Monday, November 17, 2008

Anorexia Nervosa

Definition: Person refuses to maintain normal body weight for age and height.

The affected individuals include
women, time menstrual periods stop, and in men at the time levels of sex hormones fall. Sex drive disappears or is much diminished. These illness involves depression, irritability, withdrawal, and peculiar behaviors such as compulsive rituals, strange eating habits, and division of foods into "good/safe" and "bad/dangerous" categories. Person may have low tolerance for change and new situations; may fear growing up and assuming adult responsibilities and an adult lifestyle.

The most important thing that family and friends can do to help a person with anorexia is to love them. People with anorexia feel safe, secure and comfortable with their illness. Their biggest fear is gaining weight, and gaining weight is seen as loss of control. They may deny they have a problem. People with anorexia will beg and lie to avoid eating and gaining weight, which is like giving up the illness. Family and friends should not give in to the pleading of the anorexic patient.

Example of people that is infected with anorexia are: Mary-Kate Olsen.

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Saturday, November 15, 2008

Yayasan School visits Dept of State Council

Seventy-six Primary Six students from Yayasan Sultan Hj Hassanal Bolkiah School led by teacher Hjh Hasnah bte Haji Jumat and accompanied by eight teachers made an educational visit to the Department of State Council yesterday.

Among the students was YAM Pg Anak Raheemah Sanaul Bolkiah binti Pg Maharaja Setia Laila DiRaja

Sahibul Irshad Pg Anak Hj Abdul Rahim, the granddaughter of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan of Brunei Darussalam.

Upon arrival, the students were welcomed and given a briefing by Siti Bismi Nuruliman bte Awg Emzah, Public Relations Officer, and showed a video presentation on the Consultative Council Department. It was followed by a souvenir presentation to group leader from Haji Adnan bin Haji Manggong, Special Duties Officer.

The students ended the trip by visiting the Legislative Council Chamber and office of the Speaker of the Legislative Council, Pg Indera Mahkota Pg Anak (Dr) Kamaluddin Al-Hajj Ibni Al-Marhum Pg Bendahara Pengiran Anak Haji Mohd Yassin, led by Pg Tajuddin bin Pg Mohd Daud, Simultaneous Interpreter.

According to Hjh Hasnah the visit was one of the activities lined up for the students after their PSR exams. The study trip was to give exposure to the students on the department.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Universities reject more scrutiny

Universities have defended the effectiveness of self-regulation in maintaining standards - rejecting any need for further external scrutiny.

Farce'

It concludes that there are sufficient checks and the report identifies no weaknesses - saying that the current system is "widely admired internationally".

It follows a series of reports raising doubts about the reliability of degree grades - with whistleblowers from within universities challenging the effectiveness of checks on the quality of students' work.

Among the concerns were the external examiner system, overseas students with inadequate language skills, grade inflation, plagiarism, doubts over the classification of degrees, the manipulation of satisfaction surveys and the pressure on academics to adjust marks to protect a university's image.

This had prompted questions about a lack of public accountability in a university system that was seeking increasing amounts of public money.

Phil Willis, chair of the Innovation, Universities, Science and Skills select committee, said that the lack of certainty over the value of university degrees was "descending into farce".

There had also been sceptical questioning from MPs on whether the watchdog, the Quality Assurance Agency, could effectively monitor such a diverse system.

MPs had been told that at present no university department was currently assessed as being below standard and that the watchdog had never received a "cause for complaint" from students or academics.

At a meeting in the House of Lords, the university chiefs presented their own report, which concluded that university-led checks were an effective guarantee of standards - and denied that there was any conflict of interests.

Testosterone patch may kick-start sex drive in women

Postmenopausal women who have lost interest in sex may be able to bring their libidos back to life with a testosterone patch, according to new research published this week in The New England Journal of Medicine.

However, the use of the male hormone to boost sex drive in women may not be risk-free. Out of the 814 women in the study, four women who were taking testosterone developed breast cancer, but none of the women on placebo did. It's not clear whether this was a statistical blip or a warning sign that excess testosterone could cause or spur the growth of a malignancy. Some women also reported excess hair growth, although none stopped using the hormone for this reason.

Susan R. Davis, M.D., Ph.D., of Monash University in Australia, and colleagues in the United States, Canada, and Sweden, evaluated two different doses of testosterone delivered by Procter & Gamble Pharmaceuticals' Intrinsa patch. In 2004, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) panel gave Intrinsa the thumbs down and called for larger, longer studies to ensure that the medication was safe, in addition to proving that it actually helped women's sex lives.

Wednesday, November 5, 2008

The Royal Collection: bloody secrets of a masterpiece

When is a painting finished? Is it the moment when the artist lays down his or her brush? Or when the canvas is signed? Or do great pictures, as I believe, have a life of their own, continuing to evolve even after they leave the studio?

The Royal Collection: Massacre of the Innocents by Peter Bruegel the Elder
Of course, colours can fade or darken over the years, but meaning can change, too, depending on who owns a work of art, where it is displayed and how it is treated. Time itself can impinge on the reading of an image when a later generation interprets it through the prism of its own experience, often in ways that the artist may never have intended.
There could be no better example of this phenomenon than Pieter Bruegel the Elder's Massacre of the Innocents in the Royal Collection. Painted in 1565-67 and acquired more than a century later by Charles II, it shows a snow-covered Flemish village in the dead of winter, with new-fallen snow covering pitched roofs, icicles hanging from eaves, bare branches, a frozen pond and patches of hard earth visible under trampled snow.

URL: Click Here

Sunday, November 2, 2008

Obesity

Obesity in definition is the consuming of excessive body fat up to a certain limit that the body gives negative affects. This is a disease or sickness involves cardiovascular, diabetes and also obstructive sleep apnea, cancer and osteoporosis alike. As a result, obesity causes a decrease in life expectancy. There are ways to solve obesity which is through dieting and exercising, if this fails thus the means of higher and more painful ways also being given an option eg. anti-obesity drugs and bariatric surgery.

Is brunei having problems with obesity? Yes, although not many is affected, the facts that obesity issues is actually increasing and going concern here in Brunei. With growing lack of exercise and other physical activities caused by advanced entertaining technologies, few people have different ways to suit themselves in their own environment; some people are able to maintain a reasonable balance between energy input and energy expenditure whereas others have a chronic imbalance that favors energy input, which expresses itself as overweight and obesity. These differences could be due to genetic reasons, imbalance of the gut flora, or simple excess of intake compared with a person's basal metabolic rate and level of physical exercise.

Friday, October 31, 2008

Super Size Me


Recently we saw a movie about the obesity issue that is spreading throughout the USA, its titled "SuperSize Me". This movie takes place all around America but mainly in West Virginia, the 3rd most fattest state in America. Morgan Spurlock, the author and director, documented his journey of experimenting eating only McDonald's fast foods for a month. check out the rest of the movie details by actually watching the movie, though there are some scenes with parental advised for those kiddies and underaged people, unlike me.