Dr Anbarasu Mohanraj - Heart Surgery

WOMEN’S HEALTH Today is International Women’s day. Leaving apart the gaga of celebrating the Women’s day with chocolates and roses, if we dissect into the reality behind Women’s health in India, it’s quite dismal. It is a hard truth that there is a gender prejudice in the overall health in our country and a deep gender prejudice in the health care access too. India ranks among the bottom in women’s health care. Women spend less on health, fare worse in disease outcomes and nutritional surveys. Even in developed states like the South, the number of women coming up for diagnosis at an early stage of malignancies, diabetes mellitus and heart disease is quite low. A typical example would be the house-wives who were born in the 1950s to 1970s. They always had the least nutritious food which is carb rich lacking all forms of veggies and meat. They prioritise the nutritious part of the diet to the husband who used to be the sole bread winner and the rest to the kids. The end result has been...

Is your Samosa/Bajji from your favourite shop, heart healthy. Imagine an Indian street food without oil. It’s impossible. You get your favourite samosa or Bajji in the shop next to your office at Rs 10/-. How on earth is it possible when you know how costly cooking oil is when your buy it for your house-hold use? Indians have no clue of what we eat. Food Safely and Standard Authority of India (FSSAI) recommends re-heating of cooking oil not more than 4 times or the Total Polar Compound reaches not more than 25. Cooking vegetable oil has a lower smoke point. Government figures quote that 60% of cooking oil in food industry is re-cycled. That means, used cooking oil from branded hotels and outlets get re-routed to street shops at a throw away price. The oil which is sold at dirt price to the street vendors has been already boiled multiple times in the branded outlet. The street vendor who buys it, is going to boil it an umpteen times more. In reality 80% of cooking oil by the street vend...

Physical fitness and Mental Health Would you believe me if I said that you mental health is directly related to your physical activeness. Being physically active can improve your brain health. Benefits include improved thinking and cognition even for children 6 to 13 years and reduced anxiety even in short term for adults. Physical activity definitely reduces your risk of depression and helps you sleep better. So at whatever age group you are in, keeping yourself physically active helps you in preserving your psyche in all ways. There’s evidence coming up proving that physical activity can reduce the risk of dementia in the elderly. What’s good for the body is obviously good for the mind. Although not a cure-all, increasing physical activity directly contributes to improved mental health and better overall health and wellness. Mental fitness is something which has been grossly undervalued in our society and looked at as a taboo. No matter how we choose, every effort to move counts to...

 Life in Moderation T Time and again we find someone around in their middle age succumbing to Heart Attacks. Unfortunately - they just looked fit, had six packs or something. In anything in life, the most important thing is moderation. "Neither the 'zero figure' nor the exaggeration of a hundred is correct. A moderate amount of exercise is needed every day - about 20 minutes. Eat everything, no detoxification, no keto moto diet, eat everything your ancestors ate, all local and seasonal foods available in your town - but in small amounts. No need for exotic kiwi fruit, kale or olive oil. 7 hours of intensive sleep is required, the needs of the body must be met, but it should not be through steroids or performance enhancing drugs. Eat everything you ate growing up, but in small amounts; Do twenty/thirty minutes of light exercise and a little walk regularly and stop taking supplements. Add a few moments of silent meditation a day to your routine, this is best done through p...

 Sitting is the new Smoking An alien visiting our planet would be perplexed by modern human life, not leastour relationship with physical exertion. After 6 million years of hunter-gatherer existence, humans can be observed sheltering in warm rooms, counteracting the tiresome effects of earth’s gravity by slouching on comfortable seats in front of glowing screens, being whisked effortlessly between floors aboard mechanical staircases, even soaring across continents while seated in warm moving boxes. All these  comforts have happened only in the last half a century. Humans are built to stand errect. Our heart and cardiovascular system works perfectly that way.  Our bowel functions well in errect posture. It's common to find patients bed ridden to have severe constipation. When you are physically active, your overall energy level and endurance improves and the bones maintain strength.  Perils of sitting for long: Sitting long hours can cause wasting of the thick le...

  Walk..Walk..Walk your way to Health The health indices of our nation have definitely improved in the last few decades, so have the incidence of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs). The level of physical exertion has definitely comedown in the current generation, thanks to the improvement in quality of life and increased use of automobiles. The incidence of diabetes, high blood pressure and number of people with heart attacks has increased drastically in the last 20-30 years.The prime reason......lack of adequate physical exertion. The simplest and most effective form of exercise is walking. Walking as an exercise is grossly under-estimated. The common opinion amongst the people is that walking is something reserved for elders and middle aged people. The harsh truth is that walking is the most ideal and simplest form of exercise for all ages groups. The only exception would be the very elderly with knee joint issues and the youngsters keen on muscle building. The best exercise for pr...

Women and Heart Attacks The recent episode of Sushmita Sen having a heart attack and an emergency Stenting to her blocked Coronary Artery has brought an age old discussion to the centre stage. HEART ATTACKS IN YOUNG AND MIDDLE AGED WOMEN When we were in Medical school, we were taught that women were immune to  Ischaemic Heart diseases due to the protection offered by hormones. This is no longer true. We as Heart specialists not infrequently see young and middle aged women coming in with heart attacks and blockage of coronary arteries.  A study by Indian Cardiologists from Jaipur states that between year 2000 and 2017, the annual mortality due to heart attacks rose from 8.5 lakh to 15.4 lakh, with the number of women dying rising from 3.2 to 6.2 lakh. The rise among men did not reflect such an alarming rate of rise.  Reasons for such alarming rise are Obesity, Diabetes, life style and oral infections. The incidence of central obesity among women is quite high in the previo...