HEALTH SPECIAL.......... Lower your BP count, with yoga or medicine

 Lower your BP count, with yoga or medicine 

Medicine treats disease, but for many, this is just what works against it. Though they lack a descriptor, there exists a group of people with a Superman Complex who think they are indestructible and live in perennial denial of their health problems. So, in antithesis of hypochondriacs, who obsess about diseases real and imaginary, this nameless group chooses to do the ostrich when faced with symptoms and pretend they are healthy, when they are anything but.

Most “denialists” are under 40, which somewhat explains the Manof-Steel obsession. They think they know the human body better than scientists and doctors with knowledge based on centuries of collective research and learning.

Lately, I’ve been running into an unbelievable number of people choosing laughing clubs or Ramdev’s yogic remedies to help lower their blood pressure or cure their diabetes instead of going for prescription medicines with scientifically-documented and reviewed benefits. And then, convinced that they are “feeling good” and have beaten back the disease, they stop going to doctors, which is a mistake because the disease almost always strikes back in a more severe and unmanageable form.

I’m not getting into whether induced laughter sessions and breath acrobatics work on health. All I’m saying is that you’ve to continue tracking your disease or condition medically to make sure you do not miss the opportunity of managing it in early stages when simply lifestyle changes and drugs can help control and even reverse it.

Ignoring early signs and hesitating to use medicine to manage high blood pressure are two major reasons why hypertension (sustained high blood pressure) is an increasing problem even in a developed region like Europe, report the new joint Guidelines issued by the European Society of Hypertension (ESH) and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC), issued on Friday.

The document urges people to track blood pressure levels closely and take medicines if the higher reading of their blood pressure (systolic) stays over 140 mmHg. This advice replaces the previous, more complicated target, which included both systolic and diastolic recommendations for different levels of risk (140/90 mmHg for moderate to low risk patients and 130/80 mmHg target for high risk patients, such as people with diabetes or existing heart disease).

One in every three adults worldwide has hypertension, which contributes to 62% of strokes and 49% of heart attacks worldwide, by World Health Organisation estimates.

Yet young people are less likely to believe they have hypertension and go to the doctor for a reading or prescription medicines. In early stages, hypertension responds well to prescription medication lifestyle changes such as eating less salt (roughly half present levels), lowering weight, quitting smoking and exercising at least five times a week. If left uncontrolled, it leads to life-threatening conditions that include heart disease, stroke, and kidney disease.

Symptoms generally appear only after the disease is entrenched and has caused damage. For example, headaches, a key symptom, appear only in a hypertensive crisis, when your blood pressure reading has crossed 180/110 mmHg. Healthy blood pressure is 120/80 mmHg, 120 represents systolic pressure, or the pressure of blood against artery walls when the heart beats, against whole 80 is diastolic pressure, or the pressure between beats.

The new European Guidelines — to be simultaneously published in the Journal of Hypertension and Blood Pressure and European Heart Journal — highlight the lack of awareness of potential problems of hypertension, poor adherence to treatment, and the ‘inertia’ of doctors, who don’t give appropriate advice to patients with uncontrolled blood pressure.

The report offers no specific preference for single drug therapy or and an updated protocol for treatment. All that matters is you keeping your readings in check, be it through fake laughter, pretzel postures, losing weight or prescription medicines.

Sanchita Sharma, Health Editor HT130616

WALKING OR CYCLING TO WORK CAN BOOST HEART HEALTH 

Indians who walk or cycle to work have a lower risk of cardiovascular disease as they are less likely to be overweight, have diabetes or suffer from high blood pressure, according to a new study. Researchers from Imperial College London and the New Delhi-based Public Health Foundation of India said that the findings suggest that encouraging more people to use physically active modes of transport could reduce rates of important risk factors for many chronic diseases. Unfortunately, the rates of diabetes and heart disease are projected to increase dramatically in India and other low and middle income countries over the next two decades. Getting more people to use active modes of travel should be integral to strategies to maintain healthy weight and prevent diabetes and heart disease in India, felt the researchers.