Brush twice daily to avoid heart attacks

When it comes to cardiac diseases, most of us (scientists included) link it to our diet, body fat and smoking. Little do we know that a healthy heart is also related to maintenance of good oral hygiene. Sounds unbelievable? That is what a group of scientists from Howard University, Washington D.C., Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, and National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, have found out in a study.

Their research, published in the Journal of Periodontology, establishes a direct link between oral hygiene and cardiac health and also suggests that brushing daily may cut your risks from suffering from a cardiac arrest. The scientists say that a reaction to the bacteria associated with periodontitis (inflammatory diseases that affect the tissues supporting and surrounding the teeth) may lead to an increased risk of developing cardiovascular disease.

The researchers from Howard University identified 11 studies that had previously examined clinically-diagnosed periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease and analysed the results. They specifically looked for the presence of the bacteria associated with periodontal diseases and found that individuals with periodontal disease whose biomarkers showed increased bacterial exposure were more likely to develop coronary heart disease or atherogenesis (plaque formation in the arteries).

While the scientists say that they need more time to better understand the linkage between periodontal diseases and cardiac arrests, they are sure that brushing twice daily and maintaining good oral hygiene will definitely help in protecting yourself from cardiac arrests.

Depression makes you obese

According to a paper published in the March 2008 issue of Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice, there is a strong link between depression and obesity. While it can be understood that being obese leads to depression, a team of scientists led by Sarah M. Markowitz conclude in their review paper that being depressed leads to obesity in a person as well.

According to the scientists from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, people who are depressed may be more likely to become obese because of physiological changes in their hormone and immune systems that occur in depression. Due to depression, they also take poor care of themselves and do not adhere to fitness regiments, participate in overeating, and have negative thoughts.

Scientists feel that treatment for obesity and depression should be linked. Exercise and stress reduction can help to manage both obesity and depression at the same time. They also suggest that, dieting, which can worsen mood, and antidepressants, which can cause weight gain, should be minimized.

Pop a camera to help the doc!

How about swallowing a camera for better diagnosis? No matter how ridiculous it sounds, that is what you may need to do if you are suffering from gastric problems and want to avoid the painful procedure of endoscopy.
In the last few years, scientists had come up with small cameras that human beings can swallow and help doctors diagnose problems with the internal organs. These cameras contain small transmitters which send images of our internal organs to a receiver located outside (usually in a belt) which the doctors can see.

However, the problem doctors were facing was in getting a good image of the esophagus and the stomach. The reason being the fact that camera takes about three or four seconds to make its way through the esophagus and manages to click two to four images per second. Once it is inside the stomach, its weight (around 5 gm) causes it to drop very quickly to the lower wall of the stomach. In other words, it is too fast to deliver usable images.
However, scientists have managed to find a way to control the free fall and using their method the camera can be retained in the esophagus for up to 10 minutes.

According to a report published in Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, researchers from the manufacturer Given Imaging, the Israelite Hospital in Hamburg, Royal Imperial College in London and Fraunhofer Institute for Biomedical Engineering in Sankt Ingbert, have managed to develop a magnetic system to control the camera. According to Dr Frank Volke, leader of the research team, “We have developed a magnetic device roughly the size of a bar of chocolate. The doctor can hold it in his hand during the examination and move it up and down the patient’s body. The camera inside follows this motion precisely.” In other word, the doctor can take good quality images at leisure that will help in better diagnosis.

Please don’t smoke if you are pregnant

The fact that smoking during pregnancy is injurious to the baby is well-known. However, that does not deter a large percentage of would-be mothers to quit their love for nicotine. According to the Discovery channel more than 13 per cent of pregnant women in the US smoke and if all of them stopped smoking there would be a 10 per cent reduction of in infant deaths!
Quite a sad situation considering that health awareness in the US is amongst the highest in the world and almost everyone knows that cigarette contains more than 2500 chemicals harmful for the foetus. (To know more about the harmful effects of smoking during pregnancy that puts the would-be-mother and child’s lives at risk, check out this Discovery Health article)
Recent research conducted by scientists from the University of Calgary makes the situation worse for pregnant women who don’t stop smoking and establishes a direct correlation between smoking and sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). According to the paper, published in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, prenatal cigarette smoke exposure can contribute to the destabilising effects of hypoxia (shortage of oxygen in the body) and thermal stress on neonatal breathing. In other words, the newborn will find it extremely difficult to breathe due to lack of oxygen and increase in body temperature, thereby increasing the chances of sudden infant death.
In an effort to investigate the compounding effects of cigarette smoking on babies and other known risk factors for SIDS, namely thermal and oxygen stress, researchers exposed pregnant rat pups to either room air (control) or mainstream cigarette smoke equivalent to that a pack-a-day smoker would experience. After studying these rat pups the scientists found that just 13 per cent of the control animals (those kept in room air) exhibited gasping, whereas nearly three times that—36 per cent—of the cigarette smoke exposed animals did. The effects were much more pronounced in pups that had been exposed to cigarette smoked prenatally. The scientists feel that the same risks hold true for humans as well.Dr. Shabih Hasan, staff neonatologist and associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the University of Calgary was the principal investigator of the study.

A dressing that dissolves

Being in the difficult age bracket where diabetes – leading to poor healing of cuts and wounds – is a major problem, a recent discovery from a group of German researchers comes as a boon.

Scientists from the Fraunhofer Institute for Silicate Research ISC in Würzburg have discovered a new type of wound dressing made of silica gel fibers that helps heal difficult wounds caused by burns or diabetes. The scientists explain that the dressing forms a supporting matrix for newly growing skin cells and is fully absorbed by the body during the healing process, leading to faster healing. According to a media release, in Germany alone, about three million patients suffer from poorly healing large-area wounds caused by complaints such as diabetes, burns or bedsores.

The standard procedure of applying ordinary bandages to the wounded areas is largely unsuccessful in diabetics. That is where this new silica dressing scores. The biggest advantage of this novel dressing is that it is bio-resorbable – once applied it remains in the body, where it gradually degrades without leaving any residues. Apart from this, it also is shape-stable and pH-neutral

Since this is the inner bandage and doesn’t need to be changed (since it dissolves automatically), in large wounds, only the outer bandage needs to be changed, thereby leading to lower risks of infection. The scientists also plan to integrate active substances such as antibiotics or painkillers in the dressing to improve and accelerate the healing process.

However, the dressing is not yet commercially available. According to a media release, Bayer has already agreed to support them in development and marketing of the dressing and expects hospitals to start using the silica gel wound dressing in 2011.

Walk away from cancer!

According to a study report published in the British Journal of Cancer, men who exercise for 30 minutes every day cut their risks of dying from cancer by more than 33 per cent.
The study, conducted by the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet looked at the effect of physical activity and cancer risk in 40,708 men aged between 45 and 79 before reaching at the conclusion. They surveyed two representative counties in Sweden and studied men having almost similar lifestyles.
An interesting result of the study is the nature of exercising that led to a reduced cancer related death risk – nothing very heavy or sophisticated, but simple walking and cycling.
As Professor Alicja Wolk, the lead researcher says in a media release, “These results show for the first time, the effect that daily exercise has in reducing cancer death risk in men aged between 45 and 79. We looked at more moderate exercise such as housework, undertaken over a longer period of time and found that this also reduced men’s chances of dying from the disease.”

Saliva test to diagnose heart attack

Identifying a heart attack in time is one of the biggest challenges we (in the age bracket of 30 to 50) face today. Junk food, crazy work hours, insufficient sleep and high stress – all of these factors associated with our lifestyle can lead to a heart attack or symptoms that are a precursor to an attack.
For example, junk food can lead to stomach ache, stress can lead to palpitation, insufficient sleep can lead to fatigue – so how does one know whether it is a heart attack or an innocuous bout of indigestion or breathlessness?
If researchers from the University of Texas at Austin are to be believed, very soon all you will need to do to identify a heart attack in time is to spit into a tube and take a simple saliva test using a chip. The research, if successful, will benefit millions across the world in preventing fatal conditions. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in developed countries. This year, in the US alone, an estimated 770,000 Americans will have a new coronary attack, and about 430,000 will have a recurrent attack.
According to a media release from the university, the credit-card sized nano-bio-chip could be used to analyse a patient's saliva on board an ambulance, at the dentist’s office or at a neighborhood drugstore, and produce results in as little as 15 minutes. Sounds like science fiction? Read on to know more.
Recent research has indicated that there are a number of proteins in human blood that are significant contributors to heart attacks. As a result presence or absence of these proteins can be treated as indicators of cardiac disease. The team of researchers used this fact to develop a device that analyses these proteins and tells the patient whether a cardiac disorder is going to happen.
The method of detection is also simple – the patient spits into a tube which is transferred to the credit card sized device holding the nano-chip. This card is then inserted into an analyzer (just like one inserts a card into the ATM machine) and within 15 minutes the results are out! This is much better than the traditional blood tests, the results for which take more than hour. More often than not, it is this critical hour that leads to a life and death question.
However, we need to wait for some more time before the device is commercially available. Currently trials are on for making the device absolutely safe.

Low-fat diet may prevent prostate cancer

According to new studies, conducted by scientists from University of California in Los Angeles, reducing the intake of dietary fat commonly found in a western meal, helps prevent prostate cancer in mice. Since a mouse model closely mimics human cancer, researchers are hopeful that these findings will help in preventing and curing prostate cancer in humans.
A group of researchers, led by William Aronson, made one group of mice have a diet with about 40 per cent of calories coming from fat (an amount typical in men eating a Western diet), while the other group had a diet which consisted of 12 per cent calories from fat (usually found in a very low fat diet). In their research, they focused on fat from corn oil, which is made up primarily of omega-6 fatty acids, commonly found in high levels in baked and fried goods.
According to a media release from the UCLA, researchers found a 27 per cent reduced incidence of prostate cancer in the low-fat diet group. Not only this, the scientists also studied cells in the prostate that would soon become cancer, and found that the cells in the mice eating the low-fat diet were growing much more slowly than those in the high-fat group.
Using these findings, the scientists are expecting significant breakthroughs in treating prostate cancer in humans and are planning animal and human trials soon.
As Aronson says in a statement for the UCLA media release, “A low-fat, high-fiber diet combined with weight loss and exercise is well known to be healthy in terms of heart disease and is known to reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes, so that would be a healthy choice to make. Whether or not it will prevent prostate cancer in humans remains to be seen.”
The scientists, from UCLA’s Jonsson Cancer Center and the Department of Urology, have published their findings in the peer-reviewed journal Cancer Research.

Weight cycling makes bones brittle

If you are planning to go on a jet-speed weight loss programme involving crash diets, beware. You may suffer from the ill effects of weight cycling (repeated loss and regain of body weight in some people who go on weight-loss diets. A small cycle may include loss and regain of 5 to 10 lbs, while in a large cycle, the weight can change by 50 lbs or more.)
According to a report published in the American Journal of Epidemiology by Dr Anne Johanne Sogaard of the Norwegian Institute of Public Health in Oslo and colleagues, if you are between 25 and 50, and frequently lose and gain weight, chances of having a fracture increases manifold once you cross 50. This is the result of a study conducted in more than 4600 men over a period of 28 years! However, if you lose weight after crossing the half century mark, the risks of fracture are not so high.
According to researchers, an instant weight-loss programme with crash diets causes microscopic damage to the bones thereby making it more fragile and susceptible to injuries. In the study, they found that amongst men who reported no weight loss episodes before they turned 50, 17-18 per cent suffered forearm fractures, however, the rate was 35-43 per cent amongst those who had lost weight four or more times. The risk of fracture increased with the amount of weight lost.
Does that mean that you should not exercise and lose weight? Not at all, says researchers. On the contrary you must exercise. But exercise restraint when you want to shed those extra kilos. Don’t go in for an instant-coffee type solution, instead supplement regular exercise with a controlled diet regime to lose weight the normal way and retain your bone strength.

Women expect a filmy heart attack!

A research study presented at a meeting of the America Heart Association says that women aged less than 55 don't recognize the warning signs of a heart attack often because it doesn't resemble what is shown in Hollywood movies as a precursor to heart attack!
According to the study author Judith Lichtman, an associate professor of epidemiology and public health at Yale School of Medicine, the women were expecting symptoms like tightening in the chest, shortness of breath and clutching the chest while dropping to one knee to occur before a heart attack!
As a result, more often than not, by the time women realize that they are suffering from a heart disease, it is too late. In fact, Lichtman and her team found that 88% of women in the trial reported symptoms of severe chest pain, but only 42% suspected that something was wrong. Most of them attributed the pain to acidity, fatigue and stress. When they were told that they were suffering from heart disorders, they were surprised because the symptoms varied a lot from those shown in public media (read films!).
As Lichtman says in an interview to the media, “They wish that they had known that symptoms such as neck and shoulder pain, abdominal discomfort that was easy to mistake for indigestion, or unusual fatigue could signal a heart problem. They often said that TV doesn’t show examples of the symptoms they experienced. If they knew, they would have responded to the symptoms sooner.”
Little wonder that statistics paints a grim picture of the number of patients suffering from heart diseases. Consider this: heart disease leads to almost half a million American women dying every year (approximately one death per minute), 16,000 young women with heart disease die every year and 40,000 are hospitalised. With India likely to carry the burden of close to 60% of heart patients in the world, this should ring alarm bells for us as well.
For this study, researchers conducted in-depth interviews with 30 women with an average age of 48, a week after they had been discharged from the hospital following a heart attack, and presented their study at the American Heart Association’s 9th Scientific Forum on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research (QCOR) in Cardiovascular Disease and Stroke. Check out this American Health Association guide on how to identify a heart attack.
And you thought people were mature enough to differentiate reel life from real life!

Banned globally, available locally!

It’s a known fact that multinational companies (pharmaceutical, FMCG and food and beverages) make use of the somewhat lax drug safety laws in India to manufacture and sell harmful products that are banned elsewhere. Be it a tablet you are taking for a simple headache, the cola you are drinking or the readymade soup you are preparing – all of these have products or traces of chemicals that are banned for use in most of the developed countries. Alarmed? There is more in stock, if you read on. Sample these simple examples:

1. The easy-to-cook soup powder that most multinational companies sell in India contains an additive called Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG). We also consume them and thank the companies for coming up with such a solution to our soup-making woes! Little do we know the harm we are doing to our internal organs. In most developed countries MSG is a big no-no and these same companies sell the same soup without any trace of MSG. Chinese restaurants in the US flaunt signs on their doors which claim – NO MSG. You may be wondering what will happen if one has MSG (better known as Ajinomoto). Check out this site which lists the harmful effects of having MSG and talks about the Body Systems Affected by MSG. Amongst the most significant ones are damage to the nervous system, high blood pressure, affect brain cells, digestive system and even your hearing. In short, almost everything that lets us live life normally. But when it comes to India everything is acceptable.

2. A tablet for headache has found a place in all our bags. We pop a pill for headache more often than we take a vitamin tablet these days! One of the most popular tablets till recently was Novalgin (which contained liberal doses of analgin). This has been banned across the world because it is known to cause bone marrow depression. This fact is so well known that the brand is banned even in countries like Nepal, Vietnam and Nigeria! But, unfortunately, it is still available in India and over the counter.

3. For fever or some irritating pain, how often have we taken a Nimulid. Little did we think that the drug falls in the Nimesulide category and is knows to result in liver failure. So dangerous is the drug, that it is banned in 160 countries including even Bangladesh. But we still continue to use it – no one knows why, especially when other painkillers are available without these side effects.

4. A common cold results in most of us taking Vicks Action 500 or D’Cold. Reports suggest that both of these drugs contain Phenylpropanolamine, which is known to cause stroke! In the US, this drug cannot be procured without a prescription because of its side effects. However, in India it continues to be available over the counter.

The list is endless – if I were to give you the entire list, this would be a never-ending post! Worst of all is the fact that most of these medicines treat innocuous conditions like a headache or a cold but lead to fatal conditions like a stroke or liver failure. Check this Express Pharma article to get a full list of drugs that are banned globally but available and permitted in India. The article also lists the harmful side effects of taking them.

Unfortunately, the fact that nothing much is being done about this growing menace is evident in this Times Of India report, which says that even few months back these drugs were available in the open market and the Government is pleading helplessness to enforce the law.

What is adding to the trouble is the lack of knowledge of doctors in some cases. Either they get too swayed by medical representatives’ sales pitches, or have some vested interest in prescribing the medicines. Ultimately, I feel the onus is on us to protect our health and we need to be more aware of what’s good and what’s not. Thankfully the Internet is there to help us.

For an official list of drugs banned in India, visit the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation website. However, this link will provide you only the scientific names of the drugs; finding out the brand names may be difficult. But you can match these to drugs that you buy and check whether they come under this category or not.

So before you pop a pill the next time be sure to check that it does not fall in the banned drugs category.

Diabetes medicines increase risk of fracture

Diabetes, as you will agree, is the most common disease in urban India. Believe it or not there are more than 35 million diabetics in India and the number is expected to increase by another 60% in 2025!
What is worst about diabetes is that it does not affect the blood sugar levels alone; it slowly but surely cripples your heart, kidneys, eyes, foot infections and even blockage of arteries leading to amputations. Thanks to medical science, there are good and easy drugs for diabetes, including injections and oral tablets. However, a new report in the peer-reviewed and prestigious Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) says that some of these drugs may increase your risk to suffer from a fracture.
A paper published in JAMA says, “The insulin-sensitizing thiazolidinediones are a relatively new and effective class of oral antidiabetic agents that have gained wide use in clinical conditions characterized by insulin resistance.”
In this category of drugs, there are two—pioglitazone and rosiglitazone—which account for 21 percent of oral diabetes medications prescribed in the United States and 5 percent of those in Europe. Unfortunately, these are the drugs that increase your chances of suffering from a fracture.
A study conducted by Christian Meier of University Hospital Basel, Basel, Switzerland, and colleagues, have found that “…after adjusting for other risk factors, individuals who were currently taking rosiglitazone and pioglitazone had approximately double or triple the odds of hip and other non-spine fractures than those who did not take these drugs. The odds for fracture were increased among patients who took the drugs for approximately 12 to 18 months and the risk was highest for those with two or more years of therapy.”
However, the authors conclude that people taking other drugs for diabetes were not at this risk.

Heart attacks most prevalent in India

It’s quite an alarming piece of news. According to a study conducted by Indian and Canadian researchers, more than 60% of patients suffering from heart diseases in the whole world will be from India by 2010. The study, published in the famed peer-reviewed journal The Lancet has set off alarm bells in the medical community in India, as well as the common man over 30! With stress levels increasing and life becoming faster and full of junk food, all of us are exposed to the risk of suffering from a heart attack. In fact, the report also points out that the average age of suffering from such disorders is also reducing. After conducting a study on more than 20000 volunteers, the researchers conclude, “Patients in India who have acute coronary syndromes have a higher rate of STEMI than do patients in developed countries. Since most of these patients were poor, less likely to get evidence-based treatments, and had greater 30-day mortality, reduction of delays in access to hospital and provision of affordable treatments could reduce morbidity and mortality.” In other words, the researchers say that our lifestyle contributes to an increased risk of suffering from heart attacks and the lack of access to easy medical care makes chances of survival even more difficult. The study even says that after suffering from a heart attack, most of us do not avail of an ambulance to go to the hospital. Most of the cases they studied had patients being transported in auto rickshaws, cars and in some cases even by carts. This led to most patients' situation worsening even before they could be administered the basic care. One feels, the stress we have in our day to live, along with accessibility issues to basic healthcare, it is not abnormal that such results are coming from studies. More than anything else, I guess it is time we stayed updated about heart disorders. Check out Web MD's Heart Disease Health Center for some good advice on how to take care of yourself.

Eat chocolate to lower cholesterol!

It could have jolly well found a place in Ripley’s believe it or not! According to a new study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Nutrition, eating chocolate bars daily reduces your total cholesterol level by two per cent, and the levels of LDL (or bad cholesterol) by no less than 5.3%!
John Erdman, Professor of Food Sciences and Human Nutrition, University of Illinois conducted a study using a particular brand of chocolates called CocoVia and found that eating two dark chocolate CocoVia bars significantly reduced the cholesterol levels as well as the systolic blood pressure. The chocolate bars contained plant sterols and flavanols that led to this positive effect of chocolates.
However, what makes expert view the study results with slight suspicion is the fact that it was partly sponsored by Mars Inc, the company that makes these chocolate bars! Erdman is also the chairman of the Mars Scientific Advisory council. However, he has rubbished claims of partiality and bias in the study with the logic that it was published in Nutrition, one of the best and most well-known peer-reviewed biological science journals.
But that is not enough, because the authenticity of industry-sponsored research being published in peer-reviewed journals has been a raging controversy for years now. The tobacco industry being the biggest culprit and/or sufferer! An interesting debate can be read in the following BMJ article where two editors fight it out for and against publishing sponsored research papers in peer-reviewed journals.
But till you arrive at a conclusion, enjoy your bar of chocolate and brush well before you go to bed!

Do the dishes to stay healthy!

Here’s something interesting for all of you ladies who are tired of asking husbands to help in housework!
A new study conducted in Scotland and published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine (DOI: 10.1136/bjsm.2008.046243) says that doing just 20 minutes of housework every week is one of the best ways to get rid of depression. The better options being playing a game of tennis or any sport that involves loads of physical activity. In absence of that, there seems to be nothing better than helping in housework. Sounds unbelievable? But that is Mark Hammer and his colleagues at the University College, London, found out after surveying 20000 Scottish people.
The study was conducted as part of the Scottish Health Survey. This is conducted once every three to five years and is carried over two household visits. In the first visit, the participants provide details on their height, weight, physical activity, etc., while in the second visit their psychological stress is measured through the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12). The questionnaire has 12 questions which track levels of happiness, experience of depression and anxiety, and sleep disturbance in the previous month. This year’s study found 3200 participants suffering from depression and anxiety.
Hammer and his colleagues further analysed the results of this study and came to the conclusion that people who did at least 20 minutes of physical activity during a week, were the happiest. The easiest way to stay happy and get rid of depression (considering the fast pace at which we lead life), as Hammer found in the study, was to do domestic work! In fact, he concludes that 20 minutes of helping in mopping the floor or doing the dishes helped reduce depression and anxiety by 20%!
So the next time someone says ‘No’ to housework, tell him (or her!) that they should say Yes to stay healthy!

Washing fruits is not enough

If you thought washing your fruits and vegetables properly, before eating them, was good enough to weed away all the harmful stuff (chemicals, bacteria, dirt) you are mistaken. According to a recent paper presented at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society (www.acs.org), washing (with water and/or chlorine disinfectants) is not enough. Bacteria, present inside a number of fruits and vegetables (like lettuce, spinach and other green leafy ones) have mastered the art of avoiding getting washed away by water or any chlorine disinfectant we use to clean vegetables.
The modus operandi of these bacteria is very simple. They get inside the leaves or surface of vegetables and fruits and organize themselves into tightly knit communities called biofilms. These biofilms form a protective layer on fruits and vegetables and save the bacteria from getting washed away by disinfectants! So no matter how much you wash a fruit or a vegetable, it has no effect on these bacteria. (And you thought only humans knew how to strategise and protect themselves!)
Sadly, the bacteria that form these films and manage to stay in the fruits and vegetables after washing are the disease-causing ones like Salmonella and E-coli. This, experts feel, can lead to serious diseases in human beings. So, isn’t there a solution in sight?
Of course, there is. Scientists from the US Department of Agriculture suggest that a technique called irradiation is the solution. It involves exposing the fruits and vegetables to electron beams. This leads to disruption of the genetic materials in the living cells and inactivates parasites and destroys pathogens hiding inside the leaves. The technique, used earlier during the 2001 Anthrax attacks, is currently being analysed by the FDA for safety in application to fruits and vegetables.
Till the time it is approved and available freely, continue washing your vegetables and fruits with water. You may not be able to protect yourself completely, but you will be able to eradicate the chances of having vomiting and diarrhea from fresh fruits and vegetables!

For more details on this, refer to the original EurekAlert Press Release: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/acs-dmw031108.php.

How much water should I drink?

Here’s a new controversy that seems to be doing rounds and making all of us worried – how much water should we drink? Is drinking water harmful to our health?
Ask this to any elderly person and they will tell you – the more the better. You should drink water because it helps you flush out all the impurities in your body, it keeps you cool and it also supplies a lot of necessary ingredients to your body.
Ask a health-savvy teenager and you may get a completely different answer (drink only when you are thirsty and only as much as you need)!
Suffering from this dilemma, I started looking for the best solution. There were articles supporting both the viewpoints. So, at the end, I was slightly more confused than I was when I started searching for similar information. But this is what I could make out – like any other good thing, drinking water is good, but not too much.
But why are scientists and experts are fighting over whether to drink water or not? First let us consider the views of scientists who suggest water is good for health. Water comprises 60-70% of a human being’s body weight. We have water in our blood, brain, lungs and even muscles, and to keep these vital components of our body up and running it is very important that we have enough water. Every day we lose a lot of water through sweating, respiration and urination, and as a result we need to replenish our body water storage to stay healthy. In short, that is why we need to drink water. An interesting article on this can be found on the BBC site at http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/healthy_living/nutrition/drinks_water.shtml.
Intake of coffee, alcohol and other diuretics which dehydrate our body make it even more important that we drink loads of water to stay healthy and ensure our body machine runs fine. Lack of enough water can lead to chronic pains in joints and muscles, lower back pain, headaches, constipation and give a strong odour to your urine, along with a yellow or amber color.
If water is so important for human beings, why is there a controversy? A recent study report by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, published in Journal of the American Society of Nephrology, suggests that too much of water is harmful for your health. In fact, the scientist cites the example of a lady who drank too much water as part of a contest and died due to swelling of brain. Read about his study in this MSN report - http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23921635/ and a Hindustan Times report - http://www.hindustantimes.com/StoryPage/StoryPage.aspx?id=0f4a4fb7-34ee-4cf9-b203-40ac1a8e3227.
But if you go through his study report in detail, he does not recommend you to stop drinking water. All he says is too much of it may be harmful and it may not be as beneficial as we thought. Considering the manner in which all aspects of our life and environment is getting polluted, little wonder that everything that we ate to keep ourselves healthy, does not have the same effect any more.
So how much water should an average individual drink? Experts suggest that it depends on your body weight, living conditions and food intake. Read this article (http://nutrition.about.com/gi/dynamic/offsite.htm?site=http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm%3Fobjectid=1488D60D%2DE694%2D4EE6%2DA0DFA79E4CEF5FD3%26amp%3BMOTT=AN00512) and take this interesting quiz (http://nutrition.about.com/library/blwatercalculator.htm) to find out how much water you should drink.
So, the moral of the story is – keep drinking water. But not just to prove a point or take part in a contest. Drink it because you need it.

Why do I care?

I HAD BEEN toying with this idea for quite a few months. But as happens with everything else in today’s apparently busy life, the thought of doing something that is not a crying need, is pushed inside a bag full of procrastinations. This idea was no exception. But a recent, apparently simple, event changed it all and elevated starting this blog to a must-do-it-now level.
Before you start wondering about the event, here’s the background – I was applying for a life insurance policy. Instead of the usual endowment and/or money back policies that I have opted for previously, this time I went for a risk-only policy. Within a day of my filling up the forms, my insurance advisor called me to inform that I needed to go in for a medical check before the company insured my life. ‘Why?’ I immediately asked the advisor, backed with the pride of not suffering from any major ailment in the last decade. “I am sure there’s nothing wrong with your health, but since you are above 35, we need to do this mandatory health check,” came the instant reply from my insurance advisor.
Suddenly the security cover that young age offered me seemed so far away. Within a minute, the pride of being healthy and fighting fit vanished. And in no time I was made to realize that I was a risk to insure and the insurance company needed to validate my health before proceeding any further. Like it or not, I had gone into the age bracket of 30-45, when the mind is still young, but the health is not. And I needed to be conscious about this fact and ensure that I stopped doing a lot of things (eating everything, doing late nights at work regularly, jump in joy whenever I feel like et al) that I used to do earlier.
Once the realization set in, I wanted to know what I should do and not do to stay healthy. That is when confusion ruled supreme. There was no single and accurate source of information. If one website or journal said drinking water is good for health, the second said anything more than two litres of water is dangerous. If one diet suggested green tea, the other was biased in favour of black tea. So what do I do? Whom do I follow? How do I know whether a piece of information is authentic or not?
That is when I rejuvenated the old idea of having a blog for all of us in this apparently healthy, but actually dangerous age bracket of 30 to 40. Since I have become conscious of my health and will be searching for pointers to maintain a good health, why not share it with others? In the process, I may get to know more about how to stay healthy and exchange thoughts with my peers as well!
So here you are – reading this blog – I CARE FOR MYSELF. I will try and cull out relevant information from various sources, have some opinions posted, and also share my thoughts on what is right and what is wrong (of course based on inputs from recognized, peer-reviewed journals). So happy reading folks! And please share your thoughts and comments. Will respond to them as soon as possible.