SWEET HEART

Don’t ask what so much to talk about the HEART is; Because Heart is reducing its age limits. Heart beat’s of our youngster’s is in a disorder. Within seconds someone is dead in the world due to heart disease. Dr shetty will give us some tips about small yet very important things to keep in mind.

1. It worries when someone healthy dies due to heart attack, why is that? “This is called silent attack (Silent killer). That’s why every person after 30 should take check up regularly”

2. When will our heart feels stressed? How can we reduce it?
”When our attitude towards life changes then stress will reduce itself. Don’t insist on being 100% perfect. Bible says no one is perfect.”

3. Walking or jogging which one is better?
”Walking is better because when jogging our body becomes weary and joints of our body will have pain and problems”

4. Does Low blood pressure people have heart attack?
”Chances are light”

5. Is it enough to scare cholesterol after 30?
From the child hood itself cholesterol deposit’s in our body. After 30, cholesterol may increases in our body.

6. How does irregular eating affect the heart?
The neutrality of our heart is lost by eating Junk food & Fast food. Therefore Body can’t produce enzymes to digest food. This leads to heart disease

7. How do we define Junk food?
Fried food of New generation, International fast food corporations like Mc Donald’s , Pizza Hut…etc even some traditional foods like Samoosa and even Masala dosha are considered to be junk food.

8. Does Yoga helps?
Yes Yoga helps in keeping a healthy heart

9. What are the main causes teenage and youngsters are increasing in heart disease?
Lifestyle, Junk food, Smoking, not doing Exercise, any many reasons is some of the causes….

10. Does some local food like fish is good for a healthy heart?
No

11. Is heart disease more prone to people having asthma?
No

To be continued.......

Dementia

Dementia (from Latin de- "apart, away" + mens (genitive mentis) "mind") is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging.

Particularly affected areas may be memory, attention, language, and problem solving. Especially in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time (not knowing what day of the week, day of the month, month, or even what year it is), in place (not knowing where they are), and in person (not knowing who they are).

Symptoms of dementia can be classified as either reversible or irreversible depending upon the etiology of the disease. Less than 10% of cases of dementia have been reversed. Dementia is a non-specific term encompassing many disease processes, just as fever is attributable to many etiologies.

Without careful assessment, delirium can easily be confused with dementia and a number of other psychiatric disorders because many of the signs and symptoms are also present in dementia (as well as other mental illnesses including depression and psychosis)
Sources: Wikipedia | Starbulletin
Photo: Torontophotobug

Eye exam may spot dementia risk in elderly!!!

By David Douglas

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Examining the blood vessels in the retina of the eye may give a clue to the mental status of elderly people and their risk of developing dementia, researchers report.

The presence of retinal damage, or retinopathy, "is a marker of early damage to the blood vessels in the brain, and is a harbinger of future stroke risk," senior investigator Dr. Tien Yin Wong of the University of Melbourne Centre for Eye Research, Australia, told Reuters Health.

In order to see if retinopathy might also be linked to cognitive function and dementia, Wong and colleagues studied retinal photographs of 2211 people aged 69 to 97 years. More than half of them had hypertension, i.e., high blood pressure.

After adjusting for factors such as age, diabetes, and smoking status, subjects with retinopathy had lower scores on a standard test of cognitive status than those without (39 versus 41), the team reports in the medical journal Stroke

In subjects with high blood pressure, retinopathy doubled the likelihood of having dementia. No such relationship was seen in those without high blood pressure.

The investigators concluded that there is a "modest cross-sectional association between retinopathy signs and poorer cognitive function and, in persons with hypertension, with dementia."

SOURCE: Stroke, July 2007. | Reuters

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Eye checks urged for signs of later heart disease

By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - A study in Australia has shown that changes occur in blood vessels in the eyes of heavier and obese children from as young as six, warning signs that might be linked to cardiovascular disease in later life.

Previously, these changes -- widening of veins and narrowing of arteries -- were only observed in the retinas of heavy teenagers and adults, and this is the first time that such troubling signs have been seen in children so young.

Writing in the International Journal of Obesity, the researchers called for extensive monitoring of these subtle blood vessel changes as they can be an early indication of risks such as hypertension and stroke when the children enter adulthood.

"It was initially thought that the risk profile developed in adolescents and young adults, but (this study) suggests that these changes probably occur even at an early age," Paul Mitchell, a professor at the University of Sydney's Centre for Vision Research, said in a telephone interview.

"It may be worthwhile examining children or adolescents for subtle retinal vessel size as these could be markers of a person's risks as they get older into adulthood."

The retina is a thin layer of neural cells that lines the back of the eyeball.

The study involved 1,740 six-year-olds from 34 schools in Sydney.

After accounting for differences such as sex, ethnicity, length of the eyeball, birth weight and mean blood pressure, the researchers found unique changes in minute blood vessels in the retinas of children who were over the mean weight.

The average diameter of their retinal veins was 2.1 microns larger than those of their lighter peers. However, the average diameter of retinal arteries in the heavy children was 2.2 microns narrower than other children.

Veins carry low-oxygen blood back to the heart, while arteries carry oxygenated blood from the heart.

"The reason for widening of the veins may simply relate to a larger blood volume associated with a heavier child. It's harder to explain the effects on the retinal (arteries). It could be a reflex response in obese children, but that remains to be seen," Mitchell added.

It also remained to be seen if the changes to blood vessels were reversible.

"In adult populations, we haven't (seen) reversibility so often. For the narrowing of arteries associated with elevated blood pressure, even when blood pressure is back to normal, the arteries don't seem to respond, but we don't know about the (retinal blood vessels)," Mitchell said.

SOURCES: Reuters

$30 million gift creates IU eye institute

By Tom Murphy

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS – Indiana University plans to build one of the top eye research institutes in the country thanks to a $30 million donation announced Friday.

The contribution, by local philanthropists Eugene and Marilyn Glick, will allow the university to construct a $20 million, three-story building and create a $10 million endowment for research. That will help create one of the top 10 eye research institutes in the United States, according to IU School of Medicine officials.

“Marilyn and Gene, you have made it possible for us to create the future of advanced eye care right here on the campus of the IU School of Medicine,” outgoing university President Adam Herbert said during a crowded news conference before he walked over to hug Eugene Glick.

The Eugene and Marilyn Glick Eye Institute will create 40,000 square feet of research space for the school’s existing ophthalmology program. The school hasn’t selected a site for the new building and has no construction schedule yet.

The endowment will advance research in areas like glaucoma, cataracts and diabetic retinopathy, and university leaders said it will help them attract prominent researchers.

“I may not live to see it, but I want at least one breakthrough in causes of blindness to be found at the Glick Institute, and you guys better work at it,” Marilyn Glick said, as her audience laughed.

Last year, the 85-year-old couple donated $15 million toward the creation of an Indianapolis Cultural Trial bike and pedestrian path. They said Friday that they’ve been interested in helping fight blindness and eye problems for years.

Eugene Glick said both his grandmother and father had bad eyes.

“It’s a tribute to them,” he said.

Glick graduated from Indiana University in 1942. The couple started a home construction company in 1947, two years after he returned from Army service in World War II.

The Glicks’ company has built more than 30,000 residential units and manages 17,500 apartments in 11 states.

Their contribution for the eye institute amounts to the second largest individual philanthropic gift to the medical school.

Last fall, mall developer Melvin Simon and his wife, Bren, announced a $50 million donation to the university’s cancer center to boost research efforts and patient care.

Half of the gift is being used to create the Joshua Max Simon Research Endowment to recruit and retain internationally recognized researchers in the School of Medicine. The other half is slated to fund an expansion of the center’s patient-care facility.

Sources: Yahoo news | Indiana University | Journal Gazette