Health Adda

While we may debate whether examinations in our schools and colleges can ever be defanged of their fear factor, there seems to be growing concern that in the present form they induce considerable stress to students. Increasing media reports of young lives being snuffed out by suicide, and the manifold larger number of unreported scars and traumas produced by this annual event should evoke serious concern in us. Stress may not always be bad. Without a dash of “positive” stress, we would not be striving to run or climb in life. Without it, I wonder if any of us would have struggled to reach wherever we have. However, with life getting more and more competitive and we getting more and more ambitious, too much is being perceived to be at stake. “Perform or perish” or “do or die” is the attitude that is assuming center stage in the minds of students, claiming the high price of mental and physical health. Negative stress can be recognized reasonably early and easily. It cause...

Hepatitis C, a small RNA virus that causes infection and damage to the liver, had its moment of public recognition when the well-endowed silverscreen celebrity Pamela Anderson of Baywatch fame got diagnosed with it. The way she contracted it wa s equally sensational: she had shared the needle for a skin tattoo with her boyfriend, Tommy Lee, who carried the infection. The gossipy tale went further to her litigating against him for concealed the information, but as often happens there, they finally united by wedlock! Hepatitis C infection is indeed more common than most of us probably know. Of all us who consider ourselves perfectly healthy and volunteer to donate blood, 1% harbour the infection. In other words, approximately 10 million people in India have the infection and do not know it. Hepatitis C virus is a stealthy one that hardly ever produces jaundice, the commonly known symptom of liver disease. It lodges in the liver and nibbles away at its cells over years. Duri...

A cinical problem of young people that is on the rise these days is Eating Disorders. It is a condition which affects an individual’s eating habits, either as a result of their own doing (self-inflicted), or as a bodily reaction to the consumption of food. Eating d isorders can range from mild mental anguish to life-threatening conditions. The two most common varieties of eating disorders that have become well known because of the celebrities afflicted by them are Anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa . Anorexia nervosa, whose sufferers include celebrities such as Victoria Beckham, Kate Winslet and Kareena Kapoor, is a condition in which significant weight is lost deliberately driven by a fear of distorted body image . It is a serious disorder that can lead to death.  The girl has a n abnormally low body weight (the suggested guideline ≤ 85% of normal for age and height, or BMI ≤ 17.5), stops having her regular periods, and has an intense fear of gaining weight or ...

While Medical science has significantly increased our life expectancy and made many diseases treatable, it has made our expectations soar to unreasonabe heights and dimished our capacity to accept death due to diseases that defy current treatm ent. Widespread cancer, dementia and advanced chronic diseases of the heart, lungs or liver are some examples that cause significant pain and suffering, progress relentlessly and render even the relatives helpless and frustrated. Palliative Medicine (PM) may sound a paradox in modern times, as “it aims to add life or quality to the remaining days, in terminally ill patients”, says Dr Mhoira Leng, a British doctor presently working in Uganda, and a pioneer in this subspeciality, who was in Lucknow recently. “Providing relief of the   distressing and dehumanising pain to patients with terminal cancer can be one of the greatest boons of medical science that is unfortunately not often adequately utilized”, she added. Experts in PM h...