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Facial rejuvenation: treatment options
Snoring can be embarrassing and dangerous
Worried about a heart attack? Avoid these...
It’s official! Men have lower attention spans than women
Health Notes
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Facial rejuvenation: treatment options Indian females have started aspiring for recognition at the global level in the form of Miss World, Miss Universe, Miss Asia Pacific, et al. Looking good and feeling good are the ingredients that repose confidence in persons of all age groups when the time starts leaving its marks on the fair skin. As a result, the areas of cosmetic dermatology, cosmetology and aesthetic surgery have become vast. These have attracted a lot of attention, besides generating awareness at an excellerated rate. Skin has assumed the status of the most important organ of the human body. The young generation has the prime objective to keep the skin youthful, vibrant, smooth and shiny. Everybody wants to look good and attractive at all the stages in life. Mass media, both print and electronic, has brought the world closer. To top it all, globalisation has made the boundaries of nations irrelevant in this respect. New treatment options have come into being to meet the demands of the persons who are mostly concerned with their youthful appearance. At the same time, the demand for quick procedures with least side-effects is increasing due to the busy schedules of people by and large. All these are increasing the pressures on the researchers resulting in fast-moving technology. The Indian scenario has also changed noticeably over the past few years. Thousands of dermatologist, plastic surgeons and cosmetologists are using latest techniques and equipment to provide affordable solutions to their patients. Patients have easy access to every treatment option, which is available in most developed countries. Physical attractiveness is important in today’s society, and it is widely supposed that beauty equates with success. The important factor is that beauty matters. Youthfulness is linked to attractiveness; all the attributes of beauty are attributes of youth- smooth skin, large eyes and youthful face. Youthfulness is associated with energy, fertility, sexuality, power and economic stability. Society has seen a spiralling growth in rejuvenating cosmetic procedures. Both social and economic factors have contributed to this escalation in demand. Patients have certain prerequisites when they approach an aesthetic practitioner for treatment. Their lists may be long and include many of the following requirements: a “better” and “more natural look”, but most of all they want it “right away”, “without pain”, “without surgery” and “without down time”. Facial ageing is a complex process that involves volume loss throughout the face and overuse of some muscles of facial expression. Ageing occurs in three dimensions, and so the process of facial rejuvenation should be addressed similarly. Lasers: Rejuvenation using the photo- facial procedure leaves the skin clearer, smoother, brighter, healthier and younger looking. Non-ablative laser technologies and new skin tightening techniques like radiofrequency have produced even more dramatic results in the treatment of wrinkles and skin laxity. This avoids a surgical procedure as well as post-surgical down time. Botulinum toxin: Indications for using Botox have gone up in recent years. It is regarded as a gold standard, and patients have confidence that it works. Botox treatment of the brow is still the big winner. Horizontal lines of the forehead, the frown area and the position and shape of the eyebrows are all corrected by Botox. Eye-widening is becoming more popular with younger persons. Treatment of the crow’s feat comes within the treatment area of the upper face whereas the lower face has also become one of the popular sites for Botox treatment in recent years. It can relax the perioral muscles, and hence is useful for the corrections of perioral wrinkles in the lower face. The American Academy of Dermatology concluded that the long-term use of Botox for facial aesthetic improvement was safe and well tolerated when used for multiple treatments over extended periods of time, and when administered by qualified and trained healthcare professionals. Dermal fillers: They are used for the treatment of superficial lines, wrinkles and folds. They can also be quite helpful in lip enhancement to give a “sexy” look. These agents can also be used in conjunction with Botox to reshape and rejuvenate the face. Anti-ageing creams: Locally applied cosmeceuticals (cosmetics having drug properties) address skin changes associated with photo-ageing but don’t impact upon important deeper changes which lead to wrinkles and folds. Sunscreens prevent photo-damage by blocking harmful ultraviolet rays. Retinoids are a group of drugs derived from vitamin-A and they have been shown to repair the signs of photo-ageing. They efface the superficial wrinkles by stimulating fibroblasts to produce new collagen. Temporary improvement in the appearance of skin can arise from moisturisation and hydration (facials), but this must be distinguished from products which repair the damage to collagen and elastin because of chronic sun exposure. The writer is Chief Dermatologist, Mohan Dai Oswal Multispeciality & Cancer Hospital,
Ludhiana.
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Snoring can be embarrassing and dangerous Many people snore loudly while asleep, which may disturb the sleep of spouse. It may be embarrassing for the victims. Many divorces have been reported in the West due to snoring. Many loud snores may be victims of the sleep apnoea syndrome (SAS) or sleep hypo-apnoea. SAS is a disease which not only causes snoring but it may also be a sign of a serious disease, which at times may cause death while sleeping. Patients suffering from sleep apnoea also suffer from daytime sleepiness. They fall asleep whenever idle or performing monotonous boring jobs and start snoring. The disease can start in young or middle age and more common in obese males. These patients intermittently snore loudly and there are frequent nocturnal awakenings, along with profuse sweating, vivid dreams and even hallucination. These patients do not have a restful sleep; they never get off the bed afresh and lack of sleep at night leads to daytime sleeping which can impair their capabilities. Patients are usually irritable, easily provoked, and can’t take If anybody happens to observe these patients while they are sleeping, their breathing seems to stop or decrease intermittently, and the observer becomes concerned about the stoppage of respiration. SAS is not an uncommon disease. It is estimated that the disease affects about 1 per cent of the adult population, mostly obese males. About 85 per cent of patients are male and the disease can be transmitted from parents to their children. The disease may be because of a partial blockage or narrowing of upper airway due to the deposition of fat in the airway in obese individuals. Obstruction of the airway can occur due to the deposition of fat around nasopharynx, enlarged tonsils or adenoids due to hypothyroidism, acromegaly, bid enlarged tongue, nasal obstruction by infections or due to deviated nasal septum to one side. SAS is more common in alcoholics, drug addicts or people addicted to sleeping pills. These patients are more prone to accidents. They may fall asleep while making phone calls or sitting idle. If children are the victims, they may fall asleep during study or in classroom, which affects their school performance. These patients also suffer from an increased frequency of urination at night. The disease can be diagnosed by recording EEG while patients are sleeping. If anybody is a victim of SAS, take precautions and treatment, as sometimes patients are found dead while still sleeping due to the stoppage of breathing and choking. These patients should avoid drugs, sleeping pills and alcohol. If they are suffering from myxoedema the disease should be promptly treated. Overweight patients must lose weight. Sleeping on a side can help some patients in giving relief to snoring and bouts of awakening. The writer is Professor and Head, Physiology, SIMS, Hapur
(Ghaziabad).
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Worried about a heart attack? Avoid these... The main triggers of heart attacks are drugs, overeating, anger and sex — in that order, research has shown. A heart attack trigger is a factor that which explains why a heart attack occurs on a particular day or time. It is the final straw that triggers the attack and is distinct from the underlying cause, which may be a combination of smoking, poor diet, lack of exercise or being overweight. A new ranking of these triggers shows they range from cocaine use, which increases the risk 23-fold, to a cup of coffee, which raises it 50 per cent. Some triggers lead to a big increase in risk — limited exposure reduces it. As relatively few people take cocaine, despite the high risk to individual users, the drug triggers less than 1 per cent of all heart attacks. Coffee is widely drunk, so despite the relatively low risk to coffee drinkers, the beverage triggers one in 20 heart attacks. More than 2 per cent of heart attacks occur during or after sex (the exertion which triggers it). If everyone stopped having sex, heart attacks could be reduced, but that is unlikely to be a popular public health message, noted Professor David Spiegelhalter yesterday. The professor of the public understanding of risk at Cambridge University was commenting on the study by Belgian researchers, published in the Lancet. It showed that the biggest factor, in population terms, was traffic fumes, which triggers more than 7 per cent of all heart attacks.
— The Independent
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It’s official! Men have lower attention spans than women London: Do you struggle to make your man give attention to what you say? Well, now even science says that men have lower attention spans than women. Also, women are far more likely to learn from experience than men, who immediately assume they know everything, reveals a new Abertay University study. The revelations came to light when two groups of gibbons, biological cousins to humans, were presented with a rake-like tool, with one group given seven days to observe and play around with it. Grapes were then put just out of reach of the animals so they could use the rake to reach them. Male gibbons immediately investigated the tool, but the females were far more cautious until they knew the object was safe, reports the Scotsman. Gibbons are monogamous so researchers considered their lifestyle to mirror that of humans, and the results have opened new questions about the sex differences in learning. “Males are very eager to explore new things. Certainly in humans women find very attractive as a kind of risk-taking male. So males are very quick to rush in, but once they had experience of it and discovered there was nothing really to be gained from it, they pretty much ignored it,” said lead researcher Clare Cunningham, of the Gibbon Conservation Centre near Los Angeles, California. “Females were slower in general. They were much more cautious, which is something we would predict because really females would have much more to lose if the situation turned out to be dangerous,” she added.
— ANI
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Health Notes London: A new UK survey has claimed that some people have joints that look like they are more than a decade older than they are. The study found overweight as being a major factor and suggested that obese people add at least five years to their joint age, reports the Daily Express. Yet one in five, 25 to 34-year-olds also have a joint age over 50. Some under-35s have even older joints than their parents and in some cases their grandparents, according to the study of 13,000 people. People who took the survey answered questions about their lifestyles, including their weight and how much exercise they do, which were then run through a joint age calculator on a site run by supplements company Seven Seas.
— ANI Genetic fault that causes rare self-healing skin cancer
London: Researchers have identified a key genetic fault that causes a rare skin cancer to spread and then spontaneously heal itself. The identification of this rare cancer, known as multiple self-healing squamous epithelioma (MSSE) or Ferguson-Smith disease, could pave the way for new drugs to treat other types of the disease, scientists have claimed. According to the study, the disease is caused by faults in a gene called TGFBR1, reports the Telegraph.
— ANI Years of studying good
for the heart
LONDON: Education may benefit the heart as well as the brain, especially if you are female, new research suggests. Scientists found a correlation between years spent in education and lower lifetime blood pressure. High blood pressure is one of the main underlying causes of heart disease. The trend emerged from data on nearly 4,000 men and women taking part in a major US health study spanning 30 years. Researchers looked at systolic blood pressure, which measures blood pressure with each heart beat, and compared men and women who had completed less than 12 or more than 17 years of education. They found that more educated women had readings 3.26 millimetres of mercury (mmHg) lower, on average, over the 30-year timespan.
— The Independent |
