Matters of the Heart

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fit, food, Health, heart, Life, Mother, nurses, oil, People, theresa, Time, vegetables, wisdom

This is a chat with Dr. Abdullahi Oluwalogbon (Heart and Utility Specialist). The transcript of the chat is given below. Useful for everyone.*

QUESTIONS & ANSWERS:

Question 1: What are the thumb rules for a layman to take care of his or her heart?

Answer:
1. Diet – Less of carbohydrate, more of protein, less oil
2. Exercise – Half an hour’s walk, at least five days a week; avoid lifts and avoid sitting for a longtime
3. Quit smoking
4. Control weight
5. Control BP – Blood pressure and Sugar

Question 2: Can we convert fat into muscles?

Answer: It is a dangerous myth. Fat and muscles are made of two different tissues – fat is fat, ugly and harmful. Muscle is muscle. Fat can never be converted into a muscle.

Question 3: It’s still a grave shock to hear that some apparently healthy person gets a cardiac arrest. How do we understand it in perspective?

Answer: This is called silent attack. That is why we recommend everyone past the age of 30 to undergo routine health checkups.

Question 4: Are heart diseases hereditary?

Answer: Yes

Question 5: What are the ways in which the heart is stressed? What practices do you suggest to de-stress?

Answer: Change your attitude towards life. Do not look for perfection in everything in life.

Question 6: Is walking better than jogging or is more intensive exercise required to keep a healthy heart?

Answer: Walking is better than jogging, since jogging leads to early fatigue and injury to joints.

Question 7: You have done so much for the poor and needy. What has inspired you to do so?

Answer: Mother Theresa, who was my patient.

Question 8: Can people with low blood pressure suffer heart diseases?

Answer: Extremely rare.

Question 9: Does cholesterol accumulate right from an early age (I’m currently only 22) or do you have to worry about it only after you are above 30 years of age?

Answer: Cholesterol accumulates from childhood.

Question 10: How do irregular eating habits affect the heart ?

Answer: You tend to eat junk food when the habits are irregular and your body’s enzyme release for digestion gets confused.

Question 11: How can I control cholesterol content without using medicines?

Answer: Control diet, walk and eat walnut.

Question 12: Which is the best and worst food for the heart?

Answer: Fruits and vegetables are the best and oils the worst.

Question 13: Which oil is better – groundnut, sunflower, olive?

Answer: All oils are bad.

Question 14: What is the routine checkup one should go through? Is there any specific test?

Answer: Routine blood test to ensure sugar, cholesterol is ok. Check BP, Treadmill test after an echo.

Question 15: What are the first aid steps to be taken on a heart attack?

Answer: Help the person into a sleeping position, place an aspirin tablet under the tongue with a sorbitrate tablet if available, and rush him or her to a coronary care unit, since the maximum casualty takes place within the first hour.

Question 16: How do you differentiate between pain caused by a heart attack and that caused due to gastric trouble?

Answer: Extremely difficult without ECG.

Question 17: What is the main cause of a steep increase in heart problems amongst youngsters? I see people of about 30-40 years of age having heart attacks and serious heart problems.

Answer: Increased awareness has increased incidents. Also, sedentary lifestyles, smoking, junk food, lack of exercise in a country where people are genetically three times more vulnerable for heart attacks than Europeans and Americans.

Question 18: Is it possible for a person to have BP outside the normal range of 120/80 and yet be perfectly healthy?

Answer: Yes.

Question 19: Marriages within close relatives can lead to heart problems for the child. Is it true?

Answer : Yes, co-sanguinity leads to congenital abnormalities and you may NOT have a software engineer as a child.

Question 20: Many of us have an irregular daily routine and many a times we have to stay late nights in office. Does this affect our heart? What precautions would you recommend?

Answer: When you are young, nature protects you against all these irregularities. However, as you grow older, respect the biological clock.

Question 21: Will taking anti-hypertensive drugs cause some other complications (short/long term)?

Answer : Yes, most drugs have some side effects. However, modern anti-hypertensive drugs are extremely safe.

Question 22: Will consuming more coffee/tea lead to heart attacks?

Answer: No.

Question 23: Are asthma patients more prone to heart disease?

Answer: No.

Question 24: How would you define junk food?

Answer: Fried food like Kentucky, McDonalds, Samosas, and even Masala Dosas.

Question 25: You mentioned that Indians are three times more vulnerable. What is the reason for this, as Europeans and Americans also eat a lot of junk food?

Answer: Every race is vulnerable to some disease and unfortunately, Indians are vulnerable for the most expensive disease.

Question 26: Does consuming bananas help reduce hypertension?

Answer: No.

Question 27: Can a person help himself during a heart attack (Because we see a lot of forwarded e-mails on this)?

Answer: Yes. Lie down comfortably and put an aspirin tablet of any description under the tongue and ask someone to take you to the nearest coronary care unit without any delay and do not wait for the ambulance since most of the time, the ambulance does not turn up.

Question 28: Do, in any way, low white blood cells and low hemoglobin count lead to heart problems?

Answer: No. But it is ideal to have normal hemoglobin level to increase your exercise capacity.

Question 29: Sometimes, due to the hectic schedule we are not able to exercise. So, does walking while doing daily chores at home or climbing the stairs in the house, work as a substitute for exercise?

Answer: Certainly. Avoid sitting continuously for more than half an hour and even the act of getting out of the chair and going to another chair and sitting helps a lot.

Question 30: Is there a relation between heart problems and blood sugar?

Answer: Yes. A strong relationship since diabetics are more vulnerable to heart attacks than non-diabetics.

Question 31: What are the things one needs to take care of after a heart operation?

Answer : Diet, exercise, drugs on time, Control cholesterol, BP, weight.

Question 32: Are people working on night shifts more vulnerable to heart disease when compared to day shift workers?

Answer: No.

Question 33: What are the modern anti-hypertensive drugs?

Answer: There are hundreds of drugs and your doctor will chose the right combination for your problem, but my suggestion is to avoid the drugs and go for natural ways of controlling blood pressure by walk, diet to reduce weight and changing attitudes towards lifestyles.

Question 34: Does aspirin or similar headache pills increase the risk of heart attacks?

Answer: No.

Question 35: Why is the rate of heart attacks more in men than in women?

Answer: Nature protects women till the age of 45. (Present Global census show that the Percentage of heart disease in women has increased than in men )

Question 36: How can one keep the heart in a good condition?

Answer: Eat a healthy diet, avoid junk food, exercise everyday, do not smoke and, go for health checkups if you are past the age of 30 (once in six months recommended).

Please, don’t hoard knowledge. It takes sharing of knowledge to discover and understand the world in which we live.

*copied from twitter

Beating Your Children

Tags

Africa, African, animals, beating, child, Children, children. story, fruits, joke, kiddies, kids, Mother, People, Time, wisdom

If you ever wondered why Africans beat their children, then read up on this repost.

Copied….

Children nowadays don’t even know that in our days you could be beaten for any of the following reasons:

1. Crying after being beaten.
2. Not crying after being beaten.
3. Crying without being beaten.
4. Standing while the elders are seated.
5. Sitting while the elders are standing.
6. Walking around aimlessly where the elders are seated.
7. Replying back to an elder.
8. Not replying back to an elder.
9. Spending too much time without being beaten.
10. Singing after being admonished.
11. Not greeting visitors.
12. Eating food prepared for the visitors.
13. Crying to go with the visitors when the visitors are leaving.
14. Refusing to eat.
15. Coming back home after sunset.
16. Eating at the neighbour’s home.
17. Generally being moody.
18. Generally being too excited.
19. Fighting with your age mate and losing.
20. Fighting with your age mate and winning.
21. Eating too slowly.
22. Eating too quickly.
23. Eating too much.
24. Not finishing your food.
25. Scraping your plate
26. Eating and talking
27. Talking and chewing
28. Sleeping while the elders had already woken up.
29. Looking at the visitors while they are eating.
30. Stumbling and falling when walking.

31. Looking at an elder eye ball to eye ball.
32. When an elder is talking to you and you blink your eye.
33. When an elder is talking to you and you stared without blinking.
34. When you look at an elder with a corner eye.
When an elder points at you.
35. When your mates were playing Street football and you joined them to play.
36. When your mates were playing and you were not playing with them.
37. When you don’t wash your dish
38. When you don’t wash your dish properly
39. When you break your dish
40. When you bite your nails.

41. When you fail your exams. That was a serious crime.
42. When you get canned in school or any kind of offense committed in school. That fetched you more canning at home.
43. When you go to the local stream to frolic.
44. When you steal fruits from trees. This always attracted canning. But it was always worth the troubles for most kids. Can believe now kids have to be tricked & coaxed into eating fruit when we actually risked death by arrows, catapulted stones, flying cutlasses & being eaten by wild domesticated dogs, just to eat fruits.😀😀😀

Some of these reasons for beating a child may seem farfetched to children now, but they sure did give us some solid values, Some not effective but we learnt to be better parents now. 😀

One Hundred Tributes for One

Tags

African Poetry, Age, Death, Die, grandmum, hundred, Mother, ngo, Old, People, poem, Poetry, Time

We recently lost our Grand mother…

She passed on in the morning, on Monday, 2nd September, 2018.

She was laid to rest on Saturday, 8th September, 2018.

She was a few years over hundred. Her exact age was a point of debate. Since it was unanimously agreed she was over a hundred years old, the logical thing was to state her age simply as hundred.

She matched amongst plus the hundred,

Amidst all and sundry, her kindred.

She lived her plus the hundred,

And stood out like one in a hundred.

Our Mama lived cherished,

And will never for us, be perished.

Ever she is so revered,

For so long very endeared.

Rest In Peace Ngo….
We fondly remember your cheer..

Joy and Sorrow:Haiku — Poet’s Corner

Tags

grief, journey, Mother, People, poem, Poems, Poetry, sad, Sorrow, Tears, Time

Tears trace broken lines across a face weathered by a mother’s journey

via Joy and Sorrow:Haiku — Poet’s Corner

THE CHILD’S WORLD

Tags

babies, baby, Children, Life, literature, Love, Man, Mother, Parents, People, poem, Poems, Poetry, The poet in the poem, Time, women, Yas Niger

The tiny fetus that had been robbed of its life shouldn’t know regret for not ever living it, but certainly its murderers should know of it for its sake and their conscience.

One of the most treasured ingredients of the earliest part of life is in the lack of the full knowledge of it. It is an ingredient that feels like mist over the head of a blind man, who senses its thick moist presence but doesn’t determine it by sight.

FIRST PAIN

When I felt it happen too;
Like I heard and saw it too.
I died that day that I knew;
I was just me and not new.
Then alive I sprout out again;
Living as all do, after their first pain.

The child learns to be his own person as he ages and develops his own ability to endure life at first and its worries next. But when he gets accustomed to enduring life and learns to numb out most of the sorrow he feels in it, he then acknowledges that living thrives out of form, if it discards its ordered laws and professes its rebelling need for rules. Otherwise that early instant knowledge of life and its subtleties would render a child hapless to a situation it hasn’t as yet mastered and make life appear pointless from a very early age. Just like a shooting star sighted from earth appears to hit no target, life will appear to serve no purpose but only serve a steadily distressing experience by all logical human estimation.

YOUNG AGAIN

You are only young once,
Blossomed to take your chance;
To scent the world’s spring
With the fruit kinds you bring

The poet in the poem
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451309
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SLWGOMM
http://authl.it/B00SLWGOMM
https://www.createspace.com/5195332

AND THE MOTHER DIED

Tags

Africa, African, Books, Children, culture, Death, eBook, Faith, God, Life, literature, Mother, poem, Poems, Poetry, The poet in the poem, Woman, women, Yas Niger

Life tends to congregates us in one loving hub of family and friends, wooing us to have and share love for one another, as it educates us with the knowledge of our inevitable end and final separation. But it never empowers us with the secret of bearing its insipid emptiness and harsh betrayal. It is cruel and just not truly fair.

The following poem is an experience also documented in the novel: ‘The old woman’s maid’
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/383830
https://www.createspace.com/5277712
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/8763

“And the mother died”

A strong gust of air blew
And twin curtains withdrew.
Float horizontally in mid-air,
Like Angles’ wings would pair.

The mother walked in her peace,
Embodied in that first brief glimpse
From within a curtained covering;
Into our world an Angle steps in.

Unique as, loving every person;
Everyone passes her tests’ reason.
Saw goodness, polished badness;
Her large heart sought happiness.

This world her one own family,
Which will see her out, sadly.
Her motherhood a duty not a task,
In her circumstances that lack.

A right for which she had fought,
Is her motherhood in every breath.
She lost physical battles down here,
But won the war with years to spear.

Then she had cancer and died,
Joining all those from us deaths hide.
The victor hasn’t yet flourished
When his vanquished all perished.

Death can only but surely lose,
Yet the fear of him we choose.
He doesn’t get the peace we see.
Then what really, really has he?

He can’t keep us as ornaments,
Passing for the briefest moments.
His power ends where it starts,
Coming and going, never ever lasts.

He reveals two very key lessons
In this very life for all persons;
Where lies a life there are lies
And all roads to a same place plies.

It is really true then and no fuss;
God sends his Angles amongst Us
Takes them when he misses them,
Out of a world that cherishes them.

THE POET IN THE POEM
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451309
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00SLWGOMM
https://www.createspace.com/5195332

EVERYONE HATES THE ENGLISH
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/559891
https://www.createspace.com/5650770
http://okadabooks.com/book/about/9867

BREASTS OF DOOM

Tags

blind, Born, brave, breasts, chest, child, cloud, consciousness, Deceive, Die, doom, first, future, gone, grave, happiness, Home, hunger, kindness, knife, light, literature, loneliness, misery, Mother, mystery, Nature, nest, Poems, Poetry, promise, reward, Sanity, sight, starve, Sun, The poet in the poem, thirst, uncertainty, word, World, Yas Niger, youth

O’ home,
I fear I am gone.
If I do return,
Rename me the sun.

O’ my nest,
Born to be the best,
Even when I die of thirst,
My last drop you will have first.

O’ this world,
Spare me a word.
Call me anything,
At least say something.

O’ uncertainty,
You cloud my sanity;
My consciousness you cover,
So do please roll over.

O’ hunger,
A cause for bother.
Those you’ve punished,
Deceived and banished.

O’ misery,
You’re a mystery
That hushes the brave
And starve the grave.

O’ life,
Where is your sight?
Drop the knife
And use some light.

O’ kindness,
Born of happiness;
May your reward be no other
Than your blessed mother.

O’ loneliness,
So many about,
Yet in your meanness
You cast me out.

O’ death,
Why express your might
On good fate
And make its wards the late?

O’ fate
Watch my tears.
Please make me the late
Or show me someone who really cares.

O’ people,
How can you be so simple
Yet so mean,
As if it is no sin?

O’ future,
Come in whatever nature,
Just promise me;
In my place my child you’ll see.

O’ child,
For whom I roam,
Is it youth that is blind
Or I chest breasts of doom?

DOWNLOAD THIS POEM FROM
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451309

Collection of over 250 poems
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/451309

BREASTS OF DOOM is also available as a novel
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/345797

ELEGY OF OUR MUMMY

Tags

Death, ELEGY, Life, Mother, mummy

ELEGY OF OUR MUMMY

Your produce is here and true,
For this surely a mummy are you.
From the start of it all you were
Willing that all elements be there.

The availability of all that is good
Is so limitless and has no mood.
You were to be of such a mould;
An embodiment of this idea so old.

You could see with blind eyes
Embrace truth and discard their lies.
As all came and as all so went,
You blur pain and just dreamt.

Indifference is that able chance
Not just affordable to all hands.
Compassion has love in its nature,
Lacking no past, present or future.

Dead is an air bubble inside a diamond,
Your aged love lingers on inside time.
Till you died, to these lives your breath lives on Though death ever comes back down to earth.