Posted by Yardie Luke on December 29, 2010 under Health | 
By Leslie Barrie
To reduce your risk of cancer, look no further than your fridge. “All the studies on cancer and nutrition point to eating plant-based foods for their phytonutrients and other special compounds,” says Richard Béliveau, PhD, chair in the prevention and treatment of cancer at the University of Québec at Montreal and author of Foods to Fight Cancer.
Aim for five to nine daily servings of all kinds of fruits and vegetables—especially these six superstars.
Broccoli
All cruciferous veggies (think cauliflower, cabbage, kale) contain cancer-fighting properties, but broccoli is the only one with a sizable amount of sulforaphane, a particularly potent compound that boosts the body’s protective enzymes and flushes out cancer-causing chemicals, says Jed Fahey, ScD. A recent University of Michigan study on mice found that sulforaphane also targets cancer stem cells—those that aid in tumor growth.
Helps fight: breast, liver, lung, prostate, skin, stomach, and bladder cancers
Your Rx: The more broccoli, the better, research suggests—so add it wherever you can, from salads to omelets to the top of your pizza.
Health.com: 13 easy pizza recipes
Berries
All berries are packed with cancer-fighting phytonutrients. But black raspberries, in particular, contain very high concentrations of phytochemicals called anthocyanins, which slow down the growth of premalignant cells and keep new blood vessels from forming (and potentially feeding a cancerous tumor), according to Gary D. Stoner, PhD, a professor of internal medicine at The Ohio State University College of Medicine.
Helps fight: colon, esophageal, oral, and skin cancers
Your Rx: Stoner uses a concentrated berry powder in his studies but says a half-cup serving of berries a day may help your health, too.
Health.com: Go wild for berries!
Tomatoes
This juicy fruit is the best dietary source of lycopene, a carotenoid that gives tomatoes their red hue, Béliveau says. And that’s good news, because lycopene was found to stop endometrial cancer cell growth in a study in Nutrition and Cancer. Endometrial cancer causes nearly 8,000 deaths a year.
Helps fight: endometrial, lung, prostate, and stomach cancers
Your Rx: The biggest benefits come from cooked tomatoes (think pasta sauce!), since the heating process increases the amount of lycopene your body is able to absorb.
Health.com: 10 tasty tomato recipes
Walnuts
Their phytosterols (cholesterol-like molecules found in plants) have been shown to block estrogen receptors in breast cancer cells, possibly slowing the cells’ growth, says Elaine Hardman, PhD, associate professor at Marshall University School of Medicine in Huntington, West Virginia.
Helps fight: breast and prostate cancers
Your Rx: Munching on an ounce of walnuts a day may yield the best benefits, Hardman’s research found.
Health.com: 8 super nuts
Garlic
Phytochemicals in garlic have been found to halt the formation of nitrosamines, carcinogens formed in the stomach (and in the intestines, in certain conditions) when you consume nitrates, a common food preservative, Béliveau says. In fact, the Iowa Women’s Health Study found that women with the highest amounts of garlic in their diets had a 50 percent lower risk of certain colon cancers than women who ate the least.
Helps fight: breast, colon, esophageal, and stomach cancers
Your Rx: Chop a clove of fresh, crushed garlic (crushing helps release beneficial enzymes), and sprinkle it into that lycopene-rich tomato sauce while it simmers.
Health.com: Surprising health benefits of garlic
Beans
A study out of Michigan State University found that black and navy beans significantly reduced colon cancer incidence in rats, in part because a diet rich in the legumes increased levels of the fatty acid butyrate, which in high concentrations has protective effects against cancer growth. Another study, in the journal Crop Science, found dried beans particularly effective in preventing breast cancer in rats.
Helps fight: breast and colon cancers
Your Rx: Add a serving—a half-cup—of legumes a few times a week (either from a can or dry beans that’ve been soaked and cooked) to your usual rotation of greens or other veggies.
SOURCE
Posted by Yardie Luke on December 13, 2010 under Famous Jamaicans |
‘He was one of the best news reporters in Jamaica’
- Lindy Delapenha
‘He would just pull you into the whole situation and before you knew it you were doing what you thought you couldn’t do.’
- Marie Garth, former broadcaster RJR
‘His stewardship was characterised by an easy competence coupled with humility’
- Cordel Green, Executive Director, Broadcasting Commission
NEVILLE Willoughby, who died yesterday at the University Hospital of the West Indies, has been celebrated as one of Jamaica’s premier broadcasters whose career spanned almost five decades.
Willoughby, who was 69 years old, succumbed to injuries he sustained in an auto accident along Molynes Road, St. Andrew, Tuesday evening.
Doctors had listed his condition as serious.
Willoughby, a graduate of Jamaica College and the University of Toronto, worked at the rival Radio Jamaica (RJR) and Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation (JBC) for several years.
He started his journalism career at RJR in the late 1950s but moved to the JBC in the 1960s. In the early 1970s, Willoughby returned to RJR where, for many years, he hosted The Evening People Show, a folksy call-in programme.
At the time of his death, he was employed to that company as an announcer.
Alongside Allan Magnus, Don Topping, Marie Garth and Henry Stennett, Willoughby was part of a formidable RJR team during the 1970s.
Topping described his long-time friend as a “quiet, mild-mannered person”.
“His strongest point was his articulation which was clear, his language was always simple and easy to understand,” said Topping. “His knowledge was also broad-based.”
Barbara Gloudon, who also works with RJR, first met Willoughby on a school trip to Haiti in the 1950s. She said he was the “consummate professional”.
“He was one of those persons you could never say a bad word about,” she said. “For a person with so much talent, Neville never blew his own horn.”
Willoughby also tried his hand at singing and had a big hit song in the catchy Yuletide number, ‘Christmas JA’.
Shortly after moving back to RJR, Willoughby snared an exclusive interview with rising star Bob Marley of The Wailers in 1973. The group was in turmoil at the time, with founding members Peter Tosh and Bunny Livingstone on the verge of leaving for solo careers.
Willoughby travelled to the Rasta commune of Bull Bay, St. Andrew where he met Marley and members of his band.
“He (Marley) was very relaxed and willing to talk about anything,” Willoughby said in a 1998 interview. “I knew he was special from I heard ‘Thank You Lord’.”
The interview was later released in album form and remained a popular seller when reissued in compact disc by RAS Records, a Washington DC-based independent label.
Neville Willoughby is survived by two daughters.
SOURCE: Jamaica Gleaner
Posted by Yardie Luke on December 3, 2010 under Jamaica Sports |
GLOBAL athletics brand Puma listed Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt as its key brand-asset amidst a 16 per cent rise in sales to 784 million euros over the third-quarter.
The German-based brand described the new three-year contract with Bolt as the most important event in its quarter behind its financials. It even ranked it above a multi-million full take-over of a joint-venture in China and Hong Kong and also irregularities discovered at a second joint-venture in Greece, according to its latest financials.
“Usain Bolt remains a long-term brand asset for Puma,” stated the first page of the financials which incidentally had a life-sized photo of Bolt on its cover.
Puma’s intangible fixed-assets (with a non-defined useful life) had an opening balance of €70 million on January 2009 and closing balance of €26 million at December 2009.
The contract signed for an undisclosed sum in August represents, according to Puma, the largest sponsorship contract by a track and field athlete to date. It follows the estimated eight-figure Nike contract received by US sprinter Carl Lewis. Bolt, the two-time world record holder and triple World and Olympic champion entered the Puma contract in 2003 which runs until 2013.
Over the third-quarter, Puma’s net profit jumped 14 per cent to €77 million; its gross profit margin remained at 50 per cent; operating result before special items improved 5.3 per cent to €113 million; whilst earning per share rose from €4.50 to €5.16.
It isn’t the first time that Puma has lauded the value of Bolt to its investors. In its 2009 annual report Puma indicated that the performance of “Bolt at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, where he broke the 100m and 200m world records, proved to be a particular highlight for the Puma brand”.
Puma views its brand image as key to its marketing of apparel, clothing and footwear.
“The brand image is essential since it can influence consumer behaviour not only to the advantage, but also to the disadvantage, of the brand,” it stated in its financials.
SOURCE: Jamaica Observer
