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15 February 2018 Photo Anja Aucamp
Talent unleashed at first-years athletics evening
House Veritas show up and show off

The first-years’ athletics evening had arrived. Students were more than eager to get off the ground with the activities as they poured into Pellies Park grouped in their specific residences. The stadium quickly filled and livened up as students sang and cheered in anticipation of the official races.

The event was graced by the likes of Anna Sofia Botha, also known as Tannie Ans, the coach of South African World and Olympic champion Wayde van Niekerk.

DB Prinsloo, Director of KovsieSport at the University of the Free State (UFS), and the official announcer for the night, said he was looking forward to witnessing the talent that was about to be unleashed.

“The athletics is one of the highlights on the calendar of the university for the year,” said Prinsloo.

According to him, a total of 15 newly recruited athletes who had won medals at South African junior competitions in 2017 had amalgamated with the UFS. Needless to say, it will be a year of victories.

It was a great success, with houses Vishuis and Sonnedou the overall team winners for the night. Veritas and Legatum were in second and third position in the men’s competition. Arista were placed second for the overall women’s competition, and Marjolein and Wag-'n-Bietjie came in third place. House Harmony, Imperium and Veritas won the spirit cup for the female, co-ed and male teams respectively.

News Archive

Chakalaka can have side effects for these patients
2010-06-24

Chakalaka is a sauce many South Africans cannot imagine a meal without, but research at the Faculty of Health Sciences at the University of the Free State (UFS) has shown that it can have serious side effects and even compromise the treatment of leukaemia patients.

Prof. Vernon Louw from the Department of Internal Medicine at the Faculty says that tyrosine kinase inhibitors (TKIs) are a new group of drugs providing targeted therapy for chronic myeloid leukaemia (CML). It vastly contributes to the survival of patients, but it has side effects like vasodilatation. Research has shown that spices like chakalaka may aggravate vasodilatation (widening of veins) with patients on these drugs.

“These spices produce serious oedema (water retention) and headaches. We have found that discontinuing the intake of spices allows some patients to maintain therapeutic doses of TKIs.” Chakalaka contains mainly garlic and chilli.

CML represents up to 20% of all leukaemia patients in South Africa and up to 450 new cases are reported every year.

In the study symptoms of severe headache and oedema disappeared within days of discontinuing the use of chakalaka.

Prof. Louw says it is important for oncologists to ask their patients about their intake of spices and garlic when they are on TKIs. It is also advisable to enquire about the use of complementary alternative medicine as the interaction of these medicines in cancer treatment is not known.

Media Release
Mangaliso Radebe
Assistant Director: Media Liaison
Tel: 051 401 2828
Cell: 078 460 3320
E-mail: radebemt@ufs.ac.za
23 June 2010
 

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