Soda a day may see 20% rise in heart attack risk

Soft Drinks

MUMBAI: Tempting as it may be due to rising mercury levels but people having fizzy drinks daily are at 20% higher risk of getting heart disease than those who don't, a new study suggests. Also, people who drink diet sodas every day have a 61% higher risk of bursting a blood vessel. What is alarming is that even children, who consume 40-70 ml of soft drinks a day, may put on 3-5 kilos every year.

"Youngsters don't drink water but readily gulp down colas. They have to be told that what you do when you are a 10-year-old shows on your heart when you are 40 years old," says heart surgeon Dr Ramakanta Panda of Asian Heart Institute in Bandra Kurla Complex. And that for Mumbai's doctors is a worrying factor, as children in Indian cities are getting increasingly hooked on to soft drinks.

"The intake could have gone up to 100 ml a day now," says Dr Anoop Mishra, an endocrinologist with Fortis Hospital in Delhi, who conducted the study for Delhi-based Diabetes Foundation three years ago.

But what makes soft drinks such a health hazard is that taking a cola a day is equivalent to having seven to eight spoons of sugar at a time, says Dr Shashank Joshi, an endocrinologist with Lilavati Hospital in Bandra. The carbohydrates or sugars only provide empty calories without any nutrition, merely adding to one's weight. "It's a well-documented fact that sugary soft drinks lead to high cholesterol, high blood pressure and diabetes," he says.

The latest study from Harvard School of Public Health in Boston shows sugary drinks hit men's heart hard. The diet and health habits of 43,000 men were followed from 1986 to 2008, showing that 3,683 men who had sugary beverage every day had coronary heart disease in comparison to those who didn't.

Another study from the University of Sydney found that children who drank one or more soft drinks each day had narrower arteries in the back portion of their eye- a factor linked to higher risk of heart disease and high blood pressure.

Doctors believe it's time society adopted a hard stance against soft drinks. Dr Panda is tying with an NGO to create health awareness in school. Dr Joshi believes it's time to ban soft drinks from homes and schools, while Dr Mishra says soft drinks' consumption should be restricted to once or twice a week.

Dr Jagmeet Madan, who heads SNDT University's Nutrition College, says that children are discerning enough to understand when told that empty calories found in colas is bad. "We can tell them that there are 'sometime foods' and 'everytime foods'. It is only when 'sometime foods' like colas become 'everytime foods' that the problem arises," she adds.

A paper published in this week's American Journal of Nutrition provides a heartening observation. The article by researchers of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill hints that a person's overall diet may decide just how harmful is the soft drink-a-day routine. It found that people who had a prudent diet (freshly cooked meals) had lowest risk of heart diseases in comparison to people who eat processed food (including meat) along with soft drinks every day. "One should physically work the effects of a sugary drink off," adds Dr Mishra.

News by The Times Of India

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Your headphones can turn you deaf

Headphones

You could be turning deaf because of your headphones. Our expert lists a guide of what you should avoid while listening to your favourite tracks on the go

Is music your safe haven from the hellish traffic jams you travel through everyday? You might need to re-think this strategy. Drowning out incessant honking on our potholeridden roads with Comfortably Numb, might just be numbing your eardrums for life. Like Rajeev Khandelwal who loses his hearing in Soundtrack, thanks to his constant use of headphones as a DJ; the actor's on-screen nightmare can actually become your reality.

In today's world of iPods and phones that can play music, most people are plugged in constantly. Our expert Dr Nishit Shah, ENT consultant at Bombay Hospital tells you what you can do to avoid losing your sense of sound.

Play it loud

Listening to music at half the volume your player is obviously not damaging. It all depends on the volume and how long you are listening to it. Shah says, "There are guidelines laid down by World Health Organization as to what decibels are permissible. Most workplaces and music player manufacturers adhere to these guidelines. But constant exposure is still a problem." Cranking up the volume for longer periods of time is very dangerous, and can lead to partial deafness. The higher the volume gets the lesser amount of time the ear can take it.

Uncomfortably numb

Unlike people who go deaf during a bomb blast or hearing the sonic boom of a plane, deafness caused by headphones creeps on you and if not checked, the effects can be adverse. "I have seen people who show no obvious signs of deafness when they are young, can hardly hear anything when they reach their 60s." Studies show that this is common among people who go for a lot of concerts and clubs. Shah says, "Deafness caused due to listening to music does not happen overnight. The ear warns you before things can get really bad with tinnitus.

You get a ringing sound in your ear, which means hearing loss is imminent. When you exit a club, your ears feel relieved and you can't hear too well immediately. That's because your ears are adapting to the new environment."

In fact, Shah says that moving from an extremely loud place (like a club) to an extremely quiet place can be more damaging than exposing yourself to higher decibels for longer.

Right hear, right now

Studies have shown that other than musicians and people in studios who want to listen to intricate sounds of a particular track, most people listen to music on headphones loudly to drown out background noise. The standard ear piece or even normal headphones are no good. Shah recommends using in-ear headsets or noise reduction/cancellation headphones that naturally drown out background noise. He says, "People who use these headsets have a tendency to listen to music at a lower volume anyway. So, if you want to listen to something throughout the day this would be the best way to avoid loss of hearing."

The cure

The scariest part about losing your hearing ability is that there is nothing you can do to regain it. The strongest preventive drug doctors prescribe is "common sense". Shah says, "Most people don't buy headphones because of quality, they buy it because it is loud enough. How do you tell people otherwise? You have to be aware of what is happening to your ears. As soon as you feel any discomfort, take a break. You cannot listen to music loudly for eight hours in a row. This will obviously affect your hearing."

If you feel like you are losing your sense of hearing, head to an ENT immediately. In the first few days of being affected, your hearing can be repaired with the help of steroids, but very few people actually spot the impediment so soon. Then, of course, there are hearing aids. These are used when the damage is already done though, and you want to avoid that altogether.

Just how much is too much?

Research suggests that risk of permanent hearing loss goes up with just five minutes of exposure a day to music at full volume. Traffic noise is at about 70 to 80 decibels. If you're trying to drown this out, you will hit dangerous decibel levels. Listening to earbuds, or in-ear headphones, for 90 minutes a day at 80 percent volume is probably safe. However, different brands have different volumes and that needs to be factored into the decision to buy headsets.

News by ThetimesofIndia


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