Be patient if your plan to get fit isn’t paying instant dividends, it could be a reflection of your impatience, rather than an actual lack of progress. It usually takes about one month of regular exercise before your routine starts becoming second nature.

“At that point, your hard work will all seem worthwhile,” says Walter R. Thompson, PhD, a kinesiologist, at Georgia State University. That’s how long it takes for both your mind and your body to adapt to your change in schedule - and for you to start noticing results, including weight loss and increased strength and energy.

Part of being patient is being sensible and realistic. If you want to maintain your new routine over the long haul, it helps to slowly transition into your exercise program. Remember you’ve spent the last few years being inactive, so instead of going from zero workouts to a seven-day-a-week routine, commit to just three or four days of exercise.

Only increase the frequency of your exercise routine as the dividends roll in. Allow yourself a day off because it gives your body a break and it also gives you something to look forward to. 

Recruit an exercise buddy. Look for someone whose age, abilities and goals are similar to your own. The exercise buddy should not be someone to compete with but someone with whom to share your successes and setbacks.

Or find an e-mail buddy to “report” to every evening on what you did for exercise that day. You can also be your own buddy and mentor. If you’ve skipped the lunchtime workout, try this. Call home, and leave a message on your answering machine reminding you to hop on the treadmill first thing to make up for it.

Set both long term and short term goals. Keeping an eye on the longer term goal will help you overcome the disappointment of minor setbacks, if you hit a plateau from time to time. And be realistic in your goals.

The “new you” should include more than fitness alone. Don’t forget mind and spirit. Take a lesson, join a club, make time for that hobby you’ve always been interested in. Aside from toning up your body you should be developing other elements of your life.

Negativity may appear to be a great defence mechanism: if you keep your expectations low enough, you won’t be crushed when things don’t work out.

New research reveals that the tendency to be a wet blanket in just about any situation - a trait the experts call “dispositional pessimism” - doesn’t merely ruin a good time and prevent you from making friends. It seems that it’s a bad strategy by about every measure.

Optimists, it turns out, do better in most avenues of life, whether it’s work, school, sports, or relationships. They get depressed less often than pessimists, make more money, and have happier marriages. And not only in the short run. There’s evidence that optimists live longer, too.

A nine-year study of cardiovascular health in men and women in the Netherlands found that pessimists not only die sooner of heart disease than optimists, but they also die sooner of just about everything. It’s enough to drive a pessimist crazy - and sure enough, pessimism has been linked to higher odds of developing dementia.

Don’t try too hard to be happy

Suzanne Segerstrom, PhD, a researcher at the University of Kentucky and author of Breaking Murphy’s Law, says it takes only a few changes. They’re small, gradual - and not what you’d expect. If happiness is illusive, you may be trying too hard.

Researchers asked a group to use a beautiful piece of classical music to raise their moods, while telling other volunteers simply to listen to the symphony. The result: the music didn’t help those who were focused on lifting their spirits - but the others wound up feeling much better.

“Instead of working at being happy, aim to be engaged. Engagement bypasses pessimism,” says Segerstrom.

“When you’re fully involved in something, it can distract you from a pessimist’s favourite pastime - rumination. When you’re ruminating, it’s not just a bad day - it’s always a bad day, and a bad life, and you’re a bad person. Everything is blown out of proportion.

“Try to find quick distractions you can use when you realise you’re stuck on the same negative thought. Try activities that demand your full attention: Go to a yoga class or a kickboxing or aerobics class, where you have to commit fully to avoid falling on your face.”

It’s not your fault

Don’t be afraid to blame someone else. Researchers have learned that optimism and pessimism both boil down to little more than our “explanatory” way of interpreting life’s ups and downs.

When something good happens in a pessimist’s life, they tend to think of it as a fluke, a one-off that just “happened”.  Optimists, on the other hand take full credit.

When something negative happens, pessimists tend to blame themselves, while optimists see bad events as having little to do with them, and as one-time problems that will pass quickly.

A pessimist who misses a shot on the tennis court says: “I’m lousy at tennis.” An optimist says: “My opponent has a killer serve.”

University of Pennsylvania psychologist Martin EP Seligman was the first to discover that a person’s explanatory style is fairly consistent and that it often explains why pessimists fail when optimists succeed. After all, it’s easier to keep practicing your tennis serve if you’re sure you’ll do fine against someone at your level.

Because of this different explanatory style, optimists have an easier time even when things go wrong.

Optimistic breast cancer patients are just as depressed by bad news as their pessimistic counterparts, researchers have found.

But women with an optimistic disposition are more likely to expect their cancer ordeal to have a positive outcome, studies show; not surprisingly, these women report significantly greater emotional well-being during treatment, while pessimists suffer more distress.

Be persistent

Long after pessimists have given up and gone home, optimists keep trying to solve problems. In one study, optimists continued to work on unscrambling an impossible-to-solve anagram 50 to 100% longer than pessimists.

There wasn’t a lot of payoff for persistence in the anagram exercise (and the pessimists are still thinking, suckers!). But in the real world, studies show that persistence leads to more success in school, a fatter paycheck, and a host of other perks.

In fact, in a study of law students, Segerstrom found that a person’s level of optimism in the first year of law school corresponded with his or her salary 10 years later. The impact wasn’t measly: On a 5-point optimism scale, every 1-point increase in optimism translated into a $33,000 bump in annual income.

Surround Yourself with optimists

One of the easiest ways to improve your outlook on life is to hang out with optimists.

A year-long study of more than 100 college-age couples from the University of Oregon found that both positive thinkers and their partners have greater satisfaction in their relationships than optimist-free pairs, in part because happy-go-lucky types tend to see their partners as supportive.

Sanjay Srivastava, who led the Oregon study, says: “If you are the partner of an optimist, both of you will be more satisfied in the relationship and more constructive in resolving conflicts. It’s not that a rosy worldview is contagious, it’s just that you’ll feel more positive about the relationship.”

So if you want great things to happen in 2011, don’t just focus on aerobics - consider attitude as well. 

The use of bee pollen, one of the oldest known dietary supplements, is said to date back to the early Chinese and Egyptians. Hippocrates wrote about its healing properties 2,500 years ago. Bee pollen is simply flower pollen that sticks to bees’ legs as they flit from flower to flower in search of nectar. Beekeepers attach a special mesh to the hives, as the bees enter the hive the pollen is knocked off and is collected. Think of it as a tiny door mat in front of the hive.

It turns out the pollen contains all sorts of things such as carbohydrates, proteins, fatty acids, vitamins and minerals as well as several ingredients that are known to act as anti-oxidants.  There is a standard test known among scientists as the Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity test used to measure anti-oxidants. The ORAC value of pollen was far beyond that of blueberries, considered by some to be about the best source of anti-oxidants available.

Research into bee pollen is very limited but animal studies show it can protect against oxidative and free radical damage, the effects of harmful radiation as well as toxic exposure to certain chemical solvents. 

Royal jelly plays an important role in the development of honey bee larvae. It is produced in the glands of worker bees and is used to feed the larvae in the colony for the first few days of their development.

After that time, nurse bees continue to give the larval queens only royal jelly, while the worker larvae receive a mixture of jelly, pollen and honey. This allows the queen to develop her reproductive organs while the female worker bees become sterile. That’s why the queen bee grows to about 50 per cent larger than the workers and lives five to six years compared to the average life of about six weeks for a worker bee. That’s the basis for the folklore surrounding royal jelly’s reputation as a rejuvenating elixir.

There are volumes of anecdotal evidence about the human health benefits of royal jelly but there have been only a few scientific human studies, so it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction. Three human studies used double-blind procedures and an oral preparation of royal jelly in amounts of 50 and 100 mg per day. It was found that total cholesterol was reduced by about 14 per cent among participants who had previously recorded high cholesterol levels.

More recent studies have shown that royal jelly demonstrates high antioxidant activities well as the ability to stimulate the production of type I collagen.  It is believed that royal jelly contains about 12 per cent protein and about 15 per cent carbohydrate. It also contains all of the B vitamins.

Until further studies are carried out it, the whole bee pollen/royal jelly discussion will be inconclusive.  There’s a note of caution though; both could prove harmful to people who tend to have allergic reactions to bee stings, honey or ragweed pollen. Anyone with severe allergic reaction to bee stings should avoid both bee pollen and royal jelly.

The network will build on cancer research centres, first established in 2002, to bring laboratory advances quickly to patients. Each centre will receive funding from the Department of Health and Cancer Research United Kingdom to develop new treatments.

While clinics in France, the Netherlands and Italy offer cancer patients experimental treatments, no other European country has such a national network.

The government initiative also aims to speed up the drug testing process. Some experts estimate there are 500 potential new drugs in the pipeline, many stuck in the research phase as scientists recruit human volunteers.

Ramadan risks?

Previous research suggested that fasting didn’t increase stroke risk. However, doctors in Iran report that, during the month of Ramadan, when devout Muslims fast, they have more than 2.5 times as many cases of a rare type of stroke that affects mostly young adults and children.

Over a five-year period, 162 patients were admitted to the three hospitals in Isfahan, Iran, with these rare strokes. In 33 of the cases, the patients had been fasting, while only 129 cases occurred during the rest of the months of the year combined.

Turf war

The world seems to be on the brink of an artificial turf war. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission is looking into the possible health hazards of lead in artificial turf installed at schools, parks and stadiums across the country.

Two fields in New Jersey were closed recently after health officials detected unexpectedly high levels of lead in the synthetic turf and raised fears that athletes could swallow or inhale fibres or dust from the playing surface.

The United States has about 3,500 synthetic playing fields made of various materials, including nylon and polyethylene, and another 800 are installed each year at schools, colleges, parks and stadiums. Turf was once a luxury reserved for professional sports teams, but its use has exploded in recent years as a way to save costs and reduce water use.

Pigment containing lead chromate is used in some surfaces to make the grass green and hold its colour in sunlight. However, it is not clear how widely the compound is used. The New Jersey Health Department found lead in both of the nylon fields it tested, but in none of the 10 polyethylene surfaces it examined.

Scared shoeless

Japan has asked the maker of Crocs shoes and similar styled footwear to look into changing the design of the soft rubbery shoes after complaints that children wearing the colourful clogs have had their feet injured on escalators.

The Trade Ministry issued a warning after receiving 65 complaints about Crocs and similar products getting stuck in escalators. Most of the cases involved small children. The Washington Metro - one of the largest transit systems in the U.S. - has even posted ads warning about such shoes on its moving stairways. The ads feature a photo of a crocodile, which is the company logo, though the signs don’t mention Crocs by name.

In Singapore, a two-year-old girl wearing rubber clogs, it’s unclear what brand, had her big toe completely ripped off in an escalator accident last year, according to local media reports.

Crocs spokeswoman Tia Mattson said: “Escalator maintenance, footwear and user riding behaviour were the primary cause of accidents. We continue to be supportive of escalator safety initiatives and we will consider any recommendations the ministry has for footwear manufacturers.”

Tough choices

Commonly used incontinence drugs may cause memory problems in some older people, a study has found.

“Our message is to be careful when using these medicines,” said U.S. neurologist Dr. Jack Tsao, who led the study. “It may be better to use diapers and be able to think clearly than the other way around.”

Urinary incontinence sometimes can be resolved with non-drug treatments, so patients should ask about alternatives. Exercises, biofeedback and keeping to a schedule of bathroom breaks work for many.

Bladder control trouble affects about one in ten people aged 65 and older, according to the National Institute on Aging. Women are more likely to be affected than men. Causes include nerve damage, loss of muscle tone or, in men, enlarged prostate.

Happy times

News flash for rock stars and teenagers: it turns out everything doesn’t go downhill as we age - the golden years really are golden.

That’s according to research that found the happiest Americans are the oldest, and older adults are more socially active than the stereotype of the lonely senior suggests. The study found being social can help keep away the blues.

The study’s author Yang Yang, a University of Chicago sociologist, says older people have learned to be more content with what they have than younger adults. Yang’s findings are based on periodic face-to-face interviews with Americans from 1972 to 2004. About 28-thousand people aged 18 to 88 took part.

In general, the odds of being happy increased five per cent with every ten years of age.

Calorie counting

A federal judge has turned aside a challenge from New York restaurants and upheld the city’s rules requiring calories to be posted on some menus.

Judge Richard Holwell says in a ruling that the law is a reasonable approach to the city’s goal of reducing obesity.

The new law took effect on April 21st and applies to restaurants with more than 15 outlets across the country. That includes fast-food places like McDonald’s and such sit-down chains as Olive Garden and T-G-I Fridays. Some restaurants including Starbucks and Chipotle have already started to post calories on menus. The New York State Restaurant Association had challenged the law.

Thin’s not “in"

In image-conscious France, it may soon be a crime to glamorise the ultra-thin. A new French bill cracks down on websites that advise anorexics on how to starve and could be used to hit fashion industry heavyweights, too.

The groundbreaking bill, adopted recently by parliament’s lower house, recommends fines of up to 71 thousand dollars and three-year prison sentences. It would be applied to offenders who encourage “extreme thinness”. It goes to the Senate in the coming weeks.

Critics said the bill is too vague about whom it is targeting and doesn’t even clearly define “extreme thinness”.

The proposal marks the beginning of a mandatory 60-day consultation period. The announcement comes after a lengthy review of the chemical under the government’s Chemicals Management Plan. Recent research has shown that bisphenol A is an estrogenic hormone disrupter that causes reproductive damage and may lead to prostate and breast cancer in adulthood. Babies are particularly vulnerable, since most traditional plastic baby bottles leach bisphenol A into the milk they drink.

“Although our science tells us that exposure levels to newborns and infants are below the level that cause effects, we believe that the current safety margin needs to be higher. We have concluded that it is better to be safe than sorry,” said a government release.

While the proposed ban does not include sale, import and advertising of water bottles and other food containers, major retailers across the country were pulling plastic drink containers containing BPA off store shelves within hours of the announcement. Retailers say demand for baby products with the controversial chemical come to an abrupt halt. 

Depending on whom you talk to, BPA is either perfectly safe or a dangerous health risk. The plastics industry says it is harmless, but a growing number of scientists are concluding, from some animal tests, that exposure to BPA in the womb raises the risk of certain cancers, hampers fertility and could contribute to childhood behavioural problems such as hyperactivity.

According to its critics, BPA mimics naturally occurring estrogen, a hormone that is part of the endocrine system, the body’s finely tuned messaging service. “These hormones control the development of the brain, the reproductive system and many other systems in the developing foetus,” says Frederick vom Saal, Ph.D., a developmental biologist at the University of Missouri. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals can duplicate, block or exaggerate hormonal responses. “The most harm is to the unborn or newborn child,” vom Saal says.

BPA is not some new kid on the chemical block. It was first discovered in the 19th century and concerns about health risks were first raised in the 1930’s. It was thrust into the spotlight by a laboratory mishap in August 1998. An American geneticist noticed chromosomal errors in the mouse cells she was studying had shot up - from one or two percent to 40 percent. She traced the effect to polycarbonate cages and water bottles that had been washed with a harsh detergent. When her team replaced all the caging materials with non-polycarbonate plastics, the cell division returned to normal.

Concern over bisphenol is likely to spread due to its wide use. If you consume canned soups, beans and soft drinks (organic or not) you may be swallowing residues of BPA that can leak out of the tin linings into your food. Nearly all tin can liners contain BPA, says the Can Manufacturers Institute.

Part of the problem lies in the chemical’s tenacious behaviour. BPA has been found to leach from bottles into babies’ milk or formula; it migrates from tin liners into foods and soda and from epoxy resin-lined vats into wine; and it is found in the mouths of people who’ve recently had their teeth sealed. Ninety-five percent of Americans were found to have the chemical in their urine in a 2004 biomonitoring study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

If you own polycarbonate bottles, including those hard plastic refillable bottles that have become so popular in recent years, Check the bottom for a number #7 inside the recycling symbol. If you have a bottle like that, wash it by hand, away from the extreme heat and harsh cleansers of a dishwasher, to avoid degrading the plastic and increasing leaching of BPA. 

Look for cracks or cloudiness on your reusable clear plastic bottles. Use glass baby bottles or plastic bag inserts, which are made of polyethylene, or switch to polypropylene bottles that are labelled #5 and come in colours or are milky rather than clear. Choose soups, milk and soy milk packaged in cardboard “brick” cartons, by Tetra Pak and SIG Combibloc, which are made of safer layers of aluminium and polyethylene (#2) and also recyclable. 

Eat fresh foods in season and save the canned foods for convenience or emergencies. The exception is some canned fruit such as that found in smaller fruit-cocktail cans, which do not require a liner, according to the Can Manufacturers Institute. Some wines have been found to contain up to six times the BPA of canned foods. While most wines probably don’t, it’s another good reason to drink in moderation.

There are seven classes of plastics used worldwide in packaging applications. Type 7 is the catch-all “other” class, and some type 7 plastics, such as polycarbonate (sometimes identified with the letters “PC” near the recycling symbol) and epoxy resins, are made from bisphenol A monomer. When such plastics are exposed to hot liquids, bisphenol A leaches out 55 times faster than it does under normal conditions,

Types 2, 4, and 5 are believed to not leach chemicals in any significant amount. Type 1 and Type 6 have unreacted phthalates and styrene, respectively, which could leach under certain conditions, but these resins do not use bisphenol A during polymerization and package forming.

The message refers to a 2007 study in The British Journal of Cancer that found an increased risk of breast cancer among postmenopausal women who ate large amounts of grapefruit. But that study is being disputed.

In the group of women, more than 46,000 overall, those who ate about a half a grapefruit every other day had a 30 per cent higher risk of breast cancer than those who ate none, even after other risk factors were taken into account. Scientists said they suspected that an enzyme in grapefruit known as CYP3A4 had the ability to increase oestrogen.

But a more recent report, published 2008 in the same journal, reached a far different conclusion. That analysis used data from the Nurses’ Health Study, which followed more than 77,000 women 30 to 55 over many years. The scientists looked at intake of both grapefruit and grapefruit juice and found no rise in breast cancer risk, either among women over all, or among postmenopausal women.

You’re smarter than you think

The human brain seems to be able to detect the calorie content of food, even when it’s not tasting it.

Researchers at Duke University Centre genetically altered the brains of mice, making them unable to perceive sweet tastes. The sweet-blind mice were given a choice of a sugar solution and one sweetened with a fake non-caloric sweetener. They found the mice showed a decided preference for the higher-calorie solution with real sugar, indicating that the calorie content, not the taste, likely governed their decision.

The study shows that even in the absence of taste, changes in the body let the brain know a high-calorie food has been ingested. “Our findings suggest that calorie-rich nutrients can directly influence brain reward circuits that control food intake independently of taste,” the authors write.

This means that if a person is dieting and consuming lower-calorie foods, the body will still sense that it isn’t getting enough calories. This finding could change how obesity is tackled, viewing the consumption of foods as a process that is driven not only by taste but also by caloric training of the brain.  The study is published in the March 27 2008 issue of the journal Neuron.

Smells dangerous to me

Some people just seem to be able to smell danger, and they may be right. Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago, found that a single bad experience connected to a smell quickly teaches the nose to identify and distinguish the scent.

Researchers presented eight females and four males with a pair of nearly identical grassy smells in a set of three vials. The participants couldn’t distinguish between the scents. Then, they electrically shocked the participants in conjunction with one of the smells. After a series of shocks, the study said the participants were better able to distinguish between the similar scents.

The finding, says the report, “illustrates the tremendous power of the human sense of smell to learn from emotional experience”.

“Odours that once were impossible to tell apart became easy to identify when followed by an aversive event.”

The study was published in the March 28 2008 edition of the journal Science.

Easing damage to hearts

Researchers from Johns Hopkins University say studies in rats show that high doses of folate, already used to prevent anemia in pregnant women and to prevent birth defects, can blunt the effects of heart attacks.

Giving the supplement for days before a heart attack or infusing it into the bloodstream during an attack reduced damage to the heart by 90 per cent, they found in a study that will be published next month in the journal Circulation.

The researchers cautioned that people should not self-medicate until a clinical trial can be performed, but they held out hope that the supplement could be used prophylactically in people at high risk for heart attacks and to treat victims.

Please spit

Long considered the epitome of bad manners, there may be some merit in spitting.

Researchers have identified all 1,116 unique proteins found in human saliva glands, a discovery that they say could usher in a wave of convenient spit-based diagnostic tests to replace the drawing of blood.  As many as 20 per cent of the proteins that are found in saliva are also found in blood, they said.

The researchers hope saliva-based tests can be used to diagnose cancer, heart disease, diabetes and a number of other conditions, they report in the Journal of Proteome Research. Like a genome, which lists all of the genes in an organism, a proteome is a complete map of proteins. While genes provide the instruction manual, proteins carry out the instructions by regulating cellular processes.

House dust is a mixture of many substances, and can vary from home to home. Depending on building materials, type of furniture and floor coverings and the presence of pets, each home will have a unique dust profile but for the allergy sufferer the effect is the same: several months of itchy watery eyes, sneezing, wheezing and a range of other respiratory issues. 

A spec of dust may contain fabric fibres, human skin particles, animal dander, microscopic creatures called mites, bacteria, parts of cockroaches, mold spores, food particles and other debris. Of these, animal dander, house dust mites and cockroaches are the most common culprits. A person may be allergic to one or more of these substances, and, if exposed to the dust, will have an allergic reaction.

Tiny microscopic creatures called dust mites are the major cause of allergic reactions to house dust. Dust mites are hardy creatures that live well and multiply easily in warm, humid places. They prefer warm temperatures (above 70 degrees F) and high humidity (+ 75 percent) As many as 10 percent of the general population and 90 percent of people with allergic asthma are sensitive to dust mites.

People who are allergic to dust mites react to proteins in the bodies and feces of the mites. These fecal particles are found in the highest concentrations in pillows, mattresses, carpeting and upholstered furniture. They float into the air when anyone vacuums, walks on a carpet or disturbs bedding, but settle out of the air once the disturbance is over. Dust mite-allergic people who inhale these particles frequently experience allergy symptoms.

In fact, a dust mite allergic patient who sleeps for eight hours every night spends one third of his life with his nose in direct contact with a pillow loaded with dust mite particles!

There may be many as 19,000 dust mites in one gram of dust, but usually between 100 to 500 mites live in each gram. (a gram is about the weight of a paper clip). Each mite produces about 10 to 20 waste particles per day and lives for 30 days. Egg-laying females can add 25 to 30 new mites to the population during their lifetime.

Mites eat particles of skin and dander, so they thrive in places where there are people. Dust mites don’t bite, cannot spread diseases and usually do not live on people. They are harmful only to people who become allergic to them. While usual household insecticides have no effect on dust mites, there are ways to reduce exposure to dust mites in the home.

Molds are commonly found in outdoor air. However, any house can develop a mold problem given the right conditions. You might not see it growing on the walls, but it may still be present in your home. Molds thrive in a humid environment and like to grow on wallboard, wood or fabrics, but will grow virtually any place if they are given a chance. Molds spread by producing spores that can become airborne, ending up in house dust where they grow. Dust from mold-contaminated houses can cause allergy symptoms in the mold-sensitive person.

A dust allergy is not necessarily the sign of a dirty home however; normal housekeeping may not be enough to get rid of house dust allergy symptoms, particularly in older villas where AC ducts have never been cleaned. Many of the particles in dust cannot be removed by normal cleaning procedures. No matter how vigorously you dust or vacuum, you won’t reduce the number of dust mites present deep within carpeting, pillows and mattresses. Vigorous cleaning methods can actually put more dust into the air making symptoms worse.

Forced-air cooling systems tend to blow dust particles into the air. In a climate such as that in the UAE people may have fewer symptoms from house-dust exposure during the winter months because they spend more time outdoors, and they tend to use their air conditioning less. 
The three basic treatments for dust mite allergy are:

* Dust mite avoidance
* Prescription medications
* Allergy shots (immunotherapy)

House dust avoidance works best to relieve symptoms. But how do you avoid house dust?  Dust mites can be difficult to remove completely from your home. However, you can follow certain anti-mite procedures that will reduce mite populations and your exposure to them, thereby reducing your symptoms. Some of these procedures are difficult and you may not need to do them all.

Pay special attention to bedrooms. On average, people spend one-third of their lives in the bedroom. Studies have shown that, of all the rooms in the home, the bedroom often contains the most dust mites. Concentrate efforts in the bedroom of the dust-sensitive person. Select non-allergic, washable bedding materials. Rather than pillows stuffed with feathers, use pillows stuffed with synthetic materials.

Get special casings (plastic or rubberized fabric) that zip around mattresses, box springs and pillows. These limit your exposure to dust mite particles. Avoid bulky comforters and chenille bedspreads. Use washable blankets and spreads, and wash all bedding (including pillows without cases) every week to 10 days, using hot water.  Lowering humidity reduces the number of mites, molds and cockroaches.

If you want to check how much dust and debris is being circulated in your flat or villa, place a filter made of cheesecloth over the AC vent for a few days and see how much dust it picks up.

Clean your home thoroughly on a regular basis (particularly the bedrooms). Vacuum frequently and dust with a damp or oiled cloth. Vacuuming can raise a cloud of dust. Special vacuum cleaner bags for trapping dust are available. Consider a HEPA (High Efficiency Particulate Arresting) air filtered vacuum. These expensive units are not necessary for all patients.

You may need to remove carpeting, especially in the bedroom. Carpeting is a breeding ground for dust mites. If you must have carpeting, select a type with low pile. Scatter rugs that can be washed each week are a better alternative. If possible, you might be better off to avoid carpets altogether, as mites don’t like to live on uncarpeted floors.

Remove any items that tend to collect or hold dust and replace them with easy-to-clean items. Use wooden, leather or vinyl covered sofas and chairs instead of upholstered furniture. Select closed bookcases and curio cabinets instead of open shelves. Books and knick-knacks are dust collectors. Use washable curtains or window shades.  Choose furniture with simple, clean designs instead of ornately carved pieces. Select easily cleaned decorations instead of dried-flower arrangements, wall hangings and straw baskets.

Use air-conditioning to keep inside humidity at 50 per cent or lower to slow the growth of dust mites and molds during warm weather months. An inexpensive hygrometer will help you monitor humidity. Change or clean air-conditioner filters often. In some cases, your physician may recommend using a HEPA cleaner on your heating system or a portable HEPA filter unit in your bedroom. The portable units are efficient at cleaning air in their immediate vicinity but are of limited use in large rooms. They have not been shown to be useful for patients with dust mite allergy, since the dust mite particles are not airborne.

If you follow these procedures to reduce your exposure to house dust but allergy symptoms persist, your doctor may recommend other treatment methods such as medications or allergy shots. Consult an allergist to determine the most effective treatment method for you. You can gain control of your dust mite allergy and achieve relief from allergy symptoms.

Antihistamines contain drugs that neutralize the histamines produced when allergens irritate your immune system. Newer allergy medications are less likely to make people drowsy. Most allergy pills are available over the counter—you don’t need a prescription. If your symptoms are more severe, there are nasal sprays and eye drops you can also take. Several require a prescription.

They got her cleaned up and got her a new plate of food. While she appeared a bit shaken up, she went about enjoying herself the rest of the evening.

Shortly after the party ended, the lady’s husband called to telling everyone that his wife had been taken to the hospital. She died a few hours later.

The barbecue guest had suffered a stroke. Had her friends known how to identify the signs, she may still have been with us today. Some stroke victims don’t die, of course, but many also end up in helpless, hopeless condition with severe brain damage.

A top neurologist has said that if he can get to a stroke victim within three hours, he can minimise or even totally reverse the effects. The trick is getting a stroke recognised, diagnosed and getting the patient the appropriate medical treatment within those three vital hours.

So how do you recognise if someone has suffered a stroke? Remember the first three letters of the word - STRoke. Just ask the person three simple questions:

S: Ask the individual to SMILE .
T: TALK. Ask the person to speak a simple sentence coherently. For example: “It is sunny outside today.”
R: Ask him or her to RAISE both arms.

If he or she has trouble with any one of these tasks, call an ambulance immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.

Another sign of a possible stroke is a “crooked” tongue. Ask the person to stick out their tongue - if it’s not straight, again seek medical advice without delay.

Garlic’s Latin name is Allium Sativum, placing it in the family of perennial bulbous plants that includes onions, leeks and shallots. It is native to Central Asia and has long been a key ingredient in Mediterranean cooking. Widely used in most of Europe, Asia and Africa, it only became popular in the past 100 years in North America, one of the by-products of massive immigration and referred to by some as Bronx vanilla. 

Garlic’s history is almost as strong as its smell. It was grown in ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists found clay models of garlic bulbs in the tomb of Tutankhamen. Ancient Greek athletes competing in the earliest Olympic games turned not to steroids but to garlic to enhance their performance. Early Greek soldiers were fed garlic before going into battle to give them courage and increase the odds of victory.

In what’s believed to be the first written mention of garlic, a Sumerian clay tablet dating back more than 4,500 years names the herb in a list of dietary staples. A thousand years later, the Ebers Papyrus — one of the world’s oldest medical texts — lists hundreds of herbal remedies. Twenty-two of them include garlic as an ingredient.

While garlic’s medicinal qualities have been touted for thousands of years, it was only in the middle of the 19th century that scientists began to understand what made garlic effective.

In 1858, the French chemist Louis Pasteur placed cloves of garlic in a petri dish full of bacteria. A few days later, he noticed that a bacteria-free area surrounded each clove. During the Second World War, the British and Russian armies faced a shortage of penicillin. Instead, they used diluted garlic solutions to disinfect open wounds. Modern research has attributed garlic’s healing powers to hundreds of volatile sulfur compounds including allicin, which gives garlic its distinct odour.

Since Pasteur’s early work on garlic’s bacteria-killing power, the herb has been credited with killing 23 types of bacteria, including salmonella and staphylococcus. There has been a raft of studies in recent years looking at garlic’s medicinal qualities.

The power of garlic has become almost mythical in proportion. Not all of the modern research is enthusiastic when it comes to the benefits of the bud. For example, a study published in the Archives of Internal Medicine in February 2007 found that garlic does not lower levels of bad cholesterol. The study involved 192 adults, average age of 50. At the end of it, half the raw garlic eaters reported breath and body odour. Others reported flatulence. There was virtually no effect on cholesterol levels in any of the groups.

Another study, five years earlier, found that Chinese men who ate a lot of vegetables from the allium food group were 50 per cent less likely than other Chinese men to develop prostate cancer. Chinese men have the lowest rate of prostate cancer in the world.

Among the claims made by those who worship garlic: it prevents certain types of cancers, helps regulate blood sugar metabolism, stimulates and detoxifies the liver, stimulates the nervous system and blood circulation, thins the blood as effectively as aspirin – the list goes on and on…

While the scientific jury is still deliberating, garlic can still pose some risks. There have been cases of botulism where people have stuck cloves of garlic in oil to flavour the oil. Refrigeration may help slow down the growth of spores that cause botulism, but it may not be enough to stop the oil from spoiling. This type of oil should be consumed within a week of making it. After that, it should be thrown away.

Health officials also recommend that you not consume garlic for seven to ten days before you are scheduled for surgery, because garlic’s blood-thinning capabilities can prolong bleeding. You should also avoid eating too much raw garlic, a clove or two a day is considered safe in adults. But more of it, especially on an empty stomach, can upset your gastrointestinal system – and maybe leave you on your own at a party.

Garlic Trivia:

300 BC: Theophrastus, a scholar and pupil of Aristotle, claims that garlic was placed by ancient Greeks on mounds of stones at crossroads for Hecate, the goddess of witchcraft and magic.

500: The Talmud, one of the core texts of Judaism, names garlic as an aphrodisiac, claiming it warms the body, makes the face shine, and increases seminal fluid.

1652: The Complete Herbal, written by British physician Nicholas Culpeper, credits garlic with powers such as healing bites of mad dogs and venomous creatures, ridding children of worms, and curing ulcers.

1858: French chemist Louis Pasteur is the first to describe garlic’s antibacterial properties, after observing bacteria he exposed to the herb die.

1897: English writer Bram Stoker’s famous novel Dracula refers to the long-standing European superstition that garlic protects against vampires and werewolves. Some suggest that Count Dracula himself was the mastermind behind the belief – since the herb has been shown to thin the blood, it would decrease clotting action, making it easier for vampires to feast on people who consumed it!

1944: Italian chemist C J Cavallito and partner J H Bailey, are the first to identify allicin, the major biologically active component of garlic. The allyl sulphur has been identified as the key ingredient responsible for the herb’s anti-bacterial properties. Subsequent research has also credited it with lowering fat, guarding against blood clots and high blood pressure, and preventing cancer.

1956: Christopher Ranch, now the largest privately owned garlic cultivation site in the U.S., starts as a 10-acre operation. The founder was 22 at the time and decided to grow the herb because he was sick of cultivating prunes with the rest of his family. The facility now produces more that 60 million pounds of garlic a year.

1979: About 15,000 people attend the first annual Gilroy Garlic Festival in California. The three-day summer festival features live music, arts, crafts and food (such as garlic wine, garlic ice cream, and garlic sushi). The event attracts more than 125,000 attendees, and Gilroy is dubbed the “Garlic Capital of The World.” And yes, there is a Garlic Queen. http://www.gilroygarlicfestival.com/

1980: A rash of clinical research examining the role of garlic in reducing blood pressure, heart attack, and stroke begins. Some studies find the herb can reduce blood pressure, decrease cholesterol, fend off common colds, enhance the immune system, and prevent cancer. Garlic is not, however, recommended for preventing or curing bad breath. 

No suicide note was found. The medical examiner determined that the teen had died at 9:30pm the previous night. After the teen’s death, the family learned that the girl had confided in a cousin that she recently had played the “choking game” in the locker room at school and that a group of girls at her school had been suspended for playing the game.

A recently-released report from the Centres for Disease Control in Atlanta is setting off alarm bells among parents. The report says that at least 82 children and teens in the United States have died as a result of playing the “choking game” over the past decade. And the CDC says there is no reason to presume the game is limited to the US.

The game, also known as the pass-out, blackout, or scarf game, involves intentionally choking oneself or being choked by someone else to the point where the player experiences a brief state of euphoria or a high caused by cerebral hypoxia. .

Researchers, counting media reports dating from 1995, found that 82 children aged six to 19 died while playing the game. They did not include deaths where a connection to the choking game was unclear. So, if anything, the actual number of deaths could be much much higher, because the CDC research was limited to media reports and because specific causes of deaths are not reported in all cases.

Nearly 90 per cent of the deaths occurred among males and most deaths occurred among players aged 11 to 16, with an average age of 13. Researchers found that most deaths, 95.7 per cent, happened among youths playing the game alone. Choking game-related deaths were reported in 31 states.

“This report is an important first step in identifying the choking game as a public health problem,” said a CDC spokesman. “More research is needed to identify risk factors that may contribute to kids playing the choking game and to determine what may help to reduce this type of behaviour.”

In most cases of deaths, the children were playing alone and their parents were not aware of the game, the researchers said. 

“Because most parents in the study had not heard of the choking game, we hope to raise awareness of the choking game among parents, health-care providers and educators, so they can recognize warning signs of the activity,” said lead author Robin L. Toblin. “This is especially important because children themselves may not appreciate the dangers of this activity.”

The CDC says signs a child or teen may be playing the game include:

• Discussion of the game.
• Bloodshot eyes.
• Marks on the neck.
• Severe headaches.
• Disorientation after time spent alone.
• Ropes, scarves and belts tied to furniture, doorknobs or found knotted on the floor.
• The unexplained presence of things like dog leashes, choke collars and bungee cords.

Parents who believe their child is playing the game should speak to them about the life-threatening dangers and seek additional help if necessary, the CDC says.

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