Doctor2008's Weblog

Ever since I moved to KL, I've been doing a lot of work in the healthcare industry. It's an industry I thoroughly enjoy as it teaches me new things each day and we sometimes get to create communications and programmes that help people.

Just wanted to share this wonderful nugget I found while reading a doctor's blog.

It sums up healthcare really well and brings the sometimes unfair expectations of the "miracle" of medicine back to a place that's more realistic.

"The art of medicine is really an imprecise science applied to an even more imprecise subject -the human body. Sometimes it may be better to stay on the older time-tested pills than to reach out for the new ones!

The decision whether you need to take a particular medication or to do a test requires a thorough discussion with your doctor. All medications carry side-effects of varying importance and taking them is on the premise that the pros outweigh the cons. After all, the ancient Roman poet Ovid said, “Medicine sometimes snatches away health, sometimes gives it.”

http://doctor2008.wordpress.com/

My take away is to stay healthy so you don't need to be in a situation where you have to take your chances on medications whose benefits outweight the side-effects.

And if you do need to take medication, your doctors will tell you that meds aren't the silver bullet that's gonna cure you. You need to make adjustments to your lifestyle through diet & exercise as well.

Complacency, Self Denial or Ignorance?

Just heard from a friend that he had two friends recently diagnosed as being HIV positive in Malaysia. While I was chatting with some folks online last nite .... I saw a guy with a profile saying he was HIV positive.

This is really disturbing news and I just wanna share this with everyone.

While doing research work for a Malaysian AIDS Council project, a point that seemed to keep cropping up is that HIV infection rates are on the rise, not because of the lack of awareness, but as a result of complacency.

Play safe ya guys and gals. Once is all it takes.

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From the Washington Post, dated 30 June 2008.
A Persistent Scourge; HIV-AIDS continues to ensnare young gay men.

ASURVEY conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of HIV-AIDS data from 33 states between 2001 and 2006 revealed a distressing trend: HIV infection in young gay men rose 12 percent a year. For African Americans in that group of 13- to 24-year-olds, the annual increase was 15 percent. The safe-sex lessons that took hold after the loss of a generation of gay men during this epidemic's two-decade advance appear to be lost on the young. The stunning success of retroviral drugs for those with AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes the disease, has diminished people's fear of the disease, though it still has no cure.

HIV-AIDS is a global epidemic that has cut a path of heartbreak through the United States without regard to gender, race, income, age or sexual orientation. But the CDC report shows that while the overall number of new HIV infections went down in other risk categories, it increased among gay men. There was a spike among the very young and a slight rise (3 percent) among those ages 45 years and older. There was a 1 percent decline in the number of new infections among gay men 25 to 44, a silver lining in a cloud of troubling news.

Data from the District were not included in the CDC report, but the city's health department told us that it has comparable statistics. Among 13- to 24-year-olds, the new infection rate tripled between 2000 and 2005. Between 2001 and 2006 there was a 22 percent increase in infections among black men who have sex with men.

The CDC report is a reminder that the work of keeping people HIV-negative and getting those who are HIV-positive into treatment is never done. A variety of efforts are underway across the country. They range from the commonplace, such as condom giveaways, in-clinic counseling and needle exchange programs here in the District, to more ambitious programs, such as the drive to make voluntary HIV testing routine in emergency rooms and storefront clinics in the Bronx. The goal is to test all adults ages 18 to 64 in the borough, which has the highest AIDS death rate in New York City, in the next three years. The District, too, is pushing to make HIV testing a routine part of care.

We applaud these efforts. The fight against AIDS demands not only vigilance but also continuous education. An informed populace is the best defense against this ferocious epidemic.

Global Warming & Raising Of Animals For Food

Stumbled across this as I was researching more about nutrition and a vegetarian diet as my sister insists a person cannot go without meat.

I'm appalled that 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of grain grown in the U.S. goes towards feeding animals raised for food.


Source: Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetarian

According to a 2006 United Nations initiative, the livestock industry is one of the largest contributors to environmental degradation worldwide, and modern practices of raising animals for food contributes on a "massive scale" to air and water pollution, land degradation, climate change, and loss of biodiversity. The initiative concluded that "the livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global."

In addition, animal agriculture has been pointed out as one of the largest sources of greenhouse gases — responsible for 18% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions as measured in CO2 equivalents. By comparison, all transportation emits 13.5% of the CO2. Animal farming produces 65% of human-related nitrous oxide (which has 296 times the global warming potential of CO2) and 37% of all human-induced methane (which is 23 times as warming as CO2). It is also accused of generating 64% of the ammonia, which contributes to acid rain and acidification of ecosystems.

Animals fed on grain, and those that rely on grazing need far more water than grain crops. According to the USDA, growing the crops necessary to feed farmed animals requires nearly half of the United States' water supply and 80% of its agricultural land. Additionally, animals raised for food in the U.S. consume 90% of the soy crop, 80% of the corn crop, and a total of 70% of its grain.

When tracking food animal production from the feed trough to consumption, the inefficiencies of meat, milk and egg production range from 4:1 up to 54:1 energy input to protein output ratio.