MEDSCIL - healthyLiving...

Sleepless nights without insomnia

2012-07-30T22:29:00.000+01:00

The Spanish have their daily siesta while the sun still shines; an excellent habit to imbibe for a healthy lifestyle, even though some people may feel that sleep should come only at night. Getting your so-called forty winks during the day is vital to a good night’s rest, from my experience.

Sleeplessness due to insomnia is something else altogether: an often psychosomatic medical condition to be treated with professional medical help and advice aimed at identifying and treating underlying causes or symptoms.

Sometimes, however, some recommended medication can keep you up at night or give you bags under the eyes in the morning from keeping your eyelids open for too long, while other types can cause too much drowsiness and even sleep-induced fatigue.

So, I’ll just mention a few known issues in this regard. Vitamin B-12 will give you bags under the eyes if you take it without a doctor’s prescription – especially frightening for a child whose mother has observed the doctor regularly including it among the treatment paraphernalia of anti-malaria medication.

Alcohol and cough syrups can be very sleep-inducing for many people – champagne has been known to be bubbly enough to knock a girl off her feet, while the lowly cough syrup has had a hand in more than a few road accidents.

The list goes on… I know someone who had a blood pressure reading of 180/80 and refused to take BP-lowering medication until a mild stroke set in the next day with a BP of 200/95.

To complicate matters, the patient took Lexotan in the afternoon of the previous day without realizing that the doctor had given Diazepam and administered an intravenous injection of a fast-acting painkiller in the morning of the same day!

The result was a really sleepless night for the patient’s family – the overdose of muscle relaxers really did their work of making the bladder to be practically incontinent, apart from the problem of hauling a sixty-something year-old woman with partial paralysis on the right limbs to and from the bathroom several times during the night.

Luckily for the recovering proud woman, she accepted at last that she could have high blood pressure (BP) from unnecessary worry, lack of exercise, and being overweight or too heavy for her legs to carry her standing up; and admitted that a muscle relaxer like Lexotan may induce sleep in some people but is not a substitute for a BP-reducing medication such as the Zestril brand or the more affordable generic Nifegem Retard.

Which brings me to my final point: self-medication is as dangerous as Russian roulette – prescription drugs are to be taken under the doctor’s order; and, even commonplace over-the-counter or OTC medication should be purchased under the doctor’s advice.

Nuisance Enuresis

2012-07-22T22:17:00.001+01:00

You’re fast asleep on your back in the bedroom, suspended blissfully in restful dreamland. Suddenly, your skin begins to crawl as your sixth sense wakes you up in alarm.

Your clothes are soaked all through to your underwear. Your two eyes fly open simultaneously as that realization comes to you.

In a flash, you grab your crotch unconsciously as you feel around you for the source and cause of the wetness.

You panic but no, it isn’t you. “Who peed on me then?” you ask yourself in a silent soliloquy, as you glance suspiciously to the other side of the bed to look at the wee-wee fellow.

It’s your sleeping partner that’s the culprit! What happened? “I was having a nonsense dream – thinking I was already in the bathroom…” is the very shy reply.

Yes, bedwetting can be quite embarrassing for any child, let alone for a full grown adult. It’s really nothing to be pissed off about – it can happen to anyone.

By the way, it happens to both men and women; just like a wet dream – when a person becomes imaginarily sexually active and releases bodily fluids, such as semen, while sleeping all alone – is common among practically all teenagers and adults.

The really embarrassing thing, apart from the jokes, naturally is the booming, pervasive odour of urine that remains in the bedroom when the beddings and the mattress are not cleaned thoroughly and aired in the sun – or washed and dried off in some other way – as soon as possible.

There is no medication known so far that gets rid of the really stinking problem permanently but drinking lots of water regularly during the day helps a lot to dilute the concentration of the urine that you produce.

A good rule of thumb, I think, would be to drink some water after you ease yourself or following a visit to the bathroom.

Some other people recommend having a periodic wake-up alarm to usher you to the bathroom at night as fast as your two legs can carry you.

Others recommend seeing your doctor and watching the kinds and quantity of fluids and food you take before going to bed at night.

On the other hand, I humbly recommend recording what you eat and drink for about a week after such an event, along with your emotional state.

That way, you would have no reason to have sleepless nights over the problem; and, at the same time, be able to find out what food or drink or combination of the two to avoid – or at least have something concrete to tell your doctor, like a helpful good patient.

It would seem a great pity to spend all that money on medical consultation, I think, solely for you to just walk up to your doctor for a diagnosis and be able to say only, “I wet my bed last night.”

An argument against antibiotics

2012-07-14T23:55:00.004+01:00

Actually an excellent case against the use of broad-spectrum antibiotics to kill off bacterial infections: these drugs kill off both the good and the bad bacteria in the microbiome, leaving the treated body defenseless against the invasion of antibiotic resistant forms of bacteria.

Just like a misdirected spray of pesticide would kill off both the valuable crops and the native weeds, while allowing new and hardier weed species to thrive in their stead.

That’s the fine conclusion of the Human Microbiome Project (HMP) scientists spearheading the use of fecal transplants to treat everything from obesity to diabetes and some other ailments.

The description of the composition of the microbiome within all human beings really makes me feel that we are literally creatures of creation in every sense of the phrase – full of bacteria, fungi, and viruses: 100 trillion microbes to be exact!

The bacteria have their own environment (bactedom?) in this microbiome, the viruses have their virome, (the fungi have their fundom?) and all coexist happily in healthy mankind alike within the earthly kingdom we call our own with all other less multiple-celled organisms.

Can you believe that your mouth – buccal cavity in biological science lingo – can contain up to five thousand (count them 5,000) different species of bacteria?

Even more shudder-inducing news: over 200 fungi species in your stomach. So, the microbial wildlife managers of the HMP want us and the medical doctors to ease off a bit on the ceaseless warfare being waged by the closet ‘self-medicators’ and the official ‘medical prescriptors’.

And if you think that a bath with antiseptic soap of liquids will rid you of all these “critters”, think again, according to Carl Zimmer in an article entitled ‘Tending the Body’s Microbial Garden’:

[…Skin bacteria are also essential, Dr. Segre said. “One of the most important functions of the skin is to serve as a barrier,” she said. Bacteria feed on the waxy secretions of skin cells, and then produce a moisturizing film that keeps our skin supple and prevents cracks — thus keeping out invading pathogens…]

Why we stay lean

2012-07-05T22:19:00.002+01:00

Fatness is a food quality (composition) issue and not a quantity (volume or mass) issue. That certainly explains why we fall sick from not eating a particular type of food group for a long time – no citrus fruits or vitamin C, welcome to scurvy.

Therefore, if you eat a lot of carbohydrates, you would need to exercise longer to retain the same weight than someone on a low-carbohydrate diet.

Dr. David Ludwig is a very clever man. He has effectively told the so-called medical experts and government health and nutrition advisers to shut up in a very subtle way.

A calorie is not a calorie because when we eat a calorie of fat, it will make us act differently from the way we would if we had eaten a calorie of carbohydrate or protein.

His experiment was aimed at finding out exactly why people get fat even when they consume the same amount of calories in their different diets.

Experimenting with lean people would take too long – too difficult to tell what keeps lean people lean; much easier to find out what makes fat people fat.

So he got some already fat people to lose some serious weight – enough to make them really hungry enough to literally eat themselves silly to get back to their former selves.

That was done to get them – the obese individuals - to a level called the pre-obese stage – that stage we often find ourselves when we have no answer for how come we cannot get back into that high-school-days jeans after college graduation.

His experiment was a rude shock for the popular weight-loss, food and nutrition, and exercise dietitians in the booming wellness industry – so expect many attempts to replicate rebut and obfuscate the following results, as summarized by Gary Taubes.

[….the nutrient composition of the diet can trigger the predisposition to get fat, independent of the calories consumed. The fewer carbohydrates we eat, the more easily we remain lean. The more carbohydrates, the more difficult. In other words, carbohydrates are fattening, and obesity is a fat-storage defect. What matters, then, is the quantity and quality of carbohydrates we consume and their effect on insulin.….]

Pow! Right in the kisser… Watch out. There really will be a lot of hand wringing, wailing and gnashing of teeth very soon.

Non-descript Fundamental Particle

2012-07-05T10:03:00.000+01:00

Hooray! Hip, Hip, Physicists!

Hook’s Law – one of the major final-exam topics that I had studied under the classification “possible question” – surprising, gave me an ‘A’ in Physics in High School.

So, I knew exactly what it felt like when I saw the “Eureka” declaration selected for posting on The New York Times:

[QUOTATION OF THE DAY

"It's a triumphant day for fundamental physics. Now some fun begins."

NIMA ARKANI-HAMED, a physicist at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, on the discovery of a new subatomic particle.]

However, Dr. Rolf (last name on the tip of my tongue still), CERN’s Director, I thought yesterday, complicated matters when, during an illuminating cable news interview focused on the discovery of the Higg’s Boson or so-called “God Particle”, he stated that it was “…neither a force nor matter.”

So, what is it exactly? A force moves things and gets work done or things created. Matter has weight and occupies space.

This new subatomic particle can be seen but cannot be touched or used for anything yet.

Perhaps, after all is said and done, it should have been called the “God Damned Particle”, just as the man who coined it as “The God Particle” originally intended – or was sorely tempted to do before the high-speed Hadron Collider was built by worldwide scientific collaborative effort?

Doing a contraceptive gel recount

2012-06-27T18:12:00.000+01:00

Sperms swim towards eggs in their millions. So, why not protect the eggs from the sperms? Like keeping the girls busy indoors and away from the boys.

So, contraception involved numerous invasive ways of separating the spermatozoa from the ovaries - from pills, intra-uterine devices to morning-after pills, and culminating in the so-called female condom and so on.

Men were largely allowed to be men, carefree and wild, comparatively, required only to play their part by wearing a condom or getting a vasectomy - for those really brave enough to go to the drastic extreme!

That was the classical pattern when most researchers think of ways to prevent contraception. Now there is news of a male contraceptive gel - still undergoing testing, but promises to practically 'zero out' a man's sperm count when used according to the prescribed protocol, and restoring fatherhood later on without side-effects when usage is discontinued.

Ironically, the new birth control gel is composed mainly of Testosterone and Nesterone, which is a synthetic progestin that boosts the sperm-lowering properties of the former.

Somehow, I feel that Testosterone is a traitor, kind of, since it is supposed to be the hormone usually associated with macho vigour and maleness.

Oh well... It has already been hailed as "the first effective chemical birth control agent for males" by Thomas H. Maugh II of the Los Angeles Times.

Explanation for something really unexplainable

2012-06-26T18:18:00.000+01:00

I love blogging. So, how come I have not published a post here for a long time? I asked myself that question today and went back in time a little bit.

The truth is that I have been so busy elsewhere, trying to run a new business successfully even in these hard times globally.

A related issue was the blogging platform - it really was vexing to click the 'publish' button and have your laboured and beloved piece vanish into cyberspace without an apology, simply because you went offline to conserve Internet costs under the compose mode but forgot to reconnect first before posting! Grrrr.

There was also the little matter about blog presentation, something that has become now a thing of the past - there are now so many options to presenting health information in a more interesting way.

Have you seen the new blog layout? what do you think? It certainly makes me happier these days and inspires me to go out and write something new.

Where did the waistline go?

2011-01-21T22:12:00.000+01:00

Newer and newer research cumulatively seem to show up the old health and fitness yardsticks. "No pain, no gain": new research points out that what is lost in exercise can be gained back in compensatory feeding - like rewarding yourself with more food for doing those punishing jogging runs every other day.

What about the expense involved in getting kitted out to jog or play outdoors in various sports? Not to mention the medication and doctor's visits to correct ankle twists and bruising?

Eat dinner early before 7 p.m. and watch your waistline flatten as the food has enough time to digest. Big tummies take note....ha-ha....

Going nuts and bananas

2010-12-05T11:49:00.001+01:00

Sounds crazy, I know, but it can be good for you, especially if you are on a diet or going somewhere by road on a long journey.

Yes, fruits are quite healthy to eat, not just because of their antioxidants, vitamins, and invigoratingly filling.

They are also misunderstood - like a friend of ours who claims that her children have a thicket of bushy hair because she gives them 'lots of fruits'.

That is clearly not true because I am sure that there should be quite a few fruit-noshing mothers who begat bald-headed babies and that there are also some fruit-averse mothers who did not beget bald-headed bundles of joy!

Anyway, I found out a few things about fruits when I went out of town on holidays recently. I started the long road trip before dawn without breakfast and ate a lot of shelled groundnuts early in the journey well before noon.

At a mid-day stop-over place, I bought a liter of "Ribena" fruit juice and finished it within two hours or so.

Later on in the afternoon, I made a monkey out of myself by eating lots and lots of bananas!

The end result was that I wee-ed or pee-ed just once before dusk and poo-poo-ed cleanly/neatly that night without that often lingering feeling of sitting and waiting because surely something-more-still-has-to-come-forth.

Yeah.... cheers. By the way, mangoes have the most Vitamin A, guavas have the most fiber, tangerines have the most Vitamin C, cashew nuts give the most energy, watermelons are the most filling, and paw-paws/carica papaya have the most quantity of the recommended doses of most vitamins!

Update for Monday, December 20, 2010:

I just read this "Weight Watchers" article today - the revised calorie-points system seems to support my own experience in the blog post above.

Coming round from a lull

2010-09-15T04:11:00.000+01:00

I have been quite busy lately with work and family. My contract boss is abroad on holiday with his family and I am left to mind my own business twenty-four hours, seven days per week.

My son will be four months old soon. We had to correct a little protrusion of his navel - due to an inexplicable inability of the doctors and nurses to tie an umbilical knot close to the abdomen again! Unbelievable.

Yes, again unbelievable, because his big sister had the same problem from the same hospital - only this time his bulge was smaller than hers.

So, we repeated our earlier procedure for correcting a bulging protuberance on the abdomen of a baby, generally called a big navel.

Simply put, we placed a piece of plastic over the navel everyday - removed at bath-time daily and replaced in the morning afterwards - and held the belly button and plastic in place with a strip of plaster.

This worked perfectly and was continued for just less than three weeks. Now the navel is flush with his belly, as was his sister's about four years ago today.

There are a few caveats though: the piece of plastic must be of the hard polypropylene type and sterilized daily - and must be roughly the same size as the bulging navel to be suppressed.

Secondly, the plastic and plaster combination must be removed daily to allow the skin to breathe and be cleaned with an antiseptic solution during the morning bath - and to avoid necrosis of the skin around the belly button.

Lastly, this little 'magic' must be performed as soon as the bulging protuberance is observed - usually best as from the second moth of birth.

By the way, a little, kind nurse gave us the hint about the procedure over four years ago. She had heard about it from a lady patient.

Now, my wife has passed on the remedy to another woman whose child had a humongous belly button at the children's immunization day undressing rituals. She was ever so grateful! Now the baton has been handed to you here today on this blog.

Finally, I hope that Google and Blogger will not delete this blog for my repetition of this remedy, which I wrote about and detailed in another blog that was unfortunately, devilishly (too strong?), and rather unjustly summarily deleted as "SPAM" about four and a half years ago - and confirmed in writing via e-mail just this year as the 'reason' for scrapping that beautiful - if I may say so myself - blog at the time.

Cheerio and use the newly acquired knowledge wisely...

A few medical facts about some things

2010-08-11T16:05:00.000+01:00

I have been busy lately with work and business and family. All is well right now despite the hectic life all round.

My new son is now over two months old and just started getting used to his new feeding bottle - thanks to the 'bottle' manufacturer's successful imitation of "natural breast feeding" without the attendant colic.

I think that there can not be enough praise for the benefits of a portable electric automatic steam sterilizing machine when it comes to a baby's feeding bottle. After washing the feeding bottle and other related utensils, we place everything in the sterilizer and the piping-hot process is completed after just ten minutes. Wonderful stuff.

Did you know that a shrimp's heart is in its head? Talk about your heart in your mouth moments! I have also learnt that a crocodile cannot stick out its tongue - no wonder crocodile attack survivors usually give it a noisy raspberry from a long distance when its back is turned. No, not at all funny!

During my absence from this blog, I have been reminded of two things. Firstly, that a great value for your BMI or body mass index (height to weight ratio) may be less important than the size of the bulge in your midriff - yes, a bulging stomach may be more dangerous to your health than what your heavy weight tips on the bathroom scale.

I understand that a waistline of less than forty (40) inches for men and thirty-five (35) inches for women is generally ideal, depending on your height and shape - and that sit-ups are useless.for correcting a bulging waistline when compared to walking, bicycling and aerobics. From experience, I agree - sit-ups tend to wear you out and give you a pain where you don't need it at all.

Secondly, the most healthy salad is the leafy one with the fat-free French dressing without the croûton! I guess those creamy salad dressings really clog up the works inside you, in spite of their 'delicious' ingredients!

Lastly, still on reducing that "hugening" (hulking body frame caused by unwary sampling of the goodies in life brought on by a bulging pay packet) waistline, it appears that parking the car somewhere and taking one of the public transit services is hard to beat.

Personally, I prefer the public mini-bus services - believe me, the bending at entry and exit, the shifting and squatting to sit comfortably or to allow another passenger to exit are all good exercise.

Vacation cancelled: it's a boy!

2010-06-11T22:07:00.002+01:00

Yes, I have a boy again as a son. He was born on May 26, 2010 at about 12:45 PM after 'the show' began in the morning for my wife.

The entire thing happened right before my very own eyes - I had never been in the same room during the birth of my other two children.

My first boy was delivered in the next room adjoining my wife's hospital 'bedroom' - I had dropped her off in the morning when her 'water' broke, along with her elder sister for company, went to work, returned to find that she had been medically induced, and a few minutes before 8:00 PM had been led into the next room for delivery.

My next child was born premature by a whole two (2) months. Believe me, it is true what they say about premature children growing up very fast and big!

For this latest entry to our family, many miracles happened. The doctors had originally earmarked his delivery for 27th of May but the D-date was extended to 31st of May later on - for some unknown reason - after the second and final ultrasound reading had been taken.

The day before his birth, I had attended the Service of Songs for the passing away of the father of an old High School friend of mine. His father was 92 years old and had been updating the list of his published books even right up to just last year!

I never cry without cause at public functions; however, I found myself weeping 'like a baby' - as my four-year old daughter would say - as a hymn was sung: Great is thy faithfulness, Lord unto me...

I was crying for gratitude, for myself, for what God had done for me in my life so far....People around me and in the choir noticed - very embarrassing. I learned something new that day: you are liable to be very emotional when you are sitting down while singing such a personal and touching prayerful song of praise.

How did I know? I felt less like a cry baby when the observant Pastor asked everyone to get up from their seats and sing the rest of the hymn standing up! It worked! suddenly, the sniffles stopped, the words in the hymn book became more focused as the flow of tears abated. Thank God!

Anyway, I was to learn more things on the delivery day proper. My wife was not induced this time but a drip was attached to the back of her hand by a nurse, who had earlier on used her midwifery skills to make her 'water' to break - my wife said something about feeling something "hot" inside herself.

Before I could say, "What's up, babe?" My wife belted out a screaming yelp? Yes, an oxymoron for the kind of loud sound that I never knew she was capable of. She did this twice more, louder each time, calling out for the nurse on duty.

When the nurses came over, things happened very fast and almost furiously. There and then, I saw what the olive oil is used for. I had thought that it had to be taken orally. Now I know better! It is for lubrication for smoothly bringing out the baby's head!

In a jiffy, my son's head was out and my wife pushed him out in one go. Nobody had to smack my new guy's upside-down bottom to hear his voice: he let out a low cry. "What sex is your baby?," asked the matron in charge of my wife before he was taken away for "washing".

The next miracle? I had assumed that both mother and son would rest in hospital for the next three to five days, especially since there had been tears on my wife which had been stitched with dissolving stitches.

No way! They were discharged in the morning and i had to pay the hefty bill pretty quickly. However, an angel had beaten me to the bat!

Till now, I have no idea who had deposited some money on my behalf for part of the bill - the hospital staff in charge of the bill preparation swore that I must have deposited it sometime previously!

Scary but nice feeling though....Vacation canceled: no bachelor food for me and no hospital food for my wife - she loves to cook!

The announcement of a birth is quite a euphoric thing! Cigars can be handed out to complete strangers, you can find yourself shaking the hands of unknown passersby....

I sent out text messages and e-mails - even the network administrator whose system had initially prevented me from sending in an e-mail years before to his British publishing firm also got one!

Ha-ha.... He was so surprised when he remembered that he sent me a congratulatory e-mail... Friends are made that way....

Since then, my baby boy has lost his umbilical cord and has been circumcised - the plastic ring-and-thread dropped last Tuesday. For these two steps to have happened without a hitch, warm bath water, Gentian Violet, methylated spirit and TCP were simply indispensable....

Interestingly, my boy yawned last week and - surprise! - I sneaked a peak at one white patch of pre-molar tooth set flush with his gum on either side of his lower jaw! Is this a tiger or what? It is not an oddity, God is always wonderful in His ways!

A little word about rabies

2010-04-21T19:02:00.000+01:00

Foaming in the mouth - that comes readily to everyone's mind. However, that is not a unique symptom of rabies.

When the owner of a law chamber died recently, his relatives found him dead with cardiac arrest from too much work and worry with some foaming around the mouth. His scared daughter refused to re-open the legal offices for fear that she too would go the way of her father. Quite sad really.

So, what is rabies? Well, it's a viral zoonotic disease of the human nervous system caused by the bite of a feral animal transferring the virus to a human being, who literally becomes stark raving mad.

I understand that this truly unsettling condition can be lessened if we all keep tightly closed the lid on our refuse or waste bins left outside the house or office so that remnants of food inside cannot be shared between various sets of domestic and infected wild animals, which could pass on the rabies virus to their much tamer kindred.

This pattern simple could repeat within a few weeks until neighboring counties also get a rash of rabid animals biting people outdoors minding their own business.

Have you seen a rabid dog before? Even unprovoked, it just snarls at anything going by with maddeningly starry eyes.

If a dog or cat or raccoon (does anybody own one?) bites you for any reason - wrong place, wrong time of day - go immediately for a medical checkup, even if the owner tells you the that the dog had just had its anti-rabies shots!

You must note that rabies can be fatal if the human victim does not get medical attention within less than a week or a pet victim does not get attention within ten days - and those probably are most likely to be overstated maximums too!

And now for some rabies trivia... Rabies has been known by humans for over 4,000 years on Earth - that's forty centuries or four hundred decades!

Finally, when going out at night in Missouri, get your rabies shots first because the virus occurs naturally there mainly in bats and skunks...!

Ha-ha.... but there is really no need to go all batty about that last piece of news because the last reported cases of rabies in Missouri occurred only in 2008 and 1959!

However, please note that even cattle and horses can get the drinking water-averse and opposite behavior-inducing disease....and September 28, 2010 is World Rabies Day!

Belated new baby update

2010-04-03T17:59:00.008+01:00

It's a boy! So said the scan results... A very handsome boy - so said the radiographer operating the scanner-to-computer-image equipment.

And, surprise, surprise. My US-based cousin was quite surprised that such sex-predicting machinery was now available over 'here.'

Yes, those scanners have been around for years in the developing world, especially for those who could afford to patronize the, usually, expensive private-hospital installations - or for those who had to bear the cost in order to solve a complication observed prior to child delivery.

My boy should be due in late May but they also said that my daughter and I would share the same birthday but she decided to come out premature... Ha-ha....

So, all things being equal, and God willing, he will be an exciting May Tiger! Is there a new name in there somewhere? ;D

By the way, it is true that a new baby uses the last two months in the womb to basically stabilize his/her God-given natural body proportions.

Maybe that's also why premature children seem to get so big as they grow older, as if making up for lost time - or should that have been 'making the best use of time gained'?

I am praying for a safe delivery for both wife and son. Will you pray along with me - even though some prominent Christian pastors have preached that too many people praying on your behalf would cause God not to hear your prayer for the noise?

Makes you to really wonder again where we are all actually headed when we claim to belong to a particular worship group, doesn't it?

UPDATE - Sunday, April 11, 2010:

I forgot something at the time of posting: my son has stopped the gurgling sounds that he used to make starting from about the sixth month after conception.

When I placed my ear lightly against his mother's belly, it sounded more like a low but drawn out 'growl' - like the one you would get when you were really hungry and were feeling the pangs of hunger - and was often followed by soft and light, almost feather-like buffeting of hands and feet against my cheek.

Ha-ha, I used to use those occasions as a conversation piece and actually 'speak' with my unborn baby...

It was quite interesting then, now he's growing into a big boy and has stopped that for the most part - readying to be let out into the world we know.

Can your heart stand a little sports betting?

2010-03-20T21:54:00.000+01:00

Once upon a time, I used to be a sports zealot. I even had a sports team for practically evry sporting activity to cheer about.

The Los Angeles Lakers and the Chicago Bulls made my list of favorites for basketball, the Baltimore Orioles and New York Yankees were my favorite in baseball, Manchester United and Chelsea were among my favorite soccer teams, and the New York Giants stood in for a while as my favorite American football team.

All those sports attracted me because of the quality of the players and the rush of adrenalin that just happens when you see the best moves playing out before your eyes on a sports field or pitch. These kind of world-beating teams were certainly a sure bet for victory and one could really not be blamed for falling easily into a confident habit and then dabbling a little bit into some regular sports betting.

And so, with money and ego on the line, it could be quite disheartening to see your team trounced squarely and becoming the butt of all the jokes the following day at the office.

I am patriotic but after seeing my national soccer team thrashed so often on television by certain opponents, like Brazil and Argentina, I gave up watching live matches and settled instead for Saturday afternoon replays of the matches in the preceding week.

To be honest, since then, my heartbeat has become very regular and my hypertensive nature during such live shows have simply vanished because I already know the score for the replayed match in question and my money saved over time has been able to buy my family enough popcorn and juice to last the whole ninety-plus minutes of any soccer game.

Hurrah for good and stable health!

Cellphone health risks not worth the bother and other good news to bother about?

2010-03-20T20:46:00.000+01:00

Who does not have or use a cellphone of some kind these days - iPhone, smartphone, Blackberry, and so on.

Who cares about the electromagnetic radiation involved in the operation of those electronic gadgets?

Apparently, nobody is listening but many people are busy trying to find out if anybody should pay attention to the negative aspects of this modern development in instant. real-time communication.

To make matters worse, the available research results into the cancer-causing aspects of cellphone usage is so conflicting that it has lulled everyone into complacency.

Meanwhile, others are going further to literally tattoo their bodies with cellphone reception technology and projection of information.

Yes, very soon, you may be able to literally tap into your hands to get a touchscreen image effect or just simply sign onto the Web with your own body standing up or sitting down with broadband access thrown into the bargain.

The latter 300-micrometer (three human hairs wide) skin transmitter wireless development also saves up to ninety percent in energy costs, which would otherwise have gone to buying new batteries.

Talk about being left breathless from the intra-body energy sapping wireless transmission session or from the power drawn by embedded skin-safe intra-body low-frequency transmitters for opening doors by touch alone!

There is more good news.Philips, the light bulbs and playback electronic product maker which gave up that line of business for healthcare products, has announced the existence of LifeLine with AutoAlert.

The $13-plus new product is literally a life saver for the elderly, who are prone to fall accidentally without the ability to recover quickly from such incidents.

When a fall is detected at home via the victim's rate of fall and relative position with regard to the vertical position, the device simply dials for help automatically!

However, I can just imagine why it would have problems working outdoors: falls alarms could result from bending to enter a car, stumbling or tripping on a kerbside, stooping to pick up a ball, even dancing a fast jig, and so on.

Seeing the world around you through glasses

2010-03-04T09:53:00.000+01:00

I wear glasses sometimes to keep the wind off my eyes while driving but not for reading. Whenever I am watching a marathon of movies on television or computing online for a long while, I can be seen wearing my eye shades or 'bones' to keep out at least fifty percent of the glare from the screen.

Once I walked into my High School classmate's law offices and saw him wearing spectacles behind his desk.

Something must have made him to realize that I was staring at him as if he were a spectacle because he removed it, smiled, and asked, "Do you use one of these yet?"

Of course, I instinctively replied, "No." Some decades ago, wearing glasses used to be equivalent to asking your peers to call you generally derogatory names like "four eyes" and so on.

However, glasses are very practical in reality. Why squint while reading a book or newspaper article, pitifully asking for help from a stranger in order to understand written words in small type, or unwittingly rendering yourself incapacitated that way?

Just go out and see an Ophthalmologist - the proverbial 'Eye Doctor' - to know exactly what is wrong with your eyes; or go to an Optometrist - or a vision care specialist - to test your eyes and know exactly what kind of vision problem you have; or, finally, see an Optician - or eye fashion accessories provider - to get the prescribed eye glasses, get kitted out with some individualistic or unique eye wear and other related accessories.

Sending cheap invitations to your wedding party

2010-03-02T11:59:00.000+01:00

Nothing probably spoils a wedding more than the absence if invited guests - save, of course, someone voicing an objection to the planned marital union!

It definitely usually is the happiest day in the bride's life, one of the most responsible times in the groom's life, a day of pride for the very proud parents, and a memorable event for the invited guests witnessing the occasion.

So, how does a couple lessen the costs associated with their day of joy? Well, short of a radio announcement for a week just preceding the wedding day (W-Day), the best alternative is to have sent out on your behalf some cheap wedding invitations.

That certainly would put a huge return on investment per cent on any wedding arrangement, in terms of the gifts received in cash or in kind, from just getting all your well-wishers, friends, families, colleagues, and acquaintances to come to be a witness on your big day.

Do you remember your wedding day and what people said about it afterward? I have heard some people complain about not being invited to my wedding and would not be placated even after explaining that I had run out of invitation cards!

Not to be immodest, I must confess that all the invited guests acknowledged being fed and wined, and entertained by the relatively short wedding service and reception.

I think that just about covers a majority of the usual complaints most people have about attending weddings.

Online medical email hosting

2010-02-26T21:29:00.004+01:00

I used to get a lot of junk literary stuff in my post office mailbox about a decade ago. People selling books, newsletters, competitions, and other commercial items that I had no use for nor had any idea how they got my name or post office mailbox number.

I would save envelopes that had postage stamps stuck on it but would generally toss away the other shiny materials that had mechanically metered stamps.

Yes, philately or stamp collecting can be a healthy, educative, and inspiring hobby. Unfortunately, as someone remarked recently in a newspaper article, it has gone with the wind because nobody goes to the post office any more in order to transact any meaningful business or commercial activity and also for the fact that information technology has improved so much that the world has become a truly global village.

And then came the Internet to make mass mailing of junk mail easier and less costly. Now I have my e-mail filtered automatically with the useful messages in my in-box and the others from unrecognizable senders thrown into my junk mail or spam box.

That's the new face of e-Commerce online and these modern mass mailers now either use the best web hosting services or a very good email host to get to their marketing target and to ensure that their mailings go out as scheduled and uninterrupted.

These days, I get e-mails from medical directory sellers, online 'viagra' hawkers, and a plethora of other drugs and medication that you and I probably never heard of before.

Most of these online businesses have no fixed addresses or physical shop outlets but manage medical websites and payments can be made online without national borders being a limiting factor.

In fact, currently surgeries can be conducted in one country and observed in real time in another country across the globe. That was such a big dream just a decade ago or less. Now a group called 'Orbis' has an entire airliner equipped and manned for eye surgery, flying from one country to another in search of the helpless poor on which to carry out free eye examinations and quick corrective surgeries and other related medical healing.

Soon, I believe, there will be other medical teams in one country advertising their skills and conducting surgery online in real time in another nation across the globe. 'Doctors Without Borders' will really have a new meaning online then.

UPDATE - Monday, March 01, 2010:

I want to share the following two related links; they are from the authoritative technical online resource called 'New Scientist':

The changing image of spam

{Five snapshots of the spam lexicon that illustrate spammers' changing tactics....(11-19 November 2008)...."Email" appears in offers to take electronic orders for probably fake pharmaceuticals....} - courtesy of the anti-spam team at BitDefender.

Spamdemic: Tracking the plague of junk mail

From Monty Python to mass-mailing misery, *New Scientist* charts the unstoppable rise of spam....

Currently many nonsensical medical and other sad trends

2010-02-21T21:53:00.030+01:00

Do some medical conditions really exist or are they merely psychological mental constructs? Of course, many drawing-board plans do become concrete reality; however, some can be dismissed often as just too unreal ailments.

For example, what is sex addiction? Tiger Woods just confessed to "irresponsible and selfish" behavior after having his way post-maritally with about a dozen ladies, excluding his wife. In the same vein, he admitted having undergone treatment for his "condition"!

What treatment? Tips and advice about doing everything imaginable sexually with his wife only and every time?

In England, Chelsea Football Club's reliable defender John Terry lost his nation's captain's arm band because of publicity regarding his "inappropriate" two-ships-passing-in-the-night relationship with an ex-girlfriend of an ex-colleague.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter probably put it best into the right perspective when he said inter alia that John Terry would have been a hero if he had been from a 'Latin' - romantic and passionate - country like Spain or France, instead of being reviled by the often hypocritical staid 'Anglo' disposition.

As if to challenge such strictly and overtly staid attitudes, even South African President Zuma has invited - or challenged - his countrymen to a debate about whether or not his having about a score or so children from various women is a political problem for someone in his type of high national or social status.

As a matter of fact, I do not recall the Pope Benedict XVI de-robing the homosexual Irish priests who scandalously sodomized altar, choir, and other church boys - when PBXVI met with them recently, did he call them sex addicts or recommend any form of parochial school 'treatment'?

There was a time when a stud was a kind of 'superman'. Now he has been reduced to being called a sex addict or simply a 'pervert'. Is frigidity okay now among women? Ha-ha...Just checking...

And then there was the recent case of the Florida woman who wanted Moore from a $31-million lottery-winning wannabe Shakespeare, who never knew that she just wanted to prepare him for a shakedown murder rather than turn him into a writer. So sad....she just ran over and buried him in the driveway....

Anyway, on a more serious note, is a 'sex addict' incapable of providing good leadership and other managing other ethical or moral codes?

Which of the 'character-situations' portrayed in this post would you readily describe as being perverted today? Why? Honestly, I would really love to find out ....

UPDATE - Saturday, February 27, 2010:

I saw the following related NYT article and thought I should share the link with you:

[

An Apology With Echoes of 12 Steps

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr.

Sex addiction is not yet recognized as a psychiatric disorder, but doctors have long realized that some patients ruin their lives because of sex.

Q&A: Sex Addiction ]

The link below is from the famous Well blog of the venerable New York Times:

How Sex Addiction Is Treated

UPDATE - Tuesday, March 02, 2010:

The following related excerpt comes from NEWSWEEK's Jennie Yabroff, quoted here:

[....Stendhal syndrome isn't included in the draft version of the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, released last month, but with proposed additions including "apathy syndrome" and Internet addiction, it's probably only a matter of time. The affliction takes its name from the 19th-century French writer, who was overcome after visiting Florence's Basilica di Santa Croce. In 1989 an Italian psychiatrist named Graziella Magherini published La Sindrome di Stendhal, describing more than 100 tourists who suffered dizziness and heart palpitations (some requiring hospitalization) after seeing the Florentine sights. According to Magherini, great art can make you sick.....]

UPDATE - Saturday, March 27, 2010:

Just saw the following links, about PBXVI knowing about the sex scandals in the church while he was still Cardinal Ratzinger and other pertinent information, that I thought was relevant to this post:

Top Vatican cardinal defends pope amid scandal.

Pope's shame and remorse over Irish child sex abuse

Pope apology for Irish sex abuse

Pope says 'sorry' for Irish church abuse

Pope fails to calm anger over Irish abuses

Tiger's return: Too soon?

Tiger Woods smart to pick Masters for return

Tiger Woods Will Play At Masters Tournament

Woods To Return To Golf At The Masters

Tiger to Play Augusta in April

Tiger Woods returning for Masters

Fans react to Tiger Woods' return

Tiger Woods announces he'll return to golf at the Masters

Medical jokes, anyone?

2010-02-06T16:56:00.048+01:00

First off, let me wish you a prosperous and very healthy new year in 2010 and beyond. Secondly, since laughter can often be the best medicine under a good disposition, hopefully this post has a rib cracker or two to keep you away from depression....

I overheard a mass marketer of herbal medicament advertising his ware on a public bus. He was explaining why his drugs would cure the listener of high blood pressure and other ailments that tended to make a person look ill or appear 'dried up' from not taking blood building medication - and then blame the condition on vampires and other blood sucking leeches and perceived 'enemies' in the home village.

He asked, "Why have vampires retired and stopped sucking blood in the 21st century?" Answer: they retired when AIDS came to town. Yeah, who wants that headache on top of all the other heartaches?

However, as always, there will be some misconceptions. First of all, contrary to that joke above by the medicine man - haha... over-the-counter medicine seller - vampires are still a roaring rage with many people. In the movies anyway.

In fact ""DayBreakers" is a vampire movie featuring Ethan Hawke and Willem Defoe at the two extremes of the blood sucking world but collaborating in the plot, just released already entering 2010!

The same Australian brothers also paired to direct the "Undead" in 2003 but "Daybreakers" is definitely a different stroke from the fantastic "Avatar".

Speaking of "Avatar", it seems that it may have influenced the postponement of the upcoming vampire movie starring Paul Bettany entitled "Priest", the Scott Stewart-directed movie which is getting the 3D treatment and will now be released Jan. 14, 2011 instead of August 20, 2010.

So, just like Vlad The Impaler inspired the making of Dracula and the vampire movie genre, there has never been a "Twilight" (series) for bloodsucking characters on the big screen and the small tube.

The following is a mix of past and future (TBA means that the actual movie release date is To Be Announced later) vampire movie releases:

Being Human (2009) (UK TV series) TRAILER
Bled (2009) (DVD) The Bleeding (2009) Blood (2009) Blood: The Last Vampire (2009) TRAILER
Bram Stoker's Vampire Diaries Renfield (2009) Carmilla (2009) The Coffin (2009) The Dead Matter (2009) TRAILER
Dead of Night (2009) The Death of Alice Blue (2009) Doomsday County (2009) The Eternal (2009) Hello Darkness (2009) High Midnight (2009) The Informers (2009) Kiss of the Vampire (2009) (DVD) TRAILER
Lesbian Vampire Killers (2009) TRAILER
Let the Right One In (2009--Italy, France, & UK) TRAILER
New Moon (2009) Live Girls (2009) Patient X (2009) PCP... A VanGuard Chronicle (2009) The Revenant (2009) Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Undead (2009) TRAILER
Shadowland (2009) Sodium Babies (2009) TRAILER
Suck (2009) TRAILER
The Teeth of the Night (2009) Thirst (2009) TRAILER
Transylmania (2009) TRAILER
True Blood, Season 2 (HBO TV series, June 2009) Twilight (2009--various countries) TRAILER
Twilight Watch (2009) Underworld: Rise of the Lycans (2009) TRAILER
Valemont (MTV web series) (2009) The Vampire Diaries (TV series, 2009) TRAILER
Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl (2009) Vampire in Vegas (2009) The Vampire's Assistant (formerly Cirque du Freak)(2009) PHOTO TRAILER
The Vampires of Bloody Island (2009)
30 Days of Night: Dark Days (2010) Baltimore, or The Steadfast Tin Soldier and the Vampire (2010) Bite (web series) (2010) TRAILER
Daybreakers (2010) TRAILER
Dead Sucks (2010) TRAILER
Dracula: The Undead (2010) Eclipse (2010) The Fixer (TV series) (2010) TRAILER
The Historian (2010) The Knights Templar (2010) Last Blood (2010) Let Me In (Let the Right One In U.S. Remake) (2010) Lost Boys 3 (2010) Love at Second Bite (2010) Priest (2010) Somewhere Between Heaven and Hell (2010) Soulstice (2010) Stake Land (2010) The Un-Dead (2010)
Bubba Nosferatu and the Curse of the She-Vampires (2011) Breaking Dawn (2011) Castlevania (2011) Dark Shadows (2011) Dracula (2011) Dracula Year Zero (2011) Hotel Transylvania (2011) House of Night (Untitled Project) (2011) The Night Projectionist (2011) Virulents (2011)
Blood Brothers (date TBA) Blood Type (TV series, date TBA) Damned Friday (date TBA) Damn Nation (date TBA) Dear Dracula (date TBA) The Hunger (date TBA) The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (date TBA) Pangs (date TBA) Vampire Tales (date TBA) Vamps (date TBA)

Let me refresh your mind about other vampire movies. The list is quite long but I am sure that the hair on your arm may not stand on end for all of them.

To mention just a few....Queen of the Damned, Fright Night, Lifeforce, Interview with the Vampire From Dusk Till Dawn, Vampyros Lesbos, Vampyres, Rabid, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Blacula and Jesus Chris Vampire Hunter.

2009 gave us “True Blood”, “The Vampire Diaries”, and “30 Days of Night,” while Alex Proyas will soon be directing Sam Worthington in "Dracula: Year Zero", an expectedly exaggerated remake of the original Vlad The Impaler story - made famous in the 1897 Bram Stoker novel Dracula.

In addition to all those monster movies were the following, listed in order of preference by Snarkerati.com:

Bordello of Blood (1996), Vampire in Brooklyn (1995),Dracula 2000 (2000), Queen of the Damned (2002), The Forsaken (2001)...

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1992)

The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974)

Blacula (1972)

Van Helsing (2004)

Fright Night Part 2 (1988)

Vamp (1986)

Blade: Trinity (2004)

Underworld: Evolution (2006)

Lifeforce (1985)

The Night Flier (1997)

John Carpenter’s Vampires (1998)

Vampyros Lesbos (1970)

Innocent Blood (1992)

Ganja & Hess (1973)

Subspecies (1991)

Underworld (2003)

The Vampire Lovers (1970)

The Hunger (1983)

The Wisdom of Crocodiles (1998)

Blood for Dracula (1974) AKA Andy Warhol’s Dracula

The Return of the Vampire (1944)

Son of Dracula (1943)

Frostbitten (2006)

BioHunter (1995)

Vampire’s Kiss (1989)

Rabid (1977)

Love at First Bite (1979)

Nadja (1994)

Blood and Donuts (1995)

Blood: The Last Vampire (2000)

Vampire Effect (2003) AKA The Twins Effect

The Addiction (1995)

John Badham’s Dracula (1979)

Night Watch (2004) AKA Nochnoy Dozor

Blade II (2002)

Blade (1998)

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

Brides of Dracula (1960)

Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

Vampyres (1974)

House of Dracula (1945)

Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter (2001)

The Monster Squad (1987)

Salem’s Lot (1979)

The Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

The Lost Boys (1987)

Day Watch (2006) AKA Dnevnoy Dozor

Sundown: The Vampire In Retreat (1991)

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

Fright Night (1985)

The Night Stalker (1972)

Bram Stoker’s Dracula (1992)

Cronos (1993)

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

Dracula: Pages from a Virgin’s Diary (2002)

Near Dark (1987)

Horror of Dracula (1958)

Martin (1977)

Black Sunday (1960)

Nosferatu the Vampyre (1979)

Dracula (1931)

Nosferatu (1922)

Ultraviolet (1998)

Hellsing (2006)

I hope that really revamped list has not left you breathless or something? Well, take care and watch out for more vampire movies in the future - most people seem to get a big bite of entertainment and just lap up all the gory details in droves.

Well, I hope you will still sleep with one eye cocked open, seeing above that the bloodsucking monsters have apparently not retired just yet.

Medical achievements advance human health

2009-12-13T18:12:00.000+01:00

I recall hearing the protracted wailing, while on a hospital visit for some minor ailment or the other, of a pre-teen girl who had accidentally been a victim of hot water scalding.

I also recall not being able to pull my eyes away from the hairy patch on the bridge of the nose of my former company chairman - I had also noticed a similar hairy patch on the elbow area of a departmental head as he leaned forward to get something.

I was to learn later on that the odd hairiness was a result of a skin graft taken from the shin of each man after a serious accident that had left a large gouge.

All those images flashed back when I read last week about a French development of a fast way of growing skin grafts from stem cells - those magical cells that can easily differentiate into any other, depending on the intended use of the final result expected.

Can you imagine a hospital ordering a square meter of graftable skin on-demand from a therapeutic tool factory? Simply amazing, IMHO.

Ironically, had it happened in France instead of the UK's Merseyside/Liverpool, people who are bitten by a dangerous dog breed, like the illegal and notorious pit-bull terrier, bite would probably stand a much better chance of survival.

Finally, if you are a man out there still searching for a suitable lady to share your life with and raise a family, you'd better hurry!

No, I am not an advocate for a shotgun wedding. No. I just want to point out that new research indicates that older men are more prone to testicular tumors, which apparently have been linked to defective sperm cells, which create dysfunctional genes in subsequent offspring.

Nothing was said about the eggs from an older woman - but it would naturally be assumed that a spinster at fifty is not really interested in having babies outside in-vitrio, if you know what I mean.

So, if you believe that a patient man will get the right woman sooner or later, you may need to have a rethink - whatever money you think you may be saving now as a bachelor could end up costing you plenty of money and emotional anguish later on....

What is good meat and delicious this holiday season?

2009-12-12T22:01:00.000+01:00

Once I attended a buffet lunch at the office featuring a mixed group of teetotalers, drunkards, vegetarians, herbivores, gourmets, and everything in between.

So I walk up to a table to sample a little of each dish on display. At a point someone beside me said, "Uh-uh, that one is for vegetarians."

Of course, I was surprised to hear that - not at my acquaintance's words but because of the fact that we humans are supposed to be omnivores, like me.

I can eat any edible plant, whole, fresh, cooked, guacamole-d, baked, basted, broiled, or in whatever mold, mound, or presentation - if I want to.

The same goes for meat. However, I learned something new about the five healthiest meats to eat recently.

The top dogs - hee-hee, please forgive me - are as follows. Among the red meats, bison is healthier than beef - I bet my bottom dollar that those cattle rearers will soon bring down their prices when they also hear that even white-meat pork is better than steak!

Now, take a look at the following 2006 data from Sacha Tarkovsky, so that you, too, can watch your figure, while choosing your slabbed or sliced meaty 'poison' carefully: ".....

Beef Per 100g 136 calories 5.1g fat.......
Pork Per100g 123 calories 4g fat.......
Lamb Per 100g 156 calories 8.3g fat.......
Ham Per 100g 107 calories 3.3g of fat........
Venison Per 100g 120 calories 2.4g of fat........
Bacon Per 100g 215 calories 16.5g of fat .......
Chicken Per 100g 116 calories 3.2 fat minus skin.......
Turkey Per 100g 119 calories 1g fat.......
Duck Per 100g 11.2 fat......."

Did you know that, among the white meats, turkey is king of the heap - better than chicken - but can make you feel a bit sleepy?

Here is a relevant excerpt: ".... one 4.9 oz (140 g) serving of skinless roasted turkey contains about 0.25 oz (7 g) of fat......"

That cold turkey surprise just reminded me of Tiger Woods current predicament with Elin. It has been asked what exactly happened after midnight when he crashed his car and his lovely wife offered to "....help him out...." with a golf club or two in his rear window.

Perhaps, quite unlike the Nigerian Itshekiri woman, who was said to have laced her husband's favorite meal of cassava 'starch' with oily sleep-inducing 'banga' soup whenever she wished to spend a few hours away from home with her lover....

Anyway, small fattier fish such as salmon and tuna are definitely in as the white meat of choice for those hoping to avoid colon cancer - unless the fish had a mercurial growth rate aided by mercury-laden waters.

So, after all, it may be just better to eat a little of the tasty stuff that you really like along with all the healthier stuff.

At least, that way, as a philosopher once said, you would really know what you were suffering from while reposing on your hospital bed....Ha-ha....

Why Coca-Cola is bad for you and other health cornucopia

2009-11-25T04:34:00.000+01:00

I was just reading up about water purification systems when I learned that Jessica Hamzelou says that many clean water systems designed for the poor do not work at all because their benefits may be overstated.

The relevant excerpt listing such water purification systems is as follows. "....Most of these systems work either by disinfecting the water – using chlorine tablets or by allowing the ultraviolet radiation in sunlight to purify stored water – or by passing it through ceramic or sand filters to remove microorganisms......"

A below second excerpt emphasizes the fact that the root cause of human diarrhea lies in food-borne bacteria and not in the water-borne variety.

"....Meanwhile Cairncross says the spread of diarrhoea-causing bacteria through water shouldn't be the main focus of research. "Food is a more important carrier of bacteria than water," he says. "Faecal bacteria are in heaven in cooked food – they can multiply very easily, which doesn't happen in water." Funding should be diverted towards this cause of diarrhoea, he says....."

Now, about that Coca-Cola and similar pop or sugared drinks.... In discussing the potability of Martian and lunar water, Daniel Engber reveals that any drink with a pH level or reading below 5.5 will eat away your teeth in the long run.

The most relevant excerpt is as follows. ".....That's not the only reason to think the space water would be unpalatable. Mineral specimens collected by the Mars rovers (on other parts of the planet) have turned up significant quantities of jarosite, a salt deposit that tends to form only in very acidic solutions. Researchers guess that the jarosite precipitated from a liquid with a pH of between 0 and 4. For comparison, a human can handle an acidic beverage like Coca-Cola, which has a pH of about 2.4, but more concentrated acids will cause mucosal injuries to the esophagus, stomach, and intestines......"

Did you know that teeth grinding is called bruxism? I can really guess that Jesus Christ gave the Pharisees a good dose of that as his preaching gave them many anxious moments of gnashing of the teeth. Ha-ha...

Anyway, according to this BBC article about Grindcare, a biofeedback device made in Denmark and currently being tested in Britain, small electric shocks are sent out to the sleeping patient at the onset of tense moments and tensed muscles.

What are the benefits? Well, apart from not having to wear plastic dental covers at night and the absence of "....headaches and stiff necks, as well as [not] irritating a sleeping partner.....", the main advantage is that the possibility of using an overdose of painkillers is eliminated.

Very soon, all things being equal, Fred will get you out of any emergency situation at the touch of a button.

Who's FRED? Paul Marks says that FRED is a hand-held satellite-radio which uses several technologies to get out a distress call or to help you dial for help.

The most relevant excerpt about the European Fast Response Emergency Device is as follows. "....Using 3G, GSM and Iridium phone technology, alongside GPS and Galileo satnav receivers, FRED will do its utmost to alert a rescue centre of your plight...."

According to this Washington Post article by David Brown, the major difference between the death toll from seasonal flu and swine flu is that swine flu attacks younger people below 18 years of age, while seasonal flu affects mainly older people above 65 years of age.

However, those figures are not cast in stone, as revealed in the excerpt below. "....

The total number of people who have been hospitalized is 98,000, with 36,000 of them age 17 and younger. The vast majority of deaths -- about 2,920 -- have been in people age 18 to 64.

In an average flu season, the seasonal virus contributes to the deaths of about 36,000 people -- 90 percent of whom are 65 or older. Many are close to death, with flu being only one factor leading to their demise. That is not the case with H1N1's victims, most of whom are much younger, and about 20 to 30 percent of whom were healthy before contracting the virus.

All of the estimates come with substantial uncertainty. For example, total H1N1 cases in the United States range from 14 million to 34 million, and total deaths from 2,500 to 6,100.

The CDC had previously said 129 people younger than 18 had died from H1N1 flu. That is compared with 88 deaths from seasonal flu in 2007-08 and 78 deaths in 2006-07 -- the most recent two flu seasons before the H1N1 strain emerged.

The new estimate includes deaths that occurred outside hospitals, patients who tested negative for H1N1 but almost certainly had it, and other overlooked cases....."

Finally, before I end this post, I must mention that Christopher Shay has raised an alarm about a rogue strain of malaria that may render artemisinin impotent in treating the viral disease caused by Plasmodium falciparum - the deadly strain that affects the brain of sufferers.

The major relevant excerpts are as follows. "....Globally, only 3% of malaria patients receive the proper artemisinin combination therapy....It's not random that dangerous new strains of malaria continue to crop up on the Thai-Cambodian border. In addition to having longer years of exposure to the miracle drug, residents like the gem-mine workers rely on an unregulated, informal health sector, rife with cheap counterfeits and improper treatments. ..... Even for experts, it can be impossible to tell the difference between the fakes and the real article just by looking at them. What's so important about this is that when you have thousands of people taking improper or low dosages, the malaria parasite develops resistance more quickly......Modeling by the Mahidol-Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit published in the Malaria Journal in February predicts that if nothing is done in the next two decades, "resistance to artemisinins will be approaching 100%." And if that happens, it won't be long until the resistant strain spreads from Cambodia's precious gem mines to Africa, putting half the world's population at risk of catching what would be an untreatable, deadly disease......."

Well, I say that climate change should have been factored into that vaunted model. Mosquitoes cannot survive in cold environments; so, perhaps, if the tropics became more temperate in weather, malarial parasites would have to find a new home or just lay down and die....

Cheers, to that hopeful future!

Healthy cornucopia

2009-11-21T22:15:00.000+01:00

It's really amazing how a little gift and a little adjustment in attitude can bring out a grin from an otherwise bored disposition.

Not that my father's birthday today was boring. I had wondered whether to give a card and a gift or just a card - I had been trying to think up what to give him that he didn't already have.

My wife had advised that a gift is a gift and the receiver would still appreciate it - even if he already had more than one of a similar item.

To cut to the chase, my dear over-seventy year-old father loved his new steel wine opener with the corkscrew and plastic ring around the stainless steel rim. We all had a great time...

And then it was time to leave. I handed out bubble gum packs to everyone to clean out the palate.

To my surprise, my sister said she doesn't buy chewing gum for her kids, even though they accepted my gift readily.

So, I had to tell her the benefits of chewing gum, including teeth whitening, plaque removal, breath freshener, savings on toothpick purchases, aids digestion as saliva is swallowed periodically as a recycled fluid, exercising the facial and jaw muscles, and teeth strengthening - quite different from the general negative impression of a gum chewer resembling a goat chewing the cord in most places in my country today.

One more thing: she immediately asked for some for herself. And their smiles broadened as they drove off when I drummed a little ditty on the cover of the large gum container and yelled out, "Chew gum!"

How's your attitude to health? These nine Jodi Helmer diet tips state that you should include in your diet whole grains, eat at home to control the ingredients used in the recipe, vary your diet to prevent the temptation of going AWOL - or on the lam - on a boring diet, avoiding alcohol and other calorie-uppers like sugary or caffeinated drinks, and exercise to avoid getting fat.

Donna Freeman lists twelve cheap healthful foods that can actually keep you and your foor budget slimmer - grains, fruits, vegetables, and proteins that can be found at supermarkets, "....drugstores, grocery outlets, big-box stores and dollar stores.....", ethnic and other specialty food stores.

Do you want soft and callous-free feet? Then throw out the pumice stone and the foot file, and make room for the very effective ped egg foot softener.

Let me stop right here for now - more tips in my next post....