Almost 10pc of population in Pakistan is diabetic

KARACHI: Ten percent of population in Pakistan is diabetic in Pakistan and the prevalence is rising due to unhealthy lifestyle and poor healthcare facilities in the country, said noted experts here on Monday.
Prof Muhammad Zaman Shaikh, Director of National Institute of Diabetes & Endocrinology, Dow University of Health Sciences (DUHS) and Prof Najam Ul Hassan of Aga Khan University Hospital were addressing a press conference here at Karachi Press Club.
They said constant tension and unhealthy lifestyle have increased the risk of diabetes among the people. They stressed the importance of awareness among the masses to save them from chronic disease like diabetes.
They announced that Pakistan Endocrine Society is organizing its 10th Annual Symposium on 8th & 9th December 2012 in Karachi. Theme of symposium will be “Promoting Hormone Health”.
The reason for this selection of the theme is to promote the understating of endocrine diseases, its diagnosis, management and available treatment options in our local and national setup of Pakistan Prof Zaman Shaikh said that 10 percent of population is facing diabetes in our country.
He said constant tension and unhealthy lifestyle increased the risk of diabetes among the people. He stressed the importance of awareness among the masses to save them from chronic disease like diabetes.
Prof Najam ul Hassan said that disorders of hormones is the main causes of obesity, menstrual disturbances, short stature and diabetes among the peoples. He further said disorders of hormones only increased or control through injection.
Dr Qamar Masood said the regular consumption of fast food items, change in lifestyle and industrialization has increased the risks of this disease. He urged the masses to adopt simple lifestyle, 35 -minute daily exercise and use of fruits and vegetables in daily diet which would save them from diseases.
He further said would be three pre-symposium workshops on the topic of thyroid nodules, evaluation of short stature & diabetic foot would also be held. The inauguration ceremony will be on 8th December.
Dr Muhammad Ahmed of Saudi Arabia will deliver keynotes on “Challenges in the Management of Thyroid Cancer” and Dr Hamed Farooqi of Dubai United Arab Emirates (UAE) will also be another guest speaker.
There will be satellite symposium on the topic of “Translating Diabetes Care from Guidelines to Practice”.
Other national and international endocrinologists will also deliver their lectures on different topics: Metabolic Bone Disease in Children, Obesity, Insulin therapy & menstrual disturbances along with Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome. (PPI)

ٹما ٹر کا استعما ل ہائی بلڈ پر یشر اورکو لیسٹرو ل سے محفو ظ رکھتا ہے ،تحقیق

ٹما ٹر کا استعما ل ہائی بلڈ پر یشر اورکو لیسٹرو ل سے محفو ظ رکھتا
ہے ،تحقیق

کینبرا …ایک حا لیہ طبّی تحقیق میں بتا یا گیا ہے کہ سر خ ٹما ٹرو ں کا استعمال بلند فشا ر ِ خو ن اور خو ن میں کو لیسٹرو ل کی سطح کو کم کر نے میں مددگا ر ثا بت ہوتاہے ۔ آسٹر یلیا میں کی جا نے والی اس تحقیق کے مطا بق ٹماٹروں میں پا ئے جا نے والے جزو Lycopene کی روزانہ پچیس ملی گر ام مقدار خون میں چکنا ئی کی سطح کو دس فیصد تک کم کرسکتی ہے۔ ماہرین کا یہ بھی کہناہے کہ ٹماٹر کو پکا کر کھا نا یا اس کا پیسٹ استعما ل کر نا کچے ٹما ٹر کھانے سے زیا دہ فا ئدہ مند ثا بت ہو تا ہے اور روزانہ پچا س گر ام ٹما ٹر کے پیسٹ کے استعمال سے دل کی بیماریوں سے بھی محفو ظ رہا جاسکتاہے ۔

 

Malala makes it to Time's 100 list

KARACHI: Malala Yousafzai stands at the 15th slot after securing around 300,000 votes in her favor in the selection of Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People in The World list for 2012.
Malala Yousufzai is the courageous 15 year-old Pakistani girl who stood up against the Taliban for education for girls. She, along with her two classmates, sustained bullet wounds when Taliban militants attacked her school van in Swat.
The final outcome of the Time Magazine's list will be made public on December 31 while the voting will continue till 12th.
The present position of the vote puts North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un on the top slot who has left other contenders behind by a big margin with 4.3 million votes in his support.
Jon Stewart - an American political satirist, writer, television host and actor - is holding the second position with around 1 million votes.
US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton has so far bagged nearly 550,000 votes and ranks 9. Egypt president Mohammed Morsi holds 11th while Syrian president Bashar al-Assad is on 14th position..

Breath test points to colorectal cancer 

PARIS: An experimental breath test can diagnose colorectal cancer with an accuracy of over 75 percent, Italian researchers reported on Wednesday.
The electronic "nose" detects key molecules emitted by tumours, a technique that is also being used in pioneering diagnostics for lung and breast cancer.
A team led by Donato Altomare of the Department of Emergency and Organ Transplantation at the University Aldo Mori in Bari collected exhaled breath from 37 patients with colorectal cancer and 41 healthy counterparts.
The breath was then analysed by gas chromatography and mass spectrometry, which looked for a tiny chemical "fingerprint" for so-called volatile organic compounds linked to cancer.
Colorectal cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related death in Europe, after lung cancer, and the third in the United States.
The human and economic cost of the disease is pushing the search for swift, cheap and simple diagnostic tools, compared to tests on stool DNA or faecal blood or a colonoscopy to detect dangerous polyps.
"The technique of breath sampling is very easy and non-invasive, although the method is still in the early phase of development," said Altomare. "Our study's findings provide further support for the value of breath testing as a screening tool."

Drug, alcohol abuse tied to early-life strokes

 

NEW YORK: Younger adults who suffered a stroke were often smokers or had abused drugs or alcohol, according to a US study that looked at over 1,000 patients.

Strokes are often thought of as a condition of the elderly, but researchers said long-term changes in the heart, arteries or and blood as a result of drug abuse or heavy drinking may put users at higher-than-average risk earlier in life.
"Substance abuse is common in young adults experiencing a stroke," wrote lead researcher Brett Kissela from the University of Cincinnati in the journal Stroke.
"Patients aged younger than 55 years who experience a stroke should be routinely screened and counseled regarding substance abuse."
It's also possible that some drugs, particularly cocaine and methamphetamines, may trigger a stroke more immediately, according to S. Andrew Josephson, a neurologist from the University of California, San Francisco, who has studied drug use and stroke but was not involved in the study.
"We know that even with vascular risk factors that are prevalent - smoking, high blood pressure... most people still don't have a stroke until they're older," he added.
"When a young person has a stroke, it is probably much more likely that the cause of their stroke is something other than traditional risk factors."
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, close to 800,000 people in the United States have a stroke every year, and they are the most common cause of serious long-term disability. One study of 2007 data found that almost five percent of people who had a stroke that year were between ages 18 and 44.
The current study involved people from Greater Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky who'd had a stroke before they hit 55.
The researchers reviewed medical charts for blood or urine test results of other records of substance abuse for close to 1,200 stroke patients.
In 2005, the most recent year covered, just over half of young adults who suffered a stroke were smokers at the time, and one in five used illicit drugs, including marijuana and cocaine. Thirteen percent of people had used drugs or alcohol within 24 hours of their stoke.
"The rate of substance abuse, particularly illicit drug abuse, is almost certainly an underestimate because toxicology screens were not obtained on all patients," said Steven Kittner, a professor of neurology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore who also wasn't part of the research.
The rate of smoking, drug use and alcohol abuse - defined as three or more drinks per day - seemed to increase among stroke patients between the mid-1990s and the mid-2000s.
But Kissela and his team said they can't be sure whether more people were actually using those substances or doctors were just getting better at testing for and recording drug abuse.
The study also can't prove that patients' drug or alcohol use directly contributed to their strokes. It's possible, for example, that people who abuse drugs also see their doctors less often or engage in other risky behaviors that increase the chance of strokes, Josephson explained.
He added that the study emphasizes the need to learn and quickly recognizing the signs of strokes, even in young people, since some treatments can only be used in a short window of opportunity after the stroke.