Inside the Canadian Reader's Digest

IN THE MARCH 2001 READER'S DIGEST

What Women Should Know About Asthma
While asthma is still considered a childhood illness affecting mostly boys, in fact, more women than men in Canada have asthma. In addition, more women than men develop symptoms later in life, sometimes not until well into adulthood. Not only do women experience more debilitating and more troublesome side effects from drugs used to treat the ailment, they also account for 60 percent of all asthma deaths, according to Statistics Canada data. The story is not all doom and gloom, however, and much good work is being done to combat this scourge, as a look at this article will show.

Why You Need Vitamin E
Though its healing properties were first discovered back in the 1930s, a wealth of ongoing research suggests that vitamin E can boost immune response and ease arthritic symptoms, and it could keep you safe from infectious diseases like colds, flu and tuberculosis. It might even slow the onset of Alzheimer’s. If only half the early findings about E are proved in continuing research, this vitamin will be a boon to overall health care. Find out how you could be preventing a host of diseases for just one thin dime a day.

Filling the Hole in Rae’s Heart
"I want to meet someone I’m related to." This simple request from their adopted daughter, Rae, propelled Rick and Linda Reilly on a 10,000-kilometre odyssey to Korea to find her birth mother. Rae presented her birth mother with a book she had made about her life -- full of childhood pictures and purple-penned poems -- but the woman showed no emotion as she looked at it. The woman was either guarding her heart now the way she’d done 11 years ago, or she simply didn’t care anymore. Then she broke down, and the heavens opened up.

A Love Story
He was an immigrant’s son who found fame in baseball’s major leagues. She was a stunningly beautiful actress who lit up the screen with her performances. On the face of it, Joe DiMaggio and Marilyn Monroe had nothing in common. Yet against all the odds, they met, fell in love and got married, and their love endured despite their personal trials until the actress’s tragic death. Their love story will move you.

Hunt for a Serial Rapist
The violent assaults and rapes of young women students shocked the townsfolk of Athens, Ga. But an intense police investigation that summer of 1995 yielded no clues as to who the perpetrator was. Months would pass and the rapist would strike again. Police wondered if he had been committing similar crimes elsewhere, and their hunches led them to a trail of violence across two states. Would old-fashioned police work and modern forensics finally stop him? Read on to find out how this serial rapist was brought to justice.

On Thin Ice
Lonnie Dupre and John Hoelscher had an adventurous notion: Travel around Greenland -- the world’s largest island -- by kayak and dogsled. The trek would cover 7,700 kilometres and take about 15 months, provided they managed to work with the seasonal extremes that are a feature of this arctic latitude. Indeed, the duo would have to contend with storms and massive icebergs on water as well as blizzards that scoured the land. The enormous undertaking would tax their courage, endurance and willpower to the limit, as well as separate them from their families. See how their awe-inspiring voyage unfolds in the pages of this month’s Digest.