Eye diseases

Eye diseases 1. Introduction 1.1 Glaucoma Eye disease such as glaucoma, cataracts, age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy are some of the common causes of reduced vision and blindness (Short, 2008). Glaucoma is a progressive eye disease where the damage of optic nerves resulted in visual field loss. In the year of 2010, it is estimated that 60.5 million people will be diagnosed with glaucoma, and by 2020, the number would be increased to 79.6 million (Quigley and Broman, 2005). According to International Glaucoma Association, some of the risk factors that contribute to the development of glaucoma are advanced age, race, long or short sighted, and genetic predisposition. Damage of the optic nerves in glaucoma is often due to elevated intraocular pressure (IOP) which occurs when there is an imbalance of aqueous humor production and drainage in the eye. This clear fluid produced by the ciliary body flows into the posterior chamber and exit through trabecular meshwork at the open angle where the cornea and iri s meet (1). Blocked drainage channel restricts the flow of aqueous humor out of the anterior chamber. This causes the pressure in eye to be increased to an abnormal level, thus damaging the optic nerves. Optic nerve plays an important role in transmitting impulses from the light sensitive tissue layer, the retina to the brain, where the visual information is interpreted. Therefore, early detection and treatment could prevent permanent and irreversible blindness from glaucoma. There are several classifications of glaucoma, the most common types are primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) and primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG). The difference between these two types is the present of physical obstruction in the drainage channel in one and its absence in the other. As for the former type, an increase in IOP is caused by blockage of the drainage channel where the aqueous humor drains out (1) (Coleman,1999). This process occurs very gradually and often patient does not notice any early signs of sight loss such as blind spots, or patches of vision loss until severe damaged has been done to the optic nerves, thus causing blindness. Different ethnic group was shown to have different glaucoma prevalence. The African population was shown to be more prevalent to suffer from POAG in the study demonstrated by Ntim-Amponsah et al. (2004). The standardised age-specific glaucoma prevalence for that ethic group was 7.7% while the Caucasians have an overall lower prevalence than that. It was suggested by Herndon et al. (2004) that the blacks have an overall thinner central corneal compared to the Caucasians and this might contribute to the progression of POAG. As explained by Coleman (1999), in primary angle-closure glaucoma (PACG), the angle between the iris and lens is very narrow. When the iris dilates, the iris-lens contact prevents the flow of aqueous humor into the anterior chamber. The continuous secretion of aqueous humor creates a pressure which pushes the iris forward onto the trabecular meshwork, closing the angle (1). This rapid onset causes sudden build-up of intraocular pressure leading to short-term loss of vision. Severe eye pain, blurred vision, headache, nausea, vomiting and halos around lights are among the symptoms observed in this eye disease. Asian was shown to have a higher prevalence of PACG compared to the Western population. Some of the studies concluded that Chinese are at a higher risk of suffering from PACG. This is related to the geometry of the anterior chamber where Chinese has a smaller corneal or a shallower anterior chamber, thus implying that there is a higher risk of developing angle closure and therefo re PACG (Wang et al., 2002). 1.2 Pharmacological therapy of glaucoma The goal in treating glaucoma is to delay the progression by giving immediate therapy for early stage glaucoma patient to prevent further loss of vision. Treatment aims to reduce IOP by either increasing the aqueous humor drainage or reducing the aqueous humor secretion rate. Several classes of drugs are used in the treatment of glaucoma, namely beta-adrenergic antagonists (beta-blockers), selective alpha2-adrenoceptor antagonist, carbonic anhydrase inhibitors and prostaglandin analogues. The choice of treatment depends on the effectiveness and side-effects of the drug, co-mobility and cost of treatment. Beta-blockers are one for the first line drug used in treatment of glaucoma but newer medications are increasingly being used as first choice of glaucoma therapy. The exact mechanism of beta-blocker in reducing IOP is not known, but it was suggested that beta-blocker reduces the aqueous humor production by blocking the beta2-receptor on the non-ciliary body epithelium. On average, no n-selective beta-blockers such as timolol, levobunolol, carteolol and metipranolol lower the IOP by 20-35% while beta1-receptor antagonist, betaxolol lowers it by 15-25%. However, when the pharmacological therapy is unsuccessful, laser or surgery are required to treat this eye disease (Soltau and Zimmerman, 2002). The most widely used ocular hypotensive agent is the non-selective beta-blocker, timolol. Timolol is often used as an adjunct therapy to other difference classes of IOP-lowering agents such as brimonidine, travoprost and acetazolamide. In one of the studies, combination therapy of latanoprost and timolol was proved to be more effective in lowering IOP compared to using lataoprost alone in glaucoma treatment (Olander K, 2004). The maleate salt of timolol is soluble in water and alcohol, and has a pKa of approximately 9 in water at 25Â °C. The current commercially available opthalmic therapies of timolol are timolol maleate topical opthalmic solution and gel-forming ophthalmic solution. Some of the local side effects of topical application of timolol include ocular irritation, burning, pain, itching, erythema and dry eyes. Beta-blocker is contra-indicated in patients who have bronchial asthma, history of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, sinus bradycardia, heart block, or uncontr olled heart failure. In some cases, exacerbation of reactive airways disease and cardiovascular disease due to the systemic absorption of the non-selective beta-blocker has been reported occasionally in patients receiving topical timolol therapy (McEvoy G K, 2002). After long-term usage of timolol, tolerance might develop in some patients. This has been suggested that there is an up-regulation of beta-receptors in target cells in response to constant exposure of antagonist at the beta-receptors (Fechtner, 2008). 1.3 Drug delivery in treatment of glaucoma There are several approaches in delivering intraocular drugs, among them are topical application, systemic administration, intraocular implants and intravitreal injections. Each of these routes has its own advantages and challenges (Short, 2008). Topical administration is the most widely used route for drug delivery in treating eye diseases. The major challenge of this application to the posterior ocular tissues is poor drug bioavailability resulted from the ocular physiological and anatomical constraints, which include tear fluid turnover rate, nasolacrimal drainage and high efficiency of blood-ocular barrier. It was shown that only 1-5% of the topically applied drugs is absorbed across the cornea and reaches the target intraocular tissues. Furthermore, nasolacrimal drainage contributes to extensive precorneal losses that lead to poor bioavailability. In addition, systemic exposure through nasolacrimal drainage will also cause significant systemic toxicity. Blood-ocular barrier whic h is located at the retinal pigmented epithelium and the endothelium of the retinal vessels is also a major challenge in delivering topical drugs to the target tissues. This barrier limits the penetration of intraocular drugs to the back of the eyes. Unfortunately, systemically administered drugs are also having the same problem in penetrating the barrier. Hence, alternative drug delivery strategies such as intravitreal injections have been investigated and developed to overcome this problem (Tombrain-Tink and Barnstable, 2006). Intravitreal injection is the administration of intraocular drugs to the vitreous cavity of the eye and this route is becoming increasingly popular in treating glaucoma patients. Due to short half-life of drugs in the vitreous, frequent and repeated injections to the eye are needed to maintain the drug concentration at therapeutic level in the vitreous and the retina. Consequently, this procedure leads to complication such as infection, vitreous hemorrhage, and lens or retinal injury. Sustained release formulation has been developed and possible benefits of particulate drug delivery has been investigated and studied to overcome such complications. The particulate drug delivery systems include microparticles and nanoparticles such as liposome, microcapsule, nanocapsules, microspheres and nanospheres. Liposomes, microcapsules and nanocapsules allow encapsulation of the drug molecules while in microspheres and nanospheres, drugs are dispersed in a spherical polymer matrix. These particu lates act as a reservoir to control the release rate during periods of days and sometime even months (Short, 2008; Tombrain-Tink and Barnstable, 2006). 1.4 Microspheres Microspheres of biodegradable polymers such as poly (lactic-co-glycolic) acid (PLGA) are a combination of drug and polymer. PLGA-based microspheres have several advantages over other controlled released drug delivery system. The administration of these microspheres to the body only requires syringes and needles, thus avoiding surgical implants of controlled-release formulations. Besides that, these PLGA are biodegradable and are biocompatible to the tissues, including the brain tissues (Fournier, 2003). Three microencapsulation techniques are being employed in producing PLGA microspheres these days. Solvent evaporation and solvent extraction process is one of the method which includes single emulsion process and double emulsion process. The former process involves oil-in-water emulsification and latter is the most commonly used water-in-oil-in-water (w/o/w) method used to encapsulate water-soluble drugs such as timolol maleate into microspheres. Final emulsions from both processes wi ll undergo solvent removal by extraction or evaporation. The solid microspheres that are produced from these processes will then be filtered or sieved, and finally dried. This technique is widely used because it is easy and does not involve complicated steps. Other methods such as phase separation and spray drying are also being used to encapsulate microspheres. The disadvantage of phase separation is that it needs a careful optimisation of some parameters, such as solvent and polymer type, salt type and concentration in order to obtain any microspheres at all. On the other hand, the limitation of spray drying is that small batches of drug are produced due to loss of product during spray-drying (Jain, 2000). PLGA, a copolymer of lactic acids and glycolic acids is commonly used in the production of controlled-release biomedical devices such as microparticles and nanoparticles. Incorporation of the active substance in polymer matrix allows drug to be released at a slower rate over a prolonged period, thus reducing the frequency of drug administration and hence improving patients compliance. The main target of controlled-release drug delivery is to produce a zero-order release pattern, but this was not achieved very often. Some of the small molecules are associated with undesirable initial burst phase during where drugs on the microsphere surface are being released through rapid diffusion, followed by a slow release or no release. During the initial burst phase, excessive release of potent drugs from the polymer for a prolonged time causes severe side effects. However, during the second phase, only a small fraction of drug will be released from the matrix due to decreased driving force in d rug depletion (Berkland et al., 2002). In the study conducted by Mao et al. (2007), the effect of different preparation of water-in-oil-in water emulsion on the burst release of fluorescein isothiocyanate labeled dextran from the PLGA microspheres was being investigated. It was found that an increase in drug loading, polyvinyl alcohol concentration and homogenisation speed resulted in a decrease in initial burst. This is due the changes in morphology of the by using different preparation techniques. The main mechanism of drug release from microsphere can be divided to two processes, which are drug diffusion from the polymer network and drug release through polymer degradation. Once PLGA is administered to the eyes, water fills into the network of pore by a negative water gradient and the active compound subsequently diffuses out of the co-polymer. However, this gradient will disappear gradually within a period time and thus the drug molecules are released at a slower rate at a later stage. This process is often coupled with the breakage of ester bonds of the polymer by hydrolysis and it can also be autocatalysed by the accumulation of acidic degradation products and hence leading degradation of PLGA-based microsphere. During this process, oligomers at the surface of microsphere escape from the matrix, leaving behind those who are entrapped inside the matrix core. Size of microsphere plays a very important role in manipulating the rate of degradation. In one of the study, it was shown that larger particle size will degrade more rapidly. This is due to the inner core of the polymer is more acidic compared to its external environment (Grizzi et al. ,1995) Effect of several factors such as polymer composition and preparation condition on the drug release patterns were being investigated by several studies. It has been demonstrated by Janoria and Mitra (2007) that different lactide/glycolide ratio resulted in different release rate of a lipophilic prodrug (GCV-monobutyrate) from PLGA-based microsphere. PLGA with higher lactide content (65:35) was found to have higher glass transition temperature than lower lactide content (50:50) of PLGA polymer. This was suggested that the former ratio had slower drug diffusion through the polymer matrix, hence longer releasing time. On the other hand, an addition of surfactants, polyvinyl alcohol or Triton X-100 to the primary emulsion obtained from the double emulsion solvent evaporation technique resulted in the production of larger particle size, thus slower releasing rate was observed (Bouissou et al., 2006). Besides that, inclusion of additives in the formulation will also affect the release prof ile of microspheres. Kang F R and Singh J (2001) found out that the addition of PEG 1000 and tricaprin increased the porosity of the PLGA, thus changing its surface characteristics. This has lead to a higher initial releasing rate of bovine serum albumin due to rapid diffusion of the protein through the large pores on the surface of microspheres. Different preparation methods effect the morphology and drug distribution of microspheres. A change in the process condition will yield different size distribution and porosity of the microsphere. Some of the critical parameters of determining the microparticles morphology are volume ratio of oil to internal water, homogenisation speed and type of solvents used. Surface morphology of microspheres is shown to be influenced by the volume ratio of oil to internal water in a research conducted by Yang et al. (2000). An increase in size and initial burst of the microspheres was observed by decreasing the volume ratio from 40:1 to 12:1. More porous microparticles were also observed in lower volume ratio. Homogenisation speed was also proved to be important in determining the morphology of microparticles by Sansdrap and Moes (1993). When homogenisation speed was increased, the microparticulate was found to be smaller. Similarly, different organic phase solvent was proved to produce differen t size distribution of particles. Song et al. (2006) showed that partially water-soluble solvents such as ethyl acetate and propylene carbonate produced smaller mean particle size compared to the fully water-soluble solvents, acetone and dichloromethane. Since there are limited studies based on the effect of method parameters on the morphology and drug release profile of timolol maleate encapsulated microsphere, this study aimed to further investigate the effect of volume ratio of oil to internal water, homogenisation speed and type of solvents used. Timolol maleate is encapsulated in PLGA by double-emulsion solvent evaporation method. The surface morphology and particle sizes of the microspheres were being studied using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). On the other hand, the effect on the drug release profile was determined by analysing the released drug sample from the microspheres using ultraviolet spectrophotometer.

School Breakfast Programs Essay -- Essays Papers

School Breakfast Programs For most kids waking up in the morning, getting dressed and sitting down to a bowl of cereal and some toast is a normal occurrence for them. However for some students that luxury may not be possible. Over the past couple of years several states across the US have spent millions of dollars and served over 360 million breakfasts and lunches for children who cannot afford to have a regular priced meal or who don’t have money for food at all. With these programs producing such great results for the children in the classroom and out of school more and more states have begun to implement similar programs for underprivileged children. One of the major reasons for the popularity of the breakfast programs is that it enables the children to start there day off with a healthy, nutritional meal. And for kids that are in elementary and middle school having a well balanced meal to start their day off is important because at that age children tend to hit growth spurts sporadically and having the right nutrition in there bodies will enable them to grow with out any complications. Another key reason as to why the Breakfast programs have become such a major success is the in class room behavior of the students. In different polls taken across America schools that were using the breakfast programs had shown that students who took part in the programs overall grades improved, along with attendance and classroom behavior. In an article written by the Advantage Press it was stated that â€Å"A surprising benefit has been observed: there has been a sharp decrease in the number of children going to school nurses. Thus, less class time missed by students. Even teachers who had worried about the added work of overseeing br... ...Programs January 2004 http://www.mtcef.org/activities_3a.htm 5. Provision 2 Guidance National School and Lunch Programs 3 March 2004 http://www.sde.state.id.us/child/docs/CNPResources/Publications/P2Guidance- July242002.pdf 6. Chicago Public School Meal Programs September 2004 http://www.cps.k12.il.us/Parent/Enrollment/School_Lunch/school_lunch.html 7. ThedailyJounranl.com Monday, May 14, 2001 http://www.thedailyjournal.com/news/stories/20010514/opinion/568745.html 8. Policies and Procedure Manual Mississippi Nutrition Program September 2004 http://www.cn.mde.k12.ms.us/resources/forms/ta/mscnp15.pdf 9. Federal Food Programs http://www.frac.org/html/federal_food_programs/programs/sbp.html 10. School Breakfast Programs August 2003 http://www.fns.usda.gov/cnd/Breakfast/AboutBFast/bfastfacts.htm

Raves And Drugs Essay -- essays research papers

Generally people associate raves(Underground Techno parties) with designer drugs like Ecstasy(MDMA), Speed(amphetamine) and other acids like LSD. These drugs are called the Techno Drugs for that reason and most of the time have uplifting and sensatory effects. To understand more clearly the relationship between the raves and these drugs, we first have to understand the philosophy behind the Techno era, and a little about the music. â€Å"Techno, can lift the spirit and become a new world of freedom and peace"(D'Vox Magazine The first electronic music Magazine). Most raves are covered with propaganda about freedom, peace, spirituality and the like. It is no surprise why teens use these specific drugs at raves. "The effects of E, are like a journey to another world, a world of happiness, love and euphoria" (Ecstasy and Mental Health: Nerves or neurosis by Dr. Karl Jansen) These ravers, have many reasons to take E, for example " The music lends itself to the intake of drugs, drugs are common in youth culture, teens need energy to dance all night, the rave scene is bombarded with all kinds of E" (Drug Information Database, www.pharmlink.org/designer/index.html/). "The media has given E and the rave scene a bad reputation, since 30 years ago music has been greatly united with drugs. For example Weed and Rock in the 60's and acid in the 70's." (E for Ecstasy by Nicolas Saunders, ch.1) Ecstasy is just a hard and dangerous as weed, "a drug that 1 out of every 3 highschool students in the American population have had experiences with." (Drug Information Database, www.pharmlink.org/stats/index/main.html/) "Why is E judged so harshly when the ecstasy related deaths can not compare with those related with legal drugs just like tabacco and alcohol." (E for Ecstasy by Nicolas Saunders, ch.2) Of course the media has a lot to do with it, the media takes all the negative effects and doesn't include the positive ones. " ; 29 volunteers where asked to assist Dr. Green, prominent doctor in charge of studies for the BMJ (British Medical Journal), in a study of the effects of E." (Readers Digest article by Russell Twisk editor-in-chief) "Out of those 29 volunteers they all experienced, unpleasant experiences such as nausea, sweating and stiffing" (Readers Digest by Russell Twisk). " Although the voluntee... ... is so complex as to completely determine if E has affected the toxicity in long term users, I believe that it does decrease the level of serotonin in the brain, without destroying serotorgenic axons." (Ecstasy: a human neurotoxin? Interview with Dr. O'callaghan). There have been many studies, some of them trying to prove that E is in fact a neurotoxin and those trying to prove it's not, up to now both sides cannot come up with solid answers to the subject. It is hard to say that all ravers are on E, but certain the majority of them are. " If a raver is not E at a rave, Techno has the same properties (although much less stronger) as some of those drugs. Techno is played incredibly loud and raves have incredible lights that cause euphoria in the most sober of minds". (Techno & Ecstasy: Music and Drugs in the year 2000, Times Magazine by Nicolas Saunders) Although Ecstasy is illegal in every country in the world, I think it will be impossible to stop ravers and t he production of E in underground labs. Since Techno is becoming more popular around teenagers, therefore E is also becoming more and more popular around the clubbing and raving scenes. Word Count: 1337

Rice dishes Essay

The famed George Bernard Shaw once proclaimed â€Å"There is no love sincerer than the love of food. † I couldn’t agree more. I, myself, am something of a food enthusiast. And my favorite food is biryani. You just cannot go wrong with it. You just cannot. Even the most critical and picky individuals cannot resist indulging themselves when it takes â€Å"center stage† on the dinner table. Biryani is the name and stuffing one’s face is the game. Biryani is, by far, my most favorite dish. I can’t emphasize that enough. And those who aren’t exactly on the same page as me or aren’t even familiar with the book I am so fixated upon â€Å"oughtta† be ashamed of themselves. But that’s alright I guess, as I will take some precious time from my schedule to shed some revealing light to the â€Å"underprivileged. † Biryani has everything. It has great taste, a unique taste, a variety of taste, it even smells great, it’s better than anything you can or want to compare it to, and you should most definitely eat it every day. This is an ode to biryani. Biryani originated from the Indian subcontinent and spread to a few countries in the surrounding areas. As a result different variations of the dish sprung about. All the variations of the dish taste pretty great in their own right. That’s miracle number one. The dish is so beautiful that even when made with a few slip-ups it turns out not only edible but quite tasty. You can only say that about a few other dishes, if any at all. But the biryani that will make any reader of this salivate and have hunger pains originated in the state of AP [abbreviated] in India. There exists a city in this state that we call Hyderabad and the biryani there†¦well let’s just keep it simple and say when I first had the biryani from there I thought I passed away and ended up just short of heaven. But I was okay with it because it was absolutely delicious. I’ll admit that I am a tad bit biased with regards to the biryani from Hyderabad due to it being the place of my birth and my parents’. [From now on, I am referring to Hyderabadi biryani when I write biryani unless stated otherwise] Just a touch though I assure you. Let’s get a move on shall we? Biryani is a rice dish. You add a ton of Indian spices as well as vegetables such as mint, and pepper, etc. Then you can either opt to with chicken, seafood, or beef/veal. You can’t go wrong with either. Then you can add plain yogurt with vegetables amongst other things or you can use specific eggplant gravy. They both complement the biryani really well so there are no losers here. The smell will arouse your nose once it is done cooking and sometimes if you cook it well the arousal will begin while the dish is in the cooking process. When you are eating, your tongue will feel as your body does and some unspecified parts do when you make love to the person of your dreams. It is that good! The dish encompasses every great taste that was created and you’ll see, smell, and taste what sets it apart from absolutely any other food in this world. It’s spicy but just the right amount. And you can adjust it based on your spice standard. I promise you won’t need to. It’s a bit tangy but not too much. The only word that does it even a minuscule amount of justice is refreshing. I cannot do disservice to the dish by describing it any other way. If dishes were creatures, every dish other than biryani would be human, plant or animal and biryani would be a superior extra-terrestrial or the God of all dishes. Understood? I was directed to compose this paragraph with the objective of describing the taste and smell. UI thought about it hard and long and I decided that I would describe it by writing about how it made me feel and using comparisons and parallels simply because there is no way to describe biryani. I discussed the process so as to give an idea of what the ingredients combined would taste like, But I’m helpless if was to try to define it further. Biryani tastes like †¦.. [Fill in the blanks with all your personal taste preferences except for sweet]. Biryani is king! There are many similar foods in terms of appearance and texture characteristics simply due to the fact that biryani’s base product is plain white rice. But to me the only real competition biryani has if we are talking about taste is stirred fried rice with shrimps and even that doesn’t stand a chance. So imagine stirred fried rice but like 10-15 times better realistically speaking. Biryani is better because it has all the tastes that stirred fried rice has and more. Stir fry is like the Neanderthal while biryani is the homo-sapien. It’s like an evolution. Imagine that. How much more improved is the homo-sapien than the Neanderthal? Calculate accordingly how much better biryani is than stirred fried rice. And if stirred fried rice is that far behind all these other foods are†¦you get the idea. Everything in terms of taste is enhanced while there are more desirable features added. Biryani is healthier too. You can make it with white, red, or sea food meat. More variety? Check. You cannot make stir fry without citric acid and large amounts of vinegar. And sure it tastes pretty great, have some health benefits, and help you give the proper amount of protein or whatever it maybe but it won’t give you nearly all of what you need. It is highly probable that its harms outweigh its benefits. Be ready for heart burns and heart attacks. I apologize for the brashness. Biryani is king and stirred fried rice is a prince, and hardly that. While eating stirred fried rice, you’ll think to yourself â€Å"Man this needs more salt, spice. It would be perfect if the meat were more cooked, left to thaw more. This, that and a third and etc. If only it †¦ † Well those needs and ifs add up to make a majestic dish called biryani. The impossible simply becomes biryani: so much better than stirred fried rice and all the other dishes don’t even compare. â€Å"How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,† said Sherlock Holmes. He was talking about biryani. You just lost your job. You get home and all your cats passed away. No girl/guy likes you. And while you go outside to get some supplies your house burns down. Fu@#! No worries. All you have to do is get some biryani and it’ll almost be like you passed away and ended up right underneath heaven. So if your days are any less stressful than the one described than you have no right to complain unless you still feel down after indulging in some biryani. And if you still feel down, you probably have no hope. Yup biryani is that damn good man. That’s why you, I, and everyone SHOULD eat it every day. It’ll make the worst of one’s days into solid ones and cheer one up after a brutal day in the lab. It is also quite healthy. It is not unhealthy unless you have an unhealthy fetish of an ingredient, whether it be you loving green peppers or salt. It’s all about moderation. Other foods when cooked with moderation of ingredients end up being a little too this or a little too that. Biryani works baby. It provides crabs, protein, lipids, and even vitamins such as vitamin c and d. Biryani can be found in many places especially in Chicago where there is a dense sub-continental population. There are also several ready-made mixes where you just cook with a plain rice, and get a solid biryani product. Time is of the essence and you won’t need to spend hours in the kitchen. Cooking it, whether from a ready-made mix packet or from scratch, is not very time consuming. Numerous benefits and an absence of side effects. Sounds lovely doesn’t it? Why not eat healthy, pleasurably, tasty, and without too much preparation? There are never losers with biryani. Biryani is king! All in all, biryani is my most beloved and favorite dish. And as I said before, I am a food enthusiast, so my tongue has been around. I know taste. Whether you eat to live or live to eat, biryani is the way to go. It tastes like Zeus’s dinner, is so much better than stirred fried rice and better than anything Paula Deen can cook, and should be eaten every day for any food reason one can possibly think of. Side effects are nonexistence while the benefits are numerous like the members of the feline family. So head to Devon Ave [Little India] and Hyderabad House and grab yourself a few plates. And remember biryani is king!