Category: Health EN

Should you eat a banana when it’s underripe, barely ripe, ripe, very ripe or overripe?  That depends on what your body needs and your state of health.  Here’s what a banana offers at different stages of ripeness.

Packed with essential nutrients, beets or beetroots are a great source of fibre, folate (vitamin B9), manganese, potassium, iron, and Vitamin C. Beetroots and beetroot juice have been associated with numerous health benefits, including improved blood flow, lower blood pressure, and increased exercise performance. Many of these benefits are due to their high content of inorganic nitrates. (Source:...

Diabetes has become a condition of epidemic proportion worldwide and it is a cause for concern, prompting World Health Organisation (WHO) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) to declare November 14 as World Diabetes Day. In Malaysia, in spite of many campaigns against diabetes, its prevalence especially that of Type 2 has increased to epidemic proportions. At the current population of...

Chronic stress, which is constant and persists over an extended period of time, can be debilitating and overwhelming.  It can impact your overall health – affecting both your physical and psychological well-being by causing a variety of problems including anxiety, insomnia, muscle pain, high blood pressure, and a weakened immune system.    

The humble crossword puzzle may actually be better for the ageing brain than brain-training video games involving memory tests, matching tasks, spatial recognition challenges, and processing speed tasks, a new study suggests. In the study, older adults with mild cognitive impairment experienced improved brain function after doing crossword puzzles regularly for 3 months. People who did...

Malaysian women are advised to avoid skin whitening products. A Philippines watchdog group has found 8 Thai skincare sets sold online to be contaminated with high concentrations of mercury – up to 44,540 parts per million (ppm), way above the legal limit of 1 ppm (see EcoWaste Coalition’s press release below). Mercury in skin-lightening creams may cause kidney damage, skin rashes, skin...

Having spent decades refining tobacco products to enhance their addictiveness, tobacco companies appear to believe that protecting young people from addiction would deprive them of personal autonomy. In New Zealand, which now has a smoke-free generation policy, youths aged 17-18 interviewed rejected the negative view of freedom tobacco companies propose, which presents regulation as limiting or...

Eat foods as close to their natural state as possible.  Whole and natural foods are rich in nutrients and contain fewer additives than heavily processed foods (eg: chips, candy, sodas, snacks, bread, burgers, pizzas and other fast foods).  Processed foods are also high in preservatives, artificial ingredients and added sugars and fats which are bad for health.

Cabbage is full of antioxidants and Vitamin C and can protect against colds and flu, and Alzheimer’s disease; help proper nervous function; and can strengthen your immune system. Red cabbage, also known as purple cabbage, is better. It contains 36 different varieties of anthocyanins, a class of flavonoids that have been linked to cancer protection. Anthocyanins have been shown to suppress the...

Research conducted at Harvard first linked TV watching to obesity more than 25 years ago.  Since then, extensive research has confirmed the link between TV viewing and obesity in children and adults, in countries around the world. And there’s good evidence that cutting back on TV time can help with weight control – part of the reason why many organisations recommend that children and teens...