The Real Rain Man Kim Peek Mega Savant

Tell Kim Peek any address in the United States and he?ll recite the local highways and byways, area and zip codes, television stations and interesting historical events ? oh, he?ll also tell you where you can go to pay your telephone bill. Ask Kim to button his shirt and he?ll return nothing more than a blank stare. Such is the genius, and disability, of the Real Rain Man.

Kim was diagnosed as severely mentally retarded at the age of nine months and the doctor, in a hurry to make a tee time, recommended Kim be institutionalized ? and forgotten. Undeterred, Kim?s parents took him home and have spent the following five decades as eyewitnesses to a sometimes wonderful, and always curious, medical mystery.

Consider the frustration of Kim?s mother when he did not walk until age four. Consider her amazement when he completed memorizing the first eight volumes of the encyclopedia a scant six months later. Consider that at the age of fifty-four he is incapable of dressing himself. Consider that he can instantly recall the exact content of more than 12,000 books. Consider?

Kim reads both pages of a book simultaneously, one with the left eye and one with the right, devoting a mere ten seconds to each standard page of text. Unbowed by brevity, Kim recalls the details of his furious forays at a 98.7% accuracy rate. Consider?

Give Kim your birth date and he will tell you on which day of the week you were born, on which day your birthday will fall this year and, in anticipation of the proverbial gold-watch-moment, on which day of the week your sixty-fifth birthday will fall. Consider...

Unlike most savants, who exhibit a single area of extreme expertise, Kim is a Mega Savant, exhibiting genius in more than a dozen areas, including History, Geography, World Leaders, Space, Sports, Math, Movies, Shakespeare and the Bible. Consider...

Kim is a complex tangle of ?skills and ills? ? a truly dichotomous representation of the genius to which we all aspire and the childlike simplicity from which we each evolve.

Virtually unknown prior to Dustin Hoffman's portrayal, Kim has since delighted over a million seminar attendees who have come, clutching arcane facts in eager hands, in vain attempts to take the master to task. He lives in Salt Lake City with his octogenarian father, Fran, who to this day tends to those everyday dilemmas of undone shoelaces and unbuttoned shirts that exist beyond the realm of Kim?s genius.

Says Kim of his relationship with his constant companion, caregiver and friend, ?Dad and I share the same shadow.?

Tim Anderson is a freelance writer who has a special interest in medical topics. Visit his blog at http://medicalmigrant.blogspot.com/

The Importance of Clean Water

Have you ever considered the importance of water?

Did you know that water accounts for over 70% of your body? We are comprised mostly of water. And further more, our blood mineral content is strikingly similar to salt water.

A healthy water intake can help us in many ways.

- You can think better. A fully hydrated brain actually works better.

- Strength increases. Did you know that your muscles work better when your body is fully hydrated?

- Immunity - even your immune system can function better.

- Flush junk out of your system. A fully hydrated body is better at getting rid of the things it DOESN'T need.

- You'd be amazed at how much more energy you can have when you drink adequate amounts of water.

There are just so many good reasons to take in a good and adequate supply of water. Needless to say, you can probably see why it is important to have clean water.

Advice from experts vary but it is generally agreed that the average person probably needs to take in 2 liters of water per day. Check with your physician before changing your intake though.

Once I worked for a company that sold water filters. One of their products was a 'whole house filter'. The interesting thing about this filter was that it had a clear area where you could see what was trapped in the filter.

Um, I hope you are ready for this. Municipal water supplies rely on recycled water. Many people know this but don't want to think about it.

What this means is that all of your waste water, i.e., when you flush the toilet, goes back into the system. It is 'filtered' and 'treated' and may just come right back at you in the form of a glass of water out of your tap. Not to be too gross here, but this is a fact of life. And you should be aware of it.

What was found in that 'see through' filter mentioned above was little flaky white particles that looked suspiciously like toilet paper.

Now, no chemical analysis was done to validate this and who knows what I was really seeing there. But, never-the-less it made me think about my drinking water.

I use a filter for the water I drink now and I love it. I cook with filtered water too. Drinking clean filtered water is really great. The taste, or actually the lack of taste, because clean water doesn't have taste or odor, can be quite a dramatic contrast to what you might be used to.

Not all filters are created equal. Some take out lead and heavy metals, some just filter for taste. So you really have to do a little research and make sure you are getting a filter that is right for you, one that will fulfill your needs.

David Snape writes for All Things Pondered: http://allthingspondered.com - where you can have your say and (almost) anything is pondered. He also writes for To Be Informed: http://tobeinformed.com - a site supportive of health, fitness and wellness.

Hypothyroidism and Menieres Disease

Hypothyroidism is a disease caused by the inability of the thyroid gland to produce sufficient thyroid hormones. Severity of this disease varies from case to case and oftentimes, the milder symptoms can be misdiagnosed as a different disease. Extreme cases of hypothyroidism can lead to myxedema. Cases of this disease are often found in women after pregnancy because of the draining of the woman's mineral stores.

If you have hypothyroidism, you will experience different symptoms, depending on your age. If you are an adult you may experience slower speed in your movement, a hoarse, breaking voice; memory loss; sensitivity to changes in temperature; slow heart rate; poor reflexes; dry puffy skin, especially on the face; hair loss, especially on the eyebrows; depression; weight gain; anemia; constipation; fatigue; tendency to choke or difficulty swallowing; shortness of breath; the need to sleep more; muscle cramps and joint pain; decreased sex drive; brittle finger nails; paleness; irritability; and thin, fragile or absent cuticles.

Women may experience infertility or difficulty in becoming pregnant. Infants experience feeding problems, constipation, and excessive sleep. Symptoms for later toddlers include a protruding abdomen, rough and dry skin, and delayed teething. Children may experience delayed growth and a puffy, bloated appearance. A blood test is necessary to determine and diagnose the disease.

Menieres disease has four symptoms: periodic episodes of vertigo; fluctuating, progressive unilateral or bilateral hearing loss; tinnitus of one or both ears; a sensation of fullness or pressure in both ears. You may notice only one symptom at first that later leads to the others. The vertigo you experience might last for hours or for as long as days. After you experience a tinnitus attack, it can feel better at first but later on become worse. It is believed that Menieres disease is caused by endolymphatic hydrops or excess fluid in the inner ear. Proper clinical testing is necessary, as Merieres disease shares symptoms with a number of other diseases.

Hypothyroidism provides detailed information on Hypothyroidism, Symptoms Of Hypothyroidism, Cause Of Hypothyroidism, Hypothyroidism Treatments and more. Hypothyroidism is affiliated with Thyroid Disease.