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Door to prevent diabetes:

Re-cultivating the rice culture

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.


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

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