Donie's Ireland daily news BLOG

Joan Burton promises €25 pension hike if in next Government?

     

Tanaiste Joan Burton has promised to increase the State pension by a massive €25 a week as part of the Labour Party’s bid to shore up the grey vote ahead of the general election.

Ms Burton’s pledge to increase the weekly State pension by almost €5 every year will see pensioners receive around €257 a week by the end of the next government’s five-year term in office.

“It’s critical that people at different stages in their life have sufficient financial resources to be able to live a decent life with a threshold and standard of decency,” said Ms Burton.

The Tanaiste’s attempt to lure older voters comes as Fine Gael’s former chief strategist Frank Flannery predicts that Taoiseach Enda Kenny could manage to secure a single-party majority government.

Mr Flannery, who is seen as the architect of Fine Gael’s current political success, believes that Mr Kenny may sweep the board and romp home to win the party’s first overall majority.

In an interview with the Sunday Independent, Mr Flannery insisted that voters will be faced with a choice of “Fine Gael on its own or Fine Gael and Labour” when they go to the ballot box.

“If you want a stable Government and you are, say, a middle-of-the-road, middle-class, professional-type person, whether you like them or not, the only party you can vote for is Fine Gael,” he said.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael strategists are preparing to add up to five extra candidates to the party’s general election ticket on the back of a series of national opinion polls which show rising support.

However, the party’s backroom staff are eager to play down expectations of securing a majority, fearing that this might unnerve voters.

The latest poll showed Fine Gael on 32pc and Labour on 9pc, with just weeks to go before the election, which is likely to take place in the last week of February.

And there is an expectation that the Coalition’s polling will improve further in January when people see the impact of the Budget in their pockets.

Among the measures announced in the Budget was a €3 increase in the State pension to €233.30 from January 1.

However, Labour faced a backlash from older people over what was perceived as a piecemeal increase to the pension after the Government had slashed supports for pensioners during previous austerity budgets.

Since 2009, an older person living on the State pension and the Household Benefits package has seen their income cut by more than €13 a week.

In its pre-budget submission, the charity Age Action called for the pension to be increased by €5 a week and for a €2.40 increase in the living alone allowance. Together these two measures would cost €142.5m.

Ms Burton is now seeking to reach out to older voters by pledging to increase the old age pension by around 2pc each year in order to keep the payment in line with inflation.

The move would mean an increase of around €4.60 a week from 2017, bringing the pension up to around €238.

In Fine Gael, the swell of public support has led to a growing belief that the party could improve on its 2011 general election result and form the next government without the need for Labour’s backing.

And even if the Coalition is returned, it is expected that Labour will have significantly fewer seats in Government and that Ms Burton’s influence over the Cabinet will be dramatically reduced.

“Labour will have to be more obedient dogs next time,” a Fine Gael source said.

Last week, Ms Burton warned voters against electing a Fine Gael majority government, saying it would “lack balance”. She suggested that Mr Kenny’s party would only look after the “very well off”.

Within Labour’s senior ranks, there is a reluctance to allow the election message to focus on Fine Gael ruling a single-party government, but there is an acceptance that this will be part of the debate.

“Fine Gael are very cocky and with some reason. They are doing a huge amount of polling and the constituency results they are getting show they are doing very well,” a Labour minister told the Sunday Independent.

The minister said part of Labour’s pitch to voters would be: “Who do you want in Government with Fine Gael?”

“Kenny will be Taoiseach, there is no doubt about that. There is zero chance of anyone else being Taoiseach unless his own people throw him out, but there’s not much chance of that,” the minister added.

The minister’s comments are echoed by Mr Flannery, who insists that there is no possibility of any party other than Fine Gael leading the next government.

The former strategist, who was forced from the party in the wake of the Rehab charity scandal, says: “This election will give a comfortable majority for the Government – I not only think it, I know it.”

He predicts that Fine Gael will clean up at the ballot box because Fianna Fail has “effectively ruled themselves out” of government by Micheal Martin insisting that the party will not do a deal with either Mr Kenny or Gerry Adams’s Sinn Fein.

“It is a matter of what type of government do you want,” says Mr Flannery. “So the real alternative in many ways is Fine Gael on its own or Fine Gael and Labour.”

Mr Flannery notes that the week before the last election Fine Gael was on 41pc in an opinion poll but slipped back to 36pc on the day of the vote.

“If it hadn’t happened, Fine Gael would have had an overall majority last time. It could happen again this time because of an absence of an alternative for that centrist group of voters in Irish politics,” he adds.

However, he predicts that Fine Gael would return with around 66 seats and Labour would secure between 12 and 15 seats.

“Fine Gael won’t be talking up an overall majority. It will be talking up re-elect the Government,” Mr Flannery says.

“I think a Government between Fine Gael and Labour is actually a good Government because the measure of compromise visited on both of them works rather well.”

Mr Flannery predicts that the Taoiseach will step aside three years into the next term to allow an “orderly transition” for the next leader.

He believes that if Mr Kenny stays any longer he will have to run for a third term as a leader cannot step down before a general election.

He is convinced that the Taoiseach will call the election in January and that the country will go to the polls on Thursday, February 25.

Doctors will design diets based on individuals’

A gene study says

     

Doctors and dieticians will be able to design diets based on individuals’ genes within next five years, according to a new study by University of Texas (UT) researchers.

The researchers, however, said better analytical tools will require to be developed in the coming years to quickly understand the relationship between an individual’s genetics, behavior and weight-related diseases.

They explained that the potential that many genes involved with weight gain, weight loss, and regain weight and they pose a challenge. Researchers have found the gene that causes energy from food and store it as fat, variations in the gene and they way it interacts with other genes can differ from one person to other.

Dr. Molly Bray, a professor of nutritional sciences at UT Austin, said, “When people hear that genes may be playing a role in their weight loss success, they don’t say, ‘Oh great, I just won’t exercise any more’ … They actually say ‘Oh thank you. Finally someone acknowledges that it’s harder work for me than it is for others.”

Dr. Bray said gains in collection of data on weight loss and weight gain, and better sensors to monitor diet, activity and stress, would help. When blended with genomic data with the help of a computer algorithm, Dr. Bray believes that the development of analysis tools is not far off.

The study appeared in the most recent edition of the journal Obesity.

According to a report from the I4U, it has been surmised that the DNA diet may be the future of fat loss for so many afflicted with the curse of obesity. The next big step in helping individuals lose extra flab and trim down may be a diet and exercise program based on their very own genetic makeup. This has been called precision weight loss and it just might be what all the nutritionists and health experts have been looking for.
The genetics of weight loss involves more precise tools for measuring one’s capacity for shedding fat through various means. Genes, behavior and diseases that cause one to pile on the pounds are the name of the game.

Researchers have suggested in a report that overweight people could be provided with weight-loss diet plans based on a person’s genome, Dispatch Tribunal reports. According to researchers, overweight people could soon be provided with personalized diet and exercise plans designed on their genetic data, an approach that has been termed is as “precision weight loss.”

The authors of the report noted that to make the ‘precision weight loss’ program a reality, there was a need for better analytical tools to establish the relationships between genetics, behavior and weight-related diseases, told the UniversityHerald.

The NY Post notes that, Here’s good news for big eaters fighting the battle of the budge — the “DNA diet’’ is on the way. By 2020, genome-specific diets could help people lose weight even if they’ve tried one plan after another with no success, researchers report in the journal Obesity. “Scientists have made huge strides in recent years connecting DNA to weight struggles, according to ¬researchers.

A forest the size of Sligo and Leitrim is needed to tackle Ireland’s global warming targets

      

Growing a forest the size of the entire of Sligo and Leitrim would allow Ireland meet its 2030 global warming targets, according to Institute of International and European Affairs senior research fellow Joseph Curtin.

“Planting 20,000ha of trees is the target that we should be aiming for,” he said.

“And this is feasible, as back some years ago land areas of this magnitude were being planted out in trees.”

If Curtin’s targets are achieved, this means that a forest equivalent to the combined size of counties Sligo and Leitrim will be established between now and 2030.

“All of this comes with the proviso that agreement is reached on the contribution of Ireland to the EU’s 2030 climate change targets.

“Afforestation is a win-win scenario for beef farmers in marginal areas. Current performance figures confirm that these producers are losing up to €250/ha. But the establishment of a forest can provide them with an annual income of up to €400/ha.

I know that Irish farmers are wedded to livestock production. But this is a mindset that must be changed.

Curtin believes that Ireland could be facing cumulative fines of up to €2.5 billion, if the country does not meet its 2030 climate change targets.

“So better to spend the money on growing forests, which will deliver on the ground environmental benefits and improved farm incomes throughout the Shannon catchment area, than buying expensive Carbon Credits.”

Curtin is at odds with the ‘An Taisce’ claims that trees should not be planted out in high carbon soils, for environmental reasons.

“These views have been expressed on a number of occasions, without any scientific evidence proffered to back them up,” he said.

“What I do know is that a thorough environmental impact is carried out on the back of each tree planting application that is submitted in Ireland.

“But we need a societal response to the challenge of global warming, within which tree planting and forest growing must play a critical and mitigating role. And this means that farmers and members of the general public should join forces in order to make this happen.”

Obesity is more of a risk to health than a lack of fitness

   

It appeared that men who had a normal weight and didn’t exercise were at lower risk of dying than the obese people who had really high scores in the fitness test. That doesn’t mean that the obese people don’t benefit from exercising though. However, they were still at higher risk of early death than slim men with lower aerobic fitness.

Findings were published in the December 20 issue of the International Journal of Epidemiology.

Of the 1.3 million young men who participated in the study, the ones who were not fit, but weighed a normal amount still were less likely to die over the next few decades than the fittest obese men.

The study carefully viewed the Body Mass Index of the participants, as well as subjecting them to cycling.

Overall, the study also uncovered the expected results that fit men reaped the biggest benefits.

DURING THE FOLLOW-UP PERIOD, 44,301 PARTICIPANTS DIED.

Researchers assessed the link between aerobic fitness and fatigue when they made the men do exercises until they were exhausted.

The study was successful in eliminating the myth that staying fit and obese will essentially lower the common risks of the latter condition. That benefit shrunk to 28 percent among overweight individuals and 26 percent for obese people with a BMI between 30 and 34. However, the findings were not promising for people diagnosed with obesity.

After adjusting for age and conscription year, men with the highest aerobic fitness levels had 51% lower risk for all-cause death (hazard ratio [HR], 0.49; 95% confidence interval [CI], 0.47 – 0.51) compared with those with the lowest fitness levels.

Aerobic fitness is generally tied to a longer life, but the same can’t be said for obese people, according to new research.

He said the next step would be to experiment with interventions to determine the effects of exercise instead of relying on observational data, which can’t prove cause and effect.

Dr Spitzer set rigorous standards for the diagnosis of mental health disorders

      

The central question Dr. Robert Spitzer applied to homosexuality — does it cause distress? — was the same one he used to conduct a broad re-examination of all behaviours listed as disorders.

Robert L. Spitzer was instrumental in changing the perception that homosexuality is a mental disorder.

Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, who gave psychiatry its first set of rigorous standards to describe mental disorders, providing a framework for diagnosis, research, and legal judgments, as well as a lingua franca for the endless social debate over where to draw the line between normal and abnormal behaviour, died last Friday. He was 83.

Spitzer died from complications of heart disease at the assisted living facility where he lived in Seattle, his wife, Janet Williams, said. The couple had moved to Seattle from Princeton, New Jersey, this year.

Spitzer’s remaking of psychiatry began with an early interest in one of the least glamorous and, historically, most ignored corners of the field: measurement. In the early 1960s, the field was fighting to sustain its credibility, in large part because diagnoses varied widely from doctor to doctor. For instance, a patient told he was depressed by one doctor might be called anxious or neurotic by another.

The field’s diagnostic manual, at the time a pamphlet-like document rooted in Freudian ideas, left wide latitude for the therapist’s judgment. Spitzer, a rising star at Columbia University, was himself looking for direction, increasingly frustrated with Freudian analysis.

A chance meeting with a colleague working on a new edition of the manual — the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM, for short — led to a job taking notes for the committee debating revisions. There, he became fascinated with reliable means for measuring symptoms and behaviour — i.e., assessment. “At the time there was zero interest in assessment,” said Dr. Michael First, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia. “He saw how important it was, and his whole career led to assessment being taken seriously.”

New look at homosexuality

One of the first behaviours he scrutinized was homosexuality, which at the time was listed in the manual as a mental disorder. Spitzer, after meeting with gay advocates, began re-examining homosexuality based on whether it caused any measurable distress. The issue was extremely contentious, but in 1973 Spitzer engineered a deal by which the diagnosis was replaced by “sexual orientation disturbance,” to describe people whose sexual orientation, gay or straight, caused them distress.

Gay groups immediately recognised the change as a historic one, and Spitzer’s skill in orchestrating it helped him take charge of the third update of the manual, known as DSM3. “The fact that gay marriage is allowed today is in part owed to Bob Spitzer,” said Dr. Jack Drescher, a gay psychoanalyst in private practice in New York.

To some extent, the central question he applied to homosexuality — does it cause distress? — was the same one he used to conduct a broad re-examination of all behaviours listed as disorders. In a series of meetings, many in New York, he convened experts in each diagnostic category and sat in a corner, typing notes as they debated. Working with another researcher, Williams, who would become his wife, he produced the DSM3, which became an unlikely bestseller in 1980, in the United States and abroad.

It immediately set the blueprint for future manuals, using rigorously tested checklists to categorise mental problems.

It also elevated its principal architect to the top of his field, where he reigned as keeper of the book for more than two decades.

He wore the position as if he had been born to it, exuberantly courting controversy. He clashed with Freudian analysts, researchers, journalists and, late in his career, gay advocates and psychiatrists, who helped discredit a study he had done purporting to support “reparative” therapy to alter homosexual behaviour. He publicly apologised for that study in 2012, calling it the only thing in his career that he regretted.

“Bob Spitzer was by far the most influential psychiatrist of his time,” Dr. Allen Frances, a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University and editor of a later edition of the manual, said by email. “He saved the field and its millions of patients from a crises of credibility, raising its scientific standards and rescuing it from the arbitrariness of warring and unsupported opinions.”

Robert Leopold Spitzer was born on May 22, 1932, in White Plains, New York, the youngest of three children of Benjamin and Esther Spitzer. His father was an engineer who invented dental materials, among other things; his mother was an accomplished pianist. The family soon moved to New York City, and the boy attended the Walden School.

He received a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Cornell University in 1953 and an M.D. in 1957 from New York University School of Medicine. He completed a psychiatric residence at the New York State Psychiatric Institute in 1961, and in 1966, he graduated from Columbia’s Center for Psychoanalytic Training and Research. From 1980 to 2001, he won many of the field’s most prestigious awards.

Spitzer’s first two marriages ended in divorce. In addition to Williams, he is survived by five children and four grandchildren.

There’s a new shark around, and this one can glow in the dark?

   

IN A YEAR REPLETE WITH SHARK-RELATED NEWS STORIES, THE NINJA LANTERNSHARK MAY BE THE ODDEST ONE YET.

THE YEAR 2015 HAS IN MANY WAYS BEEN THE YEAR OF THE SHARK.

Most of the many, many stories that emerged were of the tragic variety, so the arrival of the Ninja Lanternshark is thankfully a little less negative.

This new species of shark (although there are many other types of lanternshark) has just been discovered in the depths of the Pacific Ocean off Central America by a team from California’s Pacific Shark Research Centre.

Their findings can be read here in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, although some of the new shark’s features are especially noteworthy.

It’s jet-black but, in an odd twist, also glows in the dark.

It’s official Latin title, Etmopterus Benchleyi, may also look a little familiar to fans of Jaws.

Yep, this shark has been named for Peter Benchley, the writer of the original aquatic potboiler who also popped up in the original movie in a cameo as a news reporter.

The Ninja Lanternshark is roughly half a metre in length and can be found in depths of about 1,000 metres off Nicaragua and Panama. It’s the first such lanternshark to be found off the oceans of Central America.

It’s thought that its black complexion allows it to surprise its prey using the gloom at those depths as camouflage.

And why does it glow in the dark? To help it blend in with the limited light coming from the surface and thus render it camouflaged from above. Sneaky.

SO WHY HAS IT BEEN GIVEN ITS, WELL, DISTINCTIVE NAME?

According to researcher Vicky Vásquez, speaking to Hakai magazine, the suggestion came from her young cousins, who initially suggested the fish be christened the “super ninja shark”.

We think the Ninja Lanternshark has a better feel to it.       

Donie's news Ireland daily BLOG update

The Thai surrogate mother of an abandoned Down’s syndrome twin says 

SHE IS NOT ANGRY’ WITH THE AUSTRALIAN COUPLE FOR THEIR DECISION?

  

PATTARAMON CHANBUA, 21, POSES WITH HER CHILDREN GAME, 7, LEFT, AND BABY BOY GAMMY AT A HOSPITAL IN CHONBURI PROVINCE, SOUTH-EASTERN THAILAND. 

The Thai surrogate mother has said that she is not angry with the Australian biological parents who left behind a baby boy born with Down’s syndrome.

She added that she hoped the family would take care of the boy’s twin sister they took with them.

  GAMMY WAS SEPARATED FROM HIS HEALTHY TWIN SISTER

Pattaramon Chanbua, a 21-year-old food vendor in Thailand’s seaside town of Sri Racha, has had to take a break from her job to take care of her seven-month-old surrogate baby, named Gammy, who also has a congenital heart condition.

The boy, with blond hair and dark brown eyes, is now being treated in a hospital for infection in his lungs.

M/s Pattaramon said she met the Australian couple once when the babies were born and knew only that they lived in a Western Australia state.

“I’ve never felt angry at them or hated them. I’m always willing to forgive them,” M/s Pattaramon said, “I want to see that they love the baby girl as much as my family loves Gammy. I want her to be well taken care of.”

M/s Pattaramon was promised 300,000 baht (£5,500) by a surrogacy agency in Bangkok, Thailand’s capital, to be a surrogate for the Australian couple, but she has not been fully paid since the children were born last December.

She said the agency knew about Gammy’s condition four to five months after she became pregnant but did not tell her. It was not until the seventh month of her pregnancy when the doctors and the agency told her that one of the twin babies had Down’s syndrome and suggested that she have an abortion just for him.

Ms Pattaramon recalled strongly rejecting the idea, believing that having the abortion would be sinful. “I asked them, ‘Are you still humans?’ I really wanted to know,” she said.

Her case highlights the rising problem of surrogacy in Thailand, where legal loopholes allow the practice to exist. Thai officials said last week that there were 50 surrogate babies of Israeli couples in Thailand who were not able to travel to Israel due to nationality issues.

“The Thai authorities are pushing for a law that will ban surrogacy of non-family members, but there is no punishment right now,” said Pavena Hongsakul, a former Thai social development and human security minister and advocate for women’s and children’s rights. “This is a worrying trend as it can lead to other problems, such as human trafficking.”

M/s Pavena said a surrogate mother is usually paid 300,000 to 350,000 baht (£5,500 to £6,500) to carry a baby for overseas couples who either have reproduction difficulties or are gay.

M/s Pattaramon, who also has a six-year-old son and a three-year-old daughter, said she approached the surrogacy agency on Facebook early last year because she wanted money to pay off debts. She said she plans to file a complaint with Thai police to get the rest of the unpaid compensation money from the agency.

Meanwhile, an online campaign by an Australian charity organization to help Gammy has raised nearly 200,000 US dollars (£119,000) since July 22.

“I’m going to save the money for him,” M/s Pattaramon said. “Actually, I just want the baby to have a house. It doesn’t have to be big. I only want him to live in a good house and be comfortable.” ‘Great values you have to say’.

Charity Group “Focus” blames Irish Government for the homeless situation

  

The Government is to blame for the rise in homelessness by its stubborn refusal to offer realistic rent supplements, the voluntary housing charity Focus has claimed.

Warning the Government, housing the charity group Focus Ireland yesterday revealed 39 families became homeless in Dublin last month. It also noted that, on average, one family lost their home in the Dublin area every day this year.

The figures were announced as Focus Ireland made a submission to the Department of Social Protection’s Review of Rent Supplement Levels.

The submission called for rent supplement payments to match real rent levels to help prevent families and individuals from losing their homes.

The charity’s submission also warns that the Government’s rent review process is fatally flawed and will not fix the problem.

Focus Ireland Director of Advocacy Mike Allen said: “Our figures for July show that 39 families — more than one family a day — lost their home and became homeless in Dublin last month alone. Many of these families lost their homes because the rent supplement system failed them.

“A lot of the families that are becoming homeless, and others we are supporting to try to prevent them losing their homes, have been forced to top up the rent supplement to meet the market cost of rent, as the rent supplement doesn’t cover the rent.

“Paying this top-up, month on month, is clearly not sustainable and it just pushes families deeper into debt and nearer to homelessness.”

Focus Ireland said the Government must raise rent supplement rates to stop the rise in the number of families losing their homes as they can not afford to pay their rent.

Mr Allen said: “The Government could stop many families from losing their homes with a stroke of a pen. It is not credible for the Government to accept homelessness is at crisis point yet not take this straightforward action to prevent it.”

Focus Ireland also warned that the Department of Social Protection review is fatally flawed and will end up perpetuating the problem unless a different approach is taken.

Mr Allen said: “We believe that this review should be trying to set a fair rent level based on real average rents in an area. But instead they have decided to base the rent levels on the cheapest third of the market.

“Many of these homes are already rented to people on low wages or students so the numbers just don’t add up. It is exactly this kind of wrongheaded policy that forces individuals and families to top-up and causes homelessness.”

The charity further warned if this approach is followed again, the current rent supplement review is doomed to fail many of the families and individuals who are currently homeless, as they will still not be able to find a home in the private rented market.

Its submission calls for the department to revise the way rent caps are decided and set them based on the real average rent for each area.

Mr Allen said: “We cannot escape from the fact that there are not enough homes to rent in the lowest third of the market for everyone who is seeking a home to secure a roof over their heads.

“The Government must open its eyes to this fact. They have a responsibility and a duty to do so to protect families and individuals who are being priced out of the market. It is not credible for the minister to come out and say tackling homelessness is a priority when the very mechanics and polices pursued by her Department on this issue is actually not only causing the problem to continue but actually to get worse.”

Focus Ireland welcomed the fact that the Government has initiated a process to review the maximum level of rent supplement which can be paid, but the situation was continuing to deteriorate while the review is taking place.

The housing charity called for the review to be completed promptly and the decision implemented on budget day. The charity said the Government also needs to bring in greater rent regulation.

See these brave duo divers remove a lodged hook from the mouth of an angry Shark

  

Most humans don’t realize that the threat we pose to sharks is much larger than any threat they might be to us.

Everyday sharks are accidentally caught in fishing lines, slaughtered for their fins, and targeted by governments who want to keep beaches as thriving tourist attractions.

Yet, because most people assume sharks are dangerous predators, there is very little attention given to the reality of their plight.

Nearly 100 million sharks disappear from the ocean every year, largely at the hands of humans. In this video, divers Cameron Nimmo and Randy Jordan save a shark that has a fishing hook caught on his mouth. This diving duo has devoted their lives to diving with sharks, and according to the video, out of the 10 to 20 of the sharks they encounter on a dive, nearly 75 percent have hooks somewhere in their bodies. Yikes.

Clearly, fishing hooks have become quite the epidemic for sharks, and Nimmo and Jordan hope to raise awareness to the threats facing sharks with this video. So, have a watch and share with all your shark-loving friends!

The use of Panadol effectiveness is now questioned

  

A new study shows that Paracetamol is not as effective for lower back pain than first thought.

Paracetamol, or panadol as commonly known, is a medicine found in many homes. Even when there is no patient in the house at a time, the medicine is kept for ‘just in case’ reasons.

It’s a reliever for a pool of pains including joint pains, back pain, headache and other illnesses. Panadol is available in tablet or liquid form and can be accessed without prescription from supermarkets, pharmacists, and many other shops.

Because of efficacy and limited occurrence of side effects with its use, paracetamol is globally recognised as the first set of medicine prescribed for treatment of most illnesses.

However, a recent study by Australian researchers has found the use of paracetamol to relieve lower back pain to be wanting. The study concluded that paracetamol is no more effective than a dummy pill a (placebo).

Results of the study indicated that there was no major difference found in terms of relieving pain levels, urgency of recovery and sleep between individuals who used the drug and those who used a placebo.

Associate Professor Christine Lin of the George Institute for Global Health at the University of Sydney tested more than 1,600 patients and found the median recovery time from lower back pain was 16-17 days whether patients used paracetamol or not.

The study, published in The Lancet, a medical journal on July 24, consisted of more than 1600 Australian patients with acute back pain being randomly assigned into three groups – one received three doses of paracetamol per day (6 tablets), one who could take the drug as needed (8 tablets), and one who was assigned a placebo.

The researcher found no difference in recovery times between the groups.

Dr. Adnan Khan, a physician, says that 80% of the active population suffers from low back pain at some point in their lives because of bending, twisting and heavy lifting that damage the disks in the back.

He said that pain can occur when, for example, someone lifts something too heavy or overstretches, causing a sprain or spasm in one of the muscles or ligaments in the back. For the aged, he says when bone strength, muscle elasticity and tone decrease, the discs begin to lose fluid and flexibility, which decreases their ability to cushion the vertebrae leading to pain.

“If the spine becomes overly strained or compressed, a disc may rupture or bulge outward. This rupture may put pressure on the nerves rooted to the spinal cord that control body movements and transmit signals from the body to the brain. When these nerve roots become irritated back pain results”, he explains.

The doctor says that most cases of low back pain do not require urgent care apart from pain killers and physical fitness exercises, but patients should seek medical attention immediately if they experience low back pain as a result of severe trauma, or if low back pain is accompanied by fever, sudden weight loss or sudden bladder incontinence or continuous abdominal pains.

He recommends that people should always seek medical attention in case of any pain for doctors to establish the cause since pain is the body’s way of telling you there is damage, injury or disease to tissues or organs- Normally when the cause of pain is removed, pain ceases.

But Dr. Khan advises patients not to abandon paracetamol basing on the study saying that though the medicine’s efficacy on back pain is doubted, it’s a well-tolerated remedy for headaches, fever, pain after an operation, dental pain among others although it can seriously damage your liver if you take it in amounts of over 8 tablets a day. Experts who were not directly involved in the study have cautioned that guidelines should nevertheless not be changed on the basis of a single piece of research.

2016 will be a big year in more ways than one

“BUT WHAT ABOUT OUR TAX BILLS”?

  

Taxation once again in Ireland 2016 is going to be significant for more than one, it’s not just the 100th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Towards the end of that year, householders are going to learn how their bills for two of the most contentious austerity measures of the bailout era will hit them the following year.

The valuation period for the property tax, based on how much the house was worth in May 2013, runs from 2013 up to 2016. Thereafter, from 2017 through to 2019, homeowners are supposed to pay their property tax based on the value of their house in November 2016.

However, the rise of the property market means homeowners are facing sizably bigger bills. The Central Statistics Office confirmed that June’s monthly increase of 2.9pc nationally was the highest since the property index began in 2005 so the concerns of homeowners about the impact on their property tax bills are obvious.

Ministers are listening and are weighing up whether to announce a property tax freeze in Budget 2015 as they want people to have “clarity” about what taxes are coming down the track. Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Spending Minister Brendan Howlin have already been talking about delaying the revaluation period until there is a “bedding down” of the market.

The lack of supply will continue to push prices up – but buyers face anything up to four more years of housing shortages with rising prices before enough homes are built to meet demand.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny says it will take two years for the Government’s policies to increase housing output to make an impact, but AIB chief executive David Duffy estimates the supply problem will remain for four years. The uncertainty over property taxes is creating anxiety, which can affect consumer sentiment.

The Labour Party is pushing for a freeze, with the revaluation in 2016 to be postponed – but Fine Gael is less certain it’s a good idea to signal such a move at this stage as it’s too far out to know where the market will be at.

On water charges, there is also a lack of clarity around future bills. The charging regime currently being finalised will run until the end of 2016 – but there is no guarantee water charges won’t increase after 2016. Of course, a general election is due in early 2016, assuming the Coalition lasts its full term.

The Government wants the voters to be focused on tax reductions, not fixated on hikes in existing taxes. Expect property taxes and water charges to feature prominently in the campaign.

A Pet dog survives a 90 metre plunge from Clare cliff’s into the Atlantic

  

EMERGENCY SERVICES COME TO RESCUE OF ‘VIMES’ AT LOOKOUT POINT IN CO CLARE

Vimes a pet dog survived a 300 ft. plunge on to a cliff in Co Clare.

A much-loved pet dog has survived a plunge into the Atlantic from a 91-metre (300ft) cliff in Co Clare.

The alarm was raised at about 3.30pm on Sunday when a member of the public rang the emergency services to report that a dog had gone over the edge at Lookout Point, Dunlicky near Kilkee.

   It’s understood that the dog, a family pet named Vimes, got away from his owners and and got too close to the cliff edge.

The dog lost his footing and plunged 300 feet into the sea below and was lucky to have avoided the cliff face on the way down and rocks at the base of the cliff.

The Irish Coast Guard marine rescue sub centre at Valentia Island in Co Kerry was alerted an in turn requested the the Kilkee unit of the service to mobilise.

The volunteer service quickly launched its rescue boat for what was its 10th callout in a week.

Rescuers raced to the scene in an effort to locate the animal but were unable to find him immediately. They then discovered that the hardy animal had managed to make it ashore at the base of the cliff.

Coast Guard personnel set about devising a plan to recover the dog to safely reach and rescue Vimes.

About an hour after the alarm was raised the dog was taken on board the rescue boat and taken back the slipway at Kilkee where he was reunited with his owners apparently uninjured.

A Coast Guard spokesman said: “We got a report that a dog had fallen from the cliff at Look Out Point which is around 300 feet or more high.

“We launched our boat a went to the scene to investigate. We searched for the dog and found that he had made it ashore at the base of the cliff.”

“We made a plan to recover the dog and did so successfully. The dog didn’t appear to be hurt but was happy to see us. We brought him back to our base in Kilkee and reunited him with his owners,” the spokesman added.

Vimes, whose owners are currently on honeymoon, later tweeted an image of himself in his bed, saying: “Taking it easy now! Me when I’m not adventuring and causing a small maritime crisis.”