Alcohol – shortens life
THE abuse of alcohol is the leading risk factor for disability and premature death in the world. Besides tobacco and other harmful agents, alcohol is the most common cause of…
Read More
Time for a makeover
THE holidays may soon be behind us but their physical effects, among others, will linger for a while. Medically speaking, it is actually a time for “damage control” for those…
Christmas health issues
WHAT are common holiday ills? Common colds, Flu, RSV, COVID-19, holiday diarrheas and accidents at home and on the streets are some common conditions/events to expect during the holidays 2024….
South Africa’s healthcare system
My wife Farida, our daughter Portia, and her husband Chito, an interventional cardiologist in Elkhart Indiana, near Notre Dame in South Bend, and I just returned from our 12-day cruise…
De-stressing
HANS Selye, the renowned expert on this subject and considered the “father” of stress, defines stress as the “wear and tear of living.” The pressure we all face in our…
Dyslexia and more
ROUGHLY 29 million Americans are dyslexic. I could not find any stat for the Philippines, but the consensus is that it has greatly increased. “Word blindness” is a term commonly…
Is RFK anti-vaccine?
PRESIDENT Donald J. Trump, who won a “trifecta” landslide victory – more like a “perfecta” for winning the electoral, popular, and ethnic votes – announced his nomination of Robert F….
Diet is key
THE current trend in medicine when it comes to diet is extreme reduction in carbohydrate intake, like rice, bread, desserts, and sweets (candy, ice cream, etc.), and total abstinence from…
AI – friend or foe
ONE of the greatest human innovations introduced in recent times is Artificial Intelligence, which crude forms have actually been around for centuries. The recent field of AI research started in…
Stem cell scam
FRAUD, scams, hacking, and fake news are victimizing the unsuspecting and uninformed public. The perpetrators are not limited to criminals only; there are professionals, medical clinics, even physicians on their…
Vital info capsules
THE nation’s health Elections always affect our mental health, as individuals, personally, and as a nation. Voting with wisdom and common sense is the smartest and healthiest way to choose…
Gardasil 9 and HPV
COMPARED to most head and neck malignancies, the rate of throat cancer in the United States and around the globe has not declined. The statistics are also true, when extrapolated,…
Nobel prizes for mRNA
THE Nobel Prize in Physiology-Medicine has been awarded to two scientists for their discovery of micro-RNA (mRNA), which “helps determine how cells develop and function, and malfunction.” A sample of…
Safer with vaccine
THE world, humankind, is safer because we have vaccines against fatal infectious diseases. The Black Death, the plague in Europe, between 1347 to 1351, killed between 25-50 million (about half)…
No meds at 96!
IN the United States, there are about 4.7 percent of the population count of 337,141,658 (as of 9:28 a.m.,9-20-24) who are 90 years and older. This translates to about 15.8…
Is your water safe?
THE First Industrial Revolution (1760) and the Second (1870), when machines took over countless jobs originally performed by man, severely contaminated our water supplies because factories directly dumped untreated waste…
COVID-19 never left
AS of the week ending August 31, 2024, 2.6 percent of all deaths in the United States were due to COVID-19, with hospitalization of 4.6 per 100,000, 2.3 percent positive…
High fat, low carb
THIS vital issue is trending. The intense desire to have a healthy body and maximal longevity is a universal dream more sought for than ever before. Besides daily physical exercise…
[COLUMN] On kidney stones
KIDNEY stones are formed in the kidneys and some travel down the ureters causing severe excruciating pain some female patients describe as worse than childbirth. The ureters are sensitive muscular…
[COLUMN] Health gems
HEALTHIEST bread Most bread, made of wheat, is loaded with lectins, which wreak havoc on our guts and digestion. Sourdough (fermented) and millet bread are lectin-free. Always read the labels…
[COLUMN] Our amazing heart
One of the most fascinating vital organs in the body, a symbol of love, endearment, even of religious adoration, and still a mystery to most of us, is the heart….
[COLUMN] More inventions…
THE topic of my column last week was about “Inventions,” which has made the whole world smaller, healthier, smarter, more comfortable, more productive, richer, and happier. Today, I am posting…
Hatred in America
THE nobility, treasured peace, respect, and love of fellowmen and other Christian virtues that reigned over America after the second world war is now marred by extreme hate and violence…
[COLUMN] Multivitamin warning!
ARE you taking multivitamins like more than 100 million Americans? Published last Wednesday, July 3, a new study from the National Institute of Health (NIH) found that multivitamins of any…
[COLUMN] On beer, chocolate, energy drinks and other medical findings
BEER and bone health Dietary silicon, which is found in beer, helps keep bone strong by improving the bone mineral density, a new report from the University of California, Davis,…
[COLUMN] Sugar: Warning!
SUGAR is sweet and “addicting”, and anything prepared with sugar becomes delectable, like many of our desserts: smooth fine velvety ice cream with various tropical flavors (halo-halo, macapuno, buko-pandan, ube-langka),…
[COLUMN] Olive oil wonders
IN this wonderful era of health-consciousness, olive oil, which is an essential ingredient in the Mediterranean Diet, considered the healthiest diet in the world, is on the spotlight today. Olive…
[COLUMN] On masturbation
IN this era of informational technology facilitated by search engines, like Google, and websites, like YouTube, to name a couple, access to massive scientific data enables people to instantly educate…
[COLUMN] Ten million die
ONE out of three adults worldwide (more than 2 billion of the 6.02 billion adults out of a total global population of 8.05 billion) have high blood pressure and about…
[COLUMN] Distilled water: Unsafe!
IT is easy to understand how people in general, being more health conscious today, could mistake distilled water as the “cleanest and healthiest” water for drinking. After all, it is…