Diary of a Doctor

February is usually referred to as the month of love.It is a season that emphasizes the importance of love in our lives. Coincidentally, I want to address the importance of friendship to your health. Apart from the myriads of obvious reasons there are for having friends, research has shown that friendships can have a major impact on your health and well-being. Good friends are actually good for your health. Friends can help you celebrate good times and provide support during bad times. Friends prevent loneliness and give you a chance to offer needed companionship.Perhaps if you are even lucky, you get them to encourage and motivate you to change or avoid unhealthy lifestyle habits, such as excessive drinking or lack of exercise. In a 2010 meta-analysis that combined data on more than 308,000 people across 148 studies, for example, researchers found a strong connection between social relationships and life span. The size of the effect rivaled that of better-known health-re...

Happy New year friends. I hope you are as excited about this wonderful 2019 as I am. May it bring our way loads of goodness in perfect health. Last year I had New year resolutions, but it was a struggle at some point in all honesty. I did a post on how to stay true to your resolutions last year which was quite helpful. You can read about it here if you have made resolutions. Hence, I learnt a lesson from my experience the previous year and this time around I only have personal goals I intend to achieve. My plan is to take baby steps and grow. I believe little drops of water make the mighty ocean. You might wonder, what is the difference between Resolutions and Personal goals. Let me explain briefly. A resolution is a firm decision to do or not to do something, while personal goals are plans that involves a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something. Simply put, resolutions set you up to fail from the beginning, while plans involve outlining sensible ways to ach...

The holiday season is said to be the most wonderful time of the year. Perhaps, it is so because you get to see a lot of pretty decorations and everywhere looks so beautiful and inviting. It is a time you get tempted to just laze around on a soft couch right in front of the fireplace with a cup of hot chocolate, watching your favorite TV show with no care in the world. Alas, this is not always the case, because people usually set out to outdo whatever it is they did the previous year or subtly engage in a mental competition with their next door neighbor, making so many people push themselves beyond their limits. For many, it is all about the Christmas traditions which makes the stress level astronomical because of the perceived 'minimum standard' which has to be matched every year. Please, don't stress, RELAX! Remember Hooke's law in physics? That is the law of elasticity. This law states that, for relatively small deformations of an object, the displacemen...

The season has changed and it is now Fall or Autumn, which marks the transition from summer to winter. It comes with the beautiful change in the color of the landscape as the trees gradually change color from green to orange and brown. It is beautiful. However, do not forget that fall is affiliated with flu. Hence, it is called the "Flu season". This is because the Flu viruses are common during the fall and winter months. Influenza activity begins to increase in October and November. Most of the time, the activity peaks between December and February and can last as late as May. Last Flu season, I published an article on the Myths and Facts about the Flu. You can read about it here. Also earlier in the year, I published another article on The Flu and You. You can read about that here . Influenza (the Flu) is an acute respiratory illness caused by influenza A or B. We know it predominantly occurs in winter. It generally presents following an incubation period of 1-...

October is a month that usually commemorates breast cancer awareness. I actually did a post on Breast cancer prevention last year. You can read about it here . I have read different articles all over the internet where people place emphasis on self breast examination only, which is contrary to the latest suggestion of  the American Cancer Society. They proposed  that self-breast examination is no longer recommended as a screening tool for women with average risk of breast cancer. This is based on ongoing uncertainties raised by various studies. Over the years, there has been some debate over just how valuable breast self-examination is in detecting breast cancer early and increasing the likelihood of survival. For example, a 2008 study of nearly 400,000 women in Russia and China reported that breast self-examination does not have a meaningful impact on breast cancer survival rates and may even cause harm by prompting unnecessary biopsies (removal and examina...

Recently, there is a growing concern for Acute Flaccid Myelitis (AFM) especially in the United States of America. So far, the CDC has reported over 62 cases across 22 States including Wisconsin, Minnesota and Iowa. The AFM is a rare condition that affects the nervous system, precisely the area of the spinal cord called the grey matter. This disease usually causes the muscles and reflexes in the body to become weak. This illness usually starts suddenly and is common in children. Although the illness is not new, the rising trend since 2014 is new. The CDC estimates that less than one in a million people will get AFM every year. Causes A variety of possible causes of AFM include: Viruses (Such as polio virus, non-polio enteroviruses, adenoviruses, and West Nile virus) Enviromental Toxins Genetic Disorders The September 26, 2014 CDC health Advisory that decided the cases identified enterovirus 68, a member of the enterovirus D species as a suspected cause. ...

Many people love sweet things. Seriously, who would not want a taste of sweetness in their lives ? Every now and then the human body craves for something sweet which is only fair. I mean life itself could be so tough already, and adding a little something to sweeten it does not sound like a bad idea at all . At least not initially. Just like most things in life, sugar in itself is not bad ,but when it is taken in excess, that is where the problem starts. Now ,the hard part is actually trying to put a measurement on 'moderation'. At what point does 'a little' become 'too much'? Also, 'moderation' is a very relative term. In a context, what is deemed moderation might be a little too much ,while in another context it is outrightly in excess. Can you believe that there is 39 grammes of sugar in a 12 ounce can of  regular coke? Shocking, right ? Let me help paint the picture a little more vividly. It literally means about 9 1/3 (9.7...