Is Salt Good or Bad for You Now?

You’ve always been told that high salt diet is one of the biggest environmental factors that raise blood pressure and cause hypertension. And then you read an article that has an attractive title on a well-known news site that tells you hey, maybe salt isn’t all that bad, maybe low salt diet can even cause harm!. So after 10 minutes of poring over the article, you’re left in a befuddled state of mind, not knowing what to believe. I don’t blame you.

The author of the article started off by claiming that the reason we were told salt is so deadly is because of it “biological plausibility” – eat more salt and your body will retain more water to maintain a stable concentration of sodium in your blood; this increase in fluid retention in the body will increase your blood pressure, and in time, if this become a chronic situation and your kidneys don’t function as well to eliminate sodium and water, it’ll cause hypertension, then stroke, and then it’ll kill you prematurely (I’m merely paraphrasing what the author wrote).

He went on to say how there hasn’t been any meaningful experiments to show that, by citing a couple of examples (you can read the article to get the full story). According to the article, although researchers acknowledged that the data supporting the now-widely-common belief of “eating less salt will reduce hypertension” is “inconclusive and contradictory”, this link between salt and BP has nevertheless been upgraded from hypothesis to fact by some cardiologist. Okay, I’m still following. Assuming he did his fact-check and they’re all accurate, I get what he’s trying to say. It wasn’t until the following sentence that I start to doubt his credibility: he made a comment on the DASH-sodium study, saying that while “it suggested that eating significantly less salt would modestly lower blood pressure, it said nothing about whether this would reduce hypertension, prevent heart disease or lengthen life”. Uhh… did I just read this??? Though his sentence might sound intellectual and profound, it is anything but. If lowering BP does not mean reducing hypertension, then I don’t know what definition of ‘hypertension’ he’s using. Seriously. Can you blame me for not taking his article seriously?

I have no interest in what he has to say anymore after that point, but read on anyway. He basically wrote that there were actually studies done that showed people who ate less salt were more likely to have heart disease than those eating normal amount of salt. Don’t know how true his facts were, but I can’t help but roll my eyes. So at the end of the day, his whole article is moot. His what-seemed-like-a-controversial piece is just trying to tell us what we should’ve known all along – to eat in moderation. Who doesn’t know that?!  -__-  Sigh. What a waste of my time!!

Study Break

This is one of my favorite songs that has been on loop during the heme-onc block:

This is a nerd version of that song that’s just priceless. Hilarious! Enjoy:

The Neighborhood Kidnap Story


It’s always just someone else’s story, stories you only read on the news-  until one day it happens to you. Got to come to one’s senses and realize that things like kidnapping, rape, or robbery, are real; and it happens around us all the time. Every day. Heck, it could very well be you or me, if we’re unlucky enough. Be careful when you go out, friends! 
Here’s the story about the girl who had a close encounter the other day at The Curve: https://www.facebook.com/notes/chin-xin-ci/30-hours-ago-i-escaped-from-being-kidnapped/10150980821959859 

Snuffed-

These days you read about people committing suicide here and there. There’s the 24 y/o young medical student who thinks he’s Shakespeare or Casablanca or whatever who committed suicide because he wanted to bless his girlfriend’s love for another guy; then there’s the 12-year old boy who committed suicide with a shoelace because he couldn’t go back to the hometown to spend time with grandmother. Seriously????!!!! WTF is wrong with these people?? What is it with these people that made them do what they did? Or rather, what is it about the society at large that cultivated such people or such “trend”, if you will?

I’m asking questions I have no answer to. I doubt anyone does. Quite frankly, in regard to this matter, I am annoyed. And disturbed by the growing rates of suicides – not just in this country but in general. It’s not that I’m heartless or have no empathy at all; it’s just that my concern on the “trend of things” greatly outweighs my condolences for the families who have to go through this pain of loss. In fact, it’s precisely this strong sense of unfairness toward the surviving families that induced this feeling of indignation. Know what I mean? How they belittled the life given to them by their parents! Their moms especially! Who had to go through 10 months of carrying them around, nurturing them, risking their own life for them, etc. … and the sacrifices from both parents go on for way more than just 10 months. All this was dismissed by those who decided, whether on a whim or after contemplating for some time, to end their life right there- for whatever reason they deemed justifiable, just seemed so incredibly irresponsible to me. Maybe I’m being judgmental for saying what I said. Maybe they really did feel such excruciating pain that is on par with that of an end-stage [fill in the blank] metastatic cancer that they just couldn’t bear to live any longer. Maybe so. I don’t know. But to take their lives so lightly without even reconsidering it and thinking about the repercussions of their actions (and I’m assuming all this- but for good reason, because if they did they wouldn’t have jumped the gun), or so much as discussing it with someone? I think that just shows how much how little they value their lives.

Okay. Phew. Enough ranting. All I wanna say is, life is so much more than just that one incident that might have crushed you at that time. Gotta learn how to deal with things when things don’t turn out the way you want it to; gotta learn how not to take life too seriously. But at the same time, it shouldn’t be taken too lightly as to snuff it out in reaction to any unpleasant situation. After all, everyone will get there, eventually. Why rush into it?

Last but not least, to those “strawberry generation” who needed some sound advice, here it is: suck it up, and deal with it!  Yes, it’s free. You’re welcome.

The World Lost A Good One

am trying to study here, but my mind keeps going back to the news i heard yesterday. on may 22, someone from my high school (a close friend of my close friend) passed away. i don’t know much, all i know is that he had some cancer some years ago and towards the end (i.e. the last i heard, few months ago) he wasn’t getting treatment anymore, probably because it’s end-stage.

i wanna write more, but i don’t know him enough to do so. yet even so, it breaks my heart to know someone with such a good heart has to leave the world at such a young age. it’s too soon. too soon.

alas, life is brutal. and it’s unfair. i hope his family and loved ones are coping well.
rest in peace, friend. wherever you’re at, i wish you love, and peace.

The Oatmeal- On Nikola Tesla

I take no credit in any part of this, just wanted to share it because it cracks me up. If you’re my friend and you have the same kind of humor as I do, you’ll like it for sure. If you’re not, well, I’m 88% sure you’ll like it too. 


Enjoy! (Click on the picture below.)

Reunion

10 years ago I went to Russia with these friends. Left the place 8 years ago, and I haven’t seen some of them for that long. Now they’re all doctors (except one, who came back like I did), and I’m still back where I first started with them a decade ago. Hard as I try to not think about it, sometimes thoughts invade my stream of consciousness without my consent, and I wonder how I’d turn out if I had just stuck on. I suspect I would’ve turned out just fine, but that’s me speaking in present time, and I couldn’t have known that way back then. There were many reasons why I left, it’s much more complicated that the simplified version I tell people. But there’s only so much of explanation one can provide, and sometimes I’m just too lazy to explain myself to everyone. After all, I don’t owe anyone an explanation (except for my dad who paid for it), just like how they’re free to perceive my actions. Anyway. Not that it matters now. Just glad I got to see them. We were all quite close back then; I hope it won’t take another 8 years before we see each other again. 🙂

Cendol Hunt on a Monday Afternoon

the sun was scorching hot today, just like yesterday, and the day before yesterday, and the day before the day before yesterday… classes ended earlier today; got my last shot of Hep B vaccination, and off we went in search of cendol, because my classmate Mior was craving for it. ended up at this mini pasar petang (because it’s not pasar malam) at the roadside, where there were probably 7-8 stalls selling deep-fried snacks, noodles, cold drinks etc. – basically all greasy unhealthy food, or, as Phil will say, crappy Malaysian food 😛. but Mior wanted cendol and we just wanted to snack, so who cares about the LDL that would deposit itself on our arteries. so we found a place to sit, ordered food, and enjoyed them under the good ol’ Malaysian sun. as i sat there perspiring like a caveman with hyperactive sweat glands, i realized – this must be the first time for a very, very long time that i actually hung out at a place like this (i.e. open air, roadside, no shades except for the huge umbrellas they put up) at this ohmygod-so-hot-can-die hour. usually the me i know would run the opposite direction and choose an air-conditioned place to chill. not that it’s a big thing, but i feel a little more “Malaysian” than my usual self, if that’s even the right word to describe how i feel. for once, i don’t mind the heat, and because of that i’m highly amused by it. or, could it be, subconsciously i was just trying to feel less guilty about not practicing for the half-marathon as i was supposed to today by choosing another activity that has the same outcome of sweating profusely and soaking self in salt water?! hmmm…

in any case, Mior’s cendol craving wasn’t fulfilled as the stall has closed. looks like there will be another makan outing in the name of cendol fix. 🙂

on another note, i really should brush up my BM. even the foreigner classmate is ganging up with the rest of them ejek-ing my lack of proficiency. T.T

Sharing is Caring 04/30/12

Thought my friends would find these links interesting:

  1. What’s the trouble? by Jerome Groopman – As we go for our longitudinal clerkship every week, witnessing our preceptors diagnose their patients accurately and quickly (most of the time), I wonder how they do it, and if they ever got it wrong sometimes, or missed something. This article talked about how doctors think, how sometimes they, too, can make errors even when they have the best of intentions. Heuristic errors. This article made me want to read his book, titled ‘How Doctors Think’. Adding that to my to-read list.
  2. The Paradox of Altruism, by Jonah Lehrer – I’ve always wondered- are human beings inherently good, or bad? What about altruism? Does it truly exist, or is it just cover-up? Lehrer explores this topic, but this article is but a teaser. The complete article is in The New Yorker, of which you need to be a subscriber to read it. A poor med student like me don’t get to read it, so if anyone has it and would like to share, please shoot me an email. 🙂  
  3. Finding Your Purpose and Doing What You Love: Brain Pickings – More often than not you meet people who don’t really know what they love (to do). Most are just going with the flow, so to speak, and doing what they think they’re supposed to do. Of these people, most don’t care if they ever find out what they’re truly passionate about. But a tiny fraction of people do. This is for those tiny fraction of people. And even if you already know what you want to do, it doesn’t hurt looking at what some others have to say on this. There’s a lot of wisdom in this link. Worth your time, I promise. 
  4. Patient of the Future: Technology Review – The future of medicine will be smacked right in the middle of some form of technology, whether we like it or not. At least that is how it seems to be at this point in time. Sure, there’ll be people who frown upon technology playing an increasingly larger role in medicine, but it is bound to happen anyway. Better to think of ways to resolve whatever predictable problems than to resist the inevitable force. That’s not to say we shouldn’t care about the art of medicine though, the humane aspect of things. In a time where we will rely more on tech, it is even more important that doctors master the art and use tech to achieve better health outcomes. 

Cowboys vs. Pit Crews

“We have trained, hired, and rewarded people to be cowboys. But it’s pit crews that we need, pit crews for patients.” – Atul Gawande

If you haven’t read his book ‘The Checklist Manifesto’, watching this video kinda sums it up. But if you ask me, I say you should read the book nonetheless. That and the other 2 books before that. His writing is clean and crisp, and he’s a great storyteller. And if you’re in the health care industry, you’ll love the books even more. Enjoy!