Today is World Diabetes Day:

Sri Lankans are too sweet!

by Nilma DOLE

It is good to be sweet by nature but when our sweet side surfaces at our expense, it is cause for concern. No matter how many times we publicise the condition of diabetes, people still do not realise the potential danger of the deadly disease which affects one in every five people in Sri Lanka. A majority of those affected are young people who have pre-diabetes conditions but who aren't aware of their condition because of lack of checking their blood glucose levels regularly.

Doctors and medical professionals gave their take on diabetes, globally affecting seven million people a year, at the Health Education Bureau seminar to mark World Diabetes Day which falls today.

The theme will revolve around 'Diabetes:Education and Prevention' which has been the theme for the past two years and will be until the year 2013. Consultant endrocinologist and senior medical lecturer Dr. Prasad Katulanda said that the problem with diabetes is that it is a multi-system disease.

"What diabetic patients don't realise is that it affects everything from the kidneys to the feet and even the eyes," he said. It can be serious when a diabetic patient has to amputate their leg which in turn, becomes a burden to their family. "We have a strong and healthy workforce but if they don't check and adhere to the basic prevention methods to avoid diabetes, they might be victims to this dangerous disease quickly," he said.

Prof. Chandrika Wijerathne related a story of a family hereditary and genes playing a vital factor in how diabetes can affect generations to come. "Families with diabetes are likely to pass it to their children but even at a later stage, they can be cured provided the proper treatment and controlling," she said. In addition to this, she explained that the whole family should be actively involved in exercising to make it more fun.

She strongly advised parents to instill good eating values for the child.

She said, "There has to be ethics when it comes to even advertising junk food for children because we live in a modernised world and children are prone to asking for junk food seen in colourful advertisements.

As parents, it is our duty to educate our children on healthy eating habits." In fact, when it comes to the media, there should be some sort of ethical advertising in streamlining what is good to be advertised and what should not. "Outside facts such as availability, accessibility, affordability and accountability," she said.

According to the NCD unit, about 15 percent of the urban and semi-urban population is affected and 10 percent of the rural population is affected almost everyday.

Dr. Renuka Jayatissa of the Medical Research Institute advised healthy people to eat three meals a day with a six hour interval between each (healthy snack in between is permitted). She said, "Eat at regular times so that your body can digest the glucose properly, limit sugars, sweets and fats and eat high-carbohydrate food in moderation.

Also addressing the seminar was Deputy Minister of Health, Mahinda Amaraweera who said that as we're progressing to a more developed country, we are quickly forgetting the healthy and traditional eating habits of our previous generations.

"We need to have health monitors in every school to help children eat well and adopt an exercise routine to make them healthy citizens to take our country forward," he said. In addition he emphasised that stringent quality controls will be put in place to give carbide-free and pesticide-free organic vegetables and fruits for the public.

The Deputy Minister explained that while there are cabinet decisions to invest as much as possible in eradicating non-communicable diseases, it is up to the public to help themselves.

On a final note, the Sri Lanka representative of the World Health Organisation Dr. Firdosi Mehta said, "It is not destiny or karma that determines if you are going to have diabetes". Diabetes doubles the risk of vascular problems, including cardiovascular disease.

He said, "We have found out that 100 people die everyday due to heart attacks in Sri Lanka as opposed to the 240 people who have died due to dengue last year.

More shocking is the figures of obesity in Sri Lanka which is starting to affect 5 million children and obesity is also increasing among women."

Diabetes is indeed preventable and with a good diet, exercise and regular check-ups can save not only your legs but your life too!

Magnets may help treat major depression

Psychiatric researchers at Rush University Medical Center have found a non-invasive, non-drug therapy to be an effective, long-term treatment for major depression. The study was done to determine the durability and long-term effects of Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS). TMS therapy is a non-invasive technique that delivers highly focused magnetic field pulses to a specific portion of the brain, the left prefrontal cortex, in order to stimulate the areas of the brain linked to depression.

These pulses are of a similar intensity to the magnetic field produced during an MRI imaging scan. The repeated short bursts of magnetic energy introduced through the scalp excite neurons locally and in connected areas in the brain.

TMS received clearance from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October 2008. This novel treatment option is a safe and effective, acute antidepressant therapy, but there is limited information on its long-term benefits.

In the study, 301 patients suffering from major depression were randomly assigned to receive active or sham TMS in an acute, six-week, controlled trial. Patients who responded then underwent a three-week, transition period where they were tapered off of active or sham TMS treatment and started on a standard antidepressant for maintenance.

After any successful acute treatment for depression such as TMS, antidepressant medications or electroconvulsive (ECT) therapy, it is a usual practice to introduce maintenance medication to lessen the chance of relapsing.

In the acute, randomized trial, 142 patients who received active TMS therapy responded and entered the three-week, transition phase. One hundred twenty-one patients completed this phase without relapse. Of those patients, 99 (81.8 percent) then agreed to be followed for an additional 24-week period during which only 10 patients relapsed.

In addition, TMS was successfully used as an intermittent rescue strategy to preclude impending relapse in 32 of 38 (84 percent) patients.

This indicated that the therapeutic effects of TMS are durable in the majority of acute responders and that reintroduction of TMS as an adjunct to medication was effective and safe in preventing relapse.

Results of the study were published in the October 2010 issue of Brain Stimulation, a journal published by Elsevier.

- ANI

 An hour of sun meets our Vitamin D needs

Sanchita Sharma

You can't get enough of the sun, literally. Four in five Indians are deficit in Vitamin D, a vitamin synthesised by the skin when exposed to sunlight. An hour of sunlight is all that your body needs to meet its Vitamin D requirements. Just 10-20 percent of this vitamin comes from food, yet 96 percent newborns, 91 percent healthy schoolgirls, 78 percent hospital staff and 84 percent pregnant women in India have low levels of this vitamin.

Not surprisingly, deficiency of the sunshine vitamin is higher in city folks, who spend their day in artificial light than people in semi-urban areas and villages. Add to this the Indian obsession with fairness that makes sunshades, scarves and flowing clothes essential summer wardrobe and you have a nation starved of an essential vitamin that is available absolutely free. Vitamin D maintains normal blood levels of calcium and phosphorus and also helps make bones strong by helping in calcium absorption and preventing osteoporosis.

New research suggests the sunshine vitamin also prevents high blood pressure, diabetes, some cancers and autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis.

The deficiency of this vitamin in pregnant women is particularly worrying as children whose mum's get plenty of Vitamin D during pregnancy have bigger, stronger bones by the age of 9. In fact, this US study shows that the mother's high vitamin D levels strengthen bones more than the milk children drink in those first nine years.

Food sources of Vitamin D are egg yolk, butter, cheese, cod liver oil and other fish liver oils. According to the World Health Organisation, one in two women and one in three men in India over the age of 50, have low bone mass, which can lead to debilitating fractures in later life. Globally, the figures are one in four women and one in five men over 50 years.

You build maximum bone tissue in your teens and twenties, with physically active teens gaining almost 40 percent more bone mass than the least active teens.

Maximum bone development taking place between 11 and 19 years, but it is increasingly getting compromised with young people spending long hours hunched over computers and yo-yoing between starving or overdosing on junk food.

So common is the deficiency of the sunshine vitamin that a standard dose of Vitamin D - available in calcium tablets (250 international units or IU per 500 mg calcium carbonate) - is not enough to achieve recommended levels, found study of health, post-menopausal women in India by Dr Ambrish Mithal and presented to the International Osteoporosis Foundation earlier this year.

Vitamin A pill could protect the sight of millions

A drug based on vitamin A could prevent millions from going blind as they get older, say researchers.

The treatment was able to stop the most common cause of blindness in old age during trials. Researchers behind the drug, fenretinide, found it halted the advance of age-related macular degeneration, for which there is currently no cure. They targeted the most prevalent form of the condition, known as 'dry' AMD, which is caused by the deterioration and death of cells in the macula - the part of the retina used to see straight ahead.

The disease robs sufferers of their sight by creating a blackspot in the centre of their vision, reports the Daily Mail.

It can make it impossible to carry out everyday tasks such as reading, driving and watching television.

While the less common 'wet' form can be treated, nothing can be done to help the bulk of patients.

The US research studied fenretinide, which is derived from vitamin A, the vitamin found in carrots, and which was originally designed to tackle arthritis.

Almost 250 men and women with dry AMD took a fenretinide pill a day or a placebo.

In the highest dose, the drug halted visual deterioration after a year.

This suggests that while it was unable to do anything to stop cells that were already damaged from dying, it protected healthy cells.

Although the research is still preliminary, it offers promise of a treatment for the disease. MIt affects millions across the world. The number of British sufferers could more than treble to one million within 25 years as the population ages.

Jason Slakter of New York University School of Medicine said: "There are currently no effective treatments for dry AMD and the need for finding one is grave."

- Hindustan Times