Originally Published In The Deseret News Friday, June 4, 1993
Would you please check this out?
- M.J., Salt Lake City.
Dear M.J.: You can get information on pest control or other aspects of gardening free-of-charge by calling the Salt Lake County office of Utah State University's Extension Service.
We spoke to USU horticulturist Larry Sagers, who also writes a weekly gardening column for the Deseret News.
If you're only interested in non-chemical means of dealing with box elder bugs, he suggested using your vacuum to gather up the bugs when they congregate in droves on the outside of your house.
Or you could use an insecticidal soap. Some, he said, are not much different from detergent. Others are. Some work well. Some don't.
Insects breathe through holes in their sides. If you spray the insects with insecticidal soap, it clogs the holes and the insects smother.
The kind of suggestions you would get from a mail-order company is anybody's guess.
Sagers said his former colleague, Duane Hatch, once responded to a mail-order advertisement for a pest-control product. He received two blocks of wood. To get rid of the insects all he had to do was smash them between the blocks.
We were unable to find out anything about Pest Go in Blackfoot. There is no telephone listing for it and the name didn't ring a bell with the Chamber of Commerce.
High blood pressure
Physicians are adopting new terminology in describing the blood pressure condition of their patients.
At one time, increased blood pressure levels were called either "mild" or "moderate." However, those traditional terms didn't adequately represent the role of high blood pressure as an important risk factor for development of cardiovascular illness.
The newest classifications:
Normal - Systolic (high number) less than 130 over 85 (low number), to be checked every two years.
High-normal - 130 to 139 over 85 to 89, to be checked annually.
Hypertension:
Stage 1 - 140 to 159 over 90 to 99, to be confirmed within two months.
Stage 2 - 160-179 over 100 to 109, to see physician within one month.
Stage 3 - 180 to 209 over 110 to 119, to see physician within one week.
Stage 4 - 210 or higher over 120 or higher, to see physician immediately.
Blood pressure conditions are normally based on the average of two or more readings taken at two different visits to your doctor, in addition to the original screening test.
- Dr. Michael Freedman for Associated Press
© 1998 Deseret News Publishing Co.
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