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November 08, 2009 Sunday

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Mathew Pereira
Sports Editor
Get a heart CT scan
June 11, 2009 Thursday, 08:57 AM
Mathew Pereira has been dispensing this advice to buddies to avert heart attacks.

AFTER a good friend suffered a massive cardiac arrest a few years ago, I had a heart- to-heart talk with him and decided to get a computed tomography scan -- or CT scan - done.

This fascinating test uses x-rays and computers to create detailed slices of your body part which allows doctors to see diseased arteries without having to do a more invasive angiogram.

What left me really pleased was the result of the scan. Like an army sergeant who had just looked through a recruit's rifle barrel, the cardiologist looked at the image of my heart and said - "Your arteries are perfectly clear."

I have been sleeping easy since. A strained chest muscle, a tight overworked tendon at the arm, a pulled upper back muscle, all these I no longer perversely interpreted as indications that a heart attack was imminent. It was for these two reasons - knowing the state of your heart and the peace of mind that came along with it - that I started recommending the CT scan to friends.

A number of my footballing buddies decided to act on my advice. One of them, a fit guy who does the occasional ultramarathon and who is always ready to race 10km with anyone, was told by the doctor after the scan - "Get up and run no more." His arteries were as clogged as a dirty fuel pump and doing more than slow walking or attempting to cover a distance of more than 3km would be suicidal, he was told.

He quit his hectic job a short while later. He now eats like a Shaolin monk, feeding on tofu and steamed vegetables, takes on part-time projects and just chills out whenever he gets the chance.

Another friend was told after his CT scan that it was a wonder he had not suffered a heart attack as yet. He too had major blockages, and at very delicate spots at that. He too gave up eating like Oprah Winfrey and decided on a complete lifestyle change especially when it came to eating.

My brother-in-law was a tough one to crack. He took some persuading before he agreed to a CT scan though the cardiologist who saw him did not take very long to convince him that he had to be back within a week to get fitted with three stents because of serious blockages.

Did my advice play a part in helping these buddies avert a heart attack? I think so. All of them learnt about their condition and altered their lifestyle drastically.

But the amount of radiation a CT scan subjects the body to is not to be ignored. When I first wrote on my experience, a reader, presumably a doctor disagreed with what I had done because of the high level of radiation the procedure entailed.

A Reuters report said recent studies have raised alarm about such scans, which it said exposed patients to double, triple or quadruple the radiation exposure of an angiogram, raising cancer risks. So it is good news that US researchers have found a way to cut the radiation dose from a heart CT scan by half without sacrificing the quality of the scan.

But even at the current high levels of radiation, my health tip to friends who have serious concerns about chest pains and such that have been plaguing them would still be - Go get a CT scan. I believe some of them are still around today because they did just that.



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Total comments: 4
tragicu
June 21, 2009 Sunday

pangangmati ; i think u're a real pathetic no lifer ****.

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pangangmati
June 17, 2009 Wednesday

Two replies to this blog!!! Shows great promise that readers are interested in this subject, eh?
But what is glaring is the contempt ST has shown by Mathew not even bothering to reply to either of these ONLY two replies. But does one expect any better from the Straits Times?

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amanstbasher
June 11, 2009 Thursday

A good one Mathew.
Some of my friends are talking about it and or had it done recently.
However, it would have been better had you told us what you paid or what it costs to have a CT scan.
My friends tell me its in the region of $1000 plus.
If so, how does the average man-in-the-street afford this "luxury."
On Medisave?
Is it also possible that the idea of a CT scan has been too hyped up?
Have we become a nation fixated with this new "thing"
Little wonder then that these specialists are awash with the dosh.
There was a time you had friends over to show off your holiday snaps.
The new coffee table book...now seems to be showing off ones CT scan results.



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singaporean11
June 11, 2009 Thursday

Hi Mathew, the real cause of heart disease and blood concentration is deep dehydration. Advise all your buddies to use water-cure protocol formula: drink 10 % of your own daily water quota,which is 31.42 ml multiply with your present body weight(kg), every 90 minute. And use 1/4 teaspoon of sea-salt for every 1250 ml water intake daily in your diet.
More interesting details at http;//theinnozablog.blogspot.com too.

Sample article as follow:five societal changes worth supporting?
YES! 5 SOCIETAL CHANGES WORTH SUPPORTING.

5.Accept Alternative Remedies - Surveys of allopathic (Western) medical practitioners reveal a widening acceptance of integrative healing practices and strategies. A poll of 700 U.S. physicians in year 2005, found that 64% had recommended treatments from the field of alternative medicine to their patients. Do your own homework. Read, blog, research the track records of alternative and integrative approaches to health and healing.

4. Make Dining a Health Education Opportunity - We can hope that in restaurants of the near future, menus will describe the health benefits - not just the caloric intake - of each food choice. One page might feature dishes designed to promote a healthy heart, a win-win situation for all. Another page would spotlight dishes with cancer-prevention ingredients. To make that a reality, we need to be vocal customer (custom-made for your body) and let the restaurant industry know that our patronage will be dependent on their exercise of social responsibility. When the customers live longer and healthy, the restaurants also gain in the long term. The whole society benefits when more customers are healthy and enjoy eating together.

3. Encourage Preventive Health Care - New tools are emerging that will affirm the old adage "good health is easier to preserve than it is to repair." We know that illness and disease can be triggered by an interaction between our genes and chemical toxins we have ingested or absorbed. Dehydration is the main cause of many body pains and disease. Self-diagnosis will soon be advanced by genome medicine, which will enable us to decipher our genetic weaknesses and identify those specific toxins that can initiate disease processes in us. This technology can result in more individualized types of health care that will include accurate in-home testing.

Another advance is the BioPhotonic Scanner: a device measures the levels of antioxidants in the human body. Invented by physicians at the University of Utah in 2001, it emits a low-energy laser light into the palm of your hand and reads the health of your immune system, enabling you to identify vitamin and mineral supplements that might remedy deficiencies and strengthen your immunity. Water deficiency cannot be tested from blood test, so ensure you drink enough every day to prevent dehydration at cellular level to set in. Nutrient testing should become a standard part of physical exams to measure immune system health. Water is also a nutrient.

2. Create a Naturally Occurring Standard - To insure that vitamin and mineral supplements are natural and taken directly from plant sources, and do not contain synthetics of any sort, a Natural Occurring Standard (NOS) needs to be implemented with an NOS certification logo. This will help some if not all customers to eliminate the confusion and deception we now see practiced by some elements of the supplements industry that attempt to make naturals and synthetics indistinguishable. But the human body is more complicated than we think. "natural" implies neither that is "good" nor "bad". Many things that are "natural" - like snake venom and certain toxic plants - can be deadly to humans. This word "naturally" is merely used to described a process or phenomenon that relates to, or has been produced by, Nature rather than humans.

Such a certification might also be a worthwhile addition to - or substitution for - the "organic" label on food products, a label under constant threat of dilution/illusion by food processing companies.

1. Pressure from Consumers to the Toxins Manufacturers - Under the public scrutiny and pressure from San Francisco's Breast Cancer Fund and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics in 2005, two cosmetics companies, Revlon and L'Oreal USA, agreed to purge their products of chemicals identified by the European Union as possible causes of cancer, birth defects, and infertility. Unilever, another company agree to remove phthalates from its nail polish. None of these voluntary actions wold have happened without public pressure from wise consumer and customer groups. We are wise and beautiful people striving for real healthy wealth for all.

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