Lankan doctor’s encyclopaedic guide
On behalf of Sri Lankan children and families let me thank the
medicine professionals who have compiled a massive guide to health and
nutrition under the title Your Child - Your Family. This nearly 780-page
book is published elegantly with colour plates, illustrations, sketches,
indexes and other details. It’s a Vijitha Yapa publication. The book
includes three sections that are revised and comes out as the fourth
edition.
The doctors are among the well known medicine men and women in the
country: Herbert A Aponso, Denis J Aloysius, Ariyaranee Gnanathasan, D G
Harendra de Silva, Antoinette Perera and Vinya S Ariyaratne. Indeed they
have demystified the practice of medicine by supplying updated knowledge
and helpful hints to all concerned. The book is in English, but we learn
that the Sinhala and Tamil versions are in preparation. That would reach
a wide spectrum of people who want to be healthy and robust individuals.
Each section of the volume is a book itself.
Book 1 deals with ‘Road to Good Health and Safe Motherhood’. We
enlighten ourselves on important concepts: How marvelously we are made,
Genes, DNA, Stem Cells, The Journey of Life: From the womb to the tomb,
Environment and Health, How the body defends itself and Safe Motherhood.
Having familiarized ourselves with the basics, we turn our attention
to Book 2 which focuses on ‘Food and Nutrition, Eat, Grow and be
Healthy’. What we learn here are the basic principles, feeding of
children, food for all in common use, the cholesterol problem, home
garden and growth and development.
Finally in Book 3 ‘The Home Doctor’ provides valuable information
that we should be aware of, namely Doctor-Patient Relationships,
Understanding the common symptoms, the newborn baby and The Spectrum of`
disease-From the Cradle to the Grave.
The volume also includes a long list of contributors in addition to
authors. Notes on the authors, a selection of quotations on Children and
excerpts from prefaces plus excerpts of reviews of earlier editions of
the book are other features included in the volume.
This columnist was particularly interested in reading about the
Cholesterol problem and found it informative to share the findings with
our readers.
Having been a non-vegetarian for decades since of late this writer is
slowly switching on to eating vegetable meals with occasional eating of
fish a chicken. Nevertheless, the learned doctors on page 86 of Book 2
warn us thus: “Cholesterol is a biochemical substance found in animal
foods. Though cholesterol is not present in plant foods, the saturated
fats present in plant foods are converted to cholesterol, if those
saturated fats are not used up for the energy requirements of the body.”
They add: “Cholesterol is not inherently harmful. The body needs
cholesterol for the manufacture of vitamin D, bile acids and some
hormones, building of the membrane (wall) around cells, formation of
brain issue and nerve shells. However, an excess is harmful.”
We learn that
“Cholesterol has to be transported in the blood to the various sites
of the body where it is needed. It is a waxy substance which is not
soluble in blood. Levels below 150 mg (in adults) are reported to be
associated with cancers, and also carry a risk of strokes due to
bleeding inside the brain; this risk is reported to be most significant
in those over 70 years of age.”
DNA is something that interested me. What is this, you might like to
ask. Under a sub-head DNA, and some of the important practical
developments, the doctors describe this as follows: “Deoxyribonucleic
acid (DNA) contains the genetic instructions for the development and
functioning of all known living organisms. DNA is woven into complicated
strands of biochemical substances which form a set of blue prints or a
code. The DNA segments that carry this genetic code are called genes,
which are organized into structures called chromosomes”
Well, this doesn’t help me much. The description does not clearly
explain how the DNA test helps to understand the ethnicity of a how the
DNA test helps to understand the ethnicity of a person. To speak on a
lighter vein - I am told if a DNA test is done on some of our extremists
who speak on racial terms then such persons would be surprised to know
that their origin had been something else- namely, they might have been
born and belong to the opposite camp which they vehemently condemn.
The book is both a professional presentation and an attempted
media-oriented elucidation. We would indeed benefit by knowing ourselves
and our body and mind and the diseases that attack us and seek remedial
measures.
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