18 May, 2013

Hypertension: India's silent killer

Fast-moving lifestyles, unearthly hours at work, stress, addiction to alcohol and unhealthy meals are making more and more Indians fall prey to high blood pressure at a very young age.
"The biggest problem with hypertension is that there are no symptoms. Thus people tend to be unaware that they have hypertension," Ravi Kasliwal, senior cardiac consultant at Medanta-the Medicity, told us.

"High blood pressure (BP) is a major public health problem in India and its prevalence is rapidly increasing among both urban and rural populations. In fact, hypertension is the most prevalent chronic disease in India," he said.  A classic case is of Samir Soni, who like any other 23-year-old, was coping with work at a call centre and the demands of a fast moving city till one day he suffered a stroke at work.

Doctors say the Soni case is typical of urban Indian youth who silently suffer from high blood pressure without realising it and which ultimately leads to such major health problems like strokes.

Blaming Indian food habits and a sedentary lifestyle, Kasliwal said: "Most of us grab snacks like namkeens and samosas when hungry between meals. Not only do these have a high salt content but they are also sources of trans-fats."

Vipul Roy, senior consultant at the Indraprastha Apollo hospital told us: "Youths are very casual about their health. Most of the time they are glued to TV sets or computers and have very little time for exercise."

Roy advocated an awareness regimen among the young about the perils of hypertension, including special health classes at the school level.

In India, experts say a large number of people are in the pre-hypertension category - BP of 130/90 against the normal range of 120/90. People with BP of above 140/90 are considered to be in the hypertension category.

The prevalence of hypertension ranges from 20-40 per cent in urban adults and 12-17 per cent among rural adults.

Experts estimate that the number of patients in India with high BP is likely to rise from about 140 million in 2008 to nearly 215 million by 2030 along with an increase in the risk of complications such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney problems and other serious illnesses.

Given the seriousness of the problem, WHO has selected hypertension as its theme for 2013.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

18.05.2013

Soon a detailed study on diabesity: Doctors

A study will be conducted across India to explore better therapy to control the double-barrel menace of diabetes coupled with obesity, doctors said Thursday.

"We have found that Indian population is predisposed to obesity at a younger age and diabetes is a growing menace. The study will be ethnic-specific. We will conduct the study in south, central and north India," said Deep Goel, director, bariatric surgery, BLK Super Speciality Hospital.

"With the help of various institutions, we will start the study in a couple of months," Goel said.

The detailed study across the country on diabesity (diabetes plus obesity) will be supported by University of Dresden, Germany and Beijing Genomics Institute of China. BLK Super Speciality Hospital in the national capital is the nodal centre in India for the study.

According to the doctors, mostly affluent urban Indians are now obese and obesity is increasing rapidly among urban school children.

The populations which was under-nourished for a long time are now exposed to the overnourishment of the modern world through globalisation and westernisation, which has led to increased consumption of junk food, said Praneet Kaur, CEO, BLK Super Speciality Hospital.

"With the bad fat nutritional history of the developing world, the epidemic is exploding in developing countries. In order to address this, the study will help to explore various modalities and therapeutic interventions," Kaur said.

Indians are more vulnerable to diabetes because genetically they have a higher percentage of body fat to muscle compared to Europeans.

As per the doctors, the fat is usually deposited around the abdomen, where it interferes with insulin and increases sugar levels in the blood, causing diabetes in people with a low body mass index.

The study will also discuss about safety, durability of diabetes recovery and long- term outcome of surgical diabetes therapy.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

18.05.2013

No evil can happen to a good man, neither in life nor after death

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