Bacteria-The Good Ones

At the same time there are some bacteria which have made a pact with us and live symbiotically. They are called as commensals. They are on our skin as well as mucosa. The mucosa extends from mouth to the anus. Commensals or the good bacteria play many roles. They help us in getting our daily dose of vitamin, especially B complex. They help to keep the growth of fungi in check. When we take antibiotics the commensals can also get killed increasing the risk for fungal infection, B complex deficiency to happen and at times lead to infection from Clostridium difficile, a more serious kind of bacterial infection.

Long back had mentioned in a post about bonding with bacteria about bacteria being harnessed for mutiple benefits including cancer cure. This was about the research of Ananda M Chakrabarty. You can read it here. Will have to write to him to know the current status of his research.

Apparently there are many other myriad, intriguing ways in which the good bacteria help us. Highlighting below some of the recent research findings.

1. Recently had written about gastric bypass surgery also called Bariatric surgery being a potential cure for diabetes in some patients. You can read that post here. When this gastric bypass surgery is done there is change in the gut microbial population. This change in gut micorbiota is considered to be responsible for weight loss! This has been proven in mice by transferring the gut microbiota  to other obese mice which resulted in weight loss and decrease in adiposity.
There is also a strong link between gut microbiota with cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

References and further reading:

a) Functional Interactions Between The Gut Microbiota And Host Metabolism.

b) Obesity, Gut Microbiota, Weight Loss, Gastric Bypass Surgery. News article for same can be read here, here, here.

c) Open Access Review Article by Kristina Harris, Amira Kassis, Genevieve Major, Chieh J. Chou.

2. Fecal Transplant? Really? Yes, transferring the donor feces into is more effective for treating recurrent C.difficile infection!

Reference: NEJM, Medscape, 2010

It does seem that nature has far greater mechanism for balance and sustenance of energy! (for lack of better term). There are more than 100 trillion archaeal and bacterial cells in our gut and they represent 1000 different species.

The more we learn the more we know that we do not know!!

I have a personal hypothesis and treatment for gastritis which i will cover in a future post. Also how helminths (worms) have a  good role to play in auto-immune diseases, irritable bowel syndrome, Crohns disease and Ulcerative colitis.

Have a healthy life!!

Pain and Health

Our behavior is determined either by pursuit of pleasure or avoidance of pain. We seek multiple avenues to avoid pain both physical and emotional. The success or failure determines our future behavior and experience.
Physical pain, especially acute, is to guide us to stay healthy. It forces us to rest that part of the body in pain till healing has happened. It at times brings our attention to the pathology and forces us to seek medical help. Back pain, neck pain, tooth ache, sprains, muscular pains belong to this class which supposedly should alter our behavior to become healthy.
Sometimes we voluntarily endure pain to gain benefit. While exercising if one wants to increase muscle strength and endurance,one needs to exercise till the edge of one's capability. It is when you think that you cannot do one more bench press or pull up that you get the benefit. Even during this endeavor one needs to be alert not to hurt oneself. Muscle, ligament tears can result because of exercising in the wrong way! Also one should not exercise when one has fever, gastroenteritis or other ailment as the reserve ability of the body is less.
This piece of writing is prompted by the severe malaise and body ache i had yesterday on account of fever and bowel disturbance. But more than that it is the account of pain by Dan Ariely.

I started by mentioning how acute pain is there to help us! But are all acute pains helpful? How does acute pain experienced by burns patient helpful?

To read the account of Dan Ariely's encounter with pain click here.

In his account he does mention that the memory of social\emotional pain is stronger than physical pain.

Intend to research more on the topic of pain-all forms and varieties. On a day to day basis see the way  my father endures pain caused by Parkinson disease, both chronic and acute. Multiple medications at times relieve his pain or are overwhelmed. I would say pain relief is both an art and science!
My mother who suffers from osteoarthritis has almost ceased to complain pain from that disease after dad started his journey of Parkinson. Her ability to tolerate pain has increased or is that she considers it futile to complain!!

As i research and ponder more will share my thoughts. Will like to end for now with few points:

1.Our ability to tolerate pain is limited.

2. Our will power supply everyday is limited. So we need to prioritize its use.

3. Our ability to empathize and sympathize is also limited!

Are they capabilities which can be increased? Can we measure them?

I personally believe that one can increase those capabilities!! For this belief i will have to research methods to measure it and do some experiment!

Health and Freedom

We all want to be healthy. Some of us are fortunate and are healthy even when we do not make any particular effort to be healthy. Some of us stay healthy when we strive to be healthy. Some of us are unfortunate and health eludes us. This is especially true in old age.

What is health? WHO defines it as achieving a state of complete physical, mental, and social wellbeing. What is that we gain by staying healthy?

This may sound as a dumb question but as i ponder on it, i have more than one answer. The simplest would be health is required to indulge in pleasurable activities. An hedonistic approach which brings us face to face with the fact that most pleasurable activities when overdone result in ill-health!

Being healthy gives us economic liberty. This is government and societies view. Society benefits from healthy individuals who contribute economically. 

Being a human what is the greatest benefit of being healthy. Good health gives us freedom. The freedom to do the things one wants to do. This is only realized when one sees people in sickness from close quarters.  Paradigm changing events are at times related to surviving a life threatening disease. Because this enables one to choose rightly with the freedom one has.

The onus of staying healthy lies with the individual. It is individuals responsibility to stay healthy. But what can governments do to aid its citizens to stay healthy? How can societies promote healthy living?

Maternal health, sanitation, nutrition are some of the basic aspects which needs to ensured for all citizens. Health of children is another aspect. These are the foundation and must.

But what about health of adults and elderly? Can we create right incentives for them to stay healthy?

The question of freedom comes up again!!

I should have the freedom to smoke......

I should have the freedom to drink soda.......

I should have the freedom to eat junk food..........

The question of freedom, informed choice brings us to a conflict. 

Personally i do not believe in banning anything. At the same time i accept that human beings are not as rational as they appear. The choices we make may be detrimental to us and the society. Our ability to analyze information into knowledge and convert that into wisdom is restricted and limited. 

When such is our ability can we trick ourselves to lead healthy life. Guess so. Peer pressure, incentives from society, companies and government can probably modify our behavior.  

Reference:

1. Offline: Why governments should take health more seriously

2.What Big Soda Learned From the Marlboro Man

3. http://www.hdassoc.org/site/files/351/105796/364911/499774/Active_Policy_Attention.pdf

DVT, Cancer & Exercise

Deep Vein Thrombosis (DVT) is a serious complication in many diseases. It is a common post-surgical complication which with the righ prophylaxis is taken care of.

Deep vein thrombosis is clot in the deep vein and when this gets dislodged and move can cause stroke, pulmonary embolism and also damage to heart.

DVT is seen in upto 50% of cancer patients but unfortunately is underdiagnosed. DVT in cancer patients can be because of various reasons. Some cancers like lung, colon, ovary, pancreas, stomach and endometrium have greater risk of DVT because of increased viscoity of blood. Few treatments can increase rik of DVT, example tamoxifen.

DVT can present insidiously. At times one can have redness, pain when the veins in the thigh are involved. If pulmonary embolism ha happened there can be dry cough, breathlessness.

Any perosn with cancer needs to be aware of DVT and should ask his treating Oncologist about the same and be on vigil.
Primary and seconadry prophylaxis have their own challenges. One needs to tell the treating phyician about all the medications one is taking as drug interactions are very common.

Take home message is:

1. Be on vigil
2. Drug interactions are common, so ask your doctor about the same when you are taking multiple medications.
3. Be active, exercise helps blood circulation and also in many other ways.
4. Be hydrated always.
5. Take extra precautions on long haul flights.

Be aware and ask right questions!

References:

1. http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/about-cancer/cancer-questions/cancer-and-the-risk-of-blood-clots

2. http://annonc.oxfordjournals.org/content/16/5/696.long

3. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/9357487/Blood-clot-patients-to-receive-routine-cancer-checks.html

4. http://www.cancer.gov/ncicancerbulletin/062910/page5

5. http://www.webmd.com/cancer/features/exercise-for-cancer-patients

Global Burden Of Disease

We all strive and seek pleasure. This pursuit is through family, love, work, passion. We trade our time and pay a price for whatever success we aim and achieve. Most of the time, the price paid is in terms of health. Mental and physical health is always at risk and if not paid attention to lapses into ill health with severe damage and cost for self and others.
Most components of health are in our influence and we by right living can stay healthy. But there are certain elements which are beyond our control and they can overwhelm us. Lead poisoning is one such thing, mental and physical health deterioration by involving in the care of loved ones (especially spouses who take care of elderly patients with Alzheimers or Pakinsons disease).

While the world is making progress, we are moving from dangers of communicable disease to non-communicable disease.

Quoting from a recent publication:

1. Mental and behavioral disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and drug use, are the primary drivers of disability worldwide and caused over 40 million years of disability in 20- to 29-year-olds.

2. DALYs (Disability Adjusted Life Years)  from high blood pressure increased by nearly 30% between 1990 and 2010. High blood pressure is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and circulatory diseases.

3. Unlike other risk factors that primarily cause DALYs from communicable diseases, progress in reducing premature death and disability from iron deficiency was much lower, declining by just 7% between 1990 and 2010. Slow progress in reducing iron deficiency helps explain why iron-deficiency anemia ranks as the third leading cause of disability globally.

To stay healthy requires awareness and adequate actions to be taken.

The most disheartening thing is the number of premature deaths because of road traffic accidents, as illustrated in the graph below.

Reference : http://www.healthmetricsandevaluation.org/gbd/visualizations/country

http://www.who.int/research/en/

Thanks to Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation.

Other publications related to this are in Lancet December 2012.

Hopefully will write more about this in future posts with insight into what actions can be taken to become more healthy!

Toyota Shoulder!! Tennis Shoulder

We all have heard of teniss elbow, tennis knee, tennis toe, now there is a condition called as tennis shoulder! It can also be called as Toyota Shoulder! All acceleration and no brakes!

Shoulder pains can be severe and debilitating. They can affect the young and the old. Ageing seems to make orthoarthritis of shoulder joint a very dsiabling and painful condition.
Tennis players, swimmers are more prone to this but that does not mean that an average person not playing any sport will not suffer from it.

Prevention is better than cure!

Strengthening shoulder joint is essential. Improving its stability by exercising all the muscles supporting shoulder is critical.

References:

1.http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/08/phys-ed-how-to-fix-a-bad-tennis-shoulder/
2. http://www.physioroom.com/experts/asktheexperts/answers/qa_mb_20050225.php
3. http://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/top-5-exercises-increasing-shoulder-mass.html