Series of articles in BBC ;very useful.
INTRODUCTION
The UK has one of the highest rates of death from heart disease in the world – one British adult dies from the disease every three minutes – and stroke is the country’s third biggest killer, claiming 70,000 lives each year.
Heart attacks occur when blood flow is blocked, often by a blood clot, while strokes are caused either by blocked or burst blood vessels in the brain. A range of other conditions, including heart failure, when blood is not pumped properly around the body, and congenital heart defects can also cause long term problems, and even death, for sufferers.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/health/2000/heart_disease/default.stm
Tag: disease
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Heart disease-1-BBC
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Misdiagnosed With Coma, Belgian Man Communicates After 23 Years
Very sad.Some doctors, despite fancy degrees,make a cursory examination and arrive at a prognosis.
In this case brain activity should have been mapped or at least pupil dilation examination should have been more thorough.
It is very hard to digest that that this should happen because of inefficiency of the doctors.
Many of us regard doctors next to God, forgetting that medicine is an evolving science ; most of the treatments are exploratory in Nature and these procedures have contra indications as well;some of the medications are effective with out anybody knowing why and how it cures.Classic example is grand mal seizure .We know that this seizure is triggered by sudden increase in electrical discharges in the brain and Eption is prescribed to treat this.But none knows how it works or whether it has side effects.
Because of commercialization of medicine , neither the doctor nor the patient has the time to discuss family history of the patient;nor are the patients interested in slow and steady cure or allowing body to take care with minimal supportive treatment.
It is imperative for patients to inform and discuss with the doctor,your family history,your known allergies and your symptoms.
It is also mandatory on the part of the patients to check the medicines prescribed for contra indications.If yes, inform the doctor and have the medicine changed.Even then you should also chek up on internet about the medicine’s efficacy.This may sound tedious, but will save not only money, but your life as well.
When going for surgery check before hand the anesthesia that is about to me administered and see if it it is compatible with your system for some anesthetics are incompatible.
If you had any disease prior to surgery that has resulted in Edema(especially pulmonary), Nitrous oxide is to be shunned.
While getting tests being carried out make sure at the lab, it is done for the part for which you have problem i.e.what the doctor has prescribed and see that the report is yours when you collect it.Never depute somebody else to collect it.
Also popping pills based on advertisement or based on what your doctor has prescribed earlier ailments is dangerous.
All these jobs are to be carried out by Doctors.Unfortunately,Doctors have no time for patients for they are too busy.Story:
Conscious but unable to communicate for 23 years after a car accident that was thought to have put him into a deep coma, a quadriplegic Belgian man has described how medical science finally put an end to his agonizing years of silence.
Now able to make himself understood via a computer and specially built keyboard, the man, Rom Houben, said in the Monday issue of the German magazine Der Spiegel that when doctors made the correct diagnosis, it was like starting a second life.
“I shall never forget the day when they discovered what was truly wrong with me — it was my second birth,” Mr. Houben, now 46, was quoted as saying.
Mr. Houben, who was an engineering student at the time of the accident, lives in a care home near Brussels. He was assumed to be in a persistent vegetative state until three years ago, when the breakthrough was made.
In the interview he recalled the aftermath of the car accident that paralyzed him and the realization that no one understood that he was fully conscious.
“I screamed, but there was nothing to hear,” he said. He added that he then became a witness to his own suffering as doctors and nurses tried to speak with him until they gave up all hope.
Using brain scanning techniques, Dr. Steven Laureys, a neurological researcher at the Liège University Hospital, discovered that Mr. Houben’s cerebral cortex was still active.
On Monday, Dr. Laureys, who recently published a paper on comas, said that as many as 4 out of 10 similar patients may have been misdiagnosed.
He also described the moment he realized, for the first time that Mr. Houben was fully conscious. “It was one of those rare moments where you really see that what you are doing is useful,” he said in a telephone interview.
“It was a very big moment not just for me but for the whole team, one of those few much-needed moments” for medical professionals.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/world/europe/24iht-coma.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a4 -
Popcorn and soda equal to three quarter pounders, study finds
It is an accepted fact that snacks eaten between meals hasten weight increase.But this is surprising.Those who consume snacks while watching TV , beware.
Story:
A medium popcorn and soft drink at an American cinema is the caloric equivalent of three McDonald’s quarter pounder hamburgers topped with a dozen scoops of butter, according to a new study.
Consuming the popcorn and drink means taking in three days worth of an adult’s recommended allowance of fat.
The study by the Center for Science and Public Interest (CSPI) found a medium popcorn and drink had 1,160 calories.
Even sharing a small portion of cinema popcorn between two would mean each person consuming a day’s worth of saturated fat.
Jayne Hurley, a CSPI senior nutritionist, said: “It’s hard enough for Americans to maintain a healthy weight even when limiting their eating to breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Who realises that they might be taking in a meal’s worth of calories during a movie? The healthiest snack to buy at the movies is no snack at all.”
The study, published in Nutrition Action Healthletter, also found that a bag of Reese’s Pieces sold at US cinemas contained 1,160 calories and 35 grams of saturated fat, the equivalent of eating a 16-ounce T-bone steak and a buttered baked potato.
Popcorn served in US cinemas is dramatically different from the standard sweet or salty sorts served in British cinemas. The American cinemas surveyed used coconut oil to pop the corn, and then topped it with butter or margarine, contributing significantly to calorie and fat count.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/foodanddrink/6610566/Popcorn-and-soda-equal-to-three-quarter-pounders-study-finds.html -
Cigarettes Harbor Many Pathogenic Bacteria.
Dedicated to Smokers.
ScienceDaily (Nov. 20, 2009) — Cigarettes are “widely contaminated” with bacteria, including some known to cause disease in people, concludes a new international study conducted by a University of Maryland environmental health researcher and microbial ecologists at the Ecole Centrale de Lyon in France.The research team describes the study as the first to show that “cigarettes themselves could be the direct source of exposure to a wide array of potentially pathogenic microbes among smokers and other people exposed to secondhand smoke.” Still, the researchers caution that the public health implications are unclear and urge further research.
“We were quite surprised to identify such a wide variety of human bacterial pathogens in these products,” says lead researcher Amy R. Sapkota, an assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s School of Public Health.
“The commercially-available cigarettes that we tested were chock full of bacteria, as we had hypothesized, but we didn’t think we’d find so many that are infectious in humans,” explains Sapkota, who holds a joint appointment with the University’s Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health and the department of epidemiology and biostatistics.
“If these organisms can survive the smoking process — and we believe they can — then they could possibly go on to contribute to both infectious and chronic illnesses in both smokers and individuals who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke,” Sapkota adds. “So, it’s critical that we learn more about the bacterial content of cigarettes, which are used by more than a billion people worldwide.”
http://digg.com/d31Aa6o -
Cancer curable?
It is not only these tests that are found to be a sham.As far as my knowledge goes, no body seems to have been cured of cancer.only the postponement of death, that too after painful repurcussions.Recurring cancer is called euphemistically ‘Remission’, meaning it has resurfaced.
Why not say in English that we do not have a cure?
Story:
EDITOR’S NOTE: Since AlterNet edited this piece, a new study was released by The Journal of the American Medical Association that also raises concerns about the efficacy of screenings to definitively detect breast cancer. The study, taken together with those cited here in Naomi Freundlich’s analysis, prompted a stunning shift in thinking at the American Cancer Society. According to the New York Times, “The American Cancer Society, which has long been a staunch defender of most cancer screening, is now saying that the benefits of detecting many cancers, especially breast and prostate, have been overstated.”
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