Pulse Beat

Prof Dr BM Hegde 07 July 2015

High Cholesterol Is Good!

Do not get scared of your cholesterol levels unless you are a diabetic. In April 2015, Annals of Nutrition & Metabolism published the results of a Japanese study which shows that “as you age, having high cholesterol is beneficial. The research showed that people with the highest cholesterol levels had the lowest mortality rate from heart disease.” The report also shows that “mortality actually goes down with higher total or low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol levels, as reported by most Japanese epidemiological studies of the general population.”

Diabetics should watch their diet to see that they do not get high cholesterol as it might expose them to usual risks of heart disease as this is diabetic dyslipidemia. But, there again, statins do not help very much. Statins may bring on diabetes in almost 47% of the people who take the drugs. Diet and exercise are the two most important ways to keep your cholesterol levels under control, at all times.

Exercise & Human Health

Exercise affects many parts of the human system that might surprise the reader. It is not for just keeping fit and thin as many people think, but reducing weight has more to diet intake than to exercise. Exercise, however, has many other benefits.

Brain: It stimulates the nerves and the grey matter and regular exercisers have better memory, less Alzheimer’s and better ability to study and do creative work. Exercise is the normal need for the body to remain healthy; but technological advances have reduced the need for exercise, making more and more people lead a sedentary and sick life. We need not have any hi-tech gadgets for exercise. Simple walking with occasional bouts of some stretches will do the job.

Blood Vessels: Exercise affects the blood vessels significantly. The one cell thick layer of the inner blood vessel wall, called the endothelium, is the one that is kept healthy by exercise. Endothelium is the area that exercise helps most. Within one day of starting exercise, endothelial cells become more active and align themselves properly along the vessel wall to function better, thus making the vessel supple and not stiff which raises blood pressure, etc. Even the secretion of EDRF (endothelium-derived relaxing factor), an enzyme intended to keep the vessel interior wide open, also helps people with existing diseases like coronary and carotid vessel diseases.

Metabolism: Studies have shown that it is much better to control diabetes with diet and exercise than with drugs. Exercise does not have to be strenuous as many people believe. Even regular exercise makes diabetics get better.

So, the common notion, that exercise is better to the body muscles alone, is no longer tenable.

Female Libido Booster

After repeated rejections of the efforts of the manufacturer of the much-touted female libido booster, Flibanserin—known as the female Viagra—was finally approved by 16 against 7 votes at a recent Food & Drug Administration (FDA) meeting in the US. Even those who voted for it said that the effect could be, at most, marginal! Those opposed saw its significant side-effects like severe dizziness, headaches, dangerous hypotension, and even what is called the coronary steal syndrome that was typical of Viagra. In addition to all these, we must add the possibility of significant changes in brain chemistry of dopamine and its associates. The long-term side-effects are only to be dreaded.

The downside of this new development is the strong lobbying by American feminine rights activists. Now, science is also becoming another political tool.

Novel Method for Knee Joint Pain Relief

The loss of fluid inside the knee joint capsule is the one that helps the bones to destroy their tip inside joint making the pain more severe. Now researchers have found an effective visco-supplemental fluid whose single injection into the joint might give the patient relief for as long as six months. Time alone will tell us about the effectiveness of this new method of treatment regime for osteoarthritis.

Comments