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World No-Tobacco Day falls on May 31 Skin gets affected by our emotions
Health Notes
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World No-Tobacco Day falls on May 31 Most people associate cigarette smoking with breathing problems and lung cancer. But did you know that smoking is also a major cause for heart disease for men and women? Smoking cigarettes is correctly perceived by much of the public to be the most common cause of lung cancer. The fact that smoking is also one of the major causes of cardiac disease is generally known to very few people. Smoking kills. Every cigarette takes away five minutes of one’s life. One in 10 persons addicted to smoking dies from it. By 2030 this ratio is likely to be one in six. Statistics released by the WHO proves that smoking is the single largest preventable cause of death worldwide. The startling fact is that of everyone alive today 5,00,000,000 will eventually be killed by tobacco use. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) , WHO and the Tobacco Institute of India, there is one death every 8 seconds in India directly related to smoking. Increasingly, large tobacco companies are dumping their stock in India, Indonesia and China — which, according to a World Bank study, are the only countries in the last decade which have had an increased consumption of tobacco. What is equally alarming is that the companies are targeting the young population to make them addicted — tobacco is as addictive as heroin! Effect on heart and cardiovascular diseases: Tobacco abuse is a major risk factor for coronary artery disease — blockage of heart arteries. According to a WHO estimate, in developing countries, 35 per cent of all deaths related to heart and blood vessel disorders in the 35-69 years age group are related to smoking. The incidence of heart disease is 3 - 5 times higher in smokers than non-smokers. People who smoke 20 or more cigarettes a day are twice as likely to have a heart attack as non-smokers. Their chances of dying of a heart attack are 70 per cent more than in non-smokers. Smoking tends to increase blood cholesterol levels. It also raises the levels of fibrinogen (a protein which causes blood to clot) and increases platelet production (also involved in the formation of blood clots) which makes the blood more sticky. Stroke (cerebrovascular accident) One out of five stroke cases are attributed to smoking. The risk for brain haemorrhage is 3 - 4 times higher in heavy smokers, while stroke due to occlusion of a brain artery is 1.5 - 3 times more common in heavy smokers. About 11 per cent of all stroke deaths are estimated to be smoking related. Peripheral arterial disease Hardening of the arteries of the legs is one of the most dreaded complications of smoking. Smokers have a 16 times greater risk of developing peripheral vascular disease (blocked blood vessels in the legs or feet) than people who have never smoked. Over 95 per cent of the patients who have occlusions in the leg arteries are smokers. Other blood vessel diseases Tobacco also increases the risk of weakening of the arterial walls leading to their ballooning (aneurysm formation). This leads to the risk of bursting or clotting, which may have catastrophic consequences. Smokers are very much more likely to die from a ruptured aneurysm of the abdominal aorta than non-smokers. Non-cardiovascular health effects: Smoking is a major cause of respiratory ailments such as the smoker’s cough, chronic bronchitis, frequent pneumonia and respiratory failure. About 80 per cent of the deaths from respiratory diseases are attributable to smoking. Smoking is responsible for about 85 per cent of lung cancer deaths. People smoking one pack of cigarettes per day increase their risk of lung cancer by 10-fold while smoking two packs a day increases the risk to 25 times. Lung cancer accounts for 15 per cent of all cancers in India. Cancer Smoking also increases the risk of cancer of the larynx (voice box) , mouth cavity, esophagus (food pipe) and possibly the urinary bladder, kidney, pancreas, stomach, uterus and cervix. In the US, tobacco is responsible for 30 per cent of all cancer deaths. In India, cancers of the mouth, larynx and esophagus account for 75 per cent of all tobacco-related cancers. Infertility/impotence Smoking reduces a man and woman’s fertility, and the more one smokes, the more the ability of sperm to bind to an egg is diminished. It takes at least two-and-a-half months after quitting smoking before the sperm activity can come to normal. Cigarettes send male sex life up in smoke. The good news is that quit smoking boosts heart health Smokers who quit or even just cut down on cigarettes can begin to reap the health benefits within a few months. Individuals who gradually quit smoking get improvements in risk factors for heart disease, including lower cholesterol and carbon monoxide levels. It is never too late to stop smoking. The benefits begin as soon as you stop. The writer is Head of the Dept of Cardio-Vascular, Endovascular & Thoracic Surgery at the Christian Medical College & Hospital,
Ludhiana.
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Skin gets affected by our emotions As one matures from a child to an adult, one develops social habits and maturity to control emotions. In the battlefield of life, humans have to encounter various challenges, one of which are diseases and disorders which are bound to happen. As medical science evolved and progressed in its research on various skin disorders, it has been found that the most of the skin diseases are influenced, triggered or relapsed by various emotions of the patient. Therefore, once a human becomes a skin patient he needs to adapt quickly and develop the necessary art and maturity of managing one’s emotions and immediate reflex actions — scratching over an itchy area, wetting the dry lip surface with one’s tongue and other lip, squeezing a pimple, biting nails and lips, pulling hair in stress and anger. Thus, it’s very important to know about the various emotional factors that affect our skin and bring the necessary changes and develop emotion-coping strategies when a person becomes diseased. It has been estimated that the effective management of at least one-third of the patients visiting hospitals depends to some extent upon recognition and precise effective management of emotional factors. Disease control and cure becomes better if there is less stress, anxiety and depression associated with the skin disorder. So, if one gets a skin disease, it is very important that one makes oneself mentally more tougher, stronger and calm. One must try to raise one’s threshold to getting stressed, angry and nervous in various situations. Emotion-focused coping strategies help patients to share their feelings and become realistic about prognosis. Adverse psychological responses to illness are related to chronicity, to increasing disability and poorer prognosis. Stress, bouts of anger and anxiety have been found to flare up and cause relapses in diseases like psoriasis, atopic dermatitis, melasma, vitiligo, acne, telogen effluvium (hair loss), rosacea. Skin diseases affected by compulsive habits : Lichen simplex
chronicus: This skin disease is caused due to hyperactivity of certain skin cells which become unstable and release certain chemical mediators in more quantity than what is considered normal and this tends to incite itching. The reflex action of scratching over the itchy area to get relief instead excites the unstable cells more, thus resulting in more itching, more reflex scratching. Scratching and then repeated scratching over an itchy area finally culminates into a compulsive habit. Scratching in psoriasis and eczemas further disturbs the skin barrier causing secondary infections and thus aggravating the skin lesions. Acne excoriée: Some patients with acne (pimples) cannot resist squeezing and pinching the acne lesions leaving them prone to develop pitted scars on the face. It starts as a compulsive habit to get rid of acne, but some people, when under bouts of stress and anxiety, tend to pinch or squeeze their skin even when there are no acne. This has been particularly found in adolescents under emotional stress. Trichotillomania: The term means a morbid craving to pull out hair. This disease is characterised by recurrent pulling out of one’s own hair, resulting in hair loss. Patients feel pleasure, gratification or relief when pulling out the hair. Persons having this disease under bouts of stress, anger, anxiety tend to develop a habit of pulling their hair. This is mostly seen in young school-going children specially during the examination days or if there’s a lot of family stress. Onychotillomania and onychophagia: The compulsive habits of nail picking and nail biting have been shown to be common in children and adolescents. Nail biting is usually confined to the fingernails, but nail picking, especially in adults, may involve all digits. Damage to nails causes inflammation of nail folds, nail dystrophy and formation of dark lines over the nails. Lip lick dermatitis: It (Lip Licking) starts as a reflex action when lips are dry, but repeated wetting of lips with tongue and lip-licking finally results in the skin disease liplick dermatitis characterised by dryness and darkening of the skin around the lips. Children and adolescents suffering from skin diseases like eczema and psoriasis show more anxiety, handle situations less well and are provoked to anger more readily. Stress makes eczemas worse. Psoriasis: Psoriasis is a disease most affected by emotional factors. Depression is particularly significant and may remain undetected. But if it remains untreated it may contribute to therapy-resistant diseases and increased pruritus. Chronic urticaria: The urticarias (hives) are significantly affected by depression, dysthymia and anxiety. Alopecia (hair loss): There has always been a strong medical proof that the onset and recurrence of alopecia is related to stress and major events in life. First episodes of alopecia areata (common disorder resulting in coin-shaped patches of hair loss) is associated with the avoidance of personal binding relationships, poor social support and high alexithymic personality characteristics. On cosmetic front: Repeated frowning in anger and desperation can leave fine-to-deep wrinkles on the forehead and crows feet around the eyes at an early age. Laughter increases oxygen in the blood, which also encourages healing of skin ulcers. The writer is Chief Consultant Dermatologist & Dermato-Laser Surgeon, National Skin Hospital, Mansa Devi Complex, Panchkula. E-mail: drvikas.nscindia @gmail.com
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Health Notes London: A new research has shown that a man’s stress levels rise an amazing seven times higher than a woman’s while stuck in heavy traffic. Psychologists commissioned by a satnav firm carried out tests on volunteers for a rise in stress chemicals in their saliva while caught up in a traffic jam, reports the Daily Express. The levels for women in the study increased by 8.7 per cent, but for men they shot up by a worrying 60 per cent. That could put pressure on the heart and can cause dizziness and breathing problems. Yet, remarkably, many had no idea that they were suffering from the effects of stress. Two-thirds of the women and half of the men said they did not feel any stress after 20 minutes in heavy traffic - even though the readings proved they did have a stress response. Almost half of all adults commute to work by car on a daily basis and those who are exposed to constant traffic jams could fall ill with stress-related problems. — ANI Change in one protein cell may trigger cardiac failure
Washington: Pointing to a direction study of drug development, a research study by the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre has found that switching of a protein can be a cause of ‘a cascade of events’ leading to heart failure. “Our research suggests that PINK1 is an important switch that sets off a cascade of events affecting heart cell metabolism. This could be one of the inciting events in the development of heart failure,” said Dr. Phyllis Billia, principal author, clinician-scientist and heart failure specialist at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre. The findings show that the absence of a certain protein, PINK1, causes some heart cells to die, forcing the remaining cells to work harder to keep the heart going. In response to this stress, the heart muscle cells thicken, a condition known as hypertrophy. — ANI CT scan could help predict early death in diabetic patients
Washington: A study has found that a common test in the form of a CT scan may be useful in predicting early death in individuals with diabetes. The test conducted by the Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center was able to identify which of the individuals were at a higher risk. “People with diabetes are already at a high risk of developing heart disease and experiencing an early death,” Donald W. Bowden, the Director of the Center for Diabetes Research at Wake Forest Baptist and lead investigator, said. “With this study, we’ve discovered that we can identify a subset of individuals within this high risk group who are at even higher risk, and the means to do this is already widely available in the form of a computed tomography (CT) scan — a relatively inexpensive and non-invasive test,” he explained. For the Diabetes Heart Study, Bowden and colleagues followed nearly 1,500 patients with diabetes in North Carolina for about 13 years, gathering data on various aspects of the disease and how it affects individual health. — ANI |
The good news first: Smokers are not destined to die of cancer. Yes , it is true!