More young Malaysians below 40 are at risk of getting heart attacks due to a poor diet and an unhealthy lifestyle, said Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (PPUKM) cardiology unit head Assoc Prof Dr Oteh Maskon.

He attributed this to the craving for teh tarik, roti canai, nasi lemak and smoking, as well as a lack of exercise.

They are at risk from obesity, high blood pressure and diabetes which lead to heart ailments, he told reporters after attending a public forum on heart disease at PPUKM here Friday.

He said 5% of 450 patients admitted to PPUKM in the past one year were below 40 and most of them were diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes.

Dr Oteh said the youngest heart patient at PPUM was a 23-year-old male with metabolic syndrome and a family history of heart disease while a simple heart surgery was conducted on a 29-year-old male.

“We also had a 38-year-old woman with three artery blockages and who is also a diabetic. This is shocking as women are hardly known to have heart disease at that age,” he said.

He said a family history of heart disease accounted for 10% of heart patients admitted to the medical centre.

“A healthy lifestyle and a balanced diet must start at a young age. Avoid smoking and exercise regularly.

“Go for periodical medical checkups so that early treatment can be administered if you are detected with heart problems,” he said, adding that about 30% of sudden deaths occurred in 30% of heart patients before they could be given initial treatment.

Opened by PPUKM dean and director Prof Datuk Dr Lokman Saim, the forum was held in conjunction with the 12th Malaysian Association for Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Conference Malaysia organised by the PPUKM Heart and Lung Centre. — Bernama

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While the talking heads on TV frantically warn about the so-called swine flu pandemic that is supposedly on the verge of causing world-wide suffering and death, there’s another world-wide health problem of enormous proportions that’s here, right now – being overweight.

The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates more than 300 million people across the planet are obese, and another billion more are overweight.

Being too fat isn’t a cosmetic problem, it’s a condition that kills people prematurely by leading to cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, stroke and type 2 diabetes.

And now there’s evidence that being too fat also causes brain degeneration and maybe even Alzheimer’s disease.

To define the weight categories, the scientists used the Body Mass Index (BMI), to establish that normal weight people had a BMI between 18.5 and 25, overweight people had a BMI between 25 and 30, and obese people’s BMI was more than 30.

The scientists wanted to document whether the brains of those in each of the three groups were equally normal and healthy. Surprisingly, they weren’t.

In fact, the scientists discovered that obese people had eight percent less brain tissue than people with normal weight. In addition, people who were only overweight and not downright obese still showed a loss of about four percent of brain tissue.

Thompson, who is a member of UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, said in a statement to the media that this study marks the first time anyone has established a link between being being overweight and having what Thompson called in a statement to the media “severe brain degeneration.”

In fact, he noted that “..the brains of obese people looked 16 years older than the brains of those who were lean, and in overweight people looked eight years older.”

“That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack the brain,” Thompson stated.

“But you can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s, if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control.”

The researchers used brain images from the earlier Cardiovascular Health Study Cognition Study.

The researchers then transformed those scans into three-dimensional images using a high tech neuroimaging method that produces detailed resolution mapping of differences in brain anatomy.

When they compared both grey matter and white matter of the brain, the scientists found that the people defined as obese had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes (parts of the brain critical for memory and planning), the anterior cingulate gyrus (needed for attention and executive functions), hippocampus (critical for long term memory) and the basal ganglia (needed for movement).

Overweight people showed less brain loss, but it was brain loss, all the same — mostly in the basal ganglia and the parietal lobe (known as the sensory lobe).

“It seems that along with increased risk for health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, obesity is bad for your brain: we have linked it to shrinkage of brain areas that are also targeted by Alzheimer’s,” Raji said in a statement to the press.

“But that could mean exercising, eating right and keeping weight under control can maintain brain health with aging and potentially lower the risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

Patrick Swayze, the dancer-turned-actor whose good looks and physical grace made him a popular lead in both romances and action films in the late 1980s and early ’90s, died today at age 57 after a battle with pancreatic cancer.

Swayze was one of several young stars-to-be whom Francis Ford Coppola introduced to the public in 1983’s The Outsiders.

But he became one of movie fans’ most beloved leading men with his starring role as a resort dance instructor who sweeps Jennifer Grey off her feet in 1987’s Dirty Dancing, an independent film that became an enormous hit and spawned a popular soundtrack that featured a song sung by Swayze, “She’s Like the Wind.”

He cemented his status as a romantic icon with his lead role in 1990’s smash Ghost, as the specter who tries to protect bereaved girlfriend Demi Moore from his killer. At the same time, he became a two-fisted action star in movies like Road House and Point Break.

Swayze’s career waned in the late ’90s; for a long time, his most notable screen appearance was in the 2001 cult favorite Donnie Darko.

In March 2008, he announced he had pancreatic cancer. Nonetheless, by July of that year, he was in sufficiently good health to begin working 12-hour days (while still undergoing chemotherapy) on a TV series, starring as a world-weary undercover FBI agent in the A&E crime drama The Beast, which premiered in January to 2.4 million viewers.

Most pancreatic cancer patients die in 3-9 months after diagnosis, and only 4% live five years.

This is the same cancer that took Michael Landon’s life in 1991, 3 months after he held a press conference to tell the public about his battle with the disease.

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Obesity is on a rampage, with the World Health Organization pegging the numbers at more than 300 million worldwide, with a billion more overweight.

With obesity comes the increased risk for cardiovascular disease, Type II diabetes, and hypertension.

Now comes more discouraging news.

In the current online edition of the journal Human Brain Mapping, Paul Thompson, senior author and a UCLA professor of neurology, and lead author Cyrus A. Raji, a medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, and colleagues compared the brains of people who were obese, overweight, and of normal weight, to see if they had differences in brain structure; that is, did their brains look equally healthy.

They found that obese people had 8 percent less brain tissue than people with normal weight, while overweight people had 4 percent less tissue.

According to Thompson, who is also a member of UCLA’s Laboratory of Neuro Imaging, this is the first time anyone has established a link between being overweight and having what he describes as “severe brain degeneration.”

“That’s a big loss of tissue and it depletes your cognitive reserves, putting you at much greater risk of Alzheimer’s and other diseases that attack the brain,” said Thompson.

“But you can greatly reduce your risk for Alzheimer’s, if you can eat healthily and keep your weight under control.”

The researchers used brain images from an earlier study called the Cardiovascular Health Study Cognition Study. Scans were selected of 94 elderly people in their 70s who were healthy not cognitively impaired—five years after the scan was taken.

To define the weight categories, they used the Body Mass Index (BMI), the most widely used measurement for obesity. Normal weight people were defined as having a BMI between 18.5-25; overweight people between 25-30, and obese people greater than 30.

The researchers then converted the scans into detailed three-dimensional images using tensor-based morphometry, a neuroimaging method that offers high resolution mapping of anatomical differences in the brain.

In looking at both grey matter and white matter of the brain, they found that the people defined as obese had lost brain tissue in the frontal and temporal lobes, areas of the brain critical for planning and memory, and in the anterior cingulate gyrus (attention and executive functions), hippocampus (long term memory) and basal ganglia (movement).

Overweight people showed brain loss in the basal ganglia, the corona radiata, white matter comprised of axons, and the parietal lobe (sensory lobe).

“The brains of obese people looked 16 years older than the brains of those who were lean, and in overweight people looked eight years older,” says Thompson.

“It seems that along with increased risk for health problems such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease, obesity is bad for your brain: we have linked it to shrinkage of brain areas that are also targeted by Alzheimer’s,” said Pittsburgh’s Raji.

“But that could mean exercising, eating right and keeping weight under control can maintain brain health with aging and potentially lower the risk for Alzheimer’s and other dementias.”

The Health Ministry has issued its staff with a warning - shape up and lose weight.

Concerned with the rising cases of obesity, the ministry wants its staff to check their weight and has warned them against the dangers of obesity.

Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said he was concerned with the escalating number of obese people in the country, referring to the condition as an “entry point to all sicknesses.”

“This is serious. Obesity among ministry staff is high, more or less the same as the rakyat (where an estimated 60% of the population is obese)” he told reporters on Sunday after visiting the section of Putrajaya Hospital which was damaged in a fire on Saturday evening.

“I have given instructions for staff who have weight problem to reduce weight. They must measure their BMI (body mass index) and come up with their own plan (to reduce weight).

“They have to shed some fat. They have to shape up.”

He said an obese person was susceptible to various illnesses, including diabetes and high blood pressure adding this could be avoided if one could maintained their ideal weight.

“I have directed that the nutritional and food safety departments be strengthened to ensure preventive measures we take will be supported and implemented by staff,” he said.

On key performance indicators (KPI), Liow said MCA president Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat had directed all ministers and deputy ministers from the party to submit their respective ministries’ KPI and so they could be closely monitored.

“Prime Minister (Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak) will monitor us and the party (MCA) will also monitor us,” he said.

He added the ministry had implemented the KPI earlier and he monitors his staff, secretary-general and all department heads.

It is estimated that one out of eight Malaysians aged 30 years and above has diabetes, which amounts to over 1.6 million adults, based on the Third National Health and Morbidity Survey 2006.

Director-General of Health Tan Sri Dr Mohd Ismail Merican said the prevalence of diabetes also showed a drastic increase of 80 per cent over a period of just 10 years, from 8.3 per cent in 1996 to 14.9 per cent in 2006 for the same age group.

Even more worrying, he said, was that one third of those who had diabetes were undiagnosed, and were not aware of their condition.

This was very dangerous because if not detected early they would face serious complications later.

Dr Mohd Ismail urged those 30 years and above to undergo screening to ensure that they do not have the disease, and if they do, to start on the medication to avoid worse complications.

He also urged those bodies involved in diabetes such as the National Diabetes Institute (Nadi), Malaysian Diabetes Association (PDM) and Malaysian Endocrine and Metabolic Society (MEMS) to work together to create awareness among the people about the disease.

On the guidelines, he said they were developed to provide a clear and concise approach to all health care providers on the current practice in the management of such type of diabetes.

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A body is a dynamic and constantly changing living thing.

Health screening can provide a comprehensive assessment and reveal information on diseases in their early stages, often well before any symptoms have shown. Fei Lai checks it out.

Health screening, a high-tech periodic evaluation of the body to assess an individual’s well-being, is a vital part of the plan for a healthier tomorrow.

Many diseases are preventable.

Early detection of a disease is more cost-effective than treating the disease itself.

“If people are in their fifties, if they have diabetes, high cholesterol or high blood pressure, or if they have a family history of heart disease, they may be at risk, even if they feel great now,” says Gu Jun, who is in charge of the Shanghai MJ Health Screening Center.

“It is prevention rather than repairing that matters. Health screening is not simply health checking. Its function is to understand the condition of the body, what to improve or maintain. It is a tactic. The ultimate goal is effective health management and improvement, which is the key for a better future.”

A body is a dynamic and constantly changing living thing. Health screening can provide a comprehensive assessment and offer information on diseases in their early stages, often well before any symptoms have shown.

According to Gu, the diseases that can show up may include heart disease, gout, hypertension, diabetes mellitus and cancer, which often have no symptoms until advanced stages when treatment may be too late.

“Having a regular, thorough check-up can give up-to-date information about people’s bodies and offer them peace of mind,” Gu says. “The earlier medical problems are identified, the greater the chance of a cure, or of minimizing the effects on your health and well-being.”

Health screening is also a means to promote health consciousness, healthy lifestyles and provide scientific data for the formulation of disease prevention.

All adults should have regular health screenings. It is especially recommended for those with a family history of serious illness, those over 40 and those with a high risk of developing a significant disease due to diet, lifestyle, the nature of their work, environment or other circumstances.

Young people, especially white-collar workers who spend long hours in offices with a lot of stress and little exercise, tend to pay less attention to the significance of periodical health screening than older people.

“People should have their blood pressure checked regularly after they turn 21, and should check their blood fat after they turn 30 and blood sugar after 40,”

Gu says. “Once every three years, women aged from 20 to 39 should have their breasts examined to avoid breast cancer. They should do this more often after 40. Men over 50 should have a prostate examination annually to avoid prostate cancer.”

Normally, comprehensive health screening procedures include taking general measurements such as height, weight, blood pressure, respiration rate, pulse rate and other physical tests.

They also include examinations of organ functions with blood tests, urinalysis, electrocardiographs, audiometry, vision and pulmonary function and chest x-rays.

It usually takes several days or up to a fortnight to receive a complete health report from a major hospital. At the Shanghai MJ Health Screening Center, you can get the report on the same day.

All screening procedures are regulated by computers and it will take four hours to complete the whole screening including a medical consultation.

“You can get your health report on the same day which means you don’t have to wait or come back next time. This is especially good if you are not a local,” Gu says. “Doctors and nutritionists will examine you and discuss your results with you within the four hours.

All of your personal health records will be fully computerized. You can even check your own health information online and get updates on pharmaceutical news via relevant Websites. The nursing staff will call to follow up on the report as well.”

After the health screening, most of the professional advice will focus on changing the patient’s lifestyle. Common advice offered is to quit smoking, lose weight, take more physical exercise and eat healthily.

“To avoid illness and embrace health, we must incorporate healthy living practices in our daily lives,”

Gu says. “Making lifestyle changes could be preventative steps as important as health checking.Any activity that is positive, enthusiastic and health-enhancing will be conducive to an improvement in your health.”