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Hypnotherapy to empower yourself EYESIGHT
Health Notes
Why are we still eating deadly fats?
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Hypnotherapy to empower yourself Life’s problems would be far more difficult if their solutions were not within reach. What would you say if told that in most cases those solutions are actually within us — in our mind? Paresh, a 16-year-old student of Class X, was always distracted and unable to concentrate. Just one session with a hypnotherapist, and he can concentrate on studies at will even several months later. Amrita overcame her fear of maths with the help of a hypnotherapist, in two sessions. Hypnotherapy is the science and art of accessing our sub-conscious mind, which is the storehouse of all processed information and determines a person’s behaviour, habits and reflexes. We mostly use the thinking, analysing and reasoning mind — the conscious mind — while at work, home or leisure, like you are in reading this article. Conscious mind is in control when a person is awake. Hypnosis, a state of focused attention, where the control lies in the subconscious mind, is characterised by hyper-alertness. In this state,
the subconscious mind can be accessed to bring about effective and quick changes, as
per the requirements of the client. In other words, hypnotherapy is the reprogramming of the sub-conscious mind as required and desired
by a person. Hypnotherapy is a scientifically acknowledged psychological and therapeutic discipline in use for decades. It is
officially recognised and approved in the developed world, such as by the British
and US medical associations. Actually, hypnotherapy uses the mostly unused power of our own mind. The impossible is often untried. Hypnotherapy has wide applications: emotional and personal issues, personality problems, health, career and study-related difficulties, sports,
habits, substance abuse, fears and phobias, to name a few. What is more, hypnotherapy can bring
about faster change as compared to other traditional methods. What makes hypnotherapy a special tool is that it has no side-effects; it works fast and for long. Anyone can learn its
simple, easy-to-master and short techniques, which we can fit anywhere we wish in our routine. By using the powers of the mind,
hypnotherapy helps regain control over our lives. Names of clients have been changed for reasons of confidentiality. The writer is a clinical hypnotherapist and personal mind trainer, and can be reached at
gopalbina@hotmail.com
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EYESIGHT Retinitis pigmentosa (RP) is a term that refers to group of hereditary disorders that affect the retina’s ability to respond to light. It primarily affects rod cells, the photoreceptor cell that is responsible for night vision, seeing in dim light, and peripheral vision. Cone cells, which are responsible for colour vision and seeing in bright light, may also be affected as the disease progresses. With advances in molecular research, it is now known that RP constitutes many retinal dystrophies and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) dystrophies caused by molecular defects in more than 100 different genes. The disease is programmed into your cells and not caused by injury, infection or any other external agent. Night blindness is one of the earliest and most frequent symptoms of RP, and it refers to difficulty in seeing not only at night but also in dimly-lit places such as restaurants and movie theaters. The loss of peripheral vision is often called “tunnel vision.” If you imagine peering down a tunnel, being able only to see what is in front of you and nothing to the side, this is what it is like to lose peripheral vision. In the later stages, some patients may also lose central vision. Night blindness can be a symptom of a number of other retinal disorders besides RP, and it may not always indicate a progressive eye disease. Accurate diagnosis requires evaluation by an eye-care professional who is familiar with retinal degenerations and certain tests like visual fields and electroretinogram (ERG). The various treatment options being tried are: Drug therapy:
Vitamin A/beta-carotene, calcium channel blockers, lutein/zeaxanthin, ascorbic acid have been tried without any proven effect. Of the many therapies tried, oral acetazolamide has shown the most encouraging results with some improvement in visual function in patients with macular edema, which can reduce vision in later stages of RP. Retinal cell transplantation:
Scientists hope to restore sight or prevent further vision loss by transplanting healthy retinal cells. Retinal transplantation has shown some promise in animal models. As a result, researchers have begun testing the safety of this experimental therapy in humans. While promising, retinal cell transplants must first be proven safe and effective in clinical trials before they can be made available as a therapy for patients. Currently, the progress of transplant research is rapidly evolving. Gene therapy:
As researchers identify more of the mutant genes that contribute to RP, curing the defect via gene therapy is coming closer to reality. Gene therapy is based on simple logic: if a gene is defective, replace it with one that is not defective. While this may sound simple, the actual procedure of gene therapy is very complex. Retinal prosthesis:
A retinal prosthesis or phototransducing chip placed on the retinal surface has been investigated for several years. It has been shown that electric stimulation of retinal neurons can produce the perception of light in patients with retinal degeneration. Current devices for retinal stimulation involve a small number of electrodes (16 to 60) while thousands of pixels are required for functional restoration of sight such as reading and face recognition. Development of a high resolution retinal prosthesis faces multiple engineering and biological challenges. Currently, no retinal prosthesis is available for clinical use, and this technology remains investigational. Though there is no specific treatment for RP, there is potentially a lot that a doctor can do to help patients optimise their vision and eye health. That’s why it is important for people affected by retinal degenerative diseases to stay in touch with their eye-care professional, preferably a retina specialist. Getting an accurate diagnosis is also important; because it can help people understand the inheritance pattern of their disease as to who in their family might be affected or at risk and what the course of vision loss is most likely to be. That can help people take optimal career options and lifestyle choices. Finally, as new therapies emerge, routine evaluation can keep patients informed of clinical trials and new treatment modalities. The writer is Chairman and Medical Director, Centre for Sight, New Delhi. Email:
msachdev@bol.net.in
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Health Notes Researchers at UT South-western Medical Center said that the so-called “hunger hormone” ghrelin, which has long been known to increase when a person doesn’t eat, might also help defend against symptoms of stress-induced depression and anxiety. “Our findings in mice suggest that chronic stress causes ghrelin levels to go up and that behaviours associated with depression and anxiety decrease when ghrelin levels rise. An unfortunate side-effect, however, is increased food intake and body weight,” Nature quoted Dr. Jeffrey Zigman, assistant professor of internal medicine and psychiatry at UT South-western and senior author of the study, as saying.
— ANI Old muscle given a shot of youthful vigour
London: Bioengineers at the University of Califor-nia, Berkeley, say that they have been successful in giving old muscle a shot of youthful vigour during lab experiments. The researchers say that their work is setting the path for research on new treatments for age-related degenerative conditions like muscle atrophy or Alzheimer’s and Parkin-son’s diseases. According to them, the study has unveiled two key regulatory pathways that control how well adult stem cells repair and replace damaged tissue. The fact that the findings related to adult stem cells that reside in the existing tissue, say the researchers, the new approach to rejuvenating degenerating muscle does not involve any ethical and medical complications linked with transplanting tissues grown from embryonic stem cells.
— ANI Oral medications may be enough for diabetics
Washington: People with type 2 diabetes may soon be able to lead an insulin-free life, for a new study has revealed that oral medications may be enough for controlling the disease. Oral diabetes medications help control blood glucose or sugar levels in people whose bodies still produce some insulin, as is true for many patients with type 2 diabetes. “Generally, both patients and physicians believe that long-term use of oral diabetic medications is not possible because these drugs lose their effectiveness over time as the patient’s pancreas fails,” said lead researcher Arthur Swislocki, of the Veterans Affairs (VA) Northern California Health Care System in Martinez.
— ANI Testosterone replacement
doesn’t elevate cancer risk
Washington: Older men opting for testosterone replacement therapy, owing to their low testosterone levels, don’t face an elevated risk of prostate cancer, says a new study. According to lead author Aksam Yassin, of the Clinic for Urology and Andrology of the Segeberger Clinics in Norderstedt, Germany, prostate cancer is a concern regarding testosterone therapy in older men. “Testosterone treatment stimulates the growth of an existing prostate cancer, but there is no evidence that it causes this type of cancer,” he said.
— ANI
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Why are we still eating deadly fats? They are the cosy, friendly foods that present us with a rosy image of our childhoods: Quality Street chocolates and Angel Delight dessert; Horlicks instant night-time drink and Knorr stock cubes. As brands, they endure. Not quite as cutting edge as their more sophisticated and modern supermarket-shelf counterparts, perhaps. And certainly not as healthy. Because the truth is that some of the leading comfort foods we remember from our youth are doing their very best to kill us. The culprit is one item, usually tucked away in tiny lettering on the ingredients label. It's called hydrogenated vegetable oil. It sounds harmless enough, but it is one of the most dangerous products ever to be mashed into the food we eat. Food scares are, of course, nothing new, but hydrogenated vegetable oil (HVO) elevates health risk to a whole new level. Recent scientific research suggests that it may be responsible for an unknown, but certainly very large, number of heart attacks. Clinical researchers have discovered that ingesting just two grams a day of HVO - the amount contained in just one doughnut fried in this type of fat - increases an individual's risk of heart disease by 23 per cent. This makes HVO much more dangerous to health than the saturated fats such as butter it often replaces. It distorts cholesterol levels, encourages obesity, causes inflammatory conditions, and can even be a cause of infertility. Yet, despite the dangers, many major UK food producers continue to use it in everyday products. Brands that include it in their manufacture include Cadbury Heroes, some Nestlé and Mars confectionery, Batchelors Cup a Soups and even Haliborange Omega-3 Fish Oil capsules for children. Nor is its use confined to retail food goods. Hydrogenated vegetable oil, or trans-fat, as it is sometimes called, is also widely used in bakery products, and by restaurants and takeaways, where it usually does not have to be labelled and declared as being present. Given the risks, why do some of the country's leading food companies continue to lace their brands with this deadly ingredient? The answer is predictably simple: cost and convenience. These days, far less harmful substitutes are readily available, and some UK food producers now take advantage of them. Others, though, persist in their use. And why shouldn't they? Trans-fats keep production costs down, and most consumers remain unaware of their dangers, believing, wrongly, that the real peril to their health lies in saturated fats such as palm oil and butter, which are actually far less
harmful. — The Independent
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Saurabh, a young and ambitious executive in an MNC was stressed beyond limits, unable to balance his professional and family lives and finding it difficult to cope with ever-increasing business targets. He found traditional methods such as meditation difficult to master and too time-consuming. But things changed for the better with a 10-minute do-it-yourself technique of hypnotherapy, which Saurabh could use anytime to relax, set his priorities and understand his own deep-rooted feelings and emotions. 
London:
People often try to beat their stress or blues by making a beeline for the fridge. Now researchers have explained why gloominess is linked to binging on food.