Editorial

The main purpose of this web publication is to generate awareness about the different common diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer, asthma, infections diseases; their cause, prevention and precaution to all population. It is not an original work rather a blending of the extracts of documents published in different authentic journals, reference books and online publications.

Pharmacy profession is a philosophy of practice in which the patient is the primary beneficiary of the pharmacist’s action. One of the main responsibilities of the pharmacist does also include acting as information source of different diseases for health care professionals and the public. Thus they can play an important role for promoting public health.

This ideology promoted us to publish this web based booklet on the occasion of “Pharma Exhibition-2009” (arranged by the dept. of pharmacy, IIUC) to create strong sense of the common diseases their causes, prevention and precaution to the general public. I am thanking my beloved student’s (Anis, Akbar, Mushfiq, Shahed, Shuvo, Even, Nazmul and Manna) from my heart. Their cordial hard work and efforts have made it possible to publish this booklet. Our efforts will be successful if general public are benefited by this writings.

Diabetes
Diabetes is a serious, life-long metabolic disorder. It cannot be cured, but careful control of blood sugar can prevent or delay the complications of this disease.

Causes of Diabetes
Heredity plays a major role in the development of diabetes. People who belong to the family background having history of diabetes are 25% more prone to develop diabetes.


The other important causes for Diabetes are:
1.Diet is a major factor responsible for causing diabetes. Eating too much of carbohydrates, fats and proteins are all harmful to the body. Too much food hampers the pancreas from performing its function of insulin secretion.

2.Obesity is also one of the major factors causing diabetes. Excessive body weight as compared to the height, serves as the predisposing factor for diabetes.

3.Virus infection can also lead to diabetes. Certain viruses like Coxasakie B virus may infect the pancreas, leading to destruction of β-cell of Islets of Langerhans home, finally impairing the release of insulin and increased blood glucose level.

4.Age is the commonest predisposing factor for diabetes. It has been observed that the person as one grows older, particularly above 45 years of age the chances to develop diabetes are increased.

5.Emotional stress also leads to diabetes. Even grief, anxiety, worry, death of any close person etc may alter the blood sugar level and lead to the disease.

6.People who smoke frequently are highly suceptible to develop diabetes. They are very much prone to develop retinopathy and joint immobility.

Prevention of Diabetes:
Diet: The diet for a diabetic is a diet for healthy living. It is necessary to reduce high-energy foods such as fatty foods and increase low-energy foods (e.g. vegetables, seaweeds, mushrooms and glucomannan, etc.) to control hunger.

The fundamentals of diet treatment for diabetes are as follows:
(1) an appropriate amount of energy intake per day;
(2) proper amounts of the three main nutrients
(proteins, carbohydrates and fats);
(3) proper intake of vitamins and minerals;
(4) regular eating times;
(5) effort to maintain the above basic rules life-long.

Exercise: People are also advised to have a lot of physical exercise, as studies have shown that the ones who practice sports are less threatened by the risk of getting diabetes. This disease is characteristic for sedentary people. The lack of physical activity can easily lead to diabetes.

Herbal remedies: The following therapies are substitute for orthodox treatment, but they may improve your sense of well being. Check your Doctor however before taking herbs.

Supplements:
1.Eat 2 raw garlic, or 3 garlic capsules daily to enhance circulation and help reduce your blood-sugar level.

2.Omega-3 fish oil 2 capsules per day.

3.Drink cup of dandelion –root tea every day. Dandelion root is believed to stimulate the pancreas and encourage insulin production.

4.Bilberry tablets can also help an elevated blood-sugar.

5.By a healthy diet and by physical workout people can, hence avoid getting diabetes. Also, people are advised to take their medical tests at least twice a year in order to become aware of the eventual problems that they may have up to that certain point.

High Blood Pressure or Hypertension

High blood pressure (HBP) or hypertension means high pressure (tension) in the arteries and veins. Arteries are vessels that carry blood from the pumping heart to all the tissues and organs of the body. High blood pressure does not mean excessive emotional tension, although emotional tension and stress can temporarily increase blood pressure.
Normal blood pressure is below 120/80; blood pressure between 120/80 and 139/89 is called "pre-hypertension", and a blood pressure of 140/90 or above is considered high.

What Causes High Blood Pressure?
In 90 to 95 percent of high blood pressure cases, the cause is unknown. In fact, you can have high blood pressure for years without knowing it. That's why it's the “silent killer” — it creeps up on you. When the cause is unknown, you have what's called essential or primary hypertension.
Factors that may lead to high blood pressure in the remaining 5–10 percent of cases, which are known as secondary hypertension, include:
Kidney abnormality ,
A structural abnormality of the aorta (the large blood vessel leaving the heart) existing since birth
Narrowing of certain arteries

Prevention of High Blood Pressure
You can take steps to prevent high blood pressure by adopting a healthy lifestyle. These steps include

1.Maintaining a healthy weight;
2.Being physically active;
3.Following a healthy eating plan, that emphasizes fruits, vegetables, and low fat dairy foods
4.Choosing and preparing foods with less salt and sodium; and,
5.Avoiding beverages or drinking and smoking.


Precautionary measures for hypertension
It is important not to wait until you are diagnosed with increased blood pressure, but to take certain precautionary measures to stay on a safe side. It can be easily done by engaging in fitness programs, following healthy diets, keeping up with recommended nutrition supplements, and taking proper medication. In other words, you can do it by using precautionary measures for hypertension.

It is a well known fact that high blood pressure is regarded as hereditary. However, there is a lot you can do to keep the symptoms under control. The factors contributing to hypertension that you yourself can monitor on a daily basis include consumption of alcohol and nicotine, diet, weight management, and exercise. Food intake can be a number one factor to monitor with regard to blood pressure fluctuations. We all know that the type of food we eat is directly related to how we feel. The amount of cholesterol you intake is directly affecting your blood pressure levels.

Weight is another factor that is directly proportional to your blood pressure levels. In other words, the more you weigh, the more your pressure will fluctuate and the higher it will remain. It is recommended to keep a regular exercise program and eliminate certain foods from your diet.

Combining a diet with an exercise program is a great combination of precautionary measures for hypertension and an excellent way to keep healthy. Make it a point to exercise the minimum of 30 minutes a day, 3 or 4 times a week. Don't think that you have to go to the gym every time. You can do a lot of activities on a daily basis to increase your exercise levels.

Cancer:

The name for diseases in which the body's cells become abnormal and divide without control. Cancer cells may invade nearby tissues. And they may spread through the bloodstream and lymphatic system to other parts of the body.

Causes:
There is no one single cause of any disease. We can only talk about cofactors, causative agents and life situations that like peaces of puzzle come together and promote disease of cancer. There are hundreds of cofactors and causative agents that each have casual relationship to

poor immunity,
poor health,
accumulation of toxins inside body,
poor thoughts
each one have been mistakenly called cause of cancer.

Most important co-factors are:

lack of knowledge,
poor thoughts,
lack of consciousness,
lifestyle,
diet,
exposure to toxins, life situations.

We are only able to recognize the largest pieces of this puzzle, while some smaller pieces, that all together may cover an area as big as that area covered by the large pieces of the cancer puzzle, often stay unrecognizable.

Prevention of Cancer:

1.Tobacco is the single largest preventable cause of cancer in the world today. It causes 80-90% of all lung cancer deaths, and about 30% of all cancer deaths in developing countries, including deaths from cancer of the oral cavity, larynx, oesophagus and stomach.

2.Dietary modification is another important approach to cancer control. There is a link between overweight and obesity to many types of cancer such as esophagus, colorectal, breast, endometrial and kidney.

3.Regular physical activity and the maintenance of a healthy body weight, along with a healthy diet, will considerably reduce cancer risk.

4.Infectious agents are responsible for almost 22% of cancer deaths in the developing world and 6% in industrialized countries. Viral hepatitis B and C cause cancer of the liver, the bacterium Helicobacter pylori increases the risk of stomach cancer.

5.Avoiding excessive exposure, use of sunscreen and protective clothing are effective preventive measures of all types of cancer of the skin.

6.Asbestos can cause lung cancer; aniline dyes have been linked to bladder cancer; and benzene can lead to leukaemia. The prevention of certain occupational and environmental exposure to these and other chemicals is another important element in preventing cancer.

Twelve Precautionary Measures of Cancer

Have a nutritionally balanced diet.
Eat a variety of types of food
Avoid excessive calories specially as food
Avoid excessive drinking of alcohol.
Avoid tobacco smoking
Take vitamins in appropriate amounts; eat fiber and green and yellow vegetable
Avoid drinking fluids that are too hot and eating foods that are too salty.
Avoid the charred parts of the cooked foods.
Avoid food with possible contamination by fungal toxins.
Avoid overexposure to sunlight.
Have an exercise program matched to your individual condition.
Keep your body clean.

Antibiotics, its misuse and resistance
Antibiotics are chemical substances obtained from certain non-pathogenic micro-organism (bacteria and fungi) and are used for either killing or inhibiting the growth of other pathogenic micro-organism without affecting the host tissue. For example, penicillins, cephalosporins, streptomycin, erythromycin gentamicin, tetracyclines, cotrimoxazole, ciprofloxacin etc.

Misuse: The overuse of antibiotics like penicillin and erythromycin which used to be one-time miracle cure was in past, are now less effective. Random therapeutic usage of antibiotics in hospitals has been seen to be associated with increases in multi-antibiotic resistant bacteria.

The main ways of misuse of antibiotics are –
1.Individuals use the antibiotics randomly feeling just infected with minor or undefined infections.

2.The individual just use the antibiotics till they are sick and when they feel better leave the antibiotics without completing dose.

3. Doctor’s failure to take into accounts the patient's weight and history of prior antibiotic use when prescribing, since both can strongly affect the efficacy of an antibiotic prescription.

3.Individual failure to take the entire prescribed course of the antibiotic.

4.Doctor’s failure to prescribe or individual failure to take the course of treatment at fairly precise correct daily intervals (e.g. "every 8 hours" rather than merely "3x per day").

5.Individual failure to rest for sufficient recovery to allow clearance of the infecting organism.

6.Inappropriate antibiotic treatment is another common form of antibiotic misuse. A common example is the prescription and use of antibiotics to treat viral infections such as the common cold that have no effect.

The medical problem of bacterial drug resistance
Obviously, if a bacterial pathogen is able to develop or acquire resistance to an antibiotic, then that substance becomes useless in the treatment of infectious disease caused by that pathogen. So as pathogens develop resistance, we must find new (different) antibiotics to fill the place of the old ones in treatment regimes. Hence, natural penicillins have become useless against staphylococci and must be replaced by other antibiotics; tetracycline, having been so widely used and misused for decades, has become worthless for many of the infections that once designated it as a "wonder drug".

Prevention of Development of Resistance
The antibiotic resistance may be defined as the self protecting process for organisms that have enhanced ability to survive the antibiotics that would previously been lethal. Development of resistance may be limited by avoidance of indiscriminate use of antimicrobial drugs, appropriate selection of such drugs, constant monitoring of resistance pattern in community, and restricting use of newer antimicrobial drugs as long as currently used drugs as effective. A publicly sponsored antibiotic policy should incorporate—

1.Prevention of indiscriminate use
2. Appropriate combination to be used only when essential
3.Sensitivity pattern to be monitored at the community level.
4.Avoidance of indiscriminate use of newer antimicrobial drugs to be restricted.