Category Archive: Interesting Information

If lowering cholesterol was as simple as soaking in some sunshine everyday and absorbing vitamin D, everyone would do it. So, what’s the link between the “sunshine vitamin” and cholesterol?

When our skin is exposed to sunlight, it makes vitamin D. One theory is that because cholesterol is used in vitamin D synthesis, levels of cholesterol will reduce as more vitamin D is made.  One study showed that doing outdoor activities such as gardening in the summer did indeed reduce cholesterol levels in the blood. This did not occur during winter.

According to a study conducted by The National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), deficiency of sunlight and thus, lack of vitamin D is a factor that might influence susceptibility and disease incidence.  Sunlight deficiency could increase blood cholesterol by allowing squalene metabolism to progress to cholesterol synthesis rather than to vitamin D synthesis as would occur with greater amounts of sunlight exposure, and the increased concentration of blood cholesterol during the winter months, confirmed in this study, may well be due to reduced sunlight exposure.

In another study – Seoul National University College of Medicine conducted a study on cholesterol levels with 4,124 healthy men and women, who were divided into 4 groups according to their vitamin D levels.

The findings? The group with the highest vitamin D levels had 26% less people whose cholesterol level was over 200mL than the group with the lowest vitamin D. This lead to the conclusion that people with higher vitamin D levels have lower cholesterol levels.
Vitamin D is also known as the ‘Sunshine Vitamin’ because they are created by the cholesterol in our body when we are exposed to sunlight. The more vitamin D we make, the more cholesterol we use up, therefore lowering cholesterol levels!

So make sure to get some morning sun today and don’t shun away from it anymore!

Fans of green tea, black tea, or oolong tea can now rejoice and enjoy their cuppa tea more.  Besides the various health benefits that one can reap from drinking this aromatic beverage, a new study conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS) along with the University of Essex and University of Cambridge, UK, showed that regular tea drinkers have better organised brain regions compared to non-tea drinkers.

Better organised brain regions are associated with healthy cognitive function, which protects against age-related decline.

“Our results offer the first evidence of positive contribution of tea drinking to brain structure, and suggest that drinking tea regularly has a protective effect against age-related decline in brain organisation” said Feng Lei, team leader and assistant professor in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the NUS Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

A previous study by Feng Lei also showed that daily tea drinking appears to reduce the risk of cognitive decline in older adults by 50%.

Some studies have identified certain associations between tea drinking and mental health. For instance, one study found that depressive symptoms were less common in older adults who drank tea consistently and frequently.

In addition to brain health, tea consumption, especially of green tea, has been linked to a lower risk of heart disease, cancer and diabetes, according to Harvard Medical School.

For those who do not get sufficient sleep at night, a nap can often be the perfect solution. I need a 20-30 minutes nap by 10 a.m. on most week days as I am already up at 4:30 a.m.  After 1.5 hours of doing house chores, I spend another 45 minutes exercising after the girls have gone to school. I am exhausted by 7:30 a.m. on most school-going days.  If I am severely sleep deprived for weeks on end, I need two half-hour naps in a day – one in the morning and one in the afternoon to recharge my batteries.

I realized how important a nap is to me when I once dozed off while driving. I was on the way home after picking up my second daughter from school in the afternoon. I had felt very sleepy before I left home but didn’t have the time to prioritize on a 15-20 minute power nap.  Thankfully my car only veered to the road shoulder and the wheels grazed the curb. I was jolted up by the loud crash on the curb.

Many people sacrifice sleep for other pursuits, but what they don’t always realize is that sleep facilitates learning, memory, creativity, problem-solving and productivity.

Even a 15-20 minute cat nap can do wonders on my mood and ability to concentrate in my work.  With a 15-20 power nap, you get to reset your system and a burst of alertness and increased motor performance.

The length of your nap determines the benefits. A 20-minute snooze—called a stage two nap—is ideal to enhance motor skills and attention, while an hour to 90 minutes of napping brings Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep, which helps make new connections in the brain and can aid in solving creative problems.

Sleep Fun Facts

~ Sir Winston Churchill managed on just four hours sleep a night during World War Two — but insisted on a two hour nap in the afternoon.

~  Albert Einstein reportedly slept for 10 hours a night, plus daytime naps.

~  Scientists have shown that a 60- to 90-minute siesta can charge up the brain’s batteries as much as eight hours tucked up in bed!

~  In recent years, Google, NASA, Uber, Zappos and Nike all offer some form of napping benefits at the workplace!

The Benefits of Napping

1.  Increases alertness.

2.  Improves learning and working memory.

3.  Prevents burnout and reverses information overload.

4.  Heightens your senses, creativity and boosts your mood.

5.  Improves health.

When you sleep, you release growth hormone, the antidote to cortisol which which boosts your immune system, primes your sexual function, reduces stress and anxiety, and aids in muscle repair and weight loss. Napping gives your brain a chance to rest and your body a chance to heal.

Scientific proof

A study done with Greeks found that those that took a 30 minute nap at least three times a week had 37% less risk of dying from a heart-related condition. Among working men their risk of death was reduced 64%!

If you’re sleep deprived, all you need to do is to steal 20 minutes somewhere in your day. One study showed that even a 6 minute cat nap improves memory function. So you can even sneak one in during lunch time or when your boss is out 😉

Learn to embrace the nap and the napping of others. Napping is not a character defect! Many great men have taken advantage of the benefits of napping. It is a wonderful way to improve your quality of life.

A dimple is an anomaly of the muscle that causes a dent in the cheek, especially when the individual smiles. Some people have dimples in both cheeks, others in just one cheek. Babies are likely to have dimples caused by baby fat in their cheeks. When they lose their baby fat as they get older, their dimples disappear. Other children do not have them at birth, but may develop them later in childhood. In some people, dimples last only until adolescence or young adulthood, while in others they are a lifetime trait.

Dimples can be passed through multiple generations. The frequency with which a heritable trait is carried forth through genes is called penetrance.

Sometimes a variation in penetrance may also occur. Some individuals may carry a particular gene, but they do not manifest the traits associated with it. Nonetheless, they pass the traits to their successive generations.

Apart from that, sometimes the dimples may also be caused from spontaneous mutations that result in a dent in the cheek or a cleft chin that leads to dimples.

From my observation with my third daughter, her cheek dimple only started to appear (or perhaps much more visible to me) when she was about 7 or 8 years old. She’s got quite a deep chin dimple though.

With my two older daughters, they are fortunate to be blessed with deep dimples on both sides of their cheeks since birth. Their assets are inherited as my hubby has dimples and everyone else from his side of the family has dimples on their cheeks.  With my eldest daughter, her dimples used to appear prominently whenever she smiled. When she was about 8 or 9 years old, the dimples don’t quite appear anymore when she smiles. However, they are still there and deep as ever.

Dimples that have a similar appearance can occur in successive generations of a family. For example, in one family, it was observed that the siblings, their father, uncles, grandfather, and great-grandfather all had similar-looking dimples in both cheeks. In other families, dimples may occur in a child but are not seen in more than one generation.

Chillies are a good source of antioxidants. Forty-two grams of the spice would account for your recommended daily allowance of vitamin C, but that would make for a pretty strong spicy curry!  Chillies are also rich in vitamin A, as well as minerals such as iron and potassium.  Hot-heads who ate spicy food six or seven days a week have lower mortality rate.

While chillies are loaded with antioxidants, there may be some adverse effects on some individuals.

Eating chili can cause intestinal distress in some people. The symptoms may include abdominal pain, a burning sensation in your gut, cramps, and painful diarrhea.

Test-tube and animal studies indicate that capsaicin, a plant compound in chili peppers, may either increase or decrease your risk of cancer.

Eating chillies regularly has also been linked to faster cognitive decline.

A 15-year study of 4582 Chinese adults aged over 55 found evidence of faster cognitive decline in those who consistently ate more than 50 grams of chili a day. Memory decline was even more significant if the chili lovers were slim.

The study, led by Dr Zumin Shi from Qatar University, showed that those who consumed in excess of 50 grams of chili a day had almost double the risk of memory decline and poor cognition.

In 2018, a man from the United States who ate a Carolina Reaper as part of a dare in a hot pepper eating contest ended up in the emergency room with a thunderclap headache.

Both my middle and youngest daughters were born with thick, jet black hair.  My middle daughter had very thick, coarse and black hair as a young child. And the youngest daughter had very fine and black baby hair with big waves at the tip, like a doll.  But as they grew older, the color and texture of their hair changed, around the ages of 9 – 11 years old.  Both the girls’ hair changed color from black to brown, as with the texture. The middle girl’s hair texture changed from coarse to super fine and the youngest girl’s hair changed from super fine to frizzy and super curly!

My youngest daughter with super fine and black hair when she was a toddler.

Her hair turned frizzy and curly (sometime even kinky curly) when she was about 8 or 9 years old. The color changed from black to brown.

Why Did My Girls’ Hair Change Texture And Color?

Hair and eye color are mostly determined by our genes. But it’s not just by the genes we have, but also by whether those genes are turned on or turned off. And since genes can turn on and off throughout our lives, this means your hair color can change!

Many different factors can turn hair pigment genes on and off. These factors are not even completely understood by scientists.

Changes in hair color in kids and teenagers are most likely due to changing hormones. Hormones are chemical signals that the body uses to send messages between body parts. Changes in hormone levels can cause pigment genes to be turned on or turned off.

Hair colors can change well into puberty, as some genes aren’t “switched on” until the hormones flood the body in adolescence. Eventually, usually in the 30s, human hair stops producing melanin and begins to turn grey. Basically, it stops adding color to the hair. Gray hair tends to occur earlier in Caucasians and later in Asians.

This can happen in adults too.  Hormonal changes aren’t limited to puberty. Changes in age, nutrition, temperature, sun exposure and various other factors can cause our bodies to change the amounts or types of hormones we make.

The color of your hair is the product of a mixture of eumelanin (produces brown and black colors) and pheomelanin (produces red and yellow colors) in your hair. The amount of each type of melanin is typically unique to your genetic make-up – as is when those amounts will change and you’ll start to go grey.

What Else Can Change Hair Color?

Our hair color can change in ways unrelated to our genes. Harsh chemicals such as bleach and chlorine can change the chemical makeup of our hair. This can make our hair change colors.

When you go to the salon or bleach your hair, you are exposing your hair to very reactive chemicals. The main ingredient in hair bleach is hydrogen peroxide. When you put hydrogen peroxide on your hair, it reacts with the melanin pigments and makes them colorless. Hydrogen peroxide reacts faster with eumelanin than pheomelanin.

There are several other theories as to why hair changes color – sun exposure, medications, illnesses and hormones.

One theory is the sun’s UVB and UVA rays are being absorbed by your hair roots and the vitamin D has gone inside your scalp and it is sort of tanning your hair. Lots of direct sunlight will lighten anyone’s hair.

Usually, our hair will turn darker because eumelanin production increases as we age (until we go gray, that is). And because some genes are not switched on until triggered by the hormones first released during puberty, we might not show our “true” natural hair color until adolescence.

Hair is not the only feature to naturally change color as you age – for 10 to 15 percent of people, their eyes do too.

Can Hair Texture Change Too In Children?

If you’ve seen a baby or toddler’s soft hair and how it changes over time, similar changes also happen later in life. Around puberty, straight hair can turn wavy and its texture can change, or wavy hair may turn curly or kinky.  Coarse hair can change into fine hair too.

Why do these hair changes happen? 

A few hormones—thyroxine, triiodothyronine, androgen and insulin have been identified as the culprits behind these hair texture turnarounds. As a youngster’s body hits puberty, these hormones kick in and begin changing hair as well. Hormones also can impact hair growth.