Guidelines to help travellers avoid bringing in banned medicines to UAE

Posted on April 2, 2008

Guidelines to help travellers avoid bringing in banned medicines to UAE By Bassma Al Jandaly, Staff Reporter GULF NEWS Published: March 08, 2008, 01:09

Dubai: Each country has its own laws and regulations to protect citizens and visitors.

Rules and regulations differ from country to country and what is allowed in one country could be prohibited and even considered a crime in another country.

One rule that differs vastly from some other countries is the bringing of certain pharmaceuticals into the UAE.

Everyone, including visitors, are subject to the UAE’s laws and regulations and tourists may find that they are different from the rules in their own country.

As the UAE becomes one of the most popular tourist and transit destinations in the world here are some guidelines to help travellers avoid bringing in any banned medical substance or drugs.

Zero-tolerance

There is a zero-tolerance policy towards intoxicating drugs and possession. Even a very small amount of illegal drugs found on the person will lead to a long jail sentence. Drug trafficking will lead to a life sentence or the death penalty.

But there are certain medicinal drugs, even over-the-counter drugs, which although legal when taken under a doctor’s supervision in one’s home country, could land that person in jail in the UAE. Some over-the-counter drugs are considered controlled items in the UAE as they produce effects that contravene local laws.

The presence of these illegal drugs is detected by blood or urine tests, and even very small quantities of such medicines are subject to prosecution by the authorities.

Before coming here it is wise to be informed that possession of a number of pharmaceuticals could land you in trouble here.

If you are undergoing medical treatment in your country and you are travelling to the UAE, be sure to carry with you a doctor’s prescription of the medication which you are bringing.

Possession of certain prescribed medicines (especially those containing codeine, a common ingredient for pain relief and cold and flu medication) will land you in jail here.

There are 365 such medicines listed on the UAE’s health ministry’s website.

Be aware also that there are no warnings posted at airports. Travel agencies may not inform you of such restrictions.

Email-related stress in the workplace is a growing problem

Posted on April 1, 2008

Email-related stress in the workplace is a growing problem By Carole Spiers, Special to Gulf News Published: April 01, 2008, 00:41

A few months ago, I singled-out emails as a growing workplace stressor, especially in the way they set up a permanent air of emergency.

Now a study by two UK universities (Glasgow and Paisley) reports that 30 per cent of workers feel actively stressed by the need to monitor and respond to emails, and only about the same number feel unaffected by it.

This confirms the status of email-related stress management as a specific agenda of its own, which ought to be high in the priorities of both IT and HR personnel.

One example of a joint-response by these two departments is the Acceptable Use Policy (AUP). This is basically an internet Code of Conduct for employees, aimed at preventing activities that are either illegal, disruptive or a threat to security, and also takes in corporate rules of appropriate dialogue online, sometimes called ‘Netiquette’.

But this can be usefully dovetailed with IT by the blocking of Facebook, YouTube or those endless special offers that may distract people from their work, in addition to the main IT agenda of Content Filtering to block spam and restrict emails to work-related items only.

Like all sweeping regulations, this could be accused of penalising the responsible majority in order to control the mischievous few, and it may be claimed that the requirement to concentrate 100 per cent on work throughout the day is unnatural. Literally, you wouldn’t be able to send a short email to your wife at any time. Might this Big Brother intervention actually be causing more stress than it relieves?

Fortunately, the technology incorporates many features that can counteract email-related stress. That ‘air of emergency’ I referred to earlier, causing some people to check their messages up to 40 times an hour, is often rooted in anxiety that some important work emails may have been wrongly blocked.

Multiple-layer filtering enables ‘Whitelisting’ of trusted email senders’ addresses to ensure delivery. Also the technology is flexible enough to allow local rules at the discretion of management. You can allocate time and bandwidth quotas to each user, enabling access to leisure sites at particular hours. Another way round the problem is to block specific sites on the main network but provide free access on machines in the coffee area.

This reminds us that today’s workplace is a part-social arena, where most employees can and should be trusted to keep a sensible balance between working and socialising – a stress reduction factor in itself.

And if we can wean people away from checking the mail 40 times an hour (setting up a harmful syndrome called ‘false positive anxiety’), and seeing why a two-hourly check is usually quite adequate, we will have helped to encourage a more sensible and practical use of that unwieldy and imperfectly understood instrument, the Net.

Key points: Handling IT-related stress

Nearly a third of workers feel actively stressed by email demands
Content Filtering Technology can selectively block messages
Ideally, allow social emailing in the recreational zone of the office
– The writer is a BBC broadcaster and motivational speaker, with 20 years’ of experience as CEO of Carole Spiers Group, an international stress consultancy based in London.

Moves for people on the move

Posted on March 25, 2008

Moves for people on the move
Bharat Thakur, Columnist GULF NEWS Published: March 21, 2008, 23:47

Today, life has become very hectic. We are always on the move — going to work, travelling, taking children to school and carrying on with other activities.

Sometimes, it becomes difficult to find time to take some time off to exercise. So, this is for all those people who are on the go.

All it takes is 15 minutes to follow the routine outlined below.
These contractions and stretches will work and relax the major muscles, get the endorphins flowing and get the body ready for action.

Warm Up

To warm up, jog in one spot and loosen your limbs. Do not raise your knees high and the feet should come up just a little; for a minute.

Surya Namaskara (Sun salutation)

This is a set of 12 asanas, which flow from one to the next. It works on your entire body and your cardiovascular system.
Repeat 11 complete rounds; for 7 minutes.

Tadasana (Palm tree posture)

Stand with the feet together and your arms by the sides.

Raise the arms over the head. Interlock the fingers and turn the palms outwards.

Inhale and pull the arms, shoulders and chest upwards. Raise your heels and stand on the toes.

Feel the stretch in the whole body — without losing balance or moving your feet.

Hold the posture for a few seconds.

Practise 5 rounds.

Benefits: Helps develop physical and mental balance. The entire spine is stretched. Helps clear congestion in the spinal nerves.

Tiryaka Tadasana (Swaying palm tree posture)

Stand with the feet about 2 feet apart.

Interlock the fingers and turn the palms outwards.

Inhale and raise the arms over the head.

While exhaling, bend to the left side from the waist.

Hold posture for a few seconds.

Inhale and come back to the upright position. Repeat on the right side. This will complete one round.

Practise 5 rounds.

Benefits: This asana massages, loosens and works the sides of the waist.

Natarajasana

Stand straight with the feet about a metre apart.

Turn the toes out to the side.

Slowly, bend the knees and lower the buttocks, about 20cms.

The knees should bend outwards over the toes and the spine should be straight.

Bring your palms together and take them up.

Hold for 10 seconds.

Return to upright position.

Repeat 5 times.

Benefit: This asana strengthens the muscles of the middle back, the pelvis — including the uterus — and the thighs, knees and ankles.

Naukasana

Support yourself on your elbows and then raise your legs 45 degrees.

Stretch your arms out towards your knees. Exhale.

Push your upper body towards your legs.

Hold for 10 to 15 seconds. Breathe normally while holding the posture.

Practise 5 rounds.

Benefits: Strengthens the core body. Tones the abdominal muscles.

Meru Wakrasana

Sit with the legs outstretched.

Bend the left knee and place the foot outside the right knee.

Push the left knee with the right elbow and place the left hand behind, next to the buttocks.

Keep twisting the body to the left, while keeping the spine straight.

Hold the final position. Look over the shoulder, as far as you can.

Re-centre trunk; relax for a few seconds.

Repeat on the other side.

Practise up to 5 times on each side.

Benefits: Stretches the spine. It helps alleviate backaches and neck pain.

Nadi Shodhana Pranayam (alternate-nostril breathing)

Sit in padmasana — with legs stretched out and the back straight.

Bend one leg; place the ankle on opposite thigh, close to the groin. Bend the other leg and place the ankle on the thigh of the bent leg, close to the groin. Place your hands on your knees.

Bend the forefinger and the middle finger of your right hand.

Next, close your eyes and practise deep breathing.

Close the right nostril with the thumb, place ring finger between eyebrows and inhale to a count of 5.

Close the left nostril with the ring finger. Hold the breath till a count of 10.

Take the thumb to the space between the eyebrows; exhale slowly through the right nostril — to a count of 10.

Now, breathe in again through the right nostril to a count of 5.

Close the right nostril with the thumb and hold your breath till you count to 10. Place the ring finger between the eyebrows and exhale through the left nostril — again to a count of 10.

Repeat complete cycle for 2 to 5 minutes.

Bharat Thakur is the founder of Bharat Thakur’s Artistic Yoga. For questions on yoga, write to dubai.artisticyoga@gmail.com. For information, log on to http://www.bharatthakur.com

More insight into cataracts found

Posted on March 24, 2008

More insight into cataracts found
22 Mar 2008, 1203 hrs IST,ANI

WASHINGTON: A research team, led by an Indian scientist, has shed important light on cataracts, the leading cause of vision loss and blindness in older people, by finding that tiny pieces of a perfectly normal protein turned toxic during the aging process.

A cataract is caused due to deterioration in the highly ordered assembly of crystallin proteins in the eye lens. Usually, the ordered structure keeps lenses clear and able to efficiently transmit light.

However, crystallins slowly break down during aging, causing the lens to become opaque and scatter light instead. Besides age, other risk factors such as diabetes, ultraviolet radiation, or drugs like corticosteroids can also contribute to cataracts.

Like cataracts themselves, the exact mechanisms governing their formation are still a mystery, but K Krishna Sharma and colleagues from the University of Missouri School of Medicine, Columbia found that tiny bits of crystallin contribute to this process to a great extent.

The team compared a range of human donor lenses and found that aged and cataract lenses accumulated about four times as many short (~10-20 amino acids) crystallin fragments compared to young lenses.

These fragments could readily bind full-length crystallins, which disrupted their natural shape and organization and caused them to become insoluble, the researchers discovered.

Ironically, these tiny fragments are a by-product of the eye’s efforts to stay healthy; when a crystallin becomes damaged, other proteins chew it up to remove it; but occasionally the process is incomplete, leaving tiny pieces that can cause greater damage.

Writing eases stress of cancer

Posted on March 24, 2008

Writing eases stress of cancer
23 Mar 2008, 1245 hrs IST,PTI

NEW YORK: The simple act of writing down their deepest feelings can help cancer patients improve their quality of life, according to a new study.

A team of researchers in the United States has found that cancer patients who express their fears through writing can experience changes in thoughts about their illness, The Oncologist journal reported.

According to lead researcher Nancy Morgan of Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Centre, “Previous research have suggested that expressive writing may enhance physical and psychological well-being.

“But most of those studies involved three to five writing sessions that were conducted in a controlled setting. Here, we found that just one writing session in a busy cancer clinic where the patients are frequently interrupted can still have a positive impact on patients.”

Morgan and her colleagues came to the conclusion after a research on a group of over 70 patients waiting in a clinic at a cancer centre in Washington from July to November 2006.

It included a pre-writing survey, just 20 minutes of expressive writing, a post-writing survey, and an optional follow-up survey that was completed by telephone three weeks later.

Snake and spider phobias unlocked

Posted on March 24, 2008

Snake and spider phobias unlocked
24 Mar 2008, 1156 hrs IST,PTI

NEW YORK: A large number of people count snakes and spiders among their fears. Now, a new study claims to have unlocked the psychology of the common phobias.

Researchers have found that contrary to assumptions that humans possess an evolutionary predisposition to fear the creepy creatures, it is the exposure to negative information about snakes and spiders, which causes phobias.
“Previous research shows we react differently to snakes and spiders than to other stimuli, such as flowers or mushrooms, or even other dangerous animals… or cars and guns, which are also much more dangerous.

“(In the past, this) has been explained by saying that people are predisposed by evolution to fear certain things, such as snakes and spiders, that would have been dangerous to our ancestors.

“(However), people tend to be exposed to a lot of negative information regarding snakes and spiders, and we argue this makes them more likely to be associated with phobia,” said Dr Helena Purkis of University of Queensland.

In their study, the researchers compared the responses to stimuli of participants with no particular experience with snakes and spiders, to that of snake and spider experts.

“Previous research has argued that snakes and spiders attract preferential attention and that during this early processing a negative response is generated… as an implicit and indexed subconscious (action).

“We showed that although everyone preferentially attends to snakes or spiders in the environment as they are potentially dangerous, only inexperienced participants display a negative response,” Dr Purkis said.

Vitamin B does the ‘fatherly’ trick

Posted on March 21, 2008

Vitamin B does the ‘fatherly’ trick
Press Trust Of India London, March 21, 2008

Men are more likely to father healthy children if they eat a diet rich in vitamin B, a new study has revealed. A team of international researchers has found that regular consumption of green vegetables, fruits and lentils – all containing folic acid – can protect men against producing abnormal sperm and kids with genetic abnormalities.

According to lead researcher Prof Brenda Eskenazi of the University of California, while the importance of maternal diet on reproduction was well known, the study suggested that paternal diet might also be important.

“In previous studies, we and others have shown that paternal reentrant intake may contribute to successful conceptions by improving the quality of the sperm.

“This study is the first to suggest that paternal diet may play a role after conception in the development of healthy offspring,” the ‘BBC News’ portal quoted Prof Eskenazi as saying. The team came to the conclusion after they analysed sperm samples from 89 healthy, non-smoking men, and quizzed them about their intake of zinc, folate, vitamin C, vitamin E and beta carotene.

In their study, the researchers found that men who consumed the most folate — between 722 and 1150 micrograms a day — had 20 to 30 per cent lower levels of several types of aneuploidy than men with low folate intake. It is estimated that up to four per cent of sperm in a healthy man carry either too many or too few chromosomes — a condition known as aneuploidy which is linked to failure to conceive, miscarriages, and children born with conditions like Down’s syndrome, Turner’s syndrome and Klinefelter’s syndrome.

If the findings were confirmed, the current recommended daily folate intake for men of 400 micrograms might have to be revised upwards for men trying for a baby in order to reduce the risk of chromosomal abnormalities in their children, Prof Eskenazi said. The results of the study have been published in the Human Reproduction journal.

Want a sharp mind? Avoid wine

Posted on March 17, 2008

Want a sharp mind? Avoid wine
Press Trust Of India London, March 17, 2008

Binge drinkers, beware! Guzzling beer is better for brain while quaffing wine is a worry, a new study has claimed. Researchers at the University of Gottingen in Germany have found that drinking wine damages the brain more than beer or spirits – wine actually shrinks the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory.

According to them, the average size of the hippocampus – one of the first brain areas to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease – in non-alcoholics is 3.85ml while in beer drinkers it is 3.4ml, but for wine drinkers it is only 2.8ml.

“This is the first study investigating the impact of the type of preferred beverage on brain-volume shrinkage in patients with alcohol dependence,” British newspaper Daily Mail quoted the researchers as saying. They came to the conclusion after analysing the brain scans of alcoholics with those of healthy adults.

They found that the hippocampus, which is located deep within the brain’s temporal lobes, was ten per cent smaller in wine drinkers.

According to the researchers, a shrunken hippocampus can affect not only memory but also the brain’s navigation and spatial awareness, and as a result may cause feelings of disorientation.

However, in their study, the researchers also found that beer drinkers had the lowest levels of a compound in the blood called homocysteine which is often linked to heart disease and strokes.

The results of the study have been published in the Alcohol and Alcoholism medical journal. It may be mentioned that earlier researches have linked moderate wine drinking to a host of health benefits, including reducing high blood pressure and preventing the risk of a heart attack.