Breakthroughs Today

The compulsive behavior can start with the first loss of money, or even before walking into a gambling den with minds full of dreams at winning big, or perhaps just enjoying the thrill. But once the unsettling feeling starts bothering the mind even outside the gambling floor, the problem can be leading for the worst it can be.   A VERY fascinating aspect of research is questionnaire validation. And by its nature it can be madugo, a Tagalog term that the English literal translation “bloody” cannot quite capture.   Your questionnaire must be acceptably sensitive (detects what it is designed to detect); positively predictive (predicts what it is designed to predict); and negatively predictive (does not predict what it is not designed to predict).   You also have the privilege of understanding better the behavior you want to study later on. A case in point is a study by Rachel Vilberg, Ingrid Munck and Nancy Petry that the American Journal of Addiction published in May last ye

The skin, largest organ of the body, is created to protect the body from external threats as well as prevent moisture from escaping the body. But the second largest organ of the body--the liver--is vulnerable through the food that we eat. The question is: can we protect it from ourselves? Another question: can we rebuild it once we got it damaged through mindless eating habits?   THROUGH the years, researches seem to point out that most, if not all, human diseases always factor lifestyle into it. Infection? Stressful work, insufficient rest or sleep and dirty environment can certainly ensure that.   Another component to the lifestyle factor is the food we eat. We often eat based on how much time is available to us. If we have no time to prepare good food, then we have to go for quick-cooking canned goods or perhaps the high-fat, high-calorie dishes of fast foods. Conditions like these put an increasing load of toxins on our body that our liver must process every day. But th

HERE'S a question that requires you to answer another one: What is the second largest organ in the body? To answer the question, you must know first what the largest organ is. That’s the catch. Otherwise, there is no way for you to compare sizes.   But I will leave you to Google on that one and give you instead the answer about the second largest organ—the liver. It weighs around 1.5 kilos.   Large as it is, the liver appears the most taken-for-granted organ of the body—so disproportionate to the functions it performs to support life. And if you come to think of it, we simply presume it will continue to function well. So we keep on taking in the good, the bad and the worst. Think of what you eat today—canned goods, fried dishes, medications, alcoholic drinks—the list can go on. Whatever you eat or drink passes through the liver, your body’s principal detoxifying center.   The liver filters the blood that comes from the digestive tract, removes or metabolizes toxins a

Patients of today must learn the lessons of the superbug war in order not to get sucked into it themselves. And that begins by reading this article.   FIGURES available four years ago had estimated 44,000 new multi-drug resistant (MDR) cases recorded around the world. And around 150,000 people have died. The old strains continue to be more lethal even than that of the new entrants.   And experts the world over have agreed that the central cause of the blame has been the mismanagement in the treatment of tuberculosis. Know how these errors in treatment can help us detect any error made by the physician handling our case as well as our role in this debacle.   Based on the review that Meghna Adhvaryu and Bhasker Vakharia conducted and published December last year in Clinical Pharmacology: Advances and Applications, here are indicators of potential mismanagement to be wary of:   First is... [ READ MORE ]     This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 14 Nove

Something humans let go for centuries since they adapted to modern conventions turns out to be an effective cure of insomnia.   THE ex-Marine protagonist in Andrew Peterson’s novel First to Kill (2008) believed in this rule: “Sleep when you can.” This serves well in military operations when, at the sight of enemies, no sleep becomes necessary until the mission has been accomplished.   But insomnia can make ordinary civilians behave like soldiers to their detriment. Who can beat insomnia at its peak? People of advanced age mostly have it, or at least their sleeping hours get shorter and shorter with age. Adults who have an increasingly hectic city lifestyle can be so primed up with stress that they may not put their heartbeats or their minds to rest even as the dawn breaks. Chronic insomnia has been estimated to cost tens of billions of dollars annually in the United States alone.   You cannot just pop down sleeping pills whenever you want it. Drug dependence can be as de

LAST month, we presented here the general picture of kidney transplantation based on the multicenter study conducted by Behzad Einollahi and colleagues as reported in the Journal of Cancer (June 2012).   This week you will know, in more detail, which immunosuppressant drugs have been causing it and briefly how. The study noted that the risk of developing malignancy in organ transplants is three-four times greater than general population.   Before 2000, patients received a two-drug maintenance regimen consisting of prednisone and cyclosporine or azathioprine (AZA); or, a triple therapy with cyclosporine, prednisone and AZA. Afterward, most patients received not just cyclosporine and prednisone but mycophenolate mofetil (MMF) as well. Today, immunosuppressive therapy is a three-drug therapy using cyclosporine/sirolimus, MMF/AZA and steroids.   The Einollahi study noted that more than half of the patients (61.3 percent) received AZA when they developed cancer. The remaining

Sometimes we equate health with life so that any mention of death becomes incompatible with a healthy lifestyle. But is it so? The mystery surrounding religious faith can help you understand the difference, noting how Saint Pedro of Cebu lived his life. THERE is a mystery that moves around and between the health of one’s soul and that of one’s body. And that mystery has deep implications in our lives as religious Cebuanos, as well as ardent believers of a healthy lifestyle. Today, we veer away from the stark numerical world of medical research into the realm of faith in celebration of the recent canonization of the second Filipino saint, Saint Pedro of Cebu.   But even in this subject we cannot always do away with scientific thinking, and the use of statistics as far as it can be applied.   Of the two Filipino saints—Lorenzo of Manila and Pedro of Cebu—there had been interesting similarities that can help us appreciate the religious charism of Filipinos. First, both saint

New Agers and Eastern philosophy adherents may call the soil "Mother Earth." But whether we agree on it or not, recent scientific evidence indicate that the earth can help bring well-being to mankind more than we normally thought it can.   IN THE eyes of ordinary people, the soil is a mere resource from which all plants can be harvested. In the eyes of those who studied chemicals in the living environment, it is an unlimited source of electrons that can be a key to curing maladies that infect mankind.   The 1965 Nobel Prize winner in Physics Richard Phillips Feynman wrote: “When the body potential is the same as the Earth’s electric potential, it becomes an extension of the Earth’s gigantic electrical system.”   Scientists like cardiologist Stephen Sinatra, Gaetan Chevalier and James Oschman hold that the earth’s surface is negatively charged, and contact therewith allows electrons to transfer from the earth to the body. And since our immune systems function at

One wonderful thing about nature is the balance between disease-causing and disease-preventing forces that can be easily recognized. And that is true about handling your case.   YOU can protect yourself from the “disease of kings” by eating foods for the “kings” (don't mind my play of words).Much of gout can be minimized through selectively eating foods that provide no new raw material for the production of uric acids.   First, let us cover what foodstuff to avoid. By plugging the dietary sources, you can somehow exert control on uric acid output. Here are foods with very high purine content (up to 1000 mg per 100 grams): anchovy, brain, gravy, kidney, liver, sardines and sweetbreads (thymus and pancreas).   Foods with moderately high purine levels (5-100 mg) include asparagus, bacon, beef, bluefish, calf tongue, carp, cauliflower, chicken, codfish, crab, duck, goose, halibut, ham, beans, lamb, lentils, lobster, mushrooms, oatmeal, oysters, peas, pork, sheep, shellfi

This article has been reprinted on popular demand after it came out first in March 2011 at the heel of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant accident in Japan, following the devastation that that year's tsunami wrought in the country.   THE reactor fire in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan has sent radioactivity into air, putting at high risk lives even as far away as Tokyo.   As of March 15, 2010, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported this radiation leak amounted to 400 millisievert (mSv) per hour. Exposure to over 100 mSv a year, said the World Nuclear Association, can already lead to cancer. To help control this radioactive cloud, Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco) considered using boric acid. So, what’s in boric acid that can help control radioactivity from spreading? [ Read to find out.]     This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 3 October 2012.

Many times wealth brings not only abundance in food and material things. It also brings lifestyle related diseases. And one of these is gout.   HISTORICALLY, rich man's disease was attributed to kings as well. Thus, its other name being “the disease of kings,” according to Wikipedia.   Maybe a look at the lifestyle of rich men and kings in history will answer the question, “why.” This lifestyle obviously has better access risk factors for gout—excessive quantities of wine (expensive kinds albeit); excessive protein-rich food (meat, fish, nuts, legumes, and purine-rich vegetables).   Unsurprisingly, gout is a metabolic disease; an offshoot of lifestyle excesses in younger years. It appears as acute or chronic arthritis (joint inflammation) with deposits of monosodium urate crystals in joints, bones, soft tissues, and kidneys. The latter can develop stones.   If a Cebuano says, “Taas akong uric” (My uric acid level is high), that does not mean gout had set in. Gout

Sometimes the simpler way can prove more effective than the more complex ones. With AUR, there is nothing simpler and proven safer method of therapy.   WE MENTIONED last month a safe technique in treating acute urinary retention (AUR), which was investigated in the Hennenfent study in 2006. Compared to the 27.1 percent need for surgery within six months after drug therapy using alfuzosin and the need to perform surgery in a total of close to nine percent of patients, this new method allowed patients to avoid surgery for another 2.5 years.   This new procedure is called manual prostatic massage, a technique found in research literature way back in the early 20th century, particularly 1906. It is non-traumatic as it is scalpel-free.   The study published in Medscape General Medicine on Oct. 25, 2006 used an experimental dose of daily prostate massage for four days in the first week; then three times per week thereafter. The prostate is a male gland that produces semen, and

Urban noise may have a mainstay in our lives for the years to come. Even rural areas in the country are getting noisy as vehicles and population increase. With this cacophony also comes problems that we must be aware of so we can do something about them.   NOISE is so much a part of our daily lives that we come to accept it with admirable tolerance. In fact, it can become the stimulant that some people seek, and believe that the decibels of "sonar energy" can keep them mentally alive.   Sylvia Plath, author of the book The Bell Jar, wrote: “The silence depressed me. It wasn’t the silence of silence. It was my own silence.”   But recent studies have noted that basking in the noise in our urban environment can be very unwise after all. A meta-analysis published lately in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health just unearthed many reasons why.   First... [ READ MORE ]     This article appears in Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on 12 September 2012.

Sometimes some hopes can be as dangerous as well. And kidney transplantation can be one of those until medical science and technology can overcome the gap.   EVEN an ending life can be prolonged, given the right science, the right technology and certainly the right kind of prayer.   During the end-stage of renal disease (the point at which the condition of a kidney is a few steps toward failure) life can still be prolonged somehow. The best treatment for this condition is kidney replacement surgery. If a kidney is giving up, then replacing it can be wiser.   A serious risk with kidney replacement though, is with the body’s reaction to the donated kidney that can often come from sources not genetically related to the patient.   In the 24 years of kidney replacement history in Iran (1984-2008), 87.5 percent of kidneys used, came from living individuals not related to the patient.   Physicians who manage patients with kidney transplant use immunosuppressive drugs.  

According to the Philippine HIV and AIDS Registry, cases of HIV infection in the Philippines breached the 10,000 milestone since it started compiling data in 1984. With the total of 278 new cases recorded in July, total recorded HIV infections in the country reached 10,242. [ Read Report ]

I heard once from a mother or two how impressed they were that their young darling started menstruation at an age younger than usual, in fact younger than they were during their time. Recent developments in medical research puts a huge question mark to the bases for that.   THERE is an alarming trend that scientists have observed in the last 100 years. It is the decline of women's age at menarche, or the first occurrence of menstrual period.   In the United States and Europe, it has decreased at a rate of two to three months for every 10 years.   This trend towards earlier onset of menarche is worth watching because early menarche (onset of menstruation at less than age 12.1 years) is a long-known and established risk factor for breast cancer, metabolic syndrome, teenage depression and overweight.   Its connection to breast cancer has been established around the last part of the 20th century and early years of the 21st century. Its contribution to the development

As we age, a lot of things we easily can do when we were younger get harder to do as our bodily systems start to show problems in functioning. That's the case with TURP; and if you add the inevitable side effects of drugs used in treating it, you can only imaging how difficult old age can be.   A CERTAIN practice has been common in synthetic drug treatments (so common it may be considered a cliché).   You start taking a prescription for one health problem and you end up having a new one. Of course that is not true for all synthetic medications. But given lack of long-term studies in most pharmaceutical drugs today, who knows what’s going to happen in the next 20 to 30 years after taking a particular regimen.   In history, many drugs have been pulled out from shelves because they later turned out to be potential killers, if not already one.   The classic case is that of finasteride, a treatment used against certain complications that transurethral resection of pr

So much poverty continue to hound Filipinos in the Visayas particularly in Region 8. And the diseases it brings to the people there have been topping national surveys. It is tragedy still unfolding. PARASITES, those minute organisms that invade people’s bodies, are the bane to the poor. In fact, lead author of the recent Philippine National Baseline Prevalence Survey of Schistosomiasis, Lydia Leonardo (UP College of Public Health) wrote: “Schistosomiasis, ascariasis, and trichuriasis are considered diseases of poverty.” The bad news is the Visayas recorded the highest prevalence of soil-transmitted parasites such as ascaris and trichuris in the country. This indicates a widespread neglect of environmental sanitation in the islands, poor personal hygiene and illiteracy. The good news at least for Cebuanos is... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 16 August 2012  

All those food safety scandals that made China hit the  news lately also made her an exporter of dangerous foods into the Philippines. And health-conscious people must be more vigilant with foods coming from that country. Say, think about it a lot of times.  IN RECENT years, China has been plagued with an array of food safety scandals—toxic infant formula, pesticide-tainted vegetables, exploding watermelons, lean meat powder and pork reconstituted as beef. Lately, the issue has been about gutter oil—used cooking oil scooped out of restaurant drains. Vomiting from the grossness of it is the least of the dangers it can bring. It may not be accidental that the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences noticed the high liver cancer rates in China and in nearby parts of Asia. Waste oil can be contaminated with fungi that produce aflatoxin, a biological poison that increases the risk of liver cancer. And around September last year, the Chinese government had s

SCIENTISTS took a hint when they noticed that cancer cells can easily be destroyed in the lab than inside the human body. While chemotherapy prevents the reproduction of fast-dividing cancer cells, it has been learned that healthy that got damaged in the process secrete WNT16B, a protein that boosts cancer cell survival. [ Read Report ] 

THE FOOD AND Nutrition Research Institute of the Department of Science and Technology (FNRI-DOST) reported that exclusive feeding have gone up from 36 percent in 2008 to 47 percent in 2011. Exclusive feeding is the practice of feeding infants with only breast milk for the first six months of life to achieve optimal growth, development and health. This means giving no other food or drink--not even water--other than breast milk. The initiation breastfeeding done within one hour of delivery has increased from 32 percent to 52 percent in the same four-year period. The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) lauded the accomplishment, and attributed it to Executive Order 51, or the Milk Code of the Philippines , that late president Corazon Aquino signed into law in 1986. This law requires giving women clear information on the benefits of breastfeeding without undue influence from infant formula companies. Sources WHO: "Up to what age can a baby stay well nourished b

You just feel a gnawing pain in your belly, and your bowel movement seems to go crazy. That is a medical condition that physicians still cannot explain how and why. IRRITABLE bowel syndrome (IBS) is the hallmark of a tension-filled, all-rushing lifestyle in today’s increasingly urbanized society. Abdominal pain or discomfort and a change in bowel habit are mainstays. By its name alone—being a syndrome, that is—much of it has not been understood yet. In fact, there has been no known structural or anatomical explanation accounting for its symptoms and “disease” manifestations. IBS therefore remains a mystery. Its exact cause remains unknown to-date. That explains why its management centers on treating or alleviating its symptoms. A study in 2008 concluded that certain groups of food and medicine are more effective than placebo in treating IBS. These are fibers, antispasmodics and peppermint oil. A traditional treatment of IBS takes the form of... [ READ MORE ] This

There is a difference between caution and overdiagnosis. It is the difference between healthy fear and near-pathological paranoia. And medical practitioners have the responsibility to ensure that before they write on their Rx pads to order the test, they have well-informed clinical bases for doing so. DURING March this year, the United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) rang the bell of caution with regard to the now-popular early detection test for cervical cancer called human papillomavirus (HPV) testing. Six studies agreed that it has a higher sensitivity to cancer indicators but lower specificity to cervical cancer compared to tissue studies. This means that it gives more positive results than it correctly should. And that’s where the concern of women patients lies. Studies have shown that such bloated counts of positive results in the past led to repeated testing and invasive procedures, such as colposcopy (using a lighted magnifying device) and cervical

As microbes start to learn defying the science behind antimicrobials, more superbugs are noted more and more. Let's look on what happens with superbug 'Streptococcus aureus.' THIS minute, “bundle of grapes-looking” bacteria naturally resides on the mucous membranes of the body and on the human skin. Staphylococcus aureus (aureus is Latin for “yellow”) is present in around a third of any human population, with 20 percent being long-term carriers of this silent menace. And it is very adaptable to antibiotic threats. Being so, it is one of the five most common causes of nosocomial infections, those diseases that we got for getting so sick and hospitalized. The first cases of resistance to penicillin, the groundbreaking discovery of Alexander Fleming in 1928, appeared in 1947 (four years after mass production started in 1943). So methicillin became the antibiotic of choice. But then reports of significant toxic effects on the kidney came out. Methicillin-resi

SO MUCH of the environment can be a factor in human behavior. The same is true with alcoholism. A study in 1993 has documented how the number of alcoholic drinks outlets in a neighborhood relates strongly to the level of diagnosed alcoholics in the same neighborhood. And it was not only alcoholism that found much influence from the neighborhood. Certain groups of crimes and diseases related to alcoholism can also be linked. Such legal offenses include fatal and injury traffic crashes, drunk driving, assaultive violence and liquor law violations. Diseases noted include cirrhosis (which eventually led to death) and sexually transmitted diseases. A 2007 study also noted the contribution of alcohol outlets in physical disorders (graffiti, liquor advertising, and trash) as well as social concerns (loitering, drug sales, prostitution, and altercations). That was more or less the American picture. The Theall study in 2011 noted that liquor stores are the... [ READ MORE

Anything can go wrong during pregancy. The fact alone that the child survives and came into the world just fine is an enduring miracle of life the many people tend to take for granted as a gift from God. IN BUSINESS, competition defines profitability. And going ahead of your competition is the name of the game. In obstetrics, however, particularly in pregnancy management, a placenta going ahead of the baby can spell trouble for both the mother and the child. The condition is called placenta previa or “preceding placenta.” It is a complication of pregnancy wherein the placenta grows in the lowest part of the womb, and in its complete form (type IV), completely covers the cervix. That sets up the mother to bleed severely in the latter part of pregnancy. The danger of placenta previa cannot be overemphasized. It increased the risk of death for both the mother and the baby before childbirth via severe vaginal bleeding. Blood transfusion is often needed. Premature deliver

It is wiser to avoid taking in bisphenol A (BPA) through food than wait for a human study that proves it definitely toxic. At the same time, it is also to our advantage as consumers to know which plastics to avoid as food containers simply because it contains BPA, or at least used it in its manufacturing process. EARLY this year we knew of the piece of legislation—Senate Bill 3121—that Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago submitted for deliberation that aimed to prohibit the use of plastics containing BPA in manufacturing baby products. But like diseases and drugs, plastics are not created equal. There are plastics that are not manufactured in a way that it becomes likely for them to contain BPA. The United States Department of Health and Human Services (USDHHS) identified these plastics as those “marked with recycle codes 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6.” It also noted that since 1957, BPA has been used to manufacture hard plastic food containers such as baby bottles and reusable cups, not to

The last thing I expect that can be cancer producing is the caramel color I used to think to come only from heated table sugar. But it turned out I was darnly mistaken. EARLY last March news broke on the Philippine airwaves (through two of the country’s largest broadcasting outfits) over “cancer-producing” chemicals found in caramel, a coloring used in colas of at least two of the largest soda-makers worldwide with markets in the country. I thought there was only one caramel, that is, the caramelized sugar, that we can prepare at home using the same process used in manufacturing tira-tira (caramelized candy bars), which graders in the provinces used to love during recess. But the fact is far from that. There are four classes of caramel colors, says the European Union Scientific Committee for Food (SCF), the Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA), and the Nordic Council of Ministers (TemaNord). Class I is... [ READ MORE ] This article appears i

THE INFANT AND Pediatric Nutrition Association of the Philippines (IPNAP), a lobby group representing multinational manufacturers of infant-nutrition products in the country such as Abbott Laboratories, Fontera Brands, MeadJohnson Nutrition, Nestle and Wyeth, had questioned on 21 December 2011 the implementing rules that the Department of Health (DOH) drafted for Executive Order 51 (EO51), otherwise known as the Milk Code, that sought to regulate false health claims and attractive marketing strategies to promote milk-replacement products that undermine the government's program promoting breastfeeding among Filipino mothers. But the Department of Justice and the Supreme Court ruled that DOH has all the right to establish implementing rules being the sole government authority tasked in implementing the Milk Code.  This development came after the results of the Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF) study in 2008 showed last year that the Philippines had a very week breastfe

A lot of things happen beyond the reach of the human senses, especially the eyes. There is the world of the minute organisms--bacteria, viruses, parasites and fungi--whose existence can only be taken as true from the pronouncements of those who have studied this world. And there is also the world of the inanimate chemicals, whether biological or synthetic. Both these worlds can hold as in great awe when we happen to watch these ourselves. These microcosm too can provide us a danger that we may never suspect. And example to that is what bisphenol A (BPA) provides to infants... and even to adults as well. PD James wrote in his 2001 novel, Death in Holy Orders: “Much of the world’s grief was caused by people who claimed that they were only doing their duty.” That is utterly true for those soldiers who had to fight an oppressive war (their superiors ordered them so) or to engineers who formulate small but poisonous compounds to human foods either to save on the cost of materials

At different conditions, things that are harmless can be so badly destrusteive. Escherechia coli is one of these.  THE bacteria we call Escherichia coli is not entirely, or perhaps normally, an enemy of the human body. Around 0.1 percent of the normal bacterial flora in the human intestines is E. coli. The bacteria enter, and then colonize, the newly born child’s gut within 40 hours of birth. It enters the body with the food or water or with persons handling the child. Then it adheres to the mucus of the large intestine. In a matter of speaking, it so abounds in nature no one can practically avoid getting it. E. coli is also useful in producing vitamin K2. K2 is a member of the vitamin K group of fat-soluble vitamins that is involved in bone metabolism. Because of this, decreased level of normal flora in the gut because of broad-spectrum antibiotic use heightens the risk for K2 deficiency. Vitamin K1 is active more in enhancing blood coagulation. It is this vitami

One of the deadly genera of bacteria that have mutating strains making invulnerable to common antibiotics is the scourge of the blood. Discover which microorganism it is. “BLOOD smelled much the same, whatever the source,” wrote David Hewson in his first book, The Seventh Sacrament (2007). The Group-A Streptococci (chainlike circles) are known among laboratory scientists for its unique ability to burst the red blood cells. And to this bloody scourges Streptococcus pyogenes belongs. If you had a strep throat or sore throat recently, Pyogenes caused that. It is a mild infection in the leagues of impetigo, erysipelas, and cellulitis. But Pyogenes can be life-threatening when it causes “necrotizing fasciitis,” a rare infection of the deeper layers of the skin. It is commonly known as “flesh-eating disease” for the obvious reason that the affected tissues simply turn violet (blisters may appear afterwards) and then die away. As high as 73 percent of patients with this dis

If you think antibiotics are all cure, think again. It can cause serious diarrhea too. THE most serious cause of antibiotic-associated diarrhea (AAD) is Clostridium difficile; rod-shaped bacteria that compete with gut bacteria, or what remain of them, after recently wiped out by broad-spectrum antibiotics. These antibiotics include clindamycin, a drug for respiratory tract infections and skin and soft tissues infection as well. A few people have Difficile residing normally in their gut. Others got it as patients in a health facility (e.g. hospital, nursing home). But as its population explodes, it results in the overproduction of toxins. They overrun the gut, and cause a painful diarrhea that can become severe. The specie is nosocomial, known to cause diarrhea in hospitals worldwide. It developed clindamycin-resistant strains detected in outbreaks in New York, Arizona, Florida and Massachusetts from 1989 to 1992. Fluroquinolone-resistant strains appeared in North America

Knowledge often supports wisdom. In the harmful impacts of certain plastic types, knowledge alone makes you a lot wiser. WITH the increasing support that local lawmakers provide on the move against plastic as used in bags, another assault on the move against plastic in its use as bottles and containers for food and food products is up. Senator Miriam Santiago filed a few months earlier Senate Bill No. 3121, which when approved into law, will become as the BPA in Baby Products Prohibition Act of 2012. The culprit is the chemical referred to as BPA or Bisphenol A, a solid but colorless organic compound. It is synthetically manufactured precursor chemical used in polycarbonate plastics and epoxy resins. The polycarbonate plastics are the ones used in the production of many food and drink bottles and containers, such as water bottles and infant feeding bottles. Epoxy resins practically lacquers used in coating metal products such as food cans, bottle tops, and water supply pipes.

This is one classic case wherein ignorance can be deadly. Had I been a convert to shark-eating after that vacation morning, I could have been dead today for mercury poisoning. EATING shark meat is not in my list of preferred dishes. But when you go with youth of your age who have no qualms about that, it is a matter of time you’ll get to taste it at least for the first time. I had my first meal on shark meat decades ago together with friends I grew up with in my hometown. Those were the times when we hit the basketball court early in the morning, and then proceed to the seashore to buy fish for our breakfast, which we usually cook at home. In one of those vacation mornings, we found no excitement in the catches that the fishermen brought in. Then one of us suggested a kilo or two of medium-sized shark. I grimaced in anticipation. But a dish of hinalang (simmered chunks of shark meat cooked in lots of the usual spices and 10 to 20 pieces of red chili) convinced me it was

Sometimes knowing so much English can be a disadvantage if you do not know what certain things are called in Cebuano. Take the fish anchovy. Do you know that it is the same fish as our "bulinao"? And when translate that to what that means to our access of naturally available nutrients, such as omega-3 fatty acids, you will realize that we can miss a lot simply from translation. LIKE any average Cebuano, I could say that my knowledge of Omega-3 fatty acids reaches only as far as knowing that these renowned food supplements can be found in oil-rich, large fishes, the likes of whales and sharks. That makes me think of Omega-3 with certain surrealism. The sources are so far off in the aquatic horizon to be reachable by ordinary fish-eaters like you and me, or at least a few like us. But finding a study conducted by Dariush Mozaffariah and Eric Rimm published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (2006) changed all that. For one, large fishes do not hav

Despite, or perhaps because of, science mankind is now starting to gets left behind by microorganisms in this continuing war for survival. Recently the microscopic creatures apparently start to get the upper hand. Something that humans must be alarmed about.  THIS week’s article is some kind of a heads up for our Breakthroughs readers. Certain diseases lately have been reported to be getting untreatable as the scourge of antibiotic drug resistance hits hospitals abroad. In her report early this year in the Scientific American, Christine Gorman noted that health investigators “started seeing cases of infection that did not easily respond to treatment with a group of drugs called cephalosporins.” Cephalosporins are the current last line of defense against gonorrheal infection. The Feb. 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reported that US doctors believed that gonorrheal infection, that the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhea cause, may soon become untreatable. And

I have seen a person with low potassium level makes him impossible to stand up and move around. And I don't want to watch another human being get a heart attack for excessive potassium in his blood. Balance is always a wisdom many of us don't want to hear about. ONE of the recommended nutrients for stroke prevention that need to be increased in diet is potassium. It is an electrolyte that is very important in the human body. Potassium helps regulate the balance between acid and base chemicals in the body fluids, necessary for the building of muscles (thus, for normal body growth, and in relation to stroke, it is essential for the normal electrical activity of the heart. And being a factor in electrolyte balance inside the body, its level in blood is very critical. Having too much (hyperkalemia) or too little (hypokalemia) potassium can have very serious consequences to your health. The good thing is, so many foods around us contain potassium. These are... [ R

One of the most dangerous super-bug today is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. And like any superbug available antibiotics today fails to work against its new strains. Knowing these bacteria allows you to be more careful in environments or places where these troublemakers about, and statistically infects people. [Photo: multidrug -resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa ] THE bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) normally resides in soil, water, skin flora, and man-made environments. It can be found regularly on the surfaces of plants, and occasionally, of animals. It is one of the most vigorous, fast-swimming bacteria seen in hay infusions and pond water samples. It is a stranger to the internal parts of the human body, though. Characteristically PA needs minimal nutrition. It is even often observed growing in distilled water. It grows optimally at room temperature. And it has predilection to grow in moist environments, thriving on biofilms. Still it is opportunistic. It expl

Working at low energy levels make for grueling hours at work. More of the remaining energy are used in keeping the eyes open than on doing the work an employee is paid to do. A wise approach to diet and use of work-time can make wonders in keeping that energy level, and consequently one's productivity, on high marks. IT IS rare for an office worker not to find himself or herself fighting the call to sleep while in the middle of a heap of paperwork. This usually occurs in the early afternoon when the morning meal has been exhausted, and the body still has to digest its lunch. In fact, too much lunch can draw much of a person’s blood circulation in the stomach, leaving only enough for the brain to function with less. That makes thinking a bit laborious, and hounded by sleep. Scientific studies however make some progress in helping you overcome these calls to slumber. A study conducted in the Louisiana State University (published in Computers and Industrial Engineer