Breakthroughs Today

Despite, or perhaps because of, science mankind is now starting to gets left behind by microorganisms in this continuing war for survival. Recently the microscopic creatures apparently start to get the upper hand. Something that humans must be alarmed about.  THIS week’s article is some kind of a heads up for our Breakthroughs readers. Certain diseases lately have been reported to be getting untreatable as the scourge of antibiotic drug resistance hits hospitals abroad. In her report early this year in the Scientific American, Christine Gorman noted that health investigators “started seeing cases of infection that did not easily respond to treatment with a group of drugs called cephalosporins.” Cephalosporins are the current last line of defense against gonorrheal infection. The Feb. 9 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine reported that US doctors believed that gonorrheal infection, that the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhea cause, may soon become untreatable. And

I have seen a person with low potassium level makes him impossible to stand up and move around. And I don't want to watch another human being get a heart attack for excessive potassium in his blood. Balance is always a wisdom many of us don't want to hear about. ONE of the recommended nutrients for stroke prevention that need to be increased in diet is potassium. It is an electrolyte that is very important in the human body. Potassium helps regulate the balance between acid and base chemicals in the body fluids, necessary for the building of muscles (thus, for normal body growth, and in relation to stroke, it is essential for the normal electrical activity of the heart. And being a factor in electrolyte balance inside the body, its level in blood is very critical. Having too much (hyperkalemia) or too little (hypokalemia) potassium can have very serious consequences to your health. The good thing is, so many foods around us contain potassium. These are... [ R

One of the most dangerous super-bug today is Pseudomonas aeruginosa. And like any superbug available antibiotics today fails to work against its new strains. Knowing these bacteria allows you to be more careful in environments or places where these troublemakers about, and statistically infects people. [Photo: multidrug -resistant strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa ] THE bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) normally resides in soil, water, skin flora, and man-made environments. It can be found regularly on the surfaces of plants, and occasionally, of animals. It is one of the most vigorous, fast-swimming bacteria seen in hay infusions and pond water samples. It is a stranger to the internal parts of the human body, though. Characteristically PA needs minimal nutrition. It is even often observed growing in distilled water. It grows optimally at room temperature. And it has predilection to grow in moist environments, thriving on biofilms. Still it is opportunistic. It expl

Working at low energy levels make for grueling hours at work. More of the remaining energy are used in keeping the eyes open than on doing the work an employee is paid to do. A wise approach to diet and use of work-time can make wonders in keeping that energy level, and consequently one's productivity, on high marks. IT IS rare for an office worker not to find himself or herself fighting the call to sleep while in the middle of a heap of paperwork. This usually occurs in the early afternoon when the morning meal has been exhausted, and the body still has to digest its lunch. In fact, too much lunch can draw much of a person’s blood circulation in the stomach, leaving only enough for the brain to function with less. That makes thinking a bit laborious, and hounded by sleep. Scientific studies however make some progress in helping you overcome these calls to slumber. A study conducted in the Louisiana State University (published in Computers and Industrial Engineer

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