Health and Fitness
As California Burns, Trump Stymies State’s Climate Efforts
State leaders have found themselves witnessing firsthand the effects of climate change as they are hamstrung by President Trump to take actions to fight it.
As long as people have played sports, unexpected muscle cramps have been an Achilles' heel for everyone from aspiring Olympians to weekend warriors. What if it turns out a shot of spicy liquid—think wasabi or hot chilies—is a far more effective treatment than an energy drink or a banana?
ANALYSIS: In 2006, David Cameron and William Hague angered some Tory backbenchers and donors by describing the Israeli ground invasion of Lebanon as 'disproportionate', risking an 'unnecessary loss of civilian life'.
Regarding the current invasion of Gaza, it appears that the Conservative leadership is once bitten, twice shy.
David Cameron hamstrung over criticising Israel's Gaza offensive
Analysis: With an election looming, the PM risks alientating donors and...
THEGUARDIAN.COM|由 ROWENA MASON 上傳
Ask Well
Leg Cramp Relief
By ANAHAD O'CONNOR and KAMARA SWABY
Nighttime leg cramps are a common problem. A handful of remedies may provide relief.
Snowden’s Fate Is Up to Russia, Ecuador Says
By WILLIAM NEUMAN
President Rafael Correa said it was up to Russia to decide what happens
to the N.S.A. leaker Edward J. Snowden, but Russian officials disclaim
any responsibility.
some of the children had to double up for her cousins.
Write-Down Punishes Vodafone
Vodafone
plunged into the red as it took a new £5.90 billion ($9.37 billion)
write-down on its hamstrung Spanish and Italian operations.
District officials got the idea for wiring the bus during occasional drives on school business to Phoenix, two hours each way, when they realized that if they doubled up, one person could drive and the other could work using a laptop and a wireless card. They wondered if Internet access on a school bus would increase students’ academic productivity, too.
Definition of disclaim
verbOrigin:
late Middle English (in legal contexts): from Anglo-Norman French desclamer, from des- (expressing reversal) + clamer 'to claim' (see claim)double up
1. Bend over suddenly, as in pain or laughter. For example, She doubled up with a cramp. [Late 1800s]
2. Share accommodations meant for one person, as in The hotel ran out of rooms, so we had to double up. [Late 1700s]
(2) 同居［結婚］する, 相部屋にする；（食物を）2人でいっしょに食べる((on ...)).
cramp
━━ n., v. けいれん（を起させる）; （pl.） 激しい腹痛.
cramp
- [名][C][U]1 ((しばしば〜s))(1) （時に激痛を伴う手足の筋肉の）けいれん, ひきつり, こむら返り((in ...)) get ［have］ a cramp in the leg...
cramp, painful uncontrollable contraction of a muscle or group of muscles. The type that results from cold, strain, or disturbance of circulation (as experienced by swimmers) is eased by massage and the application of heat. Cramp in the abdominal or skeletal muscles brought on by hard physical exertion in extremely high temperatures (e.g., in miners, stokers, or firemen) because of loss of salt from the body during profuse perspiration can last for hours or days if untreated. Such cramps are considered to be a type of heat exhaustion. A cool atmosphere and the replacement of salt and water orally or intravenously is required, and application of heat is not recommended. Heat cramps in persons who do heavy labor can be prevented by the addition of salt to drinking water or by taking salt tablets. Contraction of muscles in a hollow organ is known as colic. A stitch in the side is due to a cramp in the muscles between the ribs.
Are cramps caused by lack of salt?
You wake up in the middle of the night in agony. Your calf muscle seems to have a life of its own and is in spasm, causing an agonising pain down the back of your lower leg. You try to force your leg to relax without success, and you know you are in for a sleepless night. What you have is cramp, or charley horse as it is also known in North America.This type of cramp is very common, particularly in the late stages of pregnancy. It occurs more frequently as people get older or if they put on weight, but it can happen to anyone, either during the night or after exercise. The cause of this common affliction has often been ascribed to low salt levels in your diet, or more precisely the sodium that is in salt. Take some salt and ease the pain, so the story goes, but as I will explain there is a much simpler, salt-free solution.
Cramp occurs most often in the calf muscle at the back of the lower leg, the hamstrings at the back of the thigh or the quadriceps at the front. Occasionally it can indicate something more serious, such as claudication, a condition where insufficient oxygen reaches the muscles, causing them to tighten when a person walks. Or in rare cases, cramps can be caused by very low levels of calcium due to a problem with the parathyroid gland in the neck. But as Raymond Playford, Professor of Medicine at Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry, says cramp is not associated with needing more salt in your diet in the majority of cases.
Shock treatment
What causes this cramp is something of a mystery. More than a century ago, people noticed that the men who stoked fires on ships were often afflicted, and it even became known as “stoker’s cramp”. This led to the theory that a lack of salt was the cause. The idea was that the heat of the fire caused the men to sweat so much that they became short of sodium. So naturally the assumption was that eating more salt would prevent the cramps.
A biological explanation for this is that the lack of salt and accompanying dehydration causes the spaces between the cells of the muscles to contract, which then increases pressure on the nerve terminals, leading to pain. The problem with this explanation is the lack of robust evidence for this. To be fair this is not an easy topic to study. Because cramps are involuntary you never quite know when they will happen, making them difficult to investigate. If you assembled people in a lab for observation you could wait a very long time before they got cramp.
This leaves observations of real-life environments, like the finding that American footballers suffer from cramp more when the weather is hot, lending further weight to the idea that, as with the stokers, this is all down to sweat loss and a lack of salt. The problem with this theory is that athletes in cold climates get cramp too. And when sodium loss was measured in athletes taking part in an ultra-marathon in Cape Town, South Africa, the difference between those who experienced cramp and those who did not was too small to be of clinical significance.
Another approach that has been tested is to induce cramps in brave volunteers using electric currents. If a lack of salt plays a part then it should require a smaller current to induce cramps in a person who is partially dehydrated and therefore low on salt. But Kevin Miller and colleagues at North Dakota State University in the US found that this made no difference – though they admit the effect of greater fluid losses on cramp threshold is not known.
If you think about the cramp remedy that you see on a sports field, it gives us a big clue that this does not have much to do with salt. When we feel that agonising pain, the best evidence suggests that it is stretching out the muscle, not fluids, that provides relief. If you feel that pain in your calf muscle you grasp your toes and gently ease your foot towards you. This stretches the muscle and eventually eases the pain. No increase in sodium levels, by whatever means, are needed.
If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on Future, head over to our Facebook page or message us on Twitter.
Disclaimer
All content within this column is provided for general information only, and should not be treated as a substitute for the medical advice of your own doctor or any other health care professional. The BBC is not responsible or liable for any diagnosis made by a user based on the content of this site. The BBC is not liable for the contents of any external internet sites listed, nor does it endorse any commercial product or service mentioned or advised on any of the sites. Always consult your own GP if you're in any way concerned about your health.
小腿按摩之重要
Japan’s 2014 Best-Sellers: Calves and Cats
The biggest books of the year feature leg massages and inspirational felines.
A book explaining the importance of massaging one’s calves was the best-selling publication this year in Japan, followed by a book filled with photos of cats accompanied by inspirational messages.
According to the annual best-seller ranking made available Monday by book wholesaler Nippon Shuppan Hanbai Inc., Takako Maki ’s “Nagaiki Shitakerya Fukurahagi wo Mominasai”—which can be roughly translated as “If You Want to Live Long, Rub Your Calves”—was the top-selling book of 2014. It sold approximately 700,000 copies between Dec. 1, 2013, and Nov. 26—and more than a million copies since its release in June 2013, according to its publisher, Ascom Inc.
The 199-page book provides data on the importance of massaging one’s calves, which its author—a Tokyo-based masseuse—argues can ease symptoms of foot and back pain, reduce high blood pressure and improve poor blood circulation. After being featured on a TV show, the book gained huge popularity, especially among women in their 40s to 70s, Nippon Shuppan Hanbai said.
calf2
Line breaks: calf
Pronunciation: /kɑːf/
hamstring
Line breaks: ham|string
Pronunciation: /ˈhamstrɪŋ /
NOUN
VERB ( past and past participle hamstrung)
hamstring
- hám • strìng
- hamstringの変化形
- hamstrings (複数形) • hamstrung (過去分詞) • hamstringing (現在分詞) • hamstrings (三人称単数現在)
[名]膝腱(しつけん)：人間のひかがみ, 四足獣の後脚節の後ろの腱.
━━[動]（-strung or((まれ))-stringed）(他)
1 〈人・四足獣の〉腱を切って足を不自由にする；…を不具にする.
2 …を挫折(ざせつ)させる, 妨害する.