MARCH 2019
HEALTH
TO KNOW A BIBLE Survives the Flood By JULIANA LABIANCA
The Perfect Brain Food An RD ORIGINAL
A Really Good Facebook Scam From CBSNEWS.COM
Best When DNA Office Fingers the Innocent 30 Jokes! From FRONTLINE & An RD ORIGINAL THE MARSHALL PROJECT
Reader’s Digest CONTENTS 66 Features 66 cover story 50 HEALTH FACTS YOUR DOCTOR WANTS YOU TO KNOW 92 drama in real life Which statements are My Friend the verified science and Timber Wolf which are myths? Deep in the Alaskan 106 Knowing the answer national interest wilderness, the will boost your health. “I Think I’m Innocent” author comes upon by marissa laliberte DNA analysis is the an injured mother most reliable crime- plus: and her pups. America’s Most by morris homer erwin scene tool, having Trusted Health Brands exonerated dozens This year, our annual of people. But it can 98 lead to tragic mistakes. survey of American humor by katie worth from consumers focuses on Dumb and Dumber frontline and the wellness products. on the Job marshall project The funniest confessions from 116 86 bosses, coworkers, and who knew? the stranger who changed my life clueless applicants. Before They The Internet Chump Were Stars Who Became a Champ Eight fictional icons An online con with looks and back- stories so fantastic they n goes wonderfully, w
o have to be based on ac- r implausibly right. b i On the cover: tual people. But whom? v by steve hartman from e l cbsnews.com Photograph by Levi Brown by molly pennington
rd.com | march 2019 1 Reader’s Digest Contents Departments
6 Dear Reader i won! 8 Letters 16 The Key West Conch Shell everyday heroes Blowing Contest 12 Nailed It! by andy simmons quotable quotes 29 15 The Ice Man to the 18 Steve Martin, Rescue Gabourey Sidibe, by juliana labianca Andrea Bocelli 12
life well lived 24 A Five-Year-Old Teaches a Lesson in Grace by leslie kendall dye from the new york times s
how to e h r
29 Build a Better o o v Breakfast e h
by marissa laliberte t
. r e
news from the g
world of medicine r e b
34 Heart Attacks, e e
.
Hidden Gluten, k c o
and COPD t s r e t t u h s / g n o f i
: p o t
m o r f
2 march 2019 | rd.com 34 HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE’LL LOVE THE TASTE OF NATURAL? . d n a l r e z t i w S
, y e v e V
, . A . S
é l t s e N
s t i u d o r P
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d e n w o
s k r a m e d a r T
THE CHOW IS HOW. With real chicken. No artifi cial fl avors or preservatives.
Exclusive offers at catchow.com/naturals Reader’s Digest Contents
13 things 38 Taking the Blarney Out of
by jen mccaffery
peyser 42 To Any Soldier we found a fix 51 Hair, and More i am the food on your plate 55 Honey Humor by kate lowenstein and daniel gritzer 20 everyday miracles Life in These 60 The Bible That United States Beat a Tornado 41 by juliana labianca Humor in Uniform 42 48 Laughter, the Best Medicine 115 Laugh Lines
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4 march 2019 | rd.com
Reader’s Digest
him as the ultimate wounded war- rior fighting for redemption—for LA’s down-and-out and for himself. “Every- body counts,” he says, “or nobody counts.” As he quietly struggles to raise a teenage daughter while corralling his partners and fellow former tunnel rats to help him with his often-grueling investigations, his history leaves him with no means of coping beyond the haunted self-sufficiency that I admire from my comfy bed. A lot of you, I know, love true crime DEAR READER stories. RD has always featured them; this issue, we bring you a piece from the Marshall Project and Frontline Truly True that sheds chilling new light on DNA’s value as evidence. But for crime that is somehow truer than true, I recom- Crime mend Select Editions. Every volume contains four com- ’m lying in bed reading and again pelling, quick-read novels. Invariably I imagining myself as Harry Bosch. one or two feature a complex law- Make no mistake; I’d never want enforcement character—such as Kate to be Harry Bosch. After all, he’s an Burkholder in author Linda Castillo’s orphan and a troubled Vietnam vet books about the Amish of Ohio; Mike who toils as a homicide detective on Bowditch, writer Paul Doiron’s Maine r
LA’s grittiest streets. Yet as I read, I wish game warden; or my old friend Harry— o g e I knew what he knows, or at least wrestling with authentic, deeply re- r g c m
had his presence of mind. searched issues of the heart. e k Bosch is the ruminative, un- If you’re interested, go to i m
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Michael Connelly’s crime fic- We have a good offer there. And o c
tion books and, frankly, one thanks, as always, for reading. w e h
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6 march 2019 | rd.com
Reader’s Digest
made, memories from trips taken, gifts from LETTERS friends, some I just Notes on the purchased because they Dec./Jan. issue were pretty and Christ- masy. Nice to know I am not the only one who still has an old- Back in the Holiday Spirit fashioned tree. —Hazel “Petey” Thank you for publishing your past two Kaletta issues without endless articles on how to Pembroke Pines, Florida avoid holiday stress, get around fighting with your family, and dodge the holiday Unfreeze Your Brain The article stated that blues. Thank you for showing that miracles, “talking to people who caring, and goodness are so much more disagree with you is important and lasting. good for your brain.” —Carole Modlin Lawrenceburg, Tennessee Actually, you have to LISTEN to people who disagree with you. Real-Life Miracles smoldered for 26 years. —Diana Donoho Reading “The Church Amazing! Lovington, New Mexico That Wouldn’t Burn,” —Georgiann I found it most interest- Kman O’Bryan I Won! ing to learn that there Bruce, Wisconsin Wing Bowl 2018, won are underground coal by Molly Schuyler, veins that continue to The Miracle of was the 26th and final burn in Centralia, Penn- Memory championship. Begun sylvania. Shortly after It was a joy to read in 1993 as a promotion I read your story, my about Bruce Kelley for a local radio station, sister-in-law told me decorating his Christ- it was Philadelphia’s about other coal veins mas tree with beloved substitute for the Super that have burned at the ornaments. Many of my Bowl, as the Philadel-
Theodore Roosevelt friends have themes for phia Eagles never made n e h
National Park in North their trees: pink, purple, it that far. Then the o c
Dakota since last May. Disney, whatever. Mine Eagles won Super Bowl w e h
A ranger told her that is always the same, with LII in 2018! So there t t a
a separate vein had ornaments the children is no longer a need to m
8 march 2019 continue Wing Bowl. moment and facilitated EVEN BETTER This Eagles fan wished a change for the better MADE-UP WORDS to set the record straight. in our world. I’m grate- —Joanne Magowan ful for such an example. ✦ This English teacher Cherry Hill, New Jersey —Koby Dudley was inspired by “The Best Buckholts, Texas Made-Up Words Ever” We Found a Fix to think of another one: Another way to get your How to Maintain Your inDIGESTion, which is the water past airport secu- Purpose in Life uncomfortable feeling rity, rather than freezing Last New Year’s Day, that occurs after reading it as you suggest: I take I vowed to do 365 ran- all of the current Reader’s an empty water bottle dom acts of kindness. Digest in two days and and put it in my carry- I am on track to do just knowing it will be a on. Once I go through that, and I truly am hap- month before the next security, I fill it at a pier, more relaxed, and one arrives. water fountain. It’s easy more content. But even —Anne Muhs and saves money too. more incredible are the pierce, nebraska —Judy Wieckowski random acts of kindness ✦ One of the most frus- Matthews, North done to me this year. trating things about auto- Carolina Were they always given correct is that it is almost and I was blind to them? impossible to be creative Everyday Heroes Or has karma kicked in with words. But your new “Caped Crusader” Aus- and rewarded me? All words are perfect, and I tin Perine isn’t the only I know is that this reso- would not be surprised to one with a powerful lution has given my life see some of them appear- lesson about love and true meaning this year. ing in the new edition of service. Kudos to his in- —Suzette Marie the official dictionary. credible parents, who McCully —Donna Nickel recognized a teaching Rapid City, South Dakota hayward, wisconsin
What’s the most delicious food in your
k neck of the woods? We’re compiling c o united t a menu of signature dishes from every s r tastes of e t state. Tell us why your favorite should t america u h RD.COM/50FOODS s make our list at and / i t i watch for our story in a future issue. r o d
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Ebony Harris (left) says her motivation for helping Angela Peters was simple: “I wanted to make her day special.”
12 march 2019 Photograph by EE Berger EVERYDAY HEROES
Nailed It!
After a salon turns away a physically challenged woman, a stranger makes a truly beautiful gesture
By Andy Simmons
“Beauty isn’t about having a pretty face,” begins a motivational quote. “It’s about having a pretty mind, a pretty heart, and a pretty soul. Oh, and pretty nails!” That may well be Angela Peters’s motto. Last July, Peters, 36, rolled her wheelchair into a nail salon located at the Walmart shopping center in Burton, Michigan, with the idea of be- dazzling her fingers. But Peters, who has cerebral palsy, was turned away. The salon (which is not owned by Walmart), she says, told her that they were afraid it would be too difficult to properly paint her nails given that her hands shook. What was meant to be a
rd.com 13 Reader’s Digest
day of beauty bliss for Peters was now nervous and was shaking because I a disappointment. didn’t want to mess her nails up,” Har- Watching the interaction from a ris admitted to ABC News. “I told her few feet away was a Walmart cashier she’s a blessing to us, to anybody, not about to go on her break. Ebony Har- just me. She makes me look at life and ris, 40, recognized Peters as a Walmart appreciate it much more than I have.” regular. Now what she recognized in A fellow Walmart employee stopped Peters was a kindred spirit. “She’s a by to suggest that the blue nails could girlie girl,” Harris told ABC12 of Flint, do with a little extra zing. So they Michigan. “She’s just like you, me, my added some glitter polish. daughter, anybody. She wants to look Watching it all with awe and admira- pretty. So why can’t she?” tion was Subway employee Tasia Smith. Harris approached Peters. “Do you What struck her most was the ease and want me to do your nails?” she asked. gentleness displayed by Harris as she painted Peters’s nails, all the while “SHE’S A GIRLIE GIRL. chatting as if they were old friends. SHE WANTS Smith was so taken by the scene that she wrote about it on Facebook. “They TO LOOK PRETTY. were so patient with her,” she wrote. SO WHY CAN’T SHE?” “Thank you to the Walmart workers for making this beautiful girl’s day!” Peters, who runs a poetry website, A smile spread across Peters’s face. heavenlypoems.com, harbors no bit- “Yeah!” terness toward the nail salon that Harris escorted Peters into the turned her away. (The salon claims beauty aisle, where they shopped for they denied Peters service because
nail polish. They settled on a bright they were too busy.) “When people y a w
blue—a statement color that would do us wrong we must forgive,” Peters b u s catch every eye. They then made their wrote on Facebook. “I just [want to] ed- y s e
way into a neighboring Subway, found ucate people that people with different t r u
a table for two, and set up shop. Har- challenges, like being in a wheelchair, o c
ris gently took Peters’s hand into hers can have our own business and get our n o i t
and carefully began painting her nails. nails done like anyone else.” a c o
“She moved her hands a little bit, Though in Peters’s case, there was l
: d
and she kept saying she was sorry,” certainly something special about a e r
Harris recalls. “I told her, ‘Don’t say this manicure. Flaring out her fin- p s
s
that. You’re fine.’” gers to better show off her nails, she u o i
If anything, the shoe was on the told ABC12, “I’m like, Wow! These are v e r
other hand, as it were. “I was a little amazing!” p
14 march 2019 Everyday Heroes The Ice Man to the Rescue
By Juliana LaBianca
Cruz Genet, 11, and Anthony Skop- ick, 10, couldn’t agree. Were the birds out on the ice ducks or geese? There was only one way to find out. So on a chilly January evening last year, the two friends ventured onto the frozen Anthony thanks his rescuer, John Lavin. pond near their homes in Frankfort, Illinois, to get a better look. First they Anthony’s older sister had seen the tossed a rock onto the ice to test it, boys fall through the ice and started Cruz told NBC 5 Chicago. “Then we screaming for help. stepped on it.” Convinced the ice John Lavin, a neighbor driving would hold their weight, Anthony nearby on his way to the grocery store, took a few steps, then ... FOOMP. He heard her. He quickly pulled over. crashed through the seemingly fro- Seeing the boys, he grabbed a nearby zen surface. “There was no sound, no buoy, kicked off his shoes, and ran crack,” he told ABC7 Chicago. “I just into the slushy water, chopping his fell through instantly.” way through the ice with his free fist. Cruz rushed to help his panicked “It was kind of a ‘Hulk smash,’” Lavin friend. FOOMP—the pond swallowed told NBC 5 Chicago. him too. Lavin made his way to Cruz and Cruz managed to lift himself out of Anthony and hauled them back to the frigid water and onto a more solid land. They were taken to the hospi- section. He then gingerly worked tal, where doctors discovered that his way toward Anthony. But the ice their five-minute stay in the water o g
a didn’t hold, and he fell in again. This had lowered their body temperature c i h time, he couldn’t get out. nearly ten degrees. c
2
3 The boys were up to their necks in Fortunately, the boys have fully re- x o icy water and quickly losing feeling in covered, though they are still a little f y s their limbs. Any chance of their free- awestruck by their fearless neighbor. e t r ing themselves was slipping away. “Just to think,” says Cruz, “if he wasn’t u o c Cruz was sure he was going to die. there, I could have died.”
rd.com 15 Reader’s Digest
I WON!
The Key West CONCH SHELL BLOWING CONTEST mary lou race, age 71, Panama City Beach, Florida
How did you get into blowing conch shells? When we moved here from Nashville 20 years sounds. I can just make the hula and blowing ago, we met an old the sound last quite a the conch shell. I was diver named Captain while—and quite loud dumbfounded. Scuba at a Mardi as well. Gras parade. He told We heard that you had me you’ve got to blow But you’re 71! What’s extra motivation this to give glory to the your secret? Taking a year. Yes. Just before Creator, so I bought a deep breath as if I were they called me up shell from him that I going to swim under- onstage, my boyfriend, call Buffett. I’m keeping water. You hold your Rick, got on his knee his tradition alive. breath and the shape and proposed. I was at of your lips, then let a loss for words, so I just Did you use Buffett in the the horn do the work. blew the conch shell. championship? I blew And then I said yes. four different shells: Who was your fiercest one for loudness, one competition? A young The Key West Conch for length, and two oth- lady who performed Shell Blowing Contest ers to show the sounds on a surfboard. A guy takes place every of the different sizes. in front and a guy in March. Race won the I’m not that talented in back carried her to the women’s division in making a variety of stage. She was doing 2013 and 2018.
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I think half or almost all of the pain in the world ... t u h s is people not feeling seen. It’s like Mr. Rogers, my hero, says: l l a ( Love is at the root of everything ... love or the lack of it. e c a
—Constance Wu, actor / n a h a l l a
Thankfully, perseverance is a great substitute for talent. c
n i
—Steve Martin, comedian t s i r k
. s w
Grace is a consequence of humility. e n
h
—Toni Bentley, ballet dancer t u o m e n r
Free education is abundant, all over the Internet. u o b
.
It’s the desire to learn that’s scarce. y t e i
—Naval Ravikant, entrepreneur r a v / n i k e
I avoid looking forward or backward, v o l
n
and try to keep looking upward. e h p
—Charlotte Brontë, novelist e t s
. x i p r a
There’s no love without loss. It’s a package deal. t s /
—Brad Pitt, actor y e r h p m u b
a n i t s i r k
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m o r f
18 wu martin brontë pitt Anyone of my age knows that days pass at a far greater speed than when they were young. —Prince Charles
People always ask me, “You have so much confidence. Where did that come from?” It came from me. One day I decided that I was beautiful, and so I carried out my life as if I was a beautiful girl. —Gabourey Sidibe, actor
Like most people, what I find irritating in others are my own faults. —Jools Holland, musician ) k POINT TO PONDER c o t s r e
t It’s so easy to be negative in this world and to say no. t u
h Yes is so much better. You say yes when you have your first kiss, s l l when you want to make someone feel good, a (
v when you open yourself to new experiences. I always say t i / y yes—sì, sì, sì!—and it makes every day better. a k c —Andrea Bocelli, singer m n e k
. s c i p r a d a r / n o s b i e l j
. x e r
: t f e l m o r f
prince charles bocelli sidibe Reader’s Digest
“He’s outside setting up a tent for the kids.”
girl behind the register know what? It’s no- asked, “Will that be all body’s business which LIFE for you?” direction I’m turning!” “No,” I replied a bit —npr.org in these defensively. “Some of United States it’s for my husband.” My 35-year-old son and —Janet Hull I had just finished our Lorton, Virginia meal when I realized Starving after hours of I’d left my wallet in my driving nonstop, my I’ve noticed that fewer truck. As I headed out husband and I pulled drivers are using their the door, I told the over at a truck stop. turn signals, and it waitress what had hap- While he gassed up makes me crazy. I pened. “But don’t the car, I went into the was with a friend who worry,” I said with a restaurant and placed wasn’t using his direc- grin. “I’m leaving my our order to go. After tional, and I asked why. son for collateral.” writing it all down, the He shot back, “You She looked at him.
20 march 2019 cartoon by Bill Abbott When my wife gets a little upset, sometimes a simple “Calm down” in a soothing voice is all it takes to get her a lot upset. — @TheNardvark (Bryan Donaldson)
He winked at her. She our daughter called turned back to me. a pharmacist to ask THE CAT’S MEOW “What else you got?” whether there was any —Gary Martin cause for alarm. He re- If you nod knowingly at Wichita Falls, Texas plied, “Only if she starts these tweets, you’re a hanging out at hard- cat person: Quotable Quotes— ware stores and buys a ✦ I like to sleep on the Little Kids’ Edition lot of power tools.” left side of the bed, and ✦ “Wait, what was I —Gary Massey my cat likes to sleep on just crying about?” West Valley City, Utah the left side of the bed. ✦ “You count to ten, So we compromised, and and I’ll hide in the I was trapped in an I sleep on the right side of the bed. — @julietrouge bathtub.” elevator for 30 minutes ✦ “Well, that’s just before the doors finally ✦ I feel like 90 percent great. You cut my opened. Relieved, I of having a cat is saying, fingernails so short said to a fellow hos- “Where is the cat?” that I can’t even pick tage, “There’s a first — @the_rug my nose!” time for everything.” ✦ A guy I was dating sat k c —littlehoots.com She grumbled back, down on the couch next o t s
r “There’s a last time to me. I proceeded to e t t Nothing says “I mean for everything too.” whisper “That’s the cat’s u h spot” to myself. s business” like using —Carol Leish / r e a shopping cart at the Ventura, California — @christyshark89 h p o liquor store. ✦
t Sometimes I’ll ask my s i r —someecards.com cats, “Are you a good h c Got a funny story? kitty?” They just look at e s i l After my wife acciden- It could be worth $$$. me, and my wife will say, e y e tally swallowed my For details, go to “Answer your father.” s a rd.com/submit c prostate medication, . — @tastefactory
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On the night the author loses patience with her mother and her dementia, a granddaughter’s love unites them all
by Leslie Kendall Dye from the new york times
t’s eight o’clock on a cold spring The phone rings—for the sixth time I night. Our apartment has been hit in less than an hour. We know who it is. by a cyclone—the handiwork of a When my mother was 68, a young, energetic child. Every bit of hemorrhagic stroke claimed her furniture is draped with paper chains, brain, but not her life. She awoke scissors and Scotch tape, modeling from a coma severely damaged; the clay, piles of acorns, and party favors. bleed instantly razed the landscape I’m so tired tonight. I’ve been on of her mind. Dementia soon built crutches for seven weeks, recovering a Gothic fun house of distortions from hip surgery, and I’m trying fruit- where coherent architecture had once lessly to clean up. stood. She has been manacled inside
24 march 2019 Reader’s Digest
for a decade, with little to do but ex- with myself called “How Good a Per- perience psychic distress. son Can I Be?” I’ve won five rounds of She is dogged by paranoia—she the game tonight; I am due for a fall. thinks she has been kicked out of her She has no idea that she has re- assisted living facility (not true), she peated the things she is about to say thinks her daughters have not visited a million times today and a million in months (it has been a few days), times yesterday. She has no idea that she thinks that her friend Jimmy I had surgery, nor can she recall her never wants to see her again (he own granddaughter’s name. She is calls and visits weekly). unaware of most of the past, and she Each time she calls, I play a game drifts in the present. She is lonely. illustration by Giselle Potter rd.com 25 Reader’s Digest
I hurl my anger at the easiest tar- I’m yelling because you remind me get: my mother, the very victim of of everything I fear: aging, sickness, fra- this chance horror. gility, bad luck, loss, impermanence ... “MOM!” I yell. “YOU ARE NOT BEING You name it—if it’s scary, you remind REMOVED FROM YOUR HOME! AND me of it! WE VISITED TWO DAYS AGO!” (Maybe I flop on the couch, aware of all it was four days, but she won’t re- my daughter is witnessing. She hears member anyway.) “Mom, you have to me reprimand my mother, lose my believe me, and if you don’t, I cannot patience, announce that someone I talk anymore! Everything is fine!” love is an imposition. I have not only Silence. Then: failed at being a Good Person; I have “I was only calling to say hi.” failed at being a Good Example to My I feel the dagger of passive ag- Daughter. gression, which is the only working I stew on the couch, defeated. “Can I talk to Grandma Ellie?” “GRANDMA, WE ARE My five-year-old reaches for the TAKING YOU phone. Wordlessly, I hand it over. TO THE CAROUSEL “Hi, Grandma!” THIS WEEKEND.” I hear my mother exclaim through the receiver. “Sweetheart! How are you? Did you weapon in her mental arsenal. My go to school today?” mother continues, having already What witchcraft is this? All she said forgotten that I yelled. (Sometimes was “Hi, Grandma,” and my mother she does remember; tonight I luck sounds like a person fully alert to the out.) heartbeat of a normal day. “But I’m also frantic about some- “Yes, Grandma, and today was thing; do you have a minute?” share day, and I brought my Wonder “No, Mom, I don’t. I can’t again Woman bracelets.” with this!” “Can you put it on speaker?” I “Why are you yelling?” whisper to my daughter. I’m yelling because you aren’t my She obliges, and out of the phone mother; you are a poorly rendered comes a waterfall of good cheer. stand-in who cannot help me care for My mother tells her how much she my child, or be a grandmother, or even loves her and how lovely her voice remember to ask me about my day. sounds. I’m yelling because I have talked you Then: “I hope I’ll see you soon?” off this ledge five times tonight, and My mother makes her plea for a
26 march 2019 Life Well Lived promise of companionship. I hear her in our apartment settles around me voice differently now. I am not tired like an old soft quilt. I listen to my or angry; I am soft inside, watching daughter crooning to her grand- my kindergartner handle her fragile mother, caring for her with exquisite grandmother with such deftness. patience. “Grandma, we are taking you to the I spend so much time wishing she carousel this weekend. I’m going on had a “real” grandmother, wishing the frog, and you can go on the horse she knew my “real” mother. In this next to me.” moment, I see that she does have a “Oh, that’s wonderful, darling!” real grandmother, and she does have I’m mesmerized by their exchange. a real relationship with her. It isn’t “Tell me, did you go to school to- the one I had hoped for, but to her, day?” She already asked that. this is normal—to care for a loved “Yes, Grandma, I went to school, one is a part of life. and we had share day. I brought my When they hang up, after many Wonder Woman bracelets.” kissing noises, I tell my daughter it “You did? How wonderful!” is bath time. She wildly protests, but “Do you want me to sing you I draw the bath anyway. I am still a song? I know three songs from Mommy, after all, and she is still five. Annie.” And yet tonight, she taught me how And then my daughter sings. to answer the phone like a grown-up. The sharp evening breeze sails new york times (november 3, 2017), copyright © 2017 through the window, and the mess by new york times co., nytimes.com.
Amazing Anagrams Is it mere coincidence that you can rearrange the letters in the words on the left to get the words on the right? Dormitory = Dirty room The Morse code = Here come dots Slot machines = Cash lost in ’em Snooze alarms = Alas! No more z’s Eleven plus two = Twelve plus one ahajokes.com
rd.com 27 You don’t expect your cottage cheese to have loads of ingredients. Neither do we.
Most cottage cheese brands have more than 10 ingredients. Daisy has 3 – cultured skim milk, cream and salt. Plus the protein and calcium you want. Nothing you don’t. Reader’s Digest
HOW TO Build a Better Breakfast
11 ways to get the most out of the first—and most important— meal of the day
By Marissa Laliberte k c o t s r e t t u h s / g n o f i
march 2019 29 Reader’s Digest How to Build a Better Breakfast
e’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and that may actually be true. A study of more than 50,000 adults ages 30 and older found that breakfast eaters W were more likely to lose weight than those who didn’t eat a morning meal. Other studies link skipping breakfast with a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, heart disease, and type 2 diabe- tes. But it’s not just when you eat; it’s what you eat. Balancing carbohydrates with protein, fiber, and healthy fats is the key to a satisfying and nutritious breakfast. These tips will help you really rise and shine:
1. Eat even if you’re not hungry. the day. It’s not clear why your morn- Although you might not feel like eating ing calorie count makes such a differ- first thing in the morning, it’s a good ence, but given that a larger waist size idea to get something into your system. and metabolic syndrome can increase Eating within 90 minutes of waking up your chances of diabetes, heart at- will jump-start your metabolism and tack, and stroke, it’s worth making the keep you from getting hungry effort to hold it steady. later, says Amy Shapiro, MS, RD, CDN, founder 3. Add peanuts or of Real Nutrition peanut butter. NYC. Just a banana In a small study of will do the trick. 15 obese women, eating peanuts or 2. Be boring. peanut butter Varying what you helped to lower eat is a good idea the glycemic re- in theory, but if sponse to a break- you are watch- fast of Cream of ing your weight, you Wheat and orange might want to stick juice—meaning that the with the same old menu. carbohydrates were digested A 2014 British study found that more slowly and blood sugar did not people who allowed their breakfast rise as high. Plus the women felt fuller calories to fluctuate (as measured by for up to 12 hours after eating the pea-
a five-day diet diary) had larger waists nut butter or peanuts, so they were n e h
and a higher incidence of metabolic less likely to snack later. Spreading o c
syndrome than folks who kept their peanut butter on toast or sprinkling w e h t
morning calorie intake constant, no chopped nuts on cereal are easy ways t a
matter how much they ate the rest of to add protein to a carb-heavy meal. m
30 march 2019 | rd.com BIG VANILLA LATTE FLAVOR
4. Drink coffee only after you’ve eaten. Coffee on an empty stomach can be too acidic for your body, and pair- ing it with your morning meal could set you up for overeating throughout the day. “It can send the signal that you’re full and don’t need to eat for another couple of hours,” says certi- fied holistic-nutrition coach Andrea Moss, founder of Moss Wellness. “This can mess with hunger levels, energy levels, focus, and concentration later on in the day.” Also, when you do ) h s reach for your first cup, double-check a l p the calorie count on your coffee order. s e e Even a healthy-sounding small skim f f o latte, which is mostly milk with just c (
k a shot or two of espresso, has about c o t 140 calories, Shapiro says. Instead, s r e
t she recommends a dash of cinnamon t u in your coffee for a calorie-free natural h s /
n sweetener that could also help regu- i BIG FOOD h s late your blood sugar. o FOR r t y e BIG DAYS s 5. Go big. k e l There’s an old saying that advises a
, n “Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a e h o
prince, and dinner like a pauper.” It’s © c
2 0 w
worth following. According to a study 1 e 8 h
K t of 93 obese and overweight women e t l a l o g m with metabolic syndrome, those who g
N A
C o . Reader’s Digest How to Build a Better Breakfast
ate a balanced 700-calorie breakfast over a 12-week period lowered their blood sugar and blood pressure two times more than people who ate a 200- calorie meal. They also lost an average of 19.2 pounds and had lower levels of ghrelin, the “hunger hormone.”
6. Pile on the produce. “I advocate for plants in every meal,” Shapiro says. She recommends sneak- ing in a serving of fruits or veggies by cooking tomato or spinach in your eggs, adding avocado to your break- fast sandwich, or eating half a banana with toast.
7. Always pick a protein. A review of studies in the journal Advances in Nutrition found that for with vitamins A and D, which are fat breakfast to reduce hunger later in soluble. So you need some fat (at least the day, it needs to be high in protein. 1 to 2 percent) to help your body ab- Shapiro recommends eggs, nut butter, sorb those nutrients more efficiently. or cottage cheese (which is generally a little lower in sugar than yogurt) to 9. Calorie-control your smoothie. give your breakfast a protein boost. A smoothie might seem like a healthy option, especially when made from 8. Embrace fat, even dairy fat. whole fruits rather than fruit juices. Fat isn’t the main enemy to weight- But be careful of a fruit free-for-all, loss success—sugar is. “Fat is digested because the calories and sugar slowly by the body and helps decrease add up when you toss in too much, the rate at which we digest and break Shapiro says. Just one large banana, down carbohydrates,” says Moss. That for instance, has 121 calories and means healthy fats keep you full and 16.6 grams of sugar.
squash cravings. At least one quarter n e h
of the calories in your breakfast should 10. Look for larger flakes ... o c
come from fats, mostly the healthy A little-observed fact about cereal: w e h
mono- and polyunsaturated kind. The smaller the flake size, the more t t a
What’s more, milk is usually fortified efficiently it fills a bowl. That means m
32 march 2019 | rd.com BIG DAYS you’ll get more small-flake cereal by ARE RIPE weight in a given bowl than you will WITH with larger flakes, and that could lead POTENTIAL to overeating. In fact, a study pub- lished in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics revealed that even though participants poured themselves a slightly lower volume of cereal when the flakes were small, they still consumed more cereal by weight compared with a bowl con- taining bigger flakes.
11. ... and sneaky sugar. Since cereal can be a surprising sugar bomb (depending on the brand, more than half of your calories could come from sugar), it’s wise to limit how much you eat. You should also look for a brand with at least five grams of fiber and no more than eight grams of sugar per serving, says Shapiro. (Examples are Shred- ded Wheat Original Big Biscuit, Kashi GOLEAN, and Nature’s Path Heritage Flakes.) Yogurt can be a problem too. Nonfat yogurts are often loaded with sugary syrups or artificial sweeteners. Instead, try an unsweetened low- or full-fat version and add fresh or dried BIG FOOD fruit or some honey. FOR BIG DAYS
Prank You! Joke’s on you, kids who put ©
2 0
shaving cream on my car. 1 8
K
I was gonna shave my car anyway. e l l o
@ibid78 g g
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C o . Reader’s Digest
Psoriasis Treatment May Prevent Heart Attacks
In a recent study of News From the 84 patients with psoria- sis, a chronic inflam- WORLD OF matory skin disease, MEDICINE those who received treatment with biologic drugs (drugs produced from or containing elements of living organisms) had fewer coronary plaques than those who didn’t. Coro- nary plaques, made up of fat, cholesterol, and other substances, can SUNLIGHT KILLS GERMS, block arteries and EVEN INDOORS cause a heart attack. The biologic treatments Researchers from the University of Oregon not only reduced the and Harvard University collected dust from volume of plaque by 40 percent over one homes in the Eugene, Oregon, area and year but also caused it placed it in rooms exposed to the sun’s visible to became less inflam- rays, its ultraviolet light, or no light at all. matory, further reduc- Ninety days later, the dark rooms had twice ing heart attack risk. as many living bacteria as the sunlit rooms, Since biologics are not FDA-approved to treat including bacteria related to respiratory coronary artery disease, pathogens, while the UV rooms had slightly they are not likely to be fewer bacteria than the visible-light ones did. covered by insurance. So remember: Going outside can improve Ask your doctor about using them off-label. health in many ways, but even at home you should let the sun shine in.
34 march 2019 | rd.com Photograph by The Voorhes FILL UP
) FOR
s A HERPES LINK u r i v TO ALZHEIMER’S BIG DAYS s e p r e h
( Could that pesky cold sore be k c responsible for your unreliable o t s
r memory? Multiple studies suggest e t t that there’s a link between several u h
s common herpes viruses and the / n
g onset of Alzheimer’s disease. i s e In one study, at least 70 percent d - l
a of elderly people, including those r t
c with Alzheimer’s, had HSV-1 (the e p s
herpes simplex virus that causes cold , ) e
p sores) in their brains. Moreover, those o c HSV 1 APOE
s who had both - and the e4 o r gene, which has already been linked c i m
( to Alzheimer’s, were much more k c likely to develop the brain disease o t s
r than those without either. e t t Meanwhile, a 2018 analysis of u h s nearly 1,000 brains from brain banks / v
o showed a strong connection between l o k Alzheimer’s and the human herpes o s
n viruses HHV-6A and HHV-7, which a v i lead to the childhood rash roseola. While neither of these studies proves that herpes viruses cause Alzheimer’s, a third study BIG FOOD found that patients infected FOR with herpes who had sought antiviral treatment BIG DAYS (using drugs such as acyclovir)
cut their risk ©
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C o . Reader’s Digest News from the World of Medicine
Testosterone Smartphone Apps May Ease COPD Help Depression
Steroid-based medica- An analysis of 22 smart- tions such as predni- phone apps for mental sone or fluticasone health found that, over- are sometimes used all, they reduced mild to treat flare-ups or to moderate depression frequent exacerbations CELIAC AND symptoms significantly. of chronic obstructive The most effective ones pulmonary disease HIDDEN (such as SuperBetter) (COPD), an inflamma- didn’t require separate tory lung condition GLUTEN in-person feedback that causes shortness from a therapist. of breath. But some Managing celiac dis- steroid treatments ease usually requires Trust Could can also lead to low ingesting ten milli- Prolong Your Life testosterone in men, grams or less of gluten which in turn can lead per day, but this is eas- A new study, based to extreme fatigue, ier said than done, ac- on surveys of more reduced sex drive, cording to a recent than 25,000 Americans, and loss of bone mass. study. The stool and shows that people who Researchers who ana- urine of people trying generally trust other lyzed data from more to follow a gluten-free people tend to live an than 700 men with diet revealed that they average of ten months COPD found that those were being exposed to longer than distrusters. who started testoster- an estimated average of Plus, those who lived one replacement 150 to 400 milligrams among a relatively therapy (TRT) were per day. Lesser-known large proportion of less likely to be hospi- sources include certain distrusters had a higher talized for respiratory medications, sauces, risk of dying than those problems than those lipsticks, condiments, who lived in more who didn’t; this effect and vitamins. Read in- trustful communities.
was greatest in men gredient lists carefully One explanation: k c o
66 and older. TRT may for words that may sig- Trusters likely have t s r
also slow the progres- nal gluten, including better social support e t t
sion of the disease. triticale, hydrolyzed and less stress. u h s /
wheat protein, malt, r t i
and seitan. n
36 march 2019 | rd.com Treating your COPD and still struggling? Chronic productive cough? Repeated antibiotic use for chest infections?
These may be indicators of bronchiectasis—a common but frequently undiagnosed condition caused by chronic inflammation of the airways.1 Half of people with serious COPD may have bronchiectasis.2
inCourage® Airway Clearance Therapy is a drug-free way to clear excess mucus from the lungs. Ask your doctor if the inCourage System may be right for you.
For a bronchiectasis information kit, call 833.208.5324 or visit www.respirtech.com/be.
We change lives. We help people breathe better.
1. Maselli DJ, Amalakuhan B, Keyt H, Diaz AA. Suspecting non-cystic fibrosis bronchiectasis: What the busy primary care clinician needs to know. Int J Clin Pract. 2017;71(2):e12924. 2. Martínez-García MA, de la Rosa Carrillo D, Soler-Cataluña JJ, et al. Prognostic value of bronchiectasis in patients with moderate-to-severchronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Am J Respir Crit Care Med. 2013;187:823–831.
© 2018 Respiratory Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. 910172-001 Rev B Reader’s Digest 13 THINGS Facts That Take the Blarney Out of St. Patrick’s Day
By Jen McCaffery
The patron saint of 1 Ireland isn’t actually Irish. According to some ac- counts, St. Patrick’s real name was Maewyn Succat and he was born in what is now Britain (gasp!) around the end of the fourth century. He was kidnapped by Irishmen when he was 16, found religion in captivity, and ultimately became a proselytizing priest.
St. Patrick did convert 2 many pagans to Christianity, but the story of his driving all the snakes out of Ireland during his 40-day fast on a hilltop is bunk. Biologists think the reason Ireland is snake-free today is that the reptiles never migrated to the island in the first place. The legend of the snakes is probably just a metaphor for St. Patrick’s having driven evil out of Ireland.
38 march 2019 illustration by Serge Bloch Green wasn’t pressure led to the lift- a parade). That said, 3 always the color ing of the ban in 1960. the first procession of St. Patrick’s Day. honoring the Irish Paintings show the pa- March 17 ranks saint may have taken tron saint wearing blue 5 fourth on the place in 1601, when robes, and the official list of booziest residents of the Spanish- color of the dormant holidays in America, speaking settlement of Order of St. Patrick behind New Year’s Eve, St. Augustine, Florida, was sky blue. In 1541, Christmas, and the marched through the British monarch Henry Fourth of July. The streets in recognition VIII declared himself drink of choice around of St. Patrick—or San the king of Ireland and the world: Guinness. Patricio, in this case— gave the country a In 2019, revelers are whom they considered royal-blue coat of arms. expected to down the official protector of But as disenchantment 13 million pints of it. their fields of maize. with British rule grew over the centuries, the Slightly less big cities try to Irish adopted green as 6 popular but with 8 claim bragging a symbol of rebellion. its own rabid fan rights for the day’s base: McDonald’s top celebrations, but St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock Shake. The they aren’t the only 4 used to be a sol- restaurant chain cre- parties in town. Mont- emn commemo- ated a “McDonald’s serrat, aka the Emerald ration of the day he Finder” app last year Isle of the Caribbean, died. In 1927, Irish of- to help customers track throws a St. Patrick’s ficials even banned the down the minty green Festival that lasts more sale of alcohol on his confection—and it is than a week. name day (as well as a confection. A large on Christmas and Shamrock contains In 1962, the Good Friday), partly 800 calories and 9 Chicago Plumbers at the insistence of the 113 grams of sugar. Union Local 130 Catholic Church. Until realized that the dye the early 1960s, one Boston and New they used to locate leaks of the only places you 7 York both claim in buildings could dou- could buy a beer in to have hosted ble as an eco-friendly Ireland on St. Patrick’s the first St. Patrick’s decoration. The Windy Day was the well- Day Parade in the 1700s City has been dyeing attended Royal Dublin (though they quibble the Chicago River green Dog Show. Commercial over the definition of for the holiday ever
rd.com 39 Reader’s Digest 13 Things
since. The 40 pounds the commoners typi- Theodore Roosevelt. of dye can linger in the cally ate pork. But “He wants to be the water for up to a few when Irish immigrants bride at every wedding, days, depending on the came to the United the corpse at every wind. States, they reportedly funeral, and the baby noticed their Jewish at every christening,” More than neighbors and fellow his daughter Alice 10 10,000 Catho- immigrants buying Roosevelt said. lics took to brisket from kosher the streets of Belfast in butchers and followed The festivities 1998 to hold the first suit. The Jews even 13 reach the St. Patrick’s Day Parade slow-cooked their highest eche- in the long-divided Passover meal with lons. Ireland’s prime Northern Ireland city. potatoes. (The Irish minister gives the U.S. In hope of encouraging threw in the cabbage.) president an Irish cut- Protestant involvement, glass bowl filled with the parade organizer Franklin and shamrocks, the three- told the fife-and-drum 12 Eleanor Roose- leafed sprig that is one bands not to play any velt were of the state’s emblems. anti-British music. married on St. Patrick’s The tradition dates Day in 1905, in New back to 1952, when the Corned beef York City. They picked first Irish ambassador 11 and cabbage is that day because to America, John the quintessential Eleanor’s uncle was Joseph Hearne, report- St. Patrick’s meal, giving away the bride edly dropped off a right? Actually, in pre- and he couldn’t miss box of shamrocks for famine Ireland, beef the big parade. Uncle Harry Truman (who was a rare delicacy— Teddy was President was out of town).
The Voice of Innocence Donnie Dunagan joined the Marines when he was 18, did three tours of duty in Vietnam, won a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, and finally retired as a major. Yet in his 20-plus-year military career, he never told anyone about his connection to one of Hollywood’s quintessential tearjerkers. When he was six, Dunagan was the voice of Disney’s young Bambi. theguardian.com
40 march 2019 Reader’s Digest
“Good God, man, flap harder.”
Ms. Raye. He then quite scrupulous, as added confidentially, evidenced by the fact Humor in “We’ve already been that his written evalu- UNIFORM through three escorts. ation of me cited this You’re the only one issue: “Instructor I can think of she loses eye contact with won’t be able to drink class while writing on Comedian Martha Raye under the table.” blackboard.” was a great supporter R.D., via mail Herm Van Laar, of the military and Grandville, Michigan made many trips to I was instructing new Vietnam to entertain recruits when an offi- the troops. She also cer entered my class- Got a funny story liked her scotch. room to observe and about the military or One day, I was told report on my teaching your military family? to report to my com- style. I thought I was It could be worth $$$. manding officer, who on top of my game For details, go to ordered me to escort that day, but he was rd.com/submit. cartoon by Navied Mahdavian rd.com 41 Reader’s Digest
Love-Note Plagiarism YOUR When my husband and I were dating, we vis- ited our friend’s parents’ home, and I noticed TRUE a note on their refrigerator. It had their names STORIES and said “Pete Loves Sue.” I told my then- boyfriend, Bruce, that I’d like to see a note in 100 Words * like that on my refrigerator. A few days later, I approached my refrigerator. A note on the Snack Attack door read “Pete Loves Sue”! My husband and After Sunday school, my I have been married for 25 years, and the joke three-year-old, Kolby, continues. Most recently, a photo of the note exclaimed, “I hate Jesus! Jesus is yucky!” I was mor- was the background on my phone screen. tified. Several minutes —Laura allan Payne High Point, North Carolina went by as we drove home and terrible thoughts filled my head. Where had we gone wrong? Finally I said, “Tell me why you hate Jesus. He died on the cross for us.” Kolby tilted his head, and a perplexed look spread across his little face. This is it, I thought. He’s going to reveal why he feels this To Any Soldier way. “Cheez-Its, Mom! I hate Cheez-Its!” —Yvonne Ruff smithville, missouri y Army career as a second lieutenant was M a baptism by fire. I was assigned to Korea for my first year; returned to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for around two months; and then To read more true sto- deployed to the Persian Gulf War in 1991. ries and to submit your Married for only a year and a half, I was missing own, go to rd.com/ my wife and baby daughter when I was in-processed stories. If your story is to the Fifth Special Forces Group. As a unit on the published in the maga- zine, we’ll pay you $100. * Sometimes 100 words just aren’t enough!
42 march 2019 illustrations by Joana Avillez go in the years before cell phones and Wi-Fi, we had limited opportunities to communicate with loved ones. One night while sitting by myself, I investigated the “Any Soldier” mailbox, a dilapidated cardboard box with letters and packages from Americans. I chose one shoebox-size package. Inside was a bag of stale chocolate-chip cookies. Underneath, I found about 20 cards from children who had drawn stick figure people and asked about riding camels, eating spiders, and how often I could swim in the ocean. At the bottom was a letter from their teacher in Ohio explaining how her kids had put the box together and how they supported our efforts in the war. I was truly touched by this gesture and decided to write a letter of gratitude. I thanked the teacher for what her children had done—its impact on my A Reel Steal patriotism, my morale, and, most significantly, When I was ten, my my uplifted faith. For security reasons, I was able grandpa came fishing to sign only my name. with us. The minimum Around 2013, I received a Facebook friend request size fish you could keep from a woman with whom I shared no contacts. I from the stream near replied that unless we were friends, I could not ac- us was eight inches. cept her request. She responded with one question: Throughout the day, “Are you 2LT Bartholomew?” I replied that I had my dad noticed Gramps been at one time. Her reply stuck with me. catching and keeping “Dear sir,” she wrote. “We have never met, but six-inch trout. Dad told in 1991 I was a second-grade teacher at a school him to quit keeping the in Ohio and our classroom sent a care package illegal fish. On the way home, I noticed that addressed to ‘Any Service Member.’ The thank-you Gramps—who was wear- letter you composed was framed and has been ing a big Indiana Jones– posted on the wall of the school for more than type hat—had slime 20 years. I wanted to again thank you for your running down his ears. service to our country. God bless you.” Dad told Grandpa to take We never spoke again, but this gracious teacher off his hat. He did, and we reinforced my belief in doing what my mother al- realized it was full of six- ways taught me: Write thank-you notes—you never inch trout in a plastic liner. know how many people your kindness can touch. —Bill Hansen —Damian Bartholomew Evans, Georgia toledo, oregon
rd.com 43 bladder (OAB) treatment in its class. In clinical trials, those taking Myrbetriq made fewer trips to the bathroom and had fewer leaks than those not taking Myrbetriq. Your results may vary. TAKE CONTROL OF YOUR OAB SYMPTOMS BY TALKING TO YOUR DOCTOR ABOUT MYRBETRIQ TODAY. USE OF MYRBETRIQ (meer-BEH-trick) Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) is a prescription medicine for adults used to treat overactive bladder (OAB) with symptoms of urgency, frequency and leakage. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION Myrbetriq is not for everyone. Do not take Myrbetriq if you have an allergy to mirabegron or any ingredients in Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may cause your blood pressure to increase or make your blood pressure worse if you have a history of high blood pressure. It is recommended that your doctor check your blood pressure while you are taking Myrbetriq. Myrbetriq may increase your chances of not being able to empty your bladder. Tell your doctor right away if you have trouble emptying your bladder or you have a weak urine stream.
Myrbetriq® is a registered trademark of Astellas Pharma Inc. All other trademarks or registered trademarks are the property of their respective owners. ©2018 Astellas Pharma US, Inc. All rights reserved. 057-2708-PM IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION (CONTINUED) Myrbetriq may cause allergic reactions that may be serious. If you experience swelling of the face, lips, throat or tongue, with or without diffi culty breathing, stop taking Myrbetriq and tell your doctor right away. Tell your doctor about all the medicines you take including medications for overactive bladder or other medicines such as thioridazine (Mellaril™ and Mellaril-S™), fl ecainide (Tambocor®), propafenone (Rythmol®), digoxin (Lanoxin®) or solifenacin succinate (VESIcare®). Myrbetriq may affect the way other medicines work, and other medicines may affect how Myrbetriq works. Before taking Myrbetriq, tell your doctor if you have liver or kidney problems. The most common side effects of Myrbetriq include increased blood pressure, common cold symptoms (nasopharyngitis), dry mouth, fl u symptoms, urinary tract infection, back pain, dizziness, joint pain, headache, constipation, sinus irritation, and infl ammation of the bladder (cystitis). For further information, please talk to your healthcare professional and see Brief Summary of Prescribing Information for Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) on the following pages. Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) extended-release tablets 25 mg, 50 mg Brief Summary based on FDA-approved patient labeling Read the Patient Information that comes with Myrbetriq® (mirabegron) before you start taking LWDQGHDFKWLPH\RXJHWDUH¿OO7KHUHPD\EHQHZLQIRUPDWLRQ7KLVVXPPDU\GRHVQRWWDNHWKH SODFHRIWDONLQJZLWK\RXUGRFWRUDERXW\RXUPHGLFDOFRQGLWLRQRUWUHDWPHQW What is Myrbetriq (meer-BEH-trick)? 0\UEHWULTLVDSUHVFULSWLRQPHGLFDWLRQIRUDGXOWVXVHGWRWUHDWWKHIROORZLQJV\PSWRPVGXHWRD FRQGLWLRQFDOOHGRYHUDFWLYHEODGGHU 8UJHXULQDU\LQFRQWLQHQFH DVWURQJQHHGWRXULQDWHZLWKOHDNLQJRUZHWWLQJDFFLGHQWV 8UJHQF\ DVWURQJQHHGWRXULQDWHULJKWDZD\ )UHTXHQF\ XULQDWLQJRIWHQ ,WLVQRWNQRZQLI0\UEHWULTLVVDIHDQGHIIHFWLYHLQFKLOGUHQ Who should not use Myrbetriq? Do notWDNH0\UEHWULTLI\RXKDYHDQDOOHUJ\WRPLUDEHJURQRUDQ\RIWKHLQJUHGLHQWVLQ0\UEHWULT 6HHWKHHQGRIWKLVVXPPDU\IRUDFRPSOHWHOLVWRILQJUHGLHQWVLQ0\UEHWULT What should I tell my doctor before taking Myrbetriq? Before you take Myrbetriq, tell your doctor about all of your medical conditions, including if you: KDYHOLYHUSUREOHPVRUNLGQH\SUREOHPV KDYHYHU\KLJKXQFRQWUROOHGEORRGSUHVVXUH KDYHWURXEOHHPSW\LQJ\RXUEODGGHURU\RXKDYHDZHDNXULQHVWUHDP DUHSUHJQDQWRUSODQWREHFRPHSUHJQDQW,WLVQRWNQRZQLI0\UEHWULTZLOOKDUP\RXUXQERUQ EDE\7DONWR\RXUGRFWRULI\RXDUHSUHJQDQWRUSODQWREHFRPHSUHJQDQW DUHEUHDVWIHHGLQJRUSODQWREUHDVWIHHG,WLVQRWNQRZQLI0\UEHWULTSDVVHVLQWR\RXUEUHDVWPLON 7DONWR\RXUGRFWRUDERXWWKHEHVWZD\WRIHHG\RXUEDE\LI\RXWDNHM\UEHWULT Tell your doctor about all the medicines you takeLQFOXGLQJSUHVFULSWLRQDQGRYHUWKHFRXQWHU PHGLFLQHVYLWDPLQVDQGKHUEDOVXSSOHPHQWV0\UEHWULTPD\DIIHFWWKHZD\RWKHUPHGLFLQHVZRUN DQGRWKHUPHGLFLQHVPD\DIIHFWKRZ0\UEHWULTZRUNV 7HOO\RXUGRFWRULI\RXWDNH WKLRULGD]LQH 0HOODULO RU0HOODULO6 ÀHFDLQLGH 7DPERFRU®) SURSDIHQRQH 5\WKPRO®) • digoxin (Lanoxin®) VROIHQDFLQVXFFLQDWH 9(6,FDUH®) How should I take Myrbetriq? 7DNH0\UEHWULTH[DFWO\DV\RXUGRFWRUWHOOV\RXWRWDNHLW LQFUHDVHGEORRGSUHVVXUH • dizziness FRPPRQFROGV\PSWRPV QDVRSKDU\QJLWLV • joint pain • dry mouth • headache ÀXV\PSWRPV • constipation • urinary tract infection • sinus (sinus irritation) • back pain LQÀDPPDWLRQRIWKHEODGGHU F\VWLWLV 7HOO\RXUGRFWRULI\RXKDYHDQ\VLGHHIIHFWWKDWERWKHUV\RXRUWKDWGRHVQRWJRDZD\RULI\RXKDYH VZHOOLQJRIWKHIDFHOLSVWRQJXHRUWKURDWKLYHVVNLQUDVKRULWFKLQJZKLOHWDNLQJ0\UEHWULT 7KHVHDUHQRWDOOWKHSRVVLEOHVLGHHIIHFWVRI0\UEHWULT Call your doctor for medical advice about side effects. You may report side effects to the FDA at 1-800-FDA-1088. How should I store Myrbetriq? 6WRUH0\UEHWULTEHWZHHQ )WR ) &WR & .HHSWKHERWWOHFORVHG 6DIHO\WKURZDZD\PHGLFLQHWKDWLVRXWRIGDWHRUQRORQJHUQHHGHG Keep Myrbetriq and all medicines out of the reach of children. General information about the safe and effective use of Myrbetriq 0HGLFLQHVDUHVRPHWLPHVSUHVFULEHGIRUSXUSRVHVRWKHUWKDQWKRVHOLVWHGLQWKH3DWLHQW,QIRUPDWLRQ OHDÀHW'RQRWXVH0\UEHWULTIRUDFRQGLWLRQIRUZKLFKLWZDVQRWSUHVFULEHG'RQRWJLYH0\UEHWULT WRRWKHUSHRSOHHYHQLIWKH\KDYHWKHVDPHV\PSWRPV\RXKDYH,WPD\KDUPWKHP You can ask your doctor or pharmacist for information about Myrbetriq that is written for KHDOWKSURIHVVLRQDOV For more information, visit www.Myrbetriq.comRUFDOO What are the ingredients in Myrbetriq? Active ingredient: mirabegron Inactive ingredients:SRO\HWK\OHQHR[LGHSRO\HWK\OHQHJO\FROK\GUR[\SURS\OFHOOXORVHEXW\ODWHG K\GUR[\WROXHQHPDJQHVLXPVWHDUDWHK\SURPHOORVH\HOORZIHUULFR[LGHDQGUHGIHUULFR[LGH PJ0\UEHWULTWDEOHWRQO\ What is overactive bladder? 2YHUDFWLYHEODGGHURFFXUVZKHQ\RXFDQQRWFRQWURO\RXUEODGGHUFRQWUDFWLRQV:KHQWKHVHPXVFOH FRQWUDFWLRQVKDSSHQWRRRIWHQRUFDQQRWEHFRQWUROOHG\RXFDQJHWV\PSWRPVRIRYHUDFWLYHEODGGHU ZKLFKDUHXULQDU\IUHTXHQF\XULQDU\XUJHQF\DQGXULQDU\LQFRQWLQHQFH OHDNDJH 0DUNHWHGDQG'LVWULEXWHGE\ Astellas Pharma US, Inc. 1RUWKEURRN,OOLQRLV Myrbetriq®LVDUHJLVWHUHGWUDGHPDUNRI$VWHOODV3KDUPD,QF$OORWKHUWUDGHPDUNVRUUHJLVWHUHG WUDGHPDUNVDUHWKHSURSHUW\RIWKHLUUHVSHFWLYHRZQHUV $VWHOODV3KDUPD86,QF 5HYLVHG $SULO 0596%5)6 30 LAUGHTER The best Medicine A driver is struggling to find a parking space. After 45 frustrating min- utes, he begins to pray. “Lord,” he says, “I can’t take this any longer. If you open a space up for me, I swear I’ll give up gam- bling and go to church every Sunday.” Suddenly, the “Looks like someone got lucky.” clouds part and the sun shines on an empty parking spot. deal with was, you prefer them all in Without hesitation, the apparently, being one glass?” man says, “Never given lemons. “No,” says Joe. “I mind, I found one!” — @TheAlexNevil have two brothers out —irishpost.com west. Every time I go Joe walks into a bar drinking, I order a shot I want to go back to in Boston and orders for them both.” a time when the worst three whiskeys. The Joe does this every thing people had to bartender asks, “Would day for a few weeks, until one day he comes I was on the bus the other day and in and orders just two saw a guy sit down on his glasses. whiskeys. The bartender asks, “Did something I guess hindsight isn’t 20/20. happen to one of your —Ed Pollack, comedian brothers?” 48 march 2019 cartoon by Phil Witte Reader’s Digest “No,” says Joe. “I say a word. The I didn’t realize how just decided to quit widow nods. broke I was until some- drinking.” The man clears one stole my identity —247sports.com his throat and says, and it ruined her life. “Plethora.” —KATE DAVIS, A man is at the The widow smiles comedian ) k c funeral of an old appreciatively. “Thank o t s friend. He tentatively you,” she says. “That r e t approaches the means a lot.” Your joke could be t u h deceased’s wife and —Rob Kiener worth $$$. For details, s l l asks whether he can Stowe, Vermont go to rd.com/submit. a ( a v o s o d e BELLY UP! f a i l a t a They’re called “dog balloons,” snapshots of pooches that are turned upside down n . v so the pups seem to be floating on the ceiling—and loving every minute of it. o r i h z n e h z . a l a b a l a h c r i m o r a j . o i d u t s x o b g o d : t f e l p o t m o r f e s i w k c o l c rd.com 49 THINGS YOU CAN COUNT ON: THE TALLEST TALES. THE BEST OF FRIENDS. AND A PHONE THAT CATCHES IT ALL. GET RELIABLE 4G LTE SERVICE THAT KEEPS YOU CONNECTED FOR LESS. NO-CONTRACT SMARTPHONE PLAN $ 15/ M O WITH TALK, TEXT, DATA AND UNLIMITED CARRYOVER®* (THIS PLAN DOES NOT TRIPLE) PLUS TAXES AND FEES LEARN MORE AT TRACFONE.COM OR MAJOR RETAILERS Airtime service plan is required for activation. Phone and plan sold separately. A month equals 30 days. *Unlimited carryover — Service must be active and in use within any six-month period. †Requires a compatible or unlocked 4G LTE smartphone. Actual availability, coverage, and speed may vary. LTE is a trademark of ETSI. Reader’s Digest WE FOUND A FIX 9 Tricks to Improve Your Life* ) s t e e h s r e y r d ( n e 1 h o c Clean Cat Hair in a Pinch w e h pets We love our pets, but removing t t a m their fur from every piece of fabric in , ) t a the house can be a major pain. Try this: c ( k c Grab a dryer sheet (either new or used o t s r will work), and swipe it across whatever e t t u piece of furniture or item of clothing h s / n you’re trying to clean. The textured i m z cloth will suck the fur right off. u k _ y e r d n a *From RD.com reporting rd.com | march 2019 51 Reader’s Digest We Found a Fix 2 4 Remember More of What You Read Stop Businesses learning With so much information available online, from Spying on You it’s easy to pick up a few new facts each day. But how privacy You may know many of them do you remember? If your answer is “not that companies use many,” consider converting your Internet browser’s “cookies” to track your font to Sans Forgetica. This new typeface is just hard online behavior and show enough to read that it prompts your brain to engage in you customized ads. deeper processing, and that, according to researchers You might also like to at RMIT University in Australia, can help you remember know that you can stop more. Download it at sansforgetica.rmit. at least some of those companies from spying on you by going to networkadvertising.org. Click on the Consumer Opt-Out button, and follow the prompts. 5 Don’t Use Dish Soap on Your Vehicle 3 auto Is your car’s Avoid Dry Eyes exterior fading? You might be washing it health Decongestants decrease mucus with the wrong soap. production to help a runny nose, but there’s Though many people use also a mucus layer in the “tear film” of your dish soap on their cars, it can strip out the waxes, eyes. That means drying out your nose can oils, and resins that lead to dry or itchy eyes, says Ray Chan, MD, protect the paint from an ophthalmologist at Texas Health Arling- UV light. Better to invest in authentic car wash n ton Memorial Hospital. If your eyes itch soap, which is designed e h to get rid of dirt and o c more than usual while you’re taking a cold grease without removing w e or allergy medication, try a different one. h the surface waxes and t t a oils from the paint. m 52 march 2019 6 Prevent Hanger Creases home Don’t you hate when you use a nice wooden hanger for your pants and still end up with a big crease in them? There’s a cheap and easy way to avoid that: Bubble Wrap. Wind it around the hanger bar a couple of times and secure it with tape. The bubbles will cushion even the most wrinkle-prone fabrics, such as linen. 8 Borrow Top-of-the- 7 Line Garden Tools home Want to prepare 9 Pick the Safest your garden but don’t Hotel Floors want to part with the Ice Your Coffee? travel The first and $160 or so it would cost food The perfect cup of second floors of hotels to buy an electric tiller? joe might well start before are most vulnerable to No problem. Many home- you even grind the beans. theft, so staying on a floor improvement stores (such There’s a growing body of above those will reduce as Home Depot) will let research suggesting that your chance of having you rent gardening tools: freezing whole beans belongings stolen. post-hole diggers, wheel- will yield a better brew. Another safety consider- barrows, hedge trimmers, That may be because the ation: Most fire engine and more. Plus, these cold beans grind more ladders can’t reach past stores’ premium-grade consistently, or maybe k c the sixth floor. Rest tools are of better quality they just stay fresher lon- o t s easier all around by than the ones you might ger. On the other hand, r e t requesting a room on consider buying—and some coffee fanatics are t u h floors three to six. perhaps use only once a giving this whole idea the s / year. Some local libraries n cold shoulder. a h also lend out tools along- r u k side their books. rd.com 53 PUT TWO & TWO TOGETHER and you could save Have GEICO car insurance? Get home insurance through the GEICO Insurance Agency and you could get a ѴঞŊ oѴb17bv1om|. Some discounts, coverages, payment plans and features are not available in all states, in all GEICO companies, or in all situations. Homeowners, renters and condo coverages are written through non-affiliated insurance companies and are secured through the GEICO Insurance Agency, Inc. GEICO is a registered service mark of Government Employees Insurance Company, Washington, D.C. 20076; a Berkshire Hathaway Inc. subsidiary. © 2019 GEICO Reader’s Digest ne spring day, thankfully not Otoo long from now, once the flowers have begun to open, a bee will hover and zip through your I Am the yard and dive-bomb your picnic table. FOOD While you’re thinking about avoiding a sting, that bee is focused on something ON YOUR else entirely: me. A honeybee has about six weeks to PLATE live. Today, like most days, her task is to fly as many as three miles from home, stick her long, strawlike tongue Honey into a hundred or so flowers; slurp up tiny droplets of sweet, watery nectar; A Sweetener and store it in a stomachlike organ called a honey sac. When the bee has That’s the had her fill, she’ll fly home, her spe- cial enzyme-filled belly already break- k c ing the nectar down into glucose and o t Bee’s Knees s fructose. So begins the minor miracle r e t t of nature that leads to me. u h s Once at the hive, the bee will de- / By Kate Lowenstein a k posit her haul into the mouth of one _ and Daniel Gritzer a v of her coworkers, who will relay it to e l a another, and so on for about 20 min- v o k utes, until the mixture is ready to be . k c placed into the beautifully geometric o t s comb. Then she and her 50,000 or so r e t t hive mates will hover and buzz in the u h s dark all night, every night, flapping / o i their wings to create the hot, breezy d u t conditions needed to dehydrate the s a o watery mixture. Several sunrises later, l o c they will seal me off in a golden cell : p o of beeswax, my slow-flowing, viscous, t m 18-percent-water solution now irrevo- o r f cably complete. rd.com | march 2019 55 Reader’s Digest I Am the Food on Your Plate In her lifetime, our bee may visit feed itself. (To wit, in 2010, Brooklyn 4,000 flowers, and yet all her gathered beekeepers opened their hives to find nectar will produce only one twelfth a garish, bright-red honey that tasted of a teaspoon of me. Given the daunt- like too-sweet cough syrup. The mys- ing math, the hive has to muster all tery persisted for months until it came its forces to produce enough of me to to light that the bees had been flying past the flowers and straight to a local HONEY BUTTER, HOMEMADE maraschino cherry factory as a short- cut to their sweet fix.) The process that produces me may as a spread Using an electric mixer or have helped form you too. Scientists a rubber spatula, thoroughly combine 8 tablespoons softened unsalted butter believe that wild hives full of honey with 4 tablespoons honey. Season with provided the calories that early hu- salt and refrigerate. Return to room mans such as Homo erectus, walking temperature and spread on muffins, in Africa, needed to develop their toast, pancakes—you name it. brains into those of modern humans. as a sauce In a large skillet with sloped That puts me in a class with fire, tool sides, melt 6 tablespoons unsalted butter use, and hunting as a key ingredi- with 4 tablespoons honey over medium ent in human evolution. The other heat, stirring to combine. Season with sweeteners humans avail themselves salt and drizzle over popcorn, potato of—made from sap, agave nectar, and chips, toast, waffles, fried chicken, etc. sugarcane juice—all require boiling flavors to add to either Cinnamon, a sweet liquid down into a syrup or a nutmeg, or ginger; woodsy herbs such as granulated sugar, a process that was minced rosemary and thyme; citrus zests; developed much later. rose water or orange-flower water; or extracts such as vanilla and almond. With time, those evolved brains learned to domesticate bees to pro- duce me in a farmed setting. Today’s beekeepers support large-scale indus- trial farms, which would be unable to n e h o c w e h sumption while still leaving the bees all t t a they need to eat. m 56 march 2019 | rd.com SWEET RAISINS CRUNCHY BRAN FLAKES PLOT TWIST WE ADDED BANANA SLICES ® , T M , © 2 0 1 8 K e l l o g g N A C o . Reader’s Digest I Am the Food on Your Plate Today, the average American con- peaches (along with any crop that re- sumes nearly a pound and a half of lies on their pollination) will become me every year, in tea, on toast, and scarcer and pricier. As will I. beyond. If I do say so myself, I am a Given that trend, it’s not surprising timeless treasure. Literally—I never that I also am perhaps your supermar- go bad. Samples nearly 3,000 years ket’s most frequently adulterated food, old found in the Egyptian pyramids laced with cheap sugar syrup or corn are as edible as the day they were syrup to stretch the supply. In 2010, the entombed. Through some combina- largest food fraud in American history tion of low water content, high pH, was busted when authorities discov- and the natural presence of hydro- ered $80 million in smuggled, tainted gen peroxide within me, I am highly Chinese honey. That is among the rea- antimicrobial and therefore impervi- sons I hope you buy domestic honey, ous to spoiling. My antimicrobial na- especially from local beekeepers. ture also makes me an excellent salve I’d also appreciate your letting your for chronic wounds, keeping infection own garden grow just a little wild and out while holding in the moisture that holding off from frequent mowing and skin needs to heal. herbicide spray. My future depends Alas, my good health is not guaran- on all of us fostering spring and sum- teed. U.S. beekeepers lose about 40 per- mer’s wild blossoms, thus helping the cent of their hives annually to colony bees, who give so much—to you, to collapse disorder. The problem lies in me—without ever asking for anything the growth of industrial agriculture and in return. pesticide use, as well as urban sprawl and changes in weather patterns, all Kate Lowenstein is the editor-in-chief of which reduce the number of flow- of Vice’s health website, Tonic; Daniel ers bees have to visit. If bees continue Gritzer is the culinary director of the to die apace, almonds, apples, and cooking site Serious Eats. From the Land of Misfit Toys From 1952 to 1964, you had to provide your own potato for Mr. Potato Head. The original jukeboxes came with earphones. Only one person could listen at a time. Barbie was released in 1959, but her eyes didn’t look forward until 1971. Tennis balls were once stuffed with human hair. 58 march 2019 | rd.com ADVERTISEMENT ASK THE EXPERT Cochlear Implants – Life Beyond Hearing Aids Do you strain to hear each day, even with powerful hearing aids? Jacques Herzog, M.D. Cochlear Medical Advisor With hearing loss, you’re missing so much eeling frustrated and sometimes more than just your hearing. Don’t let hearing even exhausted from listening? loss prevent you from living your life fully. Whether it happens suddenly or gradually, hearing loss can affect Fyou physically and emotionally. Q Are cochlear implants covered by Medicare? Cochlear implants work differently than hearing Yes, Medicare and most private insurance plans aids. Rather than amplifying sound, they use routinely cover cochlear implants.* state-of-the-art electronic components and software to provide access to the sounds you’ve Q What does a cochlear implant been missing. system look like? There are two primary components of the Q How do implants differ from Cochlear™ Nucleus® System – the implant that hearing aids? is surgically placed underneath the skin and the Hearing aids help many people by making the external sound processor. Cochlear offers two sounds they hear louder. Unfortunately as wearing options for the sound processor. The hearing loss progresses, sounds need not only to Nucleus® 7 Sound Processor is worn behind the be made louder, but clearer. Cochlear implants ear similar to a hearing aid. The Kanso® Sound can help give you that clarity, especially in noisy Processor, is a discreet, off-the-ear hearing 1 environments. Hearing aids are typically worn solution that’s easy to use. The Cochlear Nucleus before a cochlear implant solution is considered. System advanced technology is designed to help you hear and understand conversations better. Dr. Jacques Herzog, a cochlear implant surgeon and medical advisor to Cochlear, the world leader in cochlear implants, answers questions about cochlear implants and how they are different from hearing aids. Find a Hearing Implant Specialist Call 800-610-4901 or Visit Cochlear.com/US/Rdigest 1. The Nucleus Freedom Cochlear Implant System: Adult Post-Market Surveillance Trial Results. 2008 June. *Covered by Medicare beneficiaries who meet CMS criteria for coverage. Contact your insurance provider or hearing implant specialist to determine your eligibility for coverage. ©2018 Cochlear Limited. All rights reserved. Trademarks and registered trademarks are the property of Cochlear Limited. CAM-MK-PR-327 ISS2 JUL18 Reader’s Digest EVERYDAY MIRACLES The Bible That Beat a Tornado By Juliana LaBianca ne minute, Peggy Lewis and couple from the rubble and take Oher husband, Harris Lee, were them to the hospital. “I thought we watching the trees blow in the were going to die,” says Lewis, 58. wind outside their home in Eureka, When the pair returned to their Kansas. The next, they were sur- property three days after that awful rounded by swirling shards of glass night last June, it was clear that what from the house’s broken windows. The remained of the house would need roof tore off. The walls caved in. After to be torn down. But before Lewis the 152-mph tornado had passed, it would let that happen, she wanted took a team of neighbors to pull the one thing—her family Bible. 60 march 2019 Illustration by Gel Jamlang Lewis had bought the Bible 35 years beyond recognition, the Bible was earlier, at the start of her marriage. still intact, even though it had sat in Like many folks, she’d used it to hold the rain for days. “I completely broke and preserve her family’s history: down,” says Lewis. “I thought it was decades-old photos, newspaper obit- gone forever. It was a miracle.” uaries of loved ones, a handkerchief A few of the Bible’s treasures did go from her great-grandmother, a lock missing. But ever so slowly, they, too, of her daughter’s hair, even a piece began reappearing in Lewis’s life. Days of a scarf her uncle had brought back from the Korean War. The Bible was the first thing Lewis EVER SO SLOWLY, looked for when she returned to the THE TREASURES house. It wasn’t where she’d last REAPPEARED IN seen it, on top of an antique dresser in her bedroom. In fact, the dresser HER LIFE. wasn’t there at all. The only thing that was left was the solid slab of marble that had been the top of the piece of after the Bible was found, volunteers furniture. discovered one of the newspaper obit- When two volunteers showed up to uaries outside the home. Two weeks help the couple dig out, Lewis had one later, a neighbor found another news- mission for them: “If you can find any- paper clipping by her house. “It was thing,” she said, “please find my Bible.” such a shock,” says Lewis. After an hour of searching, one of Lewis and her family are living at the volunteers ran up to her. She had a friend’s house until they get back tears streaming down her cheeks on their feet. But the Bible already has and a book in her hands. The young its well-deserved place of honor, on woman had found the Bible while sift- Lewis’s borrowed dresser. She knows ing through rubble. It had flown ap- that while every good book tells proximately ten feet from that ill-fated stories of catastrophic weather and dresser. Stunningly, while many books unlikely survival, this one actually inside the home had been destroyed lived it. Food for Thought Extremely suspicious that there’s no information about brains that didn’t come from a brain. @hippieswordfish rd.com 61 What is NUEDEXTA® (dextromethorphan HBr and quinidine sulfate) 20 mg/10 mg capsules approved for? • NUEDEXTA® is approved for the treatment of PseudoBulbar Affect (PBA). PBA is a medical condition that causes involuntary, sudden, and frequent episodes of crying and/or laughing in people living with certain neurologic conditions or brain injury. PBA episodes are typically exaggerated or don’t match how the person feels. PBA is distinct and different from other types of emotional changes caused by neurologic disease or injury. • NUEDEXTA is only available by prescription. IMPORTANT SAFETY INFORMATION Before you take NUEDEXTA, tell your doctor: • If you are taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs), quinidine, or quinidine-related drugs. These can interact with NUEDEXTA causing serious side effects. MAOIs cannot be taken within 14 days before or after taking NUEDEXTA. • If you have previously had an allergic reaction to dextromethorphan, quinidine or quinidine-like drugs. • About all medicines, herbal supplements, and vitamins you take as NUEDEXTA and certain other medicines can interact causing side effects. • If you have had heart disease or have a family history of heart rhythm problems. NUEDEXTA may cause serious side effects, including changes in heart rhythm. If you have certain heart problems, NUEDEXTA may not be right for you. Your doctor may test your heart rhythm (heartbeats) before you start NUEDEXTA. • If you have myasthenia gravis. While taking NUEDEXTA, call your doctor right away: • If you feel faint or lose consciousness. • If you experience lightheadedness, chills, fever, nausea, or vomiting as these may be signs of an allergic reaction to NUEDEXTA. Hepatitis has been seen in patients taking quinidine, an ingredient in NUEDEXTA. • If you have unexplained bleeding or bruising. Quinidine, an ingredient in NUEDEXTA, can cause a reduction in the number of platelets in your blood which can be severe and, if left untreated, can be fatal. • If you feel dizzy, since it may increase your risk of falling. • If you have muscle twitching, confusion, high blood pressure, fever, restlessness, sweating, or shivering, as these may be signs of a potential drug interaction called serotonin syndrome. The most common side effects of NUEDEXTA are diarrhea, dizziness, cough, vomiting, weakness, and swelling of feet and ankles. This is not a complete list of side effects. Tell your doctor about any side effect that bothers you or does not go away. You are encouraged to report negative side effects of prescription drugs to the FDA. Visit www.fda.gov/medwatch or call 800-FDA-1088. See Important Facts on next page. ©2018 Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All rights reserved. AVANIR and NUEDEXTA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in the United States and other countries. MLR-NUE-US-0288-1118 After my STROKE, I would find myself CRYING UNCONTROLLABLY for no reason. It made me feel MISUNDERSTOOD I learned that these unpredictable episodes could be symptoms of PBA, a condition that can be effectively treated with NUEDEXTA. If you are bothered by sudden, frequent, uncontrollable episodes of crying and/or laughing that are exaggerated or simply don’t match how you feel, you might have PBA (PseudoBulbar Affect). PBA can follow certain neurologic conditions or brain injury. When these episodes occur, they can seem out of place and confusing. If you’re experiencing symptoms, talk to your doctor about the first and only FDA-approved treatment for PBA, NUEDEXTA. Think you could have PBA? Learn more at NUEDEXTA.COM IMPORTANT FACTS (Pronounced: new-DEX-tuh) ABOUT NUEDEXTA • NUEDEXTA® is approved for the treatment of PseudoBulbar Affect (PBA). PBA is a medical condition that causes involuntary, sudden, and frequent episodes of crying and/or laughing in people living with certain neurologic conditions or brain injury. PBA episodes are typically exaggerated or don’t match how the person feels. PBA is distinct and different from other types of emotional changes caused by neurologic disease or injury. • NUEDEXTA is only available by prescription. DO NOT TAKE NUEDEXTA IF YOU NUEDEXTA MAY CAUSE SERIOUS • Are taking other drugs that contain SIDE EFFECTS quinidine, quinine, or mefloquine. • Stop NUEDEXTA if these side effects occur: • Have a history of allergic reactions or Symptoms including lightheadedness, intolerance (including hepatitis, low blood chills, fever, nausea, or vomiting may cell count, or lupus-like syndrome) to be a sign of an allergic reaction, or quinidine, quinine, or mefloquine. thrombocytopenia which if left untreated • Have ever been allergic to can be fatal. dextromethorphan (commonly found in Hepatitis has been seen in patients taking some cough medicines). quinidine, an ingredient in NUEDEXTA. • Are taking, or have taken, drugs called Abnormal heart rhythm. Stop NUEDEXTA monoamine oxidase inhibitors (MAOIs). and tell your doctor immediately as it may MAOIs cannot be taken within 14 days be a sign of Torsades de Pointes. before or after taking NUEDEXTA. • In some cases NUEDEXTA can interact • Have had heart disease or have a family with antidepressants causing confusion, history of heart rhythm problems. high blood pressure, fever, restlessness, sweating, and shivering. Tell your doctor if • Are taking drugs such as thioridazine and you experience any of these side effects. pimozide that interact with NUEDEXTA and cause changes in heart rhythm. If you • Tell your doctor if you’ve ever been have certain heart conditions or are taking diagnosed with myasthenia gravis. If so, certain medicines, your doctor may test NUEDEXTA may not be right for you. your heart rhythm (heartbeats) before you start NUEDEXTA. POSSIBLE COMMON SIDE EFFECTS OF NUEDEXTA The most common side effects in patients taking NUEDEXTA were diarrhea, dizziness, cough, vomiting, weakness and swelling of feet and ankles. • If you are unsteady on your feet or if you have fallen before, be careful while taking NUEDEXTA to avoid falling. • This is not a complete list of side effects. • Tell your doctor if you have any side effect that bothers you or does not go away. TAKING NUEDEXTA ALONG WITH OTHER MEDICATIONS • Tell your doctor about all medicines, supplements, and vitamins you take before starting NUEDEXTA. • NUEDEXTA may interact with other medications causing potentially serious side-effects, and may affect the way NUEDEXTA or these other medicines work. Your doctor may adjust the dose of these medicines if used together with NUEDEXTA: Antidepressants. Certain heart or blood pressure medications. Your doctor may test your heart rhythm before you start NUEDEXTA. Digoxin. Alcohol. Limit alcohol intake while taking NUEDEXTA. These are not the only medicines that may cause problems when you take NUEDEXTA. • Before starting a new medicine, remind your doctor if you are taking NUEDEXTA. ADDITIONAL IMPORTANT INFORMATION • If your PBA symptoms do not improve or if they get worse, contact your healthcare provider. • NUEDEXTA has not been studied in patients less than age 18 or in pregnant women. Tell your doctor if you may be pregnant. • Nursing mothers: Because many drugs are excreted in human milk, discuss with your healthcare provider if you are nursing. • Take NUEDEXTA exactly as your doctor prescribes it. • You and your healthcare provider should talk regularly about whether you still need treatment with NUEDEXTA. • NUEDEXTA may be taken with or without food. • Keep NUEDEXTA and all medicines out of reach of children. • The need for continued treatment should be reassessed periodically, as spontaneous improvement of PBA occurs in some patients. NEED MORE INFORMATION? NEED PRESCRIPTION ASSISTANCE? This information about NUEDEXTA is important but is not complete. To learn more: • Call 1-855-4NUEDEX (1-855-468-3339) to speak • Talk to your healthcare provider or pharmacist with a member of our • Visit www.Nuedexta.com for FDA-approved Prescribing support team for tips, tools Information or call 1-855-4NUEDEX (1-855-468-3339). and co-pay information. Marketed by Avanir® Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Aliso Viejo, CA 92656 ©2016 Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. All rights reserved. AVANIR and NUEDEXTA are trademarks or registered trademarks of Avanir Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in the United States and other countries. NUE-0445-OTH-1116 Rev. Date Nov 2016 Reader’s Digest 66 march 2019 HEALTH FACTS Your Doctor Wants You to Know By Marissa Laliberte Knowing which of these statements have been verified by SCIENCE—and which are MYTHS—could boost your health Photographs by Levi Brown rd.com 67 Reader’s Digest Cover Story 1 Cold weather makes you sick. Myth! Germs are the only thing that can make you sick. You can go out in the freezing cold with wet hair, and if there aren’t any germs around, you’ll stay sniffle-free. But there is a correlation: The viruses that cause the common cold thrive in low temperatures. Not all heart attacks You shouldn’t ice a burn. 2 involve chest pain. 4 Truth! Most skin damage from a Truth! A 2012 study of more than burn comes from the inflammatory 1.1 million heart attack patients response, and ice can damage cells found that 31 percent of men and and make it worse. Instead, immerse 42 percent of women didn’t have any the burn in cool water for about five chest pain before being hospitalized. minutes. Then wash with mild soap The American Heart Association and apply an antibiotic ointment. ) recommends calling 911 for other p a l f ( symptoms, too, including shortness Antiperspirants cause cancer. k 5Myth! c of breath, light-headedness, and pain Antiperspirants temporar- o t s elsewhere in the upper body. ily keep sweat from escaping, and r e t some scientists have suggested that t u h Being overweight shortens letting it build up in the ducts could s / y 3 your life expectancy. cause tumors. But research hasn’t d a c Myth! It’s what researchers call the confirmed that theory, and the r a , “obesity paradox,” though the “over- largest study to date on the subject r e u weight paradox” would be more found no link between cancer and a n e accurate. Obesity is linked with a antiperspirants or deodorants. d l o f host of health problems, including a r so-called all-cause mortality, but CPR doesn’t require a s 6 y the evidence isn’t strong for over- mouth-to-mouth breathing. b t e weightness. A recent review looked at Truth! A 2017 study found that when s : d ten studies of more than 190,000 peo- bystanders gave CPR to people in a e r ple and found that overweight people cardiac arrest, survival rates were p s s had the same longevity as normal- higher when they employed uninter- u o i weight adults, though they did have rupted chest compressions rather v e r a higher risk of heart disease. than pausing for rescue breaths. p 68 march 2019 Carrots help your eyesight. 7 Myth! Carrots get their vision-boosting reputa- tion from the chemical that gives them their orange color: beta-carotene. Beta-carotene is converted into vitamin A, which helps your eyes see better in the dark. But the conversion process isn’t very efficient, and once you’ve taken in a certain amount, the body stops converting it. For improved eyesight, eat vegetables high in vitamin A itself, including leafy greens such as kale and spinach. rd.com 69 Reader’s Digest Eating too much sugar will Waking up sleepwalkers 8 give you diabetes. 12 will give them a heart attack. Myth! Sweet foods don’t directly lead Myth! Sleepwalkers might be dis- to chronically high blood sugar. But oriented or distressed if you manage they can contribute to obesity, which to wake them up, but you won’t put is a risk factor for diabetes, so keep- them at risk of a heart attack or coma. ing a well-balanced diet and limiting Your best bet is to guide the person treats is still the right idea. back to bed or wake the person gently so he or she won’t be startled. You shouldn’t let someone with 9 a concussion sleep right away. Coffee will dehydrate you. Truth! For several hours after the 13 Myth! The idea that caffeine is initial blow, it’s a good idea to keep a diuretic that leaves your body short the person awake and monitor of fluids doesn’t hold water. In fact, symptoms. But after that, taking naps studies show that coffee and tea and getting plenty of sleep at night drinkers don’t use the bathroom any are recommended to aid recovery. more than water drinkers. A cup of joe counts as part of your fluid intake Tilt your head back if you and can actually help you hydrate. 10 have a nosebleed. Myth! Tilting your head back might A person having a seizure make you swallow blood, which 14 is at risk of swallowing his could irritate the stomach and po- or her tongue. tentially make you vomit. Instead, tip Myth! Following conventional your head slightly forward and pinch wisdom and putting a spoon in the your nose shut for ten minutes. person’s mouth won’t prevent tongue swallowing, but it could harm You should eat several small the teeth or jaws. Instead, turn the 11 meals throughout the day person on his or her side to prevent instead of three big ones. choking on saliva or vomit, and Myth! While some people who are cushion the head with a pillow. natural grazers might do better on a small-meal eating plan, others Frostbitten skin shouldn’t won’t feel satisfied, and the diet will 15 be warmed up by a heater. backfire. The goal should be to pay Truth! Frostbite numbs the skin, attention to the overall nutrients so it could be burned without your and calories you’re getting in your realizing it if it’s next to a radiator, meals, not to how you’re spreading fire, or heating pad. Instead, them out. immerse the area in warm water. 70 march 2019 Cover Story Peeing on a jellyfish sting trigger stress), but the current sci- 16 will help reduce the pain. ence shows it isn’t a direct cause. Myth! Urine—or even fresh water— could actually trigger more venom, You should return to working making the sting even worse. Care- 18 out after a heart attack. fully pluck out any tentacles and Truth! “Too often, heart patients use rinse with vinegar if you can. their condition as an excuse to cut back on physical activity when they Stress will give you an ulcer. should be doing the opposite,” says 17 Myth! The two main causes Salim Virani, MD, chair of the of stomach ulcers are overuse of American College of Cardiology’s NSAID painkillers, such as aspirin Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease and ibuprofen, and infection from Council. Hitting the standard 20 to the bacteria Helicobacter pylori. 30 minutes most days can help Stress might make an existing ulcer strengthen your heart. Talk to your worse (and having an ulcer might doctor about creating a safe routine. Bar soap is covered in germs. 19 Myth! You might transfer germs to the soap while you scrub up, but they won’t last long enough to spread. The most rigorous study on the subject, published in 1965, found that bacteria on a bar of soap die within minutes and are not transmitted to the next person to use the soap. rd.com 71 Eggs are bad for your heart. 20 Myth! The old thinking was that cholesterol in food would raise blood cholesterol levels and in turn increase the risk of heart disease. A recent study of more than 400,000 adults found that eating an egg a day increased good cholesterol and cut the risk of cardiovascular death by 18 percent. Reading in dim light will Coughing too much 21harm your eyes. 22can make you throw up. Myth! It might tire your eyes in the Truth! Little kids are especially short term, but there’s no evidence prone to vomiting after coughing fits that it will do any lasting damage. because their gag reflexes are extra When reading, position light to shine sensitive, but it can also happen to directly on the page rather than from adults. It usually isn’t a big deal, but over your shoulder to reduce glare. if you keep puking, see a doctor. 72 march 2019 Cover Story Reader’s Digest Cracking your knuckles but it isn’t immune to harmful 23 will give you arthritis. UV rays and the damage they cause. Myth! Recent studies haven’t found People of all skin types need to use a link between cracked joints and sunscreen. arthritis. But some studies showed that cracking your knuckles can If you don’t have a result in soft-tissue damage (which 27 bull’s-eye rash, you can cause swelling) and a decrease don’t have Lyme disease. in handgrip strength. Myth! About 20 to 30 percent of people with Lyme disease will never You don’t need eight develop that classic rash. Other 24 glasses of water every day. symptoms to watch for include fever, Truth! There’s no scientific evidence headache, achy muscles, and swol- that eight is the magic number. You len lymph nodes and joints. might need more or less than that, depending on factors such as climate You need less sleep and body size. To make sure you are 28 as you get older. getting enough, just drink water Myth! Older adults often sleep less throughout the day. as a result of chronic conditions that are more common with age as well Sitting up straight can be as the medications used to treat 25 bad for your back. them. But that doesn’t mean they Truth! “Hunching can certainly be require less sleep. While sleep needs bad for your back. But the opposite is vary from person to person, the CDC true, too,” says Neel Anand, MD, pro- recommends most adults get at least fessor of orthopedic surgery and seven hours of sleep for optimal medical director of spine trauma sur- health. gery at Cedars-Sinai Spine Center in Los Angeles. “Sitting up straight for Holding in a sneeze too long without a break can also 29 is unhealthy. cause strain.” When you’re sitting, Truth! As your body gets ready to keep your lower back supported and sneeze, pressure builds in your lungs. your legs uncrossed with your knees When your body tries to push the at a 90-degree angle, and get up to air out, it needs somewhere to go— stretch every half hour or so. and if you’re pinching your nose and mouth, it could be rerouted to the People with dark skin ears. In rare cases, sending the 26 can’t get skin cancer. sneeze in that direction can lead to Myth! Dark skin is less likely to burn, damage such as ruptured eardrums. rd.com 73 Reader’s Digest Cover Story You can get the flu more You can stop taking 30 than once a season. 33 antibiotics when your Truth! Every year, there’s more than symptoms go away. one flu strain circulating. Getting Myth! Even if you’re back in tip-top sick from (or being vaccinated shape, continue taking your meds as against) one of them won’t protect prescribed. The symptoms can fade you or your loved ones from the before the infection clears, meaning other strains. That’s why it’s impor- you could get sick all over again— tant to take everyday preventive and this time it might be more resis- actions during flu season: covering tant to the antibiotic. your nose and mouth with a tissue while coughing or sneezing, and You should rinse the washing your hands often with soap 34 toothpaste from your and water. mouth after brushing. Myth! When you rinse with Leeches are a legitimate nonfluoride mouthwash or water, 31 medical treatment. you’re spitting out the fluoride that Truth! In 2004, the FDA officially prevents tooth decay without giving approved using leeches on some it enough time to work. If you still postsurgical patients. This is a far feel like you need to rinse, studies cry from the bloodletting of olden suggest using a tiny bit of water to days, which was thought to drain swish the toothpaste foam, then disease from the body. That doesn’t spitting it out. This will keep more work, but studies show that the fluoride on your teeth. bloodsucking creatures can safely keep blood from coagulating, which Running is bad for is helpful when surgery patients are 35your knees. at risk of their blood pooling. Myth! Research has found that recreational runners are not at Eating too much soy can increased risk of having symptoms 32 cause cancer in women. of knee arthritis or other orthopedic Myth! Soy is a plant estrogen, which problems. “In fact,” says James made some scientists jump to the Smoliga, PhD, associate director conclusion that it could disrupt of High Point University’s Human women’s estrogen hormones and Biomechanics and Physiology lead to breast cancer. In fact, some Laboratory, “running may strengthen studies suggest soy could actually muscles that stabilize the knee, reduce breast cancer, though more which may help prevent injuries and research needs to be done. arthritis.” 74 march 2019 Sugar causes cancer. 36 Myth! It’s true that cancer cells tend to get their fuel from sugar, but that doesn’t mean that eating less sugar will prevent or slow down cancer. The body makes its own glucose when you eat less sugar, which could negate any cancer-fighting benefit. That said, obesity is a risk factor for certain cancers, so keeping your hands out of the cookie jar can still have an indirect anticancer effect. rd.com 75 Alcohol warms you up when it’s cold outside. 37 Myth! You might feel warmer and your face may start to flush as you sip that hot toddy, because alcohol causes your blood vessels to dilate, moving warm blood closer to the skin. But this perception of warmth also causes you to stop shivering, which actually brings your core temperature down. 76 march 2019 Cover Story Reader’s Digest Vaccines can cause autism. A workout won’t counteract 38 Myth! Some people have 41 the effects of sitting all day. raised concerns that substances used Truth! A study of almost 8,000 in trace amounts in certain vaccines— adults found that people who sat the including formaldehyde, aluminum longest overall and for the longest salts, and thimerosal, a mercury- uninterrupted time had the greatest based preservative—could cause au- risk for death, regardless of whether tism. But none of these substances they’d squeezed in a workout. That’s has been shown to cause harm in the not to say exercise is useless, but small doses used in vaccines. Nor is it’s important to scatter activity there any evidence that multiple or throughout the day in addition to combination vaccinations, such as a designated workout. those recommended for children, can weaken the immune system and Poison ivy is contagious. trigger autism, as some people fear. 42 Myth! The only way to develop a rash is to come in contact Women should be as with the plant or its sap yourself. You 39 worried about colorectal cannot catch the itch from someone cancer as men are. else—as long as that person washed Truth! Colorectal cancer is the third the sap off. most common type of cancer among men but the second most common Sitting too close to the for women. Men do have a slightly 43 TV damages your eyes. higher risk overall: About 1 in 22 Myth! Until the late 1960s, the men will develop colorectal cancer, amount of radiation coming from compared with 1 in 24 women. TVs wasn’t well regulated, so some people worried that sitting too close Caffeine is good for hearts. could cause health problems. Mod- 40 Truth! It might seem as if ern TVs don’t pose that risk. Staring anything that makes your heart race at anything for a long time can make would put stress on your ticker, but the eyes feel tired, but it won’t do mounting evidence says just the op- permanent damage. posite. Studies suggest that drinking three cups of coffee a day is linked Probiotics can help to a lower risk of cardiovascular 44 ease diarrhea. problems. The antioxidants in coffee Truth! While studies haven’t pinned may play a role, and caffeine might down which “good” bacteria, yeast speed up cellular processes that strains, and doses are most helpful help repair the heart. against diarrhea, the research is rd.com 77 Reader’s Digest Cover Story promising. There’s evidence that crickets in the morning reduced probiotics can prevent or reduce markers of inflammation in the gut. diarrhea associated with antibiotics and can ease symptoms in people Holding in a fart could with irritable bowel syndrome. 48 damage your GI tract. Other potential benefits of pro- Myth! For better or for worse, when biotics include weight loss, cold you hold back your gas, that flatu- prevention, and protection from lence stays right where it is. Eventu- tooth decay, though the studies ally, your body will expel it when aren’t conclusive. you aren’t paying attention, no harm done (at least to you—your neigh- The flu shot might give bors might disagree). The only time 45you the flu. it could potentially cause harm is if Myth! Vaccines do contain in- your colon is severely blocked and activated viruses in order to produce the pressure builds up to the point an immune response. You might ex- of bursting—and even then it’s rare. perience minor side effects after your shot, such as aches or a low-grade Caffeine stunts growth. fever, but unless you have a compro- 49 Myth! People used to think mised immune system, it’s unlikely caffeine would leach calcium from that you’ll get the full-blown flu. the body, meaning weaker bones and slower growth. Newer research Alzheimer’s and dementia suggests that teens can safely drink 46 are two separate conditions. up to 100 milligrams of caffeine per Myth! The term dementia refers to day (about one cup of coffee or two an umbrella of disorders that affect to three cans of cola). brain functioning; Alzheimer’s is one of these diseases. Depression is incurable. 50 Myth! “Recovery from Crickets are a healthy depression is not only possible; it’s 47 alternative to meat. actually likely when people receive Truth! A study in the European the specific kind and amount of help Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that they need,” says Mark Henick, that edible insects aren’t any less MS, a mental health advocate. healthy than chicken or beef, and they “When you combine medication might even have some advantages— with psychological therapy as well more calcium, for instance. Another as social supports like housing, study found that, compared with employment, and engagement, that’s having a traditional breakfast, eating the gold standard for recovery.” 78 march 2019 35 MOST TRUSTED BRANDS in Health & Wellness We want to have faith in the products we buy—after all, no one wants to waste money. But when a pur- chase involves our health, the expectation of quality is paramount. That’s why this annual Reader’s Digest Trusted Brands survey focuses on 35 categories af- fecting our well-being, from medications and sup- plements to health devices and food—even what’s best for our pets. Professional guidance is important, of course. But with their rich histories, these are the products consumers have come to trust the most. illustrations by Holly Wales rd.com 79 Dove soap & body wash It’s the number- one-selling soap in the United States, thanks in large part to its most famous ingredient: “moisturizing cream.” Chobani greek yogurt The name means “shepherd”—but not in Greek. Hamdi Ulukaya, who founded the company, came to the United States from his native headache & pain reliever Turkey in 1994. TYLENOL Dr. Scholl’s Along with gravity and potato foot care William Scholl, a chips, Tylenol is one of history’s Chicago shoe salesman turned great accidental discoveries. In medical doctor, created his 1886, a pair of German medical first arch support in 1904, students were treating a patient’s before he’d even graduated intestinal worms (ew) when they from med school. mistakenly dosed her with a chemical cocktail that her body ZzzQuil metabolized into acetaminophen. sleep aid Unlike some other The patient’s fever broke. Aceta- over-the-counter sleep aids, minophen became popular ZzzQuil contains no pain across Europe, and in 1955, relievers. Also unlike other brands, it comes in dreamy- the Philadelphia family running sounding flavors such as McNeil Laboratories, a pharma- Calming Vanilla Cherry and ceutical company, brought the Warming Berry. drug to America as Tylenol Elixir for Children, a prescription- only Nature Made antipyretic packaged like a tiny fish oil Science has yet to red fire truck and marketed “for establish the effectiveness little hotheads.” The marketing, of many supplements, but and the medicine, worked. Today, fish oil has long been shown Tylenol heals hot heads (large to help prevent heart and little) in 13 countries. disease. 80 march 2019 Trusted Brands Reader’s Digest lip care CHAPSTICK The Egyptians used beeswax. A 19th-century book, The American Frugal Housewife, suggested earwax! So Charles Browne Fleet didn’t invent lip balm. But in the 1890s, he combined wax with petroleum jelly, camphor, and aromatic oils, and his ChapStick is still with us today. (As is Fleet’s other famous health aid: the Fleet enema.) ChapStick’s packaging is almost as ingenious as its in- gredients. The signature tube, largely unchanged after more than 100 years, can slip into any pocket or purse. (It was so inconspicuous that E. Howard Hunt hid mini microphones in hollowed-out ChapStick tubes during Watergate.) Convenient, but not addictive, as some In- ternet rumors insist. But don’t lick your lips before apply- ing it—saliva is made to break down food, not moisturize. Depend top-selling new skin-care product. Num- incontinence product ber two: Regenerist Whip with SPF 25. Some people might feel uneasy having to ask a NyQuil store clerk for help buy- cold & flu remedy People ing this product. Fortunately, Depend with high blood pressure get sends free sample kits to new customers. sick, too, but decongestants can be dangerous for them. Bausch + Lomb NyQuil’s HBP formula is contact solution Used lenses specially made without can clog pipes and sink to the decongestants. bottom of waterways. Bausch + Lomb’s recycling program has Aveeno safely disposed of more than moisturizer In the 1940s, 2.5 million pairs since 2016. an oatmeal bath by American brothers Albert and Sidney Olay Musher worked wonders as an antiaging skin care eczema treatment. Since then, A year after its launch, in Aveeno—from the Latin for 2018, Olay’s Regenerist “oat”—has pioneered dozens Whip has become the of nature-based skin products. rd.com 81 Visine process takes only one more minute, eye care Original Visine according to the company’s research. just treats redness. Relief from itching, dry- Metamucil ness, or other conditions fiber supplement Fiber from requires one of the more the husk of the psyllium plant advanced formulas. is Metamucil’s main ingredient and has a surprising side Always effect: Studies show that it feminine protection Ten can lower your cholesterol. states have dropped their tax on feminine-hygiene products Lean Cuisine in recent years. healthy frozen meal How healthy? Even the Salisbury Steak with Macaroni Neutrogena & Cheese is good for you. In fact, the facial cleanser Wash your website eatthis.com face with plain water, and says that, in terms of your skin returns to its its balance of calories, natural pH in ten minutes. protein, fat, and Add famously mild carbs, it is Lean Cui- Neutrogena, and the sine’s healthiest meal. national pharmacy & drugstore WALGREENS Not to be rude, but 240,000 Americans would be out of work if not for Charles R. Walgreen’s middle finger. As a teenager in Dixon, Illinois, in the 1890s, Walgreen worked in a shoe factory. One day, his hand got caught in a stitching machine, severing the top joint of his middle finger and ending his hoped-for career in sports. The doctor treating young Charles proposed an alternative path: Why not try pharmacy? Walgreen’s first job as a pharmacist’s apprentice paid $4 a week and ended with his getting fired (he forgot to shovel the snow out front). He opened his own pharmacy in 1901 (someone else could shovel!) and by 1929 operated 397 stores. Today, Walgreens is the second-largest U.S. pharmacy chain after CVS and fills more than 1.1 billion prescriptions a year. 82 march 2019 Trusted Brands Reader’s Digest Benadryl itch relief/allergy relief In 1933, George Rieveschl sent out 200 applications in hopes of becoming a commercial artist. He got nothing but rejections. So he became a chemist at the University of Cincinnati, and within ten years he’d created a compound that helped reduce itchy allergic reactions. He called it Benadryl. After the oral medication became available without disinfecting wipes a prescription in the 1980s, Benadryl began to also be sold as an anti-itch CLOROX cream. (It won in both categories.) Three years before the iconic Hollywood sign made its debut, Kind the big name in California was nutrition bar Clorox. In 1920, the American The glucose cleaning giant (then known as the is non-GMO, the 20-plus flavors offer Electro-Alkaline Company) abundant variety, and the grains (such erected a massive billboard over as amaranth, buckwheat, and sorghum) San Francisco to tout its signature are unrefined and packed with protein. liquid bleach to the daily ferry commuters. Residents on the Coppertone other side of the bay received a sun protection World War II different kind of welcome. Annie airman Benjamin Green used Murray, the wife of the company’s veterinary petroleum to keep from getting sunburned while first general manager, insisted on on duty. After the war, he handing out free samples of the added cocoa butter and coco- newfangled cleaner to housewives nut oil to the mix and created visiting her family’s grocery store Coppertone suntan lotion. in Oakland. You might say that (The SPF came later.) Clorox still focuses on the personal touch, albeit in a somewhat differ- Robitussin ent form. The Guardian estimates cough remedy In Latin, the that the world uses about 14,000 word tussis means “cough.” It’s disinfecting wet wipes every sec- the same root found in the ond, and according to Amazon, word pertussis, aka whooping Clorox is the bestseller. cough. rd.com 83 Tums antacid When St. Louis phar- macist James Howe devised a mint-flavored calcium carbon- ate pill to quiet a patient’s indigestion in the 1920s, he had an extra incentive—the patient was his wife. Cheerios healthy cereal Most nutritionists say that when it comes to two key factors—more fiber, less sugar—the healthiest of all 18 Cheerios varieties is the original one. weight-loss system WEIGHT Culturelle probiotic There are dozens WATCHERS of strains of probiotics—aka In a world that’s overstuffed with “good” bacteria. LGG, the fad diets, Weight Watchers is like one in Culturelle, is among the friend that never lets you down. the few that can survive Founded by New York housewife stomach acid and make its health- Jean Nidetch in 1963, it is now promoting way into the intestines. ranked number one (out of 40 pro- grams) for overall weight loss Crest and was number five for healthy toothpaste eating last year, according to U.S. Little-known fact: News and World Report. WW (its Crest will polish up the keys on your slimmed-down name, as of 2018) piano, too, whether they are made from is known for a “points” program ivory or plastic. designed to help participants track Planters how much they are eating. But the ingenuity of Weight Watchers has nuts Your heart loves nuts always been its emphasis on sup- as much as you do! More than port: going to meetings (or going 80 percent of the fat in peanuts is monounsaturated and poly- online) to talk about weight and unsaturated, both of which nutrition and to cheer on fellow can lower cholesterol and keep Watchers. Oprah Winfrey swears your blood vessels supple. by it. In fact, she is a spokesperson and a major stock owner. 84 march 2019 Trusted Brands Reader’s Digest Ensure on his 1933 Antarctic expedi- nutritional drink We lose up tion. Today, Beneful, Purina’s to 8 percent of our muscle mass preservative-free line of food, each decade after age 40. Last comes in flavors such as beef, year, Ensure introduced its Max potato, and green bean. Protein shake, with 30 grams of protein, for people 45 and older. Aleve joint-pain relief Aleve OneTouch was the first over-the-counter blood-glucose monitor medication to provide In 1850, diabetics tested 12-hour pain relief in a single their blood sugar by adding dose. It is also available in a contoured a drop of urine to sheep’s bottle with a cushioned cap for easier wool that had been doused gripping. with a chemical that turned black in the presence of sugar. OneTouch Centrum meters use a drop of blood and return the multivitamin Have difficulty swallowing precise glucose level within five seconds. pills but feel silly chewing a gummy? In 2015, Centrum Purina introduced a multivitamin healthy pet food Purina has always been in a mint form, called Vita- known for its healthy pet food—it’s what Mints. They contain 18 vita- Admiral Richard E. Byrd fed his sled dogs mins and micronutrients. TRUST FACTORS Identifying America’s go-to products was only one goal of this year’s Reader’s Digest Trusted Brands survey of 3,500 representative consumers, conducted by the national polling firm Ipsos. We also wanted to know what influenced buying decisions, and some of the results were surprising. For instance, price didn’t generally affect trust. Only 10 percent of people said that an unusually low price would make them distrust a health-care product, and only 11 percent said they distrusted generics. Positive online reviews spoke to many people: 45 percent of those looking for a weight-loss system said that they put significant faith in them. Overall, the biggest factor driving trust was whether a product had worked in the past—63 percent of people cited that factor, followed by 54 percent who looked at the brand’s overall reputation. On the other hand, only 6 percent of consumers said their trust was affected by a claim of being “new” or “improved,” the lowest factor on our list. rd.com 85 Reader’s Digest From target and scammer to business partners and friends: Ben Taylor (left) and Joel Willie THE STRANGER WHO CHANGED MY LIFE The Internet Chump Who Became a Champ An online con goes wonderfully, implausibly right By Steve Hartman from cbsnews.com rd.com | march 2019 8 7 Ben Taylor received this random Facebook message: “My name is Joel from Liberia, West Africa. I need some assistance from you. Business or financial assistance dat [sic] will help empower me.” No one likes Internet scammers, spend ripping me or other people off.” Taylor included. So the 32-year-old He told Willie he owned a photog- marketer from Ogden, Utah, insin- raphy business and could use some cerely responded, “How can I help?” pretty pictures. “I wanted to see how this whole “How about a nice Liberian sun- scam operation worked and how they set?” Taylor asked. bait people,” Taylor explains. “I just Was Taylor planning on paying for wanted to go down this rabbit hole the photos? Willie wanted to know. and see what are the tricks that they “If they’re good, sure,” Taylor said. use to get people.” Willie wasted no time. He snapped But there’s no way he could have a couple of sunset photos on his old guessed what would happen next. Joel dinosaur flip phone and sent them to Willie was indeed in Liberia, and he Taylor’s phone the next day. proposed a business partnership. He “I told him, ‘Hey, this is great,’” Tay- asked Taylor to mail some used elec- lor says. Another fib—he wasn’t even tronics to an address in New Jersey. sure it was a sunset in the photos. Supposedly the electronics would be Willie said he could take better pic- resold and the profits split between tures if he had a better camera. Taylor the two of them. decided to play along and see what “I looked the place up on Google happened. So he picked up the cheap- Earth,” Taylor says. “There were broken- est camera he could find—a shiny red down cars all over the place.” He wrote one—and shipped it off to Liberia. The back to Willie and told him he was skeptical. Willie insisted he would “HOW ABOUT A never take advantage of someone. “Bible says in Proverbs 22 a good name PICTURE OF A NICE is better than silver n gold,” he wrote. LIBERIAN SUNSET?” Taylor didn’t buy it, and he replied TAYLOR ASKED with a small lie of his own. “I figured the more time of theirs that I can HIS SCAMMER. waste, the less time that they’d have to 88 march 2019 The Stranger Who Changed My Life Reader’s Digest postage cost as much as the camera. And now Taylor was really invested in this—whatever it was. “My family thinks I’m crazy because I’m interact- ing with this guy in Liberia,” he says. Willie kept in close touch, telling Taylor he wanted to be a journalist. He wrote, “I’ve decided 2 really commit n devote myself 2 dis business, what other pictures you want me 2 take?” Still skeptical, Taylor said he’d like to see 20 shots of life in Liberia. A Willie’s photos of life in Liberia struck a week later, a bunch more blurry pho- chord with people around the world. tos came through on his phone. “Joel has to be the worst photogra- pher on the planet,” Taylor said in a the pictures, calling it By D Grace YouTube video he made chronicling of God, a phrase borrowed from his adventures. By now, he had real- Willie’s messages. Then Taylor took ized something interesting was hap- to YouTube, where a few thousand pening and decided to document it. people had started to follow his dis- When Taylor wrote back, he shared patches, and to the crowdfunding site some advice for taking better pictures— indiegogo.com, where he figured he’d hold the camera steady, for one thing. sell a few copies of the 16-page book- The next batch of Willie’s photos came let, featuring a dozen of Willie’s Liberia a few days later and contained about photos, for $8 a pop. Sales exploded. 20 more shots of people doing every- “People from around the world and day things: walking in town, tinker- places that I’ve never even heard of ing on their houses (some of which were buying Joel’s book,” Taylor says. could only generously be described as Soon he had raised $1,000. He told shacks). For Taylor, the images were Willie he could have half. And the heartbreaking. He had never seen such rest? Well, Taylor decided that Willie poverty. But their quality was much would get that, too—but with a catch. ) 4 ( better—which posed a big problem. Taylor told him he had to donate that r o “When he put in the work, I thought, $500 to charity. l y a t Oh no, now I’ve got to figure out a way That is more than a year’s salary n e to compensate Joel for these pictures, in Liberia. So Taylor didn’t really ex- b y s or I’m going to be the scammer,” Taylor pect an unemployed, impoverished e t r says. hustler to just give all that money u o c He decided to make a booklet using away. Then another batch of pictures rd.com 89 Reader’s Digest The Stranger Who Changed My Life outside his house, which was little more than cinder block walls, a dirt floor, and a tin roof. Inside were Willie’s wife and some of his seven children, who also greeted Taylor like an old friend. with abundance. Willie confessed to Taylor that he “He came through,” Taylor says. It used to send Facebook messages to was a revelation. strangers, hoping to find some way Taylor set aside his doubt and dis- a new friend would help him out of trust, and then he did something else poverty. He said he was “more than he never could have imagined a few desperate.” months earlier: He traveled 6,500 miles “To feed the kids, a lot of things run to Monrovia, Liberia. He wanted to into your mind,” Willie said. “Go and confront the man who’d tried to scam do this—the wrong thing.” him, although confront probably isn’t Fortunately, “By D Grace of God,” the right word. Willie says scam isn’t it never came to that. The booklets the right word either. He says he had kept selling (8,000 at press time). just been looking to make a friend. But People started taking pictures of he also needed money. themselves holding their copies By the time the two men finally met and posting them on social media in person, he had found both. “We with the tag #bookofjoel. Soon Wil- were business partners. And we were lie had new friends in more than friends,” says Taylor. 40 countries, and Taylor’s fund-raising When he got to Monrovia, Taylor campaign had raised $12,000. felt surprisingly at home. “I saw the Some of the profits went toward Wil- places and the faces from the pictures lie’s basic needs, such as a new roof to Joel had sent,” he says. When he got to keep the rain out of his home. But the Willie’s street, he recognized it right two men decided most of the money away. He found his friend sitting should be reinvested in the community. Half the people in Liberia survive on less than $2 a day. Over the past 20 years, the country has seen two civil wars and an Ebola outbreak that killed nearly 5,000 people in a nation of more than four million. Because need is everywhere, Taylor and Willie decided Taylor expected that Willie would pocket all their sales money. Then this photo arrived. Willie’s street looked familiar to Taylor, thanks to all the blurry photos. to start with the most vulnerable and supplied five more schools with book bags, notebooks, and other necessities. aylor decided to tell much rather continue to help people. their story in a second You feel good when you help others.” booklet, By D Grace of As for Willie, he says he’s changed God: A True Story. Sales too. Although he still has to support T of both booklets total his wife and kids on what many Amer- some $90,000 so far. icans spend at Starbucks, he says he’s And over the past year or so, with Tay- OK using much of the money to help lor in Utah keeping track of the money others. In fact, he says the opportunity and wiring it as needed and Willie the to be charitable may be the best thing man on the street in Monrovia, they to come from all this. have done a lot more good. They “I used to receive,” Willie says. “I’m paid the utility bills at one school the one who’s giving now, and it’s bet- and the teachers’ salaries at another ter to give than to always receive.” that was about to close because its Did he ever consider keeping the funding had dried up. For Christmas, $500? No, he says. “It’s stealing. And Willie handed out care packages of that would be dishonest. When you used clothing to 500 kids—what he are truthful, when you are honest, you said they wanted most—and 25 bags can come from nobody to somebody. of rice to needy families. They have I have come from zero to hero.” begun mentoring entrepreneurs and Taylor has already been back to making microloans of $50 to $100—a Liberia, and he says he plans to keep life-changing sum in Monrovia. going, to keep helping. Because, as he Of course, the locals aren’t the says, “when you give someone a chance, only ones who have been changed by sometimes they’re not who you thought this unlikely partnership. Taylor says they were. Sometimes they surprise he’s no longer the cynic who started you. And sometimes you end up being all this. “That’s just not me,” he says. the answer to their prayers.” “I’ve changed. I set out to embarrass a adapted from a two-part series on cbsnews.com (march 29–30, 2018), used with permission of cbs guy. I ended up helping a guy. I would news, copyright © 2018. all rights reserved. rd.com | march 2019 91 DRAMA IN REAL LIFE My Friend the TIMBER WOLF Deep in the Alaskan wilderness, a prospector comes to the rescue of an injured mother wolf and her pups, and a lasting connection is formed By Morris Homer Erwin 92 march 2019 Reader’s Digest A female timber wolf can weigh as much as 100 pounds. rd.com 93 Reader’s Digest ne spring morning wasn’t a sound inside. Wolf pups are many years ago, I had shy and cautious, and I didn’t have been prospecting for much hope of luring them outside. O gold along Coho Creek But I had to try. So I began imitating on southeastern Alaska’s the high-pitched squeak of a mother Kupreanof Island, and as I emerged wolf calling her young. No response. from a forest of spruce and hemlock, A few moments later, after I tried an- I froze in my tracks. No more than other call, four tiny pups appeared. 20 paces away in the bog was a huge They couldn’t have been more than Alaskan timber wolf—caught in one of a few weeks old. I extended my hands, Trapper George’s traps. and they tentatively suckled at my Old George had died the previous fingers. Perhaps hunger had helped week of a heart attack, so the wolf was overcome their natural fear. Then, one lucky I had happened along. Confused by one, I placed them in a burlap bag and frightened at my approach, the and headed back down the slope. wolf backed away, straining at the trap When the mother wolf spotted me, chain. Then I noticed something else: she stood erect. Possibly picking up It was a female, and her teats were full the scent of her young, she let out a of milk. Somewhere there was a den of high-pitched, plaintive whine. I re- hungry pups waiting for their mother. leased the pups, and they raced to her. From her appearance, I guessed Within seconds, they were slurping at that she had been trapped only a few her belly. days. That meant her pups were prob- What next? I wondered. The mother ably still alive, surely no more than a wolf was clearly suffering. Yet each k few miles away. But I suspected that if time I moved in her direction, a men- c o t I tried to release the wolf, she would acing growl rumbled in her throat. s r e turn aggressive and try to tear me to With her young to protect, she was be- t t u pieces. coming belligerent. She needs nour- h s / So I decided to search for her pups ishment, I thought. I have to find her s u h c instead and began to look for incom- something to eat. i v e ing tracks that might lead me to her I hiked toward Coho Creek and k u z den. Fortunately, there were still a few spotted the leg of a dead deer sticking a r a out of a snowbank. I cut off a hind- y remaining patches of snow. After sev- i l u eral moments, I spotted paw marks on quarter, then returned the remains y : d a trail skirting the bog. to nature’s icebox. Toting the venison a e r The tracks led a half mile through haunch back to the wolf, I whispered p s s the forest, then up a rock-strewn in a soothing tone, “OK, Mother, your u o i slope. I finally spotted the den at the dinner is served. But only if you stop v e r base of an enormous spruce. There growling at me. C’mon, now. Easy.” I p 94 march 2019 Drama in Real Life tossed chunks of venison in her direc- blanket around myself and slowly tion. She sniffed them, then gobbled settled onto the cold ground. It was a them up. long time before I fell asleep. Cutting hemlock boughs, I fash- I awoke at dawn, stirred by the ioned a rough shelter for myself and sound of the pups nursing. Gently, was soon asleep nearby. At dawn, I I leaned over and petted them. The was awakened by four fluffy bundles mother wolf stiffened. “Good morn- of fur sniffing at my face and hands. ing, friends,” I said tentatively. Then I I glanced toward the agitated mother slowly placed my hand on the wolf’s wolf. If I could only win her confi- injured leg. She flinched but made no dence, I thought. It was her only hope. threatening move. This can’t be hap- Over the next few days, I divided my pening, I thought. Yet it was. time between prospecting and trying I could see that the trap’s steel jaws to win the wolf’s trust. I talked gently had imprisoned only two toes. They with her, threw her more venison, and were swollen and lacerated, but she played with the pups. Little by little, wouldn’t lose the paw—if I could free I kept edging closer—though I was her. careful to remain beyond the length of her chain. The big animal never ONE SNAP OF HER took her dark eyes off me. “Come on, HUGE JAWS AND SHE Mother,” I pleaded. “You want to go back to your friends on the mountain. COULD BREAK MY Relax.” ARM ... OR MY NECK. At dusk on the fifth day, I deliv- ered her daily fare of venison. “Here’s dinner,” I said softly as I approached. “C’mon, girl. Noth- ing to be afraid of.” Suddenly, the “OK,” I said. “Just a little longer and pups came bounding to me. At least we’ll have you out of there.” I applied I had their trust. But I was begin- pressure, the trap sprang open, and ning to lose hope of ever winning the wolf pulled free. Whimpering, she k c over the mother. Then I thought loped about, favoring the injured o t s r I saw a slight wagging of her tail. paw. My experience in the wild e t t I moved within the length of her suggested that the wolf would now u h s chain. She remained motion- gather her pups and vanish into the / k a less. My heart in my mouth, I sat woods. But cautiously, she crept to- t p p down eight feet from her. One snap ward me. The pups nipped playfully c n n of her huge jaws and she could break at their mother as she stopped at my p r d my arm ... or my neck. I wrapped my elbow. Slowly, she sniffed my hands rd.com 95 Reader’s Digest and arms. Then the wolf began lick- where I had left them, watching me. I ing my fingers. I was astonished. This don’t know why, but I waved. At the went against everything I’d ever heard same time, the mother wolf sent a about timber wolves. Yet, strangely, it long, mournful howl into the crisp air. all seemed so natural. Four years later, after serving in After a while, with her pups scurry- World War II, I returned to Coho ing around her, the mother wolf was Creek. It was the fall of 1945. After the ready to leave and began to limp off horrors of the war, it was good to be toward the forest. Then she turned back among the soaring spruce and back to me. breathing the familiar, bracing air of “You want me to come with you, the Alaskan bush. Then I saw, hanging girl?” I asked. Curious, I packed my in the red cedar where I had placed gear and set off. it four years before, the now-rusted steel trap that had ensnared the ollowing Coho Creek for mother wolf. The sight of it gave me a a few miles, we ascended strange feeling, and something made Kupreanof Mountain un- me climb Kupreanof Mountain to the F til we reached an alpine meadow where I had last seen her. meadow. There, lurking There, standing on a lofty ledge, I gave in the forested perimeter, was a wolf out a long, low wolf call—something I pack—I counted nine adults and, had done many times before. judging by their playful antics, four An echo came back across the dis- nearly full-grown pups. After a few tance. Again I called. And again the minutes of greeting, the pack broke echo reverberated, this time followed into howling. It was an eerie sound, by a wolf call from a ridge about a half ranging from low wails to high- mile away. pitched yodeling. At dark, I set up camp. By the light I HAD NO FEAR. of my fire and a glistening moon, I THE WOLVES WERE could see furtive wolf shapes dodging in and out of the shadows, eyes shin- MERELY CURIOUS. ing. I had no fear. They were merely SO WAS I. curious. So was I. I awoke at first light. It was time to leave the wolf to her pack. She watched as I assembled my gear and started walking across the meadow. Then, far off, I saw a dark shape Reaching the far side, I looked back. moving slowly in my direction. As The mother and her pups were sitting it crossed the meadow, I could see 96 march 2019 Drama in Real Life few yards off, her bushy tail wagging slightly. Moments later, the wolf was gone. I left Kupreanof Island a short time after that, and I never saw the animal again. But the memory she left with me—vivid, haunting, a little eerie— will always be there, a reminder that there are things in nature that exist outside the laws and understanding of man. During that brief instant in time, this injured animal and I had some- how penetrated each other’s worlds, bridging barriers that were never meant to be bridged. There is no With four tiny pups to feed, the mother wolf would need to stay nourished. explaining experiences like this. We can only accept them and—because it was a timber wolf. A chill spread they’re tinged with an air of mystery through my whole body. I knew at and strangeness—perhaps treasure once that familiar shape, even after them all the more. four years. “Hello, old girl,” I called gently. The wolf edged closer, ears This story originally appeared in the erect, body tense, and stopped a May 1987 issue of Reader’s Digest. What’s an Award Worth? Biologist James Watson once put his Nobel Prize up for auction because of k c o financial difficulties. It was bought for $4.7 million, then promptly returned to him. t s r e t t A bird enthusiast paid more than $11,000 for a medal of bravery awarded to u h s Paddy the pigeon, the fastest carrier bird to return to England with news / k a i of the D-day landing (flight time: about five hours). d r u b Steven Spielberg has spent more than $1.3 million buying vintage Oscars r y m at auction (including Bette Davis’s statuette for Jezebel) that he then donates y d o back to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences archive. l o v new york times, bbc, los angeles times rd.com 97 HUMOR NS SIO , ES RS NF KE S O OR NT T C W A ES CO LIC NI S, P N E AP FU SS S E BO ES TH M EL RO LU F D C AN 98 march 2019 | rd.com Reader’s Digest e th ed ne n’t top o I s I d if r? se l ea . rai e s y ar a ow thi ye e d t es is e m ? an ax th iv na it t ey u g ua su on yo rij im er m ll a sw th k Wi m a fa or ✦ ing ar nd w ok we ? r a to sm I ay he e an l d ot am e ✦ C ua m I c b as y re ll I t n c e m efo wi n o nc b y, me ? Si ed an ve ke B ✦ di p ea ta r M S th om er to so E bo s c r b ve rvi U E hi fo ha e D t t ed ’t up g Y b a it dn y s ttin O um ed di m a L o d R cr I ay ch . n e H ve d op rk P re es e. lea ry st wo M e a th tru ve to o er m t ✦ E e k t E th ro no m ac ? rd ? F rly at lls t b at ea ss ea th te e th u h ine cl w t? d g do o us is o e i n e om t y b m . N g o a h e.c n’ in is é n t n rc e s ru m ha e a fo e av n t t su c m C rk el H tio a ré I ire wo te es th y an u — n S qu s, m , c req s? so rie ed re r ur d mp ue ifi he iso o rre ay Si q als ng rv g h fe o p cca I f rki pe in de e t be ✦ o su ork ry av Re w y w la t h by I’m m ic sa n’ s an cif y do ph ✦ C pe e m I ra s av so og ve h ar ot ha n I ye h Ca xt P ✦ ne til un Reader’s Digest Some excuses for missing work are so ✦ Patient has two teenage children dumb they are almost inspired. (Feel but no other abnormalities. free to borrow from these in the future.) —nursebuff.com and nurseslabs.com ✦ The employee said that he couldn’t come to work because his Of course, sometimes HR itself is the fortune-teller had asked him not issue, thanks to some questionable to step out of the house or he would workplace directives. suffer a brain hemorrhage. ✦ I’m a teacher, so I have a million ✦ An employee refused to come stupid rules I have to follow. But the to work because his fish was unwell. worst one is that my performance ✦ The employee said he’d gotten evaluation is based on student im- drunk the night before and was now provement on a statewide literacy suffering from a hangover. test. I teach wood shop. ✦ The employee insisted he’d locked ✦ At my old job, HR held a meeting himself in his house by mistake to tell us that there was too much and that the house did not have any swearing on the sales floor. Someone windows to crawl out of. pointed out that swearing is very ✦ An employee said his mother made common in our industry and that is his favorite dish and he ate too much. the way that our customers speak. —jobcluster.com HR later sent out a memo explaining that swearing should be limited to Doctors and nurses in hospitals work conversations with clients. long, strenuous hours. Sometimes ✦ My workplace doesn’t let you it shows up in the odd things they use the word problems. Instead, we accidentally write in the patient charts. have to say challenges if something ✦ The patient is tearful and crying is wrong. —reddit.com constantly. She also appears to be depressed. ✦ On the second day the knee was DUMB better and on the third day it had ) s r completely disappeared. BOSSES e d ✦ Bleeding began in the rectal area r o b and continued all the way to Los After two days of heated wrangling, o t o Angeles. we got one of our vendors to agree h p ( ✦ She is numb from her toes down. to a 35 percent discount. As we were l a ✦ h The skin was moist and dry. about to sign the contract, my boss, t n ✦ e Social history reveals this 1-year- who had not been a party to the m u l old patient does not smoke or drink negotiations, walked in and tore it b i l and is presently unemployed. up, saying, “I’m going to teach you a 100 march 2019 Humor Bathroom Etiquette rd.com 101 Is That Harassment? “You aren’t as dumb as HR made you out to be.” —pleasefireme.tumblr.com My boss heard there was an opening for a plant manager in our South American facility. To better prepare himself, he decided to at- tend Spanish classes on the company’s time and at its expense. The only problem? The plant is in Brazil, where they speak Portuguese. —cbsnews.com My boss used to tell me and another coworker he hadn’t showered in days and wanted us to make sure cli- ents didn’t get close to him at events. —cosmopolitan.com I work for a family-owned check-cashing company. One day, I was robbed at gunpoint. The next purchasing people how to play day, the owners deducted the stolen hardball. That’s the way you make cash from my paycheck. They said it in this world.” He turned to the ven- I had willingly complied with the dor’s sales rep and said, “We want a robber’s wishes. —cbsnews.com 20 percent discount; take it or leave it.” The delighted rep immediately My boss ate all the breading off agreed. As my boss left, he said to of three pieces of leftover fried us, “I hope you learned something chicken I’d brought to work for from that.” —inc.com lunch, and then he put the naked chicken back into the break-room When corporate came to visit, the fridge like nothing happened. CEO complimented me by saying, — @RyanLostinTX 102 march 2019 Humor Reader’s Digest Inspirational quotes from the men in that situation. Please let me know and women who lead us during the if this is something you have in your workweek: contract or would be willing to add. ✦ I know my plan won’t work, but Thank you! —clientsfromhell.net don’t disagree with me in front of others. A customer came to the counter and ✦ If you are on schedule, then your wanted to buy a Big Mac. When I told plan was not aggressive enough. If her we didn’t have those, she asked you are behind schedule, you must for a Whopper instead. I told her we be goofing off. didn’t have those either, and she got ✦ What this department lacks is mad at me and walked away. I work leadership. at KFC. —pleasefireme.tumblr.com ✦ Bonuses in my department are awarded to team players who have Three designers share their oddest demonstrated an appreciation for client requests: my leadership. ✦ I want you to build me an app ✦ I tried to e-mail you to tell you store. Like the Apple App Store, but that my e-mail wasn’t working, but better. my e-mail wasn’t working. —inc.com ✦ The roast duck on the menu looks kind of dull. Can you make it look I got a citation in my employee file more alive and happy? because I told my boss that Bob ✦ Can you please move the image Marley did not sing “Red Red Wine.” up a tad and down a hair? — @daberhasher —clientsfromhell.net When you’re a cop, Joe and Jane Public DUMB are your clients. And on occasion you can expect bizarre 911 calls such CUSTOMERS as these. ✦ A woman requested to talk with Found this gem of an e-mail in the a police officer because her house- inbox today: keeper wasn’t putting her towels Client: Hello. My fiancée and I are away properly. looking for a wedding photographer ✦ Police receive a report of a new- but are having some issues with the born infant found in a trash can. contracts we are coming across. We Upon investigation, officers discover want a clause that guarantees us a it was only a burrito. refund should we ever get divorced, ✦ During a disturbance call, a man since we would not need the photos gave an officer a false name and was rd.com 103 Reader’s Digest Humor arrested after he was found to have few blocks from two drug-testing ser- warrants for both names. vices. Why the urine has to be deliv- ✦ A woman whose finger got stuck in ered warm we can only guess, but a drain was reported to be conscious when Patel confronted one woman, and breathing. she indignantly demanded to see a ✦ Suspicious people were reportedly sign that bans nuking urine in her doing something with flashlights. store. Hence the sign. A deputy checked and found the —nbcmiami.com people were not suspicious, but merely Canadian. I work at a museum, and a woman —policeone.com, huffingtonpost.com, asked me if mummies were older mercurynews.com than dinosaurs. —pleasefireme.tumblr.com It’s come to this: A Florida gas “We actually get this question on station owner has had to place a a pretty regular basis,” says an sign in her store asking customers official with Iowa’s Department not to warm their urine in the micro- of Transportation. The source of wave. Parul Patel’s Jacksonville gas confusion: The deer-crossing signs station/convenience store is just a that are posted along the road. And the question: “Why don’t you put these signs where it’s Feedback Put to Good Use safer for the deer to cross?” —kcrg.com AND JUST PLAIN DUMB I showed up wearing two different-colored shoes to make a major presentation to an audience of 230 people. —businessinsider.com This guy came into my Walmart back room, put on a vest, picked up the biggest TV, put it on a cart, dropped it, and then DUMB asked me to help lift it. The guy thanked me and left with his brand- APPLICANTS new TV that I’d helped him steal. Looking for a job? Make sure your —reddit.com résumé is up to snuff. A lot of job seek- ers don’t, and we’ve pulled together At the end of a phone call, I told my some actual blunders to prove it. boss I loved him. I caught myself, but started rambling: “Oh my God! objective I didn’t mean that. I absolutely don’t “To secure a position as a front office.” love you ... No, I mean, I like working employment history for you but I know you’re married Last job: “Drove a toe truck.” and I’m married, and I’m not flirting, Before that: “Worked in the dessert.” so please don’t report me to HR ...” And before that: “Oversaw all new At some point, he just hung up. corporate accusations.” “Responsibili- —quickbase.com ties included recruiting, interviewing, and executing final candidates.” I once sent a company-wide virus And before that one: “Watered, groomed, warning by forwarding an e-mail so and fed the family dog for years.” people could see what it looked like skills should they receive one and forgetting “Perfectionist with a keen I for details.” to remove the infected attachment. “Being bilingual in 3 languages.” — @Entropy72 “Natural born larder.” references On my first day of work, I acciden- “Clare.” tally called my boss “Daddy.” —coburgbanks.co.uk compensation “Current salary: $36,000. When I was a teenager, I applied for Salary desired: $223,000.” a job at a hospital gift shop and was interests so pumped when I got the call that “I enjoy cooking Chinese and Italians.” they wanted me. When I showed up “My three biggest hobbies are cars, for my first shift, the manager gave racquetball, golf, and reading.” me the weirdest look, then told me to “I like doughnuts, cupcakes, wait while she called someone. Turns chocolate, and ice cream. Together.” “Honestly, I like doing nothing.” n out that they interviewed two girls e h o named Jessica and meant to hire the education c w other one. They offered me a candy “Graduated in 2911.” e h t bar “for my trouble.” I’m still bitter. —roberthalf.com, almagreta.com, t a coburgbanks.co.uk, archive.fortune.com m —thestir.cafemom.com rd.com | march 2019 105 Reader’s Digest DNA analysis is the most reliable crime-scene tool, having exonerated dozens of wrongly convicted people. But it can sometimes “I leaTd to tHragic mIisNtakes. K I’M 106 march 2019 NATIONAL INTEREST The DNA on Lukis Anderson’s hands should have saved him. It did the opposite. INNOCENT” By Katie Worth from frontline and the marshall project Photographs by Carlos Chavarría rd.com 107 Reader’s Digest National Interest him, and gagged him with duct tape decorated with pictures of mustaches. They found his ex-wife, Harinder Kumra, asleep upstairs, hit her on the mouth, blindfolded her, and tied her up next to Raveesh down in the W kitchen. Then they rummaged for cash and jewelry. When the DNA results came back, After the men left, Harinder, still even Lukis Anderson thought he blindfolded, felt her way to a phone might have committed the murder. and called 911. Police arrived, then “I drink a lot,” he told public de- an ambulance. One of the paramedics fender Kelley Kulick as they sat in an declared Raveesh dead. The coroner interview room at the jail in Santa would later conclude that he had been Clara County, California. Sometimes suffocated by the mustache duct tape. he blacked out, so it was possible he Three and a half weeks later, the had done something he didn’t re- member. “Maybe I did do it.” The volunteers hadn’t Kulick shushed him. “Lukis, shut touched one another, up,” she said. If she was going to keep her new client off death row, he yet their DNA ended up couldn’t go around saying things like on each other’s hands. that. But she agreed. It looked bad. “Let’s just work through the evidence to really see what happened.” police arrested Anderson. His DNA Before he was charged with mur- had been found on Raveesh’s finger- der, Anderson had been a 26-year-old nails, suggesting that Raveesh had homeless alcoholic with a long rap struggled as the intruders tied him up. sheet who spent his days hustling for Anderson was charged with murder. change in San Jose. The murder victim, Kulick was appointed to his case. Raveesh Kumra, was a 66-year-old in- Anderson tried to make sense of a vestor who lived in Monte Sereno, a crime he had no memory of commit- Silicon Valley enclave ten miles and ting. “Nah, nah, nah. I don’t do things many socioeconomic rungs away. like that,” he said. “But maybe I did.” Around midnight on November 29, Months would pass before anyone 2012, three men broke into Raveesh’s figured out what had really happened, 7,000-square-foot mansion. They which was that Lukis Anderson’s DNA found him watching CNN in the liv- had found its way onto the fingernails ing room, tied him up, blindfolded of a dead man he had never even met. 108 march 2019 With a history of blackouts, Anderson worried he’d committed a crime he couldn’t recall. ack in the 1980s, when DNA fo- juice drinkers. It turned up on about B rensic analysis was new, crime half of the chairs and glasses and labs needed a speck of bodily all over the participants’ hands and fluid—usually blood, semen, or spit— the table. The only explanation: The to generate a genetic profile. But in participants had unwittingly brought 1997, Australian scientist Roland van with them alien genes, perhaps from Oorschot stunned the criminal-justice the lover they had kissed that morn- world with the discovery that some ing, the stranger with whom they had people’s DNA appeared on things that shared a bus grip, or the barista who they had never touched. He called the had handed them an afternoon latte. phenomenon “secondary transfer.” In a sense, this isn’t surprising: We One of his lab’s experiments had leave a trail of ourselves everywhere three people sit at a table and share we go. One person can shed upward a jug of juice. After 20 minutes, their of 50 million skin cells a day. We also hands and the chairs, juice glasses, ta- spew saliva. If we stand still and talk ble, and jug were swabbed and tested for 30 seconds, our DNA may be found for genetic material. Although the vol- more than a yard away. unteers never touched one another, DNA is the most accurate forensic their DNA ended up on each other’s science we have. It has exonerated glasses—and hands. scores of people who had been con- Then there was the foreign DNA— victed using more flawed disciplines, profiles that didn’t match any of the such as hair or bite-mark analysis. rd.com 109 Reader’s Digest Meanwhile, there have been few pub- licized cases of DNA mistakenly impli- cating someone in a crime. Nevertheless, the itinerant nature of DNA has serious implications for forensic investigations. After all, if traces of our DNA can make their way to a crime scene we’ve never visited, Lead investigator aren’t we all possible suspects? Erin Lunsford hen Corporal Erin Lunsford, at the county crime lab, ran dozens of W a 15-year veteran of the Los tests on the evidence collected from Gatos–Monte Sereno Police the Kumra mansion. Most revealed Department, arrived at the Kumra DNA profiles consistent with Raveesh mansion, he walked past cop cars or Harinder. clustered around a brick-and-iron gate But then Mehmet hit forensic pay as the lights from a silent ambulance dirt: a handful of unknown profiles. flashed in the driveway. Inside, dress- She ran the DNA through the state ers were emptied, files dumped. A re- criminal database and got three hits: frigerator beeped every ten seconds, 22-year-old DeAngelo Austin on the announcing its doors were ajar. A pile duct tape; 21-year-old Javier Garcia of latex gloves was left in the kitchen on the gloves; and, on the victim’s sink, wet and soapy, as though some- fingernail clippings, 26-year-old Lukis one had tried to wash off the DNA. Ra- Anderson. veesh’s body was on the floor near the Police records showed that Austin kitchen. He was still blindfolded. belonged to a gang linked to a series Lunsford recognized Raveesh, a of home burglaries. His older sister, a wealthy businessman who had once 32-year-old sex worker named Katrina owned a share of a local concert venue. Fritz, had been involved with Raveesh Lunsford had also run into him at for 12 years. Eventually she would ad- Goguen’s Last Call, a dive frequented mit that she had given her brother a by Raveesh as a regular and Lunsford map of the house. as a cop responding to calls. Raveesh Connecting Anderson to the crime was an affable extrovert, always buying proved trickier, but eventually Luns- rounds. In the coming days, Lunsford ford found a link. A year earlier, would discover that Raveesh had Anderson had been locked up for relationships with sex workers. a felony residential burglary in the In the weeks after the murder, same jail as a friend of Austin’s named Tahnee Nelson Mehmet, a criminalist Shawn Hampton. Hampton wore an 110 march 2019 | rd.com National Interest ankle monitor as a condition of his “My guess is you didn’t think any- parole. It showed that two days before body was gonna be home,” D’Antonio the crime, he had driven to San Jose, said. “My guess is it went way farther right near Anderson’s usual haunts. than you ever thought it would go.” It started to crystallize for Lunsford: “I don’t know what you’re talking When Austin was planning the break- about, sir,” Anderson said. in, he wanted a local guy experienced “Lukis, Lukis, Lukis,” D’Antonio said. in burglary. So Hampton hooked him “I don’t have a crystal ball to know up with his jail buddy, Anderson. what the truth is. Only you do. And in Anderson had recently landed back all the years I’ve been doing this, I’ve in jail after violating his probation on never seen a DNA hit being wrong.” the burglary charge. Lunsford and his boss, Sergeant Mike D’Antonio, visited nderson had been in jail on him there. A the murder charge for over a “Does this guy look familiar to you? month when a defense investi- What about this lady?” Lunsford said, gator dropped a stack of records on laying out pictures of the victims on Kulick’s desk. They were Anderson’s the interview room’s table. medical records. Because his murder “I don’t know, man,” Anderson said. charge could carry the death penalty, Lunsford set down a letter from the Kulick had the investigator pull every- state of California showing the data- thing pertinent to his medical history, base match of Anderson’s DNA to the including his mental health, in case profile found on the victim’s fingernails. they had to ask for leniency during “This starting to ring some bells?” sentencing. She suspected that An- Lunsford said. derson could be a candidate for such The quiet road the murderers traveled to the Kumra mansion Reader’s Digest National Interest leniency. He’d spent much of his His rap sheet seemed to agree. It childhood homeless. In early adult- was filled with petty crimes: drunk in hood, he was diagnosed with a men- public, riding a bike under the influ- tal health disorder and diabetes. And ence, probation violations. The one he had developed a mighty alcohol serious conviction—the residential addiction. One day, while drunk, he burglary—seemed more benign upon stepped off a curb and into the path of careful reading. According to the po- a truck. He survived, but his memory lice report, Anderson had drunkenly was never the same. He lost track of broken the front window of a home days, sometimes several in a row. and tried to crawl through. The hor- That’s not to say his life was bleak. rified resident pushed him back out. He made friends easily. Kulick and her Police found him minutes later on the investigator had spoken to several of sidewalk, dazed and bleeding. He was them. Anderson might be a drunk, charged with a felony and pleaded no they said, but he wasn’t a killer. contest. His DNA was added to the state criminal database. Documents from Anderson’s case on More recently, the medical records public defender Kelley Kulick’s desk showed that Anderson had been 112 march 2019 taken by ambulance to Kulick says the Valley Medical Center, police “got the DNA, where he was declared and then made up a inebriated nearly to the story to fit it.” point of unconscious- ness. He spent the night detoxing. The date was November 29. If the record was right, An- derson had been in the hospital precisely as Ra- veesh Kumra was dying. Kulick knew Lunsford would try to find holes: Perhaps the date on the record was wrong or An- derson’s ID had been stolen. So she n 2009, German detectives were on and the investigator retraced his day. I the trail of the “Phantom of Heil- They found a record that put him at bronn.” A serial killer and thief, the S&S Market in the early evening. The Phantom had murdered immigrants clerk there told Kulick that Anderson and a cop, robbed a gemstone trader, had sat down in front of the store at and munched on a cookie while com- about 8:15 p.m., already drunk, and mitting a burglary. Police mobilized gotten drunker. A couple of hours later, across borders, offered a large reward, he wandered into the store and col- and racked up more than 16,000 hours lapsed. The clerk called the authorities. on the hunt. But they struggled to Two paramedics arrived in an am- discern a pattern to the crimes, other bulance. They wrestled Anderson than the DNA profile the Phantom left onto a stretcher and took him to the at 40 crime scenes in Germany, France, hospital. According to his medical re- and Austria. At long last, they found cords, he was admitted at 10:45 p.m. the Phantom: an elderly Polish worker The doctor who treated him said An- in the factory that produced the swabs derson remained in bed through the police used to collect DNA. She had night. Harinder had said the men who somehow contaminated the swabs as killed Raveesh rampaged through the she worked. Crime-scene investigators house sometime between 11:30 p.m. had, in turn, contaminated dozens of and 1:30 a.m. Kulick called the district crime scenes with her DNA. attorney’s office. She wanted to meet Contamination, the unintentional with them and Lunsford. introduction of DNA into evidence by rd.com 113 Reader’s Digest National Interest the very people investigating the crime, to Monte Sereno. District attorney Jeff is the best-understood form of transfer. Rosen has postulated that a device And after Lunsford heard Kulick’s pre- slipped over both patients’ fingers to sentation and retraced Anderson’s day measure oxygen levels may have been himself, he concluded he had jailed an the culprit. Deputy district attorney innocent man. He counted contamina- Kevin Smith framed the incident as a tion among his leading theories. freak accident. “It’s a small world,” he In Santa Clara County, the district told a San Francisco Chronicle reporter. attorney’s office reviewed the Kumra But it was hardly a small mistake to case and found no obvious evidence the defendant. Had the case gone to of errors or improper use of tools in trial, jurors may well have convicted the crime lab. They checked whether Anderson, as they did the other three Anderson’s DNA had shown up in any defendants (a third man, Marcellous Drummer, was eventually arrested). A “If you don’t bring in the 2008 study found that jurors rated DNA appropriate amount of evidence as 95 percent accurate and 94 percent persuasive of a suspect’s skepticism, there will be guilt. “We’re desperately hoping that miscarriages of justice.” DNA will come in to save the day, but it’s still fitting into a flawed system,” says Erin E. Murphy, a professor of law other cases the lab had recently han- at New York University and author of dled and inadvertently wandered into Inside the Cell: The Dark Side of Fo- the Kumra case. It had not. rensic DNA. “If you don’t bring in the It was Lunsford who figured out the appropriate amount of skepticism and answer to the riddle of how Anderson’s restraint in using the method, there are DNA ended up on Raveesh Kumra. He going to be miscarriages of justice.” was reading Anderson’s medical re- Having narrowly escaped a terrible cords and paused on the names of the fate, Anderson himself has advice for ambulance paramedics who’d picked law-enforcement officers: “There’s up Anderson outside S&S Market. He more that’s gotta be looked at than had seen them before. He pulled up the just the DNA,” he says. “You’ve got to Kumra case files. Sure enough, there dig deeper. Reanalyze. Do everything were the names again: Three hours all over again before you say, ‘This is after picking up the drunk Anderson what it is.’ Because it may not neces- at the market, the two paramedics had sarily be so.” responded to the Kumra mansion. this investigation was published in partnership Somehow, the paramedics must have with the marshall project, frontline, and wired, copyright © 2018 by the marshall project and moved Anderson’s DNA from San Jose frontline. 114 march 2019 Reader’s Digest LAUGH LINES If I’m ever feeling down, If Leonardo da Vinci were alive today, the Mona Lisa I just type “Yo are the best” would have been called into Google. Then it responds, “IMG-20121020-00463.jpg.” “I think you mean: You are the — @SadPeruna best.” And I feel much better. —Jack Barry, comedian Moses was technically Before you buy the first person to Time for a that nice jacket download files online, ask yourself, to his tablet Reality Tech “Am I willing to from the delete one extra cloud. e-mail every day for — @ADDiane the rest of my life?” — @AaronFullerton My Roomba My computer just just went into gave me an “Error the corner and 404” message, knocked over the which can’t be right broom that was because I know I’ve leaning there. made way more Dude, chill out. k errors than that. c o You already got t — @dmc1138 s r the job. e t t — @burnie u h s / r o i n u j s e b rd.com 1 15 WHO KNEW? Before They Were STARS Eight fictional icons with looks and backstories so fantastic they have to be based on actual people. But whom? By Molly Pennington Reader’s Digest 1 2 3 4 5 6 Turn the page for the biographies and photos of the real-life inspirations for: 1. James Bond, 2. Miss Piggy, 3. Betty Boop, 4. Popeye, 5. Mary Poppins, 6. Norman Bates from Psycho, 7. Professor Snape from the Harry Potter series, 8. The Simpsons’ Mr. Burns. 7 8 Photographs by Matthew Cohen rd.com | march 2019 1 17 Reader’s Digest James Bond Miss Piggy During World War II, She was a brash blonde a British spy named who knew how to hold forest yeo-thomas a note but not her man. (above) parachuted Elegant and egotistical into occupied France on the outside, she was / n o three times to spy really a farm girl at heart. i t c on the Nazis before being captured Miss Piggy—yes. But also her inspiration: e l l and tortured by the Gestapo—only to the divine Miss peggy lee. It started with o c e escape and reach Allied lines again. the farm connection. Bonnie Erickson, r o His derring-do was acclaimed by many the Muppet Show puppeteer who created t s e i British officers at the time, including Miss Piggy, was, like Lee, a North Dakota v o m a budding author named Ian Fleming. native, and her mother adored the . ) s Fleming reportedly went on to use legendary torch singer. Miss Piggy was a ) m y o Yeo-Thomas and his escapades as the Erickson’s tribute to the woman who g h g i t - basis for his most famous character, famously asked “Is That All There Is?” In p o d e n James Bond. Like Bond in various fact, the puppet’s full name was originally y ( a , k d novels, Yeo-Thomas was a bon vivant Miss Piggy Lee. But Miss Peggy Lee had c n o t o who made harrowing escapes by hiding a penchant for lawsuits; she sued Disney s b r , e e in a hearse, jumping from a train, and for a share of the voice performance t e t l ( u strangling a guard. And the torture that and songwriting profits for Lady and the h k s c / a naked Daniel Craig’s Bond endures in Tramp. And so the divine swine’s name o k t c s a Casino Royale is said to be based on the was trimmed to Miss Piggy. Ironically, r b e t e t same twisted technique the Nazis used Lee had changed her name too. She was v u e h t s on Yeo-Thomas. born Norma Deloris Egstrom. s 118 march 2019 Who Knew? Betty Boop Popeye The roaring ’20s were In 1929, when Elzie n a i epitomized by jazz, Segar was hunting for s i o hedonism, and flap- characters to populate n i l pers. And among the his new comic strip, l i n most popular flappers he didn’t need to r e ) h e was baby-voiced look any farther than t y u e p o helen kane, she of the dark ringlet curls. his hometown of Chester, Illinois, for s o p e The popular singer was performing at inspiration. There was the tall, reed-thin , h p t o y New York’s Paramount Theater when woman who wore her hair in a bun at o s b e ( t she ad-libbed “boop-boop-a-doop” into the nape of her neck. The local theater r k u c a song as a bawdy eyewink. Soon the owner, a man who so loved hamburgers o o t c s . ) r entire country was boop-boop-a-dooping, that he had his employees run out e e t n t and animator Max Fleischer took notice. between performances to buy him a u k ( h In 1932, his company created Betty some, was also perfect. Finally, there s k / c n o Boop, a baby-voiced flapper with dark was the one-eyed pipe smoker with a t o i s t r c ringlet curls. Kane sued Fleischer for penchant for fistfights. There’s no record e e t l t l $250,000, claiming he’d appropriated that frank fiegel was obsessed with u o h c s her likeness and her signature phrase. spinach, but he certainly looked a lot like e / s r e o The judge, however, threw out the case Popeye, just as the other two evoked g t s a e after Fleischer pointed to Baby Esther, Olive Oyl and Wimpy. “Mr. Fiegel was m i i v e o s an African American flapper who had a little guy like Popeye,” one Chester m u . o ) performed the same routine well before resident told the New York Times. “He l h e s s g Kane. In fact, insisted Fleischer, Kane often got into fights at Wiebusch’s e a i l f g ( had stolen the act from her! tavern, and he did not lose many.” rd.com 119 Reader’s Digest Mary Poppins “Psycho” k c P. L. Travers’s im- Norman Bate ) s o s t e s mensely popular Alfred Hitchcock’s t r a e b ( t Mary Poppins, the star murderous motel t k u c h of novels about a proprietor is scary o s t / s p no-nonsense but enough, but he’s r a e / t s magical nanny, was perhaps more fright- t o u h m l modeled on her own great-aunt Sass, ening when you learn that the Psycho s / o l d aka christina saraset. “Imagine a character was based on a real person. a l b o o r bulldog whose ferocious exterior covers ed gein was convicted of killing two k a / t h . a heart tender to the point of sentimen- women in the 1950s and was suspected n ) u t o tality and you have Christina Saraset,” of many more murders around his home- e s m a a r Travers once wrote. The first Mary Pop- town of Plainfield, Wisconsin. He even r a a s p ( pins book was published in 1934, and dug up graves for body parts and made . s ) e s l among its legion of devoted fans were masks out of human skin. Robert Bloch, n i a p w Walt Disney’s daughters, who persuaded who wrote the novel Psycho, co-opted p h o t p ( u their father to buy the rights. It took him many of Gein’s strange obsessions for k o c s Bates, including his morbid shrine to 14 years, but he finally convinced Travers o w t e s his overbearing dead mother. Like r that he would do justice to her work. The n e f t o Bates, Gein came across as polite and t movie, of course, was beloved by most, u y r almost normal, prompting the head h with one notable exception—Travers s a / r e b nurse of the mental hospital where he i herself. She hated the film’s sugarcoated r l o e t sentimentality and animated scenes so was held to reportedly say, “If all our t s a e i t v much that she refused to grant Disney patients were like him, we’d have no s o y s m permission to make a sequel. trouble at all.” e . ) t r n i u e o 120 g ( march 2019 c Who Knew? ) s Harry Potter’s Charles n r . Severus Snape Montgomery ) u r b ( e l Severus Snape, the Burns, the c l f e f f calculating Slytherin c richest man on e t k The Simpsons c 8 House headmaster in 1 o 0 r ( 2 the Harry Potter series, john d. rockefeller k d c n is a cold, unsmiling was the richest man o a t s s taskmaster who terrifies his pupils. He in the world; Montgomery Burns is the r n e o t s is also loosely based on some acquain- richest man on The Simpsons. For years, t p u m h i tances of J. K. Rowling’s, one of whom Rockefeller had an oil monopoly s s / e l is likely her former chemistry teacher, (his Standard Oil controlled 90 percent h a t c i y r john nettleship. Like Snape, Nettleship of refineries in the United States); s o e t t s had long, straight dark hair and a strict for years, Burns has craved a monopoly r i u h o disposition. Understandably, Nettleship of anything and everything. Rockefeller t c t . e ) was not thrilled to hear the comparison. cracked down on striking workers; r e e p v a “I was rather distressed about this,” e Mr. Burns cracks down on malingering n . s ) ( p he told the BBC. “But [my wife] said, ‘I workers, such as Homer Simpson. i n h o s i realized that a long time ago, but I didn’t Do you see a pattern? That’s because e t l c t e dare tell you.’ Joanne [Rowling] has said Simpsons creator Matt Groening mod- t l e l n o ( that Snape is based on three people. I’ll eled his town’s miserly billionaire after c k t u t just have to hope that the worst bits of the patriarch of the Rockefeller clan, . e o r c e Snape are based on two different ones, with a soupçon of Mr. Potter, the bad guy . v e e n i / won’t I?” He added, “There are ways of from It’s a Wonderful Life. To add an extra l s n o pupils getting their revenge, but this is dash of dastardliness, Burns’s physique o r s b e r l a much more sophisticated retaliation.” was based on that of a praying mantis. e a n w r a a i 121 v w rd.com Reader’s Digest THE n g i s e d r a i u g a y b e l p p a , Reading isn’t just filling your head—it’s nourishing it. n e h o c The latest science on the magic of books. w e h t t a By Marc Peyser m 122 march 2019 ou can take fish oil “Reading gives you a unique pause supplements or eat lots button for comprehension and insight. of turmeric. You can in- By and large, with oral language— vest in a language class, when you watch a film or listen to a Ypuzzle books, or a few tape—you don’t press pause.” hours of exercise every And the benefits of reading con- week. There are countless methods tinue long after you’ve put down that to (allegedly) improve your memory great book. A small study at Emory and cognitive functioning—the brain- University found that some of those training and -assessment industry is benefits persisted for five days. “We expected to reach $8 billion by 2022, call that a shadow activity, almost according to a major market research like a muscle memory,” says Gregory report. But the cheapest, easiest, and Berns, PhD, director of the Center for most time-tested way to sharpen your Neuropolicy at Emory. brain is right in front of your face. It’s called reading. THE BENEFITS The fact that reading is good for your CONTINUE LONG brain isn’t surprising—there’s a reason moms are always on their kids’ cases AFTER YOU’VE PUT to turn off the TV and pick up a good DOWN THAT BOOK. book. But there’s something astounding about how such an ordinary activity can improve your brain in so many ways. OK, you say, it’s hardly surprising The most basic impact occurs in that the language part of the brain the area associated with language re- would get a workout from reading. But ception, the left temporal cortex. Pro- reading also energizes the region re- cessing written material—from the sponsible for motor activity, the cen- letters to the words to the sentences tral sulcus. That’s because the brain to the stories themselves—snaps the is a very exuberant play actor. When neurons to attention as they start the it is reading about a physical activity, work of transmitting all that informa- the neurons that control that activity tion. That happens when we process get busy as well. You may not actually spoken language, too, but the very na- be riding a horse when you’re reading ture of reading encourages the brain Seabiscuit, but your brain acts as if it to work harder and better. “Typically, is. And the more parts of your brain when you read, you have more time to that get a workout, the better it is for think,” says Maryanne Wolf, EdD, di- your overall cognitive performance. rector of the UCLA Center for Dyslexia, That said, not all reading is cre- Diverse Learners, and Social Justice. ated equal. Preliminary results from a rd.com 123 Reader’s Digest The Genius Section study conducted at Stanford Univer- studied children ages eight to ten who sity indicate that close literary reading were below-average readers. One hun- in particular gives your brain a major dred hours of remedial reading classes workout. MRI scans of people who are significantly improved the quality of deep into a Jane Austen novel showed their brains’ white matter—the tis- an increase in blood flowing to areas sue that carries signals between areas of the brain that control both cognitive of gray matter, where information is processed. The researchers’ conclu- sion: The brains of these children had try this brain food begun to rewire themselves in ways Reader’s Digest has published Select that could benefit the entire brain, Editions anthologies since 1950. From not only the reading-centric temporal the beginning (when the series was cortex. known as Condensed Books), they have The ability to read closely is some- featured top-notch thing that needs to be nurtured. In her contemporary fiction new book, Reader, Come Home, Wolf by authors such as Lee notes that even she, as someone who Child and Nicholas reads for a living, has found her abil- Sparks. To order the ity to concentrate on the written word newest volume, go to fading as more of what we read is on selecteditions.com/ a screen. “Unfortunately, this form rdmar19. of reading is rarely continuous, sus- tained, or concentrated,” she writes. and executive function, as opposed That sets up a vicious cycle: Without to the more limited effects that come the sustained exercise of our reading from more leisurely reading. “muscles,” the brain loses its ability to What if you are (or someone you control the intricate processes that al- know is) a poor, or even a dyslexic, low us to read deeply. reader who feels as if you’ll never be Of course, there’s an easy solution: able to read enough to reap these ben- Turn off your phone and your com- efits? A book can fix that problem too! puter, set aside a good hour or two— Scientists at Carnegie Mellon University and just read. n e h Truth in Texting o c I tried to say, “I’m a functional adult,” but my phone changed it to w e h “fictional adult,” and I feel like that’s more accurate. t t a @xplodingunicorn (james breakwell) m 124 march 2019 | rd.com At least ION MILL eart 11 s have h merican A isease valve d CONNAEDVERCTISEMTENT IONS: Your link to values and insights each month Look for it on Digital Chronic Neck or Back Pain? and Blu-ray™ See how a less than 1-inch incision can give you relief. Visit LaserSpineInsitute.com to find out if you’re a candidate for our minimally invasive procedures. TM & © 2018 WBEI. Publishing Rights © J.K.R. Reader’s Digest BRAIN GAMES Word Sudoku medium Complete the grid MEAON so that each row, each column, and each three- EM OA by-three frame contains the nine letters from the OSA N E Z black box below. A hidden nine-letter word is in the IES diagonal from top left to bottom right. (It may EOZINM contain repeated letters.) NSAOUE A E I M N O S U Z IMONE ONES U For more Brain Games, go to MUONZ games.rd.com. Quick Crossword easy Place the words listed below in the crossword grid. AIOLI BEAT COAT DICE DIP DRUPE DRY EATS PARE PASTA RACK SAKE STEW WOK 126 march 2019 The Genius Section Have a Chocolate easy Dad: “Where are the chocolate bars I bought?” Daughter: “I gave half of them to Mom and half of a bar n u f to my little brother. Then I gave half of what was left i m to Grandma and half of a bar to my little sister. That a g i left me with one bar, which I gladly ate myself.” n e f How many bars did Dad originally buy? o l l a b m i k k c i r Arithme-pick e d medium Place one of the four arithmetic operations (+, –, ×, ÷) in each box to make a o r : correct equation. All operations are performed from left to right, ignoring the mathe- d o o matical order of operations. The result at each step must be a positive whole number. h r o b h g i e n e h 25 24 1 8 = 6 t s e o g e r e h t There Goes the Neighborhood . n o difficult Each of the six people quoted below lives in one of the six houses in the s p neighborhood shown. The houses are white, brown, green, blue, yellow, and orange. m i s Assuming that everyone is telling the truth, whose house is painted which color? r e s a r f : Mrs. Antonini: Mrs. Borden lives due north of me. k c i p Mrs. Borden: I live in the orange house. I can walk to - e Mrs. Englehardt’s house without crossing any streets. m h t i Mr. Cruz: I live due east of a green house. r a . Miss Dubois: There’s a white house north of mine, i s e but I can’t see it from my house, because there’s a brown n a d house in the way. l e Mrs. Englehardt: I live directly across a street from c r a both a yellow house and a white house. m : e Mr. Fung: I live in the green house. t a l o c o h c a e v a h For answers, turn to page 131. rd.com 127 One solution for oxygen at home Introd It’s oxy No more tanks to refi ll. No more deliveries. No more hassles with travel. The INOGEN ONE portable oxygen concentrator is designed to provide unparalleled freedom for oxygen therapy users. It’s small, light-weight, clinically proven for stationary and portable use, during the day and at night, and can go virtually anywhere — even on most airlines. Reclaim Your Freedom And Independence NOW! Call Inogen Today To Request Your FREE Info Kit 1-800-603-7923 or visit www.inogen.com © 2019 Inogen, Inc. All rights reserved. MKT-P0101 The Genius Section Reader’s Digest 9. calliope n. WORD POWER (kuh-'ly-uh-pee) a echo. b shooting star. c steam-whistle organ. Like the month of March—which is named 10. ambrosial adj. for the Roman war god, Mars—the words (am-'broh-zhuhl) in this quiz all have their origins in a delicious. mythology. Muse upon them, then consult b of the blood. c golden. the fates for answers (or just turn the page). 11. paean n. ('pee-uhn) By Emily Cox and Henry Rathvon a beetle. b song of praise. c kinship. 1. odyssey n. 5. narcissistic adj. 12. venerate v. ('ah-duh-see) (nar-suh-sih-'stik) ('veh-nuh-rayt) a peculiarity. a forgetful. a shine. b long journey. b generous. b hunt. c sea monster. c self-obsessed. c worship. 2. nemesis n. 6. mercurial adj. 13. myrmidon n. ('neh-muh-sis) (mer-'kyoor-ee-uhl) ('mer-muh-don) a pen name. a changeable. a half dolphin, half man. b memory loss. b famished. b loyal follower. c archenemy. c combative. c huge crowd. 3. delphic adj. 7. aurora n. 14. lycanthrope n. ('del-fik) (uh-'roh-ruh) ('ly-cuhn-throhp) a ambiguous. a dawn. a sailboat. b underground. b hearing. b werewolf. c greedy. c lions. c wine bottle. 4. vestal adj. 8. cornucopia n. 15. plutocracy n. ('veh-stuhl) (kor-nuh-'koh-pee-uh) (ploo-'tah-kruh-see) a springlike. a abundance. a government by the rich. b fierce. b madness. b remote solar system. c chaste. c herd. c chemical reaction. To play an interactive version of Word Power on your iPad, download the Reader’s Digest app. rd.com | march 2019 129 Reader’s Digest Mixed-Up Months Though March comes third in our modern calendar, the Roman calendar originally had only ten months, running from March to December. (January and February were added later.) That’s why September, October, November, and December are named for the Latin septem (“seven”), octo (“eight”), novem (“nine”), and decem (“ten”). Word Power 6. mercurial (a) 12. venerate (c) worship. ANSWERS changeable. “New En- Juliana goes to every gland weather certainly single Packers game— is mercurial,” Meg said, she practically venerates 1. odyssey (b) peeling off her heavy coat. the team. long journey. My five-minute errand 7. aurora (a) dawn. 13. myrmidon (b) turned into a day-long The hikers paused to ad- loyal follower. The odyssey. mire the beautiful pink emperor’s myrmidons aurora before continuing cater to his every 2. nemesis (c) on the mountain trail. whim, no matter how archenemy. “Ah, my old outlandish. nemesis—we meet 8. cornucopia (a) again!” the supervillain abundance. “What can I 14. lycanthrope (b) cackled. get you? We have a cor- werewolf. My boyfriend nucopia of craft beers on always disappears when 3. delphic (a) ambiguous. tap,” the bartender said. there’s a full moon; Danny was unimpressed do you think he’s a by the fortune-teller’s 9. calliope (c) steam- lycanthrope? delphic predictions. whistle organ. What’s a circus without a calliope? 15. plutocracy (a) 4. vestal (c) chaste. government by the rich. The ancient ritual 10. ambrosial (a) “Only the wealthy can af- required vestal maidens delicious. An espresso ford to run for mayor—this to dance in a circle milkshake would taste town has become a plutoc- around the fire. ambrosial about now! racy!” Jim complained. n 5. narcissistic (c) 11. paean (b) e h self-obsessed. Does song of praise. Mom Vocabulary Ratings o c posting five selfies composed a paean for 9 & below: mortal w e h a day make me us to perform for Dad’s 10–12: demigod t t a narcissistic? birthday. 13–15: Olympian m 130 march 2019 The Genius Section make BRAIN GAMES us ANSWERS laugh! See page 126. Word Sudoku U MZSEA I ON I N EMZOASU OSA INUEMZ AIMN UESZO EUOZ I SNAM NZSAOM UE I SA I UMZO NE ZONES IMU A MEUOANZ I S Have a Chocolate SEVEN. Caption Contest What’s your clever description for this Arithme-pick picture? Submit your funniest line at 25 + 24 − 1 ÷ 8 = 6 RD.COM/CAPTIONCONTEST. Winners will There Goes the appear in a future Photo Finish (PAGE 132). Neighborhood antonini: blue Quick Crossword borden: orange DIP C DRUPE S R s cruz: white e g RAIOLI A TA a dubois: yellow m i YRAC SAKEC y englehardt: brown t t BEAT E T WOK e fung: green g / EATS c n i y h p Reader’s Digest (ISSN 0034-0375) (USPS 865-820), (CPM Agreement# 40031457), Vol. 193, No. 1148, March 2019. © 2019. Published monthly, a except bimonthly in July/August and December/January (subject to change without notice), by Trusted Media Brands, Inc., 44 South Broadway, r g White Plains, New York 10601. Periodicals postage paid at White Plains, New York, and at additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address o changes to Reader’s Digest, PO Box 6095, Harlan, Iowa 51593-1595. Send undeliverable Canadian addresses to [email protected]. All rights t o reserved. Unauthorized reproduction, in any manner, is prohibited. 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If you would rather not receive such offers via postal mail, please write to Reader’s n h Digest Customer Mailing List, PO Box 3123, Harlan, Iowa 51593-0189. You can also visit www.tmbi.com/preference-center to manage your prefer- o j ences and opt out of receiving such offers via e-mail. Please see our Privacy Policy at www.tmbi.com/privacy-policy. rd.com 131 Reader’s Digest The Genius Section PHOTO FINISH Your Funniest captions Winner “What glass ceiling?” —Wanda Pontbriand Rhinelander, Wisconsin Runners-Up “Houston, we have a problem child.” —Denise Nipps Peoria, Illinois r e t e p - “I told you I was too good to breathe the same air as you.” z s o —Lorena Renteria Turlock, California g l i w a i l i m To enter an upcoming caption contest, see the photo on page 131. e 132 march 2019 | rd.com “Beautiful designs and colors? This bladder protection has it all.” Depend Always Discreet Silhouette Boutique Always Discreet Boutique. Fits closer. Keeps you drier, too.* *vs. Depend Silhouette Small/Medium. Depend Silhouette is a trademark of Kimberly-Clark Worldwide. © 2019 P&G