Monday, January 01, 2007 Dumaguing: A happy healthy new year to one and all By Dr. Victor Dumaguing To Your Health
AND with our collective fervent prayer, a safe and prosperous 2007 too.
Filipinos, and for that matter, the whole world, have had its share of natural disasters, leaving in their wake countless homeless masses and endless tales of woes and sufferings. If the surging power of the peso is any indication, let us hope that the financial status of the country stabilizes so that real progress would seep down to the grassroots, which comprise the majority of the 80 million plus Juan de la Cruz.
On the health side, for reasons even our local experts and scientists cannot explain, the Philippines and Brunei are still bird-flu-free. Even upcoming economic giant South Korea has had its share of the disease. However, the specter of the disease still hangs precariously above our heads, thus health authorities cannot afford to be compliant. Dengue will always be a health threat, especially during the rainy season, due to conducive environment - collected water - for both the mosquito and the virus to thrive on. Thanks God, sporadic cases of meningococcemia have been reported elsewhere in the Philippines , but fortunately, not Baguio and its neighboring Cordilleras . The city-wide vaccination done during the wake of the "epidemic" 2-3 years ago may explain the low incidence of meningococcal infection these days.
The so-called lifestyle diseases will still be rising, competing with the figures registered by mortality secondary to infectious diseases and cancer. In the case of smoking, more and more Asian and African women are lighting up, compared to their counterpart in the US, in which smoking rate has declined a bit. Whether the cigarette is filter or menthol, cigarette smoking is harmful to your health. Female smokers are more likely to develop adenocarcinoma, the most common form of lung cancer. A smoker who consumes one pack of cigarettes a day for the last five years is now a candidate for COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease like bronchitis and emphysema). It must also be emphasized that pregnant women who smoke have SGAs (small for gestation age - babies who are born full term but weigh much less than their peers). Common sense also tells us that smokers are more susceptible to tuberculosis. Add to that the very hypercoagulable or thick blood of smokers (due to increased red blood cells), they are more likely to develop thrombosis; coronary thrombosis leading to heart attack, cerebral thrombosis leading to stroke.
Alcohol consumption has had a geometric rise in the past few days not only to ward off the blowing chilly Siberian winds, but also to spice up the festive spirit of the Yuletide season. Admittedly, even doctors say that one to two bottles of beer (better yet if its San Mig lights, oops, sorry for the endorsement) or a swig of brandy (50 ml) per day would not do harm. Red wine with its anti-oxidants has beneficial effects. Otherwise, all the alcoholic spirits, especially gin and whisky, are harmful particularly the liver, which is responsible for detoxifying or inactivating alcohol into its less toxic metabolites. Young alcoholics, too young to be suffering from "rayuma" complain of excruciating joint pains not knowing that alcohol interferes with the excretion of uric acid from the kidneys and may aggravate the pains of gouty arthritis.
We tell our patients that liver cirrhosis eventually leads to generalized edema, "pagmamanas" of the lower extremities and bloating of the abdomen. Speaking of big abdominal girth, visceral fat or the fat that covers our internal organs, has been identified as more harmful than the subcutaneous fat - the fat that we pinch off our sides at the tip of our lower ribs. In India and China , excess weight is the number one cause of sudden hypertension. A constellation of obesity, hypertension, diabetes constitutes the Metabolic syndrome of which 20% of the adult population of the Philippines currently suffers from. The syndrome magnifies the risk for mortality from heart and brain catastrophic complications like myocardial infraction and stroke. Health is wealth. The meaning of this saying becomes painfully deeper for patients who have been bedridden in the hospital for a long time, aggravated by the fact that their illness has limited their freedom of mobility. As early as in grade school, we are taught that "an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure" probably, it's high time we heed the message of the saying. Move a limb, take that walk. Stretch those arms and legs. Eat your veggies. We Filipinos love to party and that includes a fully-laden buffet table, inviting us to the world of gluttony. Eat smart. Surely, 2007 is the year of the pig but we don't have to pig out.
