Health Watch
Door to prevent diabetes:
Re-cultivating the rice culture
Suharshi Perera
Diabetes has grown to a state of epidemic in Sri Lanka with nearly
one in ten adults in the country being affected. The situation becomes
more critical as every system
Healthy food
facts to control diabetes
* Always eat a less quantity of
food
* Eat parboiled rice with bran.
* Eat rice with a variety. This includes vegetables, green
leaves and other grains. A mixed meal is always balanced and
nutritious.
* Diabetic patients can consume any food except the sugar and
flour based food. |
in the body can be affected by the disease, making the diabetic
patients more vulnerable to heart diseases and strokes.
Dr. Sisira Siribaddana MBBS, MD, FCCP. Pictures by Sudath
Nishantha |
Food habits form a direct link in causing diabetes. The change of
food culture in Sri Lanka after independence had an adverse impact on
the rise in diabetes in the country, Consultant Physician and
Endocrinologist Dr. Sisira Siribaddana says.
“Free flour given by America after independence flowed into the
country. This dramatically altered the food culture from rice to flour.
People got used to eating rotti, bread and flour based foods which are
easy to prepare,” Dr. Siribaddana said.
Preparing rice is a long procedure. De-stoning, de-husking and
washing rice consume considerable amount of time. Moreover, rice is to
be eaten with a variety of other things whereas we eat bread with very
limited choice of curries and vegetables. With increasing urbanization
people gradually stopped eating rice and switched to easier and readily
available flour based foods, he said.
Eating less nutritious starchy food over a long period affected the
nutrition of the population while increasing the sugar level in the
blood.
Benefits of eating rice
Rice meal is a balanced meal as it is eaten with vegetables, fish/
meat, green leaves. Rice can be eaten with other grains like maize,
green grams and chickpea. Bread has a very narrow choice. Therefore a
bread meal is an incomplete meal. Wheat is eaten as food produced from
wheat flour; we never eat the whole wheat grain unlike rice.
The whole rice grain has fiber, non- digestible carbohydrates,
lipids, proteins and minerals. These non digestible carbohydrates delay
the absorption which in turn delays the process of turning carbohydrate
into glucose.
This helps control the blood sugar level. And this non-digestible
starch provides food for the bacteria in the large colon to fight
intestinal cancer.
Glyceamic Index
A balanced meal with rice is vital to fight diseases. |
This indicates the rise in blood sugar level after eating
carbohydrates and measured by giving 50g of food measuring the blood
sugar level during the subsequent two hours. When carbohydrate is
absorbed faster the Glyceamic Index is higher. Rice have low Glycaemic
index .
Rice texture
When rice is waxy (eg: polished white Kekulu rice) it contains higher
amount of starch thereby carbohydrate breaks into glucose easily. This
type of rice has high Glyceamic Index.
Less-milled rice is more appropriate to control diabetes as the
grains are coarser in texture and not refined. More bran is always
better to control blood sugar level. The colour of the rice depends on
the degree of milling. Therefore white rice is not preferred.
Parboiled rice is the most suitable variety to control blood sugar
level. When the rice is parboiled the starch granules get disrupted.
When you parboil rice the water soluble vitamins in the outer part of
the grain get dissolved absorbed into the inner part. So it is more
nutritious. When the rice cools it gets re-crystallized. This makes the
Glyceamic Index become low.
Diabetes
Diabetes is a chronic disease that occurs when the pancreas does not
produce enough insulin, or alternatively, when the body cannot
effectively use the insulin it produces. Insulin is a hormone that
regulates blood sugar.
Hyperglycaemia, or raised blood sugar, is a common effect of
uncontrolled diabetes and over time leads to serious damage to many of
the body’s systems, especially the nerves and blood vessels.
Types of Diabetes
* Type 1 diabetes (previously known as insulin-dependent or
childhood-onset) is characterized by a lack of insulin production.
Without daily administration of insulin, Type 1 diabetes is rapidly
fatal.
* Symptoms include excessive excretion of urine (polyuria), thirst (polydipsia),
constant hunger, weight loss, vision changes and fatigue. These symptoms
may occur suddenly.
* Type 2 diabetes(formerly called non-insulin-dependent or
adult-onset) results from the body’s ineffective use of insulin. Type 2
diabetes comprises 90 percent of people with diabetes around the world,
and is largely the result of excess body weight and physical inactivity.
* Symptoms may be similar to those of Type 1 diabetes, but are often
less marked. As a result, the disease may be diagnosed several years
after onset, once complications have already arisen.
* Until recently, this type of diabetes was seen only in adults but
it is now also occurring in obese children.
* Gestational diabetes is hyperglycaemia which is first recognized
during pregnancy.
* Symptoms of gestational diabetes are similar to Type 2 diabetes.
Gestational diabetes is most often diagnosed through prenatal screening,
rather than reported symptoms.
Impaired Glucose Tolerance (IGT) and Impaired Fasting Glycaemia (IFG)
are intermediate conditions in the transition between normality and
diabetes.
People with IGT or IFG are at high risk of progressing to type 2
diabetes, although this is not inevitable.
Facts
* More than 180 million people worldwide have diabetes. This number
is likely to more than double by 2030.
* In 2005, an estimated 1.1 million people died from diabetes.
* Almost 80 percent of diabetes deaths occur in low and middle-income
countries.
* Almost half of diabetes deaths occur in people under the age of 70
years; 55 percent of diabetes deaths are in women.
* WHO projects that diabetes deaths will increase by more than 50
percent in the next 10 years without urgent action. Most notably,
diabetes deaths are projected to increase by over 80 percent in
upper-middle income countries between 2006 and 2015.
WHO
Could your headache be a sign of a more serious illness?
Could your headache be a sign of a
stroke, or something else? Learn about the different health conditions a
headache may signal
Sometimes a headache is more than a headache. A headache can be an
early warning sign of more complicated health issues such as stroke,
infection, or high blood pressure.
When you should call your doctor
The American Headache Society provides a good way to know when to
call your doctor. Remember the word “SNOOP,” which stands for:
Systemic Symptoms. In
addition to a headache, you feel symptoms in other parts of your body.
This could be a fever, loss of appetite, or weight loss. It also stands
for Secondary Risk Factors, so if you have a headache in addition to HIV
or cancer, call your doctor immediately.
Neurologic Symptoms.
These symptoms include confusion, blurry vision, personality changes,
weakness on one side of the body, numbness, or sharp facial pain.
Onset. This means that the headache happens suddenly, with no
warning. Sometimes these are called ‘thunderclap’ headaches. This can
occur when headaches are caused by bleeding in the brain.
Older. If you are older than 50 and experience a new or progressive
headache, call your doctor. You could have giant cell arteritis (an
inflammation of the arteries in the face) or a brain tumor.
Progression. There is cause for
concern if it is significantly different than your other headaches, if
headaches are happening more often, or it is the worst headache you have
ever had.
Other serious causes of headaches include, stiff neck, fever and
rash. They might indicate meningitis or other infections.
Elevated blood pressure. It can also cause headaches, and can occur
if you have never been diagnosed with high blood pressure, or when you
have been diagnosed and your blood pressure gets out of control.
“If your headache is bad, new, or changing, see somebody,” says
Stephen D. Silberstein, MD, director of the Jefferson Headache Center at
Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia and past president of the
American Headache Society.
When
the circulation of blood and oxygen to the brain is interrupted (for
various reasons), a stroke occurs. According to the National Institute
of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the symptoms of a stroke are:
Sudden weakness or numbness, especially on one side of the body.
Sudden confusion.
Sudden trouble speaking or understanding speech.
Sudden difficulty seeing from one or both eyes.
Sudden dizziness, loss of balance, or difficulty walking.
Sudden severe headache with no obvious cause.
‘FAST’, a quick test to determine if someone should seek help for a
stroke.
Face. Does your face
droop when you smile?
Arm. Does one arm drift
downward if you try to raise both arms?
Speech. Does your speech
sound slurred?
Time. If you or someone
else has these signs, call your emergency number.
Billie, a 71-year-old woman in Asheville, N.C., had a history of
allergies and sinus headaches. One morning she woke up with dizziness,
headache, and facial pain. “I thought it was just my sinuses that hurt”,
she says. But it didn’t get any better and it was different from a sinus
headache. My face hurt so much I didn’t even want to brush my teeth. So
my husband called the doctor and he told us to come in right away. Turns
out I had giant cell arteritis. If I had waited, the doctor said I might
have had a stroke.
If you experience any of the above symptoms, call your doctor your
doctor immediatly.
AFP
Clarification Medical Crossword Draw No: 39
Little Nehim Shemira who was present with her parents at the
Medical Crossword Draw No. 39 picking the first prize winner at
the draw. Looking on is Perosha Meegoda handling the crossword
sponsors at Wish Institute. Picture by Sudath Nishantha |
In the pictures we carried in this page on Monday, November 9
inadvertently that the prize winners who were receiving their prizes
were those from draw No. 39, whereas they were from the last draw No.
38.
That’s the normal procedure of this crossword feature. It was also
inadvertently mentioned that the following prize winners of crossword
No. 39, who came for this draw were presented their prizes and given the
following names S. Nihar (Entry No. 79). 2nd prize Rs. 2,000 Ayur. Dr.
H. Jayasingharachchi (Entry No. 15) consolation prize. They were all
winners of the previous crossword draw No. 38.
The error is regretted.
The special invitees who were present at the draw were the crossword
sponsor Wish Institute Head Mihiri Wickremarachchi, Andiologists Pumi
Kosgallana, Preethi
Pieris and Ayur. Dr. H. Jayasingharachchi.
Women deprived of healthcare at key times in life
Women are often deprived of healthcare in the crucial years of
adolescence and old age due to social inequalities and neglect in male
dominated decision-making, the World Health Organisation said Monday.
“It’s time to pay girls and women back, to make sure that they get
the care and support they need to enjoy a fundamental human right at
every moment of their lives, that is their right to health,” said WHO
Director General Margaret Chan.
In its first ever cradle-to-grave report on “Women and Health”, the
UN health agency underlined that women were particularly vulnerable to a
lack of adequate care in old age, when they often outlive men, and in
their teens.
It also underlined that the lack of responsiveness to women’s
inherent health needs can be lethal, such as with complications in
pregnancy and child birth or cervical cancer.
“This points to another problem, the failure of health services to
meet women’s needs,” Chan told WHO member states.
As a result, women provide the bulk of care, about 80 percent, as
health staff or household carers, yet the system fails to address their
own needs adequately, the WHO said.
Cervical cancer is the second most common type of cancer, with 80
percent of cases and an even higher proportion of deaths in poorer
nations, the report said.
Yet it can be prevented with a vaccine, detected by early screening
and treated early.
“These deaths should not be happening,” Chan commented.
The report also found that treatable or preventable complications in
childbirth or pregnancy were the leading cause of death among 15 to 19
year-old girls and women, including a “substantial” contribution from
abortions.
Chan underlined that men exercise political, social and economic
control in many societies, affecting health services.
“These unequal power relations translate into unequal access to
health care and unequal control over health resources,” she added. “We
will not see significant progress as long as women are regarded as
second-class citizens in so many parts of the world,” Chan said.
The WHO report found that health care, especially in low and middle
income countries, “may be biased against the old and is rarely geared to
the particular needs of older women.”
AFP |