Health News-17: "World Heart Day 2008"

Statistics released on the occasion of the World Heart Day 2008 (September 28th) are frightening. One should take it as a warning signal and take due care of oneself.

* 1.5 billion people or nearly one in three adults over the age of 25, will have high blood pressure, one of the biggest single risk factors for Carrdio Vascular Disease(CVD), the world's number one killer.

* High blood pressure and CVD are increasing in prevalence, including among the young, and need immediate action and attention.

* World Heart Day, a major heart health awareness campaign now in its ninth year, is run by the World Heart Federation's member organizations in over 100 countries.

* World Heart Day activities include health checks, organised walks, runs and fitness sessions, public talks, stage shows, scientific forums, exhibitions, concerts, carnivals and sports tournaments.

* Cardio vascular diseases have been projected to cause 4.6 million deaths annually in India by the year 2020.

* High blood pressure (Hypertension: >140/90 mmHg) is directly responsible for 57% of all stroke deaths and 24% of all coronary disease deaths in India at an underestimate, there are 31.5 million hypertensives in rural and 34 million in urban populations.

* In the treatment of heart disease alone, non-compliance with drug regimens and inability to change lifestyle is believed to cause as many as 1,25,000 avoidable deaths.

Excerpts from "Know Your Risk of CVD" by Dr.R.Sivakumar, Senior Consultant, Interventional Cardiologist, Meenakshi Mission Hospital & Research Centre, Madurai in The Hindu, Madurai of September 28, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASE":
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cardiovascular_disease

Grateful thanks to Dr.Sivakumar,The Hindu and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

How To-82: "How to Cure a Cold Without Medicine"

How to Cure a Cold Without Medicine

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

One of the most helpful cold remedies is Vitamin C!

Steps

1. Take vitamin C tablets or eat citrus fruit regularly
2. Get extra vitamin C when cold symptoms appear
3. Remember to get plenty of natural vitamins in addition to any pills taken
4. Although not proven, try eating chicken noodle soup lessening the affects of a cold
5. You can also gargle some salt water to reduce mucous from the throat.
6. Another remedy is by taking a warm bath, the steam from the bath will thin out the mucous and temporarily stop coughing.
7. Drinking fluids will help relieve a cold sooner, so be sure to stay hydrated.
8. Honey disolved in tea will help to soothe a sore throat
9. Take the day off: sleep is the fastest way to get over a cold
10. Breathe in steam to get rid of a plugged nose
11. Take Umcka to shorten the duration of the cold. Google it if you don't know what it is.

Tips

• Drinking a cup of orange juice every morning is an easy way to get Vitamin C!
• Eating healthy and excersising can decrease your risk of getting sick.
• try putting something hot over your head and have tea in steamy water.
• Make sure to get a good amount of sleep because that will help your body to fight off the infection.

Warnings

• Be sure not to overdose on Vitamin C!
• Medicine can sometimes be needed, so be sure to see a doctor if symptoms persist or if you feel really sick.
• dont eat junk food when sick it will make it wose

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Cure a Cold Without Medicine. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

How To-81: "How to Treat a Black Eye"

How to Treat a Black Eye

from wikiHow - The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Black eyes can be embarrassing and nasty, not to mention painful. However, there is something you can do to minimize the pain you experience, the length of time you have your black eye as well as the size and color of it.

Steps

1. Apply ice as soon as you are injured. Your black eye is a bruise, and, like all bruises, it is caused by a build-up of blood underneath the skin that forms after tiny blood vessels, called capillaries, are damaged. Cold temperatures cause these vessels to contract slightly, restricting the amount of blood that is released.
   
2. Remove the ice after fifteen minutes. Extreme cold isn't good for your skin or muscles, and keeping the ice on for too long, especially in a delicate area such as your face, can cause further damage.
   
3. Reapply the ice after you have given your eye fifteen minutes to rest.
   
4. Repeat steps two and three for as long as possible. Don't be afraid to restart the "ice cycle" later on, even a few days after you were injured. Ice will help you heal faster, as well as numbing the pain.
   

Tips

• Be prepared for questions. People may think that you got into a fight or were a victim of domestic abuse. Understand that curiosity is human nature, and, if you are embarrassed about how you got hurt (say, you don't want your new boss to know that you tripped and hit your face on the corner of a table),lie.
  

Warnings

• If you have double vision, or your sight has become fuzzy or unclear, this indicates a more serious injury needing medical assistance.
  
• If you have suffered physical abuse or assault or were injured due to another party's negligence, contact the police or a lawyer. Someone has committed a crime, and it is your responsibility to both aid the legal process and ensure your own safety.
  

Things You'll Need

• Icepack or Small Bag of Ice
  

Related wikiHows

• How to Apply Eye Makeup on a Creaseless Eye
  
• How to Make a Red Eye
  
• How to Look People in the Eye
  
• How to Choose Eye Glasses
  

Article provided by wikiHow, a collaborative writing project to build the world's largest, highest quality how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Treat a Black Eye. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Health Tips-27: "Mosquito Menace"

A friend of mine likened mosquito to God, because it is also omnipresent and All-Powerful like God. Joking apart, mosquito is a real menace.

Spoiling your sleep, making you scratch the bitten spot, infecting you with serious diseases like malaria, dengue,chikungunya and brain fever.

We try everything that we can think of to get rid of the menace: mosquito coils, mosquito nets, sprays containing mosquito repellents etc. In the process, we have started poisoning ourselves with toxic chemicals like allethrin, which is commonly used in mosquito coils. We even close all windows, doors and every other hole through which it can come. We block all paths of ventilation and are ready to suffocate ourselves to death rather than be bitten by mosquitos. Still all our efforts fail and we despair not knowing what to do.

On occasions, I have taken 'Ledum Palustre', a homeopathy medicine in low and medium potencies for mosquito bites with definite relief.

My nephew, Aravind, never fails to light a stick of "dasangam" to stop mosquitoes from entering the house. To some extent, it stops them; an added benefit of this is the pleasant smell that emanates from the fumes. I have read somewhere "dasangam" and "agar bathis" (generally incense sticks) have a positive effect on the mind.

Mosquito repellents is big business now. In every home you find people using some sort of mosquito repellent or the other. As everybody knows, mosquitoes thrive and multiply where water stagnates, whether it is rain water or water from the gutters. Our civic bodies whose top most priority should be sanitation do not have time or money to maintain it. They spend public money to put up hoardings everywhere of their leaders or of themselves, which are no use to the general public and a clear misuse of public funds.

I have come across these interesting, useful and very practical articles in "THE WHY FILES" entitled, "Mosquito Bytes", "Protecting yourself from the flying nightmare", "Trivial facts about a non-trivial insect" and "Why do mosquitoes bite me more than my friends?". I feel it would be of interest to everybody. I am giving below their links, in case you want to read these articles:
http://whyfiles.org/016skeeter/index.html
http://whyfiles.org/016skeeter/7.html
http://whyfiles.org/016skeeter/8.html
http://whyfiles.org/071questions/7.html

For a detailed article on "MOSQUITO" from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosquito

If you have any additional material, you are most welcome to share them with me and other readers of this blog. Thank you.

Grateful thanks to Terry Devitt, S.V.Medaris, David Tenenbaum and Amy Toburen of The Why Files and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Health Facts-7: "Salt in Your Diet"

Your food tastes horrible without salt. It is an important part of your diet. Salt is a mixture of sodium chloride.

The truth is our bodies need sodium to help us regulate blood pressure and blood volume.

Sodium also assists in keeping our muscles and nerves in top shape.

But as in all things, moderation is the ultimate key.

Salt is linked with high blood pressure, heart disease, heart attacks as too much sodium thickens the blood.

The link to obesity is a result of sodium's ability to retain water which weighs heavy. Water retention may be mistakenly thought of as fat, as it will accumulate in the ankles and mid section.

Health literature can be confusing with its talk of grams and milligrams. Medical practitioners agree that no more than one and quarter teaspoons of salt per day should be used, about 2400 milligrams.

While it is good to use spices instead of adding table salt to your food, check the spice labels as sodium appears naturally too in small amounts in various spices. Read container labels and look for words such a 'soda' and 'sodium'. These are all indicators of salt's presence and it is best to keep the salt low.

Courtesy: Chennai Times, Supplement to The Times of India, Chennai, Sep.15, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "SALT": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt

Grateful thanks to The Times of India and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Health News-16: "Burning Incense sticks good for brain!"

Religious leaders have contended for millennia that burning incense is good for the soul. Now, biologists have learned that it is good for our brains too. An international team of scientists, including researchers from Johns Hopkins University and the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, describe how burning frankincense (resin from the Boswellia plant) activates poorly understood ion channels in the brain to alleviate anxiety or depression. This suggests that an entirely new class of depression and anxiety drugs might be right under our noses. "In spite of information stemming from ancient texts, constituents of Boswellia had not been investigated for psychoactivity," said Raphael Mechoulam, one of the research study's co-authors. "We found that incensole acetate, a Boswellia resin constituent, when tested in mice, lowers anxiety and causes antidepressive-like behaviour. Apparently, most present day worshippers assume that incense burning has only a symbolic meaning." To determine incense's psychoactive effects, the researchers administered incensole acetate to mice. They found that the compound significantly affected areas in brain known to be involved in emotions as well as in nerve circuits that are affected by current anxiety and depression drugs. Specifically, incensole acetate activated a protein in mammalian brains.....

Excerpt from Sunday Times of India, Chennai, June 29, 2008.

Wikipedia article on "Boswellia":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boswellia

Grateful thanks to The Times of India and Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Health Facts-6: "You are Taller in the Morning!"

Believe it or not, you are actually taller in the morning! This is because you have been lying down in bed during the night, which gives the disks separating your vertebrae, the opportunity to expand, thereby making you just a bit taller. By the end of the day, the disks have compressed again, making you shorter.

Tween Times, Supplement to The Times of India, Chennai, June 1, 2008.

Grateful thanks to The Times of India.

Health News-15: "Using Mobiles during Pregnancy"

A report says that using mobile phones during pregnancy could affect the health of the unborn child later in life.

Healing Power of Poetry

I am reproducing material from my poetry blog (Your Poems and My Poems), which I felt could find a place in this blog as it discusses about the therapeutic value of Poetry:

"Dr.Smiley Blanton, one of America's great psychiatrists, wrote a charming book, "THE HEALING POWER OF POETRY". He found, in his work with patients, that emotional troubles could be helped by the healing properties of great poetry. (From "Treasury of Courage and Confidence" by Dr.Norman Vincent Peale).

(On an impulse, I tried Google Search for "Healing Power of Poetry" and got results within 0.34 seconds. It gave about 7890 links! I am furnishing details about one of the articles that I could access immediately and which also impressed me, namely, "Finding the Words to Say It: The Healing Power of Poetry" by Robert Carroll, UCLA Department of Psychiatry, Los Angeles CA 90024, USA. It was published in an Oxford University Press (OUP) jounral, namely, "Evidence-based Complementary and Alternative Medicine".

Another interesting feature of this article is it has been published under Open Access model and though the author retains copyright, "users are entitled to use, reproduce, disseminate, or display the open access version of this article for non-commercial purposes provided that: the original authorship is properly and fully attributed; the Journal and Oxford University Press are attributed as the original place of publication with the correct citation details given; if an article is subsequently reproduced or disseminated not in its entirety but only in part or as a derivative work this must be clearly indicated. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions{at}oupjournals.org."
http://ecam.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/2/2/161

As the article talks about the therapeutic value of poetry, I think I should also post a copy in my other blog devoted to Alternative Medicine and Health.

Grateful thanks to Dr.Robert Carroll and OUP."

Health News-14: "Children born in Govt Hospitals"

This year so far 1,86,000 children are born in Government Hospitals in India.

Courtesy: Ananda Vikatan, Tamil weekly, September 10, 2008.

Grateful thanks to Ananda Vikatan.