Health Adda

Compared with several tragedies claiming far more lives, the recent accidental crash of an air-ambulance killing several of its occupants and 3 residents has occupied a disproportionate chunck of media attention and evoked strange emotions from citizen. At the heart of the issue is the human tragedy of a 20 year old young IIT aspirant boy suffering from acute liver failure whose chances of pulling through without a liver transplantation were minimal, and who was being air-lifted to a premiere hospital in Delhi for this heroic and costly treament. What adds to the sense of tragedy is that in a desperate bid to save thier dying son, the family had staked all their fortunes into his treatment (cost of air ambulance Rs 3 lac, cost of liver transplantation at Apollo hospital Rs 21 lac), and sent a young healthy cousin accompanying Rahul in the plane, who died as well, doubling the family’s toll. Was Rahul, in hindsight, destined to die at this young age? He seems to have been unlucky on se...

The familiar white coat worn by physicians as their distinctive dress for over 100 years, has been courting controversies lately. It has been observed that patients who have their blood pressure measured in a clinic or hospital by a white-coat-wearing-doctor have higher readings than they do when measured at home by their relatives.  This is apparently due to the anxiety that the white coat and the hospital setting seem to evoke in patients, and has been termed “White Coat Hypertension”. Mature clinicians often routinely subtract a few points from these measurements when entering records in case charts or calculating the dose of anti-hypertensive medications to be prescribed. Anxiety is also apparent in children who encounter pediatricians wearing the unfriendly white coat.  Kids often express their dislike for this dress by crying and screaming in protest. Casually attired personnel are more often allowed by small children to have access to their bellies or chest f...

Ever wondered how a medico transfers information on 226 human bones, 605 muscles, 800 diseases and 1200 medications, contained in 40 kg of medical books, to his brain and stores it as memory?  It is through a very useful memory-aid technique called Mnemonics. A mnemonic is a catchy verbal phrase, word, poem or song that helps a person remember something. Take for instance the tongue-twisting names of the 8 wrist bones: Pisiform, Triquetral, Lunate, Scaphoid, Trapezium, Trapezoid, Capitate and Hamate . How on earth would a young fresher remember them and in that order had it not been for the mnemonic “P lease T ake L ovely S’onia’ . T o T he C offee H ouse”.  What adds to the fun in the anatomy class is the freedom to improvise and use the name of one’s favourite “S”from the class girls, thereby etching the names of the carpal bones to one’s memory for life. Home-made Indian versions are often more exciting. Medicos across the Hindi speaking belt prefer “ S neh L ata T inde...

If the thought of visiting a hospital makes butterflies flutter in your stomach, you are neither alone nor is the fluttering without cause!  Hospitals are accident prone zones, and often the news or memory of an adverse experience someone has had while in hospital might be the cause for your unconscious anxiety. The World Health Organization estimates that an accident might be occuring in as many as1 in 300 patients admitted to hospital, ranking 10 th among the causes of hospital deaths. It accounts for approximately 30,000 deaths in the USA alone.  Compare this with 1 in a million (1,000,000) , the rate of accidents that occur in the airline industry, presently considered one of the safest. Don’t get me wrong and start imagining that hospitals gobble up a large number of healthy lives of cheerful people going on a holiday. In most instances, these are critically sick people on the proverbial razor’s edge, who often tumble downhill after an intervention that retrospectively ...

If you have been trying to reduce weight by substituting sugar with low-calorie artificial sweeteners, and not shrinking much, you are not alone!  Recent data shows why things may not be working out as well as we had imagined. Sugar containing sweets do cause rapid rise in blood sugar levels, something that diabetics need to avoid. A wide range of sugar substitutes are now available to add a measure of sweetness to their lives and for their taste buds. They can now eat all types of mithai, kheer, pastries baked goods, soft drinks, candy, puddings, canned foods, jams and jellies, dairy products, and scores of other foods and beverages. Artificial sweeteners are attractive alternatives to sugar because they add virtually no calories to your diet. In addition, you need only a fraction compared with the amount of regular sugar you would normally use for sweetness. If however losing weight is your target, artificial sweeeteners have not delivered as well as predicted. Despite the switc...