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Post by Kunjo Naorem on Feb 10, 2014 14:51:06 GMT 5.5
 My ARTICLE published today, Feb 10, 2014 in Hueiyen Lanpao (ManipuRi edition). AccoRding to ReseaRcheRs, Oveweight and Obese people need to be at mild condition of cold (18-21 degRee centigRade) so that it can Reduce theiR weight. Anoiba meesing Meifu thadokpibana faRagadRa? |
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Post by Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam on Feb 10, 2014 19:01:54 GMT 5.5
The human body (being a warm blooded mammal) needs to maintain a constant 37 0C for metabolism, biochemically and physiologically. This heat is generated through Calories, i.e., burning (metabolism and catabolism) of the food intake. Calories (heat) are generated from metabolism of sugar, fat, and amino acids (protein components) through the mitochondrial respiration inside the cell (tissue) in visceral organs such as the muscle, liver, fat, brain, etc. Excess food (glucose) is stored as fat in adipose or fat cells in the body for using later on. In addition, the heat can also be absorbed from outside through the skin (via the sun shine, heating devices like Meiphu, etc). On the other hand, if the outside temperature is cold, the body heat is lost through the skin. Therefore, to maintain 37 oC, the body needs to burn more Calories (food metabolism). That is how you burn body fat and Calories. If you are sitting near a heating device or Meiphu, you are getting the heat from an external source and, therefore, the body does not need to burn fat or Calories internally. That is the equation why obese people should not sit near Meiphu, especially after eating (up to 1.5-2 hours). What is obesity? Obesity is defined by the proportionate balance between the height and body weight of a person, especially contributed by fat around the waist. You can google for BMI Calculator (body mass index) where your enter your numbers (height and weight)to find out your BMI. If your number is 19-25, you are in the right range; 26-30 overweight; and above 30 is obese. Obesity is linked to type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Recently, I did a video (youtube) on Diabetes and Obesity. It is a long one, but you can watch it in pieces in multiple sessions, if you find time. Most people who live in the equator (hot areas), through evolutionary selections, have low metabolic rates since they also get heat from the sun, while those in cold climates have higher rates of metabolism to keep the extremities warm and higher blood pressure to prevent blood vessel constriction in toes and fingers. Therefore, as long as we did not have excess food, we were OK. Now, we consume more processed food, which is high in Calories but lack in Nutrition, and we lack physical activities (drive instead or walking, and sit in our work places in front of computers or watch TV). These changes in life style are contradictory to our evolutionary body biochemistry and physiology as well as genotype and phenotype adaptation to food source and environment for centuries. Exercise is the best medicine and Calorie restriction is the best prescription to reduce obesity. Keep your muscle and brain active. Avoid animal fat (palmitate, which is solid in room temperature like butter, ghee), which is toxic to brain cells. Instead use olive oil (oleate) or vegetable oil, which is not very thick, to help neuroplasticity (brain activity) and fish oil (omega-3). Avoid too much process sugar, which is sucrose or corn syrup in the US (glucose+fructose). Excess fructose is the main bad part in the sugar, which is 100x sweeter than glucose; of course, too much glucose is also bad. Both fructose and excess glucose will cause insulin resistance and glucose will be stored as fat in adipose/fat cells (obesity). Instead, use complex carbohydrate types, such as fruits, nuts and vegetables. Avoid too much salt (sodium chloride) as it will increase blood pressure; instead, use sea salt (if available), which is based on potassium chloride needed for cell membrane polarization and synaptic activity (brain and muscle functions). You can eat/taste all kinds of food, but a restricted portion size is the key. Limit the amount. It is easy to say but difficult to practice when you are in a society, which is full of ceremonies accompanied by excess food, sweets, and oily delicacies. Also, reduce the amount of sugar, white bread and white rice, if you are not working in the field physically. Basically, eat when you feel hungry, walk around a lot (no limit), drink plenty of water (1.5 liters a day or ~6 glasses) and reduce salt consumption. Take a fasting once in a while (once in a week or two weeks) that will clean you body well. Do not just eat because the food is free or there is plenty of them or I can afford to show off to my neighbors. Eat for your body's need. Need to talk about Obesity and its effect on health and society (productivity and care cost) at Kakching and Imphal particularly in Manipur. Kakching has been an agricultural society for centuries and through the physical activities we have been maintaining our body weight. In addition, we are also among the slow metabolic groups who live in the tropical climate/region. So, we do not need a lot of food/Calories to burn to maintain a 37 oC body temperature/heat. That is why you have better digestion/food burning in winter (cold season) than in summer (hot season). Eat a lot of vegetable and simple food (just boiled/steamed ones) in the summer while you may eat some meat in the winter. But, keep yourself away from MEIPHU after eating (up to 1.5-2 hrs). Instead, you walk around (30 min to 1 h) after meals to keep you body warm via food burning. Keep your muscle active so that glucose from meals will be stored in muscle and liver as glycogen for later use, not as fat in adipose/fat cells, which causes obesity, diabetes, and hypertension = I called it Dia.besit.hy. In the US, especially those who migrate or come from the warm areas (equator region), the Africaners, are prone to obesity and diabetes when they are exposed to excess food environment in the US because their body metabolism is very slow. Of course, no one is spared from obesity if they consume more than they can burn including those who migrate from Europe (cold climate). That is the problem with the modern society, we are used to fast food, quick fix (ready made process food), and has no time for ethnic food and ethnic cooking in the kitchen. Take time to cook food and eat at home instead of a hamburger or pizza from the restaurant; and avoid Soda - Coca Cola or Pepsi most of the time. They are bad food. Too much sugar and fructose in them. Together with the chronic alcohol consumption, which also gives Calorie and causes liver toxicity, mortality comes knocking at the door faster. By 60 years, an obese person with alcohol consumption, would have diabetes and suffer from various complications, heart disease, stroke, peripheral neuropathy (leg amputation), kidney failure, blindness, deftness, alzheimers-like symptoms, and many more. The cost of treatment and burden on the family is tremendous. For a poor society like Kakching and no proper health care policy, an illness in one of the family members could cost one's own land, home, and business. Go to doctor's place, at least once a year, to check up your vital signs - BP, blood Glucose, Cholersterol, heart rate, protein in urine, etc. If you catch early, lifestyle change can cure all these illness without any medication. If caught too late, there is no medication that can help you. That is the lesson/message we have to spread awareness to the public.. LIFE STYLE MODIFICATION IS THE KEY. IT TAKES THE WHOLE COMMUNITY TO UNDERSTAND AND PROMOTE GOOD HABIT. ONE MAN ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH TO FIGHT THE FIGHT. SOCIAL CUSTOMS HAVE TO BE ADJUSTED TO THE MODERN ENVIRONMENT SO THAT WE DO NOT OVEREAT IN CEREMONIES AND AT THE SAME TIME WE ALSO DO NOT WASTE TOO MUCH FOOD. THERE ARE STILL MANY PEOPLE IN THIS WORLD WHO CAN'T AFFORD TO HAVE 2 MEALS A DAY. GOOD ARTICLE MR. KUNJO NAOREM. |
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Feb 11, 2014 6:01:12 GMT 5.5
After reading oja Kunjo Naorem's article, and kaka Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam's scientific elaboration (supplemented well by the 52 min video) on the reasons, I have solid reasons to say that this thread is becoming a very nice one. Many people will benefit from it, directly or indirectly, if some people read the posts and watch the video. I did some basic sciences till my 12th class, and this proved a little bit helpful when following this thread, though very slowly. Interestingly, those I could not get fully have taken on the form of curiosity. Many things in kaka's post interested me in various ways. One is dia.besit.hy, or obesity+diabetes+hypertension. From the above post and the video, I could get the inter-relation among these three broadly, but am still curious to know more about this, to the extent a common person needs and will be able to understand. Would you kindly spare us a little more time and talk a little bit more about this, when you are available? I know nothing about history of the sciences, but while reading your post this term--dia.besit.hy (or, diabesithy, not diabesity for diabetes+obesity)--seemed to jump out at me quite curiously. This query may not be that relevant, and you may not want to spend a minute on it, but I'm quite anxious to know how this term originated, and where you used it first, etc. Would you speak about this a little bit? (Quite ironically, I,m afraid, I may not be able to understand the answer (if it's not toned like skimmed milk) to my query; nonetheless, it would be very much helpful for all. |
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Post by Kunjo Naorem on Feb 11, 2014 6:22:00 GMT 5.5
Thanx bro Dr Lalit Pukhrambam for ur valuable information. If I consult u before writing my article, I am sure it would be better. Next time if I have to write article related to diabetes, I will consult you, bro. Thanx once again.
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Post by Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam on Feb 11, 2014 9:31:58 GMT 5.5
So far, no one has used the term diabesithy for diabetes, obesity, and hypertension. So, I coined the term diabesithy in a couple of places. I also have a website domain reserved called www.diabesithy.com, which I thought I will develop later as a information site or as a scientific peer reviewed journal. People have used diabesity for diabetes and obesity thus far. Most African people (black people) for genetic background are found to have hypertension even though they are not obese. Of course, in the US, several black people in the inner cities, who are poor, have developed type 2 diabetes, obesity, and hypertension (as a genetic background from Africa, I suppose). Poor people have no choice but to buy cheaper food that has very little nutritional values. They also lack educational background. Comorbidities (diseases) of diabesithy are atherosclerosis (closing of the arterial blood vessels by cholesterol and triglycerides, fats) leading to heart attack, microvascular (small blood vessels or capillaries) aneurism (blocking) and later bursting of the vessels in the brain causing stroke and death of brain cells; kidney failure due to hypertension on the kidney blood vessels, and many other complications that can lead to death. There is no cure for all these diseases once it reaches a certain stage (no point of return) except that the symptoms have to be managed by medication life long. For example, insulin injection in diabetics is costly and expensive, diabetes drugs, obesity drugs, hypertensive drug are also expensive; then on top of that one has to add lipid lowering drugs, kidney drugs, eye drugs, peripheral neuropathy drugs, etc. So, chronic diseases are costly and mentally exhausting to deal with the diseases and symptoms everyday, while family members begin to get discouraged and run out of options but to stop medication when there is financial stress. In Manipur, most women especially in Imphal or Kakching as well are considered to have hypertension due to social unrest and family burdens. As a matter of fact, most husbands will send out their wife to the door to see who is knocking on the door at night. Women folks are always in the forefront. That translates to high blood pressure. But, we do not pay much attention to heart attack and hypertension among women while the attention has mostly been given to breast cancer. But, many women die from heart attack and hypertension even more than from breast cancer. Furthermore, there is no place or park where one can go out for a regular walk in Manipur. By dark, most people are at home like in a jail closing all doors and windows. Spend most of the time watching TV, sitting, eating or drinking something without any physical activity. This is especially true for most office goers, who drive a car or scooter, and sit in chair for the whole day, and hardly walk or exercise. There are also frequent gatherings and meal plans with drinking. Another interesting group of people who are obese and diabetic are the retired sports persons. Once they retire, they do not work out much but they still consume the same amount of food or Calories that they used to take while playing (long-term habits hardly die). On the other hand, Manipur being a sports lovers state, we tend to sit hours and hours watching games on TV including cricket. All these add up in 5-10 years to modern lifestyle diseases. In old days, type 2 diabetes use to begin at 60 to 65 years old. So it was considered as an old age disease. It will take 10-15 years to develop the complications of diabetes, therefore by the time they die, it is considered natural death by old age. But today, due to obesity among young people, type 2 diabetes begins at age 30-35 years or even younger in the US. That translates to about 40-45 years when he/she gets the complications. Controlling blood glucose level to 5-6 mM or 90-110 mg/dl and a hemoglobin A1c of 5-6% is critical for normal people, but for diabetic it is difficult to achieve this target. Usually advises to keep at manageable blood glucose level less than 8 mM and Hb A1c less than 7%. Hemoglobin A1c indicates long term hyperglycemia index in the blood where RBCs are exposed to about 120 days of glucose in the circulation. Medications are there to manage symptoms, but not for cure. So, either you prevent it before it starts or slow down the disease by life style modifications (diet, exercise and positive thoughts) and meditations. It is not that bad as it seems if one takes care well or is aware of the methods to control the disease and follow the routine regularly. Nonetheless, it is easy to say - eat well, do exercise and mediate - but the details are not so simple. Keeping up with the routine is not an easy task. The whole family has to participate as well as the whole community has to participate and the whole town and city has to participate. In any case, India and China will be number 1 and 2 diabetes countries in the world soon that means Manipur is also included. At least, Kakching may be able to escape from diabesity or diabesithy to some extent if we promote walking, bicycling, exercise, and eat right because our town is not that large and our vegetable are locally produced, which means we can get them fresh. We can walk to most places within an hour. Do we have some knowledge of organic farming and organic food at Kakching. Chemicals and too much insecticide will affect our body and they also can cause some types of cancers. |
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Post by Thoithoi O'Cottage on Feb 12, 2014 8:17:41 GMT 5.5
That's very interesting, and it covers a lot. Very helpful. Thanks a lot, kaka.
Well, another thing that interested me very much--that's in the video shared above--is DIABETOLOMICS (or Diabetolomics.com). I know nothing about medicine and medical and other associated sciences, but when I first found the term "personalized medicine" while editing a book in 2007, it hit me as strikingly interesting. Yes, the term is so self-descriptive in some way (however complex it may be inside indeed--that I don't know) that any other person as ignorant about medicine or medical science as I would find it really striking. Well, you conceptualized something new which I think DIABETOLOMICS embodies in 2003-2004, when it was too early, and no investors were ready to embark on that for financial reasons. Now, we are in 2014--a decade on. So how's the status of the area conceptualized by your DIABETOLOMICS at the moment--is it a field now not too early (if not mature enough) to resume what you thought to start? Yes, as you say in the video (date 12 January 2014?) personalized medicine (etc.) is quite common nowadays, but is this an organized industry (perhaps "industry" is not an appropriate term, but my ignorance of this thing does not allow me a better alternative) now? |
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Post by Dr. Lalit Pukhrambam on Feb 13, 2014 1:56:22 GMT 5.5
Hello ThoiThoi,
Human genome sequencing ended in 2003. Since then we/scientist have a lot more information on genetics/structure of DNA. But, genomics is a more complex science than genetics itself. Simply, genetics is study more of a structural basis, while genomics is a functional study based on time and space with various environmental interactions. A person may do different activities or the same activity at different rates depending on the time and place and surrounding environment. But, he/she still will be the same person. So, by just looking at the DNA or gene at one particular structure or time, we can't understand the function since genome is also dynamic. We have to follow the activity of the gene at various stages, for example, when you are a child, teenager, middle age and old, in addition to when you are sick, etc. Of course, people are more interested in knowing the disease associated changes. So, it requires a lot more data collection and studies. On top of it, the definition of a gene itself is changing from the classical DNA or genetic structure of Watson and Crick in 1959 to genomics and epigenomics of 2014. Epigenetics is more or less what the environment (food, climate, anxiety, drugs, etc.) influences on the structure and function of the genome or genes. It is a complex science but becoming more accurate with new methodologies.
The current emphasis is on Human Genomics and Personalized or Individualized Medicine. The physiology of a man is different from that of a female, and that a child is not a tiny adult. So, most drugs produced by Pharmaceutical companies have so far been based on efficacy (effectiveness) of the drug to adult male (60+ year olds) since they volunteer more frequently than any other age group in drug trials. Hence, if the drug works on this old age group, there is no guarantee that it will work on female or children or if it works on white male, it may work or not on black people or Asians.
That is why the ideas like the Human genomics comes in. Such studies can figure out to some extent, whether a particular drug will work on this individual or not and what kind of drug is suitable for him or her will be narrowed down. That is more or less an idea of a personalized medicine, briefly. It is more complex than that but we are nearing to seeing it. National Institutes of Health in the US and many other Universities are beginning to create new Centers for Human Genomics and Personalized Medicine. This is more or less a biotechnology approach than a Pharma approach. But now the Pharmaceutical Industry is interested in Pharmacogenomics, especially understanding drug effectiveness and side effects, on individual basis and genetic background. So, now these two forces have begun joining hands together. It is estimated that full application of Personalized Medicine clinically and routinely will take 10 more years down the road. Now, it is more or less data collection and analysis, at the research level. Some discoveries move faster than others, we can't predict though.
Nonetheless, it is a very intensive research area and the rich countries are investing money in these research fields. unfortunately, for Manipur, we live in a society of majority mainland Indians (Aryans and Dravidians), who are genetically different from us. What it translates is that even if India discovers some drug or drugs suitable for Indians, it may not mean much to Manipuris. Probably, we also have to rely on the Japanese, Chinese and Korean studies, who may be more closer to us genetically, but that may also be more costly and difficult to access for Manipur and NE India. So, Manipur needs its own policies and Institutions to research or test drugs on its own population, and select the effective drugs based on Individual Genetic and Genomic background and/or that with further research, our scientist may be able to correct the defective genes directly in the genome via biotechnology approaches.
I am not sure how long Manipur will come to that stage, but it is going to come in India soon at least in New Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, Madras, etc. in larger cities. Let us hope, Manipur Scientists and Physicians and Policy Makers will get together and start planning. If Manipur/Imphal plans to become a Medical Tourism Hub as proposed by SHIJA, RIMS, JNIMS, etc., then Manipur also will need a strong presence of International level Medical Research Institutions with cutting edge medical research using modern technology. The research findings in Laboratories will be translated to the Clinic in patients, often called in lay term as from "Bench to Bedside".
2014 is a high time to begin Human Genomics and Personalized Medicine Research in India as well as in Manipur. Tools are there in India, but for Manipur it may still be costly for Private Industry if the Government does not jump in to help the initial set up with intrastructure and instruments.
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