According to a previous study, about 1-in-3 American adults have high blood pressure.
Interesting, not so for the Kuna Indians who live on a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama. Even at 60 years old or older, the average blood pressure for Kuna Indian islanders is a good 110/70.
If you think it’s because the Kuna Indians eat less salt. Well, they consumed as much, if not more salt, than the Americans.
Harvard researchers found that they ftake around 5 cups of cocoa every day. According to the study, flavonols that are present in cocoa will stimulate one’s body production of nitric oxide. This means, increase blood flow to your heart, brain and other organs. Interestingly, one study reported that cocoa will thin your blood just as well as low-dose aspirin!
Additional Reading
Healthy Urban Kitchen Cookbook by Antonia Valladores and Jamie Larose
Here are 10 benefits why you should dance:
1. To de-stress and let loose
2. Lose weight fast
3. Strengthens bones
4. Improve muscle tone & coordination
5. Increase energy
6. Improves cardiovascular system
7. Lowers risk of heart disease
8. Reduce blood pressure & cholesterol levels
9. Improves blood circulation
10. Increase flexibility and balance
Additional Reading:
Burn the Fats Feed the Muscles
Fat Loss Secrets
Illness is the most heeded of doctors: to goodness and wisdom we only make promises; pain we obey.
~Marcel Proust
By Andy Clerk
Dating someone with herpes might be a little off particularly to those who do not have herpes at all. But how do you exactly know if you have herpes or not? According to studies, almost 90% of herpes infected individuals do not exactly have the awareness that they already incurred the disease. Since mild herpes do not actually have symptoms, unless the outbreak comes out or you have yourself tested, this will be the only time you will know you have one.
As herpes can be transmitted in many different ways, the big question falls on this? “Is it safe to date someone with herpes”? In actual fact, dating someone with herpes requires the identification of the severity of the disease itself. Although it is awkward to ask someone concerning this type of infection, a thin line between taking heed and curing herpes and those people that do not provide treatments at all will all determine the disparities.
If someone you are dating has herpes for a long period of time and is undergoing medical treatments, doing the deed with a protection will somehow make a difference weigh against sleeping with someone who doesn’t have an inkling of having herpes and definitely is not doing anything to cure it.
Dating someone with herpes need not be a big issue. Even if this disease is tagged along with a dim-witted stigma for it being a form of a sexually transmitted disease, do you think you have laid yourself open to greater risk without the discernment between sleeping with a person curing herpes and the one who have unconsciously acquired the disease without providing any treatments at all? You choose.
Additional Reading:
Positive Single – Support site for herpes members.
Our body runs on glucose. Glucose is derived from the digestion of sugar and starch in carbohydrates in noodles, pasta, bread, rice and even vegetable and fruits.
When we consumed carbohydrates, digestion begins in the mouth. An enzyme called salivary amylase is produced which converts the starches in the food to sugars like dextrins, maltose and maltotriose.
Further digestion occurs in the small intestine. The pancreas secrets the enzyme amylase which breaks carbohydrates into simple sugar like maltose, lactose and sucrose.
As these sugars move down the intestine, the enzymes maltase, lactase, and sucrase respectively break maltose, lactose and sucrose down into smaller molecules. These are eventually converted to the simplest form of sugar – glucose – and absorbed through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream.
Source: Mind Your Body, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2009
Additional Reading
Healthy Urban Kitchen Cookbook by Antonia Valladores and Jamie Larose
Here is a very interesting article that I found at the NY Times website. It basically talks about how bad manners in children today is becoming a common condition.
The article is titled “A Pediatrician’s View of Rude Children” and is really a timely reminder for all of us who have children or are care-givers to children.
Here is an interesting quote from the article:
Dr. Barbara Howard, an assistant professor of pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and an expert on behavior and development, told me that a child’s manners were a perfectly appropriate topic to raise at a pediatric visit.
Imagine that. Not only do you talk about allergies, and shots, manners (or the lack thereof) seems to be a problem fit for the attentions of an expert. Many problems we face as adults can be traced back to things that took place when we were children.
If you have no manners as a child, will you grow up to be a well mannered adult? How will that affect your social life, your mental well-being, acceptance in social groups, and ultimately, your happiness?
Let us not add to the stress of this world, rather, we need to learn how to build and nurture a child properly so that they can grow in a healthy, well-adjusted manner. In a well-mannered manner. Isn’t that interesting?
To feel keenly the poetry of a morning’s roses, one has to have just escaped from the claws of this vulture which we call sickness.
~ Henri Frederic Amiel
To those who suffer from eczema, you know your skin is characterized by red itchy rash, dry scaly patches, and/or weeping blisters. These are reactions to environmental triggers (for examples, stress, irritants in the environments like fragrant, dusts etc( as well as our diets.
To eliminate eczema, one needs to eliminate the triggers that cause it.
One such trigger could be alcohol. To find out, stop drinking liquor for at least 1 -2 months. If you cannot do without your drinks, you may reduce your alcohol intake and increase your water intake. As the good doctor always says, at least 8 glasses of water every day. Usually, we don’t drink enough water to flush the toxins out. And, beverages and soda drinks are not considered water. Because such drinks do little in detoxification, in fact, they add more impurities into our systems. If your symptoms improve without liquor, than go ahead to continue the practice.
Alcohol is a diuretic and that means it flushes water out of your system. In another words, you body and skin gets dehydrated, and that’s really bad for dry, itchy and red skin.
Additional Reading on Experts’ Views on Eczema
Additional Reading on “Homemade Eczema Treatment” by Vivienne Quek
Couch potato tends to weigh more than those who are not addicted to TV.
The Dec 14 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine reported that people who cut their TV time by half burned 119 more calories per day on an average.
Reducing the time spent in front of TV has the potential to improve a person’s activity level, said Dr Jennifer Otten in the online edition of Stanford Medicine. She is the lead author of a study that determines how reduced TV watching affected calories consumed, energy used, body weight, time spent sleeping and the balance between calorie ingestion and activity in the obese and overweight adults. This study is conducted at University of Vermont.
Dr Otten also said that the more time one spent in front of the TV, the higher chances they have to suffer from obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease. Obviously one contributing factor is the sedentary lifestyle.
Source: Mind Your Body, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2009
Additional Reading
The Advanced Guide to Fast Weight Loss for Busy Women
Burn the Fats Feed the Muscles
Fat Loss Secrets
Live in rooms full of light
Avoid heavy food
Be moderate in the drinking of wine
Take massage, baths, exercise, and gymnastics
Fight insomnia with gentle rocking or the sound of running water
Change surroundings and take long journeys
Strictly avoid frightening ideas
Indulge in cheerful conversation and amusements
Listen to music.
~A. Cornelius Celsus
If you like to have a cuppa of coffee or tea, you will be happy to know that coffee and tea drinkers have a lower risk of developing Type 2 diabetes.
BBC Health reported that they have looked at 18 separate studies and found that people who drink 3 -4 cups a day cut their risk by a fifth.
What’s Type 2 diabetes? It usually starts after one turn 40 and develops when the body can still make some insulin but not enough, or when the insulin that is produced does not work properly.
Identification of the active component in tea and coffee opens up new therapeutic options but one should never avoid exercising or keeping a healthy and balanced diet to stay pink.
Source: Mind Your Body, The Straits Times, 17 Dec 2009
