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 ad...

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 elec...

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 un...