In the Philippines, sudden death of apparently healthy young men that occurs while they are asleep, is of great mystery especially to the families and friends that they have left behind. They would claim that spirits of the underworld have taken their souls. Others would attribute a heavy meal especially at dinner time and going to sleep immediately is the cause of their death. Drinking too much alcohol and eating more carbohydrates were also linked to the cause of this sudden death.
In medicine, experts are speaking otherwise. They have identified Brugada Syndrome, or unexplained sudden cardiac death syndrome, a genetic disorder that causes syncope or death in young people with no apparent cardiac history. Discovered in 1992 by Pedro and Joseph Brugada, it was characterized by a diagnostic triad consisting of:
a right bundle branch block (RBBB) pattern in the electrocardiogram (ECG)
transient or persistent ST-segment elevation in leads V1-V3; and
sudden cardiac death (SCD). These individuals had a structurally normal heart with no evidence of atherosclerotic. coronary artery disease.
As the adage says, "With age comes wisdom." Yet gerontophobia is haunting a lot of people, especially baby boomers reaching middle age, in terms of experiencing the many expected outcomes of getting old. One of these outcomes is forgetfulness. The good news is that sound nutritional research and clinical experience shows that being older and wiser can be achieved as we grow old.
We are introduced to the many products in the market promising to enhance mental function, improve memory, boost intelligence, and stablize mood. With different varieties of products to choose from, we may need more brain power just to help us discern which is best for us.
With this, I started to look for information that could enlighten us in this discussion. I came up with seven top nutrients which have been found to have a positive influence on the mind. They are particularly helpful for those who have difficulty in concentrating, lack of memory energy, and depression.
I was doing some research for my latest online writing job when I stumbled on this video posted on YouTube. I have seen movies and known acquaintances to have obsessive-compulsive disorders but this my first time to see the condition reach into gargantuan proportions in ruining a person's life in terms of losing his job and relationships.
This prompted me to write something about the disorder. The article stresses on self-assessment whether you have OCD or will likely to have OCD. Knowing that you might have the disorder, the soonest way possible, can be very helpful in finding ways to manage the ritualistic behaviors.
A new study linking smoking to Alzheimer's disease was published yesterday in the online edition of Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers said that the study has proved that those who smoke during their middle ages increases their risk to develop Alzheimer's by 157%.
The study was conducted over 21,123 ethnically diverse people, between the ages of 50 and 60 years old covering the years between 1978 and 1985. During an average follow-up of 23 years, the researchers found that 25.4 percent were diagnosed with dementia, including Alzheimer's (1,136 people) or vascular dementia (416 people). Most of the people who developed Alzheimer's were heavy smokers, i.e., smoking of more than two cigarette packs a day.
Since this was conducted through observation, the exact mechanism on how smoking may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's was not fully elaborated. Researchers believed that it is similar to stroke or the formation of clots wherein oxidative process takes place and oxygenation or tissue perfusion of the brain cells is compromised. In due time, the neurons, which are responsible for transmitting electrical impulses for neural communication, will be damaged.
Primarily, Alzheimer's is highly known to have genetic influence. This research will have a turnabout on how the public and health providers can prevent the onset of the disease among our seniors because of the modifiability factor of the behavior.
Alzheimer’s disease is likened to a thief at night – quietly sneaking inside our abode while we doze off to dreamland and robbing off our priced possessions without our knowledge.
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive brain disorder that has a gradual onset, mostly undetected at first since the condition is marked with memory loss that is linked from the so-called senior moments typical of normal aging. As the disease progress, it causes an increasing decline in functioning, including loss of speech, loss of motor function, and profound personality and behavioral changes. The person with Alzheimer’s has been observed to display paranoia, delusions, hallucinations, inattention to hygiene, and belligerence.
After its discovery more than a century ago, no cure has been discovered to stop this memory-robbing disease. There isn’t even a definitive test to identify the disease in its early stages. As a matter of fact, the only way to diagnose a person with Alzheimer’s is after performing an autopsy of brain tissue to examine its hallmark lesions – atrophy of cerebral neurons, senile plaque deposits, and enlargement of the third and fourth ventricles of the brain.
For so many years, the attempts to curtail its tracks had left scientists in frustration and despair. In 2002, a promising vaccine was tested, but instead of protecting the brain from the deleterious effect of Alzheimer’s, it even caused dangerous inflammation in the brain and spinal column and had to be abandoned after years of research. Last August of this year, a highly anticipated drug worsened rather than improved cognitive symptoms.
So, are we losing the fight against this much feared condition among our senior citizens? Has medical science surrendered in finding the cure or even protecting those at risk to develop Alzheimer’s? Time magazine has described that research on finding the drug to cure Alzheimer’s is the cold fusion of medical research: everyone agrees it would be great, and everyone who tries it fails.
Wanted: Amyloid, ApoE4, and Tau
To fully understand how this condition can easily wipe out stored precious memories created over a lifetime, it is better to identify the main players, or so to speak, the thieves behind the crime.
Just like other degenerative disorders, Alzheimer’s has a genetic component. Research has shown linkages to chromosomes 21, 14, and 19 (APA, 2000). The disease is caused by buildup of protein-based plaques in the brain identified as amyloid. What triggered the research community to know more about these protein-plaques is that amyloid in living patients does not necessarily indicate the disease. Is there more to this than meets the eye?
Investigators are working very hard to identify additional sources of the plaque formation. They came up with apolipoprotein E (ApoE), which in certain forms can promote the formation of amyloid. In addition to this, a neural protein known as tau, which stabilizes axons, was also implicated to the process of amyloid build-up.
Putting all of these components together, researchers have traced how neurons gradually die among Alzheimer’s patients:
·Amyloid initially forms as amyloid precursor protein (APP)
Enzymes break APP into short fragments.
The fragments clump together, forming plaques.
Once plaques form, tau, may start to break down.
When tau no longer stabilizes the axons, the neuron shrivels and dies, leaving behind its tangled carcass.
As the neural debris accumulates, the immune system’s inflammatory response is then activated to remove it. In time, this will develop to neural connection shutdown that leads to a drop in cognitive function.
Setting up the Alarm
One way to catch a thief is to set up a security alarm. But this is not a piece of cake for the medical researchers in stopping Alzheimer’s from snuffing out the essence of the affected person. Drugs that were designed to target amyloid plaques affect other processes in the body too, including those that regulate how cells communicate as well as the development of heart, pancreas, and immune system cells. In addition, when scientists examined the autopsied brains of patients in the failed vaccine, they noted that the subjects had fewer plaques than before they received the vaccine but still had shown no improvement on tests of mental function.
With these futile steps, the old adage “an ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure” may have lost its significance in dealing with persons at risk to develop Alzheimer’s. Nevertheless, a glimmer of hope is still on the horizon. In 2004, the U.S. National Institute on Aging (NIA) partnered with pharmaceutical companies to create the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative, a $60 million project tasked to identify between Alzheimer’s patients and unaffected individuals. Once identified, the persons at risk may be tested with drugs whose brains are just beginning to accumulate amyloid.
Lessons Learned
Optimism to treat the disease is still present. From the mistakes committed in the past, experts are now holding two essential lessons that empower the future of Alzheimer’s research:
Timing. It is crucial to treat Alzheimer’s patients as early as possible, perhaps even before they show signs of memory loss or cognitive decline, rather than attempt to improve a brain already scourged by the disease.
Scope of medical assault. Adopting a multipronged approach that address as many of the disease’s complex abnormalities as possible may improve the chances that new therapies used early on will not only delay symptoms but also reverse them.
I came across this article from Time.com that introduces the new rules in performing Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR). Medical professionals were taught and trained to do CPR in the order of ABC, i.e., Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. First make sure that the airway of the client is free of any obstructions that can hamper in any way the giving of breathes after chest compressions are started. Ensuring that oxygen is now delivered to the brain through breathing and chest compressions, circulation of blood through other parts of the body particularly to the major body organs is now established. This is how CPR was practiced for almost 51 years (CPR was first introduced in 1960).
Now, the American Heart Association is changing the procedure and encouraging everybody to start with chest compressions first before initiating to breathe to the client. This is the result of the studies they have conducted that:
victims of cardiac arrest survive from the CPR performed by bystanders who are untrained as well as those who were trained to initiate breathes first, then chest compression after.
social and biologic factors like the panic effect and the confidence level of the aider, usually bystanders, contributes to the total effect on how the CPR is performed to the victim. Though most of the times, the manner on how these are performed are technically not met, the outcomes of victims treated did as well as those who are trained in CPR.
most of the people who called 911 for help and instructions to perform CPR were most likely to follow chest compressions first and the survival rate is the same.
The medical rationale was also explained on why pumping the heart is the first thing to do. The heart needs to beat continuously and the moment the chest compressions are started, the more chances of the victim to survive is ensured. If the heart stops beating, the oxygen delivery to the brain is then compromised.
As to the issue of brain anoxia (that is the reason why we need to breathe first before compressions), authorities said that the body cells have sufficient oxygen supply from the victim's last breath before the attack to maintain itself. The rescuer is only delaying the intake of oxygen for 20 seconds (it will take 4 minutes of oxygen deprivation before brain cells starts to die). That is why, chest compression should be started first to promote continuous heart pumping thus adequate tissue perfusion.
Though this new rule is beneficial to those who suffer from cardiac arrest and for all ages, the principle does not apply to drowning victims who are at the same unresponsive. For them, the ABC method is still applied.
On a personal note, this is something to be taught again to medical professionals and students who are beginning to learn about CPR. I would like to comment also about the hygienic factor of performing CPR. Breathing into mouths of the victims (specially strangers) is not too commendable considering that certain contagious diseases are transmitted via direct contact. With this new study, this can promote reassurance and empower more people to save lives.
Yesterday I wrote about my thoughts on teenage suicides and enumerated the possible causes of the act. From the known factors like family problems, substance abuse, depression, and peer acceptance, cyberbullying is recently taking a place in the statistics of teenage suicides.
Cyberbullying is a recent prevalence of online harassment that occurs via the Internet. But because its a new occurrence and the manner of conducting the act always changes, there is no clear-cut definition of the word. Bill Belsey, an authority on cyberbullying and who has conceived and created several help groups for teenagers who are victims of online harassment has defined cyberbullying as the use of "information and communication technologies to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behaviour by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others."
The advent of the World Wide Web has opened the doors to infinite information and easy accessibility of every person. And as online communication evolves in chatrooms, social networking, and instant messaging, the chances for bullying to happen are becoming more central to young people's lives and more public.
The harmful effect of cyberbullying is taking its toll. Because of its sheer relentlessness, the victim has no chance to defend and stop the attacks. In the movies or even in real life, we have witnessed how physical bullying happens to a kid in school. The bully punches the kid, utters shameful and derogatory remarks, but it only last for sometime. With cyberbullying, there's no escape as the information is generated and accessed by anybody 24/7, 365 days a year. Another harmful effect of cyberbullying is on how the perpetrator creates a maddening experience to the victim, giving him paranoid thoughts to who might be behind these attacks. The anonymity of the person is incapacitating the victim psychologically. The vulnerability of the person, low self-esteem, and lack of inner strength adds up to the possibility of ending one's life.
Here in the Philippines, cyberbullying has not yet reached to an alarming state where a life is taken because of the shame that it has created to the person (not that I'm aware of). But there are isolated and unreported cases that are happening in the social networks as we speak. Just yesterday, I came across an album of young girls tagged as mistresses of politicians and prominent businessmen is circulating on Facebook.
Our government has no specific policies and measures to prevent cyberbullying and punish perpetrators. Several countries abroad are very serious about this and as a matter of fact, several laws were already created to stop cyberbullying in schools and the workplace.
It does not hurt to give this subject a special attention by our lawmakers. Do we still need to pay a life before a law is made to protect and safeguard our children?
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