Breakfast and Aging of Human Body

Without breakfast, aging of human body is accelerated.

After a night's rest, human body gradually gains momentum in the morning.

Therefore, people need breakfast to be more energetic in physique, quicker in thinking, and more eager in work and study.

If you do not have breakfast properly or not at all for a long time, you suffer from a serious undernourishment, resulting in a loss of body resistance, chronic gastroenteritis, anemia, etc. Especially in autumn, when the temperature difference between morning and evening is big, it will give a negative effect on the immune system of the human body.

It is therefore very important to have breakfast in a good combination of various nutrients.

The best way is to eat both protein and carbohydrate foods.

It is also advisable to add vegetables, fruit, and the like to breakfast, and to eat a hot diet rather than a cold one.

Why Should We Avoid Eating Much Soy Sauce?

Eating a lot of soy sauce is not good. It is particularly bad for patients with chronic diseases. People with coronary atherosclerotic heart disease, diabetes, etc. should avoid eating much soy sauce.

Excessive intake of soy sauce may not only be useless but also cause other diseases and even exacerbate existing chronic disease conditions. It is due to the high sodium content in the soy sauce including sodium glutamate, sodium benzoate and sodium chloride.

Excessive intake of soy sauce is also harmful to patients with rheumatic diseases.

All in all, soy sauce should be eaten in an appropriate portion, not much. And it is advisable to put soy sauce at the end of cooking.

Exercise and Sports Drinks

During exercise, a great deal of water is consumed. Water replenishment prevents dehydration during exercise.

Sportspeople’s main supplements of the lost water are the sports drinks containing essential nutrients.

Generally, an athlete needs to take 3-4 L of water a day and, excluding that intake through the food, his/her daily water intake is about 800-1500 ml.

Sports drinks are good because they supplement protein, which is a source of muscle strength, calcium, which strengthens bones and other nutrients.

They also prevent physical disturbances coming from dehydration.

In addition, you can recover from fatigue quickly if you take sports drinks containing essential amino acids such as leucine, isoleucine and valine during and after training.

However, there is something you should watch out when taking sports drinks.

First, milk should be warmed before drinking in cold weather.

Athletes with frequent anemia should always be careful when choosing what to drink at every meal. Black tea, coffee and green tea should be avoided within 30 minutes before and after meals.

If you are allergic to vegetables or fruits, you can drink fruit or vegetable juice to supplement nutrients you need.

To Help Drug-Absorption

- Take drugs in standing position.

If you take a drug in standing position, the drug will go into the gastrointestinal tract smoothly, but if you eat it in lying position, it is likely to stay in the esophagus.

- Drink a moderate amount of water.

Some people swallow medicine with saliva, not water. Such a habit is bad.

It is said that if you drink 150 ml of water when you use aspirin as an antipyretic and analgesic, the absorption rate will be raised twice as high as when you drink 75 ml of water.

- Keep the time you take the medicine.

Drugs for insomnia should be taken just before going to bed at night for their full therapeutic efficacy. Adrenal corticosteroids, including prednisolone, are recommended to be taken between 6 to 8 hours to have the best efficacy and fewer side effects.

Drugs without gastrointestinal irritation should be taken 30 minutes before meals and other drugs 30 minutes after meals.

Do not drink tea when taking iron-containing drugs, and avoid alcohol and cigarettes when using tetracycline drugs.

To Prevent Hair Loss

In order to prevent hair loss, nutrition should be maintained for the hypodermic hair roots.

When you wash your hair, it is good to rub the whole head with your palms as if you were wrapping your head with them rather than scratching it with fingertips.

It is desirable to wash hair every three to five days for the nutrition of hair and hair roots.

To prevent hair loss, it is also necessary to be mentally stable and physically not tired.

Three Regimens for a Hypertension Patient

Hypertension is often complicated by cerebral infarction, cerebral hemorrhage, myocardial infarction and so on. Therefore, hypertensive patients may benefit from the maintenance of the following three regimens.

① Three 1~2 minutes.

Hypertension patients should not suddenly raise their body when they get up. If they suddenly raise their body, blood circulation failure may occur in the heart and brain. Therefore, when they wake up, they’d better keep their eyes open for one or two minutes, sit on the bed for another one or two minutes, sit on the bed or sofa with legs down on the floor for one or two minutes again, and then get up.

② Three 30-minutes

Hypertension patients are advised to walk for 30 minutes in the morning, 30 minutes after lunch, and 30 minutes after dinner.

③ Three cups of water.

Hypertension patients and elderly people had better make it their habit to drink a cup of warm water before going to bed, after waking up and in the morning.

These regimens are proved beneficial to healthy people.

Tail-Catching Game

Tail-catching is a group game played in a wide court or playground in which two teams of children in a file, each holding the front one by the waist, compete to catch the other team's tail first.

This game can be played anytime in any season when there are a large number of children of the same age in the village.

First, children are divided into two teams. Every two children may do scissors-paper-rock, and winners form one team and losers the other, or otherwise, children may be teamed according to their villages, e.g. those from the upper village into one team and those from the lower village into the other.

When the teams are decided, each team elects its team leader. Elected as a team leader is usually a tall and strong child who is thought to be able to skillfully command his team and capture the tail of the opponent team.

Then the children in each team are aligned in a file in the order of height behind the leader and hold the front child’s waist or clothes. In the play the team leaders lead their teams, frustrating the action of the counterparts and seeking a chance to catch the tails of their opponents.

Whether they catch the opponents’ tail or not largely depends on the role of the leader, whose activity is also crucial in protecting his team’s tail.

Winners are the team that catches the tail of the opponents first. If the file breaks up in the middle or if somebody falls down while going round in pursuit of the others’ tail, you lose.

Distilling Method of Kwanso Kamhong-ro, a Famous Brand Wine of Korea

Kwanso Kamhong-ro is a typical traditional wine which has long been produced in Pyongyang and its surrounding areas in Phyongan Province, and, as such, it is one of the precious heritages of traditional soju (wine) of the Korean nation, widely known not only in this region but also all over the country.

This wine is named so for its taste and colour which is derived from the raw materials used in its manufacture. The name Kamhong-ro reflects the sweet taste of honey, the red colour of gromwell and other Koryo medicinal materials used in its distillation, and its dew-like crystal-clear liquid.

The Kwanso Kamhong-ro is different from Kamhong-ros of other provinces, in that honey and gromwell is put for their taste and flavor into wine liquid after it is distilled three times.

The key to the correct manufacturing of Kwanso Kamhong-ro is the manufacturing of sourdough, the selection of grain raw materials, distillers and Koryo medicinal materials, and the method of storage and maturing.

The sequence of sourdough manufacturing is raw-material preparation → cleaning → grinding → watering → sourdough forming → sourdough culture → drying-maturing. The materials are distilled three times using an atmospheric single distiller. In the preparation of Kwanso Kamhong-ro the choice of Koryo medicinal materials is one of the important factors for colour and medicinal effect as a traditional wine.

Gromwell, a medicinal material for Kamhong-ro, is a perennial grass that grows by itself at the sunny foot of mountains all over the country. It grows well in drained sandy loam or calomorphic soil and it has long been cultivated in the country because its root is used as the materials of dyes and herbal medicines. The shikonin pigment in the gromwell root has red purple colour and it has a variety of pharmacological effects such as promotion of blood circulation, antipyretic, antibiosis and prevention of measles.

From the olden times, Korean soju was kept and matured in an earthenware pot for a long time.

In this process, the catalytic activity of the metallic components eluted from the pot helps coordinate the intrinsic flavour elements, and, as result, gives the wine the unique flavour and taste, distinct from traditional liquors of other countries, which use wooden containers to preserve or fast-mature before service.

Konoza, a Defender of the Country's North-Western Gateway

There were many patriotic generals in Koguryo dynasty who made positive contribution to repulsing the aggressive foreign forces at every step and demonstrating the dignity and might of the country as a thousand-year-long eastern power. Among them there was Konoza, governor-general of Sinsong County, in the late 3rd and early 4th centuries.

He had outstanding courage and stratagem and performed a great feat in repulsing the invasion of the Moyongsonbi tribe during the reign of King Pongsang, the 19th king of Koguryo.

In August 293, Mo Yong Oe, emir of the Moyongsonbi tribe, spied out that the King of Koguryo was on his inspection in the north-western frontier of the country and invaded the country to capture him. In this critical situation, Konoza, the then Lord of Sinsong Fortress, mustered 500 brave cavalrymen and made a headway against the aggressors who were in hot pursuit of the King, and thus saved the king from danger.

Later on, when the Moyongsonbi tribe’s aggressions got more and more outrageous, King Pongsang raised the status of Sinsong Fortress to that of county town and appointed Konoza as its governor-general in order the strengthen the defense in the north-western region.

As the governor-general, Konoza made every effort to fortify the north-west gateway of the country, took good care of the people's living and also encouraged them to turn out as one in the struggle for the country.

As seen above, Konoza was a patriotic general of Koguryo who made a great contribution to defending the country and nation from the invasion of foreign aggressors and stabilizing the people’s livelihood with a high sense of patriotism.

“Chongjanggwanjonso” and Origin of Some Common

“Chongjanggwanjonso” is a huge 75-volume collection of works by Ri Tok Mu (1741-1793), an 18th-century realist scholar, in which he introduces a lot of Korean surnames of those days, as well as those of the former times.

There he also describes some rare (queer) surnames and their interesting origins. In volumes 55, 56 and 60 in the part of “Angyopgi”, there are mentioned queer surnames like Nyu, Wak, Hwing, Hal, Ppyom, etc. of obscure origin, which are said to have existed in the period of Koryo dynasty.

In addition, there is recorded Tamul, an indigenous Korean two-character surname. While explaining about the queer surnames, the author also writes about the origin of surnames So and Sun (volume 62).

Through the above-mentioned data of some surnames, we can see not only the history of the diverse indigenous surnames of the Korean nation, but also the aspects of their life with beautiful minds and noble personalities of helping and leading each other

When Is a Pregnant Woman Taken to Hospital in Emergency?

- The emergency happens when the amniotic fluid ruptures before the uterine gate opens completely before or after the labor pain occurs.

If the rupture is identified, the patient should be admitted to hospital in a supine position with the back and legs higher to prevent the outflow of the fluid.

- It is not labor pain if the abdomen suddenly hurts and becomes rigid like a wooden board and when the pain is felt only in one place on the abdomen.

If left alone in such a case, the pregnant woman and fetus are at risk of life so she should be admitted in emergency.

- When there is a large amount of bleeding, the pregnant woman should be admitted to the hospital even if it stopped temporarily.

- When her abdomen is severely injured, or the rupture happens in the toilet, or a seizure occurs, she should be taken to hospital in emergency

- In addition, when the patient has a sudden cold and trembling and high fever after abortion, preterm delivery, or normal delivery, she must be admitted immediately.

Eyesight and Sweet Food

Sweet food causes myopia and other ocular diseases.

If you eat sweet food for a long time, the calcium content in your blood may decrease to cause myopia.

It will also cause cataract, which is associated with increased blood sugar and a stiffening lens.

Those who prefer to eat sweet food are said to have a 30 % higher incidence of obesity and cataract than others.

So you should refrain from eating sugar, glucose, fructose and something like that for your eye health and, when you eat them, you should take chromium- and calcium-rich foods such as meat, eggs, milk, fish, and shrimp.

In addition, you can quickly recover from your eye fatigue if you eat brown rice or sesame that are rich in vitamin B1.