Mariela's Blog

The oat

2007-11-05T01:11:00.000-03:00

The oat is a species of cereal grain. Oats are suitable for human consumption as oatmeal, oat bran and oat flour. But they are also commonly used as livestock feed, especially horses. It is also used in some brands of dog meal.

The oat has a variety of health benefits:

It reduces blood cholesterol: Inhibiting bad cholesterol (LDL) through its water-soluble fibres. The oat acts like a sponge during digestion, soaking up and removing cholesterol from the body. This fact helps prevent the risk of heart disease.

It enhances immune response to infections: The water-soluble fibres present in the oat significantly enhance the human immune system's response to bacterial infection. It does not only help our body to search for the site of an infection more quickly, it also enhances its ability to eliminate the bacteria it finds.

It stabilizes blood sugar: Oats and other whole grains are a rich source of magnesium, a mineral that acts in enzymes involved in the body's use of glucose and insulin secretion. They substantially lower type 2 diabetes risk.

Antioxidant benefits: Oats are also a very good source of selenium. It works with vitamin E in numerous vital antioxidant systems throughout the body. These powerful antioxidant actions make selenium helpful in decreasing asthma symptoms and in the prevention of heart disease. In addition, selenium is involved in DNA repair and is associated with a reduced risk for cancer, especially colon cancer.

Protective against breast cancer: Pre-menopausal women eating the most fibre (>30 grams daily) more than halved their risk of developing breast cancer, enjoying a 52% lower risk of breast cancer compared to women whose diets supplied the least fibre.

Protective against childhood asthma: Increasing consumption of whole grains and fish could reduce the risk of childhood asthma by about 50%.

An alternative for children and adults with celiac disease: Celiac disease is a disease often associated with ingestion of wheat, or more specifically a group of proteins commonly knows as gluten. Although treatment of celiac disease has been thought to require lifelong avoidance of the protein gluten, which is found in wheat, rye, barley and oats, recent studies of adults have shown that oats, despite the small amount of gluten they contain, are well-tolerated.

A good resource of soluble fibre, proteins, calcium and minerals, and also with low calories:

Due to its high amount of nutrients, the oat has a variety of uses, for example in human in a wide variety of forms, like an ingredient in many cold cereals, in particular muesli and granola. It is sometimes used in Britain to brewing beer. It has also other uses, like oat soap, oat shampoo, oat skin lotions, and in animal consumption as livestock, commonly to feed horses and cattle. It is also used to make oat straw.

Finally I can say that the oat is a benefic cereal to our body and a great resource for human kind.

About Bubonic Plague

2007-08-19T17:35:00.000-04:00

The bubonic plague is a fatal bacterial infection that causes buboes, which are swellings of the lymph nodes. Buboes usually appear under the armpit, in the groin, behind the knees or on the neck that in some cases suppurate pus and blood. Long time ago people thought that bursting the bubo was the solution, but this just makes worse the illness, because there is a higher risk to get an infection. The disease is spread mainly by black rats.

The bubonic plague or bubonic fever is a variant of the infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, which can also cause pneumonia and septicemic plague. All three forms have been responsible for high mortality rates in epidemics through human history.

The bubonic plague is mainly a disease of the black rat, carried to humans by the rat flea. The rat flea feeds from rodents, and is the most common cause for infection of the bubonic plague. This occurs when the flea has fed on an infected rodent, and then bites a human.

The Bubonic Plague has caused three pandemics in human history.

The Plague of Justinian (541 – 542) is the first known pandemic on history. It affected the Byzantine Empire and its capital Constantinople. The plague killed 10.000 people every day and in the end killed 40% of the citizens. In 588 a second wave spread into what now is France and killed 25 million people.

The Black Death or Black Plague (1347 – 1351) affected Europe and Asia killing approximately one third to half of the population. It involved countries like Italy, North eastern Germany, Bohemia, Poland, Hungary and even in Norway. Nowadays it is questioned that it was really the Bubonic Plague because in some parts of Europe there were not rats and the disease was spread by human contact and the Black Plague had faster transmission speed.

The Third Pandemic (1855) started in China and affected China, India, Mongolia, Russia, mainly Siberia, Hong Kong, Hawaii and United States. It lasted about 55 years, until 1910. It had high dead rates. More than 12 million people in China and India, 420 deaths in Russia, 60.000 people in Siberia. In Hong Kong the deaths were over 75% of the population.

Nowadays, this plague can be treated with antibiotics like Streptomycin, Chloramphenicol, Tetracycline, and the more recently treatments are Gentamicin and Doxycycline.

About Breast Cancer

2007-05-29T23:55:00.000-04:00

A group of scientists have found six new variations in the human genome that increase the risk of breast cancer. This means that a high percent of the genetic risks of breast cancer have been found. Although this is a little step, new treatments could emerge from this new knowledge.

To make the research, the scientist use instruments known as chips to compare the genomes of a healthy person with a breast cancer patient. With the same method they can search for variations of different diseases, like diabetes, where they have found seven new DNA variations associated with it.

Scientists are confident about they may discover most of the genetic variations associated with breast cancer. They say that understanding this new information, new facts about the progression of this disease will be revealed.

Some scientists are criticising that the group of scientists had published this new information because it does not have a biological significance and evidence.

Although this discover has not got biological evidences, I think that is important for women around the world to know that scientist are researching this terrible and lethal disease and that they may find better treatments for it.

The original new, here.

Welcome to my Blog

2007-05-23T23:40:00.000-04:00

Hi people!

To open this Blog, I have to say that I didn't want to have one! So it's probably that I'm not going to care about it so much.

This thing was created because of my teacher's idea of writing and sharing on a Blog some texts for my English Language class in the University. Here I'm going to post texts about a topic that she's going to choose. It's suposed that someday my teacher, called Antonieta, and my classmates will come to this site and will read the texts that I'm going to write here. But I hope that won't happen. I'm not very good at writing and I'm very boring, so please, don't leave a comment saying that I'm horrible, I already know that.

Well, I think that's all I have to say.

Bye!