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Zoleka ends her post by writing: "…I am a two time Breast Cancer survivor and currently living my life Cancer free!"
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Carbonated or sparkling water is made by dissolving carbon dioxide in water; a process that simply adds bubbles and not additives like sugar, calories or caffeine. It is a refreshing beverage that, for most people has the edge on boring, regular water.
Seltzer, a water brand that stands for goodness and having the courage to do what is good for you, gives the following reasons why you should consider adding carbonated water to your shopping list:
2. Numerous digestive benefits
Studies have shown that carbonated water stimulates the nerves responsible for the digestive function. It also appears to improve symptoms of indigestion, stomach pain and constipation.
3. Takes the edge off hunger
Research suggests, the bubbles in sparking or carbonated water, take up space in your belly, making you feel fuller for longer. This benefit is naturally appealing to dieters and those with rumbling pre-dinner tums. It helps keep you satisfied without ruining your appetite.
4. A sparkling incentive to ditch the soda
It's got all the sparkle but none of the nasties making carbonated water a healthier alternative to sugary soda. It's a calorie-free beverage that's refreshingly tingly on the tongue.
5. Increases productivity
Keeping your body hydrated throughout the workday helps fight stress, prevents headaches and strengthens the immune system. For a bubbly energy booster, there's nothing quite like carbonated H2O.
This is a salad with a difference. Use lasagne sheets to wow your guests or family.
Ingredients
100g SPAR Lasagne Sheets
1 SPAR Freshline Honeydew Melon
SPAR Freshline Rocket Leaves
2 SPAR Freshline Avocado Pears, sliced
1 large SPAR Freshline Red Pepper, thinly sliced
160g SPAR Feta Cheese
90g SPAR Olives
DRESSING
60ml SPAR Olive Oil30ml SPAR White Wine Vinegar5ml SPAR Dijon Mustard
Method
Cook the lasagne sheets in plenty of salted boiling water. Stir occasionally to stop them sticking together. Rinse in cold water. Cut into 3cm thick ribbons.Cut the melon into slices and arrange on the platter. Arrange the pasta sheets on top rolling them to create height. Scatter the rocket on top. Arrange the avocado, red pepper, olives and feta.To make the dressing place, all the ingredients in a screw top jar. Close the lid and shake. Drizzle over the salad.
Hints & Tips
You can use any pasta of your choice for this salad.
Chicken gumbo!
Ingredients
1 tbsp olive oil
500g skinless, boneless chicken thigh, cut into chunks
1 onion
, chopped
1 green pepper, deseeded and chopped
3 celery
sticks, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 tsp smoked paprika
1 tsp ground cumin
1 tsp dried thyme
1 bay leaf
1 heaped tbsp plain flour
400g can chopped tomato
400ml chicken stock
100g okra
, cut into 2cm rounds
small handful sage
, leaves chopped
crusty bread or microwave rice, to serve
Method
Heat the oil in a large pan over a medium high heat. Add the chicken and cook in batches for about 5 mins to brown all over. Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and set aside.
Add the onion, green pepper and celery to the pan, put on the lid and cook for 5 mins, stirring occasionally until softened a little. Stir in the garlic, spices, thyme and bay leaf and cook for 1 min until fragrant. Return the chicken and any juices to the pan with the flour, stirring to coat everything. Pour in the tomatoes and stock, and bring to the boil, cook for 5 mins, then add the okra and half the sage. Turn down to a simmer, put on the lid and cook for 10 mins. Then season and serve, scattering the rest of the sage over.
Source: Spar
Standing
Standing is one of the most challenging positions. Not only does your man have to be fully capable of supporting you, you also need to balance your movements and penetration. It really does test your core and upper-leg strength.
This position works the leg muscles as you need to keep yourself upright. The woman has to work her core for balance, and her arms especially if she's got her hands against a wall to help thrust.
Seated
In this position, he's sitting on the couch or chair and you're on top, with one of your feet on the sofa and the other on the ground.
This position will work your left glute and your right hamstring. When you're halfway there, switch your legs, so you'll work both sides of your body evenly. If the chair is high and you have to stand on your tippy-toes, you'll work your calves, too.
The cowgirl
With the standard cow girl position, you're on top with your knees on the bed, enabling you to flex your lower abs and pelvic muscles.
To make things even more intense, switch things up and reposition yourself into a frog like position resting your feet on the bed rather than your knees.
As you straddle him, the position ultimately becomes like low squats which target your quads (the front thigh muscles), hips and butt. You can even move towards the front and back to work the rest of the muscle group as well as the pelvic area.
A new study by the Human Sciences Research Council shows the country has made progress in addressing the HIV epidemic, despite all nine provinces showing an upward trend in HIV prevalence.
The study surveyed over 33,000 South Africans across the country since last year.
It reveals that the province with the highest HIV prevalence rate is KwaZulu-Natal, where over a quarter of the region's population is living with the disease.
This is followed closely by the Free State and the Eastern Cape.
Although the Western Cape reflects the lowest rate of HIV prevalence at 12.6%, the study's principal investigator Mpumi Zungu says the province has seen an unprecedented rise.
"We're saying there's a need to do more research around what is driving the increase in the Western Cape. It could be issues of targeting, maybe we're not targeting in a way that reaches the vulnerable."
Approximately 7.9 million South Africans were living with HIV when the study was conducted.
A simpler, more effective treatment for drug-resistant tuberculosis has been discovered. The treatment is said to work for those who are suffering from a strain of the illness that's resistant to two first-line drugs commonly used to treat TB and at least two second-line drugs.
Nix-TB was tested on 34 people in South Africa. The drug consists of three antibiotics that have never been combined before to treat the disease: bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid, according to online publication Science.
A report released in 2015 by the World Health Organisation (WHO) noted that there were about 480 000 new cases of multi-drug-resistant (MDR) TB and that 7 234 people were treated for extreme drug-resistance TB (XDR-TB).
Science says traditional treatment of XDR-TB can take up to two-and-a-half years, often requires hospitalisation and includes painful injections.
The 34 people given the new treatment were clear within six months. "The TB bacillus could not be cultured from anyone's sputum, a sign that they had cleared the infection," says Science.
South Africa has a higher-than-average incidence of TB occurrence. The South African National Tuberculosis Association says the country has the third highest rate if TB infection, after China and India.
XDR-TB is also on the increase in South Africa, according to WHO, which also says that people who are living with HIV are at greater risk.
"In places where XDR-TB strains circulate more frequently, people with HIV are more likely to be infected with XDR-TB than elsewhere."
Experts are unsure when the new treatment will be available as one of the antibiotics, pretomanid, still needs to be approved.
Source: Science
Improving healthcare systems and the delivery of affordable, accessible healthcare services in African countries are key requisites for the optimal growth of the continent's economies as the health of a nation is intrinsically linked to its potential to thrive and optimise productivity. Although many African countries' increased focus on strengthening their healthcare systems in recent years has led to significant gains in terms of improving health outcomes, the continent continues to struggle with huge challenges such as underfunding, dire shortages of healthcare professionals and a growing double disease burden that encompasses both communicable diseases (CDs) and non-communicable diseases (NCDs).
To discuss innovative solutions to address the challenges, with the aim of sharing best practices and experiences, leading healthcare partners from Africa and across the world gathered in Johannesburg from the 1st to the 2nd of December 2016 for the 2nd Future Trends Forum in Africa. Hosted by global pharmaceutical pharmacy company, Novartis, in partnership with the University of Stellenbosch Business School, the Forum was one of a series of Future Trends Forums that have been organised by Novartis since 2008, in collaboration with other healthcare partners in different parts of the world. The main aim of the Future Trends Forum is to bring the leading minds in healthcare together to share best practices and experiences in building healthcare systems in emerging markets. The first Future Trends Forum in Africa was held in March 2015 in Lusaka in Zambia.
According to Dr Thomas Kowallik, CEO and Country President of Novartis in South Africa, the building of effective healthcare systems in Africa poses huge opportunities for investors in healthcare in terms of issues such as the establishment of infrastructure, and developing technology and systems to provide effective, affordable and accessible medicines and healthcare services.
Discussing Africa's unique challenges and possible solutions, specifically around healthcare financing , and access to medicines, Prof Panos Kanavos from the London School of Economics' (LSE) International Health Policy division in the Department of Social Policy, emphasised that healthcare is top priority for economic growth by most countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Prof Kanavos is also the Programme Director of the Medical Technology Research group at LSE.
He cited achieving measurable results in terms of health outcomes to incorporate healthcare financing mechanisms that offer financial protection to patients against catastrophic healthcare expenditures due to ill health, strengthening governance through an enabling legislative framework and ensuring transparency and accountability and open communication with stakeholders. In addition, he added that strengthening primary healthcare through a strong referral system, regulation of private health insurance (PHI) and health technology assessment (HTA) as well as economic evaluations to inform spending on technology, pharmaceutical and diagnostic aids, are crucial to improving population health.
Looking at achievements relating to increased healthcare spending per capita and reduced mortality rates in ten African countries from 2004 and 2015, Prof Kanavos presented research findings showing South Africa to be the top spender per capita on healthcare per year (rising from $80 per capita in 2004 to $540 in 2014). However, it is one of the countries that has made the least progress to decrease mortality rates over the past decade (from 52.8 per 100 000 population in 2005 to 33.6 in 2015). In contrast, a country such as Rwanda spends only around 54 dollars per capita (up from about $15 in 2005), but has managed to bring down its mortality rate from 77.7 per 100 000 population to 31 in 2015.
Adverse use of paracetamol can potentially be as dangerous as cancer on the liver's function, scientists warn.
Researchers at the University of Edinburgh have studied the impact of the painkiller on liver cells in human and mouse tissue.
Their tests showed that in certain settings, paracetamol intake can damage the liver by harming the vital structural connections between adjacent cells in the organ.
When these cell wall connections – known as tight junctions – are disrupted, the liver tissue structure is damaged. The cells may then be unable to function properly and may die.
This type of cell damage is known to occur in liver conditions including hepatitis, cirrhosis, and cancer, but it was not linked to paracetamol toxicity until now.
"Paracetamol is the world's preferred pain remedy – it is cheap, and considered safe and effective at therapeutic dose," said study co-author Dr Leonard Nelson. "However, drug-induced liver damage remains an important clinical problem and a challenge for developing safer drugs. Our findings reinforce the need for vigilance in paracetamol use, and could help discover how harm caused by its adverse use might be prevented."
Researchers now hope to develop a trustworthy method of using human liver cells rather than animal testing.
They will then plan to examine how varying paracetamol doses and timescales influence toxicity in the liver, and identify potential targets for new drugs.
Co-author Pierre Bagnaninchi, of the university's MRC Centre for Regenerative Medicine, added: "Although liver damage caused by paracetamol toxicity has been the subject of intense study for 40 years, recent developments in biosensor technology are enabling a fuller picture of the biological mechanisms involved."
The full study has been published in journal Scientific Reports.
© Cover Media
Potatoes and bread cooked at high temperatures for a long time could increase the risk of cancer in people who eat them regularly, scientists claim.
The U.K. Food Standards Agency (FSA) said a substance called acrylamide, produced when starchy foods are roasted, toasted, baked, fried or grilled for too long at high temperatures, has been found in animal studies to increase the risk of cancer.
Steve Wearne, Director of Policy at the Food Standards Agency, says that to reduce the danger, consumers should cook these foods at lower temperatures and eat them when they are cooked to a golden colour rather than browned.
"Our research indicates that the majority of people are not aware that acrylamide exists, or that they might be able to reduce their personal intake," he said in a statement.
Check cooking instructions and aim for a golden yellow colour or lighter when frying, baking, toasting or roasting starchy foods like potatoes, root vegetables and bread. Also raw potatoes in a cool, dark place rather than in the fridge and opt for a varied and balanced diet.
"Although there is more to know about the true extent of the acrylamide risk, there is an important job for government, industry and others to do to help reduce acrylamide intake.
© Cover Media
It seems as though salt has been forgotten about in recent years, with focus shifting diets low on sugar and fat.
But it's important to remember that too much salt will also put a strain on your body. New research has found that cutting 200mg of salt a day (the equivalent to a pack of potato chips) could cut people's risk of dying from heart disease.
Researchers, led by Boston's Tufts University, also estimate that by cutting 400mg of salt a day, the U.S. could save $3 billion in health care costs.
It's currently thought that Americans consume nearly double the recommended 2,000mg of salt a day. Too much salt can lead to a host of heart problems, as well as kidney failure and stroke.
For their findings, the team, made up of U.S. and U.K.-based researchers, were able to measure the effectiveness of regulation to reduce salt intake by 10 per cent over 10 years in 183 countries.
Next they estimated the number of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs), which is a measure of years lost due to ill-health, that would be averted by the policy in each country for each year between 2011 and 2020.
They concluded a global 10 per cent reduction on salt over this time period could save around about 5.8 million DALYs each year, because the number of people suffering from heart disease would be drastically reduced.
Next they worked out how much money could be saved if salt intake was reduced, with the team estimating 1.13 international dollars could be saved per person.
"We know that excess dietary salt causes hundreds of thousands of cardiovascular deaths each year," said study author Dariush Mozaffarian.
"The trillion-dollar question has been how to start to bring salt down, and how much such an effort would cost. Our results, together with prior studies in selected countries, provide evidence that a national policy for reduction in sodium intake is highly cost effective, and substantially more so than even highly cost effective medical prevention strategies."
Findings have been published in journal The BMJ.
© Cover Media
Teenagers who mix energy drinks with alcohol react as if they were on cocaine, new research claims.
Purdue University in Indiana has conducted a study into the effects of highly caffeinated energy drinks and highly caffeinated alcohol in adolescent mice. These alcohol studies cannot be performed in adolescent humans, but changes seen in mouse brains with drugs of abuse have been shown to correlate to those in humans in many drug studies.
The scientists found that when energy drinks with high levels of caffeine were mixed with alcohol and given to adolescent mice, they showed physical and neurochemical signs similar to mice given cocaine.
“It seems the two substances together push them over a limit that causes changes in their behaviour and changes the neurochemistry in their brains,” said Professor Richard van Rijn. “We’re clearly seeing effects of the combined drinks that we would not see if drinking one or the other.”
With repeated exposure to the caffeinated alcohol, those adolescent mice became increasingly more active, much like mice given cocaine.
The researchers also detected increased levels of a specific protein, known as FosB, which is a marker of long-term changes in neurochemistry, elevated in those abusing drugs such as cocaine or morphine.
“That’s one reason why it’s so difficult for drug users to quit because of these lasting changes in the brain,” authors explained in a statement.
It was also claimed that caffeinated alcohol had given mice so many intense highs that it had stunted their brain’s reward centre. As a result, mice exposed to caffeinated alcohol during adolescence were less sensitive to the “pleasurable effects” of cocaine. It meant those mice would need more cocaine to get the same feeling that unaffected mice would get.
Professor van Rijn used saccharine – an artificial sweetener – as a substitute for cocaine to test the theory.
As predicted, the mice exposed to caffeinated alcohol in adolescence ate much more saccharine than the other mice.
“Mice that had been exposed to alcohol and caffeine were somewhat numb to the rewarding effects of cocaine as adults,” he said.
The results were published in the journal Alcohol.
© Cover Media
