Dhaka, Apr 17 ( UNB)- Even though I am not much into chocolate since childhood, I have a strong liking for chocolate desserts and drinks. Every coffee shop I visit, I make a point to order chocolate desserts or drinks. Some surprise me with their taste and make me their loyal customer and some disappoint me big time. Almost 3 years back opened the first chocolate café in Gulshan North Avenue of Dhaka, Bangladesh. I am sure by now you can guess I’m talking about the famous Butlers Chocolate Café. I have visited this Cafe numerous times by now and became quite a huge fan of it. This article is a bit about their history and their famous Chocolate Lava Cake.

Founded by Ms. Marion Bailey-Butler in 1932 in North Dublin, the company has a chain of Butlers Chocolate Cafes, first in Ireland followed by New Zealand, Pakistan, Bangladesh, UAE and Saudi Arabia. Owned by an Irish manufacturer, the cafes offer a range of special organic handmade chocolates as well as meals and snacks.

It has been over 3 years that this cafe opened in Gulshan North Avenue in Dhaka. It looks very fancy on the inside with nice seating arrangements and also a very organized setup outside with huge umbrellas. They have an arrangement indoors where different varieties of chocolate are placed along with the elegant gift boxes. The outside arrangement looks very appealing in the evening with the string lights beneath the umbrellas. You can visit Butlers with friends and family. It is usually open for breakfast from 8 a.m. and serves customers till midnight.  

The main hype behind Butlers Cafe stems from its handmade chocolates and their Chocolate Lava Cake. Quite fascinated by the name (which I’d never heard before), I had to try and figure out whether it could live up to it. Oh my ! The freshly baked choco lava cake was served with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream which mixes smoothly with the cake and hot molten chocolate. It was warm, soft and gooey. It is perfect for 2 people but if you are a crazy chocoholic or you have a sweet tooth then you can eat the dessert all by yourself. If you haven’t visited Butlers yet, here’s a tip: do it before Ramadan is here!

By: Marjan Rahman

Hartsdale, Apr 15 (AP/UNB)— A 100-year-old yoga instructor has no plans to stop practicing and teaching.

On a spring day in Hartsdale, a northern suburb of New York City where she leads her classes, Tao Porchon-Lynch said she first encountered the ancient practice at age 7 in her native India. Strolling along a beach, she was transfixed by a group of boys doing yoga poses. When her aunt told her the movements were "not ladylike," she responded, "If boys can do it, I can do it."

By the time Porchon-Lynch was a teenager, already teaching yoga, she was able to explain how to breathe in a healthy way — especially to people in awkward sitting positions.

"I said, 'You're squashing your lungs. Your lungs are not down in the navel, they are above,'" she said.

She also has advice for herself. "When I wake up in the morning, I look at the sun and I say, 'This is going to be the best day of my life' and it will be. It always is."

Earlier this year, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi awarded her the prestigious Padma Shri Award for exceptional achievement.

Despite four hip replacements, she also does ballroom dancing at the Fred Astaire Dance Studio. And she's been featured on the television show "America's Got Talent."

Porchon-Lynch lives alone in her suburban apartment, but when needed, she has a circle of care that includes current and former students and friends dropping by, plus members of a wine society she's in.

"Her life is a yoga path," says Sylvia Samilton-Baker, her yoga student who is also an instructor.

And that comes down to just breathing, which keeps Porchon-Lynch nimble as she approaches 101 on Aug. 13.

"The breath is teaching us — listen to it," she says. "Feel your lungs expand outward, stretch your hands up towards the ceiling and feel the energy there. Breathe in the breath of life and breathe out peace."

Dhaka, Apr 15 (UNB) - Besides being a foodie, I love travelling and visiting new places every year. My mantra is to taste the local delicacies of every city I visit or at least taste those that are usually not prepared or easily available in the restaurants of Dhaka. When I go to Cox’s Bazar, I always make a point to go to Jhawbon Restaurant/Hotel. Jhawbon is located at Kolatoli Road of the beach town. It has been there for over 15 years. The hotel is usually jampacked for its popularity and its flavorsome dishes.  

When I think about going to Cox’s Bazar, the only dish that I look forward to eating is ‘LOITTA FRY’ and ‘SHUTKI’. It’s not the case that I don’t have access to these dishes in Dhaka. It’s just that these dishes have an irreplaceable taste in Cox’s Bazar. This article is all about few dishes ordered in Jhawbon Hotel. Every time we go there, we order ‘shaada bhaat’, ‘ghono daal’ along with few types of ‘bhortas’ and ‘bhajis’ along with ‘Loitta Fries’ and ‘Chili Shutki’.

The ‘loitta fries’ are indeed a delight. Served hot and crispy, once bitten, it is soft on the inside. It will indeed be a huge miss if you visit this restaurant and not order this particular dish. The ‘chili shutki’ tasted wonderful. This is a ‘must – have’ for the ‘spice and shutki’ lovers out there.

Last but not the least, we ordered the ‘fruit custard’ for dessert among the three other desserts which were ‘pudding’ and ‘firni’. Perfect order for the sweet tooth lovers and a perfect ending to the meal.

Besides the dishes mentioned in this article, Jhawbon’s ‘rupchanda fry’ and ‘coral fish’ are few must-haves. In addition to this, the hotel’s customer service is superb even though the place is always packed. Make sure you visit Jhawbon Hotel and order these when you visit Cox’s Bazar the next time.

By: Marjan Rahman

New York, Apr 15 (AP/UNB) - A drug that's used to help control blood sugar in people with diabetes has now been shown to help prevent or slow kidney disease, which causes millions of deaths each year and requires hundreds of thousands of people to use dialysis to stay alive.

Doctors say it's hard to overstate the importance of this study, and what it means for curbing this problem, which is growing because of the obesity epidemic.

The study tested Janssen Pharmaceuticals' drug Invokana. Results were discussed Sunday at a medical meeting in Australia and published by the New England Journal of Medicine.

About 30 million Americans and more than 420 million people worldwide have diabetes , and most cases are Type 2, the kind tied to obesity. It occurs when the body can't make enough or properly use insulin, which turns food into energy.

This can damage the kidneys over time, causing disease and ultimately, failure. In the U.S., it's responsible for nearly half a million people needing dialysis, and for thousands of kidney transplants each year.

Some blood pressure drugs lower this risk but they're only partially effective. The new study tested Invokana, a daily pill sold now to help control blood sugar, to see if it also could help prevent kidney disease when added to standard treatments.

For the study, about 13,000 people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease from around the world were to be given Invokana or dummy pills. Independent monitors stopped the study early, after 4,400 people had been treated for about 2.5 years on average, when it was clear the drug was helping.

Those on the drug had a 30% lower risk of one of these problems — kidney failure, need for dialysis, need for a kidney transplant, death from kidney- or heart-related causes, or other signs that kidneys were failing.

For every 1,000 people taking the drug for 2.5 years, there would be 47 fewer cases of one of these problems, researchers estimate.

Rates of serious side effects were similar in the drug and placebo groups including leg, foot or toe amputations, a concern raised by a previous study of Invokana. One side effect, when the body can't produce enough insulin, was more frequent among those on Invokana but rare overall.

Janssen, which is part of Johnson & Johnson, sponsored the study and many authors work or consult for the company. The drug costs about $500 a month in the U.S. Out-of-pocket costs for patients may be different, depending on insurance.

The importance of this large and well-done study "cannot be overstated," Drs. Julie Ingelfinger and Clifford Rosen, editors at the medical journal, wrote in an accompanying article.

In recent years, several studies have found that Invokana and some similar drugs can lower heart risks. The new results, showing that Invokana also may stall or prevent kidney failure, expand the potential benefits of the drug.

Salem, Apr 10 (AP/UNB) — Rose Marie Bentley was an avid swimmer, raised five kids, helped her husband run a feed store, and lived to the ripe age of 99. It was only after she died that medical students discovered that all her internal organs — except for her heart — were in the wrong place.

The discovery of the rare condition, which was presented this week to a conference of anatomists, was astounding — especially because Bentley had lived so long. People with the condition known as situs inversus with levocardia often have life-threatening cardiac ailments and other abnormalities, according to Oregon Health & Science University.

Cameron Walker's class at the university in Portland was examining the heart of a cadaver last year when they noticed the blood vessels were different. When they opened the abdominal cavity, they saw that all the other organs were on the wrong side. The unusual blood vessels helped the heart compensate.

In a telephone interview Tuesday, Walker described his reaction to the find as "definitely a mix of curiosity, fascination and a sense of wanting to explore a little bit of a medical mystery — a medical marvel really — that was in front of us."

"And I would say the students felt something very similar," Walker, an assistant professor of anatomy, told The Associated Press.

Bentley's family had not known about the condition, which OHSU says occurs only once in every 22,000 births. Apparently Bentley didn't either.

Bentley, who lived in Molalla, 25 miles (40 kilometers) south of Portland, had led a normal life. Her only recurrent physical complaint was arthritis, her daughter Louise Allee remembered.

But there were signs.

When Bentley was in her 50s, she underwent a hysterectomy, and the doctor also wanted to remove the appendix but couldn't find it, Allee said in a phone interview. She said it was removed later. Oregon Health & Science University noted that Bentley had three organs removed during her life, but only the surgeon who removed her appendix recorded its unusual location.

When Bentley had her gallbladder removed, it was on the opposite side of where it should have been, Allee said.

"No one said a thing," Allee said. "I was surprised. This was before they did it with a scope, and she had a good-sized incision. You'd think they would have said something, but they didn't."

Walker expressed his gratitude for Bentley agreeing to donate her body to OHSU, Oregon's only academic health center.

"This is an important case that really gave us an opportunity to talk about the importance of future clinicians paying attention to subtle anatomic variations, not just large anatomic variations, in terms of addressing their future patients as individuals," Walker said. "Don't judge a book by its cover, and always check and see what you've got before you talk about care."

He has researched how long people with the condition have lived, and he found no documented cases in which a person lived beyond age 73. Bentley surpassed that by 26 years.

Allee said her mother would have been delighted that the donation of her body led to a learning experience.

"She would have been tickled to know she could educate with something unusual," Allee said. "Dad would have loved to know about it so he could tease her."

Her husband, James, died about 15 years ago.