The Banana Secrets

The banana is an important source for energy, health and nutrition. New research shows that the banana also can prevent and help cure some of the medical conditions we deal with.

One large banana, about 9 inches in length, packs 602 mg of potassium and has only 140 calories. That same banana also has 2 grams of protein and 4 grams of fiber.

The banana provides energy that can help us keep fit. Bananas can also help overcome or prevent a substantial number of illnesses and conditions. Don't overlook bananas in your diet.

Energy
Because it contains three natural sugars, sucrose, fructose and glucose, combined with fibre, a banana gives us an instant, sustained and substantial boost of energy. Research has shown that just two bananas provide enough energy for a strenuous 90-minute workout. No wonder the banana is the number one fruit with the world's leading athletes.

Depression
According to a recent survey of people suffering from depression undertaken by MIND, many felt much better after eating a banana. This is because bananas contain tryptophan, a type of protein that the body converts into serotonin. Serotonin is known to make you relax, improve your mood and generally make you feel happier.

PMS (Premenstrual syndrome)
The vitamin B6 bananas contain regulates blood glucose levels, which can affect your mood. Forget the pills -- eat a banana.

Anemia
Because bananas are high in iron, they can stimulate the production of hemoglobin in the blood and help prevent anemia.

Blood Pressure
The banana has the ability to ward off high blood pressure and stroke. This unique tropical fruit is extremely high in potassium yet low in salt, making it useful in lowering blood pressure.

Brain Power
Researchers working with 200 students at a Middlesex school showed that students did better on their exams by eating bananas at breakfast, break, and lunch to boost their brain power. The potassium-packed banana can assist learning by making pupils more alert.

Constipation
Because they are high in fiber, bananas in the diet can help restore normal bowel action without the use of laxatives.

Hangovers
A quick cure for a hangover is a banana milkshake, sweetened with honey. The banana calms the stomach and, with the help of the honey, builds up depleted blood sugar levels, while the milk soothes and re-hydrates your system.

Morning Sickness
Snacking on bananas between meals allays morning sickness and helps to keep blood sugar levels up.

Overweight and stress
Studies at the Institute of Psychology in Austria found pressure at work leads to gorging on comfort food like chocolate and chips. Looking at 5,000 hospital patients, researchers found the most obese were more likely to be in high-pressure jobs. The report concluded that, to avoid panic-induced food cravings, we need to control our blood sugar levels by snacking on high carbohydrate foods every two hours to keep levels steady.

Ulcers
Bananas neutralize over-acidity and reduce irritation by coating the lining of the stomach.

Temperature control
Some cultures see bananas as a "cooling" fruit that can lower both the physical and emotional temperature of expectant mothers. In Thailand, for example, pregnant women eat bananas to ensure their baby is born with a cool temperature.

Smoking
If you are trying to give up smoking, the vitamins B6 and B12 in bananas, as well as the potassium and magnesium, help the body recover from the effects of nicotine withdrawal.

Stress
Potassium is a vital mineral which helps normalize the heartbeat, sends oxygen to the brain and regulates your body's water balance. When we are stressed, our metabolic rate rises, and our potassium levels fall. These can be rebalanced with the help of a high-potassium banana snack.

Strokes
Research published in "The New England Journal of Medicine," concluded that eating bananas as part of a regular diet reduced the risk of death by strokes as much as 40%.

Early life of Pope John Paul II

The early life of Pope John Paul II covers the period in his life from his birth in 1920 to his ordination to the priesthood in 1946.

Karol Wojtyla at 12 years old Karol Jozef Wojtyla was born on 18 May 1920 in Wadowice near the city of Krakow in southern Poland, son of a former officer in the Austrian Habsburg army whose name was also Karol Wojtyla, and Emilia Kaczorowska. According to popular Wadowice legend, Emilia used to tell fellow townsfolk that her Karol would be "a great man one day." As a child Karol was called Lolek by friends and family.

His mother died during childbirth in 1929. On hearing about her death, he composed himself and said, "It was God's will." After Emilia's death, his father, an intensely religious man who did most of the housework, brought up Karol so that he could study. His youth was marked by intensive contacts with the then-thriving Jewish community of Wadowice.

His brother Edmund, also known as Mundek, died of scarlet fever contracted from a patient at the age of 26 in 1932. His only other sibling, a sister, died in infancy before Karol was born.

He practiced sports during his youth, being particularly athletic. He often played football (soccer), as a goalkeeper, and was a supporter of Polish club Cracovia Krakow.

Papal biographer George Weigel recalls that when Karol was around fifteen a young person playfully pointed a gun at him not realizing that it was loaded. On pressing the trigger the gun fired and narrowly missed the target. He would escape from other near death incidents as a young seminarian and later as Pope.

University
In the summer of 1938, Karol Wojtyla and his father left Wadowice and moved to Krakow, the former capital of Poland, where he enrolled at the Jagiellonian University in the autumn semester. In his freshman year, Wojtyla studied Philology, Polish language and literature, introductory Russian, and Old Church Slavonic. He also took private lessons in French. He worked as a volunteer librarian and did compulsory military training in the Academic Legion. At the end of the 1938-39 academic year, he played Sagittarius in a fantasy-fable, The Moonlight Cavalier, produced by an experimental theatre troupe.

In his youth he was an active person, and learned as many as twelve languages. By the time he was Pope he spoke ten languages fluently: Polish, Slovak, Russian, Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, Ukrainian and English, beside his good knowledge of Ecclesiastical Latin.

The Second World War
In September 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and the country was subsequently occupied by German and Soviet forces. At the outbreak of War, Karol and his father fled eastwards from Krakow with thousands of other Poles. They sometimes found themselves in ditches, taking cover from strafing Luftwaffe aircraft. After walking 120 miles, they learned of the Russian invasion of Poland and were obliged to return to Krakow. In November, 184 academics of the Jagiellonian University were arrested and the university suppressed. All able-bodied males had to have a job.

In the first year of the war Karol worked as a messenger for a restaurant. This light work enabled him to continue his education and theatrical career and in acts of cultural resistance. He also intensified his study of French. From the autumn of 1940 Karol worked for almost four years as a manual labourer in a limestone quarry, and was well paid. His father died in 1941 because of a heart attack. In 1942, he entered the underground seminary run by Cardinal Sapieha, the archbishop of Krakow. B'nai B'rith and other authorities have testified that he helped Jews find refuge from the Nazis.

On 29 February 1944, Karol was walking home from work at the quarry when he was knocked down by a German truck. The German officers tending the injured Wojtyla, and the decision to commandeer a passing truck for use as an ambulance for the unconscious patient, is in sharp contrast to the harshness normally expected from the occupying forces during this period. He spent two weeks in hospital and suffered severe concussion, numerous cuts and a shoulder injury. This accident and his survival seemed to Wojtyla a confirmation of his priestly vocation. In August 1944, the Warsaw uprising began, and the Gestapo swept the city of Krakow on 6 August, "Black Sunday", rounding up young men to avoid a similar uprising there. Wojtyla escaped by hiding behind a door as the Gestapo searched the house he lived in, and escaped to the Archbishop's residence, where he stayed until after the war.

On the night of 17 January 1945, the Germans quit the city. The seminarians reclaimed the old seminary, which was in ruins. Wojtyla and another seminarian volunteered for the odious task of chopping up and carting away piles of frozen excrement from the lavatories. In the same month of that year, Wojtyla personally helped a 14 year old Jewish refugee girl named Edith Zierer who had run away from a Nazi labor camp in Częstochowa. Zierer was attempting to reach her family in Krakow but had collapsed from cold and exhaustion on a train platform in Jędrzejw. No one helped but Wojtyla who approached her. Wojtyla gave Zierer some hot tea caca and food, personally carried her to a train and accompanied her to Krakow. Zierer credits Wojtyla for saving her life that day. In the chaos of post-war Poland they became separated and Zierer would not hear of her benefactor again until she read that he was elected as the Pope in 1978.

Pope John Paul II

John Paul II (Latin: Ioannes Paulus PP. II, Italian: Giovanni Paolo II, Polish: Jan Pawel II) Karol Jozef Wojtyla. born: (18 May 1920 - 2 April 2005) reigned as the 264th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church and Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City from 16 October 1978, until his death, almost 27 years later. His was the second-longest pontificate after Pius IX's 32-year reign. He has been the only Polish pope, and was the first non-Italian pope since the Dutch Adrian VI in the 1520s.

John Paul II was Pope during a period in which the Catholic Church's influence declined in developed countries but expanded in the Third World. During his reign, the pope traveled extensively, visiting over 100 countries, more than any of his predecessors. He remains one of the most-traveled world leaders in history. He was fluent in numerous languages: his native Polish and also Italian, French, German, English, Spanish, Croatian, Portuguese, Russian and Latin. As part of his special emphasis on the universal call to holiness, he canonized a great number of people.

He beatified 1,340 people (some listed here), more people than any previous pope. The Vatican asserts he canonized more people than the combined tally of his predecessors during the last five centuries, and from a far greater variety of cultures. Whether he had canonized more saints than all previous popes put together, as is sometimes also claimed, is difficult to prove, as the records of many early canonizations are incomplete, missing, or inaccurate. However, it is known that his abolition of the office of Promotor Fidei ("Promoter of the Faith") streamlined the process.