Lire & STYLE.

Have a fitness tip or recipe to share? Contact the editor at lifeandstyle@theotherpress.ca

 

Bone marrow: it's also in you to give

(Canadian Blood Services
need more donors for an
important treatment

 

By Livia Turnbull,
Humour Editor

W: often do not think
about leukemia or bone
marrow at all. These things

are rarely talked about on TV,
unless there is a cute dying
child who wants to go to
Disneyland. Some people may
have needed to donate bone
marrow to treat their siblings,
but the process itself is rarely
talked about. It is a depressing
subject, especially for those with
friends or children who have or
had leukemia. However, there
is a way you can help people in
need. Canadian Blood Services
is looking for people from ages
17 to 50—although they would
prefer people from ages 17 to

35—to be bone marrow donors.
Bone marrow is the soft,

spongy tissue found inside
people’s bones that acts as the
site for stem cells to grow into
blood cells. When a person has
leukemia, their white blood
cells reproduce at an extremely

\,
el

fast rate; as aresult, the bone
marrow itself becomes diseased
and has to be destroyed. To be
completely cured, that person
needs new bone marrow.
Leukemia patients need
new bone marrow, but there are
not enough matches. Siblings
have a one in four chance
of matching bone marrow.
Identical twins cannot be bone
marrow donors to one another
because their genetics aren't
different enough to fight the
cancer—a transplant wouldn’t

   

kill the cancer cells, and the
patient would be in danger of
relapsing. However, by donating
bone marrow, you may be the
rare match the patient needs in
order to recover.

Just about anyone can
donate bone marrow, but there
are certain requirements. To
be a bone marrow donor, you
must not have cancer, diabetes,
HIV, or AIDS. If you lived in
high-risk places for dangerous
diseases—such as England or
Africa—for six months, you may

need to have further testing.

If you have a diverse ethnic
background, you are especially
needed, as you have a greater
chance of benefitting patients
from different ethnic groups.

marrow donor is very simple
and it costs absolutely

nothing. All you need to

do is go to www.onematch.
com and answer a series of
questions. Once you submit
your application online, you
will receive an email thanking

you for your enrolment thus far.
The information you sent will be
processed within five business
days and, if you do not need to
have further testing, you will
receive a Buccal swab kit in the
mail. You will have to swab

the inside of your mouth and
then send it back to them along
with a form containing your
signature.

After that, it is just a matter
of waiting for a match. You
cannot pick your match, so
if you have someone in your
life that needs bone marrow,
unfortunately you will have to
keep hoping for another donor.
However, once you've found
that match, you will have a
chance to save another person’s
life. You won't feel a thing
during the transplant, but you'll
be in pain as you recover for a
few days.

People with a high-risk
form of leukemia only have a 15
per cent chance of surviving five
years without a match. On the
other hand, people with a low-
risk form of leukemia have a 70
per cent chance of surviving the
same amount of time without a
match. Even after five years, the
cancer can still come back. You
can break the cycle. Donate bone
marrow before it is your turn to
need a donor.

Photo courtesy af Chad McNeeley

Applying to be a bone

 

Pros and cons of fitness

 

By Sharon Miki, Contributor

ife’s cruelest irony: just

because you're now expected
to spend all of your waking
hours studying, etcetera, doesn’t
mean that your body will pause
in its bikini-model-level fitness
state until next summer. What's
a college girl to do? Can we turn
to our most ubiquitous modern
method of problem solving—the
smartphone app—for help?

Since the ancient days
of smartphones, people have
been turning to apps to solve
their life’s problems—and
fitness / weight-loss is one of
the heaviest problems for many
folks. Whether your goal is to
improve your fitness level, track
your progress, or drop afew
pounds, apps like MyFitnessPal,
Endomondo Sports Tracker, and
Lose It! can be installed on your
phone to help you meet your
goals.

While the idea of having

a little dumbbell icon invading
the otherwise pristine landscape
of your iOS may seem uncool,

10

fitness apps have many benefits.
Perhaps most obviously, fitness
apps are ultra convenient.
Because most of us have our
phone on hand at all times, you
will almost never find yourself
without your “personal trainer.”
With features like GPS tracking
in many apps (for example,
Endomondo tracks precisely the
distance you run in a session),
you can know exactly how far
you goin a workout, which can
provide some much needed
motivation.

Similarly, these apps refuse
to let you use your student
budget as an excuse to avoid
fitness: most health and physical
activity apps are free or cost
only a few dollars as a one-time
investment—you’re not paying
hundreds of dollars a month for
personal training or weight-loss
coaching programs. Coupled
with students’ free access (well,
free-ish—access is included in
your student fees) to Douglas
College fitness facilities, having
a training app like Nike Training
Club, which offers detailed
workout routines, on your

apps for the modern lazy lady

phone means you can train like
a pro for next to no dollars.

So fitness apps seem pretty
great—what’s the downside?

Sadly, if you’re a lazy
bitch like me, fitness apps
might not be the prescription
for everlasting fitness and an
ass like Beyoncé’s. Just having
something on your phone
doesn’t mean that you're
necessarily going to use it if
you lack sufficient motivation.
Personally, I spent so much time
congratulating myself on just
downloading these apps that I
totally forgot to log into them
for weeks. Net calorie burn?
Approximately seven, from
clicking on the “install now”
buttons.

For some, the opposite may
become an issue. Obsessively
tracking calories in and out (as
you do with top fitness apps like
Lose It! and Noom Weight Loss
Coach) can become a trigger
for compulsive and disordered
behaviours that may not be
healthy in the longterm.

 

 

Want to check out some health and fitness apps? Here
are my top Health & Fitness app picks for iPhone and
Android:

iPhone

1. Nike Training Club (Free)

2. Couch-to-5K ($1.99 US)

3. Calorie Counter & Diet Tracker (MyFitnessPal)
(Free)

Android

1. Noom Weight Loss Coach (Free)
2. Endomondo Sports Tracker (54.99)
3. Lose It! (Free)