Beating the heat before it beats you

The month of May, when the mercury soars to 45^OC in the northern plains, can play havoc with your health, energy levels, mood and performance.The hot blast that strikes our face when we venture out in the afternoon these days  can dry up our body (dehydration) or cause excess body heating (heat or sun stroke), both of which can be quite serious.

Dehydration is the commoner one, and claims around 2 million lives globally every year, especially from developing regions. Children are more susceptible, and once grossly dehydrated, often find it impossible to regain health.

Symptoms and signs of dehydration include fatigue, headache, low BP, dizziness, fainting, dry mouth and reduced amounts of concentrated urine. It is often precipitated by an attack of vomiting or loose motions, or sometimes, a fast. Drinking large amounts of water (around 6-15 glasses a day) and increasing the intake of salt (through pickles, papads, salted nimbu paani or lassi) are the cornerstones of prevention and treatment.

The hot air also tends to dry up or dessicate the nose and skin. Sunscreens are not of much help here as they protect only from sunlight and are not the antidote for dry hot blasts.Bleeding from the nose is not uncommon; a simple measure is to smear a moisturizer on your nose membranes. Using a moisturizer on the exposed parts of the body, especially the face, and ensuring a good intake of fluids, helps keep the skin in good turgor.

Heat stroke is common during these dry hot spells when the body’s heat regulatory mechanism fails to maintain a balance between heat production and heat loss. When the outside temperature grossly exceeds the body’s (37⁰C), we are unable to dissipate heat into the atmosphere by sweating, panting or passing urine. Therefore, when the outside temperature is 45⁰C the body temperature rises causing the person to be pale, hot, irritable, confused or unconscious. Children and elderly are at greatest risk, as are athletes, construction workers, labourers or miliatary recruits.

Heat stroke, as it is called, is a medical emergency and requires moving the person to a cool shaded place, lying him down on the floor or ground, pouring water on the head and body, placing ice cubes under the armpits and moving him to a clinic or hospital.

The reason why schools and institutions close during the peak summer period is to protect children and youngsters from getting heat stroke. Further, milder manifestations of exposure to severe heat causes fatigue, poor concentration, dizziness, cramps and fainting, when students can hardly be expected to perform well in scholastics or sports.

The hot summers therefore provide a unique opportunity to stay indoors, munch on salads and cucumber, drink lots of salted nimboo-pani and mathha, swim in the early mornings or late evenings, and use the major portion of the day to catch up on all the pending reading. 

Keep consoling yourself that whatever goes up must, come down.someday. So will the soaring mercury!

As published in HT City (Hindustan Times) dated 20 May, 2012.

GET QUIZZING

Sample these questions: “Which country held a parliamentary meeting under water to draw the world’s attention to environmental issues?” What are trans-fats and why are they a health concern? What killed Michael Jackson and Elvis Prisley?, By what proportion do diarrheal diseases come down if hands are washed well before meals?”. These were some asked in HOPE Quiz finals held in Lucknow on 7^th May in which teams from 45 schools participated.

Quizzing has always aroused the most excitement among students since HOPE startd reaching out to students in 2004. HOPE quiz 2012 started with an intra-school quiz that 75 schools of Lucknow hosted in April. The highest scoring 2 students were then invited to represent their school in a semi-final round, and from them the top 6 schools were chosen for the finals.

Most questions were aimed at assessing if the student had been reading the daily news-papers and probing inquisitively into health aspects. While almost everyone knew about the recent death of the great music maestro Jagjit Singh, few, for instance, knew that it was caused by brain hemorrhage due to uncontrolled high blood pressure? The issue assumes importance as high blood pressure is not uncommon among elders in most homes, and for students to be aware of the potentially fatal consequence of brain hemorrhage, if BP remains unchecked and ignored, may help prevent such events.

What students found most exciting was the video round, in which the template constituted short clips from movies. A scene from “Udan” depicted the hazardous influence of alcohol, tobacco and stress bringing on bullying and physical abuse. Another clip from “Vivah” was used to show how a carelessly fired rocket during Diwali, can enter a home through a window precariously left open, ravage a house, and plunge people into gloom.

In this keenly fought contest, St Agnes Loreto, represented by Bhavika Mehta and Advika Singh, emerged as the winner and Loreto Convent and La Martiniere for Boys as the runners up. But at the end of the day, everyone who attended the quiz was a winner as he went home with a handfull of new health messages that he would share with his friends and family back home.

As published in HT City ( Hindustan Times) dated 13 May, 2012.

Moonlight and the darker you

The suspicion that the moon might be affecting our moods and actions refuses to die down. A doctor colleague frantically approached me yesterday to seek help for an uncontrollable aggressiveness that he was experiencing towards his colleagues, patients, staff, and even his small child. When I opened the paper after having dispensed the usual advice to consult a psychiatrist, I realized that it was full-moon time, and that the moon had come as close to the earth as it possibly could.

One could argue that this was mere coincidence, but a possible link between the lunar cycle and its effect on mood and behaviour prompted me to explore the internet with Google throwing up 10 million results in a fraction of a second.

My suspicion was well founded as there were enough accounts. A police dispatcher recounted how full-moon nights were busy nights, when crime rates and murders soared, the police stations were full and people behaved aggressively. Back in the 1970s, a study published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, found that homicides in Dade County, Florida appeared to rise and fall with the phases of the moon over a 15-year period. In other words, the murder rate rose with the full or new moon. A similar study from India was published in the prestigious Bitish Medical Journal in the 80’s from Patna.

 If the moon can cause tides in oceans by its gravitational pull, why can’t it affect our brains? Psychiatrist Arnold Lieber, theorizes that since humans are composed mostly of water (like the earth), our bodies might have "biological tides" in the brain that influence our emotions.

 Abnormal mood and behavior is often reffered to as ‘lunacy’, which is defined in the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary as "intermittent insanity once believed to be related to phases of the moon." In fact, in England in the 18th century, a person who committed a murder during a full moon could plead "lunacy" and get a lighter sentence.

 Hospital workers also seem to notice increases in strange behavior with the full moon. A study published in the Journal of Emergency Medicine in 1987 found that 80 percent of emergency room nurses and 64 percent of physicians agreed that the moon affected their patients' behavior. In fact, the nurses were so overwhelmed by their workload during the full moon that they asked for bonus "lunar pay." The sections of staff who noted an association more often were mental health professionals, social workers and clinical psychologists.

 There are many however who pooh-pooh this theory as superstition. It is understandable as the moon’s presence in the sky often going unnoticed by most modern urban dwellers. But just as sailors and coastal fishermen swear by the lunar tides, the night sky may hold the key for some moody people  and observant policemen. 

As published  HT City( Hindustan Times) dated 6 May, 2012.