Falling apart

You work four years in a hospital and you never meet anybody that you know. You go there for an appointment and you bump into two folk. After the usual niceties, the inevitable question, "So, what are you here for?"

"None of your fucking business, now piss off. And you tell a soul that you've seen me? I'll burn your fucking house down!"

After a traumatic visit to th'ospital, I was overcome with fatigue and spent the evening collapsed on a friend's sofa. Feeling pretty shit, under the weather and not at my best as I apprach my mid-thirties, I think I might need a "pick-me-up". Here's some womanly advice from Frankly feminine...

The woman who wants the best all worlds knows the importance of the right food. She knows that good health, tireless energy, a perfect skin and a lissom figure can all be the result of eating food in the right quantities.

A thoroughly balanced diet with just the right amounts of vitamins, minerals, bulk, fat, proteins and carbohydrates is the first step to vitality, and so the first step to beauty. [So curry two nights on the run is a definite no-no then?]

I'll skip the bits about "Strength from proteins", "Warmth from fats" and "Energy from carbohydrates" and get straight to:

The vital vitamins
"...A good, well-balanced diet will provide all the vitamins needed for health and beauty.

Vitamin A is for glamour. We say this because it is the vitamin which gives a smoth, glowing skin and bright, sparkling eyes. It is also an important vitamin medically, for it helps to fight colds, flu and bronchitis as well as chatarrh and night-blindness.

Vitamin B is a fatigue fighter. It helps to relieve nervous tension, certain types of neuralgia and rheumaticky pains. It also gives you extra vitality.

Vitamin C is an infection fighter. It is also a booster for clear, smooth skin.

And last, but not least..

Vitamin D is for brightness and dazzle. It makes your teeth gleam, hair healthy and bones strong but supple, so it s a must for growing children as well as for mothers to be. You will find it in salmon, cod liver and halibut liver oil, fish, dairy, blah, blah, mushroom??... blah, blah, and - delightfully - in sunshine.

So there you go. I'd have loved to have put those answers down in my biology and biochemistry exams as a student.

Q24 Describe the properties and biochemical pathways involving vitamin D.

A Vitamin D can be obtained from a number of dietary inputs, but it is delightful to note that an important source is Mr Sunshine. Vitamin D interacts with a number of genetically-related receptors whereby stimulation results in activation of calmodulin and in a Ca2+ cascade in the cytoplasm... nuclear receptors and shit like that. The overall result of Vitamin D stimulation of its receptor upregulation of systemic brightness and dazzle factors.

I think I can conclude that working too much, eating the wrong things, not getting enough sleep or exercise and reaching your mid-thirties can definitely result in significant loss of brightness and dazzle.