News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

'Avalanche Awareness Days' is held annually in January in over 40 Canadian communities. Community events are planned at ski and snowmobile areas in mountain communities across Canada, from Crowsnest Pass, Alberta to Whitehorse, Yukon to Pond Inlet, Nunavut. Day-time activities include hands-on demonstrations of safety gear such as avalanche transceivers, probes, and shovels, and tips on how to use public avalanche bulletins. In every community, avalanche professionals and many volunteers share their expertise to help people learn how to manage their risk in avalanche terrain.

Rick Jelley, president of the Williams Lake Powder Kings Snowmobile Club stated today that they do an avalanche awareness course every year, including one coming up in the next two weeks. The courses are done with Mark Savard from Red Shreds and Powder Kings safety director Sue Price.

British Columbians continue to light up the phone lines at 8-1-1, with almost 34,000 smokers calling for help quitting. 

The Province's smoking cessation program, which launched on September 30, 2011 supports British Columbians who wish to quit smoking and is accessed by calling and registering with HealthLink BC. Once each calendar year, B.C. residents registered with the Medical Services Plan can receive PharmaCare coverage of a single continuous course of treatment of a prescription smoking cessation drug or a free 12-week supply of a Nicotine Replacement Therapy product. 

Ground-breaking research with world-wide implications and the potential to improve the lives of millions of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) will begin in the Okanagan in the New Year.

Neil Eves has been awarded a substantial grant from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research to study how exercise impacts COPD. Eves will receive up to $635,000 over the next eight years to allow him to examine this important line of inquiry.

By LeRae Haynes

One of the informative and entertaining delegations that addressed City Council this fall was Bob Bell, Chief Operating Officer at www.healthlinkbc.ca  who presented information that could change the way BC residents access information about their health.

The British Columbia Centre for Disease Control is issuing a public health advisory to identify passengers who traveled on Greyhound bus #5098 on October 11 and were exposed to an active case of tuberculosis.

The ill person took Greyhound bus #5098 from Vancouver at 5:45 pm, arrived in Chilliwack at 7:45 pm, left Chilliwack at 8:05 pm and arrived in Kelowna at 11:55 pm, during the infectious stage of the disease.  The individual is currently receiving treatment in Kelowna.  

By LeRae Haynes

Interior Health is announcing the location and times of free flu clinics in Williams Lake, Horsefly and Likely. Flu shots are described by Interior Health as ‘safe, effective and free’ for people in risk categories that include people over 65, First Nations residents, residents of care facilities, healthy children ages 6-23 months and health care providers.

(Cariboo Bethel Church is one of the locations of the free flu shot clinics in Williams Lake.)

With the arrival of apple season in the fall, it’s important to remember that unpasteurized apple juice and cider can sometimes be infected with harmful bacteria, Provincial Health Officer Dr. Perry Kendall and the BC Centre for Disease Control, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority, are reminding the public. 

“The BCCDC recommends that unpasteurized apple juice and cider be boiled for at least a minute before consuming,” says Lynn Wilcott, Acting Program Director of Food Protection Services. ”Medical health officers from across the country have stated that only pasteurization can guarantee that apple juice and cider are free of pathogens such as E. coli and Salmonella.” 

Pens, paper and binders are what most people think of as school supplies but what about trowels and gardening gloves? With assistance from Interior Health’s Community Food Action Initiative many schools are teaching students about producing healthy food and the science behind it by providing opportunities for them to get their hands dirty and develop valuable lifelong skills.

“For many people fast food and processed food are more readily available and affordable than healthy food. This presents a real concern, as these foods can lead to poor health,” said Heather Deegan, Manager of Interior Health’s Food Security and Community Nutrition program. “Interior Health, through programs like the Community Food Action Initiative, has joined forces with many schools and communities to change that and the results are very exciting. Students are developing awareness about healthy, locally grown food and they are learning the skills to grow it themselves.”

Clinicians at the BC Cancer Agency released promising clinical trial results in treating women with high-grade serous ovarian cancer with PARP inhibitors.  For the first time, scientists and clinicians were able to reduce tumour size in both BRCA positive patients and patients without the germline genetic mutation related to breast and ovarian cancer. 

The findings, published in The Lancet Oncology, highlight the potential for future clinical studies in treating women with high grade serous ovarian cancer with Olaparib. “Olaparib represents a promising therapeutic option for patients with this aggressive malignant disease for whom treatment options are limited and often involve toxic chemotherapies,” says Dr. Karen Gelmon, medical oncologist with the BC Cancer Agency, an agency of the Provincial Health Services Authority.

By Debbie Irvine

Excitotoxins are chemicals that stimulate the taste cells in the tongue which enhances the taste and/or the sweetness of the food to which they are added.

Excitotoxins are used extensively in diet soft drinks, sauces, soups, gravy mixes, and frozen diet food. Two common naturally occurring excitotoxins are glutamate and aspartate. These are both amino acids (building blocks of proteins.) Glutamate is found in MSG and aspartate is found in aspartame. NutraSweet, Equal and Spoonful are some of the trade names for aspartame.

Both glutamate and aspartate are two of the most common transmitters for nerve impulses in the brain and spinal column. However, when the concentrations of either of these exceeds a certain level they become deadly toxins to some of these nerve cells, also known as neurons. They do this by causing the neurons to become extremely excited. The nerve impulses are fired very quickly until a state of extreme exhaustion is reached and these neurons will suddenly die several hours later. It is as if they were excited to death and hence the name 'excititoxins.'