Diabetes Drugs

For diabetic patients who do not really understand how GTF Products work, they tend to consult doctors and other medical-related officers about ways of treating the disease. As a result, many of these patients do not really know what kind of treatments or what kind of medicines were given to them after each consultation.

Though the government has warned the nation in the fourth quarter of last year in the media, mentioning that certain diabetes drugs, such as rosiglitazone, a diabetes drug which could bring disastrous effect to its consumers, should be prevented, but statistics still showing that a large chunk of total percentage of diabetic patients in our country just would not listen to that piece of advice.

Let us take a good look of how drugs such as rosiglitazone affects our body system. Indeed, rosiglitazone is a drug which can control blood sugar level in our body, but on the downside, it could trigger other hazardous aftermaths, such as heart failure, heart attack, or even death at certain point of time. Researchers in UK and US had taken a study by comparing rosiglitazone and another type of diabetes drug, pioglitazone.

Rosiglitazone appears to have a modest increase of risk in trigerring heart attack compares to its counterpart. Such study involved some 810,000 patients (429,000 on rosiglitazone and 381,000 on pioglitazone), where most of the patients were 60 years of age or above. Compared with pioglitazone, rosiglitazone was associated with a modest but statistically significant increased risk of heart attack (16%), congestive heart failure (23%), and mortality (14%).

Thus, government restriction on such diabetes drugs was implemented. Why putting your life at risk by taking these drugs, while you could enjoy a greater life by just consuming GTF Products?

BMI For Chinese

All this while, the standard of BMI (Body Mass Index) is being referred in the American way. In other words, standards of BMI are always assumed to be measured in an American, not Asian, not African or whatsoever. But lately, there is a piece of good news for BMI, and this time, a new standard has been outlined, particularly referring to Chinese. The reason why a new BMI guideline for Chinese is being implemented, was because the rate of obesity is increasing around the globe, WHO suggested to set another benchmark for the Chinese. Thus, let's take a look what BMI got to say for Chinese.

This study was jointly completed by Taiwan and US researchers. Such study was participated by58 738 Chinese men and 65 718 women in Taiwan who were aged 20 or older. Next up, their BMI were used to look for associations, if any, with the risk of death. As a result, researchers found that those with BMI which was less than 24 but with chronic disease have greater risk of death compare to those without chronic disease. Besides that, smokers with BMI less than 24 are also considered to fall in the category which has higher risk of death. On the other side, surprisingly, those with higher BMI (above 30), and with chronic disease had a lower risk of death.

Overall, Chinese individuals who have lower risk of death are the ones whose BMI fall between 24-25.9.

Dine With FB

Facebook has been a frenzy ever since a good few years ago, due to its pleasant interactive platform which is extremely user friendly. Correspondingly, it did wonders and received countless rave reviews from all over the world. After that few years, "The Social Network" which tells the story of how the creator of Facebook created this magnificent website was aired worldwide. This made the social interactive site's world number spot even firmer than ever.

While many users are using Facebook, chatting with friends, leaving comments and "liking" their friends' status, many do not realize a habit they do daily which could jeopardize their health. Recently, Facebook is closely linked to eating disorders. According to a study conducted in the University of Haifa in Israel, the more time an adolescent girl spent her time on Facebook, the higher the risk of her developing eating disorders such as anorexia, exaggerated dieting as well as bulimia.

A research was then conducted. This research involved 248 participants, whom were all girls, with the age ranged from 12 to 19 years ago. The study was mainly looking through their eating behavior in relation with the amount of time they spend on the Internet as well as other media such as viewing of television programs.

Results showed that participants who spent relatively more time on Facebook suffered eating disorders like the ones which were mentioned previously, and they were very dissatisfied regarding their body images. Besides that, TV programs which were gossip and leisure-related proved to be hazardous for these young girls too. Programs such as Gossip Girl was on the list. According to the researchers, they believed that parents play the key role in the girls' susceptibility to eating disorders as parents, in many times were not aware of what type of media content their girls were consuming.

Power of Fibers

Fiber is normally closely linked in assurance of proper functions of digestive tract. When we go deeper as far as dietary fiber is concerned, they can even go as far as in heart diseases, certain cancers, and also diabetes prevention, many thanks to rich antioxidants they contain. Now, a new study even suggests that consuming the sufficient amount of dietary fiber can even save you from death!

US researchers from National Cancer Institute examined food survey completed by participants who joined the study in 1995 and 1996. The mentioned participants were consisted of 219,123 men and 168,999 women ages 50 to 71 years of age. After nine years, there were about 11,000 people died and so, these researchers further investigate the reasons behind the deaths according to their food patterns throughout those nine years.

Softening stool is the most common effect of fiber known by the public. But specifically, how does that happens? Dietary fiber basically can be categorized into soluble fiber and insoluble fiber. As such, soluble fiber has the ability to absorb water (as how its name indicates), and thus become gelatinous and further fermented by bacteria in the digestive tract. Whereas insoluble fiber is the one which increases bulk and soften stool, in turn shorten transit time in the intestinal tract.

From the results of the study, it is found that people who ate at least 26 grams of fiber per day were 22% less likely to die compare to those who ate less amount of the same thing, which was ranged 13 grams or less. What is more, researchers found out that getting fibers from grains can have biggest impact on that.

Energy-Draining Mobile

In the past, or even to this day, when mobile is being put into the frame of discussion topic, what people would regard the excessive utilization of mobile is about the growth of brain tumor. Is that true? Past researches did not really indicate that brain tumor could grow statistically in such a way when a person very much depends on the utilization of a mobile phone, but another evidence which can be ascertain, is that when a person is using mobile phone (listening to another party over the phone by sticking the phone towards the ear, such as how the picture illustrated), the utilization of brain energy is very great.

Dr. Nora D. Volkow, the director of National Institute on Drug Abuse, has led a team of researchers in conducting such study. According to Dr. Nora, certain chemicals are involved when one is talking over his or her mobile phone near the head. Fifteen minutes of phone call actually increases the utilization of brain glucose, and thus also increase the rate of brain glucose metabolism.

In the brain, there are structures which are known as neurons. Neurons are components that demand for great amount of glucose as they are always in an active state even when we are sleeping. When we enter our dreamland, what neurons do is to work repairing and rebuilding their worn out structures. Other than that, brain cells are also known to consume two times more energy compare to cells in other parts of our body.

Such study produced certain results to an extent where great utilization of brain glucose is confirmed when we are on call, though no statistic results are showing that brain tumor would appear due to that, but the growth of brain tumor often use up brain glucose. Hence, the use-up of brain glucose in such rate is not a good thing. These days, the category of people who uses mobile phones inclines to the younger side, even as young as small kids. Still-developing brains might be damaged and might face an increase risk from the radio frequency emission.

Listen to Your Legs

Next time whenever you move your legs, whenever you are walking, whenever you are using your legs to do certain movements, listen attentively. Do they cry out to you, scream in agony where painfulness can be felt all of a sudden? If they tell you so, beware that some other parts of yours might be in trouble!

A recent investigation about legs and heart had been conducted, and the results showed somewhat positive about certain association between the two parts of our body. In the United States, there are approximately nine million Americans who raised concerns about their leg problems are associated with heart complications as well. And unluckily, normally heart diseases of theirs are difficult to be discovered.

Researchers referred to such heart disease as PAD (Peripheral Arterial Disease). PAD plays a role as a silent killer as they lurk within the human body without any visible symptoms. Its existence is now being closely linked with leg complications which are experienced by many today. Studies show that when one feel that his or her legs become painful while walking, or due to other factors such as disability, sometimes such circumstances happened due to the narrowed arteries in legs, which causes blood clogged or blood blockages. When arteries in legs are blocked, it also means there are arteries blocked somewhere else in the body and it is strongly related to the blockage of arteries near the heart.

Being a silent disease, PAD nonetheless is sometimes associated with the following symptoms:

- Fatigue, heaviness, tiredness in certain parts of legs, such as calf or thigh.

- Foot as well as toe pain which directly disturbs sleeping patterns.

Fish for Folks

Fish oils are said to be edible stuffs to be eaten by people who have heart related diseases. With the presence of Omega-3 fatty acids in fish oils, fish oils certainly hailed as one of the most effective foods which ought to be consumed in the long run as far as the health of heart is concerned. But for now, just ignore the heart part, but focus on Alzheimer's instead.

Fish oil, as referred by many people previously, as the effective food in treating or maintaining great health of heart, is now also considered as the essential foods in improving Alzheimer's Disease. Prof. Daniel Michaelson of Tel Aviv University's Department of Neurobiology at the George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences mentioned that one of the five molecules (scientists believed that there are five molecules which determine the occurrence of Alzheimer's Disease), which is known as APOE plays an important role as far as Alzheimer's Disease comes into the picture.

APOE comes in two different forms, good and bad genes; just like LDL (bad cholesterol) and HDL (good cholesterol). The bad gene is called APOE4. APOE4 is now being held responsible as one of the main factors which cause Alzheimer's Disease, as researchers found out that APOE4 appears in 50% of all Alzheimer's patients. The good news is, by adapting to diet which is high in Omega-3 and low in cholesterol, it somehow significantly reduce the negative outcomes of APOE4 in mouse models.

Watch Your Body

This week has been a week of pains in GTF Infozone. The previous post was all about how tart cherry does wonders in muscles recovery. But for today, you are about to see another amusing fact, which it might come in very handy for yourself whenever you feel painful in certain parts of your body.

Scientists from UCL (University College London) and University of Milano-Bicocca from Italy did a research recently about how to reduce pain without using any medications or consumptions of any edible things. What they found in their study was pretty amazing. They claimed that by looking at the body parts which are painful, somehow it has an effect where it can reduce the pain of the person.

What they did on the study, was they picked a number of participants (18 of them) and had a heat probe on their left hand. The idea behind this study was to increase the heat temperature very gradually. When the participants feel that they began to experience pain, the foot pedals provided play an important role, when this pedal was activated, the whole process comes to a halt. Throughout the process, scientists used mirrors to manipulate what the participants saw during the experiment.

Results showed that those who looked closely to their left hand could sustain the pain for as much as 3 degree celcius higher than those who did not look at their left hand, or those who looked at the wooden box which was placed near their left hand. The effect appeared to be even clearer when scientists next started to use convex or concave mirrors to show the hand, where it can enlarge or reduce the size of what the participants see during the process. When the picuture of the hand as enlarged, participants could tolerate up to even greater levels of heat before feeling pain. But when the picture was reduced in size, participants reported feeling pain compare to the moments where they were looking at their hands at normal size.

Researchers thus suggested that the pain is closely associated with brain maps of the skins. Hence, if pain strikes you in the future, if allowed, please remember to look at the parts which trouble you, so that your biological painkiller can be put into good use!

Cherry & Muscles

Recognize this little fruit you see above? It's cherry (or some people call it tart cherry, or just simply tart) ! Though cherries are small in size, but it contains a spectacular substance which helps in human health, a substance called anthocyanin. Anthocyanins are substances which acquire high content of antioxidants, and various studies showed that such substance has the ability to reduce inflammation in rats. Recently, there was another study which shows how such substance worked in human instead!

As we all know, athletes are individuals who often work extra hard, and they too always try to push their limits to a higher level. When such are the requirements in being a great athletes, they tend to suffer certain "side effects". At times, they would experience muscles pain after a few rounds of strength training.

One of the latest article which was published in the American College of Sports Medicine's journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise showed that tart cherries can offer great outcomes against such problems. In order to make such study valid, researchers from UK given 10 trained athletes an ounce of tart cherry juice. and they were asked to drink twice daily in seven days. Such process was carried out two days prior and after the training session.

Results showed that these athletes experienced even quicker muscle recovery after they consumed the tart cherry juices. According to the researchers, the recovery of muscles appeared to be at about 85% overnight. But after the consumption of tart cherry juices with the mentioned frequency, the athletes seemed to have their muscles recovered for as much as 90%, a significant increment in percentage.

In Memories of Metabolic Syndromes

Older people would sometimes tell the young ones about their stories in the past, and in many times, they would tell them how their health conditions are, lamenting that the older you get, the less useful you become to the society. What actually interests us in their lamenting, is about how they put those words into phrases. Sometimes they just mention that the diseases they are fighting against, are like "abang dan adik" (siblings), as they like to come together all at the same time.

When people think that these diseases are besieging the individuals who suffer, they are very likely have poor health and various problems. For people who have high blood pressure, they should not experience any excessive external impacts from others, for those who have diabetes, they should not consume foods which contain high sugar content. For arthritis sufferers, they should not push themselves into doing certain exercises which could worsen their conditions. This list can go on forever. But, there is one common effect of all these metabolic syndromes, and it relates to our memory.

According to a study published in the online issue of Neurology this month (February, 2011), older people who have any of these metabolic syndromes which include high blood pressure, larger waistlines, would possibly experience higher risk of memory loss.

In the study, more than 7,000 participants in France had been gathered and investigations were conducted on these people. These participants came from three different cities in France and they were senior citizens with age of 65 years or above. Among these individuals, 16 percents of them were metabolic syndrome sufferers. They were given three types of memory tests after two and four years respectively. These test included normal memory test, visual memory test, as well as word fluency test.

As expected, the results showed that those who had metabolic syndromes were 20 percents of declination in memory test. To top it all, they were also 13 percents more likely to experience cognitive visual memory decline, compare to those who were relatively healthier (those who had no metabolic syndromes). This definitely sheds new light to the researchers to look for the root of the problems.

Metabolic syndromes are infamous problems in GTF Worldwide Sdn Bhd. Every distributor from our company would tell you that the only way to curb and improve the condition, is to consume GT&F Products, as they were formulated to specifically treating metabolic syndromes and diabetes. So what are you waiting for? Impeding memory loss? GTF is the answer for you!

The Danger for Vegans

Since the past, people reckon that vegetarians are the healthiest group of people in the world. The reason behind this is because these people tend to eat only vegetables, and always place any meat-related products under the list of rejection. But just because they consume only vegetables, but does that mean they are healthy enough in preventing hazardous diseases?

A recent study, which in a way reviewing the studies in the past 30 years, does not seem to agree with the statement that prevention of diseases is granted especially for the vegetarians. This statement seems to be very wrong in a way somehow.

When meat-eaters are regarded as the group of individuals who happen to have higher risks in developing any cardiovascular diseases, certain vegetarians do not seem to be categorized that far from the meat-eaters. Indeed, vegetarians tend to take in various healthy vitamins and minerals through consuming vegetables, but there are also some essential substances that they lack of.

According to related studies, many vegetarians are lack of certain elements, such as iron, zinc, vitamin B12, and omega-3 fatty acids. Among these nutrients, I strongly believe that many of you understand that omega-3 fatty acids play pivotal role in preventing human exposed to the risks of cardiovascular diseases.

Vegetables are well-known in providing the eaters essential amino acids (proteins), but since they are vegetables, you cannot relate any of them with fats or fatty acids. But the truth is, fatty acids such as omega-3 fatty acids, are the ones who protects you from getting cardiovascular diseases! Great source of omega-3 fatty acids includes those which you can find in seafood, such as fish oil. But though, to many vegetarians, fishes are just not their cups of tea, hence you can might as well choose other foods such as walnuts to consume. They are good source of omega-3 fatty acids too!

Distress Spouse

Diabetes is the main disease which GTF Worldwide Sdn Bhd would like to eradicate. Diabetic patients are often fighting hard to overcome the problems which haunt them now and then, they tried many types of medications and treatments, but very little are aware of the presence of GT&F Products, which are formulated to specially improve diabetes and other related metabolic syndromes. While the patients are trying hard, we often forget about what their spouses (if they have one) are experiencing most of the time.

Melissa M. Franks, an assistant professor of child development and family studies found that spouses of older diabetic patients who are dealing not well with diabetes are suffering from stress as far as diabetes and its management is concerned. Franks mentioned that spouses of diabetic patients always feel the responsibilities they are shouldering all the while when their the other halves are not controlling diabetes as good as expected. After certain moments have passed, the spouses could develop great distress and slowly transforms into depression.

What is more, Franks and colleagues postulated that spouses feel the same way as the diabetic patients do, and thus contribute to the presence of sadness. Researchers also found that when male patients were concerned about the management of their diabetes, their depressive symptoms were elevated more than those for female patients with similar levels of concerns.

To prevent such phenomenon, one of the most useful things to do, is to consume GT&F Products , especially if you are a diabetic patient or a health-conscious person, and of course together with your beloved spouse!

Nutritional Resolutions

A few weeks have passed since the announcement that we have stepped into the brand new year of 2011. Many people, I reckon, have made their personal new year resolutions, and of course, vowed to make their resolutions no longer a dream, but a reality within this year. This post is also serves as a reminder to some readers whom have made their resolutions that, "Hey, you've got some resolutions to fulfill!" Among the very common new year resolutions, are those which you can see in the picture above. But for those who have yet made any resolutions for yourself, you can try this very exclusive new year resolution out which The GTF Team is about to tell you, and what is more, it comes with some guidance too.

As how the title implies, this post is all about the healthy eating resolution. Besides treating "losing weight" as one of the outcomes of this resolution, more importantly is to have a healthier body this time around. A registered dietitian from Porter Adventist Hospital, Britanny Glassett explained that to achieve a healthy-eating goal this year, making a S-M-A-R-T decision is very important. S-M-A-R-T consists of Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Timely. In other words, instead of reminding yourself that you need to eat better this year, you should making more specific promises to yourself, such as only have one fast food meal once in every two months.

Other than that, there are 5 simple changes which could bring you drastic differences. The first is none other than reducing the intake of carbohydrates. Instead of taking in carbohydrates, replace them with whole grain products. Not only whole grain products contain large amount of heart-friendly substances, vitamins and minerals, they are also able to make you full without taking in much carbohydrates. As a consequence, weight-losing becomes very feasible.

The second thing which you could consider is about adding more colors into your meals. By saying adding more colors, it does not refer to adding more food additives like those unhealthy coloring, but mix up more leafy green vegetables and fruits into your meals. Those are great antioxidant sources! You could tell yourself to try a new fruit/vegetable a month, through this, you would have also learn the existence of 12 different foods which you have never approached before in your lifetime.

Breakfast might be a routine for many people, but it can be also just a skippable meal for many people. For those who skip breakfast regularly, the cancellation of this routine is strongly recommended. If you skip breakfast most of the time, treat this as one of your new year resolution. Breakfast is so important that it could determine whether you live your day lively or dull like a the mud.

Next up, it is high time now for you to change the oil you use in the kitchen. Though we know that dining at home is so much better than having the foods outside as it can be very healthy (depends on the cooking-style), but we should also know that most households use vegetable oils to cook. Vegetable oil contains Omega-6 fatty acids, which can be found excessively in an American diet, and it is no good as it causes inflammations and other diseases in human body. Instead of using vegetable oil, canola or olive oil are the better choices.

If you are a person who is keen to writing stuffs, keeping a food diary can be a useful tool for you this year. Many studies show that those who write in a food diary to keep track about their very own food journals proved to have higher chances in achieving their weight management goals.

Fight Monday Blues

To every working individuals, whenever Friday arrives, bad mood will somehow being elevated from the bottom of the heart to cloud nine. Almost everybody, from this point onwards, will have high EQ, and see things very differently as they are especially across the weekdays. Flowers seemed to be much more prettier on Friday and Saturday. When when Sunday comes, marvelous mood that they experience on Friday and Saturday would suddenly fell from heaven back to the hell, just because they could foresee the arrival of Monday. So what does it take for you to smile all the way, from Sunday night to Thursday night?

ITV Daybreak's Health Editor and Alzheimer's Society supporter, Dr Hilary Jones mentioned his top 5 tips about how to keep your mind and soul happy as you want across the whole week. The very first tip that he gave, was all about exercising. This one is especially important if you stay firm with your own goal. If you have a goal on completing some new regimes with exercising, it is much easier for you to implement. Exercises such as running not only can lift your mood, it can also improve your well-being.

The second is none other than showing kindness to other people. Showing kindness including helping people out with their own problems, support them whenever they need someone besides them, and a lot more. Not only it does help improving people's mood, it also elevates yours too! Other than that, individuals who received your help will also remember the kindness you offered them. The birth of new friendship or the extension of current friendship to greater heights can also be expected, by simply showing some kindness!

By making contacts with the nature, such as viewing a magnificent panoramic view of a green and leafy garden, with the presence of blue sky, and deep blue ocean, this can also elevate your current inferior mood. What is more, such experience is said to have even the same effects comparing taking in prescribed drugs to treat certain mental distress.

More to come, as the saying goes, "laughter is the best medicine". Yes, indeed, it can be the greatest medicine ever to cure your moody situations. Whenever you're feeling low and down, it is high time for you to go out for a comedy night, a hilarious show or movie, or just simply hang out with a bunch of wacky friends whom you think they are capable enough to make you laugh out loud. Laughing causes the stimulation of endorphin, substance which reduces stress. Sometimes these really are the best medicines.

Last but not least, is the B-A-N-A-N-A, banana, monkeys' symbolic food. There was once a story for the kids, mentioning that why monkey likes to jump all over and can be so happily living with its community, is because of the power of bananas. Is that true? Scientifically speaking, it is true enough. Banana contains tryptophan, which in turns will stimulate the serotonin hormones, also known as the happiness hormones. So go and grab some when Sunday comes, it might come in handy.

Daily Steps Matter

There was a time in those early mornings where I noticed many people were brisk walking. This activity somehow motivated the inner me and encouraged me to join the crew. Days after that, I decided to give it a try, and I started to join the league of brisk walking. When I started my new routine back then, I asked one of the comrades about his purpose of doing this every morning without fail. He told me, "Brisk walking is good in burning off those fats that you can see under my arms." That was the answer, simple and modest.

Without a doubt, brisk walking, or simply walking, can definitely burn the excessive adipose fats that you would not want to store, provided that you achieve certain number of steps per day. In one of the latest study which published on bmj.com, taking more steps everyday now not only helps ward off obesity, but also reduced the risk of diabetes.

That's right. Many other studies shown that physical activity could reduce body mass index effectively, but at the same time, it also improve insulin resistance. Just in case you do not know about it, insulin resistance is an early stage in the development of diabetes. Hence, if taking more steps in a day could really help improving insulin resistance, such activity is worthy to be investigated long-term in future studies.

The research, which was conducted in Melbourne, involved some 592 middle aged adults in order to map diabetes levels across Australia from 2000 to 2005. These participants were given pedometer and were taught the way to use it. Throughout these studies, lifestyle factors like diet, alcohol consumption and smoking were taken into account.

There was a saying that if an individual meets the target of 10,000 daily steps, his or her health condition can be improved drastically. This appears to be very true as far as this study is concerned. The author of this study estimate that, if a sedentary person is able to change his or her lifestyle and meets the popular 10,000 daily steps, the individual would have a threefold improvement in insulin sensitivity.

Be Positive!

Developing a good EQ (Emotional Quotient) in an individual requires the person to be happy all the time, in other words, one should be positive, optimistic all the time in order to have high EQ. But teens these days, many tend to be inferior as long as temper and pessimism are put into the picture. In the study, "A Prospective Study of the Effects of Optimism on Adolescent Health Risks" which published in the February 2011 issue of Pediatrics, it shows that how a teen behave, their mental health condition really makes a difference when they grow older, especially against the onset of depressive symptoms.

This study involved some 5,634 students who were in their adolescent years, where the age range was from 12-14 years old. Several factors were considered in this study, such as optimistic thinking style, emotional problems, substance use and antisocial behaviors. From the results, it is surprising that boys appeared to have more stable in optimism, but in the contrary, girls were the ones who had marked falls in optimism across the study.

This phenomenon really needs to be taken into deep consideration as the youngsters are the future leaders of our society, our country, and hence, their condition, especially this one which concerns depression, should be strongly focused on. Those who were reported to have high level of optimism appeared to be protective in terms of health risks, and interestingly, those who are high in optimism level reported to have only almost half the risks of the least optimistic in developing depression in the future. Other than heath issues, optimism was also said to be protective against the onset of certain activities such as substance abuse, interpersonal violence, theft and vandalism.

Diet of Mental Energy

Some kids would think to themselves, "can I bend the stainless steel utensils with my mind?", "can I get hold of the cup without needing to enter the kitchen?", and then they claim that they could attain such kind of power, an extraordinary mind power. Consequently, they would sometimes nag their dad to buy some power source for them to acquire these new mental energy.

But come on, we know that those situations above can only be seen in many Hollywood sci-fi movies, and they are known as telekinesis, and they have got nothing to do with the mental energy we are talking about today (better tell that to your kids in case they are thinking the same thing :) ).

When mental energy is put into the picture, there are basically three different categories which we can break up into. The first would be mood (transient feelings about the presence of fatigue or energy), motivation (determination and enthusiasm), as well as cognition (sustained attention and vigilance). These three therefore forms what we everyday experience mentally.

In the past, there are four famous food sources which we could relate to the contribution of mental energy, and they are ginkgo biloba, ginseng, glucose and omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA). All these four are said to have effects in causing drastic improvement in human's mental health.

Life Sciences Research Organization, Inc. (LSRO), however has published a review article on the foursome, and about their effects on mental energy. From the article, ginkgo biloba appears to have strongest evidence to have effects on certain aspects of mood and attention in healthy subjects, while omega-3 PUFA has strong associations with reduced risk of age-related cognitive decline.

All About Depression & Others

Recently in the United States, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had a somewhat discouraging results when they screened U.S. adults for depression. The probability of a person getting depression is 0.1, in other words, one in ten U.S. citizens has depression. When the word depression comes into the mind, people could just thought of the sad emotion one experiences. But depression is much more than just negative feelings that one feels, it contains even more than you could think of.

Other than affecting badly the quality of life of somebody, depression can also impacts an individual's physical health. Everybody knows this one. But what exactly could depression turn into when it is left untreated? CDC reported that untreated depression can adversely impact the outcome of such chronic conditions such as asthma, cancer (yes, even cancer), diabetes, obesity and arthritis. When the condition worsens, it could even transform into short-term disability.

So how do we know when one experiences depression? Beware and pay extra attention when symptoms below appear:

- Persistent sadness and the feelings of emptiness

- Acts pessimistic, hopelessly

- Lost of interest in normal activities

- Sudden decrease in energy and quick fatigue

- Difficulties in concentrating and making decisions

- Excessive sleeping or insomnia

- Loses appetite or over-eating

- Suicidal thoughts

- Weird aches that would not ease with treatment

Dejavu, Chromium!

As a loyal user or distributor of GT&F Products, you might have noticed the importance, the usefulness of the special substance which known as trivalent chromium in those products. That is the core substance in GT&F Products which specifically improve diabetes and other metabolic syndromes.

Trivalent chromium, or some people might known it as Cr3+ (3 because it is tri- in its prefix) is the one exists within GT&F Products. But there are many outsiders who have yet know about these magnificent products, and at times, they would relate the products with another type of chromium, which is known as hexavalent chromium, or Cr6+. Which in contrast, hexavalent chromium is hazardous to human health. It is especially linked strongly to lung cancer as it is a genotoxic carcinogens.

Hexavalent chromium can be found in either surface or groundwater sources, and those sources can either be man-made or natural. Marhaba, a professor and chairman of the department of civil and environmental engineering and director of the New Jersey Applied Water Research Center at NJIT, advised that by installing a five-stage reverse osmosis home unit which could effectively filter these hazardous hexavalent chromium.