of their stays in the room calorimeter, participants were served breakfast and lunch meals that contained 15 percent protein. Each meal was paired with a sugary drink sweetened either with sugar or artificial sweetener. If the sugar-drink was served at breakfast, the participant had the artificially sweetened beverage at lunch and vice versa.
Participants were observed for four hours after each meal.
During the other time that they stayed in the room, participants were served a breakfast-lunch combo with meals that contained 30 percent protein.
Consolidating the data, researchers said that the fat-burning ability of participants who took a sugary drink decreased by eight percent. Additionally, these same drinks added more calories to the meals without making the participants feel fuller for longer.
These findings “provide further insight into the potential role of sugar-sweetened drinks — the largest single source of sugar in the American diet — in weight gain and obesity,” Casperson concluded.
There are a lot of things you might do when you’re diagnosed with cancer: worry incessantly, research nonstop, talk to family and friends, and probably do your fair share of crying. However, there are also several things you should be careful not to do when you’re first diagnosed if you want to give yourself a fighting chance of beating this illness. Inspired by Juicing for Health, here is a list of five of the top mistakes people make immediately after getting a cancer diagnosis.
1. Going directly into mainstream treatment
It’s a perfectly natural reaction when you’re facing a deadly disease to tell your doctors to fix it as fast as they can. Perhaps you even made an appointment for the next step before leaving the office the day you got the bad news. Time might not be on your side, but you can still afford to take an hour or two to research your options and find out if you could be a candidate for safer alternatives before committing to chemotherapy, for example. You’ll also want to be careful about getting too many diagnostic tests. A second opinion on your diagnosis isn’t a bad idea, but you don’t want to subject yourself a lot of tests that use radiation, which can contribute to cancer and even cause it.
2. Sticking to just one protocol
Recognize that more than one approach might be useful or necessary. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking that merely juicing carrots will solve all your problems. It may help, but taking cannabinoids and doing yoga, for example, might give you even greater benefits.
However, that is not to say that mixing protocols with radiation or chemotherapy is advisable; research very carefully before mixing these types of treatments.
3. Ignoring the importance of diet
If you rush into anything at all after your cancer diagnosis, it should be dietary changes. This cannot be emphasized enough: cancer cells feed and thrive on refined sugar and refined carbohydrates. Cut them out completely and avoid them as though your life depends on it – it does! Your diet should now focus on organic plant foods, and you should also cut out red and processed meats.
Studies have shown that a ketogenic diet has some potential to slow the progression of cancer, including cancer that has metastasized. Its ability to reduce blood sugar could be behind its ability to slow the growth of tumors, but more studies are needed.
4. Failing to detox
Destroying cancer cells is a good thing, but you also need to get them out of your body because they create a big burden on your liver. If you’re eating a purely organic diet based on plants and juicing, you’ll get some detoxing effects, but some people might need further detoxification.
5. Overlooking emotional, mental and spiritual healing
Cancer treatment, particularly in conventional medicine, tends to focus solely on the physical body. This is certainly where a lot of effort should be concentrated, but ignoring the value of the mind and spirit is a huge mistake you don’t want to make.
Did you know that mindfulness-based art therapy can help improve stress levels and the quality of life in cancer patients? This uses expressive art activities in conjunction with breathing, walking and yoga. Reducing distress in women with breast cancer has been shown to improve immune function, and it’s likely useful for other types of cancer as well.
In fact, yoga is extremely powerful and has been show in studies to help emotionally as well as physically, making it a very valuable tool in your cancer fight. Even if you go the conventional route, you’ll find that yoga can reduce your fatigue, inflammation, depression, anxiety and pain. Some yoga centers even specialize in helping cancer patients.
A cancer diagnosis is devastating, and how you choose to proceed is a very personal decision that will depend on your beliefs about what is best for you. It’s important to get as much information as possible from dependable sources before committing to anything, and always be sure to listen to your body!
On an episode of the current season of the popular Netflix reality docuseries “Last Chance U,” Isaiah Wright — star sophomore running back for East Mississippi Community College — gets pulled from a game in the first half for precautionary measures, having sustained a concussion the week prior. During a dramatic halftime exchange with a coach who explains they are trying to protect him, an irate and desperate Wright shouts, “I don’t care about me, I wanna play football! I’ll die for this damn sport!”
Wright’s precarious affinity for football is motivated as much by economics as his passion for the game. A foster youth abandoned by his single mother, the talented Tennessee native sees the violent sport as his one chance at “making it” in life and realizing a more fortunate existence for himself and his loved ones.
Wright is not alone. For numerous young African-Americans and their families across the country, football is commonly viewed as their “one shot” at changing their impoverished reality. Despite the daunting odds — a mere 3.9 percent of Division I draft-eligible collegians of all races were chosen in the 2016 NFL draft — the potential rewards of a lucrative NFL contract often outweigh the inherent dangers of a brutal game.
Unlike the mental fog suffered by a concussed baller, these dangers have recently become clear. In a new study by Boston University researcher Dr. Ann McKee, Mckee examined the brains of 202 deceased football players and discovered 110 of the 111 brains of NFL players had chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative brain disease caused by head trauma. To make matters worse, 56 percent of the brains of collegiate players studied had severe CTE, and 44 percent had mild cases, as did the brains of three high school players. Even mild cases are known to present a troubling array of progressive symptoms, including depression, behavioral abnormalities, anxiety, memory loss, impulsivity, explosive anger, cognitive issues, suicidal tendencies and abuse, both chemical and physical. The study further revealed the most common cause of death among those with mild CTE to be suicide. Such recent and revealing data has caused a number of players to walk away from the game.
“When you’re running down the field full-speed on kickoff team, they relate the impact to that of a car accident,” says Michael Peterson, an Atlanta-based entrepreneur and former defensive back and special teams player for the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets. A member of Tech’s 2009 ACC Championship team, the talented painter and conceptual artist has drawn attention to the violence and toll football takes on players through artwork exhibited at museums and galleries across the country. “In the late ’60s or early ’70s, there was an article in Life magazine on football, and the title of it was ‘Suicide Squad,’” says Peterson, who, during research for an art project, found that the moniker was what players of previous generations commonly used to call the kickoff team. “It kind of blows my mind that they were forecasting what’s transpiring today.”
African-Americans comprise 70 percent of current NFL players. Given that a third of white NFL players occupy such low-collision positions as kicker, punter or quarterback, Black pros are far more likely to sustain concussions. While the NFL has gone to great lengths to keep a lid on the link between repetitive head trauma and progressive brain disease, its more recent commitment to minimizing such injuries can only do so much in an inherently violent sport.
Especially since the trauma need not be repetitive. “When you suffer a blow — a single blow or repetitive — you may have immediate symptoms or may not have immediate symptoms,” explained Dr. Bennett Omalu in a December 2015 interview with Vice Sports. Omalu, the forensic pathologist and neuropathologist portrayed by Will Smith in the film “Concussion,” first recognized CTE as a serious concern for sports involving head trauma. “The absence of symptoms does not mean you haven’t suffered cellular injury,” he said. “CTE is neurodegenerative. It gets worse. Concussion is part of the spectrum, but it is not the underlying cause. The underlying cause is [brain trauma], the factor that initiated the cascade of events.”
Still, while many acknowledge the risk, American dreams die hard. An estimated two-thirds of Black boys believe they can be professional athletes, and African-American parents are four times more likely than white parents to believe the same. Such dreams are fostered by years of propaganda, in outdated Horatio Alger references and endlessly looped depictions of urban lotto winners. They have little relation to the infinitesimal chances and stark realities they obscure. Even when presented with the grim reality of the odds they face, that athletes are exponentially more likely to get head trauma than an NFL contract, many cling to these dreams, as they are unwilling to face the spirit-breaking economics of their absence.
“A lot of folks in sports are using it as their ticket out of their circumstances,” says Peterson, noting the competitive edge of teammates playing “for a way bigger reason.” For such players, concussions are mere and expected bumps on their field of dreams.
“I haven’t had any recorded concussions,” offers Peterson, intoning about how head trauma commonly goes untreated at all levels of the game. “But I have had my bell rung, I have seen stars, I have been dizzy and I have had the little ones.” These are unlike a normal injury, he says, where “Someone is going to cart you off the field or you’re going to limp off. With concussions, you don’t really recognize them, especially the small ones.” In addition, says Peterson, football is “a very masculine sport, and its hard sometimes to say that you are in pain when a limb is not dangling.”
Even so, football isn’t all about pain, trauma or impossible dreams. Beyond the brutality lies power, speed, strategy, technique, intellect and, yes, even beauty and grace. Those who doubt this have likely never played the game, never fully recognized its artistry, or never truly appreciated the gridiron’s storied past, nor its fast-paced present, as represented by the ballet-like fluidity of a Gale Sayers, a Lynn Swann or an Odell Beckham; the power and drive of a Jim Brown, a Walter Payton or a Marshawn Lynch; the awe-inspiring dominance of a Lawrence Taylor or a Reggie White; the skill, precision and intellect of a Warren Moon, a Steve McNair or a Cam Newton; the symphonic movement of a Barry Sanders; and the once-in-a-lifetime instincts and ability of a Sean Taylor.
Undoubtedly, the game imparts its many lessons, ones particularly valuable for less fortunate youth regardless of whether they play for a year or two decades. It offers all the components of a compelling metaphor for life — active awareness, situational analysis, intense preparation, discipline, decision making under pressure, mental and physical toughness, teamwork, strategy, effective management of fear, and mastery of self.
That said, it is a sport of contrasts, one as destructive as it is constructive, as expressive as it is debilitating. Outside of the kickers who occasionally prance upon the field to apply their specialty at little risk, and the zebra-striped whistle-toters who dot the field just out of harm’s way, no one can escape its violence. Make no mistake, the game has a cost, one far more pricey than the admission paid by legions of rabid weekend groupies to witness the punishing spectacle.
Peterson is ever reminded of this. One of the reasons he portrays the cost and violence of the game in his art is his connection to an NFL idol who succumbed to the sport’s dark side. “I did have people that I grew up with that committed suicide because of football,” he says, citing the shocking July 2012 suicide of NFL defensive back and fellow Tampa native O.J. Murdock. Murdock’s brain was one of those subsequently studied by CTE researchers. Noting he played football with Murdock’s little brother in Tampa, Peterson details how the tragedy inspired his 2014 artwork “Pursuit of Vanity: Pistol Formation,” which consists of the jersey nameplates of famous NFL players who have committed suicide. The nameplates, including that of late All-Pro linebacker Junior Seau, are hung in the shape of a pistol.
“When I added O.J. to the list, it felt surreal, it felt awkward,” acknowledges Peterson. “These things are continuing to occur, so I’m honoring these guys but also shedding light onto the severity of the situation.”
Still, despite the established dangers, there is ever that slim chance, one steeped in the passion for and the economics of a violent-yet-lucrative sport, that a kid from the lowest socioeconomic rung of our society can separate from the pile, break free from those trying to pull him down, and win at the larger game of life. In a recent segment for “The United States of Football” — a documentary exploring the cumulative effect of repetitive head trauma and based on a father’s uncertainty over allowing his son to play — Pro Football Hall of Fame member and current commentator Cris Carter spoke openly about the inherent health hazards of his beloved game. Responding to the need for the NFL and related media to promote an awareness of these hazards, Carter clarified why many, like Isaiah Wright, will continue to brave the risk.
“I believe,” said Carter, “it is also our responsibility to convey to kids that they have the right to have the same dream that I did.”
Expressions from The Melanin Man 