5 ways to limit breathing polluted air

“Multi-sectoral action is a key to addressing social and environmental determinants. We have developed operational strategies to build a shared goal and vision between sectors such as Nutrition, Drinking Water and Sanitation, education, rural and urban development departments…”, said the Health Minister of India Shri JP Nadda at the ‘Second Plenary Session’ of the 2nd International Conference on Primary Health Care towards UHC & SDGs at Astana, Kazakhstan on Thursday. The theme of his talk was “The Future of Primary Health Care”… (Press Information Bureau, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Oct. 25, 2018).

Harm Reduction: 5 ways to limit breathing polluted air (WHO)

• Limit walking on busy streets during rush hour – and if you have a young child with you, try and lift them up above the level of vehicle exhausts
• Limit spending time at specific hotspots of traffic such as cars stopped at traffic lights
• When you’re doing physical activity outdoors, try exercising in less polluted areas
• Limit the use of cars in highly polluted days
• Don’t burn waste as the smoke that results damages our health

A new treatment for a drug-resistant strain of tuberculosis can cure more than 90% of sufferers, according to a trial hailed on Monday as a “game changer” in the fight against the global killer. Doctors in Belarus – a country with one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the world – spent months treating patients with a new drug, bedaquiline, alongside other antibiotics.

Studies have definitively linked a diet high in legumes with a lower risk of developing obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, heart disease, or strokes. As a matter of fact, eating legumes every day can effectively treat these diseases in people who already have them.

Use of angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors to lower blood pressure was associated with an overall increased risk for lung cancer of 14% compared to hypertension therapy with angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs), a large, population-based cohort study shows (Laurent Azoulay, PhD, of the Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health at McGill University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada).

A person’s cumulative lead burden, as measured from the shin bone, appears connected to resistant hypertension. Tibia lead levels in the 75th percentile (28.5 µg/g) were associated with 19% greater likelihood (95% CI 1.01-1.41) of resistant hypertension than were levels in the 25th percentile (13 µg/g) in a fully-adjusted model, according to Sung Kyun Park, ScD, MPH, of University of Michigan School of Public Health in Ann Arbor, and colleagues reporting online in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

Video to watch: TEDx Video: Doctor-patient relationship www.youtube(dot)com/ watch?v=i9ml1vKK2DQ

Dr KK Aggarwal
Padma Shri Awardee
President Elect CMAAO
President Heart Care Foundation of India