Tag Archives: health

Education, Science and Technology

Teflon is toxic

Teflon and health

Teflon-coated cookware is the ultimate in cookware convenience. It keeps food from sticking to the pan, allows the diet conscious to use less fat while cooking, and makes washing up easier. Teflon, known chemically as polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), is a plastic-like substance made up of a complex mixture of perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs). All good non-stick coatings intended for use in cooking are made with PTFE. The difference between brands lies in the proportion in which PTFE is blended with other materials.

Teflon is composed of several toxic chemicals that can be released from heated pans into the air and into food. The more often you use your pans at high temperatures, the quicker the coating will break down and emit tiny particles and gases into the air. As this happens (usually within about two years of continual use), washing Teflon-coated pans by hand or in a dishwasher with harsh detergents may accelerate the process further.

The chemicals emitted by Teflon are harmful to humans and deadly, even in minute amounts, to pet birds. Even if you’ve never used a Teflon-coated pan, there’s a good chance that you are carrying some of Teflon’s breakdown products in your body because the substance has a wide range of uses outside the home. PFCs have been shown to accumulate in human organs like the liver, gall bladder and thyroid gland. In other primates, exposure to one of Teflon’s breakdown products, PFOA, has led to hypothyroidism (the condition of having an underactive thyroid). This effect is also apparent in human studies. A prolonged state of hypothyroidism is a risk for obesity, insulin resistance and thyroid cancer.

Teflon may reduce the amount of fat we cook with, make washing up easier and clothes and carpets last longer; but it is a frivolous and unnecessary substance the benefits of which pale beside the possibility of killing beloved pets and raising your risk of heart disease, diabetes, birth defects and cancer.

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Culture and History, Education, Public Administration, Science and Technology, Social Studies

Happy National Doctor’s Day

Every year on 1st July India celebrates National Doctor’s Day in honor of Bharat Ratna Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy former chief minister of West Bengal and someone who represented the best of his profession at a critical time in India’s modern history.

He is still considered the greatest Chief Minister of West Bengal and a visionary of developing the State as after independence lot of industrial development took place in the State.
He was the one to establish the Indian Medical Association in 1928 and the Medical Council of India. He also played a crucial role in establishing the Indian Institute of Mental Health, the Infectious Disease Hospital, and even Kolkata’s first-ever postgraduate medical college.

My Tribute to our life Saviors

And on this Doctor’s Day salute to all the doctors and healthcare workers for their selfless service. In this pandemic, they are real-life heroes, bringing hope in these difficult situations. Keeping us safe, fighting the coronavirus war at The frontline. Their invaluable contribution makes people recover from this dreadful disease.

Education

IMPORTANCE OF DRINKING WATER FOR YOUR SKIN

Drinking an adequate amount of water daily is essential for overall good health because water helps in digestion, circulation of blood, absorption and even excretion. But when we talk about drinking large amounts of water daily for proper skin health does it have any benefits??

Yes it do have certain benefits. Claims have been made that drinking water gives you a radiant, healthy, younger looking complexion and a lot more skin benefits.

The fact is that skins is an organ and just like an other body part our skin is made up of cells where these skin cells too are made up of water. Without sufficient water the organs will certainly not function properly at their best. When your skin does not gets adequate amount of water then it turns dry, tight and flaky due to lack of hydration which will turn our skin more prone to wrinkling.

As water is lost in large quantities every day, you need to replace it somehow. The unfortunate truth about drinking water is that it will reach all other organs before it reaches to skin. So it’s important to apply water on our skin in every possible ways.

Drink more water at least 10 glasses ever day. This will help body rid of toxins and will make your skin glowy. Those who suffer from acne will also feel the same results. But it is to be remembered that nothing will happen overnight, it will take some couple of weeks to see the results in your skin till then start increasing intake of water every day so that you can see how hydration can affect your own skin. But for this you have to try if initially it will not benefit you much then certainly it won’t even hurt you.

Education, Law and Order, Public Administration, Social Studies

SAY NO TO DRUGS

On International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, we should be more serious about this hazard, that destroys the lives of millions including youngsters.the theme for this year’s anti-drug abuse day Is “Better Knowledge for Better Care”. The main idea behind this theme is to stress upon the need of improving the understanding of the world drug problem.

The day is also marked as an expression of its determination to strengthen action as well as cooperation and achieve the society which is free of drug abuse.Around 35.6 million people across the world are victims of drug abuse, according to the World Drug Report 2020 published by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Young adults and teenagers account for the largest share of those using drugs and most of them suffer from HIV, Hepatitis C and other related diseases. Only one out of eight people who need treatment and rehabilitation are able to get it, according to the report.

So many people want to quit but they can’t due to lack of awareness and social stigma. We need to take a step to secure our life and future, this is our responsibility being a citizen of a country .

Education, Science and Technology, Social Studies

Are you consuming Bad fats?

Fats are not always harmful to the human body. Like other essential nutrients for the human body, fats are also important but everything in a huge amount will affect our body negatively.

There are two types of fats good fats and bad fats

Good fats are unsaturated fats and omega 3s are healthy for our body they boost our energy level, fight fatigue, improve our mood, and even help in weight loss.

while bad fats such as saturated fats or trans fats are responsible for our weight gain, fatigue, raise cholesterol which ultimately causes many serious cardiovascular diseases, cancer, obesity, and diabetes.HDL cholesterol is the “good” kind of cholesterol found in your blood.LDL cholesterol is the “bad” kind. The key is to keep LDL levels low and HDL high, which may protect against heart disease and stroke.

 When we hear cholesterol it always has a bad impression in our mind. We think it is not good for our body but as like other nutrients cholesterols are also important in a sufficient amount for our body, until it doesn’t become bad for the health. 

Most of the foods that contain these types of fats are solid at room temperature, such as:

  • butter
  • margarine
  • shortening
  • beef or pork fat

 Most saturated fats are animal fats. They’re found in high-fat meats and dairy products.

Saturated fat sources include:

  • fatty cuts of beef, pork, and lamb
  • dark chicken meat and poultry skin
  • high-fat dairy foods (whole milk, butter, cheese, sour cream, ice cream)
  • tropical oils (coconut oil, palm oil, cocoa butter)
  • lard

Eating too much-saturated fat can increase blood cholesterol levels and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels.

Traditionally, doctors have linked higher saturated fat intakes with increased heart disease risks. This idea has been called into question more recently.

Short for “trans fatty acids,” trans fat is generated synthetically and appears in foods that contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. These are the worst fats for you. You might find trans fat in:

  • fried foods (French fries, doughnuts, deep-fried fast foods)
  • margarine (stick and tub)
  • vegetable shortening
  • baked goods (cookies, cakes, pastries)
  • processed snack foods (crackers, microwave popcorn)

Like saturated fat, trans fat can raise LDL cholesterol, also known as “bad” cholesterol. Trans fat can also suppress high-density lipoprotein (HDL) levels or “good” cholesterol.

Essential fatty acids- These are the fatty acids can not be synthesized. There are two types of essential fatty acids-

  1. Linoleic acid (Omega 6)
  2. Alpha linoleic acid 

 Linoleic and Linoleic acids are the essential fatty acids that are derived from foods containing Omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids. 

Alpha Linoleic acid is a type of omega-3 fatty acid. The best source of Omega- 3 is oily fish. It can also be derived from other marine sources, such as algal oils. ALA, on the other hand, is mainly obtained from nuts and seeds.

Here are the amounts of omega-6s in 100 grams (3.5 oz) of the following foods:

  • Soybean oil: 50 grams
  • Corn oil: 49 grams
  • Mayonnaise: 39 grams
  • Walnuts: 37 grams
  • Sunflower seeds: 34 grams
  • Almonds: 12 grams
  • Cashew nuts: 8 grams

Here are the amounts and types of omega-3s in one serving of the following foods:

  • Salmon: 4.0 grams EPA and DHA
  • Mackerel: 3.0 grams EPA and DHA
  • Sardines: 2.2 grams EPA and DHA
  • Anchovies: 1.0 grams EPA and DHA
  • Chia seeds: 4.9 grams ALA
  • Walnuts: 2.5 grams ALA
  • Flaxseeds: 2.3 grams ALA

Anything that we consume in our diet should be healthy along with the taste.

Next time do check whether you are consuming something which is not good for your health…

References-

1. Siri-Tarino, P.W., et al., Saturated fatty acids and risk of coronary heart disease: modulation by replacement nutrients. Curr Atheroscler Rep, 2010. 12(6): p. 384-90.

2. Hu, F.B., Are refined carbohydrates worse than saturated fat? Am J Clin Nutr, 2010. 91(6): p. 1541-2.

Education, Research Paper, Social Studies

Mental Health: Children, Young People, and Families

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Mental health is a widely overlooked aspect of a person’s health. People don’t consider it as important as their physical health, mostly because the injuries are not visible. However, they often forget that the signs are always there. Mental health problems are often directly proportional to the day-to-day happenings in our lives. Most mental health problems start developing at a very young age, but parents often ignore the warning signs. At such an impressionable age, children need to be taught about their mental well being too. It is imperative that we address the issue of mental health among children, young people, and families.

Children and Young People

It is seen many-a-times that the physical needs of a child are obvious, but his or her mental needs may be neglected. Even when the red flags are identified, there is a stigma associated with mental illness.

Some problems that children suffer from are ADHD, autism, anxiety, anorexia (eating disorder), depression, and bipolar disorder. Warning signs include intense mood swings, self-harm, substance abuse, sudden appetite loss, fidgeting, and continuous nightmares.

health

A few suggestions to nurture a child or adolescent’s mental health could include talking to them about their day; asking them if they are facing any problems at school. This strengthens your bond with them and they start trusting you more. As a parent, make sure that your ward eats a healthy and balanced diet, is physically fit, and takes part in outdoor activities.

Provide children with a healthy environment at home; a child should feel secure in his surroundings. Help them build their self-esteem and confidence while talking to them. Encourage their first steps towards new interests. This would enable them to open up more and express their feelings and doubts. And most importantly, don’t condemn them when they do something wrong. Instead, let them know their mistake and work together to improve it.

Families

It is obvious that an individual’s mental health problems will have consequences for others within his social networks and most importantly his family. When it comes to mental illness, the emotional and behavioral consequences for family members go largely ignored along with having a huge impact on their financial component.

menheal

Family life often becomes unsettled and unpredictable as the needs of the ill become paramount day by day. The afflicted often feels that he’s isolating those close to him. Children may find it difficult to understand why their parent is not his/her usual self. Therefore, many tend to blame themselves and grow up feeling abandoned, lonely, and isolated.

In case a family member suffers from a mental health problem, you should not let him feel dismissed and disregarded. Instead, you could try to understand what he is going through, his inner turmoil, and try to help him cope with that. Children need special care at this time as they are perplexed by the happenings in their lives.

You should try to mend the broken relations, leave the toxic people in your lives behind, and create a positive impact on others’ lives.

Image Courtesy: Google

Public Administration, Social Studies

Health facilities in life support

There is constant fear among the frontline health workers in India that the system is under severe stress and can crumble anytime in the middle of the covid-19 pandemic. India is a country that spends just over 1% of its GDP in health infrastructure. Hundreds of people lining up from different parts of the country outside hospitals like AIIMS, RML, GTB etc. is testament to our governments failing to provide affordable basic healthcare facilities to people. Even before the pandemic hit the country, there was 82% shortage of specialists and professionals in all government hospitals. Same goes for lab technicians, nurses and pharmacists.

Now, the covid-19 pandemic has tested and even defeated the health facilities of countries that provide the best healthcare in the world. Even in countries like Italy, Spain, United States and France; hospitals were continuously running out of staff, beds, oxygen cylinders, ventilators, medicines and many other essentials. There was a severe shortage of doctors, nurses and other medical staff to attend the admitted patients and then treatment was eventually handed out in priority basis.

Image
Wedding halls in Delhi being converted into corona isolation wards

Now consider the nightmare scenario India is currently in. Already the number of positive cases are rising exponentially with no signs of slowing down or even flattening. The ICUs and general wards of Delhi and Mumbai hospitals are almost full. Patients are being denied admission and treatment even for the most serious cases.  There are harrowing reports of people struggling to get a hospital bed including many grieving relatives saying that their loved ones died at the doorsteps of hospitals. In some cases, people even visited 6-7 hospitals and were still denied admission citing non availability of beds.

Nearly 70% beds vacant in COVID-19 hospitals run by Delhi govt, private facilities almost full
Patients waiting for their admission in a hospital in Delhi

And the misery persists even after death. Dozens of grieving men and women keep waiting outside hospitals throughout the day to identify the bodies of their loved ones who died due to COVID-19. Bodies are pilling up in hospital wards. There are chilling visuals of dead bodies left unattended by the hospital staff along with the patients. The relatives are handed over wrong bodies and patients are dangling out of their beds. These sights are becoming increasingly common in government hospitals all across the country.

After receiving hundreds of public interest litigations and taking suo moto cognizance after looking at numerous reports of gross violations of human rights, the high courts and the Supreme Court have come down heavily on central and state governments. The Supreme Court said that the situation is “horrendous” with respect to the handling of Covid-19 patients in Delhi, the capital city, and that the patients are being treated “worse than animals”. The court also slammed the Delhi government on mishandling of the situation and asked them why do the patients have to undergo such pathetic conditions in the hospitals. The situation is more or less the same in the rest of the country too. In Maharashtra, the state which has the maximum number of coronavirus cases, the high court had to direct the government to conduct more tests and increase the number of beds. Many doctors and health experts have said that Mumbai, the financial capital of India, has less than 30 ICU beds remaining.

Research Paper, Social Studies

Falling Apart

Our life is never about the destination. Life is a beautiful journey with a lot of stops along the way. We feel if we know what to expect in our future, we will be ready for it. This imagery has become so much a part of our language that we don’t even stop to think about what it actually means for us.

When things don’t go our way, it feels like everything is falling apart. Despite having our bouts of feeling depressed we try to remain in a continual state of happiness. However, this is possible only if we accept the fact that everything is as good or bad as one’s opinion makes it.

Everyone is in a constant state of falling apart. How you deal with it is dictated by your outlook on life. You could, after all, try these few things.

  1. Never hide your emotions

Some people like to cry when they are overwhelmed. Tears are, in fact, a way for your body to get rid of those excess emotions, and if you hold these emotions too long they may corrode your insides. Talk to people – your loved ones, your friends. You will find that every one of them has something difficult going on in their lives.

  1. Be honest

Be true to yourself. If you cannot admit your problem to yourself, you can never openly talk about it which means you will never be able to take the first step towards solving that problem. So much pain mostly comes from not telling the truth. Lying is mostly the reason for things falling apart. After admitting the truth to yourself, make sure you always tell the truth to those around you. It may hurt for a second but eventually, things will fall back into place.

  1. Ask for help

The society inherently and subconsciously teaches us that asking for help is pathetic and a sign of weakness. This makes a person feel trapped and alone, inevitably hurting him and those around him. Accept the fact that everyone struggles at some point in the journey of their life. Instead of acting like it is not universal, start hailing vulnerability for what it actually is – a sign of strength, openness, and hope. Do not be afraid to ask for help.

  1. Have your cheat moments

Just like people have their cheat days from diets, have your cheat moments from the problems you are facing. Do not let your pain entirely rule every aspect of your life. Enjoy some trivial and jovial moments of life guilt-free.

  1. There will be days when you are not okay, and that is okay

The journey of life is a bumpy one. There will be days where the pain and reality of your situation will consume you. Allow yourself to feel helpful on such days. But never forget that tomorrow is a good day and the sun will eventually shine brightly again. When it seems like life is falling apart, it may actually be falling into a place better than expected.

Image Courtesy: Google

Research Paper

hydroxychloroquine doesn’t reduce Mortality

Hydroxychloroquine cloroquina medicine with pills

The RECOVERY trial, in the U.K., has found no clinical benefit from the use of hydroxychloroquine in hospitalized patients with COVID-19. 

The RECOVERY trail which is the large randomized controlled trial in the U.K. began in the march. This trail has enrolled over 11,000 patients.

It is a dynamic trial assessing five candidate drugs and convalescent plasma therapy for treating COVID-19 in patients in U.K. hospitals. 

The trial investigators found that there was no significant benefit in mortality reduction in the intervention group, which was the primary objective.

It then came to light that the drug did not have the desired beneficial effects. 

“We have concluded that there is no beneficial effect of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalized with COVID-19. We have therefore decided to stop enrolling participants to the hydroxychloroquine arm of the RECOVERY Trial with immediate effect,” a June 5 press release says.

According to the release, a total of 1,542 patients were randomized to receive hydroxychloroquine for 10 days while 3,132 patients in the control arm received only standard care. 

The researchers found that there was “no significant difference in the primary endpoint of 28-day mortality”. While mortality was 25.7% in the intervention group, 23.5% in the control group, which is not statistically significant.

There was no evidence of beneficial effects in-hospital stay duration and other endpoints, either.

Outcomes measured

The primary outcome was the reduction in all-cause mortality within 28 days of randomization. 

The secondary outcomes measured were to assess any reduction in duration of hospital stay and need for and duration of ventilator or ECMO within 28 days and up to six months after randomization.

“These data convincingly rule out any meaningful mortality benefit of hydroxychloroquine in patients hospitalized with COVID-19,” the release says. The researchers will soon make the results available.

Peter Horby, Professor of Emerging Infectious Diseases and Global Health at the Nuffield Department of Medicine, the University of Oxford, and Chief Investigator for the trial says in the release that “Hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine have received a lot of attention and have been used very widely to treat COVID patients despite the absence of any good evidence. The RECOVERY trial has shown that hydroxychloroquine is not an effective treatment in patients hospitalized with COVID-19,” 

Huge speculation

Deputy Chief Investigator Martin Landray from the University of Oxford says: “There has been huge speculation and uncertainty about the role of hydroxychloroquine as a treatment for COVID-19, but an absence of reliable information from large randomized trials. The preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial are quite clear — hydroxychloroquine does not reduce the risk of death among hospitalized patients with this new disease.”

“The RECOVERY trial, in addition to the signals from other studies we have received so far, is enough to convince me to not offer hydroxychloroquine to hospitalized patients,” Nahid Bhadelia, a physician at Boston Medical Center, told Science. Prof. Landray added to this, saying: “If you, your spouse, your mother gets admitted to hospital and is offered hydroxychloroquine, don’t take it”.

Post-exposure prophylaxis

Another trial found that hydroxychloroquine drug was not effective even as post-exposure prophylaxis in asymptomatic participants who have had high-risk exposure with a confirmed COVID-19 case. Nearly 88% (719 of 821 participants) had such high-risk exposure. The results of the trial published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that the incidence of COVID-19 illness was not statistically significant in the group that received the drug compared with the control group. While 49 of 414 (11.8%) participants who received the drug developed illness, 58 of 407 (14.3%) participants who got the placebo fell ill. Side-effects were more in the intervention group but no serious adverse events were reported.