The practice of Medicine can indeed be very humbling. Being an inexact science with no clear road signs of where to go, it can throw medical scientists into a maze in which they can’t find the way out.
Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) Director Kenneth Hartigan-Go advises the proponents of legalizing medical marijuana to exhaust available legal channels and processes to have it approved for the right indications and the right set of patients.
After our last week’s column on how excessive salt intake could harm our health, I received a number of negative reactions, with most saying that making everyone adhere to a low-salt diet is easier said than done. I can see where most people are coming from thinking that cutting down on salt means putting up with bland and tasteless food.
Salt is an essential mineral substance and the tissues of the human body require it for normal functioning. Sodium in salt is necessary to conduct nerve impulses, contract and relax muscles, and maintain the proper balance of water and minerals. It being an essential mineral is reflected by the idiom “salt of the earth,” referring to persons who are deemed most worthy of emulation.
Today, Saturday, I’m delivering my valedictory address as outgoing president of the Asian Pacific Society of Hypertension. I titled my talk “Addressing the Hypertension ‘Storm Surge’ in the Asian Pacific Region.” I hope my call to action will be heeded seriously by the hypertension experts from 38 countries who attended the congress.
The Philippine Society of Hypertension and Philippine Lipid and Atherosclerosis Society, together with several other medical organizations and the Department of Health, are hosting the Asian Pacific Society of Hypertension congress in Cebu City on Feb. 12-15. This is definitely going to be a big international event, which all doctors, researchers and government personnel involved in the diagnosis, treatment and control of high blood pressure should attend.
We’ve had so many challenging years in the past, but this year will definitely go down in our nation’s history as one of the most challenging years we ever had. Our capacity to cope with and ability to spring back from both man-made and natural disasters was really put to the test. These disasters started from the armed conflict in Zamboanga City and extended to the 7.2-magnitude earthquake in Bohol and Cebu, then finally to the wrath of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” which killed several thousands and left more than a hundred billion pesos worth of destruction in properties.
The Philippine Food and Drug Administration (PhilFDA) is now closely monitoring websites which market all sorts of products including hormones, vaccines and other drugs which should only be bought and taken with a doctor’s prescription.
The cool breeze gently reminds us that the Christmas season has started. Many families, companies and organizations are foregoing their Christmas parties in light of the dire situation in Tacloban and other typhoon-ravaged areas in the country. The saved funds are instead to be donated to help in the relief operations in these places.
It is appalling to see the death and devastation which the Supertyphoon “Yolanda” brought to Tacloban, Ormoc and several other areas in the country.
I was invited this week to give a couple of lectures during the Resistant Hypertension Conference held in Singapore, and I share the consensus of all the members of the faculty who are getting alarmed at the increasing prevalence of resistant or difficult-to-treat high blood pressure (BP).
Artificial coloring makes any food product more appealing. Sweets like ice candy and gulaman are made more delectable and mouth-watering when they come in bright colors—red, orange and green. Even dried shrimp is made more appetizing with a reddish food coloring.
