Breakthroughs Today

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.

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

A newsreport has it that oral sex can lead to cancer. Apparently, it is not the oral sex but the genital warts in the male partner. [ Read Report ]

WITH graduations through, and parties being held, there is more time for drinking alcoholic beverages. So it may be a downer to bring out a recent study that put this favorite Filipino drink into the spotlight. But needless to say, being forewarned is being forearmed. In October 2009, the International Agency for Research on Cancer updated its 1988 classification of acetaldehyde (“probable carcinogen in humans”) to Group I human carcinogen (“carcinogenic to humans”). And that is not for insignificant bases. Thirteen medical researchers conducted a study involving 818 heavy drinkers found that acetaldehyde cause defects in their genes for the enzyme acetaldehyde dehydrogenase. Their findings came out in the November 2005 issue of the International Journal of Cancer. If you should drink this summer, then let me share with you a recent study that evaluated the acetaldehyde content major groups of alcoholic beverages available in the market. This way you can choose those that pose the