The Latest Mikey Network News

The 27th Life Saved With A MIKEY Defibrillator Was A Family Effort

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One of our Mikey’s Kids families informed us today that a 27th life has been saved with a MIKEY!

Our Mikey’s Kids program provides MIKEYs (AEDs) to families when a heart condition requires a defibrillator to be on hand at all times. In many cases these children cannot leave the hospital without a portable defibrillator. Having the MIKEY with them allows families to lead a more normal life, knowing that help is close at hand should they need it.

In this case, the MIKEY was provided for the son, but it was the dad, who was diagnosed as low risk, that needed the help. Mom, who happens to be an MD in family practice, used the MIKEY AED to administer 2 shocks to restore dad’s normal heart rhythm. Dad was awake when paramedics arrived, and is doing well.

This is the third time a Mikey’s Kids family has used their MIKEY to save a family member’s life, and the 27th life that has been saved using a MIKEY AED.

This save was truly a family effort, and we are so grateful that this father will have a second chance at life.

 

St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church Happy Recipient of a MIKEY AED

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From left to right: David Goodman, CEO of Heaven Can Wait Emergency First Aid Training, Dr Minna Stein, Treasurer, Toronto Academy of Dentistry (TAD), Dr. Sheryl Lipton, President, TAD and Dr. Philip Novack, Past President, TAD

St. Mark’s Coptic Orthodox Church is the happy recipient of a brand new MIKEY defibrillator. The MIKEY was donated through a joint programme between The Mikey Network, Heaven Can Wait Emergency First Aid Training and The Toronto Academy of Dentistry. As part of this initiative, the three partners work together to place MIKEYs in public access locations throughout the GTA.

Previous recipients were the West Toronto Lawn Bowling Club, the Cummer Avenue United Church in North York, Ontario and Ronald McDonald House in Toronto, Ontario.

The Toronto Academy of Dentistry, a respected leader and resource to the dental profession in the Metropolitan Toronto Area since 1890, is dedicated to enhancing the professional lives of its members through guidance, education and service.

Heaven Can Wait Emergency First Aid Training educated and empowers the public through the teachings of lifesaving First Aid and CPR skills.

Congratulations and Thank You to the Toronto EMS July 2015 Graduates

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We are so thankful to the Toronto EMS Paramedic graduating class of July 2015, for generously donating $1200 towards a MIKEY AED. They chose The Mikey Network as their charity of choice, and raised the money for our organization to place a MIKEY public access defibrillator in their name. The Mikey Network Executive Director, Morty Henkle, was on hand at the graduation ceremony to accept this kind gift.

We are proud to partner with Toronto EMS and honoured by their generosity. This donation will help us install one more MIKEY in the community to provide a second chance at life should the need arise.

Congratulations to all of the new graduates! We wish them the best of luck in their future endeavors.

Western Tech High School Teacher Saved With A MIKEY (AED)

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A male teacher, approximately 60 years old, went into cardiac arrest yesterday at Western Technical Commercial School, in Toronto, Ontario.

With the assistance of other staff members, and their MIKEY (defibrillator), he was successfully resuscitated and taken to the hospital.

Western Technical Commercial School is a high school in the Toronto District School Board, and this MIKEY was placed there, along with all TDSB high schools, through our Mikey Young At Heart program.

We’re so grateful this MIKEY (defibrillator) was available when it was needed most, and that there were people willing to step up and act when they were needed most, to give this man a second chance at life. We pray he has a full recovery.

This is the 26th life that has been saved using a MIKEY.

What Sweetener Should You Use? (Part 2)

 

This week’s Fitness Post is brought to you by personal trainer Igor Klibanov from Fitness Solutions Plus.

sugar cubesIn one of my most popular articles from last year, What Sweeteners Should You Use, I got a lot of great feedback. But there were also questions remaining about a few other sweeteners. So I’ll address 3 more sweeteners in this article: xylitol, erythritol and coconut sugar.

Xylitol and Erythritol

Xylitol and erythritol are natural sugar alcohols (sorry, it won’t get you buzzed though. This isn’t the same alcohol as in wine or beer) that are found in things like berries, beets, and other sources.

The reason they’re gaining such a great reputation in the health food industry is because they don’t raise blood sugar. So on a low-carbohydrate diet, this tends to be a favourable sweetener, because it satisfies your sweet tooth, without going to your love handles.

There are also downsides to xylitol and erythritol. For one, is that it usually comes from corn, one of the most genetically modified organisms (GMOs) there is. Yes, it can be found in berries, and other sources, but because corn is a much cheaper source, that’s where it usually comes from. This isn’t an article about GMOs, so I won’t go into that.

Another potential downside is that in some people, xylitol and erythritol can cause digestive issues (know what I’m saying?). It brings a lot of water to the small intestine, and then… bad things happen (again, know what I’m saying?). Although it seems that erythritol is better tolerated than xylitol.

Lastly, if you have acid reflux (that’s things like indigestion and heartburn), xylitol and erythritol may make it worse.

We also don’t really know the long-term effects of using xylitol.

So for the time being, I’ll say that it’s better than table sugar, and even agave nectar/syrup. But it still doesn’t beat the gold standard: no sweetener.

Coconut Sugar

Here is another sweetener that is a quickly-rising darling in the natural health world. But I think the enthusiasm is still unjustified.

The claim is that it doesn’t raise blood sugar because it comes from a natural source. Well, as I pointed out in my article “is natural automatically healthy?”, just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean it’s healthy. After all, agave nectar is natural… but it isn’t healthy, since it’s almost pure fructose.

Many claims are made based on one factor alone. When it comes to sugar substitutes, the health claims are made simply based on a sugar’s ability to raise blood sugar. But as we see with aspartame and other artificial sweeteners, just because it doesn’t raise blood sugar, doesn’t mean it’s good for you. Aspartame indeed doesn’t raise blood sugar. But it sure can damage your brain.

Likewise, with coconut sugar, it appears to be healthy, but at this point in time, a search on Pubmed (the U.S. National Library or Medicine) yielded very little data about either the benefits or the drawbacks of coconut sugar.

So as it stands right now, coconut sugar is still a big mystery. There are a lot of claims being made, but none of them are proven (or unproven) yet.

The Gold Standard

As I concluded in part 1 of this article, the gold standard is still no sweetener.