|
|
|
|
| HEALTH & FITNESS |
|
|
|
How to maintain good
health during pregnancy Is backache ruining your life? Diet plays a major role
in oral health Health Notes
|
|
How to maintain good health during pregnancy Nutrition Try to maintain a well-balanced diet that incorporates the dietary guidelines: You will need more of the essential nutrients — calcium, iron and folic acid. Calcium Most women don’t often get the daily 1,000 mg of calcium that is recommended. Good sources of calcium include low-fat dairy products like milk, pasteurised cheese and yogurt. These are calcium-fortified products, including orange juice, soy milk and cereals. Dark green vegetables, including spinach, kale and broccoli are also rich sources of calcium. Tofu, dried beans and almonds can also help. Iron Pregnant women need about 30 mg of iron every day. It’s especially important for pregnant women to get enough iron in their daily diet — for themselves and their growing babies. While non-veg foods like meat, egg and fish provide iron to those who consume these, iron-rich vegetarian foods include tofu, enriched grains, dried beans and peas, dried fruits, dark leafy green vegetables, iron-fortified breakfast cereals, etc. Folic acid Studies have shown that taking folic acid supplements of 400 micrograms daily one month before and throughout the first three months of pregnancy decrease the risk of neural tube defects by up to 70 per cent. Some experts even recommend taking an additional folic acid supplement, especially if a woman has previously had a child with a neural tube defect. Harmful habits to be shunned include the following: The writer is a senior gynaecologist based in Chandigarh. |
|
Is backache ruining your life? Back pain may not be a life-threatening condition, but it constitutes a major public health problem. It affects a large number of people each year and is the cause of great discomfort and economic loss. Because of its high prevalence, back pain is one of the leading reasons for outpatient visits — hospitalisations and other health and social care service utilisation. Additionally, it creates disability and work loss, which in recent years have increased more rapidly than any other common form of incapacity. Most of the patients visiting hospitals with backache have multi-factorial issues. The concept of step-wise diagnosis of a patient is becoming a dying art with more and more physicians relying on diagnosis by MRI, which results in a haphazard approach to the treatment. Many simple methods of treatment such as physiotherapy and precautionary modifications in lifestyle are not taken, and the patient is handed over a cocktail of medicines and a simple message of “eat these or get surgery done”. Exercises to prevent back pain The best way to prevent back and leg pain is to regularly exercise the back. Back strengthening and stretching exercises are recommended at least two or three times a week. The following are some examples of back exercises: These exercises strengthen the back muscles, which allow them to withstand and offload the burden of everyday activities. Adopt a straight posture, sitting or standing. You should try not to bend the back. Bend instead at the knees or at the hips. This is true while lifting objects, tying shoes, putting socks or pants on, etc. But it’s also important to understand which sort of exercise is required is which particular situation. For these same reasons, a multispecialty approach consisting of a spine surgeon, physiotherapist and a psychologist is the need of the hour. This aspect has been dealt at the PGI with the start of Back School/Spine Clinic. Here is evidence suggesting that back schools, in an occupational setting, reduce pain and improve the function and return-to- work status, in a short and intermediate-term, compared to exercises, manipulation, myofascial therapy, advice, placebo or waiting list controls, for patients with chronic and recurrent low back pain. Spine clinics are designed to explain to patients the problems associated with their back pain and to allow the patients to help themselves through understanding and coping with their pain. The back school usually consists of information on the anatomy of the back, biomechanics, optimal posture, ergonomics and back exercises. If one just follows a simple lifestyle of daily walking and doing some sort of exercise to remain fit, most of the back problems can be sorted. The writer looks after Spine Clinic and is Assistant Professor, Deptt of Orthopaedics, PGI,. Chandigarh
sdhatt@yahoo.com |
|
Diet plays a major role in oral health According to WHO (World Health Organisation), our daily diet affects our oral health. It’s a known fact that eating too much of sugar and sugary foods leads to more of tooth decay. In fact, food is closely related to dental caries, especially food which is rich in fermentable carbohydrates —cakes, cookies, sugary drinks, etc. It is because these foods breakdown into simple sugars in our mouth itself and oral bacterias use them as their food to turn them into acids which in turn leads to tooth decay. Also the more sticky foods like breads, pizzas, cakes and chips stick for the longer periods on the teeth, and hence get more time to cause demineralisation of tooth. This process of demineralisation of tooth is faster in initial 20-30 minutes of eating. In between these periods of eating,our saliva neutralizes the acidic oral environment and helps in remineralisation of tooth. But with more frequent snacking, saliva does not get the time to neutralise the acids. So frequent eating leads to more of demineralisation of tooth and hence more tooth decay. Also the flow of saliva decreases while we are asleep, so again more chances of demineralization — it’s mandatory to brush at night so as to get rid of harmful bacteria. So, a little bit of attention to our diet and dietary habits can be of great help to maintain oral health. Some key suggestions regarding this are : So, with these simple guidelines, one can maintain oral health for one’s life-time.
|
|
Health Notes London: In a new study, for which the buttocks of inactive people were scanned, researchers found that their muscles were shrinking and breaking down due to lack of exercise — dubbed “desk derriere”. The research at Tel Aviv University also showed that fat cells thrive in the buttocks of those who lead a sedentary lifestyle, causing thick layers of fat to develop deep inside muscle tissue. Insufficient activity and a poor diet are the main causes of desk derriere but other factors also play a role. “The hip flexor muscles, found at the front of the hip, become overactive and tight if an individual spends all day sitting,” the Daily Mail quoted Chris Jones, professional head of physiology at Nuffield Health, as saying. “In response, the three key muscles that give the buttocks their shape — the gluteus maximus, gluteus medius and gluteus minimus — become less responsive and generally underactive, leading to poor muscle tone,” he said. — ANI Fruits and veggies can cut heart attack risk
London: Eating a diet rich in antioxidants — mainly derived from fruits and vegetables — could cut the chance of a heart attack by a quarter, according to Swedish researchers. The results contrast with studies that suggest taking antioxidant supplements such as vitamin A, C and E pills has no effect. The researchers believe that different antioxidant compounds could work together to protect the body in a much more powerful way than taking single large doses can achieve. Specifically, they found that older women who ate seven fruit and vegetable portions a day were between 20 and 29 per cent less likely to have a heart attack over a decade than those who ate just 2.4, The Telegraph reported.Antioxidants are naturally occurring substances, which mop up the molecules called reactive oxygen species (ROS), better known as ‘free radicals.’ These prompt inflammation, can damage cells, and have been implicated for triggering cancer and heart disease. — ANI Moving to less poor neighbourhood boosts physical and mental health
Washington: A new study has found that moving from a high-poverty to lower-poverty neighbourhood provide long-term gains in the physical and mental health of low-income adults, as well as a substantial increase in their happiness, despite not improving economic self-sufficiency. Although moving into less disadvantaged neighbourhoods did not raise incomes for the families that moved, these families experienced important gains in well-being in other ways. Moving from a high-poverty neighbourhood to one with a poverty rate 13 percentage points lower increased the happiness of low-income adults by an amount equivalent to the gains caused by a 13,000-dollar rise in family income. Using data from a large-scale randomised social experiment called Moving to Opportunity, researchers at the University of Chicago and partners at other institutions found that neighbourhood income segregation had a greater impact than neighbourhood racial segregation in shaping the outcomes of adults in the study. — ANI |
As the good news of your pregnancy is pronounced, you have to be in touch with your doctor. She will check your weight and blood pressure while also checking the growth and development of your baby. She will advise you to eat well, drink extra fluids and take regular exercises. She will also counsel about good sleep and a stress-free routine. Besides taking detailed history, you’ll also have certain tests done —blood, urine and ultrasound. Most doctors will like to see you every four weeks until the 28th week of pregnancy. Then you will be called every two weeks until 36 weeks and then once a week until delivery. She will also determine if your pelvic outlet is adequate to obviate the need for a caesarean section operation.