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As you grow old, your health starts to deteriorate. Everything, whether it is your mental health or your physical health, starts to slow down. However, with age, your mental health gets overshadowed by your physical health.
If you note these signs in your ageing parents or grandparents, take note of it. Try to get involved with them. It is also important to ensure that they have a separate social circle apart from the family. This way, they can have friends who they can also relate to.
With age, suggests Sinha, you are more prone to be depressed, and anxious. “Mental health conditions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorders are not something that happens when you grow older. You may have been living with these for the last 40 years, but the management differs, she suggests.
As you grow old, your symptoms start to overlap with other mental health conditions. For the proper treatment professionals use differential diagnosis, suggests Sinha. “The lines become blurred and to differentiate the symptoms from one mental health condition to another becomes difficult,” she says.
There are also food habits like eating leafy vegetables, nuts, fish, virgin coconut and beans that help with brain functions.
Sinha suggests that keeping a social circle and continuing your hobbies can help your mind stay healthy. “Men especially face this issue, after they retire, they feel like they are at the loss of authority, and they start to lose control. It is thus important to keep doing things and learning a new skill to keep your brain active. While for women, since they continue taking care of the house, their brain stays active,” she says.
Cognitive stimulation is the key, especially to managing dementia, she notes.
“Just with weight training, you push your body and after a while, it becomes your muscle memory. Same with the brain. However, one should not get into solving too many puzzles, or trivia after being diagnosed with dementia. Because that would mean you are making your already injured brain exercise which might lead to agitation,” she recommends.
“The most important part is for the caregiver to understand what is happening and come to terms with the conditions. Because the elderly with cognitive conditions are not able to understand, they cannot be told or instructed to do anything. Thus, the responsibility is solely on the caregiver,” points out Sinha.
So, what can be done?
Reach out to therapists and counsellors to know the ways to create such a healthy environment.
She suggests adopting the same approach that you do with kids and with your pets. This is when you focus on gestures, body language and mood over language. Due to cognitive disorders, parents experience a loss of language and the only way to communicate and to understand what they are communicating is through these means.
Create a healthy environment by agreeing with them and listening to their stories. The responsibility of creating a safe environment is totally with you.
There might be times when your parents may do socially unacceptable or non-compliance behaviour. But it is important to understand the triggers and ensure that the triggers do not occur anymore.
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Once widely known as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the common and dangerous fatty liver condition was rephrased as Metabolic Dysfunction-Associated Steatotic Liver Disease (MASLD) due to its strong link to metabolic health issues like obesity and diabetes.
MASLD now includes patients with fatty liver disease linked to metabolic risk factors such as obesity, diabetes, and hypertension.
Globally, it was observed that all patients who have non-alcoholic fatty liver disease also have some associated form of metabolic dysfunction. The patients reported having either obesity, diabetes, metabolic syndrome, hypertension, or cholesterol problems.
And all these problems eventually lead to significant comorbidities later, like some people developed heart disease, while others developed complications of diabetes.
In view of these, a global consensus process in 2023 involving hundreds of experts from different countries adopted MASLD as it better reflected these underlying causes of the condition.
Also read: Lancet Study Shows Metabolic Liver Disease To Rise Over 38% By 2050: What’s Behind The Surge
MASLD is an umbrella term for liver conditions that develop in the presence of 1 or more cardiometabolic risk factors—including high blood sugar, elevated body mass index (BMI), and hypertension—but in the absence of other causes of liver fat accumulation.
The condition can be defined by excess liver fat accumulation (more than 5 per cent of liver weight) in the presence of metabolic dysfunction, independent of alcohol intake.
It encompasses a spectrum from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis, fibrosis, cirrhosis, and hepatocellular carcinoma.
“Initially, it was thought that having fatty liver disease without alcohol was a benign condition, but now it is recognized that, since it is associated with lots of metabolic comorbidities, it's no longer benign,” Dr. Ashish Kumar, Professor of gastroenterology and hepatology at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in New Delhi, told HealthandMe.
He stated that whenever a diagnosis of fatty liver is present, "we should actually include other comorbidities, like obesity, dyslipidemia, which means cholesterol problem, diabetes, sugar problem, pre-diabetes, and hypertension. At least 50–70–80 percent of these patients will have one or more of these comorbidities".
Although alcohol has remained the number one risk for liver disease, MASLD seems to be rising globally, including among people who do not drink. Why?
The reasons include:
a sedentary lifestyle,
increased consumption of fast and processed food,
lack of exercise,
lack of sleep,
stressful life.
Also read: Why Regular Scans Are Crucial for Liver Cancer Patients: Doctors Explain
The experts noted that food, especially the increasingly accessible junk food or processed food, is a major culprit.
“So even if the person is not drinking alcohol, people are developing addiction to processed food, and this is causing an epidemic level of obesity and diabetes. Consequently, MASLD is also increasing, and now it is becoming the number one cause of liver disease,” Dr Kumar said.
According to Dr. Sanjay Goja, Director, Liver Transplant & HPB Surgery, Narayana Hospital, Gurugram, prevention must focus on following a healthy lifestyle like maintaining a healthy BMI, engaging in regular physical activity, and eating a balanced diet.
Controlling diabetes, cholesterol, and blood pressure is also important to prevent the risk of MASLD.
Dr Siddharth Badola, Manipal Hospital, Ghaziabad, suggested sustainable lifestyle changes such as:
Maintaining an adequate body weight: Even slight weight loss (5–10 percent) has been shown to significantly reduce liver fat and inflammation.
Follow a balanced and nutrient-rich diet: People should focus on consuming whole grains, fresh fruits and vegetables, lean proteins, and healthy fats, while limiting refined carbohydrates and processed foods.
Avoid foods with added sugar: Excess consumption of fructose, commonly found in packaged foods and sugary beverages, is a key contributor to fat accumulation in the liver.
Engage in regular physical activity: At least 150 minutes of moderate-intensity exercise per week is recommended to improve insulin sensitivity and liver health.
Manage associated metabolic conditions: Effective control of diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidemia is essential in reducing the risk of MASLD progression.
Ensure adequate sleep and stress management: Poor sleep quality and chronic stress can negatively impact metabolic balance and liver function.
Keep your body hydrated with ample water intake and follow structured meal timings.
Heart attacks are now affecting younger people. (Photo credit: iStock)
Although a heart attack is generally considered a disease of the elderly, its incidence in young individuals is unfortunately on the rise. The reasons behind this are multifactorial. A heart attack is a condition where one of the arteries (blood vessels) suddenly becomes partially or completely occluded by a thrombus. Although the thrombus generally occurs suddenly, the underlying reason is a chronic process of lipid deposition in the vessel walls called atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis can begin even in the first decade of life, but events like heart attacks conventionally occurred beyond 45 years in men and 55 years in women. On average, heart attacks occur in Indians about 10 years earlier than in their Western counterparts.
Dr Shyam Sasidharan, Consultant, Department of Cardiology, KIMSHEALTH Thiruvananthapuram, spoke about the early onset of heart attacks. From a population perspective, the rising number of heart diseases due to coronary artery disease (CAD) is significant not only because of its overall negative impact on the healthy population but also due to the potential for preventive interventions.
Acute coronary syndromes, or heart attacks, are on the rise among younger individuals, particularly in our country. Studies of the Asian-Indian migrant population have revealed a probable racial predisposition for premature CAD. However, the majority of the risk can still be attributed to the increased incidence of conventional CAD risk factors in young people, such as obesity, inactivity, diabetes, hypertension, and dyslipidaemia.
Smoking and substance abuse are resulting in more heart disease among the young. Lesser-discussed, unconventional risk factors, such as mental stress, lack of healthy employment practices, environmental pollution, and lack of proper food safety regulations, are in fact contributing significantly to this silent epidemic. COVID-19 infection as well as vaccination were widely attributed as causes of heart attacks in young people, but without adequate scientific evidence.
Credit: Canva/WHO
Women can play a major role in preventing as well as eliminating Chagas Disease, a potentially life-threatening neglected tropical disease that affects 8 million people globally and causes 10,000 deaths every year, according to UN agencies.
World Chagas Disease Day is observed every year on April 14 to raise awareness around the disease, and the impact it has on lives.
In a statement, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) and the Global Chagas Coalition urged health authorities to make women central to the fight against the disease and to empower them to make early detection, prevention, and care.
“Eliminating Chagas disease as a public health problem requires placing women at the center of diagnosis, treatment, and care strategies,” said Dr. Jarbas Barbosa, PAHO Director.
“Ensuring timely access to quality health services, particularly for women of reproductive age, is essential to prevent new infections and advance toward the elimination of congenital Chagas disease in the Region of the Americas,” he added.
Chagas disease, also known as American trypanosomiasis, is a illness caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, and is primarily transmitted by triatomine insect vectors.
It gets spread through
If left untreated, one third of infected people—including women and the children they carry—will develop life-altering heart, digestive, and even neurological conditions, and may even become fatal.
Once endemic to 21 countries in Latin America, the disease has now spread globally due to migration. It is now a global health concern with cases found in 44 countries including the US, Canada, Europe, Australia, and Japan.
World Chagas Disease Day was celebrated for the first time in 2020.
The theme this year is “Women at the heart of care, protecting the next generation” and underscores the key role women play in family and community caregiving, as well as their greater interaction with health services, particularly during pregnancy.
Chagas Disease: Role Of Women
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), about 2 million women aged 15-44 years are living with Trypanosoma cruzi infection worldwide.
Congenital transmission or mother-to-child transmission remains a major challenge, occurring in about 3–5 percent of pregnancies. However, it also provides a key opportunity for effective intervention.
The transmission cycle of the disease can be effectively broken by
“On the contrary, it represents a strategic opportunity to strengthen more equitable, accessible, and responsive health systems that recognize and respect women’s needs.”
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