Free Republic

Tina Hesman SaeyMay 16, 2016 A sugar that freshens air in rooms may also clean cholesterol out of hardened arteries. The sugar, cyclodextrin, removed cholesterol that had built up in the arteries of mice fed a high-fat diet, researchers report April 6 in Science Translational Medicine. The sugar enhances a natural cholesterol-removal process and persuades immune cells to soothe inflammation instead of provoking it, say immunologist Eicke Latz and colleagues. Cyclodextrin, more formally known as 2-hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin, is the active ingredient in the air freshener Febreze. It is also used in a wide variety of drugs; it helps make hormones, antifungal...

Saint Augustine, in his Confessions, Book VIII, Chapter X, describes his torment at being torn between two wills, the carnal and the spiritual, and writes, "..as yet I was bound by the iron chain of my own will. The enemy held fast my will, and had made of it a chain, and had bound me tight with it. For out of the perverse will came lust, and the service of lust ended in habit, and habit, not resisted, became necessity. By these links, as it were, forged together -- which is why I called it 'a chain' - a hard...