"Even when we controlled for things like hypertension, diabetes, physical activity, obesity and socioeconomic status, we found that people who had significant daytime dozing were much more likely to end up with stroke," according to Bernadette Boden-Albala of Columbia University in New York, whose study was presented at an American Stroke Association conference in New Orleans.

In her clinical research, which involved 2,156 adults (average age: 73), those who did "some dozing" during the day had 2.6 times higher risk, compared to those who did not, and those who had "significant dozing" had a 4.5 times greater risk.

The "dozing off" (daytime sleepiness) could be due to lack of sleep, prevalent among people who snore and have sleep apnea (frequent breath-holding while asleep), which is a condition associated with increased risk for heart attack and stroke. The uncontrolled sleepiness during the day could be a clue among those who snore and have sleep apnea, but further investigations are needed to confirm or deny relationship between apnea and daytime sleepiness.

The study revealed that after two and a half years, there were 40 who developed a stroke, and 127 had some form of vascular events.

A separate study, involving 60,000 individuals, showed that moderate aerobic exercise protects people from stroke, "even if they had other risk factors such ad diabetes or heart attack." This clinical investigation is the "first to single out the benefits of aerobic fitness on stroke prevention."

"We found that a low-to-moderate amount of aerobic fitness for men and women across the whole adult age spectrum would be enough to substantially reduce stroke risk," stated Hooker of the University. Each year, in the United States, about 780,000 develop stroke, and about 150,000 of them will die from it and its complications.

It does not take an Einstein to understand that clean sir, pure water and uncontaminated environment are conducive to health and longevity. In certain parts of the world, like in serene Okinawa to the verdant valleys of Ecuador to the unspoiled hills of the Himalayas, a significant number of people normally live to a hundred. A common denominator among these centenarians is an environment that is nature’s best, untainted by the toxic byproducts of the advances in technology in this modern world of ours.

Today, man, in most parts of the earth, especially in well-developed cities, is no longer living in harmony with nature. He has been hostile to his environment, with emission of poisonous gases and deadly chemicals from our factories and toxic smokes from our vehicles that pollute the air and destroy the ozone layer which protects us from excessive solar radiation, noxious substances we use at home for cleaning that eventually end up in rivers and oceans killing bodies of water and their inhabitants, destruction of our forests, and other human activities that alter the equilibrium in our environment.

These and other unwise human behavior, mostly self-inflicted, and his cruelty to Mother Nature have boomeranged. Our immune system as a species, for one thing, has been adversely affected. Various diseases, including cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, diseases of the heart, lungs and various other organs, and some unexplained ones, have afflicted man, especially in the last century or so. Our misadventures are now haunting us and our children.

Obviously, it will be wise and prudent for the inhabitants of Planet Earth to be responsible and good to their environment by not contaminating our natural habitat with poisons, to allow Mother Nature to flourish at its best. The purer and healthier the air we breathe in, the water we drink, and the food we eat, the healthier our world will be, for us and for the future generations.

While the governments of the world are trying to remedy this dire global situation, it behooves us, earthlings, to do our daily share in showing more respect and love for our environment. After all, this is the only home we’ve got today. And destroying it is like exploding a bomb on board a plane we are in.

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Most of the produce and products on the market today are "contaminated" with some type of chemicals used in fertilizing them, protecting them, making them more appealing, preserving them, or enriching them. Our farmers and manufacturers in the world today have been so programmed and enslaved by automation, even in their thinking, to the convenience and practicality of resorting to chemicals and substances that will increase the marketability, sale, and maximize the bottom line of their business, with customer’s health and safety lower in their list of their priorities and obligations to society.

Organic foods, raised and produced without the use pesticides, herbicides, hormones, antibiotics, preservatives, coloring, etc., are obviously a richer, safer and healthier alternative. The adverse health effects of eating processed foods are becoming evident and alarming.

It is seems that the more civilized, advanced, and sophisticated our world becomes, the greater we appreciate the subtle wisdom and inherent value of the natural order of things on Planet Earth.