Health Adda

Have you noticed that medical prescriptions hardly ever consist of a single drug but most often comprise a long list of them, even when the symptom that took you to the doctor was just a single one? It is due to a recently recognized phenomenon called Prescription Cascade. As most drugs have side effects, what the doctor tries to do is to add balancing drugs that would counter them should they occur. The most common example of this phenomenon is to co prescribe drugs that lower the stomach’s acidity when prescribing pain killers. Most pain killers such as aspirin, ibuprofen, diclofenac, indomethacin or naproxen are plagued by the side effect of causing gastric injury, called gastritis or gastric erosions. Indeed long term use of these agents are associated with the development of ulcers in the stomach or duodenum, that apart from causing stomach ache, can sometimes bleed or perforate  posing a threat to life. Doctors, therefore, often find it more covenient, and perhaps safer to add a

One of the cruelest acts that we as parents, teachers or colleagues might be inadvertently indulging in is failing to recognize dyslexia, and labelling it as mental weakness. Dyslexics, comprising 5% of the population, can be spotted from  pre-school age. Typically, these kids have bright intelligent eyes, seem to follow what you tell them, react intelligently to situations, are emotionally normal, but seem to get into problems when asked to read or write. They may sit with the book open for long hours without progressing down the page, write poorly with lots of spelling mistakes, confuse “b” with “d” (mirror images) and hence get poor marks in the way tests are “normally” conducted. They are certainly not mentally weak. In fact studies show that some of the brightest and most successful have had the trait. Albert Einstein the great scientist, John Lennon of Beatles fame, Richard Branson the owner of Virgin Airlines, Tom Cruise the Hollywood star, Thomas Edison who gave us the electric

Are you getting enough of good music to benefit your body and mind? Research has shown that music has a profound effect on your body and psyche. In fact, there is a growing field of health care known as music therapy, which uses mu sic to heal. Those who practice music therapy are finding benefit in using music to help cancer patients, children with ADD (attention deficit disorder), and even hospitals are beginning to use music to manage pain, fight depression, calm patients and ease muscle tension,   Airlines and hotel industries were quick to spot the benefit of soft soothing music on customers and started using it in flights and hotel lobbies. Their customers started feeling cheerful and stress-free with patient satisfaction surveys and business turnover showing mprovement.   Studies have shown that patients waiting for endoscopic or surgical procedures are less stressed and have fewer complications if soothed and prepared with soft music. Further, surgeons undertaking

My well-wishers and grateful ex-patients wonder why I fail to turn up at their parties despite their pleasand insistent invitations. While my wife usually gets fed up with the adulation and importance I usually get from satisfied patients or their relatives at parties, some sour ones are educative enough. I once found myself squeezed between two defence officers at a party at the MB Club. They seemed jovial, friendly and in “high spirits” and had many interesting stories to  tell. Their demeanour however changed  once they learnt that I was a doctor at the SGPGI. The conversation then turned to how terrible places hospitals were, how uncaring the staffs were and how one of them had lost a relative at SGPGI after a heart surgery due to, what they perceived, neglect.  My feeble protests that I belonged to a different speciality , that patients sometimes do die after heart surgeries in spite of the best treatment, just as jawans do in a war despite all armours, and that the u

While the news may be bad, the manner in which it is delivered can make it either traumatic or bearable, says Dr Elly Hann, an expert on end-of-life care programme.  And what is interesting is that the technique applies not just to patients detected to have cancers, but to any bad news like loss of a job, failure in an examination, or a failed relationship, It is being increasingly realized that bad news, no matter how bad, needs to be told rather than concealed, as getting to know it helps the patient or victim to cope better and set realistic goals. Recent research contradicts traditional belief that it takes away hope plunging people in irretrievable despair. That is of course if the news is communicated properly. The currently accepted technique of delivering bad news that we might all find universally useful in our own lives, has 6 steps. Step1: Getting started. A little thoughtful preparation needs to go into ascertaining and reconfirming the unpleasant facts before

The 85 year old British scientist, Professor Robert Edwards, who helped create the first test tube baby and thus transformed the lives of millions of couples plagued by infertility, was finally awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine, 2010. The person happiest to hear the news was Louise Brown, now 32, who on July 25, 1978, became the first ever child born through in-vitro fertilization (IVF), to her mother Lesley, who was seeking tretament for infertility. Professor Edwards along with his research partner Dr PatrickSteptoe,  had been resarching on taking eggs out of a woman’s body after stimulating the ovary, and fertilizing it with sperms from a donor, in a petri dsh, allowing it to multiply a few times, and then putting it back into the womb of the woman. Their first success came with Lesley Brown who gave birth to Louise by natural delivery. Dr Steptoe, with whom Dr Edwards had started his infertility research and clinic in Cambridge, died in 1988. As the Nobel Prize is

A new medication, varenicline, promises to help smokers who are keen on quitting the habit, to do so with ease and comfort. Quitting smoking can be hard for smokers as nicotine, the substance in tobacco that gets you hooked, is one of the most addictive substances known to man.  Stopping suddenly is sometimes associated with intense craving, mood swings, abnormal behaviour and depression making smokers continue with their habit indefinitely till a major hea lth event like heart attack or cancer shakes them out of it. The addictive effect of smoking is due to nicotine that gets attached to a site in the brain called alpha-4-B-2 receptor and triggers neurochemical pathways that provide the sense of pleasure that go with it. Varenicline works by geting attached to the same site in the brain, thereby blocking nicotine from getting to it. Why Varencline particularly seems to work is because apart from blocking nicotine, it exerts a mild stimulatory effect of its own, just enou

Diwali, the festival of joy, lights and cuisines, provides a perfect opportunity to blend tradition with dash of sense and demonstrate to neighbours and friends smart new ways of doing old things. The Eats: A huge amount of effort and resources are traditionally sp ent in procuring or preparing sweets for neighbours, relatives, colleagues, partners and bosses. My rough guess is that, diabetes, obesity and heart problems being as common as they presently are, most of these traditional delicacies are hardly touched by those for whom they were intended, and find their way to homes of servants, drivers and junior office staff.  Should you want your sweets to be savoured and remembered, you need to make them appealing, healthy and different so that guests who have nibbled at the same-old-sweets, are game to try more than a mouthful at your home.  Adding and garnishing your preparation with natural sweeteners such as honey, dates, figs and raisins could add originality and make

The scare of the currently raging Dengue epidemic in Lucknow is neither a false alarm nor media hype. Good many people have fallen prey, and several have already died. The tragedy is that Dengue is assume its most aggressive form in you ng healthy adults, who were, till yesterday, up and about their usual lives, attending to business, going to college, partying or planning a grand Diwali bash. Attempts at mosquito control seem to have gone awary. Many might ask if it had started at all, seeing the heaps of polythene bags by the roads. The striped Aedes mosquitoes are easily seen in homes and offices on their dauntless flights landing on arms, necks and feet for their blood meals and injecting the virus through skin pricks. High fever with body aches, visit to the doctor, the blood test confirming Dengue, falling platelet count, scurrying to hospitals for platelet transfusions, overcrowded hospitals is the usual circuit. What can you do to protect your self and your fami

Dengue is having a free run this autumn, thanks to the abundant rains, ramapant water logging and unrestricted breeding of mosquitoes. Almost every household in and around Lucknow has either had a bout of fever in the last month or is likely to in the next one.  Recognizing Dengue Fever (DF): It is a viral infection transmitted by mosquitoes and presents as a sudden febrile illness of 2-7 days’ duration, with 2 or more of the following: 1.      Headache 2.      Pain behind the eye balls 3.      Severe body aches 4.      Pain in the joints 5.      rash In children, DF is usually mild. In adults, it can be quite incapacitating, with associated nausea, vomiting, depression and fatigue. Dengue Haemorrhagic Fever (DHF) is a more severe form of the disease associated with bleeding from different parts of the body such as red spots or patches in the skin, bleeding from the nose or gums, passage of black stools or vomiting of blood.   One of the main concerns in Dengue is the

Indian doctors were galvanized last month when the prestigious medical journal, Lancet, published an article describing super bugs that are virtually resistant to all known anti-biotics, and alleging that they originated from the Indian subcontinent.  To add insult to injury, the lead authors, who were British, named this germ after New Delhi (NDM1), consigning the name of our national capital to the immortal pages of medical notoriety. What most Indians found blasphemous was the fact that although this highly resistant strain was also isolated from other parts of the world, the authors chose to name it after New Delhi, a city from which no sample had actually been tested, and went on to sound a travel advisory cautioning Britishers to travel to India for “medical tourism”. Development of resistance in bacteria to the latest and strongest antibiotics called Carbepenems, is however alarming news. Alexander Fleming, who had discoverd the first antibiotic, penicillin, in 194

If “love” is the most misunderstood word in society today, “constipation” cannot be far behind. A recent study revealed that 5-22% of the population across the world are unhappy with the ways their bowels move and they use the same word to describe a variety of symptoms. “Constipation” means different things to different people, from a feeling of incomplete evacuation (45%), straining at stools (30%), hard stools (10%), bloating and distention (20%) to several others. None of these meet the Western medical definition of “constipation” described as passage of less than 3 stools per week! How bowel habits differ between peoples and regions, and the urgent need to redifine terms were highlighted during the recent Asia Pacific Digestive Conference in Kuala Lumpur, in which Asian doctors pointed out that the Western definition of constipation was inappropriate for Asians as hardly anyone would actually qualify while many feel they are constipated while passng stools quite lib

In the aftermath of a school child recently bitten by a street dog , attitudes and opinions on how we should deal with these canines have become divided as never before. The hardliners now have a case to justify their demand to kill these unwanted flea-infested animals who seem quite a nuisance on streets and colonies. Interestingly, no matter how much we humans hate these creatures, they seem to love us; they live near human habitations and refuse to go and live by themselves in jungles, they wag their tails in gratitude for the rest of their lives if you have thrown a slice of bread at them even once, and their loyalty to humans can put ministers to shame! As the story in Mahabharata goes, when Yudhisthir in his pursuit of truth, withdrew his emotional ties from all his relatives and earthly possessions, and was resolutely marching up the Himalayas towards Heaven, a stray dog started accompanying him on the rough path. By what we can imagine from Yudhisthir’s nature

None of our clever politicians and planners could have thought that a burgeoning swarm of mosquitoes could change the course of emerging India and humble us. While children are dying like flies in and around Gorakhpur from the annual post-monsoon wave of mosquito borne encephalitis that year-after-year we promise to stem but never seem to be able to achieve, hospitals of the national capital are being deluged by dengue victims. Our financial capital, Mumbai, especially in its southern part where the rich and mighty live, is also being swamped with malaria, serving as a harsh reminder of our human vulnerability. Of the several problems threatening the forthcoming Commonwealth games, mosquitoes and threat of diseases caused by them are emerging as key factors to k eep international players and fans away. There are 3 types of mosquitoes spreading diseases: Anopheles, the night biter spreading malaria, Aedes, the striped day time stinger spreading Dengue, and Culex transmitt

Cola drinks, once a symbol of American upmarket style, is now to be found perched mainly on the shelves of road-side ‘paan walas’ and local grocers. True, there still are Americans who drink more colas than water, and consume an average of 2 bottles per day of the tangy fizzy dark drink, but it has clearly fallen in stature as offering it to visitors or serving it at parties is no longer elegant. Premiere schools in Lucknow such as La Martiniere College for girls have shunned colas from their canteen for the last 4 years. The story started with extensive campaigns by HOPE Initiative (Health Oriented Programs and Education) in 2005 creating awareness among the bright students about the long term harms of cola drinks. A heated debate followed in which the rights of an individual student  was pitched against the hazards of allowing gullible youngsters to be enticed by aggressive marketing to gulp colas and fall sick. The intelligent and alert La Marts students dcided on thei

As the world is celebrates the 100 th bitrh anniversay of Mother Teresa, who has become the lasting symbol of caring and loving for the sick and the poor, I wish she had gone around in her younger days inspiring medicos to add empathy to the medical science they practice. What is often forgotten in these arrogant hi-tec days is that modern medicine needs all its 3 legs – science, skills and caring, to stand firmly in society. Ironically, although photographs of Mother Teresa  often adorn the walls of rich homes and institutions, her spirit of humanitarism seems wanting, especially in hospitals and clinics, where it is needed most. There was a time not long ago, when physicians and nurses didn’t have much else to offer patients other than personal attention, comfort, compassion and concern for their ailments. Medical professionals were revered and respected for that and for what little they could do in regard to symptomatic treatment for incurable conditions. The Twenty-F

If what is shown in TV soap operas, widely considered to reflect the mood and pulse of the society, is any indicator to go by, then doctors being held by the collar by anxious relatives, is not surprising.  Aggression against doctors is on the rise and is imapacting the way doctors deal with patients. If you ever had an emergency at home and wished the doctor would come running with just a phone call, you must have been disappointed. One of the direct fallouts of increased aggression has been the discontinuation of “home visits” by most GPs. The official explanation is the difficulty and inadequacy of organizing tests and medical support for a critically ill patient at home, but  at heart most doctors shudder at  being trapped  in a sick patient’s home with anxious relatives demanding miracles, and threatening them if things don’t work out well.  Physicians are nowadays wary of giving injections to seriously ill patients at homes and clinics lest his condition deteriorates