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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