By NJ Thakuria
Guwahati: A lipid profile screening camp, covering a group of working
journalists, indicates the necessity of urgent medical attentions for
at least one tenth of the participants as their cholesterol and
triglycerides levels were found far above the permissible limits.
Almost half of them need life style modification (read more physical
activities), added the health camp report.
Among the participants (mostly male), who are members of Guwahati
Press Club belonging to the age group of 25 to 65 years, 40% showed
satisfactory outcomes they were reportedly maintaining good health.
Assam’s popular healthcare institution Dispur Hospital conducted the
screening camp for five days (staring on 9 April 2018) free of cost,
where over 130 scribes participated and out of them 13 were
diagnosed with high triglyceride levels.
Emphasizing on post-test consultations, the city based hospital had
assigned an experienced physician on 19 April (between 2.30 pm and 5
pm) for counseling with the scribes about their blood reports. Dr
Jayanta Bardoloi, a practicing physician and the managing director of
Dispur Hospital advocates for regular lipid profile (lipid panel) test
after certain ages, as it helps identifying genetic diseases and
determining approximate risks for cardiovascular disease along with
certain forms of pancreatitis.
As the doctors describe, the lipids are essential organic molecules
found in blood and stored in tissues which play an important role in
the functioning of a human body. The triglycerides indicate the
excess fat in the body, which is stored in the fat cells. For an
absolute reading, the lipid profile test is conducted after few hours
of fasting. In general, if the reading remains less than 200 mg/dL,
the person is safe, but if it goes above 400 mg/dL, (s)he needs
medical attentions as the high triglycerides may increase the risk of
heart disease and may be sign of metabolic disease like diabetes and
hypertension.
The low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL), also known as bad
cholesterol, may cause coronary artery disease if not treated for
years. However, the high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL),
commonly termed as good cholesterol, helps removing the LDL from blood
vessels. It reduces the probability of heart diseases. A high level of
cholesterol does not indicate the risk of heart disease as it night
belonged to HDL. On the other hand, the very low-density lipoprotein
(VLDL) is also considered as one of the bad blood fat.
Lipid profile tests are essential for those who are overweight (or
obese), regular alcohol consumers, chain smokers and having the family
history of heart diseases. Moreover, who have suffered from kidney
diseases, diabetes, high blood pressure, hypothyroid etc, should go
for the test at regular intervals. It helps monitoring a person’s risk
for cardiovascular diseases.
The city press club has been taking the healthcare awareness
initiative for many years. Now it runs a weekly out-patient department
clinic at the club premises for the benefit of over 300 active
members. Many scribes with high blood sugar, hypertension, thyroid,
uric acid etc were diagnosed in various health camps and were advised
accordingly. Till date, it has organized over 100 free health camps
providing benefits to hundreds of media persons.
Guwahati, the virtual capital of northeast India with a population of
20 lakh, today supports hundreds of journalists who are engaged in
over 25 morning daily newspapers, hundreds of periodicals, five
satellite news channels, few entertainment channels & FM radio along
with a number of news portals based in the pre-historic city those
disseminate news and other contents in Assamese, Hindi, English and
other languages. The number of city based non-journalist media
employees may go up to few thousands.
The club initiative has also been supported by GNRC Hospitals, Down
Town Hospitals, Apollo Hospital (Chennai and Guwahati campus), SIMS
Chennai Hospital, Manipal Hospital (Bangalore), Fortis Hospital
(Bangalore), Medanta the Medicity Hospital (Gurgaon), Ayursundra
Hospital, Barthakur Clinic, Wintrobe Hospital, Nemcare Hospital, Sun
Valley Hospital, Excelcare Hospital, Rahman Hospital, Narayana
Super-Specialty Hospitals, Swagat Super-Surgical Institute, Sight
First eye-clinic etc.
