Salman Khan on Sunday took to Instagram and posted a picture in which he is seen posing with Shera.

MUMBAI: Superstar Salman Khan, who has inspired millions of people in the country to take up fitness with his muscular brawn, has urged fitness freaks not to use steroids, pointing out that such substances triggered off liver and kidney ailments besides causing other harmful effects to the body.

“Nowadays, there is a trend of taking steroids but it’s really a wrong trend. I feel no one should use these. In fact, a lot of people misuse steroids, which is really bad for their bodies because you can damage your liver and kidney. There are a lot of people who have died doing exercises in the gym because of heart failure. So, it is not the right thing to do at all.”

“I think protein shakes and supplements are good for your body but the kind of steroids people are consuming are very harmful. With those steroids, you can build your body but people can easily figure it’s a body built by steroids and not naturally. That kind of body cannot last long,” said Salman, while interacting with the media at the preview of Being Strong Fitness Equipment on Sunday in Mumbai.

Salman started a huge fitness revolution in India way back in 1998, after his shirtless avatar in the iconic song “O oh jaane jaana” in “Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya” became a rage. Since then, youngsters especially have started hitting the gym to have a similar hunky frame.

Talking about timing of workouts for being fit and healthy, Salman said: “Whenever you get the time, you should do your workout. I get free time after lunch break or after dinner, in the morning or in between the shots. Whenever I get time, I exercise one body part. Sometimes, I exercise the stomach, chest or legs, because I don’t have the time to spend an hour or two in the gym. Wherever I spot a small place, I start doing exercises. I think you need gym equipment to do your exercise but if it’s not there, you can go for traditional forms of exercise.”

Salman Khan will next be seen onscreen in the Prabhudheva-directed “Dabangg 3” along with Sonakshi Sinha, Saiee Manjrekar and Kichcha Sudeepa. The film is slated to release on 20th December, 2019.

A recent study found that fat accumulates in the airway walls within the lungs causing wheezing and asthma in overweight or obese people.

WASHINGTON DC: A recent study found that fat accumulates in the airway walls within the lungs causing wheezing and asthma in overweight or obese people.

Scientists already know that people who are overweight or obese are more likely to suffer from wheezing and asthma, but the reasons for this have not been completely explained.

The new study, published in the European Respiratory Journal, suggests that this fatty tissue alters the structure of people’s airways and it could be one reason behind the increased risk of asthma.

“Our research team studies the structure of the airways within our lungs and how these are altered in people with respiratory disease,” said the study’s author John Elliot, a senior research officer at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth, Western Australia.

“Looking at samples of lung, we spotted fatty tissue that had built up in the airway walls. We wanted to see if this accumulation was correlated with body weight,” added Elliot.

The researchers examined post-mortem samples of the lung that had been donated for research and stored in the Airway Tissue Biobank. They studied samples from 52 people, including 15 who had no reported asthma, 21 who had asthma but died of other causes and 16 who died of asthma.

Using dyes to help visualise the structures of 1373 airways under a microscope, they identified and quantified any fatty tissue present. They compared this data with each person’s body mass index (BMI).For the first time, the study showed that fatty tissue accumulates in the walls of the airways. The analysis revealed that the amount of fat present increases in line with increasing BMI. The research also suggests that this increase in fat alters the normal structure of the airways and leads to inflammation in the lungs.

“Being overweight or obese has already been linked to having asthma or having worse asthma symptoms. Researchers have suggested that the link might be explained by the direct pressure of excess weight on the lungs or by a general increase in inflammation created by excess weight,” said co-author, Dr. Peter Noble, an associate professor at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

“This study suggests that another mechanism is also at play. We’ve found that excess fat accumulates in the airway walls where it takes up space and seems to increase inflammation within the lungs. We think this is causing a thickening of the airways that limits the flow of air in and out of the lungs, and that could at least partly explain an increase in asthma symptoms, ” Dr. Peter Noble added.

A 51-year-old man complained about pains and told doctors it could be a toothbrush he swallowed in a suicidal attempt 20 years ago when he was diagnosed with HIV contracted from using drugs.

BEIJING: Doctors from a southern Chinese hospital removed something unusual from a man’s intestines: a 14-centimetre-long toothbrush he swallowed 20 years ago.

The No.3 People’s Hospital of Shenzhen in Guangdong province said it was among the most bizarre items doctors have found in a patient’s entrails, along with nails, coins and lighters.

The patient, a 51-year-old man surnamed Li, was admitted to the hospital for abdominal pain in late June, and a CT scan revealed a mysterious item in his duodenum, Xinhua news agency reported.

Li then told doctors it could be a toothbrush he swallowed in a suicidal attempt 20 years ago when he was diagnosed with HIV contracted from using drugs. Feeling no discomfort after the failed suicide, he went on with his life and put aside the embarrassing experience.

The toothbrush stayed peacefully in his belly until 2014, when Li began to suffer from abdominal pain and gallbladder inflammation.

“The toothbrush might have stayed in the stomach and duodenum for many years before sticking into the bile duct, causing the inflammation and pain. If left untreated, it could touch the liver and result in a fatal infection,” said Liu Jialin, Li’s surgeon.

Liu said they resorted to an endoscope to retrieve the toothbrush, which had a “bare” look with all its bristles dissolved.

Li said after the suicide attempt, he renounced drugs and began HIV treatment. He later got married and his wife gave birth to two healthy children.

“I have long forgotten the toothbrush, assuming that it had expelled on its own,” he said.

This year, over 1,000 dengue cases have been registered in the city by BBMP; severe infections can turn fatal

BENGALURU: With monsoon around the corner, unhygienic water clogging and a plethora of diseases come along too. Most infections are a result of unhealthy, unclean surroundings, mosquitoes and weather fluctuations. One of the major infections doing the rounds this season is the dengue fever.

Around 400 million instances of dengue infections occur each year across the globe. This year, over 1,000 dengue cases have been registered by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). Transmitted by the bite of an Aedes mosquito infected with a dengue virus, dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease. Having bitten a person with dengue in their blood, the mosquito becomes infected. When the same mosquito bites an uninfected person, the virus gets into the person’s bloodstream and results in fever.

Occurring usually in tropical and subtropical areas, dengue resolves within days to weeks. However, dengue does not spread directly from one person to another. Symptoms in dengue fever generally show three to 14 days after the infection. If the infected person has a mild dengue fever, he/she is likely to experience a high fever, rash, and muscle pain as well as joint pain. However, in its severe form, dengue fever (also termed dengue hemorrhagic fever) causes severe bleeding, damage to lymph and blood vessels, a sudden drop in blood pressure (shock) and can even be fatal. Sometimes, people become infected with the virus a second time and are at a much greater risk of developing the severe form of the disease.
Treatment for dengue fever consists of fluids and paracetamol. However, severe cases also need hospital care. It is best to consult your doctor.

A 45-year-old Idaho woman’s search for the elusive cause of her bleeding involved numerous tests. A belated scan revealed the terrifying reason.

The average length of survival for sarcomatoid kidney cancer is about eight months.

Kathy Hipsher was having a horrible year.

She spent months battling a vicious stomach virus, followed by lingering nausea and pain that left her subsisting on a bland diet consisting largely of Cream of Wheat and applesauce. Her gut problems were accompanied by days of fatigue so extreme that at times she could barely drag herself up the stairs of her Bellevue, Idaho, home.

In October 2016, just as Hipsher was recovering, the 45-year-old sign-language interpreter and Grand Canyon river guide suddenly confronted a new and alarming symptom: visible blood in her urine.

For the next 13 months she underwent numerous tests conducted by specialists who were unable to determine what was causing the bleeding.

“Maybe you’re just someone with blood in their urine,” Hipsher remembers a urologist saying a year after the problem first appeared.

Less than a month after that October 2017 pronouncement, Hipsher learned the reason for the bleeding. A final diagnosis would take nearly three more months.

“It was really difficult to keep persevering,” said Hipsher, whose ordeal was complicated by recurrent digestive problems and compounded by distance. Seeing specialists sometimes meant a five-hour round-trip drive from her home outside Ketchum to Boise.

But the most frustrating part, said Hipsher who has worked in a medical clinic, was trying to convince skeptical doctors that her continuing symptoms seemed to indicate something serious. One flatly told her she was “too young” for the disease with which she was ultimately diagnosed.

In October 2016, Hipsher was preparing to lead a 16-day river trip when she noticed that her urine was tinged with pink.

“I thought, ‘That’s weird.’ I hadn’t eaten beets,” which could cause the temporary discoloration of urine known as beeturia, Hipsher recalled. She had no pain or other symptoms and had never experienced chronic urinary tract infections, which can cause visible blood in the urine known as gross hematuria.

A urinalysis performed the following day, after the bleeding was no longer visible, confirmed the presence of red blood cells and protein in her urine. Proteinuria can be caused by diabetes, high blood pressure or a family history of kidney disease, none of which applied to Hipsher. Her primary care physician ordered a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis and referred her to a urologist.

The CT scan revealed the presence of two tiny, non-obstructing kidney stones, neither in a problematic location. The radiologist also noted atrophy on the upper portion of her left kidney, which he said “most likely represents a chronic injury.” The urologist performed a cystoscopy, a test that inspects the bladder; it was normal. The doctor suggested that Hipsher drink more fluids, which could help stave off a future kidney stone attack.

After the bleeding recurred, Hipsher consulted a second urologist, who sent her to a kidney specialist.

The nephrologist suggested that the intermittent bleeding might be caused by IgA nephropathy, a disease that damages the filters inside the kidneys and can occur after an illness.

The nephrologist advised continued monitoring of Hipsher’s kidneys, which were functioning normally. He was reluctant, for reasons Hipsher said he never articulated, to perform a kidney biopsy, which could definitively determine whether IgA nephropathy was the problem.

In May 2017, Hipsher decided she needed a new nephrologist. By now the bleeding was a daily occurrence.

The second nephrologist scheduled a needle biopsy for the following month. The test ruled out IgA nephropathy and failed to find anything that would explain the bleeding. Sometimes no cause can be found and the condition is labeled idiopathic hematuria.

Hipsher was not reassured; her urine was sometimes bright red. She decided she needed out-of-state expertise, so she called a prominent medical center and wangled an appointment. In July, she spent four days undergoing an extensive nephrology work-up.

Records describe her as “very healthy-appearing” and noted her “excellent outside” work-up. A pathologist reviewed the CT scan performed nine months earlier, but did not repeat it.

Doctors came to the same conclusion. They couldn’t find an explanation for her bleeding, nor did they uncover anything of concern.

When Hipsher asked the nephrologist if he could rule out cancer, she remembers he brushed it aside. The first kidney specialist had told her she was “too young” for kidney cancer.

– – –

For the next few months, Hipsher concentrated on her recurring and difficult to treat stomach problems, which were attributed to small intestinal bacterial overgrowth, a condition that can cause nausea, diarrhea and fatigue, and later a parasitic infection. The primary care doctor she had been seeing told Hipsher she was stumped and sent her to Thomas Archie, a family medicine specialist.

“She was referred to me because her case was confusing, and I do a lot of weird cases,” said Archie, whose practice combines conventional Western medicine and alternative practices, including the use of Chinese herbs and acupuncture.

In October, she returned to the second urologist to request a CT scan for the worsening bleeding, which included what appeared to be blood clots. The doctor, she said, balked.

“I wouldn’t radiate you again,” she remembers the specialist saying, adding “we’re not going to worry about” the blood.

When Hipsher persisted, the urologist agreed to consult a colleague in Boise to see if a CT scan was advisable.

Two weeks later, the urologist ordered the scan to check for an abnormal tangle of blood vessels known as an arteriovenous malformation, which can sometimes cause bleeding.

The imaging test revealed something quite different: a grape-sized mass on Hipsher’s left kidney, in the same location where the atrophy had been noted 13 months earlier. The urologist, who referred Hipsher to a surgical oncologist in Boise, told her the 2.5 centimeter tumor might be benign.

Hipsher was certain it was not. The surgical oncologist agreed and told her it was probably malignant.

A week before Christmas, the surgeon removed the portion of Hipsher’s left kidney that contained the tumor, which he characterized as unlike anything he had seen.

Because of its unusual nature, pathology samples were sent to the Johns Hopkins Medical Laboratory in Baltimore for analysis.

A few weeks later, in early January 2018, Archie gave Hipsher the devastating news. She had a rare – and highly aggressive – disease called sarcomatoid renal cell carcinoma.

Sarcomatoid cancer, which typically strikes men over 60, is characterized by poorly differentiated cells resembling a sarcoma, cancer that develops in tissue such as blood vessels or in bones. The percentage of differentiation reflects the tumor’s aggressiveness: the higher the percentage, the more aggressive the tumor.

Hipsher’s tumor was 100% sarcomatoid. The average length of survival for sarcomatoid kidney cancer is about eight months.

Pathologists were unable to determine whether the cancer had originated in Hipsher’s kidney or in her bladder or ureter, the tube that carries urine from the kidney to the bladder. (Blood in the urine and fatigue are common symptoms of kidney cancer.)

Hipsher was devastated – but not surprised.

“I’d known it was cancer deep down in my bones for a while,” she said. “I’m not sure how to explain it.” One of her aunts had been diagnosed with a rare sarcoma at age 53. Another died a month after being diagnosed with colon cancer. For the preceding two years, doctors had told her they couldn’t determine the reason for her double-digit weight loss and severe abdominal pain.

Archie said that doctors went back and examined Hipsher’s 2016 CT scan to see whether the tumor had been missed; he said no sign was found. “I think maybe the imaging was done at such an early stage that you can’t even see it,” he said.

Had Hipsher undergone a CT scan six months or so after the bleeding started, Archie said, the tumor might have been visible.

Hipsher regrets she didn’t push for a second CT scan sooner.

“What I definitely wish I had done was bring in pictures or a sample of bloody urine early on,” she said. “Somehow I think doctors believe patients when there is something visible or tangible, rather than just our words.”

– – –

The pathology report from Hopkins did contain some good news: the tumor was small and appeared to be confined to her left kidney. Most sarcomatoid tumors are much larger and have metastasized widely when they are discovered. A PET scan showed no sign of disease.

CT scans performed three and six months after surgery, while Hipsher was undergoing complex tests for genetic mutations that could guide future treatment, were clean. And her lab tests were normal.

Because her cancer is rare, Archie suggested that Hipsher seek a consultation at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and helped arrange a visit.

In August 2018, Hipsher and her husband, Mike, flew to Texas. She had received the standard first-line treatment – surgery – but the Houston oncologist told her that too much time had elapsed for chemotherapy or immunotherapy, sometimes used after surgery to prevent a recurrence.

“At this time we believe the risks of treatment outweigh the potential benefits,” one oncologist wrote.

MD Anderson specialists recommended that Hipsher undergo active surveillance, which includes CT scans and lab tests every three months.

If her cancer recurs, doctors say they expect she would be treated with immunotherapy drugs that have shown promise in treating sarcomatoid tumors.

Hipsher opted to receive treatment in Houston. So far, the news has been good: she remains cancer-free. Her next visit is scheduled for mid-August.

The couple live frugally and have what Hipsher characterizes as excellent health insurance. She is “stunningly grateful” to be able to afford the cost of travel and unreimbursed medical expenses, which last year totaled $21,000. “I really feel for the people for whom such a thing isn’t even an option,” she said.

Although she is still coming to terms with what has happened, Hipsher said she has largely succeeded in moving beyond the dismal statistics and feels generally optimistic. “It’s been hardest to watch what this has meant for my husband,” she said, adding that he has been her rock.

With the help of a therapist, Hipsher said she has found “a metaphor to live by: Live life like a river trip. You pack and plan and prepare the best you can. And even though you don’t know everything that will happen downstream, you launch.”

The Pakistan government has sought the help of the World Health Organisation (WHO) to probe the recent outbreak of HIV in the country’s Sindh province, that has till now affected over 600 people, mostly children, according to a media report.

Till now 681 HIV positive cases have been identified among the 21,375 tested in Ratodero town of Larkana district in the north-west part of the province. Out of the affected 537 are between the ages of 2 to 15. Health officials have attributed the cause to the use of unsanitary equipment, unsafe blood transfusion and rampant malpractice often at the hands of quacks.

“We are expecting a 10-member rapid response team from the WHO and Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to arrive in a few days and we will be able to know the exact reason for the outbreak of the disease in Ratodero,” Zafar Mirza, Special Assistant to the Prime Minister on National Health Services, was quoted as saying by the Dawn.

The CDC is a leading public health institute in the US and works with several public health institutions in Pakistan. “We have a hypothesis that they became infected with HIV either through unscreened blood transfusions or usage of infected syringes as they are usually re-packed and re-used in unhygienic conditions. The third reason could be the lack of infection prevention and control and unprotected sex,” he said.

Police last month arrested a doctor for allegedly transferring the virus to his patients. 17 quacks in the district were also held and their clinics sealed earlier this month. Mirza said they have ordered 50,000 more HIV test kits to screen all possible patients and three more HIV treatment centres being planned in Mirpurkhas, Nawabshah and Hyderabad in the province.

He said that the number of reported HIV cases in Pakistan was much lower than the actual number of cases.

According to estimates, 163,000 people were infected with HIV in the country but only 25,000 were registered with state-run HIV programmes and out of that, only about 16,000 came regularly for treatment and medicines. He recalled that there had been HIV outbreaks in the country in the past, including in Sindh in 2016 and in Punjab in 2008.

“Our problem here is that HIV is seen as a big stigma. We need to deal with it with frankness,” Mirza said. According to a UN report, Pakistan now has the second-fastest growing rate of HIV in Asia, with about 20,000 new infections in 2017 alone.

Agencies

As India’s general election winds down, Al Jazeera reports on two most talked-about health initiatives in the country.by Nadim Asraran hour ago

New Delhi, India – Vinod Prasad Jaiswal had lost all hopes of recovery after he was diagnosed with oesophagal stricture, a condition in which the oesophagus gets narrow and makes swallowing of food difficult.

The 57-year-old scrap dealer needed immediate surgery but didn’t have the money. It was then that somebody suggested he should make use of the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY, more popularly known as “Modicare”) scheme, a part of the federal government’s Ayushman Bharat health programme.

It was in Jaiswal’s hometown Ranchi, the capital of Jharkhand state in eastern India, that Prime Minister Narendra Modi had launched his flagship PMJAY health insurance scheme in September last year.

‘Modicare’

Billed as the world’s biggest healthcare insurance programme, PMJAY provides free health cover of Rs 500,000 ($7,100) a year for serious ailments to 100 million poor families or about 500 million people. The federal government bears 60 percent of the premium while the state governments bear the remaining 40.

Analysis: What to expect if India’s Modi gets a second term?

“We didn’t have any health insurance, so we got the Ayushman health card made,” Jaiswal’s son Gaurav Kumar told Al Jazeera. “We had a lot of faith in that card.”

That faith made Jaiswal travel over a 1,000km to New Delhi’s privately-owned Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, where he became the first person to be admitted under the “Modicare” scheme. The surgery was conducted last month and he is now recovering.

Incidentally, Jaiswal was the first beneficiary of the PMJAY health insurance scheme at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, which in turn is the first multi-speciality hospital in New Delhi to join the Ayushman Bharat panel.

New Delhi along with Telangana and Odisha states did not sign up for the Ayushman Bharat scheme. As a result, hospitals in the national capital could only treat people from outside the city.

West Bengal state, which is ruled by a regional party opposed to Modi, pulled out after initially signing up to the scheme.

India’s pollution is killing millions, yet it’s not a poll agenda

“We went beyond our mandate to join the Ayushman Bharat scheme,” Sir Ganga Ram Hospital’s additional director of medicine Dr Satendra Katoch told Al Jazeera. “At least three other hospitals in Delhi have made queries after we admitted our first patient.”

The ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) spokesperson GVL Narasimha Rao told Al Jazeera that more than 1.5 million people so far have benefited from the PMJAY scheme.

“It will take year or two to get completely streamlined because more and more hospitals are joining the scheme,” he said, calling it a “roaring success”.

Two models of primary healthcare

Apart from the PMJAY scheme, the federal government’s Ayushman Bharat programme also has a primary healthcare component called the Health and Wellness Centres (HWCs).

Health experts say while the HWCs are a more comprehensive healthcare model, the money put in the programme is inadequate.

“The HWC is a gradual expansion of the existing healthcare system. It is a more integrated system because it is trying to strengthen not only clinical care but also other elements like preventive measures and diagnostics,” Indranil Mukhopadhyay, who is an associate professor at OP Jindal University on the outskirts of New Delhi, told media.

Mukhopadhyay argued that spending on a scheme such as PMJAY makes little sense since the thrust of the expenditure should be on primary healthcare.

India’s universal healthcare plan ‘failing’ the poor

“Spending more money on primary healthcare will save more money in the long run. If you look at morbidity and deaths which were preventable, you would realise a good screening programme or access to basic medicines could reduce dependence on tertiary institutions.”

The poll manifesto of the BJP, which is hoping to be re-elected in the ongoing general election, said 17,150 HWCs have become functional across India while there are plans to upgrade 150,000 health sub-centres into HWCs by the year 2022. 

Meanwhile, In India’s capital, a health programme – the Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics (AAMCs) – launched by the city government run by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), is also being talked about and even compared with the central government’s health initiative.

The refusal of the New Delhi government to join Ayushman Bharat, it seems, is also attributed to the AAP’s confidence in its flagship AAMC programme.

Aam Aadmi Mohalla Clinics

Launched in 2014, the AAP promised 1,000 such clinics across New Delhi to cater to its 19 million residents, mainly the poor, apart from a large number of city’s floating population of migrants.

Each AAMC in New Delhi was planned within a radius of 5km, with a large number of them opening around lower-middle-class neighbourhoods and urban slums.

Mehjabeen Khatoon, 36, said she had been visiting the AAMC in New Delhi’s Okhla area for the last two years.

“The medicines we used to buy from stores are costly while we find the same medicines here free of cost and the quality remains the same,” she told media, adding that the consultancy at AAMCs was also free of charge.

India’s healthcare: Private vs public sector

“The fee of any doctor is minimum Rs 200 [$3] in this area. If we include the expense for medicines, then the cost goes up to Rs 300 [about $5],” she said.

Afzal Khan, a doctor at the AAMC, said he sees at least 120 patients in a day.

“The benefits are for the patients who used to earlier go to hospitals and stand in long queues. They can now receive healthcare facilities in their own areas,” he said.

In the last four years, however, the New Delhi government has been able to establish less than 200 AAMCs as against its plan of a thousand.

India’s Hospital Train

Shaleen Mitra, private secretary to New Delhi’s health minister Satyendra Jain, said acquiring land in the national capital for the construction of AAMCs has been the biggest challenge.

“Land has been one of the most critical aspects in achieving the target set up by the New Delhi government. Whatever land belongs to the state government has already been allotted to other agencies,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mitra said the AAP government is struggling because many of the approvals are still pending with the federal government. “But the government has decided to complete the target of 1,000 clinics by the end of this year.”

‘Little political will’

However, experts such as Mukhopadhyay, who is also an activist associated with the People’s Health Movement, feel there isn’t enough “political will” in India to address the issue of healthcare.

“Currently, there is very little political will from the government to spend on healthcare in general,” he said, though he conceded that the New Delhi government is making that investment.

New Delhi’s AAP government this year allocated Rs 6,729 crore [nearly $1bn] for the health sector, which was an impressive 12 percent of its annual budget, including over Rs 400 crore [$60m] for the AAMCs.

In stark contrast, the federal government spends around one percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on health. Neighbouring Nepal spends 2.3 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on health while it’s 2 percent in Sri Lanka.

“No other civilised country spends 1.15 percent of its GDP on health. It should be one-tenth of the government budget or at least 3.5 percent of the GDP,” said Mukhopadhyay.

Aljazeera