Your Health... What are probiotics and how can they help my family’s health?
Tuesday, 08 April 2008
By Misty Anderson Medical student at Mercy Hospital
Probiotics are a type of dietary supplement that contain helpful normal flora or good bacteria or yeast. Probiotics are taken to re-colonize the body’s normal flora or good bacteria. The body relies on these good bacteria to metabolize foods and drugs, absorb nutrients, and prevent the growth of bad bacteria. What is Lactobacillus? Lactobacillus is a “Friendly” bacteria, or a probiotic, which is the opposite of an antibiotic. Is Lactobacillus is effective in reducing diarrhea in children? Lactobacillus can reduce the duration of diarrhea caused by ROTAVIRUS by one to three days for infants and young children. Lactobacillus can decrease stool frequency and improve stool consistency in children taking antibiotics. Can Lactobacillus reduce eczema, asthma, and allergies in children? There is some evidence to support that lactobacillus reduces symptoms of atopic eczema in infants allergic to cow’s milk. Using lactobacillus for the first 3-6 months appears to have a preventive effect on these conditions in infants who have a family history of them. (This is achieved by the mother taking Lactobacillus for two to four weeks prior to delivery and while breast feeding or giving the Lactobacillus to a formula fed infant) Can Lactobacillus reduce respiratory tract infections in children? Children age 1-6 years who received milk with lactobacillus seemed to get fewer and less severe respiratory infections. Does Lactobacillus reduce yeast infections in women following antibiotic use? Lactobacillus does not seem to reduce yeast infections following antibiotic use in women even when given intra-vaginally. What are the side effects of Lactobacillus? Flatulence (most common) Vomiting, diarrhea, burping, hiccups, increased phlegm Is Lactobacillus safe? Consult with a physician before using over-the-counter commercial preparations such as tablets, capsules, or powder in children under the age of three. Lactobacillus is a live organism that may cause infections in patients who are seriously ill. If you are taking other medications, pregnant, or nursing an infant, you should consult with your doctor before taking Lactobacillus. Where can you find Lactobacillus? Look for it in dairy products such as milk and yogurt. Fermented milk products include DanActive which is made by Dannon and contains Lactobacillus casei immunitas. Yoplait yogurt contains Lactobacillus Acidophilus; other yogurts say live active cultures, but do not specify which ones. Check with your pharmacist as to which products they stock. Lactobacillus GG produced by Culturelle and ConAgra Foods is mentioned in several studies making it a reliable product. You can find Cuturelle products at most major retail stores or order them online at www.culturelle.com. How much Lactobacillus do you need? For diarrhea caused by rotavirus 10 billion CFU of Lactobacillus mixed in an oral solution should be given during the first 48 hours of the illness. To prevent antibiotic associated diarrhea in children they should receive 20 billion CFU daily while on antibiotics. Because antibiotics can decrease the effectiveness of lactobacillus, separate doses by two hours. Infants between 1-36 months should receive six billion CFU twice daily to prevent diarrhea while on antibiotics. Children in day-care centers should receive one cup of milk each day that contains 500,000 to 1 million CFU of Lactobacillus GG to prevent respiratory infections. To prevent allergies in infants who have a family history of them 20 billion CFU can be given daily to a breast feeding mother or infant. Your Health column is coordinated by Mercy Hospital.
Ellen Chaffee... Parade of stars this week
Monday, 07 April 2008
Everyone is invited to meet five outstanding professionals, each one carefully selected by the members of the VCSU Presidential Search Committee. After these campus visits, the search committee will name the finalists for consideration by the State Board of Higher Education (SBHE). Finalists will return here on April 21, at which time the SBHE will interview each and select the new president for VCSU. The new president takes office on July 1, 2008. The April 21 interviews will also be open to the public. All of the meetings and events this week are open to the public, including these open forums where community members are encouraged to ask questions: Tuesday, April 8 l 5:30-6 p.m. – Foss Music Bldg, Froemke Auditorium - Dr. Phil Harmeson l 6:15–6:45 p.m. – Rhoades Science Center Auditorium – Dr. Blake Faulkner Wednesday, April 9 l 5:30-6 p.m. – Rhoades Science Center Auditorium – Dr. Anthony Koyzis l 6:15-6:45 p.m. – McCarthy Hall, Room 257 – Dr. Guy (Ed) Mills l 7-7:30 p.m. – Foss Music Bldg, Froemke Auditorium – Dr. Steven Shirley Phil Harmeson is vice president for general administration at the University of North Dakota. He has been at UND in faculty, research, or administrative roles since 1985. He attended Lee College and the University of Tennessee, and completed a law degree at UND. Blake Faulkner is president of the online campus and system vice president for international affairs at National American University in Rapid City, South Dakota, having held various administrative roles there since 1994. He attended Fort Lewis University and Pittsburg State University, earning a doctorate of business administration at Argosy University. Anthony Koyzis is dean of education, counseling, and graduate studies at Wayne State College. He was previously on the faculty at the University of Wisconsin – Osh Kosh. All of his education is from the University of Iowa, culminating in a doctorate in educational policy studies. Ed Mills is associate provost and dean of education at the University of Texas – Permian Basin. He has been an academic administrator at several other universities and he has K-12 administrative experience. He attended universities in Missouri, culminating with a doctorate in higher and adult education from the University of Missouri – Columbia. Steven Shirley is vice president and dean for student affairs at Dakota State University. He also has administrative experience at the University of Minnesota – Crookston. His degrees are from the University of North Dakota, culminating in a doctorate in teaching and learning: higher education. Additional information on the five semifinalists can be viewed at http://www.vcsu.edu/presidentialsearch/vp.htm?p=1188 Schedules for each of the five semifinalists can be viewed at http://www.vcsu.edu/presidentialsearch/vp.htm?p=1210 Many thanks to these hard-working, thoughtful members of the Presidential Search Committee: Sue Andrews (SBHE, chair), Dr. Margaret Dahlberg, Dr. Joe Stickler, Dr. Don Mugan, Don Hoff, Erin Klingenberg, Larry Robinson, Amanda Bryson, Karla Aaland, Jennifer Feist, Dean Koppelman, Mary Lee Nielson, and Teresa Christiansen. Kim Hesch provides staff support to the committee.
If you can’t make everybody happy, maybe you can make them all unhappy
Friday, 04 April 2008
By Steve Browne
Recently somebody asked me if I didn’t think we were “stirring up trouble” in the newspaper by publishing the opinions of people the questioner probably thought were just chronic malcontents. In a word, no, I don’t. In fact, quite the opposite. What I think is that some folks have felt their questions and concerns were being ignored and, consequently, expressed themselves loudly and stridently out of frustration. And it is important that people have their say. There are hard decisions about infrastructure repair and maintenance being made which will
involve substantial costs, and some people are going to feel the financial bite because of them. Large-scale construction projects are going to bring new money into town – and new headaches for law enforcement. Young men working hard tend to blow off steam by getting rowdy. Barnes County needs a new jail, and is having a hard time coming up with a plan that meets present and anticipated needs at a price the partners can live with. How much money should we spend on these, and which should we address first? And how are we going to pay for it? If you spend any time at all at city and county meetings, you realize that few plans make everybody happy. But maybe that’s not what democracy is all about. Maybe the best we can expect is equality of dissatisfaction, plans we’re all about equally unhappy with. And that’s where we come in, a newspaper where diverse opinions and concerns are given due weight and appropriate respect. If the opinions are of little weight and undeserving of respect, well, that’s for you to decide. It’s not for us to decide that you don’t need to hear them.
“Mr. President, I confess that there are several parts of this constitution which I do not at present approve, but I am not sure I shall never approve them: For having lived long, I have experienced many instances of being obliged by better information, or fuller consideration, to change opinions even on important subjects, which I once thought right, but found to be otherwise. It is therefore that the older I grow, the more apt I am to doubt my own judgment, and to pay more respect to the judgment of others.” - Benjamin Franklin
Hair-raising Topics... Things change over the years
Friday, 04 April 2008
By Roger Bluhm
I listened with disbelief as the evening news related a story out of Georgia last week. A group of third-graders had decided to attack their teacher. The plot was discovered when some of the students decided against the plan and didn’t bring “tools” they had agreed to bring – including the gun one student was supposed to bring from home, but didn’t because he didn’t want to end up in trouble. WHAT?!? Is this really where our society is going? Do we really have to discover plots by 10-year-olds? Just how much violence have our children been exposed to? These youngsters are too young to be charged as adults – and too young to be put into a juvenile hall, according to law enforcement officials in Georgia – so what is their punishment for planning to hurt, or kill, their teacher? Do their parents send them off to bed without allowing them to play Grand Theft Auto on the X-box? Are they grounded from watching their favorite TV shows – which include UFC Fight Night and boxing’s Friday Night Fights? Law enforcement mentioned the children may have thought their teacher would rebound from injuries like cartoon characters do. So, now we’re thinking it’s the Road Runner’s fault for never making sure Wiley Coyote stayed down for the count? We’re talking third-graders! Just how mean was this teacher? We’ve all had stern teachers in the past. We didn’t like them, but I’m sure most of us would admit we learned a lot. One of the better coaches I ever played football for was Coach McDowell. I was a sophomore in high school and Coach McDowell was the head coach for the junior varsity team and the line coach for the varsity. I played both JV and varsity that year, and well, Coach McDowell made sure I knew what I was supposed to be doing at all times. I watched in awe as Coach McDowell, who stood 6-feet, 4-inches tall and weighed more than 300 pounds, literally stripped a senior of his football gear one day on the practice field. The player, our starting tight end, was talking at practice one day and Coach McDowell told him to be quiet. Instead of listening, the senior made a smart remark back to the coach. Coach McDowell told the player to run two laps around the field. After walking the first lap, Coach McDowell told him he’d better run or the coach was going to run him off the field. Again, the player didn’t listen. When the senior made it back to the team, Coach McDowell forcibly removed his helmet, his shoulder pads and the rest of the uniform and sent him to the locker room. Suffice it to say, we listened whenever Coach McDowell said anything to us. The point is, despite the fear, the intimidation and the toughness of Coach McDowell, he also made sure we knew he was trying to teach us the right way to do things. Most of us on that team would have run through a concrete wall for Coach McDowell if he asked us to. Sure, we got mad at him, especially if we were running tons of wind sprints after practice and he seemed to be enjoying our pain. My fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Bartles, she was tough too. She had an itchy trigger finger too. She’d send you to the principal’s office faster than an umpire throws out a baseball manager who is arguing a call. Yet, I had great grades in fourth grade and never got in trouble. She was never my favorite teacher, but I respected her. Now, I have children of my own and I’ve heard them talk about some of their teachers in a way I don’t think I ever did. However, when they talk about how tough the teacher is, they do so with respect, not anger. Yet, I worry. When I was in school, students didn’t bring guns to school and start shooting. When I was in school, bullies were challenged and eventually put in their place, not allowed to continue to harass other students because state law says they are entitled to an education and the school board is reluctant to take a stand. How is it possible we’ve fallen so far in a society that third-graders are plotting to hurt, or kill, their teacher? When did dolls and football cards get replaced with duct tape, guns and knives? More importantly, why was I shocked to hear this story, yet I really wasn’t surprised?
Roger Bluhm is publisher of the Times-Record.
From There to Here... The case for the Casselton Can Tower
Friday, 04 April 2008
By Dennis Stillings
Everyone knows the use of the useful, but nobody knows the use of the useless. —Zhuangzi
When I was a kid in the late ‘40s and early ‘50s, the Interstate didn’t exist yet (if my younger readers can imagine such a thing). U.S. Highway 10 was the main road to get from Valley City to Fargo. In those days, the rough condition of the highway combined with the risk of bad weather and the primitive rubber of the tires meant trips to Fargo were an event, something special to be carefully planned and seldom undertaken. My family got there a couple of times a year, which was probably about average for most Valley Citians at that time. The trip wasn’t very exciting most of the way—pretty monotonous really—but at Casselton my dad sped under a railroad viaduct, drove up a hill for a block or so, and then we saw it—the magnificent Can Tower of Casselton! The Tower is about 50 feet tall and consists of hundreds of empty oil cans bound together with chicken wire into a Christmas tree-shaped cone. It is some 75 years old, its construction having been initiated in 1933 by Max Taubert, who owned and operated a 24-hour Sinclair service station there. As I think back on a sight that was so magical to me as a 10-year-old, I find it hard to believe that there are those who find the Can Tower ugly or useless. When I hear someone speak of getting rid of it because it’s old, ugly, useless, and broad in the bottom, I take it a bit personally…maybe some of my readers will feel the same way. It sure didn’t seem ugly to me then, and it doesn’t seem so now. I wonder if those who are so ready to consign it to oblivion wish to do so because they didn’t experience the magic of the Can Tower as children. May they be spared from having their own memories, their own magical past hauled off to the landfill! The current plan is to remove the Can Tower from the Loegering Manufacturing Company’s property by May 29. Loegering president Kurt Bollman has said of the tower, “Regardless of what you want to call it, it is a pile of garbage. Aesthetically, it’s not something we want to have around.” Judging on the basis of aesthetic merit, I can say with confidence that if I had to make a choice between the Loegering Manufacturing building and the Can Tower, the Can Tower would win, no contest. The aesthetics of the Tower compare quite favorably with those of the Loegering building, which doesn’t even have enough character to be ugly. (And if Loegering is so concerned about the look of the property, what about all those big ugly trash hampers that are clustered around the base of the Tower—will those be taken away, too? I smell hypocrisy.) In any case, anyone in authority at Loegering should exercise caution when holding forth on the subject of aesthetics. When we drove out to Casselton last week to renew our acquaintance with the old monument, my wife Cathryn observed that the Tower would look splendid decked out lavishly for Christmas, and that it really deserved to have a public skating rink constructed around its base. This could be done without actually tearing down the Loegering building. The Can Tower is both humble and noble. It is the nesting place of dozens of sparrows—common birds in common cans. The Tower is a true North Dakotan in its power to endure. It faced an evil wind—a tornado in the mid-’70s—and emerged from it battle bent, but not broken. It is made of “tin cans” and stands as an icon and a memorial for all the builders of tin buildings and purveyors of steel siding. The Tower points to heaven, reminding us of Christmas, of the essential worth of the despised and rejected, of “becoming as little children”—and thus having a child’s saving sense of humor. For additional information on the Can Tower of Casselton, see Cliff Naylor’ and Monica Hannan’s Dakota Day Trips: Discovering North Dakota’s Hidden Treasures (Bismarck: North Dakota Tourism Dept., 1999). There is an excellent website on the Can Tower at http://www.realnd.com/casseltoncanpileindex.htm News article at: http://www.in-forum.com/articles/index.cfm?id=196124§ion=news Tom Isern story on the Can Pile at: http://www.prairiepublic.org/programs/plainsfolk/transcripts/canpile.jsp
Dennis Stillings’ column appears on occasional Fridays. Reach him via e-mail at
