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| HEALTH & FITNESS |
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Pain in the stomach: take it seriously
Glaucoma: be cautious about water intake
Health Notes
Bottle-fed babies have all disadvantages
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Pain in the stomach: take it seriously Fifty-two-year old Mrs S. Kaur (name changed) suddenly woke up one morning with an acute abdominal pain and blood in her vomiting. She also experienced sweating, clamminess, dizziness, low blood pressure and a very fast pulse. When her family rushed her to the patient was on the verge of losing consciousness. After a quick examination and ultrasound, it was diagnosed that she was suffering from an abdominal aortic aneurysm with a serious complication. The aortic aneurysm had ruptured into the stomach because of which the patient was having pain and vomiting blood. An aneurysm means an area of a localised widening (dilation) of a blood vessel. An aortic aneurysm involves the aorta, one of the large arteries that carries blood from the heart to the rest of the body. The most common cause of aortic aneurysms is “hardening of the arteries” through the accumulation of fatty deposits and other substances in the arteries called arteriosclerosis. There are various other lifestyle causes that lead to an aortic aneurysm. Cigarette smoking increases the risk of developing an abdominal aortic aneurysm and the chance of aneurysm rupture (a life-threatening complication of abdominal aneurysm) is also more common among active smokers. Hypertension and diabetes are other medical causes that can lead to this disorder. There is also a familial tendency to develop abdominal aortic aneurysm. People with close family members suffering from abdominal aortic aneurysm are at higher risk of developing this disease. Though this disease is related to old age, individuals with family history of abdominal aortic aneurysm also tend to develop the aneurysms at younger age and have a higher tendency to suffer aneurysm rupture than individuals without family history. In rare cases, aortic aneurysm may also be caused by an infection, inflammation (vasculitis) or traumatic injury that weakens a section of the aorta wall. Unfortunately, aortic aneurysm is mainly a symptom-less disease and not diagnosed until the complication has already occurred. Most intact aortic aneurysms do not produce any symptoms, but when they begin to grow bigger, symptoms such as abdominal pain and back pain may develop. However, not all aortic aneurysms reach the point of rupture. Many start small and stay small. Others slowly expand over time like a balloon that’s slowly being overinflated, increasing little by little each year — typically about 1/8 inch (3 to 4 millimetres). Age plays an important role in aorta aneurysm. sixty plus males are more prone to this disease. The main risk of an abdominal aortic aneurysm is that, like a balloon that’s blown up too far, it may rupture. This results in life-threatening internal bleeding. Symptoms that an aortic aneurysm has ruptured include sudden, intense and persistent abdominal pain that may radiate to your back or legs, with sweating, clamminess, dizziness, low blood pressure, fast pulse and possible loss of consciousness. Till now the only method to treat an aortic aneurysm was surgery, which in any case is a high-risk option because the surgeon has to remove the dilated segment and put a graft there. But we used a non-invasive procedure to repair the aorta from inside by passing the catheter from the artery of the leg up to the point of aneurysm. The advantage of this non-invasive method was that the patient did not require general aneasthesia and was hospitalised for only three days. The writer is Chief Cardiologist and Interventionist, Shriram Cardiac Centre, Jalandhar
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Glaucoma: be cautious about water intake In
this era of fitness every- one is concerned about what he/she is eating. Everyone is calorie conscious and prefers drinking a lot of water/fluids. It is generally good for everybody, but not for a glaucoma patient. Glaucoma or “Kala Motia” is a disease where eye pressure increases to a level that is not safe for the optic nerve. The balance between the fluid produced inside the eye and drained out from the eye is disturbed, resulting in increased pressure and damage to the optic nerve. Glaucoma presents in different forms like open angle glaucoma, angle closure glaucoma and secondary glaucoma. Also there are various factors which affect the progression of glaucoma. In angle closure glaucoma the fluid drainage is affected. Water therapy and different shuddhi-kriyas as per yoga are commonly practised in our country. There is a belief that taking a large quantity of water in early morning helps in bowel movement and flushes the body clean. In this water therapy the person drinks almost four-six glasses of water at a time in the morning empty stomach. This may do well for his/her digestive system, but create problems for the eye of the glaucoma patient. Many people are not aware of this. Anything which overloads our body fluid will increase the load on the drainage system. When one drinks a large amount of water like this, it gets absorbed in the fluid spaces of the body. So, fluid in the eye is produced in excess quantity. This increases the load on the drainage system of the eye. In angle closure glaucoma the drainage system is affected and so will lead to a rise in the eye pressure. Such intake of a large quantity of fluids in a short span will give rise to short spikes of increase in the eye pressure that may be missed on an examination by the eye specialist. So, this type of glaucoma may get presented or aggravated if one drinks a lot of water in a short span. Every patient of glaucoma or having a family history of glaucoma should be cautious about the water therapy. In the case of such patients, if they continue the water therapy habit, glaucoma may progress in spite of the best treatment. This should not be practised in families with glaucoma. Glaucoma is a multifactorial disease and one needs to control this factor as far as possible. The water drinking test, commonly used to detect such cases of glaucoma, is based on similar observations. During this test we check the eye pressure after drinking one litre of water in a short time. The eye pressures are checked every half an hour for two hours. Persons with a positive water drinking test should avoid large quantities of fluid intake empty stomach in the morning. Be careful and watch for your glass of water! The writer is Chairman and Medical Director, Centre for Sight, New Delhi. E-mail:
msachdev@bol.net.in
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Health Notes CHICAGO: Chronic sleeplessness aggravates and might cause numerous health problems, including depression, by wearing down the body’s immune system, says researchers. As many as half of Americans experience some sleep problems during the course of a year and one-quarter have chronic difficulties sleeping that may be harming their health. Good quality sleep “should be considered an essential component of a healthy lifestyle, as much as exercise and nutrition,” said researcher Phyllis Zee of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. Zee, who co-authored an editorial commenting on several studies in this month’s issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine examining the repercussions of sleep disorders, said scientists have yet to fully understand the mechanisms by which lack of sleep hurts the body. — Reuters
Anti-cancer drugs promising for
muscular dystrophy
New York: Studies in mice show that a group of drugs currently being evaluated as anti-cancer agents promotes recovery from muscular dystrophy, a disease marked by progressive weakness and degeneration of the muscles that control movement for which there is no cure. Previous reports have shown that agents that increase muscle fiber size can slow the functional decline of “dystrophic” muscles, the scientists note in the journal Nature Medicine. In the current study, Dr. P.L. Puri, from The Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California, and colleagues show that the anti-cancer drug trichostatin A can increase muscle fibre size in two mouse models of muscular dystrophy.
— Reuters
Diabetic kids spend an hour a day
managing their conditions
Sydney: A new study conducted by researchers at Australia’s University of Adelaide has revealed that diabetic children spend up to an hour a day managing their conditions, due to which their attitude towards the treatment is adversely affected. Paediatrician Professor Michael Sawyer and his colleagues tracked 160 children, aged 10-12, with chronic illnesses over two years, and found that therapies such as daily glucose testing, insulin injections and dietary changes took 28-58 minutes out of their daily schedule. The study also showed that diabetes management becomes more time-taking as kids grow older.
— ANI
New biomarker for heart failure diagnosis
Washington: Scientists have identified a new biomarker which can help diagnose heart failure, and identify patients at the risk of dying within two months. The collaborative study by researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and the University Hospital of Maastricht, The Netherlands, found that elevated blood levels of galectin-3 can help detect the outcomes for patients with symptoms of heart failure within 60 days. “Heart failure is one of the most difficult diagnoses to make accurately, since it has numerous, varied symptoms, and signs that indicate heart failure are hard to detect,” says James Januzzi Jr, of the MGH Cardiology Division, the paper’s co-lead author and principal investigator of the 2005 PRIDE Study, from which the data for the current report was generated.
— ANI |
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Bottle-fed babies have all disadvantages It is a pity to see the so-called educated, intelligent and certainly rich and affluent would-be mothers and grandmothers fall into the trap of marketing strategies and do the shopping of branded feeding bottles and nipples abroad. Do they not realise the value of what God has given them — the breasts with milk. This is, indeed, the best gift of God, and no matter how anti-colic, fancy, expensive bottles they buy, the artificial milk, the feeding bottle and the technique employed can be disastrous for the baby. They are no match to the mothers’ milk, which has innumerable health and emotional benefits for the mother and child both. Dreaded diseases like diarrhoea , pneumonia and ear infections are more in bottle-fed babies. The breast milk protects the baby from measles, chicken pox, asthma, allergies and also heart attacks in adult life. The colics are normal in the newborn; they can be dealt with without medicines by intelligent mothers and doctors. Why buy a fancy and branded oil when the baby does not need it at all. Babies have good circulation and well-functioning oil glands. The oil application in the newborns will delay the disappearance of jaundice, which is present in almost all the newborns. The long and dirty nails of the massaging person will give trauma and dirt to the delicate skin unnecessarily. The clothes need to be washed, soft, suitable for weather, loose, front open , without hooks and pins as the allergies, injuries and accidents are common due to unscientific clothes. Diaper rashes are common even with branded ones and are difficult to treat. The toys ought to suit the developmental age and be safe. Fur toys cause allergies even though branded. The traditional wisdom of grannies of keeping talking to the newborn is the most scientific way for brain development of the babies. The brain develops more than two-thirds in the first year of life and needs a lot of sensory input of eye contact, talking, touching, cuddling, clinging to the breast of the mother, etc. Therefore, the best for the baby is the mother’s milk and love, which God has given to the poorest of poor in abundance. The writer is a Chandigarh-based consultant paediatrician. |
