Lazy Lifestyles

London: With people in developing nations like India and Pakistan adopting lazy lifestyles of the west, cancer rates are expected to soar by 75 percent worldwide by 2030, experts have warned.

Cancer rates could even increase by 90 percent in the Third World in that time, experts add.Many cancers such as breast, prostate and bowel tumours are linked to unhealthy living in high-income nations. Countries like India, Pakistan and certain African nations are said to be under threat as their standard of living improves, The Sun reported.

Global cancer cases are predicted to rise from around 13 million in 2008 to around 22 million in 2030. Obesity caused by eating processed or junk foods, low exercise levels and high smoking rates have been blamed.Scientists from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyons, France, based their findings on a snapshot of statistics for the disease from 184 countries in 2008. The incidence and death rate estimates were used to project how cancer diagnoses were likely to change by 2030. – Khaleejnews

LONDON: Eating fish, which is rich in omega-3 fatty acids, boosts blood flow to the brain and improves its performance.

New research shows it can also quicken reaction times and reduce levels of tiredness in the brain even after performing tough tasks.British researchers say the findings could be particularly important for the elderly as these have the potential to stave off dementia, the British Journal of Nutrition reports.They conducted two studies to examine the effects of oily fish. Volunteers were given fish-oil supplements rich in DHA, an omega-3 fatty acid, reports the Telegraph.

Results of one showed that taking omega-3 supplements during mental tasks boosted blood flow to active areas of the brain.Another study looked at the impact of giving two fish-oil supplements to a group of volunteers aged 18-35 over three months.Results showed little difference in blood flow to the brain, but faster reaction times and lower levels of tiredness after being given a task to complete.Study author Philippa Jackson from Northumbria University, Britain, said: “These findings could have implications for mental function later on in life. – Khaleejnews

ISLAMABAD:

Each of these remote sites will provide facilities of digital stethoscope, digital derma-scope, portable ultrasound, digital ECG and customized telemedicine software to the patients at their hometowns including consultations with the specialists sitting in the three main hospitals.The Prime Minister directed USF that in addition to the proposed cities in Sindh, Badin, Thatta, Dadu and Naushero Feroz, flood stricken districts like Nawabshah, Mirpur Khas, Umerkot and Sanghar should also be included in the telemedicine network immediately.  Similarly, he directed to include cities of Bahawalpur, Rahimyar Khan,Rajanpur, DG Khan, Qadirpur, Shujaabad, Mianwali and Kharian to the 12 cities initially planned.

He also directed that as soon as USF Fiber cable is laid in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan, similar Tele-medicine projects should be started there.Other major telecom projects that are part of the newly approved budget include broadband, fiber optic cables and educational/tele-centers in the underserved parts of the county.The Prime Minister said that USF had to further speed up in order to cover the delays caused due to different factors during current and the last year. He further emphasized the board to keep ensuring transparency in biding process and execution of the projects.To ensure better execution of projects, decisions regarding extension in projects contractual timelines and establishing mechanism issues of the fund were also discussed and decided.The Prime Minister stressed upon optimal utilization of USF fund in bringing concrete progress in the near future, in terms ofapplications like e-agriculture, e-commerce, e-government, e- education, e-health and e-disaster management.

He said that USF should work in collaboration with other countries with better information technology expertise to establish state of the art IT learning institutions with a special focus on unserved and underserved areas.The Prime Minister urged board of directors of USF to ensure frequent board meetings to make it more effective.On part of the government too, he assured USF Board of full support and encouragement in carrying out this nation building task.Secretary Information and Technology, Chairman PTA, Member Telecom, CEO PTCL, CEO USF and Representative of Consumer Association of Pakistan attended the meeting as directors of USF Board.

LAHORE:

According to the consolidated figures made available from the eleven Army free medical camps around 1500 people reported only today. So far 32 critical cases of dengue infection were referred to CMH Lahore for admission. While minor cases were provided free consultation and requisite medication. It may be mentioned that Pakistan Army has established an exclusive 100 – bed facility at CMH Lahore for free of cost treatment of civil patients severely infected by deadly epidemic.

The Army free medical camps for diagnosis of dengue virus have been established at Bedian Road, Cavalry Ground near Khalid Masjid, Mehfozpura near Ghazi Grid Station, Cantonment General Hospital, Saddar, Masjid Chowk DHA Phase-1, Beacon House School DHA Phase-3, Commercial area DHA Phase-5. A dedicated team of Army medics will remain available from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm daily to provide free medical facility for convenience of general public.

ISLAMABAD:

The President directed that liaison between the federal and provincial governments be further strengthened. The cooperation of the international agencies would also be welcome in this regard, the President said.The President said that all possible efforts should be made in assisting patients infected with Dengue virus and for that purpose special arrangements be made in all the major hospitals of the country.He also expected that medical staff would make extra efforts in alleviating the sufferings of the patients and their families. – APP

“Made it about three tenths of a mile and then had the classic symptoms. Chest pain … and then pain down the left arm and shortness of breath,” Bare said. That’s what prompted him to see his doctor. Within days, he was scheduled for surgery.”He’s at risk for heart attack just because of the amount of plaque that he has,” said surgeon Ed Raines just before performing a quintuple bypass on Bare.Bill Clinton: Omnivore to vegan

Family history

Bare has a strong family history of heart disease: His mother’s parents both died of heart attacks, and his mother and brother both required heart surgery, he said.Bill Clinton: From omnivore to vegan Study finds new ways to lower cholesterol
Ways to keep your cholesterol healthyStill, he was trying to do everything right. He was on a statin medicine, which he said had lowered his cholesterol from just under 300 to 125. Total cholesterol of 240 or above is considered a risk factor for heart disease.Also, Bare’s typical diet was better than most: oatmeal for breakfast, fruit for lunch, chicken or Mexican food for dinner.

He didn’t smoke. He was not overweight or diabetic.”Friends are saying if there’s anybody in the group that shouldn’t be going through this, it would be me, because of my lifestyle,” Bare said. But, he added, “My brother has gone through this. My mom has gone through this. I knew it was coming.”Dr. Dean Ornish, who has researched the relationship between lifestyle and health, says even the most malignant family history can be overcome.”I don’t think anyone is doomed to have heart disease,” said Ornish, founder and president of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute.”You know, even if your mother and your father and your sister and your brother all die from heart disease it doesn’t mean you need ever to die from it,” he added. “It just means you need to make bigger changes in your life than someone else who doesn’t have those kinds of genes.”For someone like Bare, that might mean adopting a plant-based diet, Ornish said. – CNN

Those on a diet that just emphasized low-fat foods, including high-fiber options and whole grains, saw a three percent drop in LDL, said the report in the Journal of the American Medical Association.”This study indicated the potential value of using recognized cholesterol-lowering foods in combination,” said the study.The trial took place at four different sites in Canada — Quebec City, Toronto, Winnipeg, and Vancouver — and included 351 participants with elevated cholesterol levels.

Those on the concentrated cholesterol-lowering regime were divided into two groups — one which had two nutritional counseling sessions and the other which had seven clinic visits over six months — but both saw very similar results.The trial did not restrict calories or provide subjects with food. All the subjects lost a similar amount of weight — between 1.2-1.7 kilograms (2.6-3.7 pounds) — during the study.

Foods included in the cholesterol-lowering group were drawn from a list of US Food and Drug Administration approved suggestions for better heart health, including the use of olive oil instead of butter, and margarine products fortified with plant sterols that help block absorption of cholesterol.Other such foods included avocado, oatmeal, soy, tofu, beans, lentils, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, pistachio nuts and walnuts.The study had a high overall dropout rate — 22.6 percent — though it noted “this attrition rate is common to dietary studies provided at these levels of intensity.”

Another drawback was that it included mainly white subjects of moderate weight with low heart disease risk, so it was “unknown” if similar effects would be seen in “higher-risk, more overweight, or obese patient populations.” – APF

ISLAMABAD:

The new career structure has been prepared in consultation with all stakeholders and on the basis of consensus of the medical community and that is what makes it unique, he said.The Ordinance applicable to all health personnel serving in the federal health institutions and related organizations under the jurisdiction of the Federal Government would come into force at once and shall deem to have taken effect from 1st day of July 2011.

The new legislation envisages replacing the current Basic Pay Scale system (BPS-1 to 22) currently applicable to the health personnel with the special Health Personnel Pay scale (HPS 1 to 13) to be applicable to all categories of medical practitioners including paramedics and support services personnel, serving in the federal health institutions and related organizations under the federal government.He said that entry into this scheme would be optional for the existing employees. However, all fresh appointments shall be made under the new scheme.Every health personnel immediately before the commencement of this ordinance shall be required to exercise an irrevocable option either to continue in the present pay and service structure or to opt for the new scheme within a period of thirty days from the date of promulgation of this ordinance.

The Ordinance envisages that the monetary benefits of all the health personnel under the scheme including pay, pension, perks and privileges shall not be less favorable than those admissible to them before the commencement of Scheme.    He said that honoring the doctors demand for exclusive career structure along with an independent pay scale and a performance evaluation system based on evaluating quantifiable targets the government had fulfilled a longstanding demand of the medical professionals.Another notable feature of the new career structure was the health allowances which starting with 2000 rupees a month would go as high as 45,000 rupees a month.The health allowance would be as HPS-1 to 2 (Rs 2,000), HPS-3 to 5 (Rs 3,000), HPS-6 (Rs 4,000), HPS-7 (Rs 5,000), HPS-8 (Rs 7,000), HPS-9 (Rs 10,000), HPS-10 (Rs 20,000), HPS-11 (Rs 30,000), HPS-12 (Rs 40,000) and HPS-13 (Rs 45,000).

The new enactment links the career growth of health professionals with improvements in professional skills, continuing education, professional experience, research papers and performance laid down by the relevant regulatory bodies from time to time. All matters essentially relating to their service would be governed by the rules prescribed under the CSHP.The health personnel shall be deemed to be public servants with the meaning of section 21 of the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (Act XLV of 1860).

The Ordinance also provides guidelines for making further rules. All rules, order and instructions in respect of any terms and conditions of service or other matters of health personnel duly made or issued which are not inconsistent with the provision of this Ordinance would be deemed to be rules made under this Ordnance. – APP

NEW YORK:

“Our study suggests that we can identify those few subjects who are candidates for carotid surgery due to their high risk despite best medical treatment,” said Raffi Topakian, at the Academic Teaching Hospital Wagner-Jauregg in Linz, Austria, whose findings appear in Neurology.”Of course, it’s still too early to be enthusiastic about our findings. Ideally, our findings should be corroborated by other studies.”The test is based on two types of ultrasound scans, one of the carotid arteries that supply blood to the brain, and one of the arteries in the brain itself.Both are readily available at hospitals, although the brain scan takes about an hour and is not easy to interpret.

Currently, in the U.S. and Canada, too many patients get surgery to clean out the cholesterol buildup despite having few symptoms, said Lars Marquardt, a neurologist at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany, who wrote an editorial about the findings.In the study, 428 symptom-free patients with clogged carotid arteries, so-called carotid stenosis or plaque, had both scans done and were then followed for two years.Of those who started out with warning signs on both scans, the yearly stroke risk was nine percent.Those without suspicious-looking results on the two scans — about 94 percent of the patients — had a risk of less than one percent per year.

Clogged carotid arteries are a risk factor for stroke, but many doctors believe doing the surgery is too hazardous for symptom-free people at average risk.”There is a subset of patients who need it, and this new test will probably — I’m sure it will — help identify those. It wasn’t a huge study, but it is very promising,” said Marquardt.Overall, only about two percent of people with symptom-free carotid stenosis suffer a stroke per year when their condition is managed with drugs and lifestyle changes.By contrast, carotid surgery performed by experienced surgeons triggers a fatal stroke in as many as three percent.

“There is a very important story to be told about unnecessary carotid surgery and stenting in the U.S.,” said David Spence, a stroke prevention researcher at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada.”Ninety-five percent of these procedures are for asymptomatic stenosis, and our work shows that 90 percent of these patients would be better off without surgery.”For this sort of reason, the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, a federally funded expert panel, recommends against screening for carotid stenosis in the first place.

“If you are screening lots of people who have plaques, there’s an awful lot of harm associated with that,” said Patrick O’Malley of the Uniformed Services University in Bethesda, Maryland, adding that the new test could lead to more screening for carotid stenosis — which hasn’t been shown to cut stroke rates.Harms from screening include getting unnecessary surgeries and medications, which have complications and side effects — a drawback Topakian acknowledged. – Yahoonews

LOS ANGELES:

This “may convince many individuals that they are able to incorporate physical activity into their busy lives,” Dr. Anil Nigam of the University of Montreal said in an email. Nigam had no role in the research but wrote an editorial accompanying the Taiwan study published online Monday in The Lancet.Fitness guidelines by the World Health Organization, the U.S. and other countries recommend that adults get at least a half-hour of moderate workout most days of the week. This can include brisk walking, bike riding and water aerobics.Realizing that it might be difficult for some to break a sweat, health groups have suggested breaking it down into smaller, more manageable chunks of time such as three 10-minute spurts a day on weekdays.

The latest study, a large one led by researchers at the National Health Research Institutes in Taiwan, sought to determine if exercising less than the recommended half-hour was still helpful.The researchers noted that east Asians — including China, Japan and Taiwan — are generally less physically active than their Western counterparts and their workouts tend to be less intense.About 416,000 Taiwanese adults were asked how much exercise they did the previous month. Based on their answers, they were put into five groups of varying activity levels from inactive to highly active. Researchers kept track of their progress for eight years on average and calculated projected life expectancy.

The study found those who exercised just 15 minutes a day — or 90 minutes a week — cut their risk of death by 14 percent and extended their life expectancy by three years compared with those who did no exercise. Both men and women benefited equally from the minimum activity.Each additional 15 minutes of exercise reduced the risk of death by another 4 percent compared with the inactive group. Researchers did not report how additional exercise affected life expectancy.There were some limitations. Answers were self-reported. The study, though large, was observational, which means the health benefits may not be entirely due to exercise. But researchers said they took into account other factors that might affect health such as smoking and drinking. And outside scientists said the findings are in line with other studies.

For the sedentary, the key is this: Some exercise is better than none.”Get off the couch and start moving,” said I-Min Lee of the Harvard School of Public Health.In a study published in Circulation earlier this month, Lee and colleagues found that people who engaged in 15 minutes a day of moderate physical activity had a 14 percent lower risk of heart disease compared with inactive people.That research, combining the results of nearly three dozen studies of people from North America and Europe, also found that the benefit increased with more activity and may provide more motivation to the physically fit.

People should strive to do the recommended level of exercise, but should not be discouraged if they can’t achieve it right away. Start slow and gradually build up.”As inactive persons start moving, they may very well find that they become more fit” and reaching their exercise goal becomes easier, Lee said.Until a year ago, Bernadette O’Brien, a retired principal who lives in northern New Jersey, did not make time for exercise. She would occasionally walk around her neighborhood and swim in the pool at her local gym, but she did little else.After the 80-year-old was diagnosed with diabetes, she decided to change her habits. Now O’Brien exercises between 15 and 45 minutes a day, five days a week. She mixes up her routine with water aerobics and strength training so she won’t get bored. – Yahoonews