I hope you can assist me in getting a refund of $29.38 from United States Purchasing Exchange in Pacoima, Calif. On July 11, I sent a check for $29.38 for some items from its catalog. After six weeks I had not received my order. I wrote the company a letter and asked for a refund.
In reply I received a letter saying a replacement order would be shipped.The company also sent me a form saying the new shipment was processed on Sept. 9, and I should expect it in six weeks. That time also lapsed. I still hadn't received the merchandise or a refund.
So, on Nov. 5, I sent a certified letter requesting my refund. I received the receipt indicating the company received my letter but still no merchandise.
Can you help me get my refund? I am very unhappy with this company and I have no intention of doing business with it again. - M.H., Kearns.
The company sent you a check for $29.38. The company issued the refund before it received our letter of complaint, which means it finally responded to one of your letters.
Don't skip breakfast
According to Consumer Reports on Health, skipping breakfast could be dangerous to your health. A cardiologist at Memorial University of Newfoundland gave 29 healthy men and women blood tests on two separate mornings to measure levels of beta-thromboglobulin, a protein that indicates platelet stickiness.
The subjects ate breakfast before the first test day and skipped it on the second. On average, the platelets were two-and-a-half times stickier when the subjects didn't have breakfast than when they did.
The cardiologist believes that finding suggests that not eating breakfast might indeed boost the risk of morning heart attacks.
According to the Consumer Reports' newsletter, heart attacks are most likely to occur during the hours before and after dawn. One reason may be that platelets, the cells that help blood to clot, are stickiest then and most likely to clump together.
Such clots can block a coronary artery already narrowed by atherosclerosis and trigger a heart attack.
Exercise helps old people feel young
Vigorous exercise increases heart function of people in their 60s to the same degree as in younger people, aiding men and women equally, a study says.
Results appeared in 110 healthy, non-smoking volunteers 60 to 71 who had not followed an exercise program for at least two years before entering the study.
Researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis put them on a program mostly of walking and running at least three times a week for nine to 12 months.
On average, exercisers improved their cardiovascular function by about the same degree as young adults did in previous studies, the researchers reported in the November 1991 issue of the Journal of Applied Physiology.