Diabetic retinopathy is the major cause of preventable
blindness in India
Doctors claim that diabetic
retinopathy is one of the biggest causes of preventable
blindness among Indian adults. Calling diabetes an uncontrolled disease in
India with 65 million cases, the doctors say that at least 40 percent of the
severe diabetics will suffer from diabetic retinopathy if steps are not taken
to control it. ‘Diabetic retiniopathy is the most dangerous eye disease that a
diabetic patient can suffer. Though the disease existed for long, but in the
recent years it has emerged as one of the major problems among diabetics,’ said
Roshani Gadge, consultant at Shreya Diabetes Centre.
Explaining diabetic retinopathy, she said: ‘It is the
result of damage to the tiny blood vessels that nourishes the retina. They leak
blood and other fluids that causes swelling of retinal tissue and clouding of
vision. The condition usually affects both eyes.’ According to AIIMS
statistics, around 50-60 lakh surgeries are conducted in India every year out
of which at least 15 lakh surgeries are related to diabetic retinopathy. Gadge
said that as diabetes is occurring more among the younger population, these
patients live with the disease for almost three decades which makes them more
prone to diabetic retinopathy.
Praveen Vashist, additional professor, community
ophthalmology at AIIMS, said that to check the actual number of diabetic
retinopathies in Delhi, AIIMS had conducted check-ups of 10,000 people, out of
which 1,246 were found suffering from diabetic retinopathy and had almost
become partially blind. ‘We had set up 166 camps across Delhi, specially in the
slums. Of the total number of people suffering from diabetic retinopathy, 550
were brought to AIIMS and provided free treatment,’ Vashist told IANS. Pradeep
Singh of Safdarjung Hospital said that though not every diabetic becomes prone
to diabetic retinopathy, they do suffer from other eye problems such as
cataract. ‘A longer-term effect of diabetes is that the lens of your eye can go
cloudy, which again needs surgery,’ he said.
Source: www.thehealthsite.com
14.11.2015
Death of a parent in childhood
increases suicide risk
A new study found a study of children from three
Scandinavian countries who were followed for up to 40 years, that death of a
parent in childhood may increase long-term risk of suicide. ‘Our study points
to the early mitigation of distress to reduce the risk of suicidal behaviour
among children who had a parent who died during childhood,’ the study noted.
For the study, Mai-Britt Guldin from Aarhus University, Denmark, and colleagues
used nationwide register data from 1968 to 2008 in Denmark, Sweden and Finland
(for a total of 7.3 million individuals) to identify 189,094 children whose
parent died before the child turned 18 (the bereaved group).
For comparison, the authors matched each bereaved child
with 10 other children who did not experience the stress related to the death
of a parent to examine the long-term risks of suicide after parental death (the
reference group). Both groups were followed for up to 40 years. During the
follow-up period, 0.14 percent of individuals from the bereaved group
commiitted suicide as compared to 0.07 percent from the reference group. The
researchers also found that the risk of suicide was higher among boys as
compared to girls. The study was published online in the journal JAMA
Psychiatry.
Source: www.thehealthsite.com
14.11.2015
Your values
never fail you. You fail your values
Kevin
Sparks Janeway
No comments:
Post a Comment