E-Paper
Flab doesn?t bug city veterans!
FOURTEEN OUT of city?s 100 elderly persons suffer from heart ailments, but only six have obesity-related problems! About 24 per cent suffer from diabetes and hypertension, which are obesity-friendly diseases! These startling facts came to light during a weeklong survey camp conducted by a city-based health NGO.
FOURTEEN OUT of city’s 100 elderly persons suffer from heart ailments, but only six have obesity-related problems!
About 24 per cent suffer from diabetes and hypertension, which are obesity-friendly diseases! These startling facts came to light during a weeklong survey camp conducted by a city-based health NGO.
But, how come the elderly people have high blood pressure and diabetes without being obese? “The devil maybe the Physiological Decline (PD). This grows with age among the elderly,” says Dr Abhishek Shukla, the founder president of Astha, centre for geriatric medicine. Clinically, there is 11 per cent decline in renal function, 18 per cent decline in cardiac functioning every seven years. And that’s how other organs get affected with age, he says.
“Stress and obesity are two major reasons for cardiac problem or diabetes mellitus. But, how can you discount the age factor? It has its impact on every body organ,” adds camp coordiator Dr Amita.
However, what’s more astonishing is to find that about 16 per cent elderly persons suffer from osteo-arthritis, 7 per cent with dementia and 10 per cent had prostate problem, say Dr Atit Kumar and Dr Sanjeev Agarwal.
“This shows that clinical care despite being available is not utilised by our senior citizens. It was also observed that busy lifestyle and breakdown of the joint families had also made impact on their lives,” says Dr Shukla.
“Nearly 15 per cent of the elderly people we examined confessed they never went for a blood pressure or any other physiological test despite they know about its importance,” doctors say. The camp carried out a detailed survey on about 2,500 patients.
