4, July 2014

Stiff arteries alone can cause high BP

In what could open a new debate on what actually causes high blood pressure, a team of scientists have suggested that stiff arteries can be the main culprit.

In experiments over a computer model of a 'virtual human', they found that stiff arteries alone are enough to cause high blood pressure.

"The arterial stiffness represents a major therapeutic target. This is contrary to existing models, which typically explain high blood pressure in terms of defective kidney function," explained Klas Pettersen, a researcher at the Norwegian University of Life Sciences.

When blood pressure travels down the aorta from the heart, a special group of cells in the aortic wall, called baroreceptors, sense the pressure in this stretch of the aortic wall and send signals with this information to the nervous system.

If the blood pressure is too high, these cells send stronger signals and the body is able to lower blood pressure.

However, if the aorta gets stiffer, as typically happens with age, this stretch of the aorta is not as sensitive as it once was in measuring blood pressure.

With the stiffening of the wall that follows ageing, these sensors become less able to send signals that reflect the actual blood pressure.

"Our mathematical model predicts the quantitative effects of this process on blood pressure," Pettersen emphasised.

If this is proven right, "arterial stiffness and baroreceptor signaling will become hotspot targets for the treatment of high blood pressure and the development of new medicines and medical devices", said Stig W. Omholt from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.

The model predictions were compared with data on the health history of 74,000 people, including blood sample collection from 65,000 people, said the study recently published in PLOS Computational Biology.

High blood pressure affects more than one billion people worldwide. But doctors cannot fully explain the cause of 90 per cent of all cases.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

04.07.2014

Doc, the Internet says I have cancer

Are you one of those people who googles lumps + cancer the moment you spot a bump on your body? Do you imagine suffering from an ailment only because you have read about it on the internet? Have you ever indulged in self-medication, or advised a family member/friend to take a particular medicine, after reading about it online?

If the answer to even one of the questions is a 'yes', then you're a doctor's worst nightmare come true.

A recent survey, conducted across 27 cities including Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Ahmedabad revealed that doctors have been struggling to deal with patients who use the internet to find out what ails them.

Making matters worse are hundreds of thousands of online forums where people discuss their ailments and symptoms, which often result in patients indulging in self-medication, and also end up arguing with doctors upon being told that their ailmentisnotevenclosetotheworsediseasestheyhad imagined, said majority of the 650 doctors who participated in the survey.

The doctors, including specialists and super specialists, termed people's increasing dependence on the internet to find medical cures and search for symptoms as a "major strain on the doctor-patient relationship".

Forty-four per cent of the 650 doctors surveyed said that most of their patients were "overloaded with information", while 37 per cent doctors were of the opinion that their patients considered themselves "medical experts" after reading about the ailments on the internet.

As many as 38 per cent of the doctors surveyed said that majority of their patients who participated in online forums to discuss their ailments were "grossly misinformed" about the symptoms.

Out of the 650 doctors surveyed, 44% said their patients were "overloaded with medical info gathered online". Thirty-seven per cent doctors said that many of their patients think of themselves as medical experts.

Fifty per cent of the doctors surveyed said internet has made their interaction with patients "difficult".

More than 90 per cent of the doctors surveyed said that patients imagine the worst of ailments after googling the symptoms.

Source: www.timesofindia.com

04.07.2014

Everything is beautiful once you change the way you see it