Discusion about cholesterol

The cholesterol in fact is the result of fat solution in the body. Cholesterol is also needed by the body, although just in a few. Such as for the material to form cell membrane, or as the framer material to form bile salt. When being abundant but still can be tolerated by the body, cholesterol is proccessed the heart into the energy source subtituting sugar. However, when the amount of it is totally over supply, cholesterol will be kept on the muscle and on the light network under the skin (for example in the thigh, upper arm, stomach and bottom).

Cholesterol also can be obtained by eating fatty food. To reduce it of course by reducing fatty food. But some people has gene deviation that can cause him have very little amount of enzyme to break cholesterol. Whereas the gene has genetic feature and can not be changed.

Therefore, for someone who has high level of cholesterol, he has also high risk to suffer cardiovaskuler illness like: stroke, heart or the disturbance of kidney and liver.

When the use of the lowered-cholesterol medicine is used, can be seen from the example below:
Patient 1:
Total cholesterol is 400, but his age is just 25 years. does not have hypertension, the level of blood sugar is normal, and his family does not have history of heart disease in the young age. His height is 180 cm and his weight is 100 cm.
Patient 2:
Total cholesterol is 200, but his age is 55 years, have hypertension and diabetes, the level of LDL (bad cholesterol) is 150, had been attacked by heart disease.

Fom the case above, cholesterol medicine is needed by patient 2. For the patient 1, it is recommended to do physical exercise and consume balanced food, also reducing the portion of fat until 10-15%.

Basically, there are many things to be considered if we want to take cholesterol medicine. It is because there are many kinds of cholesterol medicine, depending what kind of cholesterol that must be reduced. Besides, most cholesterol medicines are expensive and some of them have bad side-effect.

Renal Failure

Kidney is an important organ in the body and has a function of throwing away garbage metabolism and body poison in the form of urine/the urine, that afterwards is issued from the body.

What is Renal Failure?
Renal Failure is the situation when the kidney declines in function, caused by accumulation of poison in the body and the waste of metabolism. Heavy failure or not depends on how far the kidney damaged.

How is the symptom of renal failure?
Renal failure will cause some signs which called Uremic Syndrome such as:
- nausea, vomited
- appetite descended
- had a headache, weak
- often caught a cold
- breathless, inflated, diarrhoea
- often singultus
- at first often urine tonight, afterwards urine decreased or in no urine at all.
- in difficult situation, the awareness will decline, accompanied by muscle-bound.

How many kinds of Renal Failure?
There are two kinds:
- Acute Renal Failure
it abruptly come, but can be healed completely
- Chronic Renal Failure
It happens in phases, and can not be cured. However, if the patient takes medicine regulary, it can prevent from another damage of the kidney.

What are the causes of Acute Renal Failure?
Pre Renal Cause: diarrhea and vomiting, bleeding, or wide burn.
Renal Cause: Acute glumerulonefritis (The swollen face, swollen foot, blood pressure increased, sometimes accompanied by waist pain and urine color is red)
Post Renal Cause: urinary tract is clogged up (tumour stone, the blood clot, etc.), marked with great waist pain, sometimes urine is red, it volume is decreased or no urine at all.

What is the cause of Chronic Renal Failure?
The cause of chronic renal failure are:
- chronic glumerulonefritis (swollen face, high blood pressure, urine decreased or no urine at all)
- diabetes melitus
- Hypertension
- kidney stone,
- drugs

Cardiovascular Disease

Around the world, there are one billion people suffer cardiovascular disease. The number of sufferers seems to increase every year. Cardiovascular now becomes the main cause of death in modern countries as well as developing ones.

Cardiovascular is one of the main cause of death around the world. the number of death because of the disease is around 30% of all diseases that cause death (WHO report 2004)

The disease is generally suffered by adult. However, young people recently tends to become its target.

The medical care of cardiovascular can be started by trying to alter the way of life in connection with food, sport, alcohol and smoking habit. Long-consumed drug is also taken to take care of the disease.

What is Cardiovascular (CVD)?
Cardiovascluar is a group of disease concerning heart and blood vessel. One of CVD sample is coronary (CHD), stroke, and thrombosis
. Both CHD and stroke can be caused by
embolism (blocking of a blood vessel by a blood clot).

The Main Factors of CVD
- drinking alcohol
- obesity
- high blood pressure
- diabetes
The disease substantially increase CVD risk. Men suffer diabetes melitus type 2 risk two times more than women who suffer the same diabetes.
- Food
One of the main factors that increase CVD in Indonesia is the alteration of way of life, especially in connection with physical activities and the habit of consuming unhealthy food. Some of them are consuming saturated fat and salt more than consuming vegetables and fruits.
-Sport
WWHO report in 2002 shows that 1 up to 24 % of CVD in modern countries is caused by low sport intensity (under 2,5 hour in a week). The new way of life can also lower the intensity of doing sport.
-High Colesterol
- Smoking
Passive smokers can be attacked by the disease with the risk level of 25%.

Taking Care of CVD
There are some receipt drugs that are available for CVD, including anti-platelet, anti-hypertension (such as ACE inhibitor, AIIRA), lowering-lipid medicine, statin, beta blocker, diuretik, and vasodilator. There are also many patients who need surgical operation such as by-pass operation of coronary blood vessel.

Although there are some treatments that prove to be effective, CVD prevention is better. The prevention can be achieved by reducing its risk factors, such as lowering blood vessel, lowering cholesterol level, stop smoking, reducing alcoholic drink, and doing sport more. The last research shows that some medicines are proven to reduce CVD arising, and of course they can prevent from CVD.

Osteoporosis; Calcium Deficiency?

Osteoporosis is a disease resulting in the loss of bone tissue. Normal bones consist of a series of thin, intersecting plates, called cancellous bone, surrounded by a shell of dense cortical bone. In osteoporosis, the cancellous bone loses calcium, becomes thinner, and may disappear altogether. The cortical bone may become thinner as well. Osteoporosis usually takes years to develop and results in extremely weak and fragile bones throughout the skeleton. Often the first symptom is a fractured bone from a minor blow or fall.

Normal Bone


Abnormal Bone

Osteoporosis can result from a number of diseases or conditions. These include some hormonal diseases, local injury or inflammation, malnutrition, and lack of physical activity. Osteoporosis also refers to the natural loss of bone that occurs as a person grows older.

The most common form of osteoporosis affects women who are past menopause--the time in a woman's life when menstruation stops. Such postmenopausal osteoporosis most often results in fractures of the wrist, spine, and hip bones. The cause of postmenopausal osteoporosis is unknown, but it is known that the lack of estrogens accelerates bone loss in women. Estrogens are female sex hormones. Their production nearly ceases after menopause. Another important factor in postmenopausal osteoporosis may be insufficient calcium in the diet. Calcium is vital to the development and maintenance of strong bones.

There is no cure for postmenopausal osteoporosis, but treatment may slow its effects. Estrogen drugs and calcium supplements may reverse bone loss, but their effectiveness tends to diminish after several years of treatment. To prevent osteoporosis, scientists recommend a lifelong combination of regular exercise and a diet high in calcium.

Hemorrhagic Stroke

Hemorrhagic stroke occurs when a blood vessel bursts inside the brain. The brain is very sensitive to bleeding and damage can occur very rapidly, either because of the presence of the blood itself, or because the fluid increases pressure on the brain and harms it by pressing it against the skull.

Bleeding irritates the brain tissue, causing swelling (membengkak, ind). The surrounding tissues of the brain resist (melawan, ind) the expansion of the bleeding, which is finally contained by forming a mass (hematoma). Both swelling and hematoma will compress and displace normal brain tissue.

Most often, hemorrhagic stroke is associated with high blood pressure, which stresses the artery walls until they break.

Another cause of hemorrhagic stroke is an aneurysm. This is a weak spot in an artery wall, which balloons out because of the pressure of the blood circulating inside the affected artery. Eventually, it can burst and cause serious harm. The larger the aneurysm is, the more likely it is to burst. It is unclear why people develop aneurysms, but genes may play a role, since aneurysms run in families.

Stroke can also be caused by the accumulation of a protein called amyloid within the artery walls, particularly in the elderly. This makes the arteries more prone to bleeding.

Amyloid protein is also implicated in the brain damage related to Alzheimer's disease, but the difference is that people with Alzheimer´s disease have amyloid accumulation in the brain tissue instead of in the arteries. Therefore people with Alzheimer´s usually do not develop brain bleeding.

Some people with brain hemorrhage have abnormal connections between arteries and veins. Under normal circumstances, circulating blood travels through the arteries into the capillaries, where it provides nutrients and oxygen to the tissues. Once the blood has deposited the nutrients and oxygen, it is carried back to the heart from the capillaries via the veins.

In some people, however, a brain artery may connect directly to a vein, instead of going through the capillaries first. This is called an arterial-venous malformation (AVM). Since blood pressure in the arteries is much greater than in the veins, the veins may rupture, causing bleeding into the brain.

Another important brain disease that can cause bleeding is cancer. This is especially true for cancers that spread to the brain from distant organs, such as the breast, skin, and thyroid.

About 20% of strokes are hemorrhagic -- but the other 80% are caused by the opposite problem: too little blood reaching an area of the brain, which is usually due to a clot that has blocked a blood vessel. This is called "ischemic stroke." This type of stroke can sometimes lead to a brain hemorrhage because the affected brain tissue softens and this can lead to breaking down of small blood vessels.

In addition, brain hemorrhage can occur when people have problems forming blood clots. Clots, which are the body's way of stopping any bleeding, are formed by proteins called coagulation factors and by sticky blood cells called platelets. Whenever the coagulation factors or platelets do not work well or are insufficient in quantity, people may develop a tendency to bleed excessively.

Some medications (often used, ironically, to prevent ischemic stroke) prevent clot formation. These work by blocking the production of clotting factors (such as the blood thinner warfarin) or interfering with the function of platelets (such as aspirin). The most common side effects of such medications is bleeding, which may occasionally affect the brain. Controlling bleeding to avoid stroke is a very fine balancing act. Illicit drugs, such as cocaine, can also cause hemorrhagic stroke.

Asthma can be Cured by Vitamin C and E

Terrible air pollution can influence child who has asthma. For child having asthma, it is suggested to consume any fruits and green vegetables which contains high vitamin C and E.

This opinion is expressed by Dr Isabelle Romieu from Public Health National Institute in Mexico. Her research reveals that asthma attack is caused by ozon polution. The attack can be reduced if the children consume rich-antioxidan food, such as vitamin C and E, to protect their lungs.

Dr Romieu affirms that food likely becomes important side factor in children breath health.

The Research performed by Romieu is to determine wether antioxidant supplement can protect children who suffer asthma against pollution in Mexico City metropolitan region. Because the previous research shows that children in the area endure downgrade in their lung function and there is escalation of exhalation problem.

The research was held involving 158 children. They were randomly divided into two groups. One group got daily vitamin supplement, and another ate plasebo. They were examined from October 1998 till April 2000.

In general, children involved in the research had got vitamin C in their food, but they did not get enough vitamin E yet.

Researchers finds that vitamin supplement protects the children from the degradation of their exhalation stream and their amount of air disposed by lung at a specific time. The children who got plasebo endure the degradation.

Though this research entangles a group of little, middle and hard asthmatic children, vitamin supplement influence is mostly seen at children who have middle and hard asthma attack.

The researchers also concludes that asthmatic child is more vulnarable against ozon condition, because ozone influence will degrade antioxidant protection in lung.

This Invention is reported in American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

The conclusion is that the more often children are hit by air pollution, the more vitamin especially vitamin C and D they need to protect their lung. Children also need much more acid fruits and green vegetables.

Source: Media Indonesia

Asthma at A Glance

Asthma is chronic disease caused by excessive stricture of exhalation channel. Asthma can happen at all age.

Nevertheless, asthma is suffered mostly by children, caused by genetic factor and triggered by environment condition.

Generally asthma symptons are coughs, congested breath, breath sounds, pain chest, short breath, blue at lip and tongue. Besides genetic factor, asthma can emerge because of inflamation, weather change, pollution (especially SO2) and dirty air.

The most factor that can trigger asthma attack is allergen such as dust, animal fur, cotton, and certain foods. Asthma attack also can be triggered by smoke, such as cigarette smoke, mosquito repellent, kitchen smoke, hari spray and deodorant; Internal trigger caused by infection upper or lower breath channel; weather changes such as early rainy seasons, end of rainy season, cold weather or continuous rainfall; unproporsional physical exercises such as running, riding a bike, swimming and other excessive activities; physical emotion or stress; or combination of each factors.

To avoid its trigger factors, try using spume covered by plastic or vinyl sack in the bedroom, bed cover, pillow case and blanket should be cleaned as often as possible. Clean floor and household tool with wet mop everyday. The curtain must be routinly washed every fortnight. Bring out of home the furniture that covered by carpet fi you want to clean them

In order that your clothes are always clean from dust, wrap your clothes that unfrequently used. Avoid placing shelf, book and magazine in in bed room, Studying room and family room.

To cure this disease, doctor usually give some medicine types, according to the condition. Some of them are teofilin, bricasma, meptin, alupent, quibron, ventolin and spiropent to widen exhalation channel. Preduson, kenacort and urbason are used to lessen swelling in breath channel.

To prevent repetitive asthma attack, doctor also usually gives anti-inflammation medicines as inflamide, becotide, flexotide and pulmicort. Sometime, doctor also gives medicine to widen trachea such as meptin or volmax. The anthitistamin generation II/III medicine such as profilas is also be given if needed. (ad)

Avoid Serviks Cancer by Early-Detection

Threat of womb neck cancer or serviks always peeps woman. Beware of its spreading by early-detection to lessen infection risk from virus Human Papilloma Virus (HPV).

Cancer Serviks is one of the four deadliest cancer types in the world. If lung cancer frequently infects man, whereas breast cancer and womb neck (serviks) most often attacks woman.

According to Dr Eric Kasmara AMd SpOG at seminar “Early Detection and Prevention of Serviks Cancer” in Jakarta, kanker leher rahim is cancer infected woman reproduction organ. This Cancer usually happened at reproductive time, between age 20 -30 years.

Womb neck cancer is caused by some factors. Some of them are underage sexual intercourse, flirting sexual contact, smoking, and less vegetable and fruits consumption.

Virus called HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) is the most responsible virus of womb neck cancer. It is a kind of DNA virus which can infect skin, mucus layer or mukrosa. Part of human body contained a lot of mukrosa is vagina.

Dr Eric Kasmara said 99,7% of serviks cancer was caused onkogenic HPV. HPV 16 and 18 were the main viruses which donated 70% serviks cancer cases in the world.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer or IARC concludes that HPV is proven having relation to more than 95% serviks cancer cases. Generally, HPV infection does not generate any symptom. Nevertheless continuous infection can cause many problems such as abnormality in serviks cells, wart in genitals, and serviks cancer itself.

Dr Eric Kasmara, who also works for Siloam Hospital at Kebon Jeruk, Jakarta, said that HPV was easily spread by genital skin contact, and every woman were risky infected by HPV that can trigger serviks cancer.

HPV does not only attack adult woman, but it is also able to infect baby through his or her infected mother.

Dr Eric Kasmara said that Virus HPV can be swallowed by a baby when he is in his mother stomach. When the baby is born, the virus will attack baby's sound track.

PAP SMEAR TEST
The best treatment for married woman is doing early detection using pap smear test. Nevertheless, the result has limitation due to its subjectivity.

Pap smear test can be conducted quickly and does not take a long time. The patient is asked to lay on bed and the test tool called spekulum is inserted into patient’s vagina hole.

According to Ivan Sentosa, a specialist doctor of Kandungan dan Kebidanan, pap smear test works by intaking fluid from vagina to examine whether there is abnormal cell around womb neck. The test can be conducted by every woman, although she has not been productive yet.

The name of pap smear is derived from a doctor name called Papanicolau. The benefit of the test is that it is relatively inexpensive and is also easily executed by professional medics. The risk of serviks cancer for woman who does not take pap smear test is higher than who does the test.

It is better to prevent than to cure. The earlier a woman does the test, the more little her presentation to be infected by HPV. Pap smear test is the easiest way to detect it.

Chilli Can Fight Prostate Cancer

Capsaicin, compound that make chilli is felt hot, can trigger cells of prostate cancer to suicide. The statement is expressed by researchers from Japan and THE UNITED STATES.

Capsaicin makes around 80 percent of human prostate cancer cells that inculcated at body mouse to kill themselves, in a process called apoptosis.

Tumors of prostate cancer in mouse body given capsaicin shrinks till one fifth of tumor size at mouse that pay no capsaicin, said researchers that write down the result in journal Cancer Research.

"Capsaicin haves effect anti-growth which is powerful for cells of prostate cancer," said Dr. Soren Lehmann from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and Medical Faculty of California University, Los Angeles.

"This Compound dramatically also slow downs growth of prostate cancer from human cells that is planted in mouse body."

Although it is far easier to heal human cancer planted at a mouse than in human body itself, nevertheless the invention above emerges expectation of effective cancer medication in the future. This is especially more please for everyone who likes hot food.

Lehmann predicts mice on trial has consumed capsaicin equivalent to 400 milligrams capsaicin for human, three times a week. This Amount can be supplied by three till eight chillis habanero (the most hot chilli), depending how hot the chillies are.

Prostate cancer is the most commonly cancer met in men in the world. Globally, around 221.000 men die per annum because of prostate cancer.

Source: Kompas, Indonesian daily News