Constipation – Symptoms, causes & treatments!
Constipation is not a disease, It occurs when bowel motions become harder or drier than normal and are more difficult to pass, or when you get fewer than your usual number of bowel movement.
Sometimes people worry too much about bowel movements. Bowel movements vary greatly for us all. There is no right or wrong number of daily or weekly bowel movements. For some people a bowel movement everyday is normal, for others a bowel movement every three to four days is normal.
Older people are more likely than younger people to get constipated due to several of the reasons mentioned below. However young people can also get easily constipated and babies may get constipated when they start solids or become dehydrated.
Some questions you can ask yourself to see if you are really constipated:
If your answers are yes to some of these questions, you may be constipated. Continue Reading >>
Warning To Bat Eaters!!
KUALA LUMPUR: The Nipah epidemic may be under control but exotic food lovers have been advised to be careful when eating bat meat.
People who catch, kill and clean bats must take precautions to protect themselves from being infected by the Nipah virus, said Prof Dr Tan Chong Tin, the leader of the Nipah Encephalitis Investigating Team during the 1998/99 outbreak.
“They also need to be careful because bats are believed to transmit the SARS virus,” he said during his Merdeka Award Lecture Series “The Saga of Nipah Encephalitis: An Update” yesterday.
Asked if eating bat meat could pose a danger, he said that should not be a problem if it was properly cooked.
However, Dr Tan, said he would not want to create an anti-bats sentiment because bats had a positive ecological contribution.
Bats are also believed to benefit those suffering from asthma. According to an online website, a community in Thailand eats the meat believing it to be good for the libido.
Dr Tan said that the Nipah virus was still a global concern because it had been discovered in many areas of the world like Ghana, Madagascar, India, China and various parts of South East Asia and Australia.
Asked if the virus can still be found in Malaysia, Dr Tan said this was not known because no tests had been carried out since the 1998/99 outbreak.
The outbreak began in vilages near Ipoh and took more than 100 live.
source: http://www.thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2010/5/27/nation/6344789&sec=nation
Power of Cranberries
Researchers have long proven the heart-health benefits of red wine but a study published on Jan 28 in the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry shows drinking cranberry juice can lower blood pressure.
Roger Corder, author of the Red Wine Diet and professor at Queen mary University of London, indentified oligomeric procyanidins, which prevent blood vessel constriction that leads to heart disease, in cranberries.
“We’ve now indentified oligomeric procyanidins as the specific compound in cranberries that can boost the health of blood vessels, helping to prevent blood vessel constricition,” said Corder.
Big Breast Women Are Smarter!
A study conducted in the United States showed that women with big breasts are not necessarily less intelligent than those who are less endowed.
Instead, women with bigger breasts were found to be smarter.
It said the study was conducted in Chicago to find out whether the size of a woman’s bust affected her brain power.
The study, involving 1,200 women, was conducted by a female researcher. The subjects were divided into five groups, from extra small to extra big.
The report said it was possible such women were smarter due to the higher level of female hormones that could result in better development in the brain.
US swine flu vaccine runs dry!
Washington: Mothers with young children and pregnant women are being turned away from swine flu vaccination clinics in the United States, some in tears, many utterly frustrated by the shortage of vaccine.
But it could have been much worse. The new strain of H1N1 flu could have been much more virulent, and it could even have been bird flu, which, because of the way the United States produces flu vaccine, could wreak havoc.
Months back, when a swine flu vaccine was still just a glimmer in scientists’ eyes, US health officials were driving home the message that children, and especially those with underlying health conditions like asthma and pregnant women were at great risk of dying from H1N1 influenza and should be first in line for innoculation.
But after rolling out the vaccine last month, the authorities ran into a problem: There wasn’t enough to go around. “The National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have done a very good job of emphasizing the importance of getting vaccinated. But then there’s no vaccine,” said Steven Salzberg, director of the Center for Bioinformatics and Computational Biology at the University of Maryland.
Salzberg’s wife and younger daughters were among thousands who queued last week in Rockville, a suburb of Washington, for swine flu vaccinations. “They left when they saw the line was about 1km long before the place was even open. There were many, many hundreds arriving by the second,” Salzberg said.
Last week, as child deaths spiked well above the annual toll for kids from seasonal flu, vaccination clinics in the county that includes Rockville were abruptly cancelled. The county’s supply of vaccine had run dry. So what if this had been the next “big one”, a flu on the scale of the pandemic that killed tens of millions around the globe in 1918? After all, the strain of flu that caused the 1918 pandemic was also H1N1, the grandfather of today’s swine flu pandemic.
“If we had a really virulent highly infectious influenza strain today, it could easily be as bad as 1918,” said Salzberg. But David Beshai, associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said progress in health care and nutrition mean “a replica of 1918 is not in the cards.
“When you really need vaccine quickly, we just can’t do it, and this has now been demonstrated,” Salzberg said. He said changing the way the United States makes flu vaccine was too costly for companies to put in place and would have to come from the highest political levels.
Effects of war bombs felt globally!
Countries far from war zones, including most Asean countries, have not been spared the effects of bombings that cause depleted uranium poison gas to be carried by air currents all over the world which, in turn, have caused a surge in diabetes and fertility problems.
At a panel discussion on War and Banned Weapons at the Criminalize War Conference, American radiation expert Dr Leuren Moret said based on her study on the average annual population rate in the world, the global average population declined when bomb testings were completed – more in developed countries than in less-developing countries.
She explained that the low, high and medium air currents from the areas where bombs are dropped travel to areas as far away as Punjab, the Himalayas and Southeast Asia and enters the environment and rivers in the region through rain. The effects will be felt globally, she said.
Moret said among the proven effects of uranium on the reproductive system are an increase in endometriosis and ovulation disorders in addition to causing changes in chromosomes that, in turn, will result in more instances of gender disorders, including hermaphroditism (having both, male and female sexual organs). This has already been detected in wildlife, especially fish which is an indication of the effects of water pollution.
She said the effects of uranium on diabetes has been known since studies on the effects of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings. Similarly, in December 2006, there was an increase in diabetes cases in northern Israel two months after bombings in the area. There were also negative effects on unborn children, especially in countries with poor healthcare facilities as there was a higher risk of autism.
Moret said there has also been a 40% drop in sperm quality among Israeli men over the past 10 years as a result of the use of depleted uranium weapons given to them by Americans. “You cannot use nuclear weapons without nuking yourself,” she said. “Israelis are actually sterilising themselves,” she said, adding that Palestinians are also affected, and that in time to come, artificial insemination will become much sought after as a result of depleted uranium poisoning.
Gene control on sleep need!
The amount of sleep needed each night may depend less on fluffy pillows than a single genetic mutation, according to research published recently.
A team of scientists claim they have identified a gene that regulates the optimum amount of human sleep each individual needs, explaining why after six hours of slumber one person may awake reborn, while another is like the living dead.
The study, published in the journal Science, identified a mother-and-daughter pair who needed well below the eight-and-a-half hours of sleep that doctors say is a must for long-term well-being. Blood tests from the easily-rested pair showed a mutation in their DEC2 gene, which has previously been implicated in the control of circadian rhythms – the cycles that regulate the daily patterns of human behavior.
Lead scientist Ying Hui Fu, a professor of neurology at the University of California, said her team then tested their findings on genetically-modified mice and fruit flies. The animals were observed scampering around in the dark more and sleeping less.
Lu said the observations “could provide an explanation for why human subjects with the mutation are able to live unaffected by short amounts of sleep throughout their lives”. But it is still unclear whether the mutation affects sleep quantity alone or also wakefulness.
Preventing Heartburn!
Eating easily digestible foods and chewing thoroughly before swallowing helps prevent heartburn, according to the Professional Association of German Internists (BDI) The BDI states that hectic meals and fatty, heavily spiced or fried foods can trigger heartburn.
Other risk factors include sweet and sour foods, alcoholic drinks, coffee, black tea and smoking. Exercise immediately after a meal could also result in heartburn. Heartburn is caused by improper functioning of the lower oesophageal sphincter, a circular band of muscle around the bottom part of the oesophagus, allowing stomach acid to back up into the oesophagus and irritate the mucous membrane there.
To help prevent stomach-acid reflux, the BDI advises heartburn sufferers to keep their upper body raised when in a lying position, for example by inserting a wedge between the bed’s mattress and box spring or by using an extra pillow. Loose-fitting clothing, proper body weight and regular exercise are also beneficial.
2 doses of H1N1 vaccine for children under 9
Washington: Younger children will need two doses of the vaccine against the new pandemic of A(H1N1) influenza, US officials said on Monday.
They said tests of Sanofi -Pasteur’s A(H1N1) flu vaccine showed children respond to it just as they do to seasonal flu vaccine, with children over 10 needing only a single dose but children under 9 needing two. Separately, Sanofi said it had won a US government order for 27.3 million more doses of its vaccine and AstraZeneca’s MedImmune unit said the US government has ordered 29 million more doses of its needle-free vaccine.
Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said young children will likely need to have their doses 21 days apart. But he said they could receive seasonal flu shots and A(H1N1) shots on the same day – something that could ease the logistics of vaccinating children multiple times. “As we had hoped, in children the 2009 A(H1N1) vaccine is acting just like the seasonal flu vaccine,” Fauci told reporters in a telephone briefing.
Children aged 10 to 17 mounted an immune response that should protect them from A(H1N1) within 8 to 10 days, Fauci said. The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention said 46 US children have died from A(H1N1), which appears to have first emerged in Mexico in March and which spread around the world to cause a pandemic in only six weeks.
A(H1N1) is now the dominant strain of influenza circulating globally and Fauci said it is possible it may replace the seasonal form of A(H1N1) also circulating. “If you look at the history of where new viruses come in, frequently what they do is come back the next year and displace one or even more than one of the circulating strains,” he said. “It is a distinct possibility that this might ultimately be incorporated into a seasonal flu vaccine.” – Reuters
Migraine Woes
Adolescents suffering from migraine headaches are more likely to get poor grades and less likely to finish high school or go to college than those who don’t get the headaches, a new study has concluded.
Researchers studying the statistical impact of migraine headache and academic performance presented their findings at the 84th Annual Conference of the Western Economic Association International in Vancouver, British Columbia recently. The researchers analyzed data on sibling pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health as well as reports from parents identifying siblings in the same household with different experiences of migraine – ruling out the possibility that socioeconomic factors could affect migraine headache and academic performance.
Migraine headache was associated with 5% lower GPAs, a 5% less chance of graduating from high school and a 15% less chance of attending college, the study found. “We know that migraine headaches can profoundly impact quality of life. Our study offers evidence that they are an important obstacle to long-term academic success,” said Joseph Sabia, professor of public policy at American University’s School of Public Affairs and one of the authors of the study. “Our results show that migraine sufferers have trouble attending school and have trouble concentrating on the days they do make it to school.”
Absences from school, difficulty paying attention in class, and difficulty completing homework were attributed to 30-40% of the reduction in academic performance. Sufferers of typical headaches or tension headaches showed no difference in academic performance, the researchers noted.
