Breakthroughs Today

WHEN located outside the anal opening, its swelling can result to skin irritation that can be painful, and prone to ruptures. When the swelling is located inside, pain is seldom experienced. But when it grows disproportionately large it goes out of the rectum, oftentimes painfully, and in some cases accompanied with bleeding. Just what are we talking about? Most of us call this condition as hemorrhoids (Visayan, almoranas). Actually, hemorroids are also called piles, wrote S. Lorenzo-Rivero in the August 2009 American Journal of Surgery. Hemorrhoids are swollen blood vessels in the lower rectum. Its most common signs and symptoms are itching, anal masses, rectal pain, or rectal bleeding. Internal piles become suspect when bright red blood can be found covering the stool, in toilet paper, or in the toilet bowl itself. The golden standard in treating severe piles is... [ Read more ] This article appeared in Sun.Star Cebu newspaper on 23 February 2011.  

THE article, “Reusable Bag Biz,” on Dec. 1 generated insightful feedback from our readers. The concern is indeed serious, but the recycling options available so far are costly to consumers. And yet many agree that plastic bags are cheaper options “if only”—and that’s the key phrase—responsibility in using or disposing them can be instilled in Filipino consumers. The thought of plastic cluttering rivulets and street “canals,” and causing floods during heavy rainfalls—particularly in Colon St.—brings to mind the image of black mud that host minute organisms called bacteria. I’m familiar with these tiny creatures when viewed under a microscope, even when these organisms are unstained. The image also reminds me of... [ Read more. ] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 16 February 2011.

The DOST Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) recently issed a survey showing that 34 to 53 percent of Vitamin C consumed among Filipinos came from vegetables. Fruits merely contribute around 19 to 29 percent as a source. More than 50 percent of Vitamin C intake among adults, the elderly, and lactating women came from vegetables. Adolescent and pregnant women comprised 42.2 and 41.7 percent, respectively. Children have the lowest use of vegetables as Vitamin C source, contributing only 34.6 percent to diets among 6-12 agers and 17,2 percent among those ageing 6 months to 5-year olds. Vitamin C-rich vegetables include leafy greens like malunggay, ampalaya, petsay, saluyot, peppers (red and green), sitsaro and raw cabbage. Despite this figures, only 3 in every 10 households met the estimated average requirement (EAR) for Vitamin C, which is 80 percent of the recommended intake of the vitamin. And worse vegetable consumpion is on the downtrend over the years. It has decreased

A DATE on Saint Valentine’s Day will be great if you have one. But even if you don’t, you will not be alone. Perhaps you will even be in an “exalted” company. With all their number-crunching statistics, medical scientists find it difficult to form relationships. A scientist himself, D. J. Williams wrote in the Canadian Medical Association Journal (2004): “It’s undoubtedly true that a statistically significant proportion of medical science nerds have difficulty forming intimate relationships.” “Many of us are more comfortable pursuing intimate relationship with our computers than with a fellow human being. We busily collect and analyze complex data for mind-numbing research reports and journal articles, but can’t seem to figure out the fundamentals of love,” he added. The reason apparently for this disconnect with love or romance is that their world revolves on the quantitative. And the language of love is, by nature, qualitative. So Williams ventured to study this phenomenon though

STRESS got you when you begin to think that everything is a matter of life and death. For this, Natalie Goldberg explained in her book, Wild Mind (1990): “Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency.” The International Labor Office (ILO) issued on April 28—in time for the World Day for Safety and Health at Work—a report entitled, “The Emerging Risks and New Patterns of Prevention in a Changing World of Work,” that noted significant changes in the patterns of employment in the recent decades and had a hand in emerging new risks that affect the workforce. These risks include work restructuring, downsizing, subcontracting and outsourcing, all making it harder for workers to achieve balance between healthy life and productive work. In countries like the Philippines, with populations working in precarious employment status, people accept jobs with low occupational safety and health (OSH) standards, low wages, and poor working conditions. A study conducted b

WHEN my first article came out in FIT in mid-2005, my expectation for the scope of writing was limited to physical health. But then years taught me that illness comes to our body through many avenues—the body, the mind, and the soul. A sick mind eventually breaks down the harmony of bodily processes. A soul in darkness slowly destroys the mind, and eventually manifests itself in physical symptoms. In short, we cannot take care of our physical health unless we, too, nourish our mental and spiritual well-being. American gynecologist Jeff Miller ( Surgery, Gynecology and Obstetrics , 1931) said: “Body and soul cannot be separated for purposes of treatment, for they are one and indivisible. Sick minds must be healed as well as sick bodies.” In the last five years in Breakthroughs... [ Read more .] This article appears in SunStar Cebu newspaper on 26 January 2011.

GERMAN philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: “I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.” For centuries, man has searched for ways to obtain power beyond the mortal limits. That impulse for the ultimate however is not exclusively humans. Bugs too have it. Last month, I hinted on the appearance of more serious drug-resistant strains of microorganisms. These are the multidrug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria. These groups of bacteria, which scientists call the “superbugs,” pose much greater risk to public health because they have developed resistance to many antibiotics. And admittedly, according to Karthikeyan Kumarasamy of the University of Madras (UM), Department of Microbiology (Chennai, India), “there are fewer new and developmental antibiotics active against Gram-negative bacteria.” Because of that, drug development programs cannot provide us with therapeutic cover in the next 10 to 20 years. Kumarasamy and a team of 20 other physicians from the univers