1. DASH diet: What makes it the best overall?
(Credit: istockphoto)
The diet was just named the "best diet overall" by U.S. News & World Report in its "2012 Best Diets Rankings."
Is DASH the best diet for helping people lose weight? Not quite - U.S. News ranked Weight Watchers No.1 in that department, while DASH ranked as the ninth best diet for weight loss.
Many diets "such as Weight Watchers, are household names, while others, such as the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) diet, should be," writes Avery Comarow of U.S. News.
For the best diets overall category, U.S. News combined panelists' input from all seven diet ranking categories, some of which included best heart-healthy diets and easiest diets to follow . Long-term diet success was weighed more than short-term, because some diets can give you quick results after New Years, but the true test is when a diet can be sustained for years. Comarow says that's especially important for obese people, because as little as a 5 percent reduction in body weight could cut an obese person's risk for diabetes and heart disease.
So what's so great about DASH?
Designed by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, It's a diet aimed at preventing and lowering high blood pressure by eating healthy. It emphasizes a lot of the foods we've long been told to eat, such as fruits, vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy. Those foods contain nutrients like potassium, calcium, protein, and fiber, which are key for fighting blood pressure - and can help trim waistlines too. DASH also ranked first as the best diet for healthy eating and people with diabetes.
"DASH is actually awesome. It's pretty realistic, it's not bizarre. It just asks people to eat a lot of fruits or vegetables and low-fat or non-fat dairy, which really is how I measure the quality of a diet," Dr. Keith Ayoob, director of the nutrition clinic at the Rose F. Kennedy Center at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, told ABC News. "It's not inhuman."
But like a lot of diets, you'd have to give some things up. Red meat, salty snacks, and calorie and fat-laden sweets are a "no-no" on the dash diet. DASH suggests capping sodium at 2,300 milligrams a day and eventually working to stay under 1,500 mg, according to U.S. News.
Exercise is recommended along with the DASH diet, especially if you want to lose weight. But if weight loss is your main goal, you should also check with your doctor to get a more specific diet plan. U.S. News recommends that people ease their way into the diet, by adding a vegetable or fruit serving to every meal and by trying new herbs and spices when cooking to lose that taste for salt.
2. Okla. mom Sarah McKinley won't face charges for shooting intruder
Sarah McKinley and her son
(Credit: AP Photo/The Oklahoman, Steve Sisney)
Sarah McKinley, 18, asked a Grady County dispatcher for permission to shoot the intruder at her Blanchard mobile home.
"I've got two guns in my hand. Is it OK to shoot him if he comes in this door?" McKinley asked the dispatcher.
"Well, you have to do whatever you can do to protect yourself," the dispatcher is heard telling McKinley in the 911 tape released Wednesday. "I can't tell you that you can do that, but you have to do what you have to do to protect your baby."
McKinley's 3-month-old son was with her when she shot Justin Shane Martin, 24.
Oklahoma law allows the use of deadly force against intruders, and prosecutors said McKinley clearly acted in self-defense. According to court documents, Martin was holding a knife when he died.
"Our initial review of the case doesn't indicate she violated the law in any way," Assistant District Attorney James Walters told The Oklahoman newspaper.
However, prosecutors have charged Martin's alleged accomplice, Dustin Louis Stewart, 29.
Stewart, who called 911 shortly after the home invasion, told a dispatcher he fled the scene when Martin made his way into a Blanchard home, reports CBS affiliate KWTV.
"My name is Dusty Stewart and I think it was my friend that got shot."
Stewart reportedly told the dispatcher, "I don't know what he was trying to do. I stood at the fence and told him to come on and I don't know what he did."
Stewart was charged with first-degree murder.
"When you're engaged in a crime such as first-degree burglary and a death results from the events of that crime, you're subject to prosecution for it," Walters said.
Stewart was arraigned Wednesday and was being held in the Grady County jail. A bond hearing was set for Thursday.
According to court documents, Martin and Stewart might have been looking for prescription drugs. McKinley said it took the men about 20 minutes to get through her door, which she had barricaded with a couch.
She said her husband had died about a week earlier - on Christmas Day - after being hospitalized with complications from lung cancer earlier that month.
3. Answers sought over cops' shooting of 8th grader
Jaime Gonzalez is seen in this photo obtained from Facebook by CBS affiliate KGBT-TV in Harlingen, Texas. (KGBT-TV via Facebook)
(AP)
BROWNSVILLE, Texas - The parents of an eighth grader who was fatally shot by police inside his South Texas school are demanding to know why officers took lethal action, but police said the boy was brandishing — and refused to drop — what appeared to be a handgun and that the officers acted correctly.
The weapon turned out to be a pellet gun that closely resembled the real thing, police said late Wednesday, several hours after 15-year-old Jaime Gonzalez was repeatedly shot in a hallway at Cummings Middle School in Brownsville. No one else was injured.
"Why was so much excess force used on a minor?" the boy's father, Jaime Gonzalez Sr., asked The Associated Press outside the family's home Wednesday night. "Three shots. Why not one that would bring him down?"
His mother, Noralva Gonzalez, showed off a photo on her phone of a beaming Jaime in his drum major uniform standing with his band instructors. Then she flipped through three close-up photos she took of bullet wounds in her son's body, including one in the back of his head.
"What happened was an injustice," she said angrily. "I know that my son wasn't perfect, but he was a great kid."
Interim Police Chief Orlando Rodriguez said the teen was pointing the weapon at officers and "had plenty of opportunities to lower the gun and listen to the officers' orders, and he didn't want to."
The chief said his officers had every right to do what they did to protect themselves and other students even though there weren't many others in the hallway at the time. Police said officers fired three shots.
Shortly before the confrontation, Jaime had walked into a classroom and punched a boy in the nose for no apparent reason, Rodriguez said. Police did not know why he pulled out the weapon, but "we think it looks like this was a way to bring attention to himself," Rodriguez said.
About 20 minutes elapsed between police receiving a call about an armed student and shots being fired, according to police and student accounts. Authorities declined to share what the boy said before he was shot.
The shooting happened during first period at the school in Brownsville, a city at Texas' southern tip just across the Mexican border. Teachers locked classroom doors and turned off lights, and some frightened students dove under their desks. They could hear police charge down the hallway and shout for Gonzalez to drop the weapon, followed by several shots.
Two officers fired three shots, hitting Gonzalez at least twice, police said.
David A. Dusenbury, a retired deputy police chief in Long Beach, Calif., who now consults on police tactics, said the officers were probably justified.
If the boy were raising the gun as if to fire at someone, "then it's unfortunate, but the officer certainly would have the right under the law to use deadly force."
A recording of police radio traffic posted on KGBT-TV's website indicates that officers responding to the school believed the teen had a handgun. An officer is heard describing the teen's clothes and appearance, saying he's "holding a handgun, black in color." The officer also said that from the front door, he could see the boy in the school's main office.
Less than two minutes later, someone yells over the radio "shots fired" and emergency crews are asked to respond. About two minutes later, someone asks where the boy was shot, prompting responses that he was shot in the chest and "from the back of the head."
Administrators said the school would be closed Thursday but students would be able to attend classes at a new elementary school that isn't being used.
Superintendent Carl Montoya remembered Gonzalez as "a very positive young man."
"He did music. He worked well with everybody. Just something unfortunately happened today that caused his behavior to go the way it went. So I don't know," he said Wednesday.
Gonzalez Sr. said he had no idea where his son got the gun or why he brought it to school, adding: "We wouldn't give him a gift like that."
He said he last saw his son around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday, when the boy said goodbye before leaving to catch the bus to school. And he said nothing seemed amiss the night before when he, his wife and their son went out for nachos then went home and watched a movie.
Gonzalez Sr. was struggling to reconcile the day's events, saying his son seemed to be doing better in school and was always helpful around the neighborhood mowing neighbors' lawns, washing dogs and carrying his toolbox off to fix other kids' bikes.
Two dozen of his son's friends and classmates gathered in the dark street outside the family's home Wednesday night. Jaime's best friend, 16-year-old Star Rodriguez, said her favorite memory was when Jaime came to her party Dec. 29 and they danced and sang together.
"He was like a brother to me," she said.
SURCE;http://www.cbsnews.com/
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