'Kitchen control' can combat hypertension


GAYA: Kitchens have rarely been acknowledged as 'combat zones' except those of the domestic variety. But experts from the field of medicine have prescribed kitchen control as the most effective medium to combat hypertension that now threatens to assume 'epidemic' proportions on account of the rising graph, both in the urban and rural areas.

Delivering the guest lecture at the inaugural function of the two-day 22nd national conference of the Hypertension Society of India, Dr B B Thakur, former chief of the Association of Physicians of India and former president of the Hypertension Society of India, on Saturday exhorted the home makers to tailor the kitchens in the 'healthy' mode to maintain family health and effect lifestyle changes.

Dr Thakur advised home makers to avoid/minimize the use of four white kitchen items viz 'maida' (fine flour), salt, sugar and ghee. Not more than one spoon of sugar should be used per person in the family per day, said Dr Thakur. The women can play a pivotal role in the maintenance of family health and prevent hypertension through dietary regulations and cultivation of a proper lifestyle having dimensions like regular exercise and discouraging late rising habits.

Dr Thakur also emphasized the preventable and curable nature of hypertension. Intervening in the discussion, Dr Suresh Agrawal, a Gaya-based physician, said that his own experience was that compared to mild awareness creation, instilling the fear of death and disability was more effective in making hypertension patients take regular medicine in prescribed dose and interval.

Dr A N Rai, former principal of Anugrah Narain Magadh Medical College, Gaya, formally took over as the national president of the Hypertension Society of India at the inaugural function of the Bodh Gaya conference. Outlining his priorities, Dr Rai said he will work for largescale screening to identify hypertension patients as the disease makes unannounced arrival and generally the patients come to know only after enough damage has been caused by the disease to vital organs like heart and kidney. Dr S K Panda coordinated the scientific sessions in which hypertension experts from different parts of the country exchanged ideas on hypertension prevention and management.

US-based sleep disease specialist Dr Ajitesh Rai, in a paper published in the souvenir released at the conference, explained the body functions during sleep and the relationship between sleep disorders like breathing problems and less oxygen inflow and secondary hypertension. The souvenir was jointly edited by Dr D P Khaitan and Dr U S Arun. The conference concluded on Sunday.

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