Previous studies have shown that giving birth before age twenty five and having many children protects against certain types of breast cancer , while delayed child birth is associated with a higher risk of breast cancer.

The most important finding of the new study is that breastfeeding seems to lower the risk of developing breast cancer that comes from having children later in life according to an associate professor of preventive medicine at the University of Southern California and the study’s lead author.

Results of the study were announced at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Los Angeles.

“As more women may chose to delay pregnancy until after age twenty five, it is important to note that breastfeeding provides protection against both estrogen and progesterone receptor positive and negative tumors”, the associate professor said.

Women who develop breast cancer that is hormone receptor negative have a much poorer prognosis than women with other type of breast cancer.

The researchers analyzed data for women age fifty five and older, including 995 invasive breast cancer patients, and found that breastfeeding appears to have a protective effect regardless of when they started giving birth.

This is important since having many children was only protective among women who began having children at an early age. Evidence suggests that women who have children after age twenty five can reduce their risk of breast cancer by choosing to breastfeed, the associate professor concluded.

According to US Census data, twenty five is the average age that women in the US first give birth.

The study was funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development and by the National Cancer Institute.

Hospital officials and personnel should be strict in applying standards in health care to avoid infection among the babies. Neonatal sepsis is a serious bacterial infection in the blood that kills 8,000 newly born babies each year based on Philippine experience.

Standard in health care for babies should begin with safe cutting of the umbilical cord, immediately placing the infant with its mother, exclusive breastfeeding within an hour of birth, and moving in the baby with the mother thereafter.

The cord should be cut with a sterile blade and keep clean and dry. The three “cleans” should be strictly observed and practiced at all times: clean hands, clean perineal area (genital area) and clean umbilical area.

Apart from maintaining a clean hospital environment, birthing women, birth attendants and others. Handling the baby should observe strict personal hygiene particularly hand washing.

Internal examination of the mother during labor and delivery should also be minimized and conducted by trained birth attendants, with clean hands and covered by sterile gloves according to the specialist’s advice.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has appealed to hospitals to tightened their infection control measures to avoid neonatal sepsis. The WHO has further advised that handling the baby and invasive intervention such as setting up intravenous lines should be conducted only when and where there is a proven need.

All equipment coming in contact with intact skin must be washed thoroughly. However, instruments contacting mucous membranes or non intact skin should be sterilized,boiled or chemically disinfected, and those penetrating the skin should be sterilized.

Initiation of breastfeeding in the first hour of birth is also a recommended preventive measure. Newborns should be placed on the mother’s bare abdomen or chest immediately upon birth.

“Family bacteria” on a mother’s body is “friendly” and immediate skin to skin contact of the baby and mother according to the medical specialist facilitates this bacteria or grow in on the baby and prevents unfriendly bacteria in attacking the infant.

The first milk that comes out of a mother’s breast called colostrum,is highly important and serves as the baby’s first immunization since it contains high concentration of nutrients and antibodies needed by newborns to resist infections.

Colostrum contains large number of immunoglobulin that help protect the mucous membrane in the throat, lungs and intestines from germs.

Leukocytes are also present to protect against harmful viruses.Colostrum also facilitates growth of beneficial bacteria that line the digestive tract to ward off infection.

Breastfeeding and rooming-in or placing the child with its mother can dramatically reduce the number of neonatal sepsis cases, the experts cited.

It was also noted in a study that ninety five percent of deaths caused by neonatal sepsis were prevented by breastfeeding and rooming-in.

Also significant in the study was an eighty nine percent reduction in the number of infants who showed signs of sepsis. It was also noted that those who were feed with animal milk or formula only were eighteen times more likely to get neonatal sepsis than those receiving breast milk.

Good prenatal care can also prevent neonatal sepsis as well as many other conditions that can endanger the newborn.

Nevertheless, seafood-borne disease cause a significant number of illness and deaths worldwide, and people should be wary of them.

Most health problems associated with seafood are due either to contaminants that are present in the environment where the seafoods (i.e. shellfish or fish) are grown or improper handling.

Many shellfish like oysters, muzzles, clams, etc. hardly move, hence, they need to filter a lot of water to obtain food. In the process disease causing bacteria, viruses and other microorganism that are present in their immediate environment tend to accumulate and concentrate in them.

It is thus, risky to eat raw or half cooked shellfish that are grown and harvested in polluted waters because of the possibility of food poisoning.

Pathogenic bacteria can also grow in a stale and poorly handled fish, but fresh and properly prepared deep sea fish can be eaten raw.

Another health risk that shellfish carry on a seasonal basis is red tide. Red tide which occurs at certain times of the year, is caused by the proliferation of dinoflagellates, a type of phytoplanktons that exude a lethal toxin. Dinoflagellate toxin is not destroyed by cooking.

In fish, removal of the entrails or abdominal organs before cooking makes the fish ready for human consumption, but there is no way to remove dinoflagellate toxin from shellfish. Hence, when the red tide warning is up, people should refrain from eating shellfish.

The dumping of chemical pollutants into the sea is an additional growing concern associated with seafoods because their chemicals find their way into the food chain and accumulate in the tissues of sea creatures.

Most seafood-borne diseases can be traced to pollution in the area where the sea creatures are harvested. Seafood-borne illnesses are best prevented by proper monitoring of the fish industry by the concerned government agencies.

At the personal level as consumer, people can help prevent these diseases byobserving the following precautions:

1.) Eat only shellfish and fish that are cultured or harvested from known safe areas.

2.) Remove the entrails of fish before storing them in the freezer.

3.) Preferably, shellfish and fish should be cooked thoroughly before they are consumed. Eat seafood raw only if they are fresh and handled properly. Seafood that are safe to eat are deep sea fish. Fresh water fish have to be cooked because some of the parasites they carry can also caused illness in humans.

4.) Keep raw or live seafood separate from cooked seafood.

5.) Wash knives, chopping boards, and cooking utensils with soap and water before using them to prepare seafood.

6.) Observe proper personal hygiene before handling seafood.

The Food and Drug Administration, however, has reported and concluded with its safety experts that eating a miniscule amount of melamine – 2.5 parts per million is still within tolerance, even a person has a daily intake of such dosage.

The explanation by the food safety program director of the FDA, would be like, having a million grains of sand that were all white and you have two or three grains that are black.

Melamine levels in imported Chinese candies recalled last week in California were as high as 520 parts per million, about 200 times greater than the level set by FDA for “tolerable” risk.

In China, melamine tainted formula has sickened more than 54,000 children mainly with kidney problems and is being blamed for the death of at least four.

The industrial chemical has also turned up in products sold across Asia ranging from candies, to chocolates, to coffee drinks all of which used dairy ingredients from China.

In California and Connecticut, White Rabbit candies from China were recalled after authorities found melamine. And recently, a New Jersey company announced, that it was recalling a yogurt type drink from China, “Blue Cat Flavor Drink”, after FDA testing found melamine.

Although, no illness have been reported to this effect in the US, authorities are checking for any tell tale increase in reports of kidney problems.

The FDA says, infant formula sold in the US is safe because manufacturers do not use ingredients from China. FDA stressed that the melamine risk assessment issued recently by them does not mean US authorities will condone foods deliberately spiked with the chemical.

The 2.5 parts per million standard is meant to address situations in which the chemical accidentally comes into contact with food. Plastic food processing equipment, for example, may have been made using melamine and some of the chemical might find its way into food.

Melamine first came to the attention of US consumers last year, when it touched off a massive pet food recall. Chinese suppliers of bulk pet food ingredients were found to have been adding the chemical to artificially boost the protein readings of their products. The result, was that thousands of pets were sickened and hundreds are believed to have died.

Melamine is harmful to the kidneys. It can cause kidney stones as the body tries to eliminate it, in extreme cases, it is life threatening and can cause kidney failure.

The entire process starts at the very beginning with pregnancy and childbirth remaining natural. Once the baby is born, attachment parenting encourages breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, and later when the child is older, positive or gentle disciplining and homeschooling.

Each of these practices helps build a strong and healthy attachment between parents and their children. Many of the choices AP parents make, create controversy and disapproval especially from grandparents. These concepts are very modern.

Attachment parenting may seem like a deviation from the norm or traditional, but actually isn’t new. Its principles, in fact, date back to the natural practices and primieval behaviors of our ancestors.

Attachment parenting encourages treating our children the same respect, kindness and dignity that we would like them to give to us and other people.

Corporal punishment never fits into it, so spanking is definitely ruled out. What endeavors to ingrain in children is the tremendous capacity to emphasize and connect with others.

Attachment parenting does not have a fixed set of rules. It simply espouses principles that guide the actions of parents.

1.) As a good start – It is important that parents be prepared for pregnancy, birth and for being a parent. Fostering a strong bond between the parent and the child from the moment of birth or even conception is ideal.

2.) Breastfeeding – Breast milk is still the best food for babies. Breastfeeding does not only satisfy a nutritional need but an emotional need as well which is part f the bonding process between mother and child.

3.) Nurturing closeness – Being physically close to your child provides security, stimulation and familiarity. Touching time to cuddle, shower kisses to your baby can convey the deepest feelings of affection to your child.

4.) Responding to baby cries – Attachment parenting believe that crying is a baby’s way of communicating a need. To ignore it is to deprive the child of an appropriate, emphatic and loving response while promptly responding to baby’s need is beneficial to parent and child relationship.

5.) Night time baby caring – Babies have night time needs too and co-sleeping allows you to be readily available to your child during the sleeping hours. Night time is scary for children and knowing that you are near at hand enables them to realize that sleep is a safe and pleasant state.

6.) Tender loving care – Children need to have consistent loving care present with them. Make sure that the alternate care given you choose is somebody whom your child feels comfortable, can sense sincere affection and tender loving care.

7.) Gentle disciplining – Discipline does not have to be punitive. In attachment parenting, parents set limits and encourage desired behavior in such a manner that they do not damage the child’s self esteem. Allow your child to feel valued, cooperative and motivated to take the responsibility for self help and solving problems. Discipline is internal, prompted by compassion and respect for oneself and other people. It is not reactive to potential punishment.

8.) Balancing your personal and family life – You can be a better parent if you care for yourself. Though some practices get tiring sometimes in parenting your child, you need to strive for balance between your personal and family life not to jeopardize your other work and activities. Parenting, even the non-intensive mothering kind, can be strenuous but it is still important that parents do not neglect their own needs.

9.) Worth the effort – Though attachment parenting may seen to be a very demanding endeavor of parenting, but many find that the rewards are worth their efforts. Through attachment parenting, attached children are more secure, joyful, emphatic and compassionate about the world around them.

This alternative fuel to LPG is safe, eliminates the danger of explosion that usually brings deaths and injuries. The green charcoal technology involves a process of converting wastes into green charcoal in the form of fire logs, pellets, briquettes.

It opens to an opportunity of organic cooking and it reduces indoor pollution and promotes healthy cooking. Studies on LPG indicates that frequent exposure to LPC/nitrogen dioxide, inhibits respiration by attacking the mucus membranes of the lungs, decreases brain activity and intereferes with the flow oxygen.

LPG causes oxidation of unsaturated fatty acids and cell membranes to form highly active free radicals that alter protein structure. LPC, studies also reveal, forms nitrosamines, a potent carcinogen.

Green charcoal reduces fuel cost by twenty percent and reduces dependence on imported fuel, thus saving millions of dollars. It helps prevent forest destruction as it reduces the use of wood charcoal.

The long term result of this technology is a sustainable, alternative and eco friendly charcoal industry that may result in job generation in the country side. The resulting ash can be used for cleansing kitchen wares and utensils.

Ash serves as odor neutralizer/eliminator for animal/pet droppings, urine and other obnoxious smells. It also acts as fly repellent as well as organic fertilizer or soil conditioner.

To vouch for his contribution to the environment, Gonzalo Catan, the inventor of the Green Charcoal Technology has earned a bronze medal in Geneva, Switzerland for his eco friendly invention.

Chances are you may be suffering from dry eye syndrome, one of the most common eye problem that affects over ten million people today.

Anybody can be at risk for dry eyes, even children, especially that almost everyone now using the computer on a daily basis. Using the computer for too long a time is actually one of the major causes of dry eyes, according to a cataract and glaucoma specialist at Asian Eye Institute.

Dry eyes is a condition that results from imbalance in the quality and quantity of tears that bathe the eye. “The eye depends on the flow of tears to provide constant moisture lubrication necessary to maintain good vision and comfort.

Decreased production of fluids from the tear gland destabilizes the tear film, allowing to break down rapidly and create dry spots in the cornea. When there is imbalance in the tear system, a person may experience dry eyes”, added the eye specialist.

Eye strain can also result to dry eyes, which is caused by excessive reading, watching TV and prolonged computer use. This brings about the condition called Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS), where eye blinking rate is decreased. The area of the surface of the eye is increased as well, causes dryness of the eye.

Environmental factors such as exposure to dry environment like airplanes, changes in weather, exposure to salty water, air conditioning, intake of hypertensive medications, chronic use of eye drops and extended wearing of contact lenses can also cause dry eyes, according to the eye specialist.

A person suffering from dry eyes may experience eye strain, irritation, redness, burning, grittiness, heaviness and tired eyes, blurred vision, and tearing or discharge formation. If not treatd immediately, dry eyes can damage eye tissue, possibly scar the cornea, and make the eye susceptible to infection.

Treatment of dry eyes is aiming at restoring a more normal tear film, which can be achieved by using lubricating eye drops that coat the surface of the eye to relieve the symptoms of dry eyes and protect it from irritants.

Patients can find relief in artificial teardrops, a highly effective and well tolerated multi dose artificial tears which contains a unique preservation that turns into water and oxygen once it comes into contact with the eyes, making it preservative free in the eye.

It comes in two forms: Drops for mild to moderate dry eye, which provide soothing relief from grittiness, tearing, irritation and burning; and the other one is drops for severe dry eyes, which soothes severe symptoms of dry eyes such as severe itching, persistent redness, blurred vision, severe irritation and frequent mucus discharge, the eye specialist has concluded.

For right prescription and proper medication of your dry eyes condition, always consult your eye doctor.

After the end of a three day meeting at the institute, the head of the IRRI board had said that “growth in agricultural productivity is the only way to ensure that people have access to enough affordable food. Achieving this is along term effect.

A year or two of extra funding for agricultural research is not enough. To ensure that improved technologies flow from the research and development pipeline, a sustained reinvestment in agriculture is crucial.”

The meeting followed a spike in the price of rice, a staple food of some poor parts of the world, to more than 1,000 dollars a ton in May amid surging demand, falling productivity growth and natural calamities that devastated key rice growing areas.

Although rice prices have settled to around 700 hundred dollars a ton, this still double the price of one year ago, the board noted.

It said that the world needs a second Green Revolution to replicate the achievement of scientific breakthroughs of between 1967 to 1990 that brought hundreds of millions of Asians out of poverty.

Security has become top priority in education, transportation, health care, governments, banking and finance, manufacturing/industrial and retail, forcing a reevaluation of previous assumptions about evenly and making investments in new technologies a necessity.

The increase use of surveillance cameras and videos has become the foundation and one effective way to prevent it is through the use of state of the art equipment and technology, from recording and aiding in the apprehensions of criminals and at the same time used as a deterrent.

In the aftermath of the London subway bombing in 2005 resulting in 52 deaths and dozens of others wounded, the British system of surveillance cameras has proven its capability both as an anti crime and forensic tool when it was able to record and identify the suicide bombers that led to their apprehensions by Scotland Yard within days after the commission of crime.

It is no doubt, reassured the jittery British public at that critical moment. The wireless surveillance and communication system are operated in a communication center away where the cameras have been installed. They can be made to pan, zoom and tilt.

Its sophisticated imaging technology allows cameras to alert law enforcers to unattended packages, zoom in objects hundreds of feet away and to pan audiences to enable police and security officers to see if there is imminent danger to the public or to any VIP and his entourage.They can also alert law enforcers to suspicious vehicles that repeatedly circle the same block.

In the US, the speed with which the London bombing was solved has prompted calls from the politicians and law enforcers to emulate the British system. New York is the first city to set up live networks tied to a central surveillance center. Other American cities that will follow suit are Chicago and Baltimore.

By 2010, as many 3,000 cameras shall have been installed, still a pittance compared to 200,000 cameras in London which develop the surveillance system since 1970 in response to the deadly attacks by the Irish Republican Army.

In New York, the government owned one third of the 3,000 cameras to be installed and two thirds by private security working with business establishments.

Diabetes Mellitus is a disorder in which the level of glucose (sugar) in the blood is abnormally high because the pancreas, a gland located behind the stomach, produces little or no insulin, or because the body’s cells do not respond appropriately to insulin.

In either case, glucose, the main source of energy of our cells is not able to get inside the cell where it is needed and instead accumulates in the blood.

There is no known cure or prevention for diabetes yet, but we know enough of the disease to be able to control it and avoid its complications.

Diabetes can be controlled through a combination of diet, exercise and medicine. There are two main types of diabetes mellitus: Type 1 and Type 2. Most (90-95%)  diabetes suffer from type 2 (non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus), and it is in this type of the disease when bitter melon has been proven to have beneficial effects.

A substantial number of scientific studies on the effect of bitter melon on blood glocuse levels have been undertaken. The latest of these studies is a 10 year trial conducted by the Philippine Council for Health Research and Development (PCHRD).

The study compared bitter melon leaves (the makiling variety) with the anti diabetes drug glibenclamide. The results of the trial showed that a 100 mg. per kilo dose per day of bitter melon is comparable to 2.5 milligrams of the anti diabetes drug glibenclamide taken twice a day.

This means that the action of bitter melon on blood sugar is equivalent to the action of the medicine. As a result, the Department of Health (DOH)  has elevated the status of bitter melon from a mere nutritional supplement to a real medicine.

The blood sugar level lowering property of bitter melon is attributed to its momordicin content, a substance that is sometimes called plant insulin. This is also the substance responsible for the bitter taste of the plant’s leaves and fruits.

The clinical studies on the sugar level lowering effect of bitter melon have so far been limited to its leaves either eaten as food or in the form of tablets, capsules and teas.

There are no conclusive studies on the effect of fruits and roots yet. Diabetics who wishto try bitter melon in fresh form, they can culture the plant and make their own preparations.

To prepare bitter melon extracts, the Department of Health (DOH) suggests the following steps:

*** Wash thoroughly and finely chopped bitter melon leaves.

*** Add 6 tablespoons of the chopped leaves to 2 glasses of water.

*** Boil the mixture for 15 minutes in uncovered pot.

*** Cool down and strain.

*** Drink 1/3 cup of the solution, 3 times a day.

Alternately, bitter melon tops can be steamed and eaten (1/2 cup 2 times a day).

Incidentally, regular intake of bitter melon alone is not enough to control the blood sugar of most diabetics. People with the disease must still exercise, stick to a diabetic diet or other medicines may have to be taken and finally people with diabetes must see their physician on a regular basis.