Health Adda

The line that divides “second opinion” from “medical shopping” is a blurred one. “Second opinion” is the seeking of another medical opinion to verify or validate what the first doctor had diagnosed or advised, and is often quite a valuable step. Most in their normal senses would not seek another opinion for a common cold. On the contrary if the diagnosis is of a sinsister kind such as cancer, or if the  treatment advised is of the risky or expensive kind, such as a heart surgery, it is quite natural for a patient  to seek a confirmation or endorsement by another expert in the field. Indeed, good physicians and surgeons often advise their patients to consult a second physician so as to get convinced of the unpleasant diagnosis and then return with greater motivation to embark on a treatment that is challenging. The diagnosis of cancer is certainly one such situation. It often comes as a shock and evokes a sense disbelief and denial in patients with thoughts like “it just can’t be true,

Doctors excel at making simple things sound complex and grave by their deft use of terms that sound truely Greek or Latin to our common ears. If, for instance, you go to a doctor with bleeding from the nose, he will diagnose it as “epistaxis”, a word that sounds so ‘propah’, but merely means bleeding from the nose! Many of the diagnostic terms we hear are therefore words from another language that sounds bombastic but tells what the patient told. if you are running fever, your doctor will label it “pyrexia”, and if it has been going on for more than a couple of weeks, he will call it “pyrexia of unknown origin” or PUO to impress you. The term “heme” stands for blood (remember hemoglobin that gives blood its red colour) and comes in medical jargon in many avatars. If someone vomits blood, the doctor calls it “hematemesis”, if your piles bleed, he says “hematochezia”, and if your urine contains blood, he will label it as “hematuria” and so on..... Great medical terms but meaning only wh

The buck-you-up cup that gets us going in the morning has indeed survived intense scientific scrutiny for 20 years regarding its health safety, and has emerged largely unscathed with, in fact, some benefits to claim instead. A recent study showed that moderate coffee drinkers were less likely to develop liver cirrhosis, degenarative brain disorders, and heart disease. Scientists, still groping for a cause of the enigmatic Alzheimer’s disease, a degenrative condition of the brain that wipes off its victim’s memory and higher mental functions, were surprised to find that those who drank 3-5 cups of the brew a day had a lower chance of having the disease. A similar “protection” was also seen from another degerative condition of the nerves and brain, called Parkinson ’s disease. Coffee, a drink made from brewing beans of the coffeacute plant, contains several chemical compounds that affect the human system. Apart from caffeine, the main constituent that provides its stimulant effect, it c

Several simple and touching stories, which talk about life and death, have become bestsellers in recent years. Not  only  do they give a deep insight into what the process of dying does to our physical self but also about the lessons we learn as we come closer to death. One such best seller is “Tuesdays with Morrie” by Mitch Album (Time Warner Books), which  is a magical chronicle of a rekindled relationship between a professor, recently detected to have a progressive neurological disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), and a student he had taught 20 years ago. It was on Tuesdays that the young “student” came in to spend time with Professor Morrie Schwartz, and the story of his last days unfolds over 14 consecutive Tuesdays that he spends with his teacher who battles this relentless disease, Mitch gets a second and, this time a more practical lesson in life from his ailing professor, and learns to understand the value of relationships with loved ones, and the importance of

For those of you who have recovered from the New Year’s Eve bash and picked up the HT City this sunny morning to read the Health Adda, I can offer to take you through a “health bulletin” ride of 2011, and share what we have learnt. The year had started with expectations but ended with a whimper. The sensex had promised to scale new heights but tumbled down to deep lows. The promise of corruption fading from society receded as our ministers took to mock fights in parliament. The last year saw the departure of several celebrities. Many, who died in their late 70s or above, went gracefully, leaving pleasant memories and contributions behind. Dev Anand, MF Hussain, Mario Miranda, Bhimsen Joshi, Shammi Kapoor and Elizabeth Taylor belong to this category. Non-communicable diseases of the heart, brain and kidneys dominated the scene in South Asia. The nawab of Patuadi died due to lung fibrosis. Bhupen Hazarika’s death, though at a ripe 85, was preceded by a prologed kidney ailment. Jagjit Si