Leadership, culture and mental health

Culled from Punch Newspaper

The Nigerian society will make an interesting study for any academic discipline that conducts investigation in human behaviour. Our society is essentially governed and sustained by a sentimental belief system which derives from sophisticated cultural software.

Despite our cultural diversity and growing population of the elite class, sentimental reasoning is a mental attribute that makes a thorough and objective engagement of our values very difficult as a people.

Sentiment is a thought, view or attitude; especially one based mainly on emotion instead of reason. It is an attitude, thought or judgment prompted by feelings rather than objective reasoning. Objective reasoning, on the other hand, is the ability to decide whether or not the information covered is fact, opinion or propaganda, since it is undistorted by emotion or personal bias.

Red meat consumption links to Increased diabetes risk

People who eat a lot of red meat increase their risk of developing type 2 diabetes, while those who cut down on red meat cut their risk.

Those are the findings of a large new study out of Singapore involving 149,000 United States men and women.

The researchers found that increasing the consumption of red meat can increase the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by 48 percent.

“There is no need to have more red meat on your plate; it increases the risk of diabetes,” said lead researcher An Pan, an assistant professor at the Saw Hock School of Public Health at the National University of Singapore.

“It is better to reduce your red meat consumption by replacing it with other healthy food choices, like beans, legumes, soy products, nuts, fish, poultry and whole grains,” he added.

For the study, Pan’s team collected data on three Harvard group studies: the Health Professionals Follow-up Study, the Nurses’ Health Study and the Nurses’ Health Study II. All the participants answered questions about their diet every four years, resulting in more than 1.9 million person-years of follow-up.

There were more than 7,500 cases of type 2 diabetes, the researches found.

Comparing diet with the cases of diabetes, Pan’s group found that people who increased their consumption of red meat by 0.5 servings per day during a four-year period were 48 per cent more likely to develop type 2 diabetes, compared with people who ate less red meat.

Moreover, people who cut their red meat consumption were 14 percent less likely to develop type 2 diabetes, they found.

Healthy fats you should be eating

Walnuts: Walnuts have earned their super food status in part because of their fats. They are one of the few foods to deliver alpha-linolenic acid, a type of omega-3 fat thought to protect against heart disease.

•Olives: Olive oil is a great way to get monounsaturated fats in your diet, but so are olives. They also deliver plant sterols — compounds that can lower “bad” LDL cholesterol. Olives can be pretty high in sodium, but you can take away some of that salt by soaking them in fresh water.

•Avocados: Avocados get their creamy texture from heart-healthy monounsaturated fats. They also deliver fibre, which helps you feel full, as well as potassium and vitamin C. For a heart-smart and delicious breakfast, smash an avocado onto whole-grain toast.    R8WYEK6FWYJK

•Canola oil: Canola oil is an excellent heart-healthy choice for cooking. It’s loaded with monounsaturated fats, which can raise your “good” cholesterol (HDL) and lower your “bad” cholesterol (LDL). It’s particularly good for cooking at high temperatures, since it has a higher smoke point than olive oil.

•Peanut butter: Smear some toast or apple slices with peanut butter and you have a breakfast or snack with staying power. The unsaturated fats in peanut butter help make the meal satisfying by making it take longer to digest and it’s also packed with protein. Stick to natural peanut butter to avoid the added sugars and unhealthy partially hydrogenated fats that are added to other kinds of peanut butter

•Salmon: As an “oily” fish, salmon has lots of DHA and EPA — two kinds of omega-3 fats that can reduce inflammation, lowering risk of skin cancer and heart disease. Want an alternative to salmon? Trout, mackerel, sardines and herring are all good choices for getting DHA and EPA into your diet.

Bad habits that wreck your teeth

Chewing on Ice

It’s natural and sugar free, so you might think ice is harmless. But munching on hard, frozen cubes can chip or even crack your teeth. And if your mindless chomping irritates the soft tissue inside a tooth, regular toothaches may follow. Hot foods and cold foods may trigger quick, sharp jabs of pain or a lingering toothache. Next time you get the urge for ice, chew some sugarless gum.

Playing Sports With No Mouth Guard

Whether you play football, hockey, or any other contact sport, don’t get in the game without a mouth guard. This is a piece of molded plastic that protects the upper row of teeth. Without it, your teeth could get chipped or even knocked out when the action gets rough. Self-fitting mouth guards may be purchased at a store, or you can have one custom made by your dentist.

Opening Stuff With Your Teeth

Opening bottle caps or plastic packaging with your teeth may be convenient, but this is one habit that makes dentists cringe. Using your teeth as tools can cause them to crack or chip. Instead, keep scissors and bottle openers handy. Bottom line, your teeth should only be used for eating.

Unusual usage of eggshells

he next time you’re making omelets, don’t toss your shells. Eggshells have nearly as many uses as the eggs themselves. Here are a few ways to get the most from your eggs.

Put them on your face
 To restore youthful glow to your skin, pulverise clean, dried eggshells with a mortar and pestle. Mix the powder with some egg white and spread on your skin. Allow the mixture to dry before washing it off.

Clear up your skin
 Drop an eggshell into a small container of apple cider vinegar and let it soak for a couple of days. Dab the mixture on minor skin irritations or on itchy skin.

Sweeten your coffee
  Add some crushed eggshells to ground coffee before brewing it to make it taste less bitter.

Clean your house with them
  Ground eggshells make a wonderful (and non toxic!) abrasive for those tough-to-clean pots, pans, and thermoses. Mix them with a little soapy water for a powerful clean.

Unclog your drains
  Keep a few ground eggshells in your kitchen sink strainer. They trap additional solids and when they slowly break down, they will help to naturally clean your pipes on their way out.

Fertilise your garden
 Eggshells are rich in calcium and other minerals that help your garden thrive. Crush eggshells into tiny pieces and use them as compost.

Fortify your pet
 Dry eggshells in a 250-degree over for 30 minutes. Then put them in a plastic zipper bag, seal it, and crush the shells with a rolling pin until they are a fine powder. Put this into your dog’s food as a great calcium supplement to help its bones and teeth.

Scare away slugs
  Crush eggshells and scatter them around your vegetables and flowers to fend off hungry herbivores such as slugs, snails, and cutworms, without using toxic pesticides. The smell of eggs will also deter deer.

The Petroleum Industry

Jobs in the petroleum industry are fun and exciting because they provide people with a chance to "do geology" in a high-technology, high-data environment that isn't found in most other geoscience professional jobs. Even better, many petroleum companies provide generous salary and benefits packages that include annual bonuses, flexible work schedules and company-sponsored training. Petroleum geoscientists gather, process, and analyze seismic data and well data in order to locate drillsites for their companies. During a typical career, people learn to locate three different types of drillsites: exploration drillsites (big scale/high risk), field-development drillsites (medium scale/medium risk) and producing-field drillsites (small scale/lowest risk). Most petroleum industry jobs are based in major cities like Houston and Denver and require some domestic and foreign travel as part of the job assignment.

TB, malaria, HIV: Deadlysome three

Three diseases seem to be holding developing countries like ours by the jugular. Two of these diseases — HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis — are communicable, while one — malaria — isn’t.

While they don’t necessarily lead to death when managed effectively, sometimes, they do lead to morbidity — a state of unwholesome feelings.

Tuberculosis is an air-borne infectious disease, which, though preventable and curable, still afflicts millions of people globally, including Nigeria.

According to a World Health Organisation factsheet, in 2011 alone, 8.7 million people fell ill with TB, including 1.1 million cases among people living with HIV.

That same year, 1.4 million people died from TB, including 430,000 among people who were HIV-positive.

Experts say this infection is one of the top killers of women worldwide, as a whopping half a million women died from TB in 2011 alone.

Worse still, there were an estimated 310,000 cases of multidrug-resistant TB among notified TB patients with pulmonary TB.

Malaria seems to be present with us perpetually, and that is one reason why many take to self-medication whenever they are down with what they self-diagnose as a bout of malaria.

Experts warn that though malaria may be endemic in the country, it is one deadly disease that should not be trifled with. The WHO says if not treated, malaria can quickly become life-threatening by disrupting the blood supply to vital organs.

Many people are not aware of the fact that malaria can cause: