A yogurt a day keeps the doctor away

Yogurt has long been recognized for it many benefits, especially when it comes to the gastrointestinal tract. Now, current research says it may also prevent high blood pressure. A study conducted at Tufts University in Boston, revealed that people who ate at least one serving of yogurt every three days had a 31% lower risk of developing hypertension versus people who avoided the stuff. The protection increased as the subjects upped their intake of this non-fat dairy product. How it lowers hypertension How can yogurt prevent hypertension? Yogurt contains probiotics. These are live microorganisms that benefit the body in several ways. The “good” organisms prevent the overgrowth of the “bad” bacteria in the intestinal canal, thus preventing diarrhea, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation and lactose intolerance. Recent data shows that probiotics also provide protection beyond the digestive system. They prevent certain metabolic disorders such as hypertension and even diabetes. The presence of the organisms on the surface of the intestinal cells acts as a barrier that decreases the body’s absorption of cholesterol and sugars from the food we eat. High cholesterol levels contribute to the development of high blood pressure. Photo by Yahoo! Lifestyle Entertainment Immune responses Probiotics also induce a series of immune responses to prevent the release of renin. Renin is an enzyme produced by the kidney which induces high blood pressure. Although the explanation may sound technical, the call to action is obvious: take a serving of yogurt every day to stay healthy. I’m glad there’s yogurt. An apple a day was getting to be a wee bit boring. ***

Oh-my-gulay salad suggestions

Are you on a low-carb, no-rice diet? Trying to eat healthy? Or, are you simply craving for something light for lunch or dinner? Regardless of your reason, a good alternative to "full" meals (a.k.a. rice meals) is to replace your grains with salad. You can eat as much lettuce as you like without adding much calories to your daily count. Just remember not to drown your leaves in dressing and you'll be fine. Here are a few salad ideas that are definitely not boring: Prawn Salad with Pesto Dressing. Butterfly your prawns (about 2-3 pieces per serving), season with salt and pepper and grill. Set aside and prepare your pesto dressing. Combine 3 teaspoons each of plain yogurt and olive oil and add 2 teaspoons of pesto (bottled or homemade) and mix well. Assemble your lettuce and other preferred veggies on a plate and top with the three butterflied prawns. Drizzle with a few spoonfuls of pesto dressing and serve. Grilled Vegetable Salad with Balsamic Reduction and Feta. Grill yellow and red peppers, eggplant, onions and mushrooms and set aside. Make balsamic reduction by simmering 1/2 cup of balsamic vinegar until reduced and thick. Drizzle over grilled vegetables and add crumbled feta right before serving. Italian Salad. Mix lettuce with bits of mozzarella and either fresh or sundried tomatoes (both available in delis and larger supermarkets). Add a handful of basil leaves and drizzle top with olive oil and lemon. Brie Salad with Honey Vinaigrette. Cut up pieces of brie, a soft cow’s cheese available in delis and larger supermarkets, and set aside. Make honey vinaigrette dressing with 3 teaspoons of olive oil, a pinch of salt and pepper, thyme and a teaspoon of honey. Add a squeeze of lemon if you wish. Add pieces of brie and a handful of walnuts and grapes to your salad. Drizzle with honey vinaigrette and serve. Meat Lovers Salad. Can't live without your meat? Grill a few pieces of lean beef strips marinated in Korean or Japanese barbecue marinade and set aside. For dressing, combine 2 teaspoons of sesame oil, 2 teaspoons Japanese mayonnaise, 1/2 teaspoon oyster sauce and 2 teaspoons of the barbecue marinade. Add a squeeze of lime if you wish. Top salad leaves with beef strips and drizzle with dressing. Finish off with toasted sesame seeds.

Natural Wonders: Avocado

This creamy flavor-filled fruit is a powerhouse of nutrients. It helps fight cancer, keeps your heart healthy and can also delay aging. Avocado, a powerhouse of nutrients! Avocado and its nutrients: Avocados are getting popular as your neighborhood fruits vendor too has begun to stock them. This creamy, delicious fruit contain many essential nutrients such as folic acid, potassium, fiber, vitamin E, B-vitamins. In addition this fruit is known as a nutrient-booster as it aids better nutrient absorption. Health benefits of avocados: Protection against oral cancer: Research suggests that certain compounds in avocados manage to seek out pre-cancerous and cancerous oral cancer cells and destroy them, without causing any harm to healthy cells. Keeps breast cancer away: Avocado also helps prevent breast cancer. Like olive oil, this fruit is high in oleic acid, which according to many studies is known to prevent breast cancer. Protects against prostate cancer: Avocado also inhibits the growth of prostate cancer. For a healthy heart: Studies show that people who eat foods rich in folate have lesser chances of developing health diseases. A cup of avocado meet b23% of the recommended value of folate, so make it a part of your daily diet to keep heart diseases at bay. Additionally, avocado contains good amounts of vitamin E, monounsaturated fats and glutathione, which are good for you heart. Prevents stroke: This fruit contents high amounts of folic acid, which as per various studies is known to help prevent strokes. Lowers cholesterol: This fruit is high in a compound called beta-sitosterol, which studies say can lower cholesterol. Another compound, oleic acid is also known to help in lowering cholesterol. Nutrient-booster: Avocados help greatly enhance your body’s ability to absorb the health-promoting carotenoids (organic pigments like lycopene and beta carotene) from vegetables. So add some slices of this yummy fruit to your salad and reap its benefits. Source of vitamin E and antioxidants: Avocados are rich in vitamin E and an antioxidant called glutathione, both these help protect the body against damage from free radicals. For healthy eyes: Avocados have more of the carotenoid lutein in comparison to any other popular fruit. This compound is known to protect eyes from muscular degeneration and cataracts, both age-related eye diseases.

UST's Abdul spared suspension

MANILA, Philippines - The University of the Santo Tomas Tigers will field a full roster when they start their showdown with five-peat-seeking Ateneo Blue Eagles for the UAAP Season 75 men’s basketball crown on Saturday as star center Karim Abdul escaped suspension despite incurring a second unsportsmanlike foul in the previous game. “Hindi suspended si Abdul (Abdul is not suspended),” commissioner Ato Badolato told The STAR yesterday. There were concerns that the 6-6 Abdul will have to sit out the finals opener after getting slapped with an unsportsmanlike foul (UF) for nudging an airborne Bobby Ray Parks, Jr. during the Final Four. It was Abdul’s second UF this season after getting one for hitting University of the East’s JR Sumido in an earlier eliminations assignment. Incurring two unsportsmanlike fouls “with intent to harm” merits a one-game suspension. But this was not the case for Abdul, explained Badolato. “Hindi naman meant to hurt yung unsportsmanlike foul (His unsportsmanlike foul against Parks was not meant to hurt),” he said. Abdul is UST’s main man this year, leading the Tigers in scoring (16.8 points a game), rebounds (11.9), steals (1.5) and blocks (1.9) while giving 1.9 assist per outing. The Tigers are looking to end a six-year spell against the top-seeded Blue Eagles who are gunning for their fifth straight crown before Norman Black leaves the coaching chores to handle Talk n Text in the PBA. Black, who had considered quitting early but was prevailed upon by his boss and former Ateneo supporter, Manny V. Pangilinan, to finish the season, stressed he continues to be focused on the remaining task at hand. “I haven’t really thought about it (last few games with Ateneo). It’s more about trying to prepare the team to the best of my ability, to give them the best chance of winning, and not about it being the last two, three games for me. “I’m staying within the moment, study UST, know how to beat them and convince my team to go out and execute the game plan. I’m not really thinking about the end of the road, even though I know it’s there,” he said. - By Olmin Leyba (Philstar News Service, www.philstar.com)

Chavez attacks rival at massive hometown rally

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sang, greeted throngs of supporters and lodged a searing attack on his rival Monday as he stormed into the final stretch of his re-election campaign. Chavez rode on top of a caravan through a jubilant crowd of thousands clad in his party's red in his hometown of Sabaneta, the start of a tour taking him to six states over three days before Sunday's vote. "I salute my dear town. I salute this nest of my life," Chavez said, pointing out how big the local trees had grown since his childhood in the southwestern town of 40,000 people. "Viva Sabaneta! Viva la revolucion!" While the leftist leader, in power for 14 years, remains favorite to win a new six-year term in the election, opposition candidate Henrique Capriles has closed the gap by half to 10 points in the latest opinion poll. Chavez leveled a new charge against Capriles, accusing his campaign of receiving drug trafficking funds. "These great businessmen have brought a lot of money to his campaign, and it has come from abroad too, from fugitive bankers, some mafias, money laundering, drug trafficking," Chavez told reporters. Chavez did not provide more details to back his accusation. The opposition says 80 percent of the Capriles campaign funds come from raffles, street fundraising and Internet donations. Chavez opponents counter that the president misuses public funds to promote his re-election bid. With just days to go before Sunday's election, Chavez charged that a Capriles victory would mark the return to power of "the bourgeoisie, big corruption and the Yankee empire." This is the term Chavez, and his close allies in Cuba's communist government, use to refer to the United States. One day after addressing hundreds of thousands of people in Caracas, Capriles took his campaign to the southern states of Amazonas and Boliva on Monday, voicing confidence that he could pull off a major upset. "I do not think that this is going to be a close race. I think we can win by more than one million votes," Capriles told foreign reporters. "This government will not have a hard time acknowledging its defeat." During his Sabaneta tour, Chavez, who says he has beaten cancer, returned to his old energetic style, sending greetings to old neighbors, friends and relatives while recounting childhood memories and breaking into song. "At that other street corner, over there, is where I was born," the 58-year-old former paratrooper said. With music blaring in the background, his fans tried to get near Chavez to shake his hand or pass personal notes. "He's the best president we've ever had," said 60-year-old Juana de Sanjuan, who tends animals in her farm and receives a pension thanks to one of the government's popular social "missions." "He cares about the poor. If another becomes president, it will all be over and Venezuela will be a disaster again," she said.

Fox News blames live airing of suicide on 'severe human error'

PHOENIX (Reuters) - Fox News apologized for a "severe human error" that resulted in viewers seeing a suspected carjacker fatally shoot himself after a police chase. The coverage of the Friday incident, which sparked outrage on social media and a quick on-air apology by anchor Shepard Smith, showed a man stumbling from an allegedly stolen car into the desert near Phoenix on Friday. As a camera in a helicopter provided live coverage, the man s topped a short distance away, pulled the trigger of a gun pointed to the right side of his head and crumpled face-forward into the ground. "We took every precaution to avoid any such live incident by putting the helicopter pictures on a five-second delay," said Michael Clemente, Fox's executive vice president for news editorial. "Unfortunately, this mistake was the result of a severe human error and we apologize for what viewers ultimately saw on the screen," he said in a statement issued on Friday. The Phoenix police department on Saturday identified the man as Jodon F. Romero, 33. Authorities said he fired at officers and a police helicopter at one point during the pursuit, and died at the scene from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. In a statement, the department said Romero had a prior history of numerous violent crimes. At the time of his death, he was believed to be wanted on at least one warrant for felony parole violation on a weapons charge, and may have been sought on a second warrant. (Reporting by Colleen Jenkins and Tim Gaynor; Editing by Alex Dobuzinskis and Eric Walsh)

Bangladesh blames Muslim Rohingyas for temple attacks

DHAKA (Reuters) - Bangladesh accused Muslim Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on Monday of involvement in attacks on Buddhist temples and homes in the southeast and said the violence was triggered by a photo posted on Facebook that insulted Islam. Thousands of Muslims went on a rampage in Buddhist areas of Bangladesh near the border on Saturday, setting ablaze more than a dozen temples and monasteries and at least 50 homes. Property was looted, including statues of the Buddha. "The attacks on temples and houses in Buddhist localities in Ramu and neighbouring areas in Cox's Bazar (district) were perpetrated by radical Islamists," Home Minister Mohiuddin Khan Alamgir told reporters in Dhaka. "Rohingyas and political opponents of the government were also involved in the attacks." He described the attacks as a "premeditated and deliberate attempt" to disrupt communal harmony. It was one of the worst sectarian attacks in Bangladesh, spreading fear throughout the Buddhist minority. Police said violence spread to the port of Chittagong, where at least two temples were vandalised. But police drove the attackers away and tightened security around Buddhist areas. Police said they arrested nearly 170 people on suspicion of vandalism and an investigation was ordered into the violence. Rohingyas were involved in a week of rioting with Buddhist Rakhines across the border in Myanmar last June and aid agencies say they bore the brunt of a government crackdown to halt the violence. Rohingyas are not included in any census in multi-ethnic Myanmar and have no citizenship. Bangladesh does not accept them and pushed back out to sea refugees fleeing that unrest. Police said the latest attacks were launched after Muslims found a Facebook photo of a burned Koran, allegedly posted by a young Buddhist man who was taken into safe custody by police. The Facebook account was closed. Leaders of the Buddhist community, which makes up less than 1 percent of Bangladesh's population of 150 million, accused unidentified activists of sowing discord. "The situation has been under control since Sunday but we are adding forces to vulnerable areas to ensure the peace is kept," said Serajul Haque Khan, top civil administrator of the Chittagong division. Many Bangladeshi Muslims have taken part in protests in recent days against a film made in California and deemed insulting to Islam. Though most Rohingyas were turned back from Bangladesh during last June's violence, local residents accuse some of infiltrating the country and teaming up with Islamists.