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Take precautions to avoid germs
Health advice
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I just discovered another reason for getting a flu shot. Not only can you spread the flu to your friends and family but, according to www.webmd.com/pets-tales, your family dog and cat also are capable of contracting human flu.
First identified among dogs in Florida in 2003, canine influenza now is found nationwide. The only difference is that canine influenza’s occurrence is not seasonal, so there is no need to rush to get a fall veterinary appointment for canine flu shots. And yes, there are flu vaccines available for dogs.
Dogs who attend doggy daycare centers or who are very social usually are more at risk for flu, but if you don’t get immunized and get the flu, it is highly recommended that you stay away from your pets (social or otherwise) as well as your family.
And if you must be around your pets, be sure to wash your hands before doing so.
Despite the proven benefits of hand washing, too many people don’t practice this habit as often as they should — even after they’ve used the bathroom.
Germs accumulate on our hands no matter what we do. We get them from direct contact with people, contaminated surfaces, foods and animals. And when we don’t wash our hands frequently, we infect ourselves by touching our eyes, nose and mouth, or we infect others, including pets, by touching them or surfaces that they also will touch.
In addition to the common cold and flu, inadequate hand hygiene can contribute to food-related illnesses, such as salmonella and E. coli. While hand washing doesn’t take much time or effort, it offers great rewards in terms of preventing illness.
Good hand-washing techniques include washing our hands with soap and water or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer. Not all hand sanitizers are created equally. Waterless hand sanitizers that don’t contain alcohol are not effective. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends choosing sanitizing products that contain at least 60 percent alcohol.
The following precautions, while important all the time, especially are important during the flu season.
1. Avoid contact with people who are sick. Call them or send thoughtful cards or gifts until they are on the mend. They won’t feel like visitors, anyway. Suggest coworkers go home when flu-like symptoms descend.
2. When sick, keep your distance from others so you don’t pass your illness to them. Stay home from work or school and limit errands when you are sick. 
3. Always cover your mouth and nose with a tissue when coughing or sneezing. Wash hands immediately if you must cough or sneeze directly in your hand.
4. Keep your hands away from your face. Germs are spread when a person touches something that is contaminated with germs and then touches his or her nose or mouth.
5. Get eight hours of rest each night and drink plenty of fluids. Water flushes your system and rehydrates you. A typical, healthy adult needs eight 8-ounce glasses of fluids each day.
6. Washing your hands often will help protect you from germs as well as save a lot of money on medical bills.
The CDC has labeled hand washing as “the single most important means of preventing the spread of infection.” While many people are taught this lesson as children, most either forget or choose to ignore its importance. Done properly and often, hand washing may be the best way to keep you from getting sick or from passing on a disease like the flu to someone else.

Ratcliffe is a consultant to the Coastal Health District. You can call her at 876-6399.
Editor’s note: Parts of this column originally were published in the Dec. 11, 2007, edition of the Courier.

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From the book 'Outliers' comes proof that good health is more than just genetics
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Friends Jim Young, left, Mike Natale, Jeff Natale and Ryan Kiernan were on Greenwich High School football team together and Jim and Mike were captains. Jim, who was the youngest in Sherry Young's family, was welcome in the homes of the other three boys who still had siblings around and grandparents near. - photo by Sherry Young
As I look back on my life and the lives of others, both personally and in the reading I have done, I am convinced of the necessity of positive human contact in our lives. We are doubly blessed when we are able to make good friends or are a part of a family where we are accepted and loved.

Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers tells of a time in the 1950s when Dr. Stewart Wolf met a physician who practiced in the area of Roseto, Pennsylvania. Roseto was settled by a group of Italian families from Roseto, Italy, who re-created their life again in America.

This was in the 1950s before drugs and measures to prevent heart disease became important. In their conversation the physician said, You know, Ive been practicing for 17 years. I get patients from all over, and I rarely find anyone from Roseto under the age of 65 with heart disease.

Wolf was surprised by these words as, It was impossible to be a doctor, common sense said, and not see heart disease.

Wolf enlisted the aid of a sociologist and friend John Bruhn to help him. They found, There was no suicide, no alcoholism, no drug addiction, and very little crime. They didnt have anyone on welfare. Then we looked at peptic ulcers. They didnt have any of those either. These people were dying of old age. Thats it.

They checked into diet, genetics and possibilities of something in the foothills of eastern Pennsylvania but nothing made sense.

What they found was that Rosetans visited one another, stopping to chat in Italian on the street, say, or cooking for one another in their backyards. (Researchers) learned about the extended family clans that underlay the towns social structure. They saw how many homes had three generations living under one roof and how much respect grandparents commanded. They went to Mass at Our Lady of Mount Carmel and saw the unifying and calming effect of the church. They counted 22 separate civic organizations in a town of just under 2,000 people. They picked up on the particular egalitarian ethos of the community, which discouraged the wealthy from flaunting their success and helped the unsuccessful obscure their failures.

What they found eventually convinced the medical establishment to look beyond the individual and understand the culture people are part of their friends, families and town they came from. They determined that the people we surround ourselves with and the values of the world we inhabit have a profound effect on who we are.

Likely, this study could have been done with other ethnicities. However, my family's experiences with the Italian families in Connecticut ring true to the study. Our hungry and growing sons, especially our youngest son, Jim, who was left home alone with two beady-eyed parents, all had some memorable experiences being fed and loved in the Cos Cob multigenerational families. Proof of the African proverb, It takes a village to raise a child.

We live in an age when the contact we have with people often is on the internet, and many of us live among strangers. Unless we make the effort to reach out, we will become isolated, especially as we age. The Rosetan study is proof that reaching out and communicating may be good for our health.
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