nutriWEB

A proud website by the Nutrition Society of Malaysia, an organization I am currently a member.

While many tend to shy away from nutriWEB and only visit it during the registration for the annual scientific conference, I still feel this is a good initiative by the society to disseminate some nutritional information to the public. You get to browse the soft copies of research papers published in Malaysian Journal of Nutrition, download health recipes taken from their Resepi Sihat Pilihan Bijak cooking books, calculate your BMI in their nutrition tool and get some health facts as well. The latest news updated in the website is the newspaper articles published in the main stream media.

I do have my grouses about the site as well. I hope they will update it as frequent as possible. The last update prior to the Nutrition Month news was way back in 2006! For example, they can always have new articles on nutrition and health written exclusively for the website. The council is made up with all the experts anyway!

And I do hope they will change the layout/look of the site. It has been like that every since I started visiting! *sigh..

Do you need multivit?

No, you don't.

Unless you belong to the 'high-risk' group as listed below:

• elderly people
• vegans/vegetarians
• alcohol-dependent individuals
• patients with malabsorption of certain micronutrients.

If you do not belong to any of the group above, I would say you are wasting your money on the over advertised multivitamins. Consumption of individual micronutrients also should be treated with caution as you may find mega doses of a specific micronutrients which is not only unnecessary for your body, but may also cause other health problems. For example,excessive doses of vitamin A during early pregnancy and fat-soluble vitamins taken anytime may result in adverse outcomes.

It is proven that certain inadequacy of certain micronutrients may increase the risk for some medical conditions - suboptimal folic acid levels, along with suboptimal levels of vitamins B6 and B12, are a risk factor for cardiovascular disease, neural tube defects, and colon and breast cancer; low levels of vitamin D contribute to osteopenia and fractures; and low levels of the antioxidant vitamins (vitamins A, E, and C) may increase risk for several chronic diseases. However this should not be an excuse for us to indulge in one particular micronutrient unless advised by a nutritionist/dietician.

Food remains the best source of micronutrients. Remember, they are called MICRONUTRIENTS for a reason!

The Recommended Nutrient Intake for Malaysians gives you an idea on the limitation of intakes of various macro and micronutrients.


Further read:
Vitamins for Chronic Disease Prevention in Adults

Star fruit and kidney

I had tough time explaining to others how a man could slip into coma after consuming ordinary star fruit.

Tang Gon Seang, who has been suffering a kidney ailment was in Shenzhen visiting his son when he passed out on March 29 after eating star fruits and was rushed to the Shenzhen General Hospital where he fell into a coma.

While star fruit sellers will never going to agree with the nephrologist who advised against consumption of star fruit (only if you are a patient with kidney failure), it is a proven fact that star fruit contains neurotoxin that could harm your central nervous system. In normal people, the neurotoxin will be 'processed' by the kidneys and passed into the urine but in those kidney patients will not be able to do this.

Published in 2003, Neto et al. demonstrated the intoxification caused by star fruit in uraemic patients (patients with a toxic condition resulting from kidney disease in which there is retention in the bloodstream of waste products normally excreted in the urine).

The most common symptoms were persistent and intractable hiccups in 30 patients (93.75%), vomiting in 22 (68.7%), variable degrees of disturbed consciousness (mental confusion, psychomotor agitation) in 21 (65.6%), decreased muscle power, limb numbness, paresis, insomnia and paresthesias in 13 (40.6%) and seizures in seven (21.8%). Patients who were promptly treated with haemodialysis, including those with severe intoxication, recovered without sequelae. Patients with severe intoxication who were not treated or treated with peritoneal dialysis did not survive.

You may read the full research paper HERE.

I walk

to lose weight.

No joke.

I am not really fit enough to jog every day - I have tried and ended up with aching legs for 2 days. Then I came across a nice website dedicate to WALKING. Well, its actually a part of a website but has enough materials to be passed off as a website by itself! They touched on various aspects of walking and health. If you are trying to lose weight, then I suggest you to read up the section on Burning Calories - How to Walk for Weight Control. Good reading materials which I am currently hooked to.


Whether I will succeed losing the remaining 11kg (to achieve 15kg weight loss) or no, I am happy that I have actually picked up an healthy routine. I know eventually I will get more benefit from it. God bless!