As a plant, bamboo can grow as fast as a meter a day. It produces 35 percent more oxygen for the atmosphere than other grasses, and more effectively binds soil to prevent corrosion. Considered the strongest stuff on earth, with greater tensile strength (resistance to being pulled apart) compared to steel, and which stands compression better than concrete, bamboo is highly promoted today by environmental organizations as a superior building material.

Newsweek reported that "bike designer Craig Calfee, who pioneered the use of carbon-fiber, the gold standard for elite bicycle frames since 1900 (Calfee Design of California), says it is a matter of time before bamboo sweeps the bike-racing world."

Calfee considers bamboo superior, "offering better combination of stiffness (for power efficiency) and compliance (for vibration dampening)." Newsweek stated that the sales of his $2700 bamboo road frame grew 33 percent in 2007, and quoted Frey as saying "riding a bamboo bike is like wearing comfortable loafers and having the efficiency of track spikes. It's a technical wonder that nature already built."

"Our concept of strength is, it doesn't move, it doesn't break," states Don Smith, who owns Smith & Fong, the largest manufacturer of bamboo plywood in the USA. Laminated bamboo called plyboo, whose sale grew 40 percent in 2005, is becoming very popular among builders. Bambu is another US firm houseware makers using bamboo materials.

Today, e-houses (a modern version of "bahay kubo"?) are being built with all-bamboo floors, cabinetry, and exteriors of double panels of bamboo.

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Malunggay oil is in

Another natural wonder is malunggay, known in England as Moringa. The oil from malunggay is low in transfat and is considered even healthier (and cheaper) than olive oil, and certainly much healthier than coconut oil, which is a hydrogenated oil with high transfat contents. The malunggay seeds are a good source of pure oil which is good for cardiovascular health, and of zinc and selenium that are good for the brain. And most of us know that malunggay leaves go well in mongo soup.

Now, biotechnology is interested in malunggay as a bio-fuel. These two areas will surely be a boom to our farmers in the lahar-devastated regions in Central Luzon, since malunggay is said to thrive well in fields laced with this volcanic ash and can withstand drought quite well.

This opens up a great opportunity and potential for the Philippines.

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Statins lower cancer risk

Cholesterol-lowering drugs (specifically statins), at sufficiently high does, might have a most beneficial "side-effect" of lowering the risk for the development of cancer. This is indeed great news from the American Journal of Medicine since hundreds of millions of people around the world are now taking, or good candidates for, these popular cholesterol-lowering drugs.

About 54,200 post-heart attack patients, who were on a retrospective epidemiological clinical study in Quebec, Canada, from 1998-2004, and were on various doses of statins during the period, showed that high dose-lipophilic statins lowered the risk by 45percent-50percent compared to non-users, according to the Multivariable Cox regression analyses. The four statins mentioned in this study were atorvastatin, simvastatin, lovastatin, or fluvastatin.

More independent clinical researches from other institutions are needed to confirm the validity of these observations. In the meantime, this is information is most encouraging for those on low-fat, low-cholesterol, high-fiber diet and taking statins to control their cholesterol level. Of course, to this regimen, we must add daily physical exercises. As we have already published in this column in the past, exercise has been proven to greatly reduce the risk of cancer also.

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Weight loss surgery and suicide

Bariatric surgery is a popular procedure today for obese patients to lose weight, after serious attempts at rigid dieting fail. The data from the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost and Containment Council and the Pennsylvania state health agency's Division of Vital Records published in the Archives of Surgery, show that patients who have undergone bariatric surgery have 5 to 10 times proneness or incidence of committing suicide compared to the general population.

The findings reported "approximately 1 percent of patients undergoing bariatric surgery died within a year of the operation, while approximately 6 percent died within five years," and that "among the 16,683 procedures that the researchers examined, 440 patients died over a 10-year period."

Our of the 440 deaths, only three would be expected to be suicide, according to statistics on the average rate of suicide in the United States.

The research stated that 45 of the deaths were "classified as 'traumatic,' including 10 motor vehicle crashes, three homicides, two falls, 16 suicides and 14 drug overdoses that could not be proven to be deliberate."

The investigators suggested that "more intense follow-up treatment may be required for bariatric surgery patients, with an emphasis on detecting and treating depression.In addition, doctors should focus on the risk factors for the most common causes of death in these patients. These risk factors include smoking, hypertension, diabetes and hyperlipidemia."