The importance of Vitamin D for kids

Vitamin D is a nutrient that helps the body use calcium and phosphorous to build and maintain strong bones and teeth. Too little vitamin D can cause calcium and phosphorus levels in the blood to decrease, leading to calcium being pulled out of the bones to help maintain stable blood levels. This can cause rickets in children and osteomalacia (softening of the bones) or osteoporosis (fragile bones) in adults. However, too much vitamin D can cause too much calcium to be deposited in the body, which can lead to calcification of the kidney and other soft tissues including the heart, lungs and blood vessels.

Children were once at great risk of rickets, a bone disease that could cause bowing of a child's legs, swelling of their wrists and ankles, and failure to thrive or poor weight gain. With the introduction of vitamin D supplementation of infant formula and milk, rickets was soon considered a rare disease. In addition to supplements, children can receive vitamin D from exposure to sunlight, which stimulates vitamin D production in the skin. Because dark skinned children and those that aren't exposed to enough sunlight have always been thought to be at risk of rickets, it has long been recommended that they receive vitamin D supplements if they weren't drinking baby formula (infants) or vitamin D fortified milk (older children), but it wasn't thought that most other kids needed extra vitamin D


Vitamin D, as any biochemist lurking near the dairy-based dip at a party will tell you, does far more than simply assist in calcium absorption and regulate bone growth and mineralization.  Vitamin D is a player, physiologically speaking, and we are still learning about its pivotal impact in maintaining wellness and preventing disease throughout childhood and over the lifespan.

In addition to its essential role in bone health, activated forms of vitamin D serve the important roles  in the immune system, our metabolism, controlling inflammation and maintaining cardiac health. Over the last decade, research has increasingly linked low levels of the vitamin to diabetes, asthma, multiple sclerosis, adult heart disease, and auto-immune problems. “D” has become a bit of a panacea in the lay press, an ‘it’ Vitamin-of-the-moment. Optimal vitamin D intake in childhood–or fixing it early if suboptimal–may have a lasting impact into adulthood.
Related post : click here 

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Wow, seriously?

Last night SB and I took a friend to a dinner that SB labeled "the we're treating you to dinner because you are Japanese" meal.  We all try to meet up regularly anyway but this week we tried especially hard to make time because she is here alone and SB is an old friend with big ears and a small mouth.

We were relieved to find out that her immediate family was accounted for.  She told us that not a lot of her friends had contacted her, possibly because they didn't know what to say.  We told her that sometimes people deal with shock/tragedy in strange ways.  People laugh at funerals and cry at weddings.  My aunt spent the days after my uncle's passing talking about what to do with his shoes that had been custom made for him.  It was only when she drove me to the airport that she told me that she missed him.  SB's friend who was here visiting told us that his father did not phone him when the World Trade Center collapsed.  When he finally checked in, his father simply stated that there was nothing he could have done anyway and his son was either dead or alive.  Luckily his son had been on a low enough floor that most of his colleagues had been able to escape.

Our friend told us that one of her other friends had contacted her to see that she was okay and then immediately started talking about plans for the weekend.  But that wasn't the worst of it.  Our friend is a trader.  She has had to deal with a hedge fund manager who went ballistic because of the millions of dollars that he was losing.  Another Japanese colleague came into the office at 5am and later received a call from her mother informing her that he uncle had not survived.  Her manager was peeved that she left the floor to take a personal call and stated that he did not believe her because she had been fine when she came into work. Wow, seriously? 

I guess here in Hong Kong we still know our priorities. 

Healthy according to World Health Organization (WHO)

World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as "a state of complete physical, mental and social, not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" in 1948. Health is a positive concept emphasizing social and personal resources as well as physical capacities. "There is also a term known as mental health and describes a level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing or an absence of mental disorder.

WHO, mental health is "a state of well-being when the individual recognizes his own abilities, can cope with normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully and is able to contribute to his community. "But despite the official definitions, the concept of mental health, and if a person is" mentally well "is a subjective assessment.

Personal health depends in part on his observations of assets, and helped his health in their daily lives. The information from these observations can be used to inform decisions and personal actions and clinical decisions and treatment plans (e.g. a patient realizes that his shoes are tighter than normal may have exacerbated left heart failure and may require diuretics to reduce fluid overload) in patients who share their observations with their health care providers.

Hygiene practices are bathing, brushing and flossing teeth, washing hands especially before eating, washing food before consumption, cleaning utensils and surfaces before and after preparing meals, and many others. This can help prevent infection and disease. By cleaning the body, dead cells removed by bacteria, which reduces their chances of entering the body.

6 months na si Kirov

Tulad ng nakagawian, naghahanda kami kada-buwan

para i-celebrate ang birthday ni Kirov.  Ito ang aming munting pinagsalu-saluhan.



Lechon Manok



Pritong liempo

Pansit Bihon

Pansit Bihon ulit ;D

Okay ba para sa isang first time magluto ng pansit bihon?

Carl Sagan to the Explorer's Club

Carl Sagan's house was a source of interest and intrigue for many Cornellians including yours truly.  Since his passing his house has remained unoccupied and unvisited except for a time in 2007 when someone entered the property to install a better security system.  I know this because I passed the house every day during my evening run.

The house is located on the precipice of the Fall Creek gorge and from what I could discern, is built in a Greek style very much resembling a temple but with very few windows, thus adding to the intrigue.  I often wondered about a connection to the Delphic temple and Sagan's house.  He was a modern day oracle in many ways.  There was even a rumor that an adyton in the house led to the gorge below similar to the one at Delphi but I have trespassed hiked great portions of the gorge below and though I found Ezra Cornell's tunnel, I never found any opening that led to Sagan's house.

I want to share a letter that Sagan wrote to the Explorer's Club in 1981 requesting that women be admitted to the organization.  He reminded his club that Sacajewea guided Lewis and Clark to glory and that many women have since trial-blazed down the path of historic research and discovery as well as lifted off into space.

You may find the letter here:
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2011/03/if-membership-is-restricted-to-men-loss.html

An Occasional Word: by Bishop Crutchfield

Each year, between 350 and 500 million people are infected with malaria. Ninety percent of them are in sub-Saharan Africa. Photo: UMCOR

Dear Friends:


These are only some of the facts.


I am not a fast reader, but in the two minutes it takes me to read aloud these “occasional words,” four children will die of malaria.

Each year, between 350 and 500 million people are infected with malaria. Ninety percent of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

Each year, more than a million people die from malaria, and many more are incapacitated for varying periods of time.

The most startling fact is that if we are committed to putting our money where our mouths are, we can make malaria a memory in our lifetimes. If we work at it with passion, it can be essentially eradicated by 2015.

While we have been very fortunate to have essentially eliminated malaria in the U.S. (there are only a handful of cases each year), still it is a disease that knows no national identity, no racial, ethnic, gender, age or economic boundaries. Did you know that George Clooney, the award winning actor, recently contracted malaria while filming a documentary in Sudan?

The United Methodist Church has joined in a global alliance with a wide variety of foundations and global health partners to work toward the eradication of malaria in the next few years. The General Conference of  2008 stepped out in faith and declared that we as a church would raise $75 million over the next several years to do our part.

No apportionment dollars have been allocated toward this goal. It will depend on the efforts of local churches if this is to transpire.

Our continuing work through UMCOR and our efforts with our global partners involve not only providing mosquito nets for families, they also involve public health training, increased efforts to eliminate standing water, associated water projects, treatment facilities and medications. All of this accompanies our continuing work on a spiritual level as we respond to mind, body and spirit.

In areas where the governments of malaria-ridden countries are unable to respond, the church is already present. We have a network of laity and pastors ready and able to carry the heavy burden. We simply need to step up and give them the tools.
 Other information on this page can help you tell the story. There will be suggestions about how you can be personally involved. You might even throw a party....

In the name of Jesus Christ, for the sake of all God’s children, we can be world-transforming.

Faithfully,


Charles Crutchfield



by Bishop Charles Crutchfield, The Arkansas Annual Conference ~March 4, 2011
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Read his original blog posting here.

You've come a long way, baby

I will take a moment on this women's day to reflect on all that my foremothers accomplished so that I don't spend so much time thinking about myself compared to men.  Other than one sexist calculus teacher I never felt inadequate or ignored in school, even in the traditionally male classes.  To this day I still suspect that his sexism had more to do with an unhealthy interest in the strapping jocks in our class than any ill will toward women.

In university I had a physics professor corner me after class and declare that I needed to switch my major to physics because I was doing so well in his class (I also laughed at all of his nerdy jokes).  I don't think that I was conscious of being treated any differently than my male peers ever in university.  It seemed that the struggle had happened to women of a different generation.  When I think back of the badass women like Ellen H. Swallow Richards I can't even imagine what she had to go through to pave the way for me to be sitting inconspicuously at my desk at a formerly all-male university (we only started allowing women to work toward a degree in 1974).  By the way, I hope one of you Googles Ms. Swallow Richards because she deserves acknowledgement.

Fast forward to my first career oriented job.  This is when things started to change.  I worked in a small architecture firm and often accompanied my boss to construction sites.  I experienced many occasions when the contractor would ignore me and only talk to my boss even though my boss wasn't as involved with the minute details of the project like I was, and despite the fact that my boss repeatedly referred the contractor to me.  One day I went to a site alone to solve an easy dilemma and the contractor insisted on verifying that my boss had meant to send me.  I could hear my boss exploding over the phone at the guy (thanks, Alex).

These days I work in a schizophrenic office.  My director seems to prefer hiring women because he thinks we work harder and think more creatively but after discussion with my male colleagues I know that the women get paid much less.  Like 15% less.  One of my supervisors loves to parade me into meetings so that he can point out that I'm an Ivy League graduate but then he hands me his papers to carry behind him like some sort of servant.  The first time he did this I was confused as to why he had just handed me a large binder of his crap.  "Here," he said, shoving it at me and then he walked out of the room carrying only his ipad like the tool that he is.

After I finish taking this moment to thank the women who paved the way for me to get two master's degrees so that I can carry papers while following behind some useless idiot who thinks he looks cool bringing his little ipad to meetings, who I am certain would not be a supervisor without riding the backs of women like me, I will take another moment to drink myself to oblivion for Fat Tuesday.  It cannot possibly be a coincidence that these holidays occur at the same time. 

Gawd I need to figure out some way to get out from under his long shadow.