Health Adda

You will be surprised to know that of all the addictive agents that you can list such as tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, betel and drugs, one that has probably sneakily getting you hooked from early childhood and making the largest impact on your health could be your addiction to sugar. Sugar, scientists point out, poses far greater danger than we seem to realize; it is a toxin that harms our organs and disrupts the body’s usual hormonal cycles. Excessive consumption of sugar, they say, is one of the primary causes of the obesity epidemic and metabolic disorders like diabetes, as well as a culprit for cardiovascular disease. More than 20% of urban Indians and 10% of urban school children and adolescents in India are obese largely due to excessive consumption of sweets and sugar. That the landscape of health across the world and especially in India is undergoing drastic change is reflected in the WHO’s recent report attributing over 60% of urban deaths in our country to life-sty...

Violence against Doctors Last week’s gory incident in which a renowned super-specialist, Dr. Rohit Gupta was mercilessly beaten up by disgruntled relatives in a private hospital in Allahabad has shocked not just doctors, but most sensible members of society. The CCTV video showing the goons drag Dr Gupta to a room in the hospital and thrash him for over 15 minutes, has gone viral and evoked sharp outcry. Dr Gupta who sustained a fracture of his jaw bone and multiple other injuries is undergoing treatment in another hospital. He had gone to visit the 80 year old critically sick patient at 4 AM in the morning, who died, when this incident occurred. The fall out of such an event causes great harm to society, especially patients in dire need of medical help at odd hours. I am sure Dr Gupta, having learnt the lesson of his life, will refuse to take calls at odd hours. And so will many other doctors practicing in small hospitals and nursing homes.  If society and administra...

Dr Gourdas Choudhuri

In their pursuit to understand why some people live healthier and longer lives, and after chasing several measurable parameters such as blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, uric acid and smoking for over half a century, medical scientists are now tumbling upon an esoteric factor that has been conspicuously missing from medical books, called ‘happiness’ that could hold the key to our wellness. Happiness is quite like the hippo in the zoo. When you see it you can easily recognize it, but when someone asks you to describe it, it is not easy. It does not have the distinctive features like an elephant’s trunk or a leopards spots. And yet when you try counting people in office who are happy, or occasions when you have been happy, you know exactly who or what they are! Funny as it might sound, the arrival of “happiness” as a medical factor affecting our lives probably started when a group of German pragmatists tried to beat the Americans at their habit of measuring every aspect...

Let us recapitulate a few essential points about the role, aims, targets and methods of exercise that should keep you fit and well. In case you have missed the previous columns, here are the key points: Exercise comes next only to food as an essential component for ensuring good health and longevity. It tones up the heart, lungs, muscles and joints. People who exercise regularly have healthier hearts and tend to live longer. People with diabetes, obesity and fatty liver can do very well with exercise. Aerobic exercise improves insulin sensitivity, brings down blood sugar levels, help burn extra fat and prevents clogging of arteries of the heart with cholesterol The type of exercise that is good for the heart is called cardio-vascular or aerobic exercise. It involves movement such as brisk walks, jogging, cycling, swimming, treadmill or playing outdoor games. A good point is to calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI). It should be between 20 -23 for Indians. If it is more than ...

Our series on exercise and wellness would be incomplete without a column on Yoga. At the outset I must confess that I am not an expert on yoga and will offer my sceptic observations as a medical scientist. Of the numerous reports in the literature on the effects of Yoga on various aspects of health such as insulin resistance, heart and fatty liver, very few stand up to scientific scrutiny as the trials have not been designed in line with modern medical requirements.  When asked to review this topic for an international conference a few years back, I could find only 25 eligible studies of which just 4 were randomized controlled ones (considered to be scientifically well designed), 6 were non-randomized controlled trials (these studies are subject to bias in evaluating outcome), and 15 were uncontrolled studies (likely to be biased by the person conducting it as there are no controls). Having explained the limitations and lacunae let me turn to the positive side: what...

Having been convinced that exercise is necessary for well-being and that an appropriate amount of daily dose of aerobics is the requirement, we need to move to the very important issue of choosing the right one that suits your requirements and constraints. Here are a few tips: Brisk walks: This is the form most frequently prescribed by doctors. What you need to assess is where can you take your walk, and how safe is it for you? If you are in a gated campus or near a park or the botanical garden, you are lucky. If you wander on the streets especially in the early pre-dawn hours. You could be in for trouble. Enthusiastic walkers being knocked down by rogue drivers or attacked by criminals is increasingly becoming common. Hence safety should be a pre-condition. Also, the vagaries of weather, during monsoons, foggy winters and desiccating summers should not cause long interruptions. Going to the Gym. I think it is a good method for 3 reasons: the weather cannot play spoil- sport; ...