EULALEE THOMPSONPUTTING PEN to paper or more
accurately, fingertips to the keyboard, week after week, is no easy task for the busy 'Your Health' team Drs. Clive Anderson, Sidney McGill, Yasmin Williams and Wendel Abel, as well as Kenneth Gardner, Ellen Campbell-Grizzle and Rosalee Brown, but it is almost our mission in life to bring to our readers cutting-edge health information.
Now 2004 is almost 'the year that was'. We wish you good health in the new year, and we plan to guide you even more steadfastly along the healthy path in 2005. Here's a review of some 2004 articles. It's your health; take control. Happy New Year!
Slim chance of contracting:
'mad cow' disease (January 7)
Beef is really getting some hard knocks these days. In one corner, there are nutritionists unravelling a long list of reasons not to eat it and in the other corner, there is the degenerative disease, Bovine Spongi-form Encephalopathy, (BSE), attacking cattle's brain and spinal cord and potentially transmissible in the food chain. So, no tender, juicy steak for dinner? Dr. Cedric Lazarus, the agriculture ministry's senior veterinary scientist, believes that this drastic action against the taste buds is really unnecessary.
'Cold ground is their bed':
homeless and mentally ill
(January 21)
Bobby (not his real name) was wandering the streets of Kingston, Portmore and Golden Spring, for nearly two years before he was rescued by an assertive outreach health team operating out of Bellevue Hospital in Kingston.
He can't quite remember his age, maybe 30, but he thinks that he could even be 60; living on the streets, he said, he had no reason to count the days or calculate his age.
His diminutive stature, soft-spoken, but
cultured British accent might have made him prime target. "People tried to murder me. They grabbed my hand and choked me and they tried to cut me with a knife," Bobby recalled.
He's got the cure for your
sore foot (February 18)
Leonard Lewis claims that he has the cure for 'sore foot' the chronic, resistant leg ulceration, which is not uncommon in Jamaica. The 'cure' is a concoction of local herbs, formed into an ointment, which he is calling 'Cumsee ointment', but the names of the herbs and the formula are well-kept secrets Mr. Lewis is
keeping that close to his chest.
"My ointment is giving relief to dozens of people with chronic leg ulcers in Ocho Rios," he claims.
Coconut oil reclaims
the spotlight (April 7)
The oil, that 'sleeps up' when left standing in the kitchen cupboard for too long or in cooler temperatures was being avoided for years, like the plaque, because the belief was that it clogged up vital arteries in body, setting off a train of events leading to heart disease.
All this information, according to visiting U.S. researcher and nutritionist, Dr. Bruce Fife, is nothing, but hogwash.
Before vision is lost:
diagnosing glaucoma (May 12)
The eye disease, glaucoma, is a very stealthy one. It creeps up, mainly on black people, Indians, Asians, without sign or symptom, until one day some vision is lost, and if the progress is left unchecked, eventually complete vision loss blindness occurs.
It is because glaucoma is largely a silent condition, results in irreversible blindness and is so prevalent here, that consultant ophthalmologist, Dr. Leon O. Vaughan, says that the management focus should be on prevention.
Sweet rosemary (Aug. 25)
The folk not only use rosemary (rosemarinus officinale) to preserve food (especially meat), but to treat a range of ailments. Now scientists at the Scientific Research Council (SRC) are not only trying to isolate the herb's active ingredients, but to transform the isolate into commercially-viable products.
"We are basically looking at 'the active' in rosemary, that is, the biologically-active compound. We are trying to assess the quantity of the active in rosemary grown in Jamaica," said Sheridan Hibbert, research scientist at the SRC's Natural Products Unit.
A pharmacist campaigns against HIV/AIDS (September 8)
In the heart of Kingston, West Queen Street, where Dahlia McDaniel practises as a pharmacist,
she sees at least 10 clients every day requesting 'the morning-after pill'. For some of her clients, this high-dose contraceptive method intended as an emergency method to prevent pregnancy, is being used as the main method of protection.
"We sell it (the morning-after pill) like water downtown. Some clients are coming once per week. It's not a prescription item but what we call a 'pharmacy control' item dispensed based on an interview with the pharmacist. It is one of the most popular items in pharmacy," said Ms. McDaniel.
The post-Hurricane Ivan
'blues' (September 22)
As terrifying as the force of Hurricane Ivan's wind and rain may have been, its terror didn't end with the last blow; most of the stress will linger on in the post-hurricane period.
Most persons should be able to cope and rely on their resilience to take them through this period, however, mental health experts note that the post-disaster stress associated with an extreme traumatic event, such as a hurricane, should not be taken lightly. Some people will develop symptoms that fit the criteria for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).
