Reflections on 2015, The Year Gone By

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anti-aging, Health, heart care, New Year, obesity, reflections, Stress

In a few days, one more year would have gone by. 2015 will make way for 2016 and I hope the new year brings in peace and happiness for all of us. This made me reflect on the past year and I share these with you today. Firstly, let me cover the matter of my posting regularly in this blog. Largely due to ill-health for three months in the last part of the year, I did not post as frequently as I used to. I hope to do better in the new year. 

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Tomatoes for a Healthy Heart

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Health, tomatoes

If you like tomatoes, you are on to a good thing. Apart from being tasty, tomatoes have long been considered a healthy food. More specifically, a new study in Britain suggests that a regular intake of tomatoes can significantly reduce heart disease.The scientists also advised people with high cholesterol to start taking tomatoes or drink tomato juice to help reduce the risk of heart attacks.

Researchers in the new study included 21 volunteers, aged between 20-49 and with normal cholesterol levels. Each volunteer spent three weeks without consuming tomato products. Then they spent three weeks taking either 30gm of tomato puree or drank 400ml of tomato juice everyday.

During the experiment, researchers took regular blood samples of the volunteers to check cholesterol levels and found that those who added a small quantity of tomato in their breakfast, lunch and tea, saw their Low-density lipoprotein -LDL- ( generally called “bad” cholesterol) levels drop significantly over a period of three weeks.

High cholesterol levels have a long association with many diseases, particularly cardiovascular disease (CVD), the cause of almost 50 per cent of deaths in Europe, and reported to cost the EU economy an estimated €169bn ($202bn) per year.

The secret in tomatoes may lie in lycopene, the chemical that makes tomatoes red, according to Dr. Edward Giovannucci, Harvard School of Public Health, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

So the next time you want to top up your snack with some tomato ketchup, just reach out for it. It does you more good than you would have thought.

The Power of Honey

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Health, Honey

Minor ailments in the family – be it a cough or cold or mild fever- are a part of day to day life for the working mother.  Honey has been known to be useful to cure minor ailments for ages. Most Grandma’s  rough and ready homemade remedies include a spoonful of honey thrown in.

A teaspoon of honey before bed seems to calm children’s coughs and help them sleep better, according to a new study that relied on parents’ reports of their children’s symptoms.  “Many families are going to relate to these findings and say that grandma was right,” said lead author Dr Ian Paul of Pennsylvania State University’s College of Medicine.

The research appears in December’s Archives of Paediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.US health advisers have recently warned that over-the-counter cough and cold medicines should not be used in children younger than 6, and manufacturers are taking some products for babies off the market.

We derive our knowledge of the earliest use and importance of honey in historic times from archives of the ancient cultural states, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, India, Egypt, Greece and Rome. The oldest existing scripts corroborate the fact that bees were already domesticated creatures and honey was extensively used for food, drink, medicine and exclusively for sweetening purposes. Honey was an important commodity. Taxes and tributes were imposed in the form of payments of honey and wax. It was equivalent to currency.

Tickner Edwardes wrote about honey: “Honey is good for old and young. If mothers were wise they would never give their children any other sweet food. Pure ripe honey is sugar with the most difficult and most important part of digestion already accomplished by the bees. Moreover, it is a safe and very gentle laxative. And probably, before each comb-cell is sealed up, the bee injects a drop of acid from her sting. Anyway, honey has a distinct antiseptic property. That is why it is so good for sore throats or chafed skins.

Good honey is an ideal food, nutritious and easily digested. Professor Klemperer of Berlin claimed that a tablespoonful of honey is equivalent in nutritive value to the largest-sized hen egg. According to Professor von Bunge, 98% of the lime, iron, salt and grape sugar, of which honey contains 77%, are directly absorbed by the blood. Honey is six times richer in fuel value than milk and, in addition, it contains more inorganic substances. The flavor of honey has also a dietetic value as it induces the free flow of saliva which in itself promotes digestion.

For those of us who need to speak a lot, honey is soothing for the throat. It gives you the energy you need. Its benefits extend from the young to the old.

So next time you or your kids have a minor ailment and you look for a home made remedy, reach out for that jar of honey.

Living Hard or Hardly Living?

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Health, living hard, tension at work

The names are disguised but you recognize the man. There could be many like him in your office or your neighbourhood.

Living a hectic life was exhilarating for Arun. He liked to say that he worked hard and played hard. He enjoyed the tension in his work especially when he took on assignments that involved risk and living on the edge. He put in his usual 12-14 hours per day. Included in his day was a nerve jarring, tension-filled commute where he had to drive like a skilled cross- country driver even in the city roads. He spent the rest of the day ( or what was left of it) partying with his cronies – and there were many of them.

He was pushy at work encouraged by the initial successes given to him by his aggressive nature. Time to unwind meant parties and drinks with his friends. There was no time to relax. Besides, relaxing was for people who had nothing better to do.

The shooting pain caught him one afternoon at work just as he was leaving a meeting in which he had been a vociferous and excited participant. He had suffered a heart attack. Like thousands do every day. He was rushed to the hospital and because of the timely attention given to him he was lucky to survive. Otherwise he would not have lived to see his 31st birthday which followed a few days later.

Suggestions for the Aruns of this world: To succeed in today’s go-getting dog- eat- dog world, you need to be physically and mentally fit. Frenetic, unceasing activity puts a strain on your physiology and burn out results from this “overheating” of your system.

Set aside time for physical activity appropriate to your age and body condition. Use relaxation techniques to help you cool off amidst the hustle and bustle of every day life.
Success comes through living a full life.

Without interests other than work, without time for your family, without attention to your health, aren’ t you living hard – but hardly living?

Don’t waste time identifying this man. He could be anybody- just make sure it isn’t you.!

Heart Ailments

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Health, heart ailments, lifestyles

India is heading towards a health disaster as 50 to 60 million people are likely to be affected by heart ailments over the next few years unless immediate corrective steps are taken, a leading cardiologist said on Saturday.

“Nearly about 12 per cent of our population is going to be affected by heart problems in their lifetime as there is not going to be enough money in the world to treat so many people,” Naresh Trehan told reporters here today. “People eating junk food and those with a family history of heart diseases or having hypertension, blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and full of stress are more prone to heart diseases,” he said.

Trehan asked people not to ignore early warning signals such as repeated chest pain, sometimes mistaken as burning sensation or gas, as it can be the advent of a heart ailment.

“Men above 30 years of age and women over 35 years should get themselves checked up. Also people with a family history have 4 or 5 times higher chance of getting a coronary heart disease and they should get themselves checked up,” said Dr. Trehan.

Evidence shows that moderated lifestyles can go a long way in avoiding heart ailments. Prevention is better than cure. The right diet and the right amount of exercise helps us to be better prepared to face the stress and strain of a demanding work routine.