|
The Doctor's Consultation:
PNI and “Sabai Dii Smur”
by Dr. Iain Corness
I have tried to be a ‘positive’ person for many years.
When I get asked the standard question, “How are you?” I reply, “I’m
always well,” to the English speakers, or “Sabai dii smur,” to the
locals.
Now have I discovered not only the elixir of youth but also
the secret to permanent health? Unfortunately No! On both counts - but those
words can have more effect on your life than you would imagine. It’s all to
do with PNI. And before you read further, I must also point out I am not a
‘tree hugger’ either.
So what is PNI? To give it its full title, the letters
stand for Psycho-Neuro-Immunology, which explains very quickly why we just say
“PNI”, doesn’t it! In this rather inexact ‘newer’ science, what the
boffins have been able to do is to measure the body’s physical response to
emotional stresses. This is not the simple, “I’m under stress so my
(blood) pressure’s up,” but is a valid scientific attempt to quantify the
psychological insults to the body in physically measurable terms.
We already knew that those people who ‘dropped their
bundle’ under stress appeared to do less well than those who kept up a
cheery disposition, but it was all fairly anecdotal stuff.
However, there is fairly clear evidence that major forms of
infection can be stress-related. This has been shown for upper respiratory
tract infections (URTIs), recurrences of herpes infections, and bacterial
infections. Exposure to infection is the biggest predictor of becoming ill
with an infectious illness, but for individuals with equal levels of exposure
there are individual differences in ‘host-resistance’, and those
differences affect the likelihood of becoming ill once infected.
As Immunology became a real science, with the ability to
measure immune responses by examination of the blood, we began to get a better
idea of just what was going on. And guess what? It appeared that people under
“stress” depressed their immune system! Was this the answer? Stress
reduces your ability to fight things off. Elegantly simple, but unfortunately,
too simplistic!
Further studies were done by researchers all over the world
and sometimes stress appeared to reduce personal immune response, but other
people did not show the same effects when under the same type of stress. Just
who was fooling whom?
However, there were some studies that showed that those
people with a positive approach were more likely to “get through” a cancer
than those people with a negative attitude. The positive people had
significantly better 5 year survival rates for any cancer than the negative
folk. But we really didn’t know why.
More research indicated that positive people had better
‘immune counts’ than negative thinkers. So it seemed as if the positive
thinkers had ‘immuno-enhancement’ while those with negative outlooks and
poor coping skills ended up with ‘immuno-suppression’. This was, believe
me, a real breakthrough.
The medical scientific community began to look at disease
processes in a new light. The British Medical Journal now reported a very
strong relationship between breast cancer and women who were handling
stressors poorly. In fact, another study showed that women who were severely
depressed were almost four times more likely to die from all causes over a 5
year follow-up than those who were not. Another study following the
progression of HIV showed that those with immuno-suppression (from poor coping
skills) doubled the rate of progression of the disease, compared to those with
immuno-enhancement.
Having digested all that information, now “How are you
today?”
Agony Column
Dear Hillary,
Maybe I still have to get used to the Thai way, but sometimes (in my
opinion) it is getting too far. Sitting in a bar having a drink with a
lady, playing some pool it is getting to closing time. She would go with
me but to my big surprise she had to pay 300 baht to her boss (more than
she makes in a day’s work). Do these people own these ladies? I would
think when you are ready working you could do what you want? Also when
they want a day off they have to buy themselves free. It is an insult to
your Thai ladies. I am not used to Thai customs, or do I have a point?
Unbelievable
Dear Unbelievable,
You do have a point, but it is pointing you in the wrong direction. What
you describe is not the ‘Thai way’ but the ‘bar way’. Like all
forms of ‘employment’ there are certain ‘rules’ and these girls
who ‘work’ there know the rules. You are also a little confused when
you say the young lady would have to pay B. 300 to her boss to go with you
to continue playing pool, or some other ball games. You are supposed to
pay that, my Petal. The nocturnal playing suggested after playing pool
also does not come about because the lady thought you were wonderful! You
were playing pool in the meat market and you are expected to take home
some prime rump - which you pay for, just like in any market. The
‘real’ Thai way and customs are not seen in the bar scene. If you want
to meet Thai ladies, you should get away from the commercial
establishments.
Dear Hillary,
I see these old farangs walking around everywhere with what we back home
in the UK call “trophy brides”. Surely they don’t think that these
girls actually like going around with these old geezers? They only look at
them as ATM’s and as soon as they have emptied it, they’re off. Reckon
they’ve got rocks in their heads. Agree Miss Hillary?
John
Dear John,
Now just hold on a minute, judgmental John, have you forgotten that this
is not the UK? This is Thailand and this is a different kind of society.
Despite what you might have heard or read, females here do not have the
same opportunities that females might have “back home” where you came
from. There is no story of Cinderella in Thai fairytales. Good
hard-working Thai girls do not get to meet Prince Charmings, no matter how
many glass slippers they might try on. The chances of a Thai girl from a
simple rural background being swept off her feet by some rich Thai are
about the same as me ever getting the champagne promised each week (but
never sent) from Mistersingha, the regular reneger. The Thai Hi-So men
only meet the daughters of other Hi-So’s. Thai Hi-So males do not marry
female farmers from Isaan. Now if any of these country girls (or city
girls not from Hi-So families) has any ambition to get ahead in life, what
can they do? They have at best a very basic education, so where can they
get high paying jobs? Working at the supermarket check-out isn’t going
to give her a car and a nice house in the suburbs, is it? So what is left
for a girl with ambition, but low station? The Thai society does not make
it easy for her moving upwards, but an older farang gives her just that
opportunity. It’s a win-win situation, my Petal. The older farang gets a
nice girl and appreciates what he is getting, and the supermarket
check-out lady gets a nice husband who is prepared to buy her the physical
things she would never otherwise be able to afford. What is wrong with
that? Please note that I am not referring to the ‘professional’ ladies
who are into multiple relationships for purely financial gain. There’s a
big difference. You should stop for a while and think about what I have
written. You may have the rocks in the jocks young man, but the older
farangs have not lost the plot either.
Dear Hillary,
Coming over next month. Just need to know where to deliver, Belgium
chocolates and Krug champers. By the way I never, ever share a bottle of
the sparkling nectar, so you will have to open this one on your lonesome,
otherwise I would drink the lot, beating you off with a large stick if
neccesary (sic). If you decide to put this into print please omitt (sic)
my name. as my pals can be pretty nasty, and I can do without that sort of
crap. A promise is a promise and I NEVER break my word.
Bloody hell just used spell check, and it was all ok. I should go back to
school and pick up all those golden stars I missed out on.
The Champers Kid
Dear Champers Kid,
You have me champing at the mouth. Krug no less! You are a sweet boy, even
if you still can’t spell, despite the spell checker! It’s
‘necessary’ and ‘omit’ my Petal! Never mind, I’ll think of you
as the Belgian chocolate melts over my back molars. Address the package
(in a tightly sealed paper parcel), to the Pattaya Mail office, marked
Attention Ms. Hillary. Thank you, but sorry, no golden stars yet!
|
Camera Class: The digital alternative becoming very attractive
by Harry Flashman
The debate as to whether to stay with conventional film or to
go digital has been running for over a decade. Of course in those ten years
there have been advances both with film, and with digital. However, the digital
movement has seen much greater strides being taken. Similar to the digital phone
revolution, where the mobile phone has become smaller, smarter and cheaper, the
digital camera has too.
 A
few technical terms need to be examined first, before we go on to a comparison
between film and digital. The sharpness of a final print is governed by the
quality of the lens, and the speed of the film. 50 ASA film has smaller
‘grains’ and is therefore sharper than say 400 ASA film that has larger,
coarser grains in the film emulsion. There is a similar situation with digital
images, where the more pixels that are used in a picture, the sharper is the
final product. The actual measurement is generally quoted as millions of pixels,
called ‘megapixels’ and these days there are cameras offering 14 megapixels,
while ten years ago you were lucky to see one megapixel of data.
So just as you can choose what film stock you use, digital
cameras allow you to select how many megapixels you will use in each image. For
example, in the VGA mode in the Sony Cyber-shot, which has 640 x 480 pixels,
this will produce an image suitable for sending by email (not overly sharp). If
you decide on a 3 megapixel image size, this is equivalent to 2048 x 1536 pixels
(if you multiply those numbers together, that gives 3 million). This can be
enlarged substantially, but a 5 megapixel image can be printed in high quality
up to 5 inches by 4 inches, having 2592 x 1944 pixels.
Just like with print film, you have to decide just what you
will be doing with your pictures. If they are for the family album, then the
ultimate number of megapixels does not need to be offered by your digital
camera, and anything around 3 megapixels will be fine. However, if these digital
images are going to end up as fine art prints, then the more megapixels the
better, and I would suggest you need more than 7 megapixels.
Going back to our comparison between print and digital, it is
also important to compare like with like. The Sony Cyber-shot I looked at does
not have full control of aperture and shutter speed, so that brings it into the
realm of the ‘point and shoot’ compact cameras, not the SLRs that have full
creative control.
The Sony was certainly a ‘compact’, small enough to fit
in a shirt pocket. With compact print cameras that have to have a film canister
inside, they are obviously limited on how slim they can be, so will not rival
the digital cameras in any way. Digital wins that round.
Lens quality in the Sony was excellent, with the important
piece of glass coming from the Carl Zeiss Company, and equal to the best in
print camera compacts. This round is a draw!
Zooming with digital cameras can be both optical and
electronic, giving them greater close-up capabilities than the compact option
that only has an optical zoom. Digital wins again!
The photographic print is the final factor as far as I am
concerned. Despite digital owners showing you tiny images on the viewing screen
at the back of the camera, this is less than satisfactory. You need a physical
print you can put in the baby’s photo album. This was an area where print film
cameras were way ahead of their digital brothers, but no more. The better ones,
such as the Cyber-shot, have a ‘memory stick’. This you can take to the
‘digital’ photo shops which can download the images and give you prints for
around the same price as print film photographs! Now that’s a draw again.
If you want ‘compact camera point and shoot’ ability only, I would now
suggest that it is time to go digital
Dogs - Man’s best friend:
Genetic influence on the dog’s behavior
Nienke Parma
The way a dog thinks and behaves is influenced
approximately 40 percent by his genes. Genes affect the way the brain works
which in turn affects the production of hormones. Through genetic
manipulation a dog’s mind can be modified.
 Grrrrr!
I am really dangerous, but I promise not to do anything to you if you just
leave me alone!
However, this is only possible quantitatively speaking.
Qualitatively, genetic manipulation has virtually no effect on behavior.
Despite the huge variation in appearance and behavior between dog breeds,
deep down inside they are all very much similar to their ancestor, the wolf.
The genetic stability of a dog’s mind is amazing. All
over the world, they still speak the same language and interact amongst each
other, and with us, in the same way wolves interact between themselves.
Aubrey Manning, in his work on animal behavior published in 1972, wrote,
“It is a remarkable testimony to the stability of fixed patterns that some
8,000 years of domestication with, at times, intense selection has produced
so little modification of ancestral patterns. They also will never be able
to understand abstract thought or conditional sentences, ‘If you dig
again, I’ll be very angry’. It’s nothing more than a tone of voice and
body gesture to the dog. Try the same sentence in a friendly voice and a
smile on the face, and you’ll meet a happy tail wagging dog.”
Quantitatively it is possible to increase the dog’s
friendliness, decrease aggressiveness, increase courage (security dogs are
specially selected for this trait) or decrease the pain level (fighting
dogs), and further increase their herding, guarding, tracking, sniffing,
retrieving, pointing, flushing, or cornering abilities or even sit silently
on a satin cushion.
With most behavior problems genetic factors are also
involved. Dominance aggression, excitability and fearfulness (often
resulting in fear aggression) all have a genetic basis. Unfortunately,
nowadays dogs are bred mainly for their beauty and not so much for their
workability, for which a sound temperament is necessary.
Dr. I. Stur of the Vienna Animal Genetics Institute has
investigated the correlation between beauty and constitution and found it is
negative. So, there is a distinguishing difference in the temperament of
show Golden Retrievers and their working line counterparts known for their
calmness of nature that originally made them good field dogs. The show
lines, however, can be more flighty, even aggressive. Many of the show
Labrador Retrievers have lost their will to please; instead many are
over-excitable and stubborn. Or the Rottweilers, being so ‘beautifully
confident’ in the show-ring, are more likely to produce (too) confident
offspring, increasing the chance of dominance aggression.
Dogs with unsound temperaments can cause not only a lot
of misery to their owners and their neighborhood; they can even be downright
dangerous to us and our children.
For more information on dog-issues, -boarding, -training
or -behavior please contact LuckyDogs: 09 99 78 146 or lucky4paws@yahoo.com.
To be continued …
Money Matters: The ups and downs of today’s market
Alan Hall
MBMG International Ltd.
Judging by the latest nonsense on CNBC, the markets this
year have most people confused; one minute they are up and the next they are
down. Greenspan tells us that all is well, the EU says that exports are
going great and everyone emphasises the strength of the emerging markets.
This is then followed by dire problems such as profit warnings, poor job
growth, worldwide political worries, the price of oil, war and terrorism.
How does one plan for the future with such conflicting reports?
Share prices are basically driven by two things: earnings
per share and how much investors are prepared to pay for those earnings.
This is known as the Price/Earnings (P/E) Ratio. At the moment there is no
way that most stocks can get us the high returns that existed for much of
the last two decades of the twentieth century. At best, by themselves,
earnings can achieve low single digit returns. What about P/E Ratios? Most
analysts regard them as far too high at the moment. Low growth + high P/Es =
a sure fire mixture that means the markets will go nowhere for the
foreseeable future, except may be downwards.
Having said all of this, there is no reason to go and
dive under a baht bus. Sectors of the major world economies may do well over
the next few years. A lot of growth will come from new technology,
bio-technology and other such innovations (however, many of these companies
probably do not exist yet, and therefore few people can extract benefit from
these. Certainly not in the publicly-owned domain).
Earlier this year the S&P500 showed an increase of
27% in earnings per share, but this cannot last. As we have said before,
everything is cyclical. Nothing goes on forever. There is a limit to how big
a share of the economy the powers that be are willing to hand over to the
large corporations. In the US, tax corporate profits’ share of GDP hit
7.9% in the first quarter. This is the highest it has been since the
mid-sixties and so that limit seems to have been reached. Corporate profits
simply cannot sustain a growth rate faster than that of GDP.
Without getting too complicated, economists use something
called the internal rate of return of stocks. This is the annual growth of
earnings per share of present public companies plus the dividend yield. In
America at the moment this would mean that there would be an annual return
of under 3.00% on shares if one assumes that the P/E ratios stayed as they
were. If one was optimistic then you might get to just over 4%. However, if
the economy does not grow as quickly as expected then the GDP will be
reduced. In turn this means that you could get better returns from protected
government bonds (PGBs).
The only way that shares can beat these PGBs is for P/E
ratios to go back up again. At the moment they are at about 25 which is 67%
above the historic average of 15. They cannot go much higher because that
would reduce the attractiveness of stocks over things like PGBs even more.
However, going back to the beginning of this article, with the likes of
Greenspan trying to talk the economy up, it will take time for many
investors to realise that the earnings per share are falling behind economic
growth. Once they do though, then they will leave the markets entirely. This
should drive the P/E ratios down to levels that are much more realistic.
Naturally, this would mean that there will be a
substantial fall in the stock markets. However, that might, in turn, mean
that future investors will be able to make big gains. This is exactly what
happened after the 1970s bear market.
Alternatives: It is possible that investors are happy
with these low returns and keep their shares in the hope of some meteoric
rise sometime in the future. If this is true then the markets could potter
along in the low digit growth range for years to come.
So, what do you do in such a situation? The first thing
is not to get too greedy and attempt to become a millionaire overnight. This
is a guaranteed way to lose all of your money. For people who like to invest
in equities directly then look at dividend yield. A company that yields over
5% per annum and has a P/E ratio below 14 should not do too badly. Warren
Buffet has, for nearly forty years with Berkshire Hathaway, frequently
accepted income inline of capital gains. You can always re-invest it if you
do not want the money.
However, investors would be better advised to forsake
equities in favour of diversity. To put it simply, not everything can go
badly all at the same time. What to put your money in? Forget property and
equities in the US. Europe does not look too healthy either. A good global
dynamic fund such as the Optimal Core Harbour Fund or PGS’ Global Dynamic
Fund is worth looking at. They survey the markets and make long and short
calls that will never set the world alight but should always beat the bank
by a good few basis points. With these types of funds you should be able to
double your money every seven or eight years with very little risk. This is
because they allocate to all 5 asset classes (equities, property, cash,
bonds and alternatives).
For those of you with regular premium funds, do not
despair either. For the first time institutions such as Generali and Friends
Provident are offering the dynamic 5 asset classes structure to their
regular premium clients. But I hear you all say, “Surely a long term
portfolio performs best if it’s invested is equities”. We’ll find out
next week when we examine the performance of equities versus the other asset
classes.
The above data and research was compiled from sources
believed to be reliable. However, neither MBMG International Ltd nor its
officers can accept any liability for any errors or omissions in the above
article nor bear any responsibility for any losses achieved as a result of
any actions taken or not taken as a consequence of reading the above
article. For more information please contact Alan Hall on alan @mbmg-international.com
Life in the Laugh Lane: It’s a bad sign
by Scott Jones
Two thousand years ago a guy named Joseph tried to find a
room at an inn with his Israeli wife ready to give birth. (The Book says the
inn was full but perhaps his wife was from Thailand.) Two weeks ago a guy named
Scott tried to find a room at an inn with his Thai friend ready to throw up.
(In Bangkok near Khaosan Road — pronounced “cows on road” and named after
the first herd of large, rotund, farang backpackers grazing through Thailand.)
Many rooms were available to Scott but not to his Thai friend. Talking to any
female Thai receptionist surrounded by Thai waitresses, female Thai travel
agents, cooks and cleaners was like listening to a skipping CD: mai dai, mai
dai, mai dai. (Maybe they just don’t want other women invading their
territory.) Gentle persuasion had no effect whatsoever, “I love your guest
house. I’ve stayed here before. She’s sick, has an American driver’s
license and speaks fluent English. Okay, fine. I’m going to set fire to your
hair.”
 The
rational behind this sign eludes me, “It’s possible a Thai woman could be a
prostitute so we’ll bar all Thai women.” What’s the next level of this
rationale? “It’s possible a woman could drink so we won’t let them
drive.” “Woman might run with sharp stick and poke out eye so not let them
have chopsticks.”
I saw other variations, “Must have foreign passport to
stay here.” “Police order - no Thai woman allowed in hotel.” I can’t
imagine how many civil liberty lawyers would show up if this sign were posted
in a hotel in America, “No American woman allowed in hotel.” Actually,
before any lawyers could get there, the hotel would be burned to the ground by
a livid pack of feminists.
You’re traveling. You need a room. What are your options?
Boycott Bangkok. Carry your girlfriend in a huge golf bag. Get her extreme
white makeup, five-inch high heels and an illegal passport from Khaosan Road.
(Oops, that IS a prostitute.) Follow my father’s simple advice, “With so
many nice people in the world, why spend your time with a horse’s ass? Just
walk around the corner and you’ll find a new friend!” Three corners and ten
guest houses later, I found a room and a surly, but semi-friendly manager.
(Hey, it was Bangkok, not Chiangmai.)
Or be like Joseph and take the stable. You’ll get a sweet manger instead
of a sour manager. The three visiting kings will have foreign passports.
You’ll find new friends: cows, goats, sheep, horses and authentic asses.
They’ll be colorblind, much more accepting and won’t even know what a
passport is, except for the goat that might eat it.
|
