Resists Asthma

Asthmatic attack is intimidating. Especially when there are children in the house with such diseases. What happened to asthma sufferers is due to chronic inflammation in their airway passage. Such inflammation causes the narrowing of the bronchi (a plural form of bronchus, meaning: branches of trachea) of the sufferers.

When asthmatic attack is underway, the smooth muscles in bronchi will tend to constrict, and this causes the airways become swollen and inflamed, as a result, breathing difficulties are encountered by sufferers. Most of the obvious symptoms are very well known by all of us, with the likes of experiencing tight chest, and with wheezing sound as the sign of breathing difficulties and internal air obstructions.

Currently, a preliminary study from a New Zealand company Plant & Food Research might be a relief antidote to many asthma sufferers out there. What they have found in their study, was that blackcurrants might contain natural chemicals which could potentially curb these hazardous attacks.

The mentioned researchers discovered a natural compound in New Zealand blackcurrants which is called epigallocatechin. Such compound is said to be able to reduce inflammation in lung tissues. Speaking of New Zealand blackcurrants, it does not mean that you must get these useful compounds by booking an expensive air ticket and get it these invaluable blackcurrants from New Zealand. Such compound, can be found in other fruits such as persimmon and pomegranate.

Manage Your Voice

Ever seen our very own nutritionists giving speeches on the stage in the company? Ever seen the crowned managers giving incredible motivational talks on the podium? These people, not only do they use their creativity to the full extent in order to make audience on the floor to be attentive, they also fully use their attractive voice to win over the listeners.

In conjunction with the upcoming World Voice Day which will be held on 14th April, today we're having an article all about voice. From giving lectures in schools to yelling and cheering for your favorite team in the upcoming World Cup Finals which will be held in South Africa very soon, all these mentioned activities involve the usage of your voice. And according to Lee M. Akst, M.D., assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, he mentioned that these activities or other normal forms of activities such as talking on the phone would harm and damage our voices.

With that, several occupations, are deemed to cause occupational hazards on the involved worker. Not only singers, but other occupations such as coaches, teachers, broadcasting journalists, attorneys and other occupations which require to use voice a lot are all in danger in encountering damaging with voice.

If speaking discomfort such as hoarseness occurred for about two weeks, and it accompanies with ear pain, swallowing and breathing difficulties, that might indicate a serious vocal cord condition. When this really happens, you should be get your feet off and go for ear-nose-throat specialist as immediately as you could.

Let us give credits to those who use their voice in their occupations and pay tribute to them alongside with the upcoming World Voice Day!

Optimistic Immune System

Is optimistic a really important attitude to be applied in our daily lives? Though sometimes, when we appear to be optimistic, hoping for the best from something in progress, it does not guarantee that your expected outcome would appear before you. But at least, there's something which you can take heart from this optimistic attitude.

In a recent study, it suggests that being an optimistic person, it enhances your immune system. One study, which was published in the journal of Psychological Science had been carried out based on such postulation. Researchers whom participated in this study had recruited some 124 first year law students for a 6-month period. During this period, the students would be studied for five times.

Here's how it goes, each time these students were studied, they were asked questions pertaining to what extent they are actually behaving optimistically. Those questions were specifically about the law school which they were studying in, and also some questions concerning about how they would fare in the near future.

Each time after the students were examined, they were then injected some material which would stimulate immune response within their body. When immune response is strong, larger bump in the skin would appear. Whenever the students answered the questions optimistically. In other words, when they answered with positive as well as assertive answers, larger bumps were observed in their skins compared to those who gave relatively pessimistic answers.

Although immune system of different individuals is of course, different by nature as well, and such study does not appear to be too convincing in the field of science. But positively, this leaves some traces to future researches. We now understand that at least, immune responses in our body are somehow closely related to how we think about ourselves either presently or in the future.

Science of Alcohol

The number of individuals who drink alcohol is on the rise. Not only the rising inclination worries the nation, the worse news is that, the rise of the numbers concerns with the young ones. These days, more and more youngsters begin to give alcohol a try, and what is more, they think it is cool by drinking a glass or two with their fellow peers.

Among these peers, what makes people worrying the most, is that girls are often being tempted to get indulged in these alcoholic beverages more than the guys, due to certain undefined reasons. Peer pressure, perhaps? But we are not talking about the statistics of which gender enjoys drinking the most, but today we are focusing on the females who drink.

Girls who drink alcohol, should be remain cautious all the time. Why? There are certain reasons to worry about:

Firstly, girls appear to be relatively light-weighted compare to the boys, which means, when drinking the same amount of alcohol as the boys do, the blood alcohol level of the girls will rise in a quicker manner compare to the boys, and so, the girls might experience a longer intoxicated period. With the same reason, the girls might get alcohol poisoning so much easier because by just drinking relatively small amount of alcohol, it could already spell troubles for them.

Secondly, girls have less water than boys do. In a girl's body, there is slightly higher proportion of fats than lean muscle tissues. Also because of this, alcohol gets intoxicated pretty much easier in girls because alcohol gets concentrated easily when the water content is lower.

Apart from that, girls appear to have lesser enzymes to break down alcohol. Alcohol dehydrogenases, for example, is one of the seven enzymes that break alcohol down and eventually processed by the body. Since girls have fewer amount of them, it does not appear to be any easier for them to metabolize the alcohol consumed.

So, what is the good things to drink then? To top it all, boys won't like girls who drink, don't you think? But milk-drinking is completely a different case, especially high quality milk such as GT&F Milk which provides various benefits to your body.

Self-treatment on Nasal

Seasonal flu is always being treated as an inevitable illness or symptoms to certain people, especially for those who are allergic to pollens and dusts, and those who experience acute sinus problems all their lives. To make things worse, recent days have been filled with intimidating news such as bird flu, the infamous SARS, as well as the most recent cases of H1N1.

All these diseases and news which revolve around in our lives, are all connected or can be assumed as if started with one common word, which is "flu". Thus, it is essential if we could eradicate the first symptom before it spreads further and develop into something uglier and could harm us in long term.

For ages, common cold and flu (influenza) has been regarded as an illness which does not have its real treatment, for its viruses keep evolving, and hence there are no specific treatments or medicinal products which could really curb its existence.

Recently, one study found that people were more likely to return work sooner after using some nose washes. In other words, there were people, after applying a spray or spout of salt water to their nose (in a washing manner), certain beneficial effects were observed.

In Indian subcontinent, saltwater washes have long been regarded as a normal practice. Saline nasal washes, are claimed to be able to wash out all the unnecessary mucus or any other infectious materials out from your nose; which in turn strengthen the nose's own filtration system. Though such result has not been proven scientifically, but numerous researchers have been looking deeply into this matter.

Talk Your Heart Out

When a person tries to convey his or her message to the counterpart, a medium is needed. This medium is known as "communication". Through communicating with the person whom you want to talk to, you will need to create words in your mind and start speaking up, and voicing up.

Talk might seemed like an extremely easy task to do, but many people tend to isolate themselves, and as a result becoming a socially-inept person. Whenever a person steps up and talk to him or her, rejection is always the answer to that. Such phenomenon, according to a latest study, does not seem to be healthy.

As reported in the Psychological Science, a journal has posted a somewhat interesting findings relating happiness and talking. According to the study, happy well-beings appeared to talk more compare to those who do not speak up. To be more precise, happy individuals involve themselves with substantive conversations rather than high frequency of small talks.

Derived from the Department of Education & Training in Queensland, substantive conversations basically can be divided into four different categories, which are: Intellectual Substance (making critical reasoning by discussing different ideas through various types of mental analysis), Dialogue (address comments, questions and statements directly to the others), Logical Extension & Synthesis (collectively understanding of a topic or a theme) and Sustained Exchange (exchanges extend beyond the routine IRE - initiate, response, evaluate).

According to the scientific study, happy people spent 25% less time alone and 70% more time talking, comparing to those unhappy ones. This result can be further discussed when it comes to substantive conversations: happy individuals had twice as many substantive conversations and one third as much small talk as the unhappiest participants.

Sweetened Drinks

Sugar sweetened drinks have been the favorite choice of food for all categories of individuals, either young or old, sweetened drinks such as those famous carbonated drinks, are often the common selections. What is more, during these days where the scorching sun hangs up high above our heads, the possibility of such inclination goes even higher than expected.


Although these drinks are sweet, they curb our desperate thirst especially under the hot sun. However, it brings us great negative impacts as far as our biological system is concerned. In America itself, researchers estimate that the increased consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages between 1990-2000 caused the emergence of 130,000 new diabetes cases.

In general, these drinks ranged from 120-200 equivalent calories per drink. Consequently, these added calories could potentially increase the number of individuals, not only in diabetes sufferers, but also in obesity sufferers. For the increased number of obese patients particularly, there is already a clear journal published in JAMA in the year of 2004. This piece of study can be downloaded from this link. The mentioned journal associates sugar sweetened beverage consumption with weight gain and incidence of Type 2 Diabetes.