Health Adda

At times such as this after 5 months into the pandemic when  Covid  infection numbers are still climbing up, life is anything but “normal”, and uncertainty is looming like thick clouds over our heads, many are getting the feeling that they are reaching the snapping point!   It was in this context that 260  teachers of  one of the reputed school chains , Lucknow Public School,  gathered  Sunday  for an online interactive session by HOPE Initiative to discuss and explore strategies of coping and resilience.   Of the many segments of society that are facing  the present brunt , school teachers  are a particularly hard-hit lot. Apart from the  universal  fear of infection, they find themselves being pushed into crazy degrees of multi-tasking: looking after   children’s studies, cooking, chores  at home  in addition to the teaching. To make matters worse, they are being pushed from their comfort zone of conventio...

If you did not exchange wishes with friends on Friendship Day, STOP, THINK and RECTIFY! You could be missing an essential ingredient of health from your life. Friendship Day is generally celebrated on the 1 st Sunday of August, but you can of course observe it every other day. FRIENDS are important for several reasons: 1.       Scientists studying the effects of friends note a strong link between immunity and social support. Those with friends are more likely to ward off or fight illnesses and traumas, and survive life threatening situations like major accidents or heart attacks. Even wound seem to heal faster in those who have warm friends. 2.    They play a key role in processing stress. Unburdening your heart is a great stress buster and helps reduce stress hormones from the body. 3.     Friends play a pivotal role in boosting self-confidence. Remember the first occasion when you had to go up on stage…and how your suppor...

In times such as these, when every TV channel, newspaper or conversation is spewing fearful and despairing news, how does one cope and survive with the hope to see better times? Amidst galloping COVID 19 numbers, gruesome clashes on our borders, crumbling economy and a very uncertain future, I discovered a living story of exemplary coping and resilience that can make a difference to our lives. Her name is Ruth Ba der Ginsberg, 87 year old lady, the oldest judge of the Supreme Court of USA who is attending to her duties while undergoing chemotherapy for her third cancer. The present cancer that she is fighting is an advanced one that has spread to her liver, for which she is receiving twice weekly chemotherapy and is optimistic as the tumour is showing signs of regression. Her long life is as much a lesson in hard work and perseverance in reaching where she has in her career, as it is about coping and resilience with health problems and cancer. Her first date with cancer was in 1999 whe...

If your mind space is crowded with too many stressful “negative” occupants such as COVID crisis, border conflicts, shattering economy, uncertainties of future or locusts, just to name a few, and if you are in a mood to explore something new and relaxing, give Birdwatching a try. At the outset, let me confess that being a workaholic all my life and born under the Zodiac sign of Capricorn, I had never found time for such “idle” hobbies”. In fact as stud ents with lives packed with studies, sports, thrills, work and challenges, we had scoffed at Dr Salim Ali, one of the greatest ornithologists, who had made headlines decades ago. It all started 2 years ago when my wife hung a “bird feeder” outside our window and our gardener planted a new creeper in the garden. Two years down, when I found myself locked in at home recently in my own empty nest, I found time to notice and appreciate groups of domestic birds visiting us. And when I Googled “Bird watching health benefits” I was stunned with ...

It is indeed difficult in the midst of a raging pandemic to see any silver lining to the dark COVID clouds, but two sets of observations are emerging on an optimistic note. Let me start with a true story of a 34-year old otherwise healthy young man who came down with fever for 8 days, initially suspected to be typhoid, that refused to subside with several courses of strong antibiotics. By the time he reached a nearby hospital, he was found to be breathless requiring oxygen therapy (requirement 4 liters/minute). A COVID test was sent, but as no beds were available, he was asked to go to another hospital. After much pleading, he was kept in the emergency hold area on supportive care waiting for a bed to fall vacant. Over the next 2 days his fever and breathlessness deteriorated (requiring 15 liters/minute), while his COVID test came positive. He could luckily be shifted to a single ICU bed of a nearby hospital that fell vacant, just in time to be put on a ventilator. In the subsequent da...

The COVID19 story that started just 5 months ago as a regional outbreak and then snowballed into a massive pandemic, seems to have another facet that scientists are coming to terms with: a funny spin or DOOSRA for most aspects we thought we knew!  BLOOD VESSEL DISEASE There is increasing evidence that COVID that was thought to be a viral pneumonia quite like influenza, SARS or H1N1 is turning out to be BLOOD VESSEL disease. Studies on lungs of patients are showing that small vessels that supply blood to the lungs are choked with clots, in stark contrast to what we see in “pneumonia” where the blood vessels are intact but the small airspaces are filled with fluids and cells. This is helping explain why many patients have breathlessness and low levels of oxygen in the blood, and why providing high flow rates of oxygen rather than mechanical ventilation seems to help. Damage and choking of blood vessels in other parts of the body are being increasingly seen a...

With the COVID outbreak spreading and infecting more people across the world, doctors and scientists are getting to understand the widening spectrum of mischief this virus causes in the body, far beyond just lungs and respiratory passages. 1. Brain and Nerves Several patients report loss of taste or smell during the phase of illness. These symptoms ascribed initially to involvement of receptors of the tongue and nose, have now been traced to the brain. MRI studies have revealed that regions that receive the taste and smell signals brought there by the cranial nerves show small spots of oedema and nerve degeneration. Brain involvement has also been found in several patients complaining of headache, disturbed consciousness, loss of memory, tingling sensations and extreme body weakness due to a form of ‘encephalitis’ and neuronal degeneration. Fortunately, these changes regress in most who recover. 2. Muscle and Heart Another notable feature in a third of patien...

I cannot recall witnessing the government machinery of this country so active, energetic, concerted and committed in its fight against a common enemy, as during the COVID outbreak this time. The next few weeks are going to be a “make or break” phase…when we might either breathe a sigh of relief, or suffer much for a long time. But I must share a story with you. Our house help who shares our home for 20 years got a call on her cell phone t hat one of her elderly aunts staying in a congested part of her hometown had died. She had been old and had a long-standing breathing problem. To my obvious next question “Was it COVID?”, she answered that she had not been tested. On pursuing further if there was time still before the body was disposed, as a precaution just in case, she said “It would be too much hassle… the police will land up at home, perhaps take grieving relatives elsewhere, involve expenses, and delay the last rites”. Officials, be it of the health department...

Up until now, we have been brought up to believe that many of our physical traits such as shape (thinness or chubbiness), height, prone ness for metabolic illnesses, kidney stones or gout were all decided by either our genes that we inherit from our parents, or the environment in which we live and eat! A startling new discovery is now pointing to yet another “third” factor, something that that we could not have imagined five years ago! Let us start with a simple observation. We know that fatness, or obesity, for example, runs in families. It is therefore reasonable to assume that this trait got passed down from overweight parents to one or more children through “genes”. To explain why some sibs had more fat than others we invoked additional environmental factors such as gluttonous consumption of fatty and starchy food and perhaps a sedentary or lazy life style. But when you look around with greater scrutiny you often come across someone who seems a “one-off” in the fa...

While excessive computer use can lead to conditions such as attention deficit disorder, depression anxiety an d proneness to violence, recent research has shown that internet is not all that bad after all! The web may in fact be teaching our brains, subtly rewiring the way we respond, think and behave. The book iBrain Surviving the Technological Alterations of the Modern Mind, by Dr Gary Small, provides new insight through research undertaken at UCLA, and reveals that an hour of internet use every day may boost brain function. We learn to react more swiftly to visual stimuli, improve our ability to sift through large amounts of information, and decide what is important and what isnt”. This training is most evident when we scan our e-mails, quickly deciding and deleting what is spam, while focussing on those that are important. If you never use computers, then start, Professor Small recommends. As we found, even an hour a day can vastly improve yor information processing ...

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, degenerative brain disorders, and heart disease. Scientists, still groping for a cause of the enigmatic Alzheimer’s disease, a degenerative 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 degenerative 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 pro...

The human body requires at least 1 hour each day being devoted to its care to keep it fit and strong. Of these 60 minutes, a good 40 should be spent on exercise of the body and 20 on exercise of the mind. Remember, a weak restless mind in a strong body does not make for happy living! There are broadly 2 types of exercise: aerobic or isotonic, and isometric Aerobic exercise:   This form is characterized by movement and includes walking, running, cycling, swimming or working out on the treadmill or games that involve movement. The heart rate and breathing goes up but no single group of muscles is put to too much strain (compare with isometric). It is also known as cardio-vascular exercise as it keeps the heart charged and fit. Aerobic exercise is a must for people across all ages, and should be the only form for people above 50. Apart from keeping the heart toned by improving the blood circulation in the coronary arteries, it helps burn fat and increases the basal met...

Exercise and diet are the two most important pillars of good health, and both have as many options and controversies as there are people to give advice on them.  Choosing an exercise regime that fits your specific requirement could be a good starting point for a long term investment in well-being. You first need to take stock of your current status and then your requirements. How do you assess your present physical state? Start with the following: How old are you? Do you have any medical problems (heart, knees, anaemia etc)? Are you a strong willed person who can go it alone or do you need company and entertainment? What are your constraints (no playground, unsafe roads, no gym nearby etc)   The role of Age: In general, the younger the age, more vigorous should be the exercise. A 16 year old, for instance, should play a vigorous out-door game, sprint and run, undertake long distance cycling and so on, but a 60 year old would have to choose from oth...

Wheat, the staple diet of over half the world’s population, could paradoxically be the cause of several of our vexing health problems. A recent study in the journal ‘Nutrients’ points out that proteins in this cereal could be triggering a wide a range of disorders from autistic behaviour in children to liver cirrhosis in adults. Wheat does not seem to go down well in 5% of its consumers. In its most well recognized form called Celiac Disease, one of its proteins called gluten evokes an immune reaction from the small intestines, typically causing diarrhoea, malabsorption and growth failure in children. Funnily, despite having literally grown up on chappatis all through childhood, Celiac Disease often appears suddenly in adulthood with loose motions, weight loss, weakness, anaemia and fatigue. Celiac Disease can also masquerade and present in atypical forms such as delayed puberty, weak bones, deficient dental enamel, neuritis, diabetes, itchy skin rash or an abnormal body move...

Recurrent attacks of severe abdominal pain, renal stones, abnormal moods, and an attack of pancreatitis could well be due to an excess consumption of vitamin D. Dr Ambrish Mittal, a Delhi based endocrinologist, says he sees several patients with abnormally high blood calcium levels due to hyper-vitaminosis D, many of whom develop serious consequences such as swelling of the pancreas. Dr Vjay Kher, chief of nephrology at Medanta Hospital agrees that there is a lurking epidemic of vitamin D overdose resulting in high levels of blood calcium, that choking kidneys and causing renal failure. Vitamins are catalysts that in very small doses, regulate actions of several enzymes and make our body function smoothly. The discovery of this group of substances 100 years ago was indeed a major leap in medicine. Dr George Wald was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering Vitamin A and proving its indispensable role in nurturing the rods in the retina that allow us to perceive light, and he...