Health Blog by YinTeing

Recently, a direct selling agent tried to convince us that we should not take any milk based product. Instead, he wanted to promote a soy based product offered by his company.

According to him, drinks like Ensure and Enercal (soy and milk-based) are not good for health. People, especially those cancer survivors should switch to soy based products.

While there may be some truth that milk based product may not be good for health or it may irritate our digestive system, Ensure and Enercal are different because:

• The manufacturers are licensed pharmaceutical companies like Abbott and undergo strict regulation guidelines. Any major complaint can have the products recalled.
• Both products claimed to be lactose free so that it does not irritate the stomach. Still, I have a friend who is extremely sensitive to lactose and would suffer some allergic reaction even at the slightest dose of lactose- she told me that she felt there is lactose in Ensure because she had the same allergic reaction (even though mild).
• Ensure and Enercal contains almost complete nutrition. That’s why they can be used for tube feeding- meaning for bedridden patients who are not able to eat, they can still take the drink made from Ensure or Enercal, mixing with water. If a tube feeding patient can survive just on that, then a normal person should be able to get almost all the nutrition required.
• Personally, when I am having fever, feel weak or unwell, I will take Ensure- because the drink provides nutrition and does not tax my stomach. I find that alongside with isotonic drinks, oranges and lots of fluid, I recover faster.

 Controversies surrounding Soy Products

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Chinese New Year (CNY) is around the corner- this year it will fall on Valentine’s Day (14 February 2010).

Usually Mandarin oranges or “kam” are available during this Chinese New Year session- during other times of the year, only the smaller versions are sold. For the Chinese, “kam” has the same pronounciation as gold in Cantonese. As such, the mandarin oranges will be placed all over the home and exchanged between the guest and host. Because during festive session gatherings will tend to sit around and chat, with the Chinese cable TV in the background, most people will conveniently reach for the mandarin orange.

You may want to go easy on mandarin oranges to avoid sore throat

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Asian diet is usually heavy in the composition of carbohydrate- predominantly using rice and noddles. Unlike our Western counterparts, we are not used to taking just meat and salad without solid carbohydrates. Some friends have tried to shift towards a more Westernized but healthy diet consisting of salad and meat.

But often, this diet is tough to work out in the long run, because everywhere we go, from restaurants to parties and gathering would consist of the typical diet such as fried rice, chicken rice, curry rice (mamak food), Indian rice, laksa mee, etc- which one finds difficult to resist. The other option is fast food which is very fattening, not to mention expensive.

If you always feel tired, bloated, unable to move or sleepy after lunch, you would need to cut down the carbs that you are taking with your lunch as well as the MSG content on the food. I used to feel tired after lunch but after making a simple adaptation, I find that I need not go for long walks after lunch:

Photo of my lunch box

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Nowadays, many companies advertised calorie reduced, less sugar and/or fat health food. These products costs much more than the usual biscuits, oats or cereals just because it is lower in fat and/or sugar content.

During the initial period of this blog, I used to get easily sucked into these offers- I buy health bar when I was either cutting down on sugar or going on the GI based diet. As such, I would buy the most reasonable health chocolate bar that I could find for RM6.90 or something like that. Even though the calories content were not low, it boasts of Glyceamic Index of only about 50. So, I paid more for an energy bar because I believed that it would make me less hungry.

But from travelling, being active, eating tones of carbs and losing weight, I realized that there is no need to resort to special products to lose weight. After all, a lot of product that claimed to have lower caloric content does not taste nice. And the fact that we have the mindset that it is low in calories would make us eat even more, thus probably making us gain more weight instead of losing it.

To prove my point, let me show you some examples:

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This is a ‘calories-for-thought’ for those who love 3-in-1 (coffee/milk with sugar and creamer) pre-packet tea/coffee. On average, one packet of this is equivalent to almost half hour of leisurely walk in the park.

So you may want to rethink if you are taking more than a packet a day: 

Note: Over 95% (and sometimes 100%) of the fat content is saturated fat (lemak tepu) as stated on most the packets. 

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Here are some signs that your body’s toxin levels may be a bit too high due to our lifestyle. You could see that many of the factors below are very much related to your digestive system.

1. Constant lethargy

If you feel tired, especially after meals, it could mean that your body’s digestive system is sluggish.  Factors that could contribute to it:

• habit of taking cold/iced drinks especially with meals.
• insufficient intake of fiber such as vegetable or fruits
• high intake of fatty food, heavy meals, processed food- you make the body work too hard
• insufficient exercise- sedentary lifestyle (physically inactive) causes everything in our body to be sluggish- toxins as the result of chemical byproducts and digestive process does not get removed and important nutrients does not get transported to the cells.
• taking laxatives- it makes the peristalsis movement sluggish and in the long run, damages the digestive track

2. Constipation

Clearing our bowels daily is important- as the bowels are waste product that our body is looking to eliminate. If you do not take the time to clear your bowels everyday, take enough fiber and drink lots of water, you would suffer from constipation. Worse still, the body will reabsorb the toxins as it attempt to absorb water from the bowels, causing this toxins to be recirculated in your system.

Read further on how to battle constipation.

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Nu Skin introduced a new weight loss system as mentioned it the press release:

“A three-pronged weight loss programme helps people lose weight by combining weight loss products, good nutrition and plenty of exercise.”

Personally, I find that this concept is well, quite creatively positioned because:

• It combines group support whereby you will have up-lines constantly persuading you to buy more weight loss product- that you probably have problem refusing since you’re in the ‘support group’ and you may feel morally obligated to do that.

By using a ‘group support’ concept, customers and down-liners would potentially feed into a system whereby they would continue buying more supplements and other products by the company. If people buy this concept, then it is indeed a brilliant idea because it would create a huge success (and richness) for everyone- the diamonds, up-liners and whoever that is in this ‘mentor support group’.

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When a person is diagnosed with cancer, friends and relatives often try to help by offering ‘helpful’ tips. Diagnosis of such illness are often traumatising for both the patient and the family members- after all,  no one is prepared for such news. There is no denying that a lot of these are offered based on good intention, because the person friend’s friend’s auntie’s third sister had tried a particular method and it seemed to work. Some however, take the opportunity to ride on the vulnerability of the situation to sell some products/services.

Example of “tips” offered:

• Going on organic, fasting or other extreme diets with the intention to ’starve the cancer cells’ and detox
• Stop eating meat or certain kinds of “cancer enhancing” food
• Eat certain brand of supplements
• Take herbs
• Buy certain brand of water filter
• Go for detox like coffee enema, liver cleanse, etc

The above needs to be taken with a strong pinch of salt. Sure, reducing red meat and using filtered water can improve health but drastically switching diets or going for extreme detox may not be workable from an already compromised immune system. The Guardian ran a very useful article on 3 June 09 called Harmful Changes writen by Denis Campbell. The article mentioned that resorting to extreme diets such as fasting, vegan, drinking only fruit/vegetable juices, etc may do more harm than good.

“We believe that there is a place for complementary (not alternative) approaches to cancer treatment. By that, we do not mean alternative or complementary medicine, but holistic approaches like tai chi, qi gong, aromatherapy or diet,” he elaborates.
Alternative medicine cannot be accepted, because there have been no randomised, controlled, blinded studies done to prove their efficacy or safety.
“We cannot take anecdotal reports to highlight the benefits of a treatment. Currently, only mainstream medicine is evidence-based.”~ Dr Gurcharan Singh (Malaysian Oncological Society) 

I feel sad that due to ignorance, many had resorted to all types of unproven methods for cures. And many people refuse to opt for conventional treatment because it seems that people die due to chemo/radiotherapy. Well, here’s what my mom and her group of friends who are retired staff nurses have to say about that:

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