Breakthroughs Today

SOMETIMES I cannot believe what medical science and technology have reached today. But surprises are many, perhaps too many to count, or to seek in order to appreciate the exact number. One of these medical surprises is aspirin. Yes, aspirin, or what we know chemically as acetylsalicylic acid. It is originally used as a pain-reliever, a fever-reducer, and an anti-inflammatory. But many decades ago, it came to be used in certain cardiovascular conditions, such as heart attacks, strokes, and blood clotting disorders, because of its anti-platelet effect. It produces a substance called thromboxane, which under normal conditions binds platelet molecules together, making it unavailable to create blood clots that can cause recurrence of heart attack, for instance. Just recently, in its July 23 issue, the Journal of the American Medical Association (Jama), published a study involving three researchers—Andrew Chan, Shuji Ogino, and Charles Fuchs. Chan is a gastroenterologist at the Massachuse

IN THE more than 30 years of cancer research, there have been serious efforts in determining the connection between cancer development and calorie intake. But most of those years were spent in laboratory experiments using animal models. We still have to look for a human trial to support their findings. So much, however, has been learned since then. And the stage is set for a Phase 0 Clinical Trial to follow. Phase 0 is a recent addition in the process, designed for first-in-human trials in microdosing (intake in minute doses), and conducted in accordance with the United States Food and Drug Administration’s 2006 Guidance on Exploratory Investigational New Drug Studies. These three decades of research found out that... ( Read more. ) This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu on 15 September 2010. 

A RECENT study on macrophages (i.e. defensive cells in our body that engulf threatening substances inside our body) introduced me to a lethal, genetic disease that targets the male population. This disease is called Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD), named after the French neurologist Guillaume Benjamin Amand Duchenne, who described it in 1861. While it has an incidence of one in 3,500 newborn males, health experts consider this as the most common lethal disease of childhood around the world. Mutation in the male (X) chromosome [dystrophin gene, locus Xp21] causes a rapid degeneration of the muscles, leading into an eventual loss of walking ability and then death. While females do not exhibit symptoms, they can be carriers of these defective genes, especially if the father had this condition or the mother is also a carrier. Symptoms usually appear before age five; at times visible in early infancy. These symptoms involve... ( Read more .)  This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu n

SOMETIME in 1988 I came to know a person in Zamboanga City whose way of showing feelings defied my understanding of emotions. Male and married, he spoke softly and showed no sign of roughness or aggression—even at times when my own aggression meter rose. I learned from his wife that his way of speaking came from his family. Even when pissed off, only those who closely knew him could detect... ( Read more. )  This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 21 July 2010.

IF YOU love probiotic food products, you may have eaten already any of the non-harmful species of Lactobacillus bacteria. One popular species is the L. casei, its Shirota strain being found in the milk-like product Yakult. They are used in fermenting ingredients in yogurt production and cheese, pickles, beer, wine, cider, and kimchi as well. Lactobacilli are normal flora in the vagina and the gastrointestinal tract, including the throat. Their sheer number... ( Read more . ) This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 14 July 2010.

THOSE who have had bouts with gastric ulcer most likely have heard of the bacterium (singular form of bacteria) known scientifically as Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori). H. pylori has a long story to tell. It first belonged to a group of corkscrew-looking bacteria called Campylobacter, created in 1963 as a class. But with the advent of electron microscopy, scientists observed that this bacterium possesses a helical body instead. Thus in 1989...  ( Read on ) This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 7 July 2010.

IN MY previous column (“Joy, temperance and repose”), I mentioned the highest and lowest antioxidant-containing products among the 3,100 products tested in the Carlson Food Antioxidant Review. But I purposefully left out the results of their tests on herbs and medicinal plants because of the limitations of our space here. What they found out... ( Read more )   This article appears in Sun-Star Cebu newspaper on 30 June 2010.

If you think depression just comes to adolescents without reason at all, think about. Any reason might do. Read on to find out. BRITISH rowing athlete Penelope Sweet once said: “Depression is nourished by a lifetime of ungrieved and unforgiven hurts.” At times, though, the hurts do not have last a lifetime. Among adolescents, depression comes as a natural part of growing up. That’s what Colleen Conley and Karen Rudolph found out in their recent study, published in Developmental Psychopathology and available online on Jan. 1. Conley teaches at the Loyola University Chicago Department of Psychology while Rudolph at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Campaign). Adolescence comes as a period of multiple... ( Read more. ) This article appears in Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on 23 June 2010.

Like any social destination, the bar can attract patrons based on motives that generally reflects how it is generally perceived by consumers. Find out what motives are these. ERNEST Hemingway wrote in For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940): “An intelligent man is sometimes forced to be drunk to spend time with his fools.” Each different man or woman has his or her own reason for visiting, even patronizing, a bar or two. Recently, though, eight different focus groups, consisting of 82 individual each including bar patrons and bartenders, identified four clusters of motivations that people have in frequenting bars. ( Read more. ) This article appears in Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on 16 June 2010.

“I RECKON being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better,” wrote Samuel Butler in The Way of All Flesh (1903). The term “antioxidant” was originally used in the 18th century to refer to a chemical that prevents the consumption of oxygen in laboratory experiments. However, in the late 19th and early 20th century, extensive study exploded... ( Read more ) This article appeared in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 02 June 2010.

Breakthroughs , the Sun.Star Cebu newspaper column which brings breaking news in health research every Wednesday, took its existence in the local community of Cebu in the month of May some five years ago today. It started from a dream of bringing the hard technical language of medical research to the common people who considered technical terms in medical science and technology as archaic as well as strange and often unfathomable even while using the ordinary English dictionary. Our fifth year testifies that goal may have been achieved through the years, and its readers may have obtained some form of benefits after reading each article each week since then. And yet any child cannot claim existence without the mother who gave birth to it. And for Breakthroughs , no other mother can rightly assume that matriarchal honor than my retired Live section editor, Pura Kintanar, whose perception may have seen ahead of time the years that Breakthroughs will be serving the local community of Ceb

PROLIFIC historical novelist Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet of Scotland, wrote: “A rusty nail placed near a faithful compass will sway it from the truth, and wreck the argosy.” In cancer medicine, a toenail rich in selenium, a purplish-gray element, may make an important difference in protecting us from bladder cancer... (Read more ) This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 19 May 2010.

FARMER and writer Ethan Allen wrote: “In those parts of the world where learning and science have prevailed, miracles have ceased; but in those parts of it as are barbarous and ignorant, miracles are still in vogue.” In medicine, syndromes are still in vogue. There is another clinical vogue coming up... ( Read more . ) This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 12 May 2010.

“A lifestyle is what you pay for,” wrote Thomas Leonard, founder of Coach University in 1992 and a major contributor to the development of personal coaching. And there are many health costs paid in unhealthy lifestyle. These costs include what clinicians call the “metabolic syndrome” (MS). The National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel (ATP) III defined MS as a collection of...  Read more.     This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 28 Apri 2010.

28 April 2010 Paying for Metabolic Syndrome [posted simultaneous] 21 April 2010 Onion Buying, Or What? [posted on 20 April 2010] 14 April 2010 Negotiated Safety [posted 0n 13 April 2010] 07 April 2010 Music of the Night [posted on 6 April 2010]

31 March 2010 Memories That Bind (posted: 03/30/2010) 24 March 2010 Over-Commitment and Burnout (posted: 03/23/2010) 17 March 2010 Beauty and the Funny Bone (posted: 03/16/2010) 10 March 2010 The Internet 'Divide' and Age (posted: 03/09/2010) 3 Mar 2010 A Season of Heat (posted: 03/02/2010)

24 Feb 2010 Richer Cebuana, Fatter Cebuana (posted 2/23/10) 17 Feb 2010 War of Wuji and Yang (posted 2/16/10) 10 Feb 2010   Unseen Among the Seeing (posted 2/9/10) 3 Feb 2010    Teach Right, Time Right (Cebu newspaper only)