Care for My Joints

I am reaching 60 this year. One of my health concern is the joints. I had been on glucosamine, but had not been taking it regularly. So far so good, but I have to take care for the possibility that the pain may come.

I make it a point to update my knowledge on the subject. The contributory factors are, the sedentary life style, being overweight and pad posture. I think I am guilty of the two, the lifestyle and the posture. As I had opted to continue working, I do spend a high portion of the day time on chair.

The following are suggestions to relief the pain...

a. have a balanced rest and work. The movement will release the pain, if it gets to bad and unbearable, take your day off.
b. Hot shower or bath will help to lower the pain.

The standard medical treatment consists of aspirin, corticosteroids and anti-infllammation drugs. Unfortunately these drugs has its own side effect. It helps to prevent the natural repair and may affect liver and kidney.

The mattress can cause problem. I had opted to sleep on the hard floor, however a firm mattress and lower pillow can be as effective.

Foods for your joints
a. Glucosamine and Chondroitin are the natural substance found in the joints. It starts to loss its density and the pain will be the result. The joint foods have been popular to manage the joints and arthritis.

Heart Disease the Number 1 Killer of Women

Heart disease is becoming the number one killer of women in Malaysia. The statistics shows that the number killed by heart related diseases is 2.5 times of the number killed by all the different types of cancer combined together.

It is wrong to believe that older men or women are prone to the heart related diseases. On average, the Malaysian that are admitted due to acute coronary is around the age of 59, that is about 7 years younger than other countries. There are a number of cases of heart bypass for women as young as 19 years of age.

The statistics of the women body mass index is alarming. Malaysian women have the highest BMI index and the data suggest that the heart problem is related to obesity.  The other major contributor is the level of cholesterol in the blood stream. Sixty percent of Malaysian women have elevated level of cholesterol.

The good new is the heart diseases are preventable if detected early. As a way of promoting the awareness, the heart association is organising various exercises. The active life style makes a lot of difference.

Oat Beta-Glucan for Cholesterol Control

DIABETES EPIDEMIC IN MALAYSIA

The disease is on the rise in Malaysia. It is the single largest cause of amputation, kidney failures and blindness. If nothing is being done, the effect will be catastrophic. This is the worrying trend..

1986 -   6.3%  ( adult above 30 years)
1996 -   8.3%
2006 -   20.8%

What is more alarming, about half of the surveyed were not even aware that they have the disease. This result to improper diet and other control measures thus producing further health complication.

The disease may effect another aspect of the country. It is vision 2020, it aspires to become a developed nation by 2021, but with the high rate of the disease, it will not reflect the character of a developed nation.

Diabetes has many side effects. It can block arteries resulting to heart diseases and stroke. A blocked arteries in the legs, may lead to gangrene and amputation of the limbs. Poor disease control may cause the blockage of smaller arteries in the eyes and kidneys thus causing failure.

The key to controlling the epidemic is the diet and the life style. Regular exercise and low intake of processed sugar will help to control the level of glucose.

Suicide Cases On The Rise

The Star reported that the cases of suicide is on the rise in Malaysia. In the past 3 years, more that 1000 people had taken their own life. However the rate is still very low compared to the global average.

The Malaysian current rate is 1.3 per 100,000 person or 0.0013%. The global average is 16 per 100,000 person or 0.016%. The figure should be taken with caution, as is collated from the hospital post mortems, which means that the deaths not referred and post-mortemed at hospitals are not included in the data.

 The statistic revealed that:
- The age group id between 24 and 44 years.
- The men outnumbered the women.
- The racial composition seem biased..
        - Chinese 48%
        - Indian 21%
        - Malay 18%

The Malaysian racial composition is roughly, Malay 55%, Chinese 30% and Indian 12%.

Facing the increase trend, The Health Ministry has launch a five year program of Suicide prevention strategic Plan to curb the rise. It will focus on the community centred approach, a shift from the previous approach clinical treatments at the hospitals.

Currently, the government has 224 psychiatrists with the ratio of 1:150,000. The ideal is 1:50,000. The means, with present population size, the increase will be 3 folds.

ALARMED DUE TO HEARING LOSS

I am sixty years old and I had been suffering from tinnitus for about five years. I had been to no less than three specialists, the answer is the same, nothing can be done about it, I have adjust my life and learn to read lips and body language.After some time I learn how to guess the conversation, and I found it useful. My wife was having a conversation with a man, and latter I asked her what it was about. She mentioned something, which I knew she was lying.

I knew I was asking for the problem, as I use to work in the noisy environment at the air port. As I work there everyday, there were time I took a short cut, I did not wear the ear mouth, or plug, instead close it with my fingers. The effect is not immediate, I have problem when I reached 53 years.

What is more alarming, the current children as young as twelve years are showing symptoms of hearing loss. A test was made on 4000 people at random, about 30% are suffering. Although the majority are above 55, there are a handful as young as 14 having problem.  Another example was quoted when a boy of twelve was brought in by his parents. They are concern when he stop responding to call to extend that they have to shout to get attention.

The problem caused is not reversible. The damage to the nerve are caused by prolonged exposure to noise.  These can be the source of the problem...
a. The handphone - the prolong exposure to loud sound from the phone may affect the hearing.
b. Headset and music - the young generation love to amaze themselves with loud CD direct to their ears. The loud sound of the disco music may too cause the injury.
c. Noisy work environment - This was my problem. Some work place are prong to this. If you work in a factory or next to the jet engine, do be careful.

They fact the the number of people suffering are on the rise, and the age of sufferers are decreasing should sound the alarm of caution about the hearing lost.    

breathing stops in sleep

Last week I meet an old friend at another friends house. It was a get together, and he was telling his own health problem. At the age of 60, I did not expect a clean health, but what I heart was something new, he sometime stop breathing while asleep. The longest was 3 minutes.

He is snoring aloud, I was wondering how he managed to time his breathing. Then he explained that he went to a specialist, a sleep analyst.

It reminded me of a successful business man who did not make through his snoring cure operation. However his reason may be slightly different. His wife past away, he married a much younger lady. It was likely, he did it to make his wife happier.

Back to the story of my friend, he wanted to buy a machine that will keep the air flowing in when he sleep.

Then I stumble an article in a paper about this situation. It is known as OSA - Onstructive sleep Apnea. It is a potentially life- threatening disease.

In your sleep, your muscles relax except those related to controlling the air flow to the lung. Unfortunately, a person with this disease has his muscles relax too.

You may have the symptoms but do not know about it, here are symptoms...
- loud snoring
- report by partner about you stopping breathing.

Stressful Teens

Teens are the state of their minds and may come as early as 8 or 9 years and may be later, when they are above 20s. My daughter did it very early at 8.

Faced with increased demands in growing up, the teens are more stressful now. The danger is, the majority of them, and even their parents may not be aware of the signals until it is too late.

The teens are persons in transition. The like of us moving to new house, and only worst. They are moving fro being a child, a dependent on their parents to a new stage of being adults. Some will take it with readiness to play the new adult roles, but do no know how to. Some may still wish they were still the small children grasping tightly to their parents. The fear can be, that they are leaving the hand of the families totally and holding to those with questionable character.

Too often, they are not comfortable to ask for help from their parents. The parents too, sometime miss the point to build up the dynamic relationship, and still threat the teens as toddlers. Deep inside they are saying.."Look at me Mum, I had grown up, cant you see "

The Longer they are in transition, the greater their chance that they develop serious problems. It can be serious, like clinical depression, anxiety disorder, drugs and alcohol and even suicidal.

SIGN OF STRESS

a. Arguing - It is normal for them to argue. I prefer this rather than withdraw. Like playing the Malaysian business golf, they may want to win. But do not give in every time... because they may have the wrong impression that they are always right.

Last week, I forgot this, and I proved her wrong, all of of sudden, tears started to form and she withdraw.

It is not normal to teens to be angry all the time. It can last a day of 2, it is a way to let off the steam.

b. Withdrawal from parents is normal, however pulling off from friends are not. If they isolate themselves in the room weekend after weekend is a sign that they are struggling with depression. Socializing with fiend are the first to go under depression.

c. Anxiety is the norm. The prospect of being independent is both exciting and terrifying. Two types of kids are prone to anxiety disorder... 1. the perfectionist and crams his/her schedule and ..2. The worryer.. those who worry over almost everything that he cannot do anything.

Mine had her way escape these, we had a pet cat. She always boosted, it is only the cat ..name.. understand me, it hold my secret. When I cried, he will lick by tears.

Yes, stressful teens is a norm now, unlike the years when we were growing, we had faced different struggle.. i.e how to keep our stomach full. Remember our old friend..the motivational theory maslow.

Transient ischaemic attack

The Transient ischaemic attack (TIA) is an early warning system telling you that more TIAs or a stroke are on their way. TIA is caused by a temporary interruption of the supply of blood to part of the brain creating a sort of mini stroke. The TIA is usually resolved by itself within 24 hours.

If this early warning is not taken seriously, and unfortunately that tend to be the case, it is very likely that a full scale stoke will take place. It is estimated that with proper treatment, the chance that the stroke will happen within a month is reduced by a factor of 10.

Our brain receives the supply of blood from two path. The main supply comes from the carotid arteries in front of the next and the secondary supply through the vertebral arteries in front of the backbone. These arteries will branch off to smaller arteries in the brain. The blockage can be caused by narrowing of the arteries of a flake of blood clot formed elsewhere and finds its way into the brain.

As we age, the arteries will tend to become narrower. The narrowing process will be worst by factors such as smoking, stress and diabetes.

These are some of the risk factors:

1. Age: as we age the risk will be higher. However TIA can happen to a younger group.

2. Gender : The male counterpart will be having higher risk

3. Ethnic: Certain ethic group will have higher tendency to get the TIA.

4. Family History: If you parents have the history, you may have a higher risk.

The Transient ischaemic attack is giving us the chance to get medical assistance. Do take it seriously, as the next attack can be the last.