Breakthroughs Today

Through years of research, I came to appreciate the infinite complexity of the human body, its systems, and the varied interactions it performs with substances in nature even those the support its health and survival, including food supplements. And not understanding such interaction can be dangerous to your health. ELEMENTAL copper abounds in nature. Our regular diet may provide 5 mg per day, of which only 20-50 percent gets absorbed into the body, according to the Halfdanarson study in 2008 (published in the European Journal of Haematology).  Dietary copper can be found in whole grain cereals, legumes, oysters, organ meats (particularly liver), cherries, dark chocolate, fruits, green leafy vegetables, nuts, poultry, prunes, and soybeans. This abundance, and its low daily requirement level (copper is only a trace element), make acquired copper deficiency very rare indeed.  Copper is an essential cofactor in many enzymatic reactions vital to the normal function of the bl

There is much in advertising today that consumers must be wary about. Advertising can be seriously deceptive. And certain advertising outfits will not care on the truth of the message if the pay-off is great. Smoking cessation products today can be as dangerous as advertised. These ads can have believable messages... but with a dangerous twist. “THERE is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact,” Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote in his short fiction, The Boscombe Valley Mystery .  Apparently, only one of four emerging tobacco products now available in the American market had reached the Philippines. That product is popular as the “e-cigarette.”  An E-cigarette is actually an electronic nicotine delivery system (Ends), a category of products that deliver a vapor of nicotine and flavoring on inhalation. Flavors include a variety of tobacco, fruit and food (e.g. chocolate) flavors. Companies market it as a smoking cessation device and an alternative to cessation. Of those

Smoking is one habit that is very hard to break. In fact, it is more than a habit; it is an addiction. And all addictions do not lead to something healthy. Here are some updates on the advances in science and technology at helping smokers stop smoking. THE World No Tobacco Day was held on May 31. The Philippine National No-Smoking Month ended on June 30. However, in the implementation side of Republic Act 9211, otherwise known as the Tobacco Act of 2003, falls on the month of July and has a very special place to remember.  It was on July 1 that the warnings on cigarette packages were placed. It must be located on the bottom portion of one front panel of every tobacco product package, as we see it today. It was also when all cinema and outdoor advertisings were banned as well as all forms of tobacco advertising in mass media. It was also on a July 1 when sponsorship events and activities of tobacco companies were banned.  On the research side, two long-standing therapeut

There's a "balloon" in us that may exist without us knowing it does. And the outcome can be deadly. ACTRESS Kim Chiu’s mother was laid to rest on June 29 at age 50. Her death though brought to the public’s attention the deadly handiwork of aneurysm.  Aneurism is a localized, blood-filled bulge (balloon-like) in the wall of a blood vessel that usually carries oxygenated blood, called an artery.  What makes it deadly is its location. It commonly occurs in arteries at... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 10 July 2013.

IT WAS not very long ago—in 1967—that Hungarian scientist Endre Mester invented the first working laser. And its use in medical therapy was born of an accidental observation with mice subjects: The back of shaven mice unexpectedly grew hair after laser was directed on it. And such invigoration of hair (growth) proved much faster than when no laser had been applied.  Today, the use of low-intensity laser treatment (Lilt) found application in the short treatment of pain caused by rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, tendinopathy and chronic joint disorders. Dentist T. Ebrahimi of the Dental Research Center and his colleagues at the Tehran University of Medical Sciences (Iran) wanted to find out how far Lilt can effect healing in the human bones on the basis that it can supply direct stimulative light energy to body cells, stimulating their molecules and atoms.  One advantage is that it cannot cause rapid and significant increase in tissue temperature, making burning less like

WE USED to think that high uric acid levels in the bloodstream pinpointed only towards inflammatory conditions particularly of the joints (gout). Recent development in clinical research uncovered a very clear effect of hyperuricemia in developing Type-2 diabetes mellitus. A team of 12 Chinese researchers, mostly from the Department of Nephrology at the Union Hospital in Wuhan, China, conducted a meta-analysis of existing literature in the association between blood uric acid and Type 2 diabetes. Type 2 diabetes is an adult-onset diabetes resulting primarily from the development of insulin resistance or relative insulin-deficiency which results to persistently increased level of sugar (glucose) in the bloodstream. The body can still manufacture insulin but resistance to it has developed so that the body still cannot breakdown free glucose. Overall all, it makes up around 90 percent of cases of diabetes. Long-term complications include... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in

One thing to be surprised with passion fruit is how supportive it is towards the heart.  MARK DANIELEWSKI wrote in House of Leaves: “Passion has little to do with euphoria and everything to do with patience. It is not about feeling good. It is about endurance… It does not mean to flow with exuberance. It means to suffer.”  June is a favorite month for weddings. It must be a carryover of the ancient belief about Juno, the goddess of marriage and household, from which the name of the month was taken. Thus marrying during the month has been considered good luck. It is a month of passion, so to say.  To Christians, however, passion connotes more endurance than euphoria, much like what Danielewski wrote. Those who have lived long enough can say without uncertainty that issues of the heart is no walk at the park. It can be as serious as medical conditions like hypertension and diabetes mellitus. Recent years, however, uncovered how passion fruit can be good for the heart. 

Sometimes even in nature danger has strange bedfellows. Who will ever suspect that licorice, a useful sugar replacement can be as dangerous as two sticks of cigarettes just because of one or two common active ingredients. THE Greeks called it sweet (glukus) root (rhiza). Taxonomists named it Glycyrrhiza glabra (“sweet root” that is “smooth”). Yet we know it as “liquorice,” or simply “licorice.” Its active principle, glycyrrhizin, is 30 to 50 times sweeter than table sugar.  Thus it is a popular sweetener in candies. In fact, in Great Britain and the United States, licorice candies do exist. Chinese cuisine uses licorice as a culinary spice, often employed to flavor broths and foods simmered in soy sauce. Licorice also flavors soft drinks.  But don’t think of it as some kind of low-calorie sweetener, or sugar replacement because it contains around 100 calories per ounce.  What many of us may not have known is that tobacco products contain 90 percent licorice. Licor

BUREAU OF PLANT Industry-approved bio-enhanced eggplant, Bt Talong . The eggplant contains genetically engineered bacteria, Bacillus thuringiensis , a oil bacteria inserted into the plant to produce insecticidal properties. While largely uncertain yet on harmful effects it can bring to human consumer, the University of the Philippine-Los Banos had been field testing it already in Pangasinan, Laguna and Camarines Sur. It is one of those 62 so-called genetically modified organisms  (GMO) that the Bureau of Plant Indutry had been approving since 2002.[ READ REPORT ]

Here's something you need to be aware of to avoid getting frequent bouts of dyspepsia.  WHEN you repeat or hear repeatedly a difficult word often enough you get to know it by heart. That’s the case with the word dyspepsia. The Greek root dys means “painful” (remember, "painful menstruation" in dysmenorrhea); while pepsia or pepsis means “to digest.” Together, and literally, dyspepsia means “painful digestion.” We know its simple equivalent better: indigestion (in Cebuano, we say “wa kahilisi”).  Clinically, dyspepsia is that vague feeling of discomfort (of heat, burning or pain; or of fullness that is bothersome) in the upper belly or abdomen during or right after eating.  There are many triggers to dyspepsia. And if you often get this condition, you must avoid getting exposed to the following risks... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 22 May 2013, and reprinted on 28 May 2013.

I GUESS the most painful experience a person can have upon waking up is to have muscle cramps.  The condition consists of a sudden but involuntary contraction of a muscle or part of it that is painful as well as self-extinguishing (or self-limiting), with a palpable knotting of the muscle accompanying it.  But the condition is normal. There is nothing serious enough to worry about other than the excruciating pain as it progresses and the usual difficulty at walking for a day or two after the event. Healthy individuals experience it. It can occur at night (benign nocturnal cramp) or in the morning just before waking up. It can also happen during strenuous activities, usually during physical exercise Long periods of exercise or physical labor, particularly in hot weather, may cause muscle cramps.  Muscle cramps, however, can appear in disease conditions, such as... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 15 May 2013.

Sometimes we get so excited with vitamineral pills we forget that our body too is capable of synthesizing these vitamins. Guess which vitamin or mineral is that? TO PARAPHRASE a Yiddish proverb: “Even a dog without teeth attacks a bone.” It seems nature has something against the bone eventually, hasn’t it? The United States Institute of Medicine set the daily recommended intake of calcium for people aging 19 to 50 years at 1,000 milligrams (one gram). Studies in the past agreed that at the age of 30 bones in the body start depleting itself, and in order for the person to make up for these loss enough dose of dietary calcium must be taken in. The question is: Do we take calcium alone? Or, should we take it with vitamin D? Professor of orthopedics at the University Of Rochester Medical Center in New York J. Edward Puzas MD, according to Gina Shaw of WebMD, believed that consuming vitamin D with calcium “doesn’t hurt you, but it’s not particularly beneficial, either.” The medi

Did God document in the Passion flower the Passion of His own Son as a witness to the redemption of mankind? We may never know. But God did create the flower to aid among us who are suffering from some specific diseases.   SCIENTISTS named it Passiflora, a genus of flower vines that contains 400 species; mostly vines, some shrubs and a few herbs. And some of these species have known medicinal properties.  The history in the naming of Passiflora is part of the Christian missionary history.  Spanish Catholic missionaries discovered the passion flower in South America between the 15th and 16th centuries. The missionary priests found its physical structures uniquely consistent with certain facts in the Passion of Christ, especially his crucifixion.  Its three stigmas represent the three nails in Jesus’ hands and feet. Its flower threads resemble the crown of thorns. The vine’s anthers look much like the five wounds. The 10 petals and sepals represent the 10 ordinary Apostl

There is one good way ensure that eating sweet orange will not cause stomach hyperacidity. And there is one reason more...   ONLY recently did I learn that my mother had been wondering why each time she saw me eating sweet oranges, I ate the whole segment—juice and all—instead of extracting just the juice alone and throwing away the pulp with the peel.   The reason why I do that is a fruit of observation (pun intended). I noticed that the flesh is somewhat alkaline in the presence of its bitter taste, compared to the acidic (sharp) taste of the juice. While of better composition than synthetic juice, fresh raw juice can still stimulate unwanted reactions in the stomach of those who are sensitive to it. And for many years I have avoided eating sweet oranges for that reason. Of course that’s before I noticed the alkaline character of the orange flesh.   Recently I read three studies from early 2000s (2004, 2005 and 2007) revealing that there is more to eating citrus flesh

ONE of the few important sideshows in the final days of the Lord before His Passion was the death of Judas Iscariot. He was a man who had chosen life when he followed the Master and later chose a tragic way of escaping the demands of his conscience.   Science, including health science, however, has no definition of the term “conscience.” Psychoanalysis equates it with the superego, the evaluator of the ego (segment of personality that reality dominates) against an ideal standard.   Mental health sciences do have an equivalent of the phrase: “disturbed conscience.”   And that is guilt, a remorseful awareness of having done something wrong, or violated a moral standard. Psychoanalysis describes it as a feeling of tension between the ego and the superego. A healthy dose of guilt is good. It... [ READ MORE ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 17 April 2013.

Can eating less make you fatter? Find out how it can.   LEWIS Carroll (1832-1898) reflected in his poem Through the Looking Glass the common presumption on how obesity develops in a person over eating. The concept is as simple as basic mathematics: the more you eat, the more you get fat.   Thus, meal skipping becomes a logical way to go. Since those in active work cannot afford a full day skip, workers often skip breakfast more commonly than lunch or supper.   A recent study that Monika Arora of Health Related Information Dissemination Amongst Youth and colleagues conducted in New Delhi, India, seemed to suggest that the opposite is true. The results published in BMC Public Health (October 2012) reported that more children who regularly skip breakfast get more obese (22.9 percent) than those who breakfast daily (14.6 percent) or only sometimes (15.2 percent). And apparently these were significant only among boys than among girls. Such results seem to contradict what app

  Even a gift can get overused to its destruction.   BIBLICAL wisdom contends that any gift unused will cease to be. Clinical experience, however, observed that frequently used gifts, while they may not disappear, can be so strained that these will eventually become unusable. In fact, these can be plagued with disease of overuse, so that further use of it can be dangerous to the person’s health.   This observation has particular relevance among those who use their voice as their work instruments: singers, fitness club instructors, salespeople, telemarketing operators, receptionists, actors, teachers and more.   A more recent study on 4,495 primary and secondary school teachers in Salvador City in Brazil confirmed earlier studies that frequent use of their voice in line with their chosen professional work can lead to diseases in the vocal folds. These voice disorders usually persist (unless treated) at least 15 days to years after diagnoses, and include such conditi

The application of shellac is wide-ranging than most people think it is. And one of those applications is as glaze on fruits and vegetables sold in your fruit stands and grocery stores.   “IT'S easy for Americans,” says former US Sen. Christopher Dodd, “to forget that the food they eat doesn’t magically appear on a supermarket shelf.” That may also be true for Filipinos.   While the use of shellac in pharmaceutical products may have ebbed in the last few decades, its use in food, particularly as a protective coating for fruits and vegetables, has not. Its use has the specific advantage of extending shelf life, which is critical in ensuring that they are sold before they start to get overripe.   The previous article (“Glaze of the lac bug”) noted that shellac is a natural form of plastic. On apples, for example, this “wax” coating increases the resistance of the skin from gaseous diffusion, particularly oxygen, which speeds up the ripening process.   It was mentio

AMERICAN poet William Carlos Williams wrote: “Old age is a flight of small cheeping birds skimming bare trees above a snow glaze.”   Many Filipinos may not know how a snow glaze looks like; but one common glaze that Filipinos are familiar with can be seen in furniture. And we call that glaze “shellac.”   What most Filipinos, even those who have actually seen a snow glaze, may not know is this: the glaze of shellac has been fairly used in pharmaceutical products. The flakes come from the resin that the female Laccifer bug (Kerria lacca or just lac) secrete on trees in the forests of India, Thailand and Burma (now Mynmar). It takes about 100,000 lac bugs to make 500 grams of shellac flakes.   Shellac is a natural bioadhesive, chemically similar to the synthetic polymers we call “plastic.” In a sense, shellac is a natural form of plastic. And it is used as a glazing agent on tablets and capsules. It contains denatured alcohol, which dissolves the 20-51 percent shellac compo

A lot of advancements in diagnostic technology have visited our century. These new means of diagnoses have brought hope particularly to poor communities where neglected tropical diseases run amok, ignored both by the health authorities tasked by the people to protect them and the profit-oriented pharmaceuticals whose manufacturing capabilities generation of effective drugs against these disease are highly dependent. Neurocystercosis is merely one of these many neglected diseases.   WHAT happened to Cebu City Traffic Operations Management chief Sylvan “Jack” Jakosalem can be one of those few things in our lives that is a choice away, and the impact changes its direction completely.   Neurocystercosis (NCC), an infection of the central nervous system (CNS), which arises from unwittingly ingesting uncooked food that is contaminated with the larvae of tapeworm Taenia solium, can cause irreparable damage to the CNS part involved. The CNS is composed of the brain, spinal cord, and

ON JANUARY 2006, France became sole user of BCG vaccine Statens Serum Institut (SSI) for tuberculosis vaccination. Not long after, rapid increase in cases of adverse reactions (ADRs) came up; such as abscesses (in 73 percent of patients treated), around 30 percent had local reactions (lymphadenopathy of above one cm in size), while 20 patients developed suppurative lymphadenopathy.   Christelle Chol, leader of those who followed the patients for two years, found that the ADRs became consistent a year after their appearance or detection. They published their findings at the Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety (Dec 5).   BCG vaccine—or Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (named after its discoverers)—contains weakened but alive strain of Mycobacterium bovis (a strain found in pigs). Because the bacteria can still stimulate reaction from a person’s immune system (without causing disease), it prepares the body to combat and destroy tuberculosis bacteria upon exposure. Studies in 1994 to 1

  We have come to know very well the drug Phenylpropanolamine as it is a popular medication that doctors give for decongested noses. But it has a history that most people do not know, a history that supposedly have been improved but never known publicly.   SCIENTIFIC studies in 1988, 1999 and 2000 agreed that there is a risk for hemorrhagic stroke among women who used phenylpropanolamine (PPA).   The 1999 study came from the Yale University (New Haven, Connecticut). And the one in 2000 was conducted by a team that WN Kernan led and published in the December 2000 issue of the North England Journal of Medicine, a publication of the Massachusetts Medical Society. The 1988 study was a psychiatric review of 37 cases published in North America and Europe since 1960. In this study that the Lake-Masson-Quirk team published in Pharmacopsychiatry (July 1988), it was noted that ingestion of phenylpropanolamine had resulted in diagnosed cases of acute mania, paranoid schizophrenia and

FILIPINO MOLECULAR biology student Jann Adriel Sy (24) of the University of the Philippines-Diliman noticed the inadequacy in the standard dose policy currently employed by doctors in ensuring a normal metabolic response in a person in the metabolism of medications due to differences in genetic structure, such as the mutation in the protein-coding section of enzymes critical to drug metabolism.   The study has positive implications in bringing down cases of adverse effects from drugs. A person with slow metabolism for paracetamol, for example, can suffer toxic side effects, or even death, from the unmetabolized portions of a 500-mg dose.   The study was performed at the National Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology at UP Diliman. It won for Sy the 2013 BPI-DOST Best Project of the Year Award.   Source: Donna Pazzibugan: "Research on personalized medicine dosages based on genetics proclaimed best thesis," Philippine Daily Inquirer 28 January 2013 [

Anticipation had been cited as capable of increasing appetite. But even with anticipation no appetite may increase when the third type of fiber called resistant starch is added into your meal. Although we have left out the benefits of resistant starch in our previous article because of spatial constraints, this week will disclose what so far medical researchers has found out.     “IF YOU cannot bite, do not show your teeth,” Jennifer Roberson advised in her Highlander book, Scotland the Brave (1996). Biting is one thing; throwing off the bad that comes with the biting is another.   We covered the resistant starch in a previous article but have to leave off on its health benefits.   First, the Anderson study in 2010 found out that resistant starch can specifically protect against colorectal cancer. It has also been found to reduce the intestinal crypt length so that after an average of 29 months of intake developing cancer cells in the gastrointestinal tract, even those

It is a third type, not a third gender or a third kind in the Spielberg movie tradition. There is a third type of fiber that even a lot of health buffs are not familiar with. WHAT most of us know about dietary fiber is that there are two types: the soluble and the insoluble. Soluble fibers dissolve in water to form a gel-like material, which help lower blood cholesterol and glucose levels.   Insoluble fibers, conversely, do not dissolve in water, making these effective in promoting healthy bowel movement by increasing stool bulking. Being so, these help resolve problems with constipation and irregular bowel movement.   But there’s a third type of dietary fiber that most of us do not know about. These are called... [ READ MORE ]   This article appeared in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on January 16, 2013.

There is a special bond between a mother and the child that the world of today tends to minimize in a mistaken notion that independence is threatened by the a child's devotion to his mother. Far from the truth. In fact, devotion to our mother enriches our appreciation of true independence--an independence ground by the stability of a mother's love. This week's Breakthroughs article will reveal how much of the mother reaches the being of her child.   CHRISTMAS is not merely about the birth of God’s only Son, but also the emergence of a Mother. We can say that the new year is also all about birth and everything starting anew. This is a relevant thought because even in this age of test tube babies and surrogate parenthood, a child will not see the light without a mother. So wherever the son is, the mother must be there also. In the same manner, whatever the mother has the son will get also.   That’s the essence of the scientific breakthrough we will be on this week.

THE Year 2013 will usher the 8th Year Anniversary of Breakthroughs with SunStar Cebu newspaper. Born from the paper's commitment to provide newsbreaking information in health sciences that are based on hardcore scientific research, the column have gone a long way in serving its readers in the city of Cebu and beyond where it can touch people's lives through the internet. I want to thank all the readers of Breakthroughs who silently followed it through the years, and at times engage the columnist in a hearty discussion through emails and mobile phone. The dream of providing you the latest breakthroughs in health sciences before they break out into the traditional news media continued to be my guiding star and motivator in keeping this column alive through the years. And the year 2013 is another year to look forward to with great anticipation. --ZOSIMO T. LITERATUS, RMT