Topol: 3500 Performances as Tevya in Fiddler On The Roof
Chaim Topol was an Israeli actor, singer, and illustrator, who was most famous for playing “Tevya “ more than 3,500 times from 1967 through 2009, in arguably the most popular musical of all time — Fiddler on the Roof. He was nominated for an Academy Award for his portrayal of Tevya in the 1971 film adaptation. He was the best known of a long line of famous actors who played the role, including Zero Mostel, Theodore Bikel, Herschel Bernardi, Leonard Nimoy and many others.
Concerns About Artificial Sweeteners
A study that followed 2,149 North Americans and 833 Europeans for three years found that having elevated blood levels of artificial sweeteners such as erythritol was associated with increased risk for heart attacks and for death from a heart attack or stroke. Stanley L. Hazen of the Cleveland Clinic found that after taking the commonly-used artificial sweetener, erythritol, healthy people who did not suffer from heart disease had elevated blood levels of erythritol and increased risk for developing clots, a major cause of heart attacks and strokes.
Skipping Breakfast May Harm Immune Response
A new study found that skipping breakfast could damage your immune system. Missing the first meal of the day can suppress the immune cells of the brain to make it more difficult for your body to fight off infection. Mice that received no breakfast had an incredible 90 percent fewer monocytes in their blood four hours after skipping breakfast and even lower levels eight hours later.
Tom Sizemore: Brain Aneurysm
Tom Sizemore was a popular and prolific movie actor and television star who appeared in Saving Private Ryan, which was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Motion Picture Cast. His notable films include Black Hawk Down, Heat, Natural Born Killers, and Twin Peaks. He also was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his role in the television series Witness Protection.
Physical Activity to Help Prevent Diseases and Dementia
Three recent studies show that being active and moving about helps to prolong life and to prevent disease, hospitalization, and dementia. A study of 81,717 men and women, 42-78 years of age, measured their physical activity by having them wear an accelerometer for a week at a time over an average of 6.8 years. Those who increased their moderate to vigorous physical activity by 20 minutes per day were at reduced incidence of hospitalization for nine of the 25 most common reasons for hospitalization.
Mercury in Some Fish May Harm You
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is concerned that the mercury levels in some fish and shell fish may be harmful to you, particularly for pregnant women and growing children, so they have published a chart classifying fish by mercury concentrations. Too much mercury can damage the brains of children and babies, and the nerves and brains of adults. Women can pass mercury to their babies during pregnancy or breast-feeding. The general rule is that the older and larger the fish, the more time it has to accumulate mercury and the greater the chance for it to have larger amounts of mercury in it.
Wilt Chamberlain’s Myocarditis
Wilt Chamberlain was possibly the greatest basketball player and the greatest athlete ever. The 63-year-old Chamberlain was reported to have died of heart damage called myocarditis, but how could arguably the world’s greatest and fittest athlete die of heart damage? A possible explanation would be venereal diseases, which are a common cause of myocarditis. Chamberlain wrote a book, A View from Above (published in 1991) in which he claimed that had had sex with more than 20,000 women.
Exercise Better Than Calorie Restriction to Control a Fatty Liver
Both exercise and calorie restriction reduced liver fat in overweight and obese adults, but only exercise had a dose-dependent effect in reducing liver fat and reducing belly fat. Storing fat in your belly is a stronger risk factor for diabetes than just being overweight, and is arguably the most common cause of Type II diabetes in North America today
How Sugar-Added Foods and Drinks Increase Risk for Heart Disease
Researchers followed more than 110,000 people for nine years and found that the more free sugar a person takes in, the greater the risk for heart disease. Each five percent increase in free sugar intake in a participant’s daily diet resulted in a six percent higher risk of heart disease and a 10 percent higher risk of stroke. Furthermore, a higher fiber intake and replacing refined grain starch and free sugars with whole grains and non-free sugars appeared to help protect against heart attacks.
Tim McCarver: Heart Failure in a Great Athlete
Tim McCarver was twice a major League all-star catcher and was a member of two World Series-winning teams during his 21 years of playing for the St. Louis Cardinals, Philadelphia Phillies, Montreal Expos and Boston Red Sox. After his playing career, he became a TV broadcaster who won three Emmy Awards, called a then-record 23 World Series and 20 All-Star Games, and in 2016 was inducted into the Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame. On February 16, 2023, he died at age 81 of heart failure.