Health News Update

Ever since its discovery, sugar has been loved by people all over the world. It is like a special ingredient that adds magic to food. Every year, sugar consumption increases due to the rising demand for this commodity.

There is an environmental predisposition to sweet taste because sugar is one of the cheapest ingredients in food, along with water and salt, that adds flavor. From pastries, to bread, fruit juices, and candies, sugar is something that the world definitely can’t live without.

However, too much of anything is bad for the body. Hence, due to increasing health risks brought about by excessive sugar intake, the World Health Organization has recently recommended that added sugars should be at maximum of 10 percent of the total calorie intake per day. Read the rest of this entry »

by Ching M. Alano

For so long has this been the topic of really lengthy discussions: longevity (or long life). Did you know that, according to World Health Organization world health statistics 2007, the life expectancy in the Philippines is 64 for men and 71 for women? Yes, the women outlive the men.

But oh, in Bontoc, Mt. Province, the life expectancy of the men must be 90! I was there a long time ago, and I saw this screaming sign at the entrance of a small restaurant: If you’re 90 years old, you can have beer for only P10 per bottle, but only if you’re accompanied by a parent.

Levity aside, you will probably see the hardy folk of Bontoc, at the ripe old age of 80 and up, downing barrels of beer and toiling in the rice terraces (not necessarily in that order). There must be something in their diet that consists mainly of vegetables and rice (but more on diets later). Read the rest of this entry »

by Ching M. Alano

With a hint of panic in his voice, a concerned reader called to ask how safe canola oil is because there’s been a spate of e-mails going around about it, and his family has been cooking with this kind of oil for so long now. Okay, oil right, nutritionist Dr. Angel Respicio Jr. tells us everything there is to know about canola — the good, the bad, and the oily.

According to Dr. Jun Respicio, much has been said about the virtues of canola oil. But its downside is not far behind. To the confused consumer who can barely make both ends meet, canola and the other polyunsaturated vegetable oils are the cheaper alternative — or is it? Confused consumers are bound to get mixed information — separating fat, er, fact from fiction is even more tricky. First of all, canola is not a vegetable or a tree.To quote Sally Fallon and Dr. Mary G. Enig in their article “The Great Con-ola,” “Canola oil is widely recognized as the healthiest salad and cooking oil available to consumers. It was developed through hybridization of rapeseed. Rapeseed oil is toxic because it contains significant amounts of a poisonous substance called erucic acid. Canola oil contains only trace amounts of erucic acid and its unique fatty acid profile, rich in oleic acid and low in saturated fats, makes it particularly beneficial for the prevention of heart disease. It also contains significant amounts of omega-3 fatty acids, also known to have health benefits. This is what the food industry says about canola oil. Read the rest of this entry »

by Joy Angelica Subido

In the 1967 movie The Graduate, an older, married woman named Mrs. Robinson, played by Anne Bancroft, seduces the character of a young college graduate played by Dustin Hoffman. The situation depicts the concept that while a male’s sexual urges peak when he is young, a woman experiences renewed sexual drive when as she approaches menopause in her 40s. A scientific explanation may bear this out. As a woman approaches menopause that signals the end of her childbearing years, the hormonal levels in her system are altered. But while an increase in androgens may cause a concomitant rise in libido or sexual drive, a decrease in estrogen levels may lead to a host of physical symptoms in others. For some women, this includes vaginal atrophy that makes sexual contact painful. And thus, the myth of the “Mrs. Robinson complex” does not apply at all.

Is menopause a natural life event? Or is it a disease? Read the rest of this entry »

The results of the FIELD (Fenofibrate Intervention and Event Lowering in Diabetes) study confirmed fenofibrate’s protective effect on the eyes of patients with diabetes as unique compared to other lipid-modifying agents, including statins.

This made fenofibrate as the first lipid-modifying agent to demonstrate protection against diabetic retinopathy and was independent from blood glucose and blood pressure control.

The FIELD study offered hope to patients with diabetes as the sub-analysis and the sub-study concluded that fenofibrate, a lipid-modifying agent, slowed down the progression of diabetic retinopathy in patients with type 2 diabetes and diminished the need for laser coagulation therapy.

FIELD, a multinational, randomized study, was conducted to evaluate whether the treatment with fenofibrate for a median of five years could reduce the macrovascular and microvascular complications.

The detailed results of the study were published in the November 2007 issue of the Lancet journal.

Diabetic retinopathy, a condition on which the retina (inner surface of the back of the eye) is progressively damaged, has affected approximately 50 million of 200 million people with diabetes worldwide.

This grim situation has burdened patients with diabetes as it caused 80 percent of vision loss. Read the rest of this entry »

Tyrone M. Reyes, M.D.

If you are in your 60s, it’s a good bet that you have osteoarthritis. If you are in your 80s, it’s a sure thing. In fact, if you take an x-ray of the hips or knees of people over age 50, you’ll probably see signs of arthritis in many of them. But some people with severe damage can be as frisky as those decades younger, while others with only modestly damaged joints call the pain and disability unbearable. “Arthritis affects everyone differently,” says Peter Juni, MD, an expert on joint disease at the University of Berne in Switzerland. “How you experience it depends on not just the joint damage but your emotional health, weight, pain tolerance, activities, and willingness to participate in your own care, among other things,” he says. Research suggests that some doctors may downplay joint pain that’s not confirmed by x-rays, while others may recommend invasive procedures if they see severe joint damage. But since arthritis pain and disability are so subjective, only you — upon consultation with your physician — can decide how aggressively to treat it. As my former professors in medical school used to tell us, “Treat the patient, not the x-rays!” Read the rest of this entry »

The adage, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is so true, especially when it involves your life and your health. Myths and misconceptions about certain diseases san be deadly. Unfortunately for some, many erroneous beliefs have benn quickly passed on like the common cold.

Such is the case with cervical cancer and HPV (human papillomavirus) infections. Many people believe that a young woman will never be threatened with HPV infection or cervical cancer, just as long as she stays morally upright and never ‘sleeps around.’ This kind of thinking is so deadly wrong.

The human papillomavirus (HPV) is a common virus that can infect both men and women. In 2001, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that about 30630 million people in the world (9%-13%) were infected with HPV. And because people with HPV may not show any signs of symptoms, an infected person can easily transmit the virus to his/her spouse or partner without even knowing it. So, even if a young bride were to remain pure and untouched until her wedding day, there is no guarantee that she will remain 100% free from HPV infections or cervical cancer – if the husband is already infected or gets infected in the future.

Read the rest of this entry »

by Jennifer Ong

The textbooks are wrong. It’s more normal to be glucose abnormal if you have cardiovascular disease,” remarks Professor Eberhard Standl at a conference attended by media people, including this writer, recently at the Pudong Shangri-La hotel in Shanghai. His colleagues looked on agreeably. In fact, Professors Rury Holman, DaYi Hu, Robert Josse, and Changyu Pan have also conducted their own respective studies and arrived at the same conclusion.

Dysglycemia is a condition where one possesses above normal glucose levels. A person with dysglycemia may have either prediabetes (higher than normal blood sugar level, but lower than that of a diabetic) or diabetes (particularly type 2). Such is found through various tests, the most effective of which is the Oral Glucose Tolerance Test (OGTT), as recommended by Professor DaYi Hu. Read the rest of this entry »

by Steven Reinberg

Researchers are reporting a potential “cure” for hepatitis C, a blood-borne viral infection that’s the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer and the need for liver transplants in the United States.

Use of the drug peginterferon, either alone or in combination with the drug ribavirin, reduced levels of the virus to undetectable levels for up to seven years, the researchers said.

“This paper strongly suggests, for the first time, that hepatitis C is a curable disease,” said lead researcher Dr. Mitchell Shiffman, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and chief of hepatology and medical director of the school’s Liver Transplant Program. “After treatment, 99.6 percent of the patients remained virus undetectable for over five years,” he added. Read the rest of this entry »

Cilostazol, a drug popularly known for preventing the formation of blood clots in the body’s blood vessels, also improves the body’s lipid or cholesterol profile, particularly the high density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides.

HDL is also known as the good type of cholesterol, while triglycerides are fat type which, when increased, can also increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Results of the study published in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology showed that 12-week therapy with cilostazol 100mg, increased the HDL by 10 percent. Bad fats’ level, low density lipoprotein and lipoprotein A were not affected. Read the rest of this entry »