PROD AD
E SIGNATURE: ED
dmax dmin
+ 20 — THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN
Outplaying rugby, but referee’s out
Yoga is shedding its mung bean image, but not everyone is happy with its mainstream makeover, writes Jane Lyons
W
HEN James Hase-
mer was three he
would regularly
wander into his
parents’ bedroom and look
with astonishment into the
inverted face of his father,
who, like many alternative
lifestyle dabblers of the 1960s,
was doing one of his morning
headstands.
Now 36, Hasemer has been prac-
tising such yoga moves for the last
18 years and runs the Central
Yoga School in Sydney’s inner-
city suburb of Surry Hills.
What he now watches with be-
musement is yoga’s shift into the
mainstream and an exponential
rise in its popularity.
With even burly rugby teams
such as the Roosters and South
Sydney giving yoga a go as part of
their fitness regimes, it seems
yoga’s ‘‘herbal’’ image has been
forever changed. And its move out
of the fringes has been aided by
the A-list advocacy of stars like
Madonna, Gwyneth Paltrow, and
Claudia Karvan.
According to the Australian Bu-
reau of Statistics 2002 report, Par-
ticipation in Sport and Physical
Activities, 2.1 per cent of the
Australian population, or almost
half a million people, now practise
yoga. It is one of the top 10 most
popular physical activities, usurp-
ing even rugby, which comes in at
number 11.
Law firm Minter Ellison has
been subsidising yoga classes for
its Melbourne office workers for
the past three years. According to
Alison Meade, the firm’s occupa-
tional health and safety officer,
everybody from the tea lady to the
firm’s partners attend the classes.
‘‘This is all part of a work-life
balance which promotes a happy
and healthy workplace,’’ she says.
Lawyer Jennifer Blom, 29, has
been going to the classes since the
beginning and says she is ‘‘com-
pletely addicted’’.
She’s not alone: NSW parlia-
ment staff have in-house yoga
classes to help them de-stress, and
even midwives say there’s evi-
dence that prenatal yoga can help
women cope with childbirth.
Jamie Papar, a strength and
fitness co-ordinator with South
Sydney last year, says yoga is an
ideal way to relieve a player’s
tightness during intensive pre-
season training.
But the biggest proliferation
and mainstreaming of yoga has
been through the gyms.
BODY PARTS: EATING BREAKFAST
The good, bad and ugly side of cholesterol
A
NY woman who has tried one
of the myriad diets that come
and go with the length of their
skirts will tell you that eating break-
fast is one of the few things sug-
gested by all weight-loss programs.
We’ve all been told that break-
fast is the most important meal of
the day. If you want to lose weight,
you’re better off skipping lunch or
dinner than going hungry at
breakfast time.
Now it appears that breakfast is
also important for a healthy heart.
Research shows skipping break-
fast increases cholesterol levels in
your blood.
The study also suggests that
skipping your breakfast can de-
crease your sensitivity to insulin,
which keeps blood sugar levels
under control.
The American Heart Associa-
tion describes cholesterol as a soft
Medical Appointments
Patient Services Manager
Permanent Full Time position.
An exciting opportunity exists to manage and provide leadership to the clerical team at Modbury Public
Hospital. This role is integral to delivering an efficient and customer focussed service to the community
utilising the services of Modbury Public Hospital. The successful applicant will be required to assess and
reengineer processes to meet the demands of a new Clinical Information system that will be implemented
over the next 12 months.
The position will be responsible for clerical staff in the following areas: Front of House, Unit Secretaries,
Medical Records, Clinical Coding, Outpatients, Clinical Typing, Switchboard and Emergency Reception.
Essential Requirements:
• Demonstrated experience in managing staff with diverse roles
• Experience within health related office environment
• Project management experience
• IT experience - OACIS familiarity advantageous
Salary and conditions to be negotiated.
Closing date: Friday 18 March 2005
Enquiries and applications to:
Larraine Coward,
Human Resources Officer
Modbury Public Hospital
Smart Rd. Modbury S.A. 5092
Phone: 8161 2314
Email: lcoward@healthscope.com.au
www.healthscope.com.au
+ +
CORRECTION
OK PROOF
98 75 50 25
MARCH 5-6, 2005 — 20
What is yoga?
Yoga, a word derived from the
ancient Sanskrit meaning ‘‘to
unite’’, originated in India about
3000 years ago.
■ Hatha is the umbrella term for
the most popular form of yoga,
which involves physical postures,
meditation and breathing.
■ Iyengar, Ashtanga, Bikram, and
Satyananda are well-known Hatha
styles. Iyengar emphasizes
alignment of the body and holding
the posture. Ashtanga involves
postures done in a flowing
sequence. Bikram yoga involves
doing sequences in a heated room.
Satyananda combines chanting,
meditation and physical postures.
■ There are a number of other
Hatha schools, including Vinni,
Integral and Heart yoga.
Tips for beginners
■ Make sure you choose the
appropriate class for your level. If
you’re a beginner, make sure it’s a
beginners’ class.
■ Make the teacher aware of any
injuries and go slow.
■ Leave the ‘no pain, no gain’
mentality at the door. It’s not
aerobics. You shouldn’t be trying to
out-pretzel the person next to you.
■ Recognise your limits. Yoga can
challenge your body but if it really
hurts, stop.
Fitness First has 40 gyms across
Australia and almost 200,000 mem-
bers. They run five yoga classes a
week, as well as their hybrid
‘Bodybalance’, which incorporates
yoga, Pilates and tai chi.
But many have accused yoga of
becoming the new aerobics, and
fear that too many of its new
adherents are looking less inside
themselves and more on achieving
the ‘‘yoga body’’.
Fitness First’s national group
fitness manager Yvette Flacke
says she gets frustrated by stu-
dents who expect to walk away
with the physique of Madonna.
Hasemer argues this kind of focus
ignores yoga’s emphasis on the body
as a tool for achieving mental clarity
and personal transformation.
According to him, quietening
the mind’s chatter can be distaste-
ful to some people.
waxy substance found in the fats,
or lipids, in your blood. Cholesterol
is important in forming cell mem-
branes and hormones in the body
but too much can cause heart
disease.
Cholesterol and other fats do not
dissolve in the blood and so are
transported through the body by
carriers called lipoproteins, of
which the main ones are low-
density lipoprotein (LDL) and
high-density lipoprotein (HDL).
LDL is the major carrier of
cholesterol in the blood and is
known as ‘‘bad cholesterol’’ for its
role in atherosclerosis. Too much
LDL circulating in the blood can
stick to the walls of the arteries,
forming a hard deposit or plaque
on artery walls that restricts blood
flow and ultimately can result in a
heart attack or stroke.
HDL is often referred to as
Modbury Public Hospital
CMYK
15 8 7 6 5 CMYK 2
Heads first: James Hasemer, standing, conducts a class in Surry Hills, Sydney
‘‘The mind is a good master and
not a good slave. Yoga can be quite
confrontational because we are
trying to make the mind more like
a slave and you’re having to be
still,’’he says.
Hasemer believes this is why
people are often attracted to dy-
namic styles of yoga like Ash-
tanga, Bikram or other flow styles
(see box).
But Hasemer’s biggest concern
is what he sees as the watering
down of yoga to suit people’s tastes
and expectations.
‘‘There is a tendency to give
people what they want, not what
they need. People think they are
coming for a massage, but it is not
like that at all — they have to
work,’’ he says.
Flacke admits Fitness First’s
Bodybalance and their basic yoga
style classes may clash with the
‘‘good cholesterol’’ and carries be-
tween one-third and one-quarter
of the cholesterol in the blood. It is
believed HDL carries cholesterol
away from the heart and back to
the liver, where it is passed from
the body. HDL could also play a
role in removing excess cholesterol
from plaques on the artery walls,
thus slowing the growth of the
deposits.
In the breakfast study con-
ducted by scientists at the Univer-
sity of Nottingham in the UK, 10
healthy women aged 19 to 38 years
of a normal weight ate a bowl of
cereal between 7am and 8am for
two weeks. After two weeks, the
women skipped breakfast for two
more weeks but ate the same bowl
of bran flakes and low-fat milk at
midday instead.
The study, printed in the Amer-
ican Journal of Clinical Nutrition
22 - 24 February 2005
Wentworth Sofitel Sydney
Australia’s foremost
interactive medico-legal
conference for knowledge,
answers and networking
Bonus: 1/2 day pre-conference workshops:
Workshop A: Best Practice Compliance and
Complaint Handling
Workshop B: Effectively applying and
understanding the ramifications of the new
national standard for credentialling
REGISTER NOW!
FAX: (02) 9959 4684 ● EMAIL: info@iir.com.au ● VISIT: www.iir.com.au/health
87654321012345678
30
30
Health
‘‘purists’’, but says she is more
concerned with getting people to
move and to think about their
health. She points out that these
classes often feed the yoga schools,
with people getting a ‘‘taste’’ and
moving onto the purer forms.
Gaby Hughes, who until re-
cently ran Urban yoga in Sydney’s
Potts Point, thinks the direction
yoga is taking in the States —
where at least one gym has intro-
duced ‘‘cardio-yoga’’ to a disco beat
— is ‘‘off the track’’.
However, she doesn’t believe all
adaptation is wrong.
‘‘I think yoga has to keep pace
with us, you can’t just keep prac-
tising something that was first
developed thousands of years ago,
because our lives and tastes are
different now,’’ she says.
Her decision to add ambient
music to the beginning and end of
(2005;81:388-396) found that
women who skipped breakfast ate
more during the day.
In addition, the women’s choles-
terol levels, particularly the level of
LDL in their blood, were raised
after skipping breakfast and they
were also resistant to the effects of
insulin, leaving them at risk of
higher blood sugar levels and the
development of diabetes.
While it is known that insulin
sensitivity varies between meals,
the scientists are unable to explain
why the timing of breakfast was so
critical. But they noted that insu-
lin stimulates the production of an
enzyme involved in cholesterol
synthesis, suggesting lower choles-
terol levels after you’ve eaten
breakfast might be related to
lower levels of insulin.
Justine Ferrari
Official media partners:
Organised by:
Looking to increase your
market profile?
A variety of sponsorship
opportunities are
available. Please call Michal
Osmo on (02) 9923-5012
Contact Amy Smith on TEL: (02) 9923 5090
2/12/95
PRE AUS 5-MAR-2005
3 4 Drop
ED: 1 2 PRE PUB: AUS 5-MAR-2005
+
A BUG’S LIFE
By Dr Adam Taor
Clostridium botulinum
CLOSTRIDIUM botulinum is the
beauty and the beast of the bug
world. This bacterium is a
potential weapon for devastating
bioterror attacks, and yet it’s also
an instrument of beautification.
These two seemingly opposite
uses stem from the fact that
Clostridium botulinum produces
the most poisonous substance
known, botulinum toxin, which
acts on nerves to paralyse
muscles. Doctors use botulinum
toxin in minute doses to treat a
wide range of medical conditions
where there is muscle spasm,
such as blepharospasm (spasm of
the eyelid muscle resulting in
closure of the eye). Cosmetic
surgeons use it to paralyse facial
muscles and conceal wrinkles.
Bioterrorists, on the other hand,
are interested because it’s a killer
of astounding potency. One gram
is enough to kill more than a
million people, it’s estimated. US
authorities believe the Japanese
Aum Shinrikyo cult unsuccessfully
tried on a number of occasions in
the 1990s to launch a botulinum
toxin attack, before successfully
using another deadly agent, sarin.
Clostridium botulinum’s natural
habitat is soil, and the bug thrives
in places where there is little
Picture: Andy Baker oxygen. Its spores are resistant to
heat and disinfectant and live for
long periods if exposed to the air,
her classes, as well as some tai chi who may not be well trained,’’ dormant until conditions are right
hand movements, was partly a admits Sally Flynn, head of Na-
for them to germinate and
business decision in a very com- ture Care College’s yoga teacher
petitive market. training program.
produce their deadly toxin.
With yoga schools seemingly But with no consistent accredita- If food contains the toxin then
popping up on every street corner, tion scheme or agreement on stan- we’re potentially in trouble. But
concerns have also been raised dards among a wide variety of botulinum toxin is relatively
about teaching standards. different styles, it can be difficult for sensitive to heat. It can be
Dr Scott Burne, Sports Physician potential students to be sure they inactivated by heating to 100C for
at Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs Sports have found a good yoga teacher.
Medicine Centre, says experienced about 10 minutes, so proper
Flynn, who has been practising cooking protects us. Botulism
teacher supervision is imperative in
for 25 years, says experience is one
preventing yoga injuries. from food is rare.
of the key factors to look for.
He has two patients in their 60s So food-borne botulism is more
and 70s with tendon tears from And with an increasing aware-
ness in Australia of lifestyle issues, an ‘‘intoxication’’ than an
doing yoga. He says teachers need
infectious disease. If you were
to be sensitive to age and pushing Dr Marc Cohen, head of comple-
people beyond their limits. mentary medicine at RMIT, says unfortunate enough to ingest the
According to him, the other interest in yoga is part of a toxin it would be absorbed from
groups that need to take care are broader dynamic. your gut into your blood, which
those with arthritis, spinal prob- ‘‘Yoga is part of a more pro- would transport it to nerves. Here
lems such as disc protrusions, and active approach to health and a the toxin irreversibly attaches to
those with tendon injuries. move to complementary medi-
nerve cells and blocks the
‘‘Sometimes there are teachers cine,’’ he says.
transmission of nerve signals,
effectively causing paralysis.
Symptoms begin as early as two
hours or as long as eight days after
ingestion and include double
vision, drooping eyelids, slurred
speech and weakness. If
untreated, botulism can cause
paralysis of the arms, legs, and
breathing muscles (and so can
kill). If food-borne botulism is
diagnosed quickly there is an
antitoxin that blocks the
botulinum toxin in the blood.
Patients may need to be put on a
ventilator, a mechanical breathing
machine, but today only about 5
per cent of sufferers die. But those
who survive may have fatigue and
shortness of breath for years.
Tokyo terrorism: Sarin gas was
used simultaneously on at least
three subway lines, killing 12 and
Best eaten: Everyone agrees, skipping breakfast is bad injuring thousands
SONOGRAPHER
Bunbury Branch
SKG Radiology is the largest provider of medical
Website: www.ccahs.nsw.gov.au imaging services in WA, with 26 metropolitan
and country branches, including premier hospital
Emergency Medicine Staff Specialist – locations. At SKG Radiology, we use state of
the art equipment and advanced technology
Locum Positions (6 or 12 Months) to provide the highest quality of service to our
Position No: CC5-125 patients and referring practitioners.
The Central Coast is an expanding healthcare region. In 2003, Gosford
Emergency Department had 46,000 attendances and Wyong 38,205 Our Bunbury branch is seeking an enthusiastic
attendances, making them among the busiest Emergency Departments and fully qualified Ultrasonographer in search of a
in NSW (average admission rate 38–42%). Gosford is the regional challenging and rewarding career. Bunbury, the gateway
trauma centre and both departments have a significant paediatric to the South West region of Western Australia, is
workload. Both hospitals are undergoing major redevelopment to be a cosmopolitan city within easy reach of many of
completed 2005–2006. WA’s most recognised natural and cultural attractions
There are currently 12 FTE Emergency Physicians (an Area Director of including towering forests, whale watching, fine food
Emergency Services, Director of Gosford Emergency Department, and wine and world-class surfing. Bunbury is only two
Director of Wyong Emergency Department and 9 Emergency Physicians).
Hours: Day and evening shifts and participation in an on-call roster for
hours from Perth city.
The successful applicant will be fully accredited with
nights and weekends. Each week includes 25% rostered non-clinical
time. Clinical shifts include acute patient management, supervision of the Australian Sonographic Accreditation Registry
training registrars/junior medical staff, and overall management of (ASAR) and possess excellent communication skills,
patient flow through the department – Emergency Physicians have be able to work autonomously, be a team player in
right of admission to the hospital in patient teams. a multidisciplinary branch and have an outstanding
This is a great opportunity to join an established and expanding patient first attitude.
Emergency Service. We have a large and successful Registrar training
SKG Radiology offers an attractive salary package,
programme with 18 advanced trainees at any one time.
Lifestyle on the Central Coast is second to none, with beautiful flexible working conditions, and outstanding professional
beaches, lakes and waterways, plus urban and rural landscapes. The development. We provide an environment in which
population is 300,000–400,000 and all major activities are supported, motivated individuals can take ownership of their lists
including cultural, sporting and educational. Both Sydney and to facilitate outstanding patient care. In addition, you
Newcastle CBDs are less than 11⁄2 hours away by freeway or air-
conditioned train.
will experience a supportive work environment with
a proactive focus on occupational health. Relocation
All applicants must have FFAEM and/or other specialist recognition as expenses can be negotiated.
provided for in the Salaried Senior Medical Practitioners Award. Pay
and conditions of work are as per the Salaried Senior Medical For further information on SKG Radiology please visit
Practitioners Award (NSW). our website at www.skg.com.au
Enquiries: Dr David Kirkpatrick, Area Director of Emergency Services Please forward your application by 5pm Friday, 1 April 2005 to:
(Central Coast), (02) 4320 3560, email: dkirkpatrick@doh.health.nsw.gov.au
Application Forms: Ms Pauline Chapman (02) 4320 3220, email: Karol Separovic, People Services Consultant
pchapman@doh.health.nsw.gov.au SKG Radiology, PO Box 24, WEST PERTH 6872
Closing Date: 8 April 2005. karol.separovic@skg.com.au
Applications should be addressed to: Dr Stephen Christley, Chief
Executive, PO Box 361, Gosford NSW 2250.
TMPWL09502
Salary and conditions are in accordance with relevant award/enterprise agreements.
Northern Sydney Central Coast Health is an Equal Opportunity Employer providing
a smoke-free environment. Successful applicants will be expected to abide by the
Code of Conduct and be committed to ethical practices. Relevant criminal record
checks (including Child Protection checks) will be conducted on applicants Excellence in Diagnostic Imaging
recommended for employment to positions within the NSW Health System.