Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

I kinda feel like my blog's dead. Haih, why can I never update regularly?

Nvm, here I am to save the day (or blog, in this case)!!

OK, I'm gonna do a sort of review of the 2 movies I watched recently. Hmm, I just realized that I watched these 2 movies with the same person: Timothy. Ya la, my schedule lately has been quite irregular and that fella has nothing to do at all nowadays.

First movie: Percy Jackson & the Olympians: The Lightning Thief

This movie was a HUGE disappointment for me because I'm a fan of the books. I was really really really looking forward to watching this movie when Lydiar (who introduced the books to me) told me that the books were gonna be adapted to a movie.

I stayed away from the trailers and reviews of this movie so that I could be pleasantly surprised when I finally watch the movie BUT!!! I was HORRIBLY surprised instead :(

I guess I should never get my hopes up when a book's made in a movie.

The scenes in movies are almost always not what you'd imagine them to be and words (as in books) are always the best medium to describe things. Besides, how can it be possible for them to fit everything in the book into a 2-hour movie?

Still, even if there hadn't been any book in the picture, the movie was mediocre at best. It could have been done better... Haih, such a disappointment la :( :( :( 3 sad faces...

Rating: 4/10, but I'm biased cos I had such high expectations of it

*Diar was also disappointed with the movie. So basically, the adaptation was poor!

P.S. Will blog about the second movie (Valentine's Day) in the next post...wait for it!

Diabetes Mellitus (diabetes): Type 1 and Type 2

Now that you know what diabetes is and the role insulin plays in controlling the level of glucose (sugar) in the blood, let's move on to the 2 common types of diabetes which are:

                                            (i) Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus and

                                            (ii) Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus.

Type 1 diabetes was formerly known as juvenile-onset diabetes or insulin-dependent diabetes. Type 1 diabetes can affect children or adults but was traditionally termed "juvenile diabetes" because it represents a majority of the diabetes cases in children. Most affected people are otherwise healthy and of a healthy weight when onset occurs.

Type 1 diabetes occurs due to the decrease in the cells that produce insulin (beta cells). Remember that these cells are only in the pancreas. These insulin-producing cells are destroyed (either by our own immune system or some other reason) resulting in a decrease in the number of these cells. Therefore, less insulin is produced.

Treatment for type 1 diabetes includes taking insulin, making wise food choices, being physically active and controlling blood pressure and cholesterol.

Type 2 diabetes was formerly called adult-onset diabetes or noninsulin-dependent diabetes. It is the most common form of diabetes. People can develop type 2 diabetes at any age - even during childhood. Being overweight and inactive increases the chances of developing type 2 diabetes!!! (>.< OK, must start to exercise alrdy).

In Type 2 diabetes, all the beta cell producing the insulin are healthy. However, other cells become insulin-resistant. This means that the other cells do not respond as well as they normally do to insulin. Remember in the previous post that insulin functions to help other cells (like fat cells, muscle cells and liver cells) to absorb glucose from blood? Well, in this case, while there is enough insulin being produced, the fat, muscle and liver cells do not respond to insulin properly. This is called insulin-resistance, or decreased sensitivity to insulin.

In time, the amount of insulin produced will also decrease.

SUMMARY:

Type 1 diabetes: It is insulin-dependent.

                          The body produced little or no insulin.

                          To overcome this, the patient will have to take insulin injections.

Type 2 diabetes: It is insulin-independent.

                         The body produces enough insulin but the cells are insulin-resistant.

                         To overcome this, the patient will have to control the amount of 
                         sugar in their diet.

                         This is the most common type of diabetes that result from obesity
                         and too much sugar intake! And this is definitely the type of 
                         diabetes you DON'T want to have because you can no longer eat 
                         yummy stuff!

Diabetes Mellitus (diabetes) and Insulin

Dedicated to Guna! :)

Diabetes is a chronic (long-term) disease in which a person has high blood sugar (glucose) level. High levels of glucose (a sugar) in the blood is known as hyperglycemia (hyper- meaning excessive; -glyc- meaning sweet; and -emia- meaning "of the blood").

Glucose is a simple sugar found in food. Besides that, glucose can also be obtained when carbohydrates are broken down in the small intestine. The glucose is then absorbed by the intestinal cells into the bloodstream, and is carried by the bloodstream to all the cells in the body where it is utilized.

However, glucose cannot enter the cells alone and needs insulin to aid in its transport into the cells from the bloodstream. Without insulin, the cells become starved of glucose energy despite the presence of abundant glucose in the bloodstream. 

Therefore, the flow of glucose is like this: intestines--->intestinal cells--->bloodstream--->body cells.

Insulin is a hormone produced by specific cell (beta cells) in the pancreas. While insulin has various physiological effects (causes different things to occur in the body), it ultimately results in the decrease of blood glucose levels. 
This is achieved because insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to absorb glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle, and stopping use of fat as an energy source. Insulin also decreases production of glucose from non-sugar substrates, primarily in the liver.

Therefore, with this increase in the absorption of glucose from the blood into the cells and the decrease in production of glucose from non-sugar substrates by the liver, the level of glucose in the blood is effectively decreased.

*More to come later. Learn the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes!!