Obesity epidemic of India

-
Image
Obesity in India is on the rise. It has reached enormous proportions. As I sit and count at airports, the number of women who look obviously overweight and obese, the figures I get is 8 out of 10. And this is around same in children of all sexes and around 6 in 10 men show clearcut overweight and obesity that is obvious even to naked eye. Anthropometric measurements might reveal more of them.  What are the likely causes? I have a theory that starts analysing these cases right from the 2000s or previous century. Junk food eating and sedantry lifestyle had already given an upward push to obesity in last century. And this also gave rise to diabetes mellitus in both men and women. Hence, such mothers also had diabetes in pregnancy. Some who did not have diabetes otherwise had gestational diabetes. From 2000 to 2026 prevalence of gestational diabetes has risen in india. It has even spread to rural areas and recent national data gives a figure of 22.4% which is almost 1 in 4 pregnant mot...
Post a Comment

Sleep direction: sleep quality and prosperity!

-

 We sleep wherever our bed direction is and most people do not think about the sleep direction. That is in which direction our head or feet are? But there are some directions that are considered good and others that are considered unlucky. This is what religious beliefs and some ancient practices such as Feng-shui state. But is there any scientific basis for all this?

Feng-shui and sleep direction

Feng-shui originates from ancient China. It believes that space designing has a lot to do with health. The basis is on the 4 directions (North, South, East, and West) and 5 nature elements namely, air, earth, fire, water, and space. It believes that night sleep quality depends on direction of sleep. Hence, they feel that southward direction of head is good. They also say that keep beds away from windows and doors to allow chi (energy) flow. They recommend bed on the opposite of door to the bedroom. The bed should be against the wall and not in the middle of the room. Do not clutter your bedroom. Keep bookshelves away from bed. There should be no electronics in the room. Color of walls also matter in this practice. 

Read here: Sleep positions and sleep quality

Science and sleep direction

The above directions have no evidence and are not backed by proper studies. Missouri university did a sleep study and found that those who sleep east-west direction have less REM sleep. REM sleep is healthier. And some state that earth is a huge and weak magnet. Also our body is a magnet. The head is North pole. Hence keeping head in North direction can have negative effects on the sleep since like poles repel each other. And one gets up feeling exhausted. So place head southward. But no.proper studies in this direction.

Sleep direction and quality (Source: The Bedding Planet)

Hence if your sleep is disturbed, seek proper help from a medical person. Rule out respiratory, cardiac, gut or other problems in the body. Aim for a dark room, good temperature of room, and quality bed and if body is good sleep will be sound. Remove stress and sleep pattern would improve. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I decided to not attend Nepal Respiratory society conference 2025?

-
I am a super-specialist doctor. Hence, when I learned about the pulmonology conference in Nepal in September 2025, I thought of attending it since I was there for some other work.  But I ultimately decided against attending the Nepal Respiratory society conference. You will agree that 'the first impression is the last impression'. And my first impression about the conference and organizers, unfortunately, was bad.  Reasons: 1. Incomplete information on internet  No proper directions on internet. There was incomplete and wrong information.  2. No office When anyone makes a medical society or association, it needs to have a proper physical address, phone number, and email id. But this, Nepal respiratory society, lacked all of this.  3. Piecemeal information  Initially, the registration details had no details about registration for international delegates. Later, this was added. But again, there was improper info on it. At one place, the fees was 12k npr and a...
Read more

Dementia: problem, risks, effects, and management

-
Image
I had met my classmate around 4 months back and informed her also about my mom's death. But in a recent email, she wrote to me that I had met her a couple of years back. She also enquired about my mom. Seeing her email, the first thought that came to my mind was: is she suffering from early dementia. I hope not. Maybe, she just forgot about the time that I had met her a few months back. Maybe because it was a hurried and surprise visit.  Nonetheless, dementia is on the rise. It affects people after 60 years of age. The increased life expectancy means that one will see more of such cases in the near future.  India has around 10 million dementia cases out of the world total of 57 million. This is a huge percentage. It affects not only an individual but the whole family. There is this individual who is physically okay but mentally absent. The person needs custodial care and it could turn out to be expensive. It is also emotionally disturbing to see your loved one in that state of...
Read more

Don't sacrifice or belittle your generation for the future generation!

-
Image
Our planet, Earth is an important abode for every living being including plants and animals. Earth belongs to everyone. Humans are the superior living beings, but they are also the ones destroying nature and earth with their excessive deeds and misdeeds.  Climate change and global warming are also the consequence of wrong human activities in excess. Industrial revolution of the 19th century paved the way for this downhill process of environmental deterioration. It has reached a stage where excessive temperatures are giving rise to glacier and ice cap melting, sea water level rising, ecosystem disruption, weather crisis, and high rates of infections and allergies.  Also, read Dementia and its risks and management  Effective steps need to be taken promptly and on a large scale to mitigate this climate crisis and in the meantime, measures to adapt to the rising temperatures also are required to be started.  However, in all this, some people make such vague statements th...
Read more