Over 80% Ind blame long working hrs as hurdle for heart health

Agencies
September 28, 2017

Mumbai, Sept 27: Even as people are aware of the risk parameters, 80 percent respondents said long working hours is the biggest hurdle for not able to do enough for their heart health, according to a study.

"Long working hours (80 percent), long travelling hours (69 percent) is seen as a reason people are not able to do enough for their heart health. This is also an indication for the increasing sedentary lifestyle in India," according to the Saffolalife Study 2017.

This study was conducted among 1,306 respondents across Delhi, Mumbai, Lucknow, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.

About 76 per cent Indians feel that job or business stress prevents them from making healthy efforts, while 69 per cent Indians feel that they don't know where their time goes because they are always on a tablet or phone, it said.

This trend was seen to be similar across age groups contrary to popular belief that use of technology is more in the younger age group, it added.

About 74 per cent Indians said they don't get enough sleep, which is a barrier to their heart health, it added.

It also revealed that 83 per cent Indians said temptation of tasty food is a barrier to heart health. Temptation for tasty food is higher for age group of 35-44 years, it added.

The study found that 81 per cent women feel that household work takes up a lot of their time, which is a reason they don't get time to put in the required efforts to stay healthy.

"While there is a rising awareness about heart health, compliance and action is a big area of concern in India. It is important to adopting ways to stay heart healthy despite changing food habits, long working hours and increase in work stress, which have become part and parcel of our modern day lifestyles. Our modern lifestyle has made us sedentary, in office, while travelling and even at home," Lilavati Hospital and Research Institute Senior Endocrinologist and President of Hypertension Society of India Dr Shashank Joshi said.

India, he said, is seeing a rise in health conscious individuals as international health trends are leaving impressions at a rapid pace.

"Despite the continuous propagation of leading healthier lives, India continues to see alarming heart health statistics. It's time we translate this awareness into action, and overcome the barriers that come in the way to stay heart healthy. Identifying these barriers is the first step towards overcoming them," he added.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

There is no evidence that the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine, which is primarily used against tuberculosis, protects people against infection with the novel coronavirus, the World Health Organization (WHO) said.

The WHO therefore didn't recommend BCG vaccination for the prevention of COVID-19 in the absence of evidence, according to its daily situation report on Monday, Xinhua news agency reported.

"There is experimental evidence from both animal and human studies that the BCG vaccine has non-specific effects on the immune system. These effects have not been well characterized and their clinical relevance remains unknown," WHO stated.

Two clinical trials addressing the question are underway, and WHO will evaluate the evidence when it is available, it noted.

BCG vaccination prevents severe forms of tuberculosis in children and diversion of local supplies may result in an increase of disease and deaths from the tuberculosis, it warned.

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Agencies
August 2,2020

Washington, Aug 2: Children under the age of five have between 10 to 100 times greater levels of genetic material of the coronavirus in their noses compared to older children and adults, a study in JAMA Pediatrics said Thursday.

Its authors wrote this meant that young children might be important drivers of Covid-19 transmission within communities -- a suggestion at odds with the current prevailing narrative.

The paper comes as the administration of US President Donald Trump is pushing hard for schools and daycare to reopen in order to kickstart the economy.

Between March 23 and April 27, researchers carried out nasal swab tests on 145 Chicago patients with mild to moderate illness within one week of symptom onset.

The patients were divided into three groups: 46 children younger than five-years-old, 51 children aged five to 17 years, and 48 adults aged 18 to 65 years.

The team, led by Dr Taylor Heald-Sargent of the Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital, observed, "a 10-fold to 100-fold greater amount of SARS-CoV-2 in the upper respiratory tract of young children."

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The authors added that a recent lab study had demonstrated that the more viral genetic material was present, the more infectious virus could be grown.

It has also previously been shown that children with high viral loads of the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are more likely to spread the disease.

"Thus, young children can potentially be important drivers of SARS-CoV-2 spread in the general population," the authors wrote.

"Behavioral habits of young children and close quarters in school and daycare settings raise concern for SARS-CoV-2 amplification in this population as public health restrictions are eased," they concluded.

The new findings are at odds with the current view among health authorities that young children -- who, it has been well established, are far less likely to fall seriously ill from the virus -- don't spread it much to others either.

However, there has been fairly little research on the topic so far.

One recent study in South Korea found children aged 10 to 19 transmitted Covid-19 within households as much as adults, but children under nine transmitted the virus at lower rates.

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Agencies
February 10,2020

Washington D.C, Feb 10: Children's vulnerability towards depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, and poor cognitive performance could be determined by considering the hours of sleep they manage to get.

Sleep states are active processes that support the reorganisation of brain circuitry. This makes sleep especially important for children, whose brains are developing and reorganising rapidly.

In a study by researchers from the University of Warwick -- recently published in the journal Molecular Psychiatry -- cases of 11,000 children aged between 9 and 11 years from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development dataset were analyzed to find out the relationship between sleep duration and brain structure.

The study was carried out by researchers Professor Jianfeng Feng, Professor Edmund Rolls, Dr. Wei Cheng and colleagues from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science and Fudan University.

Measures of depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour and poor cognitive performance in the children were associated with shorter sleep duration. Moreover, the depressive problems were associated with short sleep duration one year later.

The reduced brain volume of areas such as orbitofrontal cortex, prefrontal, and temporal cortex, precuneus, and supramarginal gyrus was found to be associated with the shorter sleep duration.

Professor Jianfeng Feng, from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science, comments: "The recommended amount of sleep for children 6 to 12 years of age is 9-12 hours. However, sleep disturbances are common among children and adolescents around the world due to the increasing demand on their time from school, increased screen time use, and sports and social activities."

A previous study showed that about 60 per cent of adolescents in the United States receive less than eight hours of sleep on school nights.

Professor Jianfeng Feng further added: "Our findings showed that the total score for behavior problems in children with less than 7 hours sleep was 53 per cent higher on average and the cognitive total score was 7.8 per cent lower on average than for children with 9-11 hours of sleep. It highlights the importance of enough sleep in both cognition and mental health in children."

Professor Edmund Rolls from the University of Warwick's Department of Computer Science also commented: "These are important associations that have been identified between sleep duration in children, brain structure, and cognitive and mental health measures, but further research is needed to discover the underlying reasons for these relationships."

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