Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Vitiligo [white patches, or leucoderma] is a chronic skin disorder. It causes depigmentation in patches of skin. The disorder occurs when melanocytes, the cells responsible for skin pigmentation, die, or are unable to function. While less than two per cent of the world’s population suffers from vitiligo, its impact is upsetting

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Gastric disorders, in everyone’s language, are often referred to as tummy problems. Now, the clichéd question. Is the apprehension of heartburn, or indigestion, ‘killing’ your pleasure of eating? Watch out: it could be gastric trouble. Call it ‘heartburn,’ ‘dyspepsia’ or hyperacidity, or whatever, more than ten per cent of individuals who

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Backache [back pain] is as common as the common cold. It affects five out of six people, some time in their life. While most cases of backache do not have any underlying ‘factors,’ the disorder attracts a huge annual cost, running into several million rupees — from absence at work to

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Stress is a blurred response to the demands that life places on us. This is also how it builds up. In the course of time, it leads to stressful frustration — an indivisible component of modern life. Our day-to-day life too has its allocation of stresses: peer pressure, marital, financial and workplace

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Psychologists suggest that parents should limit rather than eliminate their children’s TV watching and computer game play. One hour a day during the school week, and not more than two hours on weekends, would be a reasonable goal for TV watching. In addition, parents should, they suggest, eliminate violent programmes from

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR You know its import, don’t you? Or, so you thought. Either way, whether you are a physician, parent or an educator, you are right. It’s all about a new — or, old — phenomenon that is gaining ground everywhere. You’d call it a case of an entire subculture gone askew, but

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Psoriasis is a chronic progressive inflammatory disorder of the skin. Its aetiology, or cause, is obscure. Some researchers testify to its genetic predisposition. They reckon that psoriasis often tends to run in families. They also note that if both parents are affected, their offspring has a 60 per cent chance of

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR  Individuals diagnosed with osteoporosis are often prescribed lifestyle changes, along with medication. These include — Giving up smoking Ensuring adequate calcium and vitamin D intake [1,500mg per day of calcium, preferably through diet and/or supplements; 800-1,200IU [international units] of vitamin D, especially in adults aged 55+ Limiting alcohol consumption Regular exercise

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR Osteoporosis is a bone disorder. It presents with the clinical portrait of a gradual decrease in the density of bones that weakens them and makes fractures possible. Bones, as you know, contain minerals, like calcium and phosphorus; they are essential to make bones hard and dense. The body requires an adequate

Words: Dr Rajgopal NIDAMBOOR The major glands of the endocrine [hormone secretion] system, which produce one or more specific hormones, in our body, are the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, the thyroid gland, the parathyroid glands, the islets of the pancreas, the adrenal glands, the testes, and the ovaries, in men and women respectively. Not all