GOOD HEALTH DETERMINED BY GENETICS, LIFESTYLE - DOCTOR

Dr Casey Nwachukwu of Wuse General Hospital, said the health of every individual depended highly on genetics and supported by his lifestyle.

Nwachukwu explained in Abuja on Sunday that a lifestyle of clean eating and physical fitness was required to support the genetics in ensuring good health.

To Reduce the risk of Food Poisoning, There's a Mobile App for That

USDA product helps consumers track expiration dates

There are apps for maps, restaurants and calorie-counting. Now, there's even one from the U.S. government for reducing your risk of food-borne illness.

The FoodKeeper -- free from the U.S. Department of Agriculture -- is available for Apple and Android devices. It enables users to set up automatic notifications when foods and beverages are nearing the end of their recommended storage dates.

Showing how foods and beverages should be stored in the refrigerator, freezer and pantry, the app helps people select storage methods that extend the life of more than 400 items. These include baby food, dairy products, eggs, meat, poultry, seafood and produce, according to the USDA.

THE HEALTH IMPACTS OF WORMS ON OUR SYSTEM

From the previous post, WORMS; WHEN DO THEY FALL IN OUR SYSTEM? ,, we talked about worms, and how they get into our system. But here we'll be talking on the impacts, and the dangers worms can pose on our general well-being.

Again, I'll like to remind you, especially parents, that worms are NOT an integral part of the human system. Your child having worms IS NOT a normal thing, as most parents have been made to believe. This is the more reason you need to take fast action if your child is infected or to prevent an imminent infection.

WORMS DON'T COME TO PLAY OR KEEP WARM, THEY HAVE COME TO HARM; THAT'S THEIR MEANS OF SURVIVAL. . .

To start with, worms can impair nutritional status by causing:

• Internal bleeding which can lead to loss of iron and anaemia.

WORMS; WHERE DO THEY FALL IN OUR SYSTEM?

In my early years on earth, growing up, the issue of worms and deworming was a common thing. Virtually every child in the neighbourhood had his/her own issue to deal with. We were almost all affected.

But after my first and second year in Med school, in all my basic anatomy and physiology classes, it was just as if the word 'worms' was missing in every lecturer's dictionary, nobody mentioned it, not even once.

I began to wonder; then where do those worms belong? Where have they come from? These questions are what have led to putting down this write-up.

First of all, especially for parents, it is pertinent to know that worms are NOT an integral part of the human system. This fact needs to be established before we proceed. Your child having worms IS NOT a normal thing, as most parents have been made to believe.

WORLD HEALTH DAY 2015: FOOD SAFETY - THE GLOBAL VIEW

Everyone, everywhere needs safe food, free from microbes, viruses and chemicals. But globalization means the food you are eating today may have come from the other side of the world. This video tells how we all have a role to make food safe - from farm to plate.

What is in your meal? 
Where did the ingredients come from? 
Were they properly - and safely - handled from every stage, from farm to plate? 

WHO is advocating for action in these areas on this World Health Day, 7 April 2015, as it calls on producers, policy-makers and the public to promote food safety.

REFERENCE
WHO

Food poisoning, High Risk foods.

Food poisoning, as earlier mentioned in Food posioning and Thousand deaths is caused by eating contaminated food. Contaminated food? Yeah right! In spite of this, not all foods have equal potency of contamination.

Some foods are at a higher risk of food poisoning than others. This is because Food poisoning Bacteria can grow and multiply on some types of food more easily than others.

It is of 'popular' believe that foods like chicken and fish have very great tendency to do this. While this is true, there are some other 'over-looked' foods that possess even greater. These include:

• Raw and cooked meat, including poultry such as chicken and turkey, and foods containing these, such as casseroles, curries and lasagne.

Listeria and Food poisoning.

 Listeria is a bacteria primarily found in soil and water. According to the CDC, vegetables can become contaminated from soil or from manure used as fertilizer. Animals carrying the bacterium can also contaminate food. Listeria has been found in many types of uncooked foods, such as meats and vegetables, as well as in processed foods that become contaminated after processing, such as soft cheeses (like feta and crumbled blue cheese) and cold cuts.

Unpasteurized milk or foods made from unpasteurized milk may also be sources of listeria infection. Listeria is killed by pasteurization, and heating procedures used to prepare ready-to-eat processed meats should be sufficient to kill the bacterium. However, unless good manufacturing practices are followed, contamination can occur even after processing.

E. Coli O157.H7 and Food poisoning.

E. coli O157:H7 is a growing cause of food-borne illness. An estimated 73,000 cases of these E. coli infections occur in the U.S. every year, according to the CDC.

Most E. coli O157:H7 infections have been associated with eating undercooked, contaminated ground beef. Drinking unpasteurized milk and swimming in or drinking sewage-contaminated water can also cause infection. Bacteria from stools of infected people can be passed to others if less than adequate hygiene or hand-washing habits are present. Young children often continue to shed the organism in their feces for a week or two after their illness resolves.

Symptoms of E.coli infection can include severe bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps, but sometimes the infection causes non-bloody diarrhea, a slight fever, or no symptoms at all.

Botulism and Food poisoning

The bacterium Clostridium botulinum is responsible for causing the rare but serious illness botulism. According to the CDC, the three main types of botulism are foodborne, wound, and infant botulism. Foodborne botulism is caused by eating foods that contain the botulism toxin. Wound botulism, which is very rare, is caused by a toxin produced from a wound infected with C. botulinum. Infant botulism is caused by consuming the spores of botulinum bacteria, which grow in a child's intestines.

All forms of botulism can be deadly and are considered medical emergencies. Symptoms of botulism include:

» Blurred vision
» Double vision
» Droopy eyelids
» Slowed or slurred speech

Food poisoning Culprits you must know.

Food poisoning is caused by contamination of food by some very harmful microorganisms (pathogens). Illnesses and deaths caused by food poisoning occurs when sufficient numbers of these organisms, or their toxins, are present in the food we eat.

Considering the number of deaths caused each year, worldwide, by food-borne diseases, it is an indication that these pathogens possess very dangerous features which are highly detrimental to the human health. This why medical and health organizations warn that high standards of food hygiene should be maintained when storing, handling and preparing food. You need to seriously beware of these culprits:

Symptoms and Prevention of Food Poisoning

The symptoms of food poisoning may vary depending on the type of bacteria causing the illness, and the quantity of contaminated food is consumed. Symptoms can range from mild to very severe contaminated food is eaten.

Symptoms can occur almost immediately after eating, or a number of hours later, and they can last from 24 hours to a week. They may even take as long as several weeks before manifestation. They include:

» Nausea
» Stomach cramps
» Diarrhoea
» Vomiting
» Fever
» Headaches.

Food poisoning and thousand deaths.

According to a recent study, each year, roughly 1 out of 6 Americans (i.e about 48 million people) gets sick, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne diseases. It is also believed that the figure could be way beyond this in most developing countries, and even the world at large, and it keeps increasing gradually.

Food poisoning kills, not because it isn't preventable or curable, but for the fact that just a few people are actually informed and aware of what food poisoning really is.