Mobile phone use may stave off Alzheimer's

WASHINGTON, US - Talking on a mobile phone could be good for you, because the electromagnetic waves emitted by the devices could protect against and even reverse Alzheimer's disease, a study on mice showed Wednesday.

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Blood Type 'B'

In general, type `B' blood group of people may be classified as independant individuals. Type Bs will also experience exhaustion but after few weeks on regular exercise basis, one will feel well-conditioned and energized by the exercise.

Type Bs tend to be very emotionally centered. Consequently, they are far more sensitive to
stress-related imbalances, but they respond very quickly to stress-reducing techniques, and
recover from stress much more quickly than Type As. For Type Bs, they may benefit from the following diet and lifestyle strategies:

Lifestyle Strategies
• Visualization is a powerful technique for Type Bs. If you can visualize it, you can achieve it.
• Find healthy ways to express your non-conformist side.
• Spend at least twenty minutes a day in some creative task that requires your complete attention.
• Go to bed no later than 11.00pm and sleep for 8 hours or more.
• Use visualization to relax during breaks.
• Engage in a community, neighbourhood, or other group activity that gives you a meaningful connection to a group. Type Bs are natural born networkers.
• Be spontaneous.

Eat right for Strength and Balance
• Reduce carbohydrate cravings by eating six small meals a day instead of three larger meals.
• When you feel tired, eat some protein.
• Eat small to moderate portions of high-quality, lean, organic meat several times a week for strength, energy and efficient metabolism.
• Include regular portions of richly oiled cold-water fish. Fish oils can boost your metabolism.
• Don’t under-eat or skip meals, especially if you’re expending a lot of energy in exercise. Food deprivation is a huge stress.
• Plan ahead to have foods on hand for a quick energy snack. This is especially important if you’re on the go during the day. It is very difficult to find food on the road that isn’t high in sugar, wheat or corn.
• Cut back on sugar, this can promote insulin resistance.
• Cut down on consumption of wheat, corn, tomatoes, peanuts and especially chicken. Chicken contains a dangerous lectin that may agglutinate the blood, which may lead to long term health complications.

Stress: Emotional Equalizers
For emotional health and avoidance of Type B-related mind-body imbalances, incorporate the following behaviors into your daily life.
• Maintain physical and mental balance.
• Apply relaxation technique where visualization helps a lot.
• Apply breathing techniques.

I am 'O' type blood group

Get to Know Yourself Better

Do you know that certain characteristics are linked to each blood type? Find out your own blood type and that of the people around you and see if your character and theirs match what is mentioned below.

Blood Type `O’

(Extroverted)

Responsible

Decisive

Organized

Objective

Rule-conscious

Practical

Confident

Patient

Logical

Blood Type `A’

(Introverted)

Sensitive to the needs of others

Listeners

Detail-oriented

Analytical

Perfectionist

Cooperative

Demanding

Inventive

Blood Type `B’

(Independent)

Subjective

Easygoing

Creative

Original

Flexible

Blood Type `AB’

(Intuitive)

Emotional

Independent

Passionate

Friendly

Trusting

Empathetic

Blood Type `O’

In general, type `O' blood group of people may be classified as extroverted individuals.

Most of the time, they are the more organized group of people and tend to be more

responsible in their work. Basically, they are more objective-orientated when executing tasks.

When it comes to stress, the 'O' people require a lot more to knock them off kilter.

However, once they are pushed to the point of dramatic response, it usually takes

them longer to recover.

For Type Os, they may benefit from the following diet and lifestyle strategies:

Lifestyle Strategies

• Develop a clear plan for goals and tasks - annual, monthly, weekly, daily.

• Make lifestyle changes gradually, rather than trying to tackle everything at once

• Avoid making big decisions or spending money when you are stressed.

• Do something physical when you are anxious.

• Engage in forty-five to sixty minutes of aerobic exercises at least three times a week

Dietary Guidelines

• Eat small to moderate portion of high-quality, lean, organic meat several times a week for strength, energy and efficient metabolism.

• Include regular portions of richly oiled cold-water fish. Fish provides omega-3

fatty acids, which can help counter inflammatory conditions, improve thyroid function and boost your metabolism.

• Consume little or no dairy foods. They are difficult for you to digest.

• Eliminate wheat and wheat-based products from your diet. They usually cause more problems than any other food for Type Os. If you have digestive or weight problems, also eliminate oats.

• Limit your intake of beans, as they are not a particularly good protein source.

• Eat lots of beneficial fruits and vegetables.

• If you need a daily dose of caffeine, replace coffee with green tea. It is not acidic and has substantially less caffeine than a cup of coffee.

• Use beneficial and neutral nuts and dried fruits for snacks.

• Eat all meals, even snacks, seated at a table.

• Chew slowly, and put your fork down between bites of food.

• When you crave a pleasure-releasing substance (alcohol, tobacco, sugar), do something physical.

Eat right for Strength and Balance

• Avoid caffeine and alcohol, especially when you are in stressful situations.

Caffeine can be particularly harmful, because of its tendency to raise adrenaline and noradrenaline - which is already high for Type Os

• If you start to crave wheat, eat some protein; the craving will usually go away

• Don't under-eat or skip meals, especially if you're expending a lot of energy in exercise. Food deprivation is a huge stress

• Plan ahead to have foods on hand for a quick energy snack. This is especially important if you're on the go during the day. It is very difficult to find fast food that doesn't contain wheat.

Stress: Emotional Equalizers

For emotional health and avoidance of Type O-related mind-body imbalances, incorporate the following behaviors into your daily life.

• Practice anger management techniques

• Plan your weeks and days to minimize monotony. When Type Os get bored, they tend to take unreasonable risks

• Break up your work day with physical activity, especially if your job is sedentary. You’ll feel more energetic.

• Set up “small” rewards you can give yourself when you accomplish tasks.

• Stop smoking and avoid stimulants

Do you have high blood pressure?

One of the perks of being in the healthcare industry is that we often get free health tests provided by our suppliers or vendors. Before selling us anything, they are very obliging in giving us free demos or even supplying us with free test meters for self-monitoring. It is common to get glucose, uric acid, bone and cholesterol tests at local hospitals/labs but we normally need to wait a week or two for the blood test results. Thus, we are very happy if we do get the occasional self-run kits that can give you instant results. Imagine finding out your cholesterol, triglycerides, bad and good cholesterol levels with just a finger-prick and results in just under 3 minutes, within the comfort of your home.

I do encourage the 20 – 30 somethings to go for yearly blood check-up. More so for the elderly. From there, you can have an idea whether you are at risk of suffering from stroke, heart attacks, diabetes or even liver disorders. However, normal blood test does not include blood pressure monitoring. This, you can easily walk up to any local pharmacies and the health experts can do it for you for free (or a small fee).

Many people may experience high blood pressure (HBP) without realising it as most will not show any symptoms. The only way to know is through self-monitoring, or get some body to do the testing for you or when you start feeling dizzy, thinking that it may be due to your over-tight pants (I know of a person who is dear to me who thought just that and had all his pants altered!).

Blood pressure is recorded as two numbers:

a) Systolic pressure (the top number in a reading) denotes when the heart contracts and forces blood through the arteries.

b) Diastolic pressure (the bottom number) reflects when the heart relaxes.

Normal blood pressure is a reading of 120 over 80 (often written as 120/80) or lower (but not too low until you have low blood pressure). It is important to note that blood pressure fluctuates. It is highest in the morning and lowest at night. In some people with blood pressure that remain chronically high, this is then known as hypertension.

High blood pressure is defined as a systolic pressure at rest that averages 140mmHg or more, a diastolic pressure at rest that averages 90 mmHg or more, or both. Medical term is hypertension. Hypertension is defined as blood pressure averaging 140/90 or higher over at least three separate measurements.

Symptoms of high blood pressure may include headaches, bouts of dizzy spells, nausea and fatigue. Some people may even suffer from ringing of the ears. Common contributing factors for HBP include obesity, smoking, gender (men are twice likely to suffer from hypertension than women), a high-salt diet and family history. It is interesting to note that in 90% of people with hypertension, the cause is usually unknown.

High blood pressure is indeed a silent killer as it can increase the risk of stroke, heart failure and kidney failure.

High blood pressure can easily be maintained with diet and lifestyle changes. Same as sugar, we Malaysians tend to consume way too much salt. Therefore, cut back on salt intake. Diet should be high in fiber and complex carbohydrates but low in animal produce, animal fats, highly processed foods and refined carbohydrates. It is also important to cut back on caffeine and alcohol intake. Some people may need medication for extra help.

Quit smoking and to deal with stress, opt for relaxation techniques such as yoga and meditation. Last but not least, maintain an ideal body weight (especially if you are heavy around the waist). In addition, you may consider fish oil and antioxidants to help reduce blood pressure and to protect the heart and blood vessels.