Breakthroughs Today

I admit that well-designed tattoos can be very pleasant to the eyes (see this photo as an example). But that does not remove the fact that getting yourself tattooed just anywhere can be risky. And if you do tattooing in your more personal areas, that can be disastrous. There are many known causes of Priapism, a potentially painful medical condition wherein the penis does not return to its flaccid state, even without physical and psychological stimulation, within four hours. The low-flow type involves the blood not adequately returning to the body from the organ. This type represents 80-90 percent of all cases. The less common high-flow type involves a short-circuit of the vascular system along the organ. It can result from physical injury, urinary tract infection, and other causes that involve the nerves and other non-blood conditions. Treatment for priapism is considered a medical emergency. Priapism is diagnosed with high oxygen and low carbon dioxide contents in the penile

The new thing that we know of right now about MSG is that it does not result to long-term build up of glutamine in our blood, and thus gets easily flushed out of our system after intake.   SOME three months or so after the Breakthroughs article, Tasty Dish and the Risk You Know, came out in the last day of August last year, Dr. Josefa S. Eusebio, president of the Glutamate Association of the Philippines (GAP), wrote me to share what she knows about monosodium glutamate (MSG). The GAP objective is “to undertake programs and activities for generating and disseminating scientific, culinary and other related information about glutamates and its umami taste.” Dr. Eusebio shared to me how “96 percent of all glutamates (from food and MSG) are utilized in the intestines as major source of energy metabolism and for carrying out the vital functions of digestion and absorption.” The remaining four percent, she wrote, enters the blood, and “immediately” transformed into other amino

It is no accident that heart attack has been referred to as a "thief in the night," alluding to the biblical character that Jesus mention in the gospels. And one of our friends and readers, wants to know how to prevent it from happening. LAST Jan. 5, a regular reader of Breakthroughs through Sun-Star Network Exchange sent me an email: Dear Sirs, Having read your column, I'm interested in knowing more as I have a history of heart disease. And also how can I prevent heart attack? Awaiting your reply, Peter Parr, O.B.E. His letter led me to delve deeper into the challenges that heart attack prevention demands. And admittedly prevention is far better than cure. Heart attack (stroke) is a physical incident wherein the blood supply to a part of the heart gets interrupted, causing the heart cells to die. This incident results from the rupture of a plaque, an unstable collection of dense fats and white cells stuck in the wall of a heart artery. Its fragm

There many developments in health science and technology that most people today are not familiar of, unless they are working within the relevant field of interest. Even health professionals are not that well-informed as we assume they. One of these well-documented but obscure fruit of modern science and technology is the waist-hip ratio, or WHR. IN ADDITION to the body mass index (BMI), the waist-hip ratio (WHR) is a reliable alternative in predicting risk to heart diseases. For the same purpose, it is a measure of obesity, an indicator of other more serious health conditions such as heart diseases, diabetes, and hypertension. This method is popularized by the World Health Organization Stepwise approach to Surveillance (WHO STEPS). Research shows that people with apple-shaped bodies (have more weight around the waist) face more health risks than those with pear-shaped bodies (more weight around the hips). WHO STEPS defined abdominal obesity as a WHR of above 0.90 for

Another potential superbug make headlines as it has  been blamed for deaths of infected infant. And it is something that parents should take note especially when they are using milk formula. LAST year (Dec. 22), Daniel J. DeNoon of the WebMD Health News reported of an infant in Lebanon, Missouri who died of Cronobacter infection. Cronobacter is a newly recognized genus, comprising Gram-negative, rod-shaped, and disease-causing bacteria. The family bought 12.5-ounce cans of Enfamil Newborn from a local Walmart, with lot number ZP1K7G. (The infant formula is currently being tested, and not yet proven the source of the child’s infection. But its maker Mead Johnson graciously pulled it off out of caution.) The culprit in infant infections like this has been a species called Cronobacter sakasakii. It is often detected in plant material, such as wheat (a base ingredient in many infant formula), rice, herbs and spices. In short, it is abundant in the environment. Take note

Sleep is a natural recharger of physical and mental energies that is available to human beings even if some would prefer to ignore this God-given gift for whatever reason. A few still would have wanted to sleep sound like a baby who have forgotten their midnight crying routine, and cannot do so no matter what they do. Again, science tries to look for a solution, and somehow recently found one. And yet like many scientific solutions, a "cure" can be as easily considered a vector of a disease or disorder on account of their side effects alone. Here's a recent one on the matter. SPANISH author Leon de Rotrou wrote in his work Vencelas: “What I take from my nights, I add to my days.” But what happens when night takes from your days, and adds it to your nights? The United States Food and Drug Administration approved on Nov. 23 2011 a new sleeping pill called Intermezzo to help middle-of-the-night insomniacs to get back to sleep. Transcept Pharmaceuticals desig

At times the a combination of three powerful drugs can result to unexpected and dangerous predicaments. And if you factor that potency into sex, some scientific stories can be worth reading. THE case I am bringing up today may be considered a sort of “X-File” in the field of medical therapeutics. Six researchers, led by Javaad Zargooshi, from the Rhazes Center for Research in Family Health and Sexual Medicine of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (Kermanshah, Iran) reported early this year in The Journal of Sexual Medicine (Jan. 3) a case of drug-induced rupture (lesion) of the glans (helmet-like structure in the penis) after sexual intercourse with his wife who used a vaginal cream containing triple-sulfa antibiotic. A triple-sulfa drug is a combination of three different antibiotics—sulfathiazole, sulfacetamide, and sulfabenzamide. They confirmed that this case of a 42-year-old male represented the fourth case they have encountered. “To our knowledge, this i