NBC's Tim Russert Dead at 58

[Breukelen advocaat]

NBC's Tim Russert dead at 58 - U.S. news - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/)

[NaughtyDreadz]

one of the few pundits that I didnt mind

WHY COULDNT IT BE CHRIS MATTHEWS??????

[dragonrider]

I liked Tim. I think he went a little far with some of his "gotcha" questions, and it wasn't always fair, but he didn't let people off the hook easily.

[Sir Bliss]

Wow..this is shocking. I liked this guy. I can't believe he's gone...

[birdgirl73]

I respected Tim Russert a lot and always religiously recorded "Meet The Press" while I watched the ABC version, "This Week With George Stephanopoulos." Then I'd get more coffee and watch the NBC show after I finished watching ABC. He was an amazing interviewer and not afraid to ask the tough stuff. I agree with you, DragonRider, that he sometimes went a bit overboard with his "gotcha!" approach, but he was passionate about the work he did and clearly cared a lot about getting to the bottom-line truth, so I was always willing to overlook the vehemence. The age 58 is far too young to die, and silent heart disease is nasty about creeping up behind people in the prime of their lives and snatching them away too soon.

[painretreat]

All men should be checked and start watching their heart before 58! That is the age so many go that are just begining to think, well, I am middle aged! So, if you are getting close, start checking yourself. That age is the magic number!

I loved that guy. Did not like it when he pinned the person I liked down, but seemed like he tried to fair to each. Was just shocked when I heard! Listened to him religiously after watching George, but was not exactly as focused on one thing! He made me think! And that was a good thing! Will miss him. Really, feel for his family. That is a shock. Seems like he was really at his prime!:(

The news broke; "Tim Russert, Dead at 58!" Just seems like that was a little crude, if I were even extended family of his, that would put me in shock!

[Breukelen advocaat]

Tim Russert's doctor said he had a heart condition connected to his weight and lack of physical activity, so he started exercising a couple of months ago and lost 10 lbs.

I was surprised to read that his father is alive.

[birdgirl73]

Yeah, Big Russ, his dad, is somewhere near 90, they were saying on TV. Tim had just gotten through moving him to a new care facility with the last couple of weeks. I'm assuming his mother has passed on and wonder if perhaps she were the one who might have had coronary artery disease genetics.

Dr. Dave always maintained that Tim was likely a sitting duck for a heart attack just by looking at him. Morbid as it is, that's a sort of standard cardiologist's hobby--guessing health risk by evaluating lifestyle, physique and behavior. Tim Russert had the build of someone at higher than average risk for heart disease, but of course we didn't know his blood lipid levels and couldn't guess at them till today, which indicated he must have had some arteriosclerosis. Then he carried some extra weight and was sedentary. He probably had genetic propensity and elevated blood pressure. They say he was a notoriously driven, hard-working, type A sort of journalist, too, so that fits with the profile, too. We have just gotten finished with a longer-than-average primary season so he had no doubt been stressed with covering it all. Frankly, if the interminable Hillary pursuit had kept up much longer, I think a lot more of us might have had cardiac arrest!

What we were still wondering was about the actual cause. There've been conflicting reports, and the term "heart attack" is a medically vague one, just like "nervous breakdown." Have you read in any reliable sources or detail, BA, whether he had an infarction, meaning heart damage from blockage from arteriosclerosis, or cardiac arrest, meaning heart stoppage as a result of some type of disease or rhythm process? Others, please forgive the seeming morbidity of these questions and understand that these are the standard things that people with medical leanings always ask.

I'm not someone who's superstitious or buys into the afterlife, but it does please me to imagine that he's somewhere, happy and busy and reconnecting with people like John Chancellor, Peter Jennings, Ed Bradley, and David Brinkley, to name just a few of the broadcasting greats who've gone before him.

[Breukelen advocaat]

I'd be interested in knowing the cause of the attack, but so far I haven't been able to come up with anything.

My father also died from a heart attack at about 58, before his father (my grandfather).

[Breukelen advocaat]

I also heard that Russert was diabetic, and I tried a google search. All I've found so far is the following quote (re Russert): "A recent issue of Diabetes Forecast had a cover story about him, in which he discussed how he neglected to take care of his diabetes and planned to do so in the future."

[birdgirl73]

Oh, dear! Diabetes. I'm sorry to learn that. Hadn't heard that anyplace. That alone is a huge risk factor.

My mom has just been diagnosed with type II diabetes and is being completely non-compliant dietarily. She already has high blood pressure, congestive heart failure, emphysema, a family history of stroke, and a 35-year history with cigarettes, which she quit 15 years ago. It's not a great new diagnosis to combine with those others. I heard Dave giving her his standard spiel two weekends ago about how "A diagnosis of diabetes alone automatically puts patients into the same risk category for heart disease/heart attack as people who've had at least one previous heart attack." She's the reason I go a little overboard in the opposite direction about watching my weight and fitness level. Don't want to look into the future 25 years from now and be faced with the same situation.

Sorry. Didn't mean to go off on a personal tangent. Thanks for the info about the diabetes. Guess that explains why Tim Russert was at elevated risk for heart disease, though.

[painretreat]

By 7P.M. P.S.T. the news reported that he had already had an autopsy. Seemed odd to me! Said, enlarged heart and embolism!

He just got back from his son's graduation celebration overseas and returned to work that day.

Diabetes, they did not say anything about hardening of the arteries, but had to be some.

Wonder if it had to do with the length of airplane ride with no exercise. Who know!

No matter what, it is sad. Especially for his son, Dad, wife and everyone that admired his work. He always seemed a little too emotionally invested! That is what I liked about him.

So, even getting checked out before 58 yr. old, doesn't mean you can avoid it! Guess, we have to live better sooner. Which is not how we were taught for that generation, as we are now. When he was born, I believe the life expectancy was about 65 for a man! Things have changed.

[Coelho]

When he was born, I believe the life expectancy was about 65 for a man! Things have changed.

Just remember that the life expectancy is only (and just only) an average. It dont means that usually every man will die at 65, but rather that for every one who dies at 95, there will be one who dies at 35.

[silkyblue]

he was a notoriously driven, hard-working, type A sort of journalist, too, so that fits with the profile, too.



we cannot work like that

we cannot work like horses and drop on site

I never watched Tim he was way too serious

someone like Dr Phil rocks my world Dr Phil

hes so calm

Tim prolly had Diabetes, full blown, clogged arts, the whole gammit of symptoms. Why did Tim ignore the symptoms? 24/7? Was Tim on meds to control his vitals? I read he had high blood pressure

maybe NBC kept it goin and shoulda gave Tim A vaction? Did he have an Internist? NBC could be at fault? POOR GUY! he was blessed really, to go, so fast ~

whats the scoop? where was he? maybe he choaked to death ,

he didnt get those chubbie cheeks from talking someone down <-----


Diabetes is s seriuos illness

there is no cure


your blood becomes like syrup it cannot get through
the veins if its too thick

RIP Tim Russert

[birdgirl73]

Silky, if you'd watched Tim Russert, you'd have seen that he was not too serious at all. He was often funny and easy-going on air. If a guest were not prepared--and he asked easy-to-prepare-for, fair, easy-to-anticipate questions--yes, he'd grill them and often reveal them as the fools that they were. But he always respected his guests and was frequently hysterically funny. He worked hard himself to prepare and do all the reading and background work that his job required. So he was certainly driven to achieve according to his own standards, and journalism is a high-pressure, deadline-driven field, of course, which is stressful. But he was far from too serious most of the time. You should have seen him on the subject of sports!

Phil McGraw comes from this same community I live in and has worked with various legal and medical professionals in this area for many years. He's not laid back at all. He's one of the most driven, workaholic types there is. Notoriously exacting and perfectionistic and widely hailed as one of the most difficult, egotistic men there is--in this community and now in California, too. He clearly keeps that fairly well masked on his TV show, but you can ask anyone who's worked with him and they'll confirm this. They'll use far more colorful language than I've used here, too, including the word "jackass."

That's not what folks say about Russert. He was upbeat. Cared deeply. Believed in people doing their jobs well and cared about getting to the truth. And was always professional, courteous, friendly and fair, even to idiots and people with whom he disagreed. He was respected by everyone on both sides of the political spectrum as all the tributes have revealed.

Tim Russert - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Russert)
NBC's Tim Russert dead at 58 - Politics - MSNBC.com (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25145431/)

His cause of death was a coronary thrombosis. He was under the care of a physician for asymptomatic heart disease, meaning he didn't have chest pain and hadn't yet had a heart attack when that diagnosis was made. He did indeed have diabetes. He'd had a stress test in April that had come back fine, but my husband wondered if anyone also checked his C-reactive protein levels, a marker of inflammation in the blood. Mr. Russert was on anti-cholesterol medicine, but on Friday the 13th, probably not helped by the fact that he'd just returned from a long, overseas flight back from Italy, the sinister forces of inflammation in his artery walls, plaque build-up inside the lining of that artery wall (the bad thing about anti-cholesterol medicines is they reduce build up in the center of the arteries but not that which is inside the lining of the artery walls along the sides), hypertension, and circulatory challenges from diabetes conspired to cause a tiny break in his left anterior descending artery, which then bled and formed a clot. That clot, in turn, blocked that artery and caused his heart not to be able to supply his brain or body with oxygenated blood. I don't think a case could ever be made that it was NBC's fault. He'd just returned from a vacation. He simply had too many risk factors and his number was, sadly, up.

[Dave Byrd]

Bird, you need to consider a career in cardiology. I mean this. You explained that better than I could have. The only thing you took a shortcut through--I think it's because this step is one you automatically understand so it seemed like a given--was right after the clot blocked the artery. That blockage from the thrombus caused the heart to go into ventricular fibrillation (first v-tach, then v-fib after about 45 seconds of the tach, most likely). The random quivering of the ventricles is what made Tim's heart unable to supply his brain and body with oxygenated blood rather than the blockage itself.

Poor Mr. Russert. He was my favorite broadcast journalist. His death killed the spirit of heart docs all over the country worse than any others. It's the the sad story of our specialty. You can treat and treat and treat this devil disease. But it will still kill far too many people--more than any other disease--with sudden death out of the blue.

[rebgirl420]

I didn't always agree with the man but I don't wish a heart attack on anybody.

My dad just died of one and it kills me. I feel so bad for his son.

[silkyblue]

Silky, if you'd watched Tim Russert, you'd have seen that

BG,

Oh I did partake in watching him
but noit near as much as you birdgirl

maybe Tim shouldav 'shed the weight' sooner than later

RIP again Tim

moral of the story

hopefully folks can push the plate away and lay the fork down

hes an example of what excess phat does to a body

[birdgirl73]

This is old news now, but it was important to me to clarify this here since we were discussing Mr. Russert's health details. Breuk, may you well have seen this in one of the news stories and can provide a link faster than I can. I can't find it again now that I want to.

Yesterday or the day before in a news story about Russert's heart disease I saw a direct quotation from his doctor, a gentleman with a name like "Newman" I think. That direct quotation included the words "Tim Russert did not have diabetes or the circulatory risk that attends that condition" or something to that effect. It was a legit major network news story, too.

Anyway, Breuk, I know you saw a mention that he had diabetes someplace originally. Then that Wikipedia link above that I posted certainly had it in there. I saw diabetes mentioned in one other place. But apparently, if the quote I saw within the last couple of days was correct, he wasn't diabetic after all. At least not according to the quoted doctor.

It's all moot now, unfortunately, but I thought it was important to clarify that the Wikipedia link above might not have its facts straight.

[Breukelen advocaat]

This is old news now, but it was important to me to clarify this here since we were discussing Mr. Russert's health details. Breuk, may you well have seen this in one of the news stories and can provide a link faster than I can. I can't find it again now that I want to.

Yesterday or the day before in a news story about Russert's heart disease I saw a direct quotation from his doctor, a gentleman with a name like "Newman" I think. That direct quotation included the words "Tim Russert did not have diabetes or the circulatory risk that attends that condition" or something to that effect. It was a legit major network news story, too.

Anyway, Breuk, I know you saw a mention that he had diabetes someplace originally. Then that Wikipedia link above that I posted certainly had it in there. I saw diabetes mentioned in one other place. But apparently, if the quote I saw within the last couple of days was correct, he wasn't diabetic after all. At least not according to the quoted doctor.

It's all moot now, unfortunately, but I thought it was important to clarify that the Wikipedia link above might not have its facts straight.

The sources who have said that Tim Russert had diabetes, based on a Diabetes Forcast magazine article, may have gotten him confused with Chris Matthews. There was an article about Matthews in the Dec. 2007 issue of Diabetes Forecast. http://www.diabetes.org/uedocuments/df-chris-matthews-1207.pdf

[Breukelen advocaat]

Here's an article that says Russert had diabetes, plus other problems, and his doctors failed him.
Western Medicine Fails Tim Russert (http://www.naturalnews.com/023472.html)

Western Medicine Fails Tim Russert

by Byron Richards

(NaturalNews) The shocking death of Tim Russert last Friday has left an entire nation wondering what happened. He was a model patient, doing everything his doctors asked. All major media have run articles trying to explain the nuances and difficulties in treating coronary artery disease. These articles find little fault in Russert's care, trying to create the idea that his heart attack was just too hard to predict and that all that could have been done for him was done. I beg to differ. His death represents the failure of standard medical care (http://www.naturalnews.com/medical_care.html) to produce a positive result â?? an occurrence that is all too common in today's world.

Talk show hosts lament the death of Russert as the death of an icon and one of the last men of news not suffering from flagrant political bias. His piercing, accurate, and fair questions often got to the source of many issues and exposed the truth for what it was. Now that he is gone who is left to ask the questions â?? even about his death?

Russert's doctor, Michael Newman, has not disclosed his medication (http://www.naturalnews.com/medication.html) list or any specific changes in medication doses in the past year. Why? What is he trying to hide? Russert's death is a matter of tremendous public interest, partly because the man was admired by so many and partly because there are millions of men out there wondering if they are the next Tim Russert. There is no excuse for anything but full disclosure of his health issues so that a proper public dialogue can take place that may help many others.


A Glaring Omission of the Facts

The most glaring omitted information from Russert's doctor is telling us what diabetes (http://www.naturalnews.com/diabetes.html) medication he was taking. I am willing to bet that he was taking Avandia, the drug the FDA (http://www.naturalnews.com/the_FDA.html) should have pulled off the market because it causes a whopping 43% increased risk of a sudden heart attack (http://www.naturalnews.com/heart_attack.html), information the FDA actively sought to sequester during that drug's approval process. Why do I think that? Because in the scant health data his doctor is giving out he has stated that Russert had high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol (http://www.naturalnews.com/HDL_cholesterol.html) â?? the exact metabolic profile that Avandia (http://www.naturalnews.com/Avandia.html) is supposed to treat. When a treatment has death as a common side effect it can hardly be considered a treatment.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/conten... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/content/articles/fda_news_060707/)

http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedo... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedom/articles/what_does_it_take_to_get_a_black_box_warning/)

Could it be that Russert is a casualty of one of the great Big Pharma/FDA scams currently going on? How ironic, since all news programs are sponsored by this industry's ads and the media fought tooth and claw in the past year to ensure that dangerous drug ads could continue to run non-stop during all news programs â?? exposing millions of Americans to drug-induced injury (while they got their billions in ad revenues). I am stunned that no reporter interviewing his doctor seems to be able to ask such an obvious question.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedo... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedom/articles/media_is_part_of_the_big_pharma_cartel/)


Russert's Doctor Failed Him

Russert was significantly obese and had been for many years. Any doctor that couldn't guess his coronary arteries were full of plaque is not very bright. Once a man's waistline passes 40 inches you can rest assured plaque is forming in his arteries â?? you don't need a test. The longer you are in this condition the worse the plaque buildup is going to be. This is not rocket science. His autopsy (http://www.naturalnews.com/autopsy.html) showed a number of significantly clogged arteries which seemed to surprise his doctor and other "experts." Apparently they forgot to take Plaque 101 in medical school.

By the time Russert's weight problem had progressed to the point of diabetes a major intervention should have been done. He should have been read the riot act. He should have been told that his higher blood sugar would now be caramelizing (cementing) his arteries and vital organs, like spilling sugary syrup on the counter and letting it turn hard â?? and that sooner or later something would certainly break.

He should have been told that his excessive abdominal fat clearly predicts that his liver and kidneys look more like a piece of bacon than lean beef. He should have been told that his low HDL cholesterol was due to free radical damage, meaning his lipids were being oxidized in his blood from some form of toxin or stress (such as oxidized adrenaline). He should have been told that this same problem will "cook" the fat that is marbleizing his liver and eventually make it look like a piece of overcooked meat.

He should have been told that his fat stomach was now his worst enemy, cranking out more inflammatory signals on a daily basis than any other stress he was under. He should have been told that the outsides of his arteries were also getting fat, and this excess fat was recruiting macrophages to the outer lining of his arteries that were in turn forming abnormal inflammatory gangs along his arteries that were going to drastically alter the function of his arteries.

His doctor should have scared the hell out of him because behavior changes in men seldom take place unless there is adequate pain. And then he should have given him the facts of the simple solution "Tim, all you have to do is get in a healthy pattern where you lose 20% of your weight, at which point your risk factor for a heart attack drops to close to zero. Then, if you keep losing 1-2 pounds a month you will maintain this very low risk pattern while you are getting back in shape. In fact, by losing the weight you can go a long way towards reversing all of these problems."

He should have been told that his real risk for a heart attack was based on his overall inflammation (http://www.naturalnews.com/inflammation.html) burden (wear and tear), and that if he managed this trend well he would have much less risk of any problem. He needed to start by managing his weight, because that was a major source of inflammation. He needed to make sure he got enough sleep at night to recover from wear and tear. And he really needed to watch his work load as pushing himself into the ground was no longer a safe option.

Of course I do not know what conversations took place between Russert and his doctor, but considering that his doctor is also overweight it probably wasn't anything like the above and it certainly wasn't effective. What Russert's doctor did was what virtually all doctors (http://www.naturalnews.com/doctors.html) do in this country; they pull out the Big Pharma (http://www.naturalnews.com/Big_Pharma.html) tool box and begin aggressively treating numbers on paper instead of the patient in front of them.

Sure we can say that Russert's problems were self inflicted. But why then do we need doctors? Don't doctors have an obligation to do everything in their power to help a person get well? Or are doctor's nothing more than part of the Big Pharma drug cartel?


The Cardiovascular Drug Quagmire

Drugs buy you time if you are lucky. The problem with cardiovascular drugs that make numbers look better on paper is that they make your health worse the longer you use them â?? and your Big Pharma-trained doctors expect you to use them forever. It was quite clear back in February of this year, when the ACCORD trial turned in dismal results, that the greater the number of cardiovascular drugs given to a diabetic to manage his condition the more likely he was to die.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/conten... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/content/articles/the_failure_of_cardiovascular_medication/)

Russert's doctor said he was taking a statin even though his cholesterol wasn't high. Yes, this is now standard medical care. Anyone at risk gets their cholesterol system placed in a statin straightjacket. This is one of the dumbest things you would ever want to do, since cholesterol synthesis is the foundation of survival in your body. The American Heart Association (http://www.naturalnews.com/American_Heart_Association.html) actively promotes this fraud at considerable profit for its bedfellows with consequent death for many Americans.

Tim Russert is a great example proving that statins (http://www.naturalnews.com/statins.html) are useless â?? and likely dangerous. Statins are now proven to activate a gene called atrogin-1, a gene that is abnormal to activate and directly damages muscle. This reduces the effectiveness of muscles to perform exercise, reducing Russert's chance of losing weight. The heart is also a muscle, meaning that statins can induce direct heart damage via atrogin-1 activation. Statins also reduce the production of coenzyme Q10, leading to cardiac malfunction.

http://www.jci.org/117/12/3940?content_type=full (http://www.jci.org/117/12/3940?content_type=full)

Russert's autopsy showed his heart was enlarged, meaning it was structurally abnormal and headed in the direction of failure. This finding surprised his doctor, apparently meaning that this change in his heart was recent. Was this simply a progression of his condition or was this caused by statins? Nobody really knows, but rest assured his doctor and the general statin-prescribing community will blame his underlying health when in fact the accelerated deterioration of the heart often happens after starting statin therapy or when statin doses are raised. This is why the public needs to know what kind of statin Russert was on, what was the dose, and had it been raised in the past year. The simple fact of the case is that Russert's heart was not working well prior to the arterial clot that caused his fatal heart attack â?? and this means that he had less of a chance of surviving the heart attack. There is a high likelihood this handicap in heart function was the result of the statin he was taking.

There is also the plain observation that Russert did not have high cholesterol in the first place, yet his autopsy showed that he had a number of coronary arteries full of plaque. What does that say for the cholesterol theory of heart disease? It means that cholesterol numbers on paper are a near useless marker of actual health. It means that taking statins didn't make any difference to Russert at all, except in a likely adverse way. And it means that nothing effective was actually done to help him. In other words, the theory of statins and trying to lower cholesterol to abnormally low levels to prevent a heart attack, as clearly exposed by the massive Vytorin drug fraud, is a 20-billion-dollar a year racket. It is propped up by groups like the American Heart Association (http://www.naturalnews.com/the_American_Heart_Association.html) who will do almost anything to maintain their grip on public health, power, and money â?? regardless of the hundreds of thousands of Americans who die each year while receiving such treatment.

http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedo... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/freedom/articles/vytorin_fraud_places_all_statin_therapy_in_questio n/)

http://www.wellnessresources.com/conten... (http://www.wellnessresources.com/content/articles/the_statin_scam_marches_on/)

Russert was being treated for coronary artery disease (http://www.naturalnews.com/coronary_artery_disease.html), which involves the use of blood pressure (http://www.naturalnews.com/blood_pressure.html) medications such as beta blockers and calcium channel blockers. These medications (http://www.naturalnews.com/medications.html) put Russert's heart in a medical wheelchair. Maybe one day doctors will learn there is a huge difference between having good blood pressure because you are healthy and having good blood pressure numbers because you are taking medication.

Blood pressure medication restricts cardiovascular function, which means by definition that circulatory pressure and thus circulation to small blood vessels and numerous end points of circulation throughout your body is reduced. This means that nutrients and oxygen (http://www.naturalnews.com/oxygen.html) do not reach many cells and organs appropriately; creating acid pH and inflammation as an undesirable side effect. This causes many people taking these medications to become fatigued and gain weight or not be able to lose weight, a problem that is generally ignored yet directly makes the underlying cardiovascular problem worse.

In Russert' case his doctor has not disclosed his exact blood pressure medications, other than to say his blood pressure had risen recently. This likely meant he increased the dose of medication. Thus, in the months leading up to his death Russert was going all out trying to cover the elections (http://www.naturalnews.com/elections.html) while at the same time he was taking higher amounts of anti-energy blood pressure drugs that increased fatigue and wear and tear.


The Long Plane Flight

The straw that broke the camel's back was most likely the long plane flight Russert took as he and his family returned from a vacation to Italy the day before his death. The low cabin pressure for an extended period of time, combined with the lack of movement, places significant stress on both the circulatory and lymphatic systems. This subjected Russert to a low-oxygen pro-inflammatory stress that is known to be associated with increased clotting risk â?? especially in somebody who is at risk in the first place. The pro-clotting strain of that flight would persist for the next several days, at least.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlse... (http://medicine.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pmed.0030307&ct=1)

Russert had a combination of factors that were not working in his favor. He had just been through months of grueling wear and tear covering the elections. Tom Brokaw reported that Russert had pushed himself too exhaustion a number of times. This means he had created a baseline of wear and tear that was pushing the inflammatory limits, a problem that tends to congest his lymphatic trash removal processes. At the same time, flying in an airplane is always a challenge to anyone's lymph system, based on changes in pressure. If there is already pre-existing lymph stagnation (http://www.naturalnews.com/stagnation.html) from wear and tear â?? a long airplane flight can be a real problem.

It is worth noting that blood pressure medication, especially if the dose is too high, is a significant handicap in terms of being able to tolerate the pressure changes and lower oxygen problem of a long plane flight. This is because the forced reduction in pressure by the medication causes the lymph system to lose "tone," in turn promoting even further lymph stagnation.

These problems were compounded by Russert's high level of triglycerides (http://www.naturalnews.com/triglycerides.html), which are fat blobs just sitting in his circulation. These are like Mack trucks reducing the flow of traffic â?? significantly compounding the pressure problem of stagnation induced by the flight along with the other wear and tear factors.

Thus, after his plane flight Russert was left in a significant pro-inflammatory and pro-clotting state. If he would have taken a few days off to rest and recover he may well be alive today. But no, he dragged his jet-lagged body out of bed, put it on a treadmill for a while (inducing further wear and tear considering the circumstances), and then went off to work. He was never to return.

The Tim Russert tragedy does have a take home message for men â?? wake up.

About the author: Byron J. Richards, Board-Certified Clinical Nutritionist, nationally-renowned nutrition (http://www.naturalnews.com/nutrition.html) expert, and founder of Wellness Resources is a leader in advocating the value of dietary supplements as a vital tool to maintain health. He is an outspoken critic of government and Big Pharma efforts to deny access to natural health products and has written extensively on the life-shortening and health-damaging failures of the sickness industry.

[birdgirl73]

Thanks for all the info, BA!! Great article, and spot-on about both risks and Avandia. That stuff is scary, but, then, so is diabetes, so it's a toss-up as far as what puts them at bigger risk. I'm going to ask about this at school--the Avandia topic, that is.