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The Most Precious Gem of Humans
Hypertension affects about a billion individuals worldwide. It is a silent killer. If undetected and untreated it silently damages the blood vessels, heart, brain, and kidneys. A person is said to have hypertension (i.e. high blood pressure) when his arterial blood pressure is elevated above the normal range expected in his age group. There are two terms that one needs to know: Systolic BP and Diastolic BP. When a doctor records your blood pressure as 120/80 mm Hg, it means that 120 mm Hg is the systolic blood pressure (BP) and 80 mm Hg is the diastolic BP.
Based on these two blood pressure values, you may belong to one of the following groups:
Arterial hypertension is the leading cause of death in the world and the most common cause for an outpatient visit to a physician. The higher your blood pressure, the greater is the chance of heart attack, heart failure, stroke, and kidney disease. Understanding the benefits of lowering blood pressure is thus important.
A common fallacy that most people have is that a healthy lifestyle is all that is required to control hypertension. Prescription medication is the cornerstone of an effective antihypertensive therapy. Lifestyle modification can only be an adjunct, but never an alternative. It is not possible to bring down blood pressure to optimum levels by lifestyle changes alone.
Clinical trials prove that antihypertensive therapy can bring significant reduction in the incidence of stroke (by up to 40%), myocardial infarction (by up to 25%) and heart failure (by 50%). Any regimen should include lifestyle modification.
The earlier guidelines recommended a trial of lifestyle modification alone for an unspecified time before a prescription of antihypertensive medication. But recent trials do not agree to this. A greater urgency is required in attaining rapid pharmacologic control of high blood pressure so as to lessen cardiovascular risk. This is because non pharmacologic reductions in blood pressure are often small and there is a high chance of recidivism.
BP CLASSIFICATION | SYSTOLIC BP (mm Hg) | DIASTOLIC BP (mm Hg) |
Normal | <120 | And <80 |
Pre Hypertensiive | 120-139 | Or 80-89 |
Stage 1 Hypertension | 140-159 | Or 90-99 |
Stage 2 Hypertension | 160 | Or 100 |
The brain is the most amazing and complex organ in this universe and its research continues to throw up new facts that surprise’s us. The brain is capable of being modified or improved even as we age. It is never used to its full capacity.
1. The human brain has about 100,000,000,000 or100 billion neurons. From the age of 35 years about 7000 neurons are lost daily.
2. During early pregnancy the neurons in the fetus canmultiply at a rate 250,000 neurons/minute.
3. Brain is composed of75 to 80% water. Dehydration can affect proper functioning of brain.
4. Brain consists of60% White matter and 40% Grey matter. White is the supporting matter and Grey is the thinking matter of the brain. If the brain was a computer the grey matter would be the computer itself and the white matter its cables.
5. Adult brain weighs about3 pounds or 1300 to 1400 Grams. This is about 2% of the body weight if you weigh 150 pounds or 70 kgs. Sperm whale’s brain weighs 7800 gms.
6. Although the brain only accounts for 2 percent of our body weight but it consumes20% of the oxygenthat we breathe androughly 20 percent of our daily calories.
7.15-20% of all blood pumpedout of the heart goes directly to the brain.
8. All the thinking in the brain is aboutelectricity and chemicals. The brain is more active and thinks more at night than during the day.
9. The brain itself isincapable of feeling pain. Once the skull is opened it is possible to operate on the brain with the patient awake.
10.You can’t feel your own tickle either. The brain is smart enough to neutralize the sensation. The cerebellum sends a signal to rest of the brain of your intentions and as a result the sensation is ignored.