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Exposure to cold
can be dangerous EYESIGHT Breakthrough as
researchers create beating heart Health Notes
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Exposure to cold can be dangerous Skin and lungs are the two most directly affected systems in the body. Factually speaking, lungs are affected even in well-clothed individuals owing to breathing cold air. Points to remember
Patients with asthma, chronic obstructive lung disease, for example chronic bronchitis, and emphysema, are the worst sufferers. Smokers, particularly those who suffer from the myth that smoking keeps them warmed up, tend to smoke more and end up with severer and greater problems. The effect of cold exposure on human health are myriad and have been known since the beginning of the history of medicine. The two major factors responsible for the bad respiratory health pertain to the fall in the ambient temperature and the inhalation of dry air. The water content in cold air is very low. This is one of the most important factors responsible for respiratory symptoms like a hacking cough and a feeling of choking or constriction in the chest. Irritating cough is common in the winters. As earlier explained, inhalation of cold and dry air causes dryness in the respiratory tract and stimulation of cough reflex. This is a simple and relatively innocuous form of cough. But cold exposure may also cause severer forms of cough and adversely affect the patients suffering from respiratory diseases. Asthma patients may frequently suffer from acute spasmodic attacks in the cold and foggy weather. More serious effects may sometimes happen during a violent episode of cough. Rupture of small blood vessels or capillaries in the eyes and rarely in the brain, transient episodes of fainting or syncope, cardiac arrhythmias especially in a patient with heart disease, and leakage of air from the lungs into the surrounding structures are known to occur. Protection from cold is essential in spite of all the difficulties. Adequate clothing, gloves and socks are important but they do not protect the inhalational exposure. Therefore, avoidance of prolonged periods of outdoor exposure is the most important step. Early morning, late evening or night walks must be avoided. This is particularly crucial for the vulnerable groups. The importance of hydration in foggy winters must not be underestimated. We all are aware of dehydration and sun-strokes during the summer months. Loss of body water also occurs in the winters in the exposed populations. Dryness of the skin during this season is a common knowledge. The same does happen with the internal organs, especially the respiratory tract. Management of symptoms of cough is a contentious issue and requires a lot of patience. Patients with respiratory diseases often need to increase their routine maintenance medicines. Generally speaking, asthmatics should double their dosages of inhaled drugs. This can be done at the very onset of symptoms or worsening of problems. Symptomatic treatments with cough suppressants may temporarily help but cannot be relied upon for long. Infection, if any, needs treatment with an appropriate antibiotic. Addition of other drugs is best left to the wisdom of the physician. Self-medication may result in more problems than their solutions. A lot of problems of cold exposure are avoidable provided one is careful and cautious. The writer is Professor and Head, Deptartment of Pulmonary Medicine,
PGI, Chandigarh.
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EYESIGHT As many as 70 per cent of normal newborns have a transient squint which resolves by two-four months of age. Any baby who has crossed eyes persisting at and beyond four months of age has pathological squint. Some babies appear to have a squint when folds of skin cover the inner part of the eyes. If a true squint is not present after a medical examination, it is called a pseudosquint and no treatment is necessary. Squints can be constant, present all the time or they can be intermittent and occur in certain situations like when the child is reading tired, or when he is looking in the distance. Children with crossed eyes may initially have double vision. When the squint is constant, three things can occur 1. Lazy eye or amblyopia: When the child has a constant squint, he does not use the squinting eye to see and this will result in that eye having poor vision. 2. Poor binocular vision: The ability to appreciate depth or stereovision requires both eyes to be aligned so that they can be used as a pair. A child with constant squint has no binocular or stereovision. 3. Abnormal head posture: Some children adopt an abnormal head position like a tilt or face turn when they have a squint to try and keep both eyes aligned. Some squints can be caused by uncorrected long-sightedness (hypemetropia) or shortsightedness (myopia). Glasses can sometimes reduce or completely eliminate the squint and the need for surgery. All children with squint should have their eyes checked and glasses if prescribed should be worn at all times to help straighten the eyes. If the glasses do not completely eliminate the squint, muscle surgery is then needed for the remaining squint. When the child has both constant squint and lazy eye, the existing amblyopia must be treated first. This can be done by patching the good eye, forcing the child to use the lazy eye. When the vision in the squinting eye becomes normal, the child will use each eye equally and the squint will be noted to alternate between the eyes. Once vision is restored in the amblyopic eye, squint surgery is performed to realign the eyes and to allow binocular vision to develop. In a child with intermittent squint, surgery is done when the child starts developing the lazy eye problem in one of the eyes or he or she starts losing control over the eyes. A child with constant squint and untreated lazy eye will always have defective vision and no binocularity. Early amblyopia treatment and squint surgery will enable the squinting child to have good vision, binocularity and straight eyes throughout life. The writer is Chairman and Medical Director, Centre for Sight, New Delhi. Email:
msachdev@bol.net.in
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Breakthrough as researchers create beating heart London:
A very significant breakthrough has been made at the University of Minnesota, with researchers creating a beating heart in laboratory. Lead researcher Doris Taylor, Director of the Center for Cardiovascular Repair, has revealed that her team made the bioartifical heart by taking dead rat and pig hearts, and reseeding them with a mixture of live cells. “The idea would be to develop transplantable blood vessels or whole organs that are made from your own cells,” Nature magazine quoted Taylor as saying.
— ANI
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Health Notes London: A study conducted by an international team supported in part by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), has discovered that shorter people are more prone to arthritis. Researchers used a relatively new genome-wide association study: comprehensive strategy that utilises the tools made possible by the sequencing of the human genome and the mapping of human genetic variation and found that common genetic variants associated with osteoarthritis also have a minor role to play in a human being’s height.— ANI
World may sound different through someone else’s ears
Washington: “What is music to your ears might be noise to others,” this phrase seems quite true as a new study has revealed that if you could hear the world through someone else’s ears it would sound very different to what you are used to. The study by scientists funded by the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) was on the cooperation of brain and ears to understand the acoustic environment. It was found that the part of the brain dealing with sound, the auditory cortex, is adapted in each individual and tuned to the world around us.
— ANI
Seven new cholesterol
genes identified
London: An international study led by researchers from the University of Michigan School of Public Health has found seven new genes that influence blood cholesterol levels, a major factor in heart disease. The researchers also confirmed 11 other genes previously thought to influence cholesterol. The study, which involved 20,000 people, set out to determine or confirm genetic variants that influence lipid levels, and to see if those variants were associated with the decreased or increased risk of heart disease.
— ANI
Drug addiction: hope for
more effective cure
Their work attains significance as it may pave the way for potential methods to treat drug abuse and disorders. “We have found 396 addiction-related genes and identified five pathways that are common to addiction to four different substances: cocaine, opium, nicotine and alcohol,” the China Daily quoted Wei Liping, the director of the centre for bioinformatics of the life science college under Peking University, as saying.
— ANI
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Cold weather is generally pleasant and healthy, but it is a nightmare for those with weak body defences. Senior citizens and individuals with pre-existing diseases are in particular likely to suffer the onslaught of winter, especially when severe. The worst affected are the poor and the homeless who are poorly clothed and live in the open 
