Shruti Jain was a busy working mother juggling children, work and household chores with aplomb, until she suddenly collapsed in office one day. Diagnosed with a stroke, she had to undergo a six-month recuperation and paid a hefty fee at a private hospital.

Little did the 35-year-old marketing executive know that she had been suffering from hypertension, which had gone undetected for a long time, ultimately leading to the stroke she suffered.

Going by the lifestyles most of us lead, doctors say hypertension or high blood pressure (BP) can affect any of us and should be taken seriously as it is a silent killer.

"A lot of Indians fall into the pre-hypertension category where they think they are absolutely fine and don`t pay attention to their rising blood pressure," Ravi Kasliwal, chairman of the division of clinical and prevention cardio diseases at Medanta - The Medicity Hospital in Gurgaon, adjoining Delhi, told IANS.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), high BP affects every third person above the age of 18 years.

Given the seriousness of the problem, WHO has selected hypertension as its theme for 2013, with special focus on it on World Health Day on April 7.

Blaming Indian food habits and a sedantary lifestyle, Kasliwal said: "Most of us grab snacks like namkeens and samosas when hungry between meals. Not only do these have a high salt content but they are also sources of trans-fats."

Experts estimate that the number of patients in India with high BP is likely to rise from about 140 million in 2008 to nearly 215 million by 2030 along with an increase in the risk of complications such as heart attacks, strokes, kidney problems and other serious illnesses.

The problem is further compounded as high BP is a silent killer because it can remain undetected and manifest years later as a serious heart problem, say doctors.

In India, experts say a large number of people are in the pre-hypertension category - BP of 130/90 against the normal range of 120/90. People with BP of above 140/90 are considered to be in the hypertension category.

High BP, as of today, remains inadequately controlled in India as a large number of cases go undetected.

"The incidence of high blood pressure ranges from 20 to 39 percent in urban areas and 12 to 17 percent in rural areas," says Sailesh Mohan, senior research scientist and associate professor in the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI).

PHFI is a public-private initiative that works on promoting health issues.
High BP is, however, both preventable and treatable.

For many people, lifestyle changes such as cutting down on salt; eating a balanced diet; avoiding harmful use of alcohol; getting regular exercise; and avoiding tobacco use are sufficient to control blood pressure.

For others, medication is required, which is effective when taken as prescribed.

Rohit Sobti, a physician with regional medical services in the WHO, said it is easy to prevent the problem if people just control their diet and change their lifestyle.

"Merely controlling dietary and lifestyle regime can easily avert any complications arising out of high blood pressure. It is important to get BP checked on a regular basis and avoid self-medication," Sobti told IANS.

Kasliwal said a simple measure like restricting the salt intake per person to less than five grams per day and half an hour of exercise can help control hypertension that is assuming epic proportions in the country.

He also said that coronary as well as cerebral strokes and also dementia in old age can be a direct result of high blood pressure.

One of the voluntary targets proposed by WHO and likely to be approved by the World Health Assembly in May this year is to achieve a 30 per cent reduction in average salt consumption by 2025 from the consumption level in the year 2010.

There were nine global targets, which may be adopted. These included reducing deaths due to hypertension by 25 percent by 2025, encouraging physical activity and avoiding tobacco, Sobti said.

"Unhealthy lifestyles are killing people," said Renu Garg, regional advisor in non-communicable disease, WHO regional office for South-East Asia.

"Most of us lead a sedantary lifestyle, eat unhealthy food and don`t exercise. Indians urgently need to take measures like reducing salt intake, exercising and avoiding tobacco and excessive alcohol," Garg added.

Experts have said that smoking could be a sign of psychiatric illness.

They added that doctors should routinely consider referring people, who smoke to mental health services, in case they need treatment, the Independent reported.
The controversial recommendation from the charity British Lung Foundation has come in response to a major report, Smoking and Mental Health, published this week by the Royal College of Physicians and the Royal College of Psychiatrists with the Faculty of Public Health.

The report said that almost one in three cigarettes smoked in Britain now is smoked by someone who is suffering from a mental disorder.

The reason the report gave is that smoking rates have more than halved over the past 50 years, but the decline has not happened equally in all parts of society.

According to the report, of the ten million smokers in Britain, up to 3 million have a mental disorder and up to 2 million have been prescribed a psychoactive drug in the past year and approaching 1 million have longstanding [mental] disease.

While smoking rates have fallen dramatically, from 56 percent in men and 42 percent in women in the early 1960s to 21 percent in both sexes today, they have hardly changed among people with mental disorders and remain at over 40 percent.

Professor Stephen Spiro , deputy chair of the British Lung Foundation, said that persuading people with mental disorders to give up smoking was a major challenge but so was identifying smokers who could need psychiatric treatment.

In a major breakthrough, British scientists claim to have developed a synthetic vaccine for foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) - a fatal viral disease that is considered a severe plague for animal farming due to its highly infectious nature.

The much easier and safer technology used in the development of the livestock vaccination might also be applied to make improved human vaccines to protect against similar viruses, including polio.

What comes as a breakthrough is the fact that the new technology eliminates the need to use potentially dangerous live virus to immunise animals.

So far, vaccines made of live viruses were used to treat the highly infectious disease, which requires the expensive cold chain to ensure that no pathogens escape, making the production highly expensive and risky.

In contrast to standard FMD livestock vaccines, the new product is made from synthetic empty protein shells containing no infectious viral genome, scientists reported in the journal PLOS Pathogens on Wednesday.

This means the vaccine can be produced without expensive bio-security and does not need to be kept refrigerated - overcoming one of the major hurdles in administering vaccines in the developing world.

Worldwide, between 3 billion and 4 billion doses of FMD vaccine are administered every year but there are shortages in many parts of Asia and Africa were the disease is a serious problem.

Current standard vaccines are based on 50-year-old technology, although US biotech company GenVec last year won US approval for a new one.

The purely synthetic British vaccine has so far been tested in small-scale cattle trials and found to be effective. The vaccine, however, will not be available commercially for between six to eight years.

The breakthrough is the result of a seven-year, 6 million pound collaboration between publicly funded researchers at the Pirbright Institute, Diamond Light Source and Oxford and Reading universities.

Holi, the festival of colours is just round the corner. People make most of the festival by playing with colours, water guns, water filled balloons, etc. But this vibrant festival can also cause damage to your skin and hair. Here are few tips to make your Holi safe and joyful:


- Make sure that you apply a good sunscreen or moisturizer before or after you play with colours.

- Use vaseline, olive oil, coconut oil, mustard oil on your face and body.

- Oil your hair with coconut, olive or castor oil. Doing so will protect your hair from damage by harmful chemicals. It will also make it easier to remove while washing off colours.

- You can also cover your head with a thick scarf to protect your hair from being soaked in colour.

- Protect your lips by using a good lip gloss/lip balm.

- Paint your nail- both in fingers and toes with transparent nail polish (preferably red or pink colours) to protect your nails from harsh effects of colours.

- If you are prone to rashes or allergies, consult a dermatologist whether you need to take preventive measures for your skin.

- Before stepping out to play with colours, you should use a toner to close your skin pores and to reduce the chances of damage on your skin.

- You can protect your skin by wearing long sleeves and full length bottoms.

- Never sit in sunlight after playing with colours as it will make difficult to remove as well as harm your skin.

- Try using natural colours such as henna, turmeric, marigold flowers, tomatoes and tea leaves for a safe and skin-friendly Holi.

- Always clean your face with a cleansing milk or lotion with a cotton wool after playing with colours. Never wash your face with harsh soaps, especially when it is wet, doing so can damage your skin causing further dryness.

- You can also massage your face and body with til oil to remove colours.

- Rinse your hair with plenty of water to wash off colours. Use mild and herbal shampoo to avoid further damage. You can also add lemon juice to a mug and use it as a last rinse to restore cid-alkaline balance of the scalp.

- You can also apply a hair pack- one good option is a mixture of henna powder, lemon juice and curd. You can apply this on your hair and wash off after an hour.

- Ensure that your eyes are well protected with glasses at all times. Eyes are extremely vulnerable during Holi due to the use of harmful chemicals in colours.

- Do not take bath immediately after the play since taking frequent baths and washing your face and hair repeatedly will ruin your skin as well as your scalp. Do it much later after the celebration is over.

So, here's wishing you all a happy and safe holi.

A bit of psychological acupuncture might help you to reduce your food cravings and lose weight, according to a Gold Coast-based Bond University researcher.

Clinical psychologist Dr Peta Stapleto's new weight-loss method uses needle-free stimulation of pressure points..

Known scientifically as Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT), or psychological acupuncture, the practice involves tapping pressure points on the body while a person concentrates on not giving in to temptation.

Dr Stapleton said food and weight issues were usually "deeply emotional and rarely physiological".

"Many current weight loss programs don`t place emphasis on the psychological element of addictive behaviour. In fact, the more time that elapses between the end of a diet and the follow-up, the more weight is regained," the paper quoted her as saying.

Dr Stapleton said initial trials of psychological acupuncture had proven promising, with 40 volunteers last year losing an average of 2kg each.

Even after 12 months down the track, the food cravings had not returned, she said.

Dr Stapleton said that the volunteers were able to apply these techniques to other areas of personal behaviour such as stress relaxation or to addictive cravings like cigarette smoking.

Dr Stapleton has already released three academic papers from the original trials and presented them to national and international conferences.

She wants these skills to be added into mainstream dietary and weight loss programs.

Dr Stapleton is further looking for trial participants, aged 18 and older, who are overweight, with a Body Mass Index (BMI) of more than 25, or obese (with a BMI of 30 or more) and who have frequent food cravings.