Tuesday, March 7, 2023

Can low carbohydrate diet make you slim?

Obesity research is basically an attempt to explain attitude of slim people towards obese. Some doctors don’t want to deal with obese patients because they think; they are dealing with someone non sensitive towards his/her own health. Obesity is beyond control of obese person. There could be genetic, hormonal or metabolic reasons behind altered physiology.

Intake of carbohydrates (sugar and starches) and fat generally blamed for getting obese or overweight. My great grandfather died at the age of 105 year and his diet was always rich in fat and protein with optimal amount of carbohydrates, but he remained slim and active throughout his life. The narrative that dietary fat causes heart attack is an absurd idea. I wonder to learn that Dr. Atkin’s New Diet Revolution also suggested high-fat diet to minimize the risk of heart disease. On the contrary low-fat and low-carbohydrate (low calorie) diet being recommended by the physicians could be more harmful for your heart. Diet rich in fat and low in carbohydrates improves the level of HDL and reduces the level of LDL in our blood, which is said to be healthy environment for our heart. Fat rich and low-carb diet also controls blood pressure and insulin level. The low-fat diet which people have been eating with hopes of protecting heart has been bad for heart ‘actually’ as it is rich in carbohydrates.

Our bodies burn carbohydrates along with fat to generate energy. Carbohydrates are burned first and fat later by our bodies. So, by drastically reducing carbohydrates and eating more fat and proteins, our bodies would ‘definitely’ reduce weight by burning stored body fat more efficiently for fuel and energy. When your body changes from carbohydrate burning engine to fat burning engine, our fat storing spots (belly, hips and thighs) become a source of energy; and we lose weight in spite of eating fat rich food with little or no carbohydrates. When this happens, we feel less hungry and tend to eat less.

Low carbohydrate diet would ‘definitely’ make you slim.

Friday, March 3, 2023

Migraine: An episodic headache

Migraine is an episodic headache disorder associated with autonomic symptoms with or without aura. Episodes of migraine could lead to loss of productivity in young professionals/individuals. Pathophysiological studies exhibit migraine to be a neurovascular headache. Migraine is caused by abnormal activation and modulation of trigeminocervical neurons. Impaired modulation of central nervous system aminergic pathways especially of the brainstem and activation of trigeminoparasympathetic system leads to vasodilation of meningeal arteries and dural venous sinuses.

 Migraine was considered to be vascular headache until 2010. The aura phase of migraine has been demonstrated to be a neuronal event, with electroencephalogram. A cortical wave showing cortical depression could be observed in electroencephalogram. So, physiologically migraine is an heterogenous entity.

Migraine treatment comprises two arms with an effort to address components of pathophysiology: (i) Strategy to terminate acute attacks and (ii) Strategy to prevent further attacks.

Ergotamine was the earliest analgesic known to be effective in acute migraine since 1920s. Now large number of ‘Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs’ (NSAID) and non-NSAID analgesics have been used as rescue medications. The targeted treatment was launched in 1990 with the advent of Triptans. Advances in preventive therapies have been very few. Beta-blockers and tricyclic antidepressants remain the main component of treatment of migraine,