Triglycerides (TG): Be aware of it too

Dr Turin Chowdhury

In recent years, there has been an enormous apprehension regarding the foods we take. Now a days people are becoming more and more concerned about their food habit especially regarding cholesterol. This indeed is a good sign. But there is not that much awareness regarding Triglycerides (TG). But TG is also as important as cholesterol. Understanding the facts about TG will help us live a healthier life by reducing the risk for heart attack and stroke.
   
   What is TG?
   Same as cholesterol, TG is also a type of fat or lipid that is crucial to many metabolic processes in our body. TG is the chemical form in which most fat exists in food as well as in the body. These are present in blood plasma and, in association with cholesterol, form the plasma lipids. Triglycerides should not immediately be branded as bad. They are necessary for survival and are the natural byproducts of the body's daily functioning.
   
   How do we get it?
   We get TG in two ways. First, our body itself produces TG. The second is: we derive it from the fatty food that we consume. After we eat our body metabolism converts the food contents into energy for use by the body cells. Extra calories ingested in a meal, which are not used immediately by tissues are converted into TG and are transported to fat cells for being stored. When we eat, your body uses the calories it needs for quick energy. Any extra calories are turned into triglycerides and stored in fat cells to be used later. The excess calories are stored as fat regardless of what kind of food you eat-fat, carbohydrate, or protein. If we regularly eat more calories than we burn, we might end up having high triglycerides.
   Effect of high TG
   Increased level of blood TG has been associated with the build-up of plaques that can narrow or even block blood vessels. As for example we can think about what happens to our kitchen drainpipes when we continuously pour oil, chicken fat or other oily extracts of our daily cooking down the drain pipe. The fat substances get accumulated in the pipe's inner wall. The more the time goes the more accumulation increases. As a result the inner space of the drainpipe becomes relatively narrow. And now imagine the same happening in our blood vessels! As a consequence, if the vessels of the heart become blocked, this means that less blood and oxygen are getting to our heart. This can lead to chest pain and heart attacks. . A blocked blood vessel in the brain can trigger a stroke.
   The plaque layer of artery can also develop rough edges. The flowing blood can cause a part of the thick hard deposit to break off or detach and travel as thrombus, obstructing blood vessels elsewhere in the body. As for example we can think again about the condition of kitchen drainpipe mentioned earlier - like a part of the fatty substance accumulated in the inner wall of the pipe coming out with the flow of water after being detached from the pipe wall. It then flows into a narrower pipe and block it. Likewise, if a blood clot forms, gets detached, flows forward and blocks a narrower blood vessel, the point beyond that will be deprived of normal blood flow and cell death due to schemia may occur, leading to medical emergencies like heart attack and stroke.
   
   How is it diagnosed?
   A simple blood test can diagnose high TG levels. The doctor will ask one not to eat for about 12 to 14 hours before the blood is taken. This allows the triglycerides from last food to be completely eliminated. The doctor wants to know only the amount of triglycerides being made by the body, not what is produced by eating.
   
   Healthy TG level
   In general the optimal blood TG level is taken to be less than 150 mg/dl. People who have a TG level of 200 or greater are at significant risk. Blood TG levels are measured in milligrams per deciliter of blood (mg/dl).

   Symptoms
   The dangerous part of increased TG level in the body is that this condition does not produce immediate symptoms. There are no warning signs for high TG levels. Therefore, it can remain undiagnosed for a long time in a person with higher level of TG. All adults should get their TG tested every five years.
   
   Risk factors
   Diet: There are two dietary factors associated with increases in blood cholesterol levels:
   * Eating foods that are high in saturated fats. Unsaturated fat comes from plants and is liquid at room temperature (olive oil, corn oil). Saturated fat is solid at room temperature and its sources include animal fats and some tropical oils (including palm and coconut oil).
   * Eating foods containing high levels of carbohydrate and sugar containing foods.
   Weight: People who are overweight are more likely to have high blood TG. A greater risk of increased TG levels occurs when that extra weight is centered in the abdominal region, rather than in the legs or buttocks.
   Genetics: Some people are genetically predisposed to having high levels of TG. This tendency towards high blood TG level is often passed on genetically towards the off spring.
   Other Diseases: Increased TG level and its complication can be accelerated by some chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure.
   Medications: Certain drugs, such as birth control pills, steroids, and diuretics can cause TG levels to rise.
   Lifestyle: Factors that affect TG levels also include high levels of stress, cigarette smoking,[RTF bookmark start: ]BM6 less physical work out, etc
   
   Lowering TG level
   In the fight against higher level of TG there are risk factors for which we can't do anything to control, such as genetic factors. But the other factors, which are related to our life style can be modified and controlled.
   Diet Modification: Taking the followings in consideration can be useful.
   * Reduce amount of carbohydrate in the food habit. Carbohydrate appears to be the most important dietary predictor of triglycerides. Diets high in carbohydrates, especially sugar, lead to increases in triglycerides.
   * Increase the amounts of fresh fruit, vegetables in our daily diet.
   * Limit the amount of saturated fats in the diet. Since triglycerides are circulating forms of fat, it might be said that a high fat diet will raise triglycerides and a low fat diet would lower triglycerides.
   * Take measures such as removing the skin from chicken and eat lean cuts of meat.
   * Boil, bake, roast, or poach instead of frying foods.
   * Drink skim or low-fat milk. And use also skim or low-fat milk, cheese, and yogurt in cooking.
   * Use liquid or soft margarine or vegetable oils.
   * Eat egg whites rather than egg yolks.
   Life Style Modification:
   * Lose any excess body fat - loose weight.
   * Get lots of exercise everyday. Some examples of good ways to exercise include walking, house and yard work, running, swimming, jumping rope, and bicycling. Exercise is especially helpful in lowering triglycerides. The metabolic changes that occur with exercise reflect better utilization of energy by body tissues. Even in the absence of weight loss, exercise will help lower triglycerides.
   * Stop smoking or excessive drinking.
   * If someone is suffering from other chronic diseases, such as diabetes, hypertension, keeping those in control,
   Medical help
   If we are diagnosed to have TG problem, your physician will develop a treatment plan taking our total health status into consideration. Diet and exercise will still play an important role. In the event it is found that diet and exercise are not enough other treatment becomes necessary. If high TG level is caused by some other medical condition then the underlying ailment needs to be addressed. Medications may be prescribed. But the total process should be taken strictly under the doctor's continuous and regular supervision.
   The author can be contacted at dr.turin@gmail.com

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Yale Law School

Rayyan Kamal

Yale Law School (YLS) is the star of Yale's graduate schools and also outshines Yale College, the university's undergraduate program. Founded in 1843, YLS has consistently ranked first in the U.S. News and World Report's annual list of "America's Best Law Schools," except for one year, when it was tied with Harvard for first place. Both YLS's professors and alumni include countless powerhouse figures: numerous Supreme Court Justices; and former presidents like William Howard Taft, Gerald Ford and Bill Clinton. Wikipedia tells me that the YLS library "has been memorialized as the meeting place of Bill and fellow alum Hilary Clinton." I have consequently begun to study there in the hopes of channeling the spirit of the luminaries who have graced it in the past. But that is a secondary aim. My primary goal is to pick up a girl, of course.
   YLS's unusually small class size - it enrolls about 200 new students a year - coupled with its prestige and a superlatively low 7.5. student-to-faculty ratio make for an extremely competitive admissions process. Its admittance rate is the lowest among American law schools, but its yield - of the students it admits, the percentage that ends up attending - is the highest. An impressive GPA with a "difficult major," high LSAT scores (usually at or above 99th percentile) and extraordinary non-quantitative credentials are necessary to stand a chance at admission. Fifty percent of the students that entered YLS in 2005 had a GPA of above 3.87 (out of 4.0) and an LSAT score of above 171 (out of 180 possible points), which puts them in the 99th percentile.
   70 per cent of applicants are eliminated in a preliminary round of screening by the Dean of Admissions and the Director of Admissions. The files of the applicants that remain are examined by three faculty members, who give each file a score of between 0-4. A perfect score of 12 guarantees admission; those admitted are immediately informed over the phone by the Director of Admissions or the Dean of Admissions. A score of 11 usually ensures the applicant a place on the wait list.
   YLS is known for its scholarly slant - an unusually high (4%) proportion of its graduates subsequently choose careers in academia. However this is not the only anomaly that makes YLS unique among America's law schools. The institution also eschews a traditional grading system. During their first semester at YLS, students are graded on a Credit/No Credit system. For subsequent semesters there is Honors/Pass/Low Pass/Fail. The school also refrains from ranking students. Unlike other law schools, which usually have two semesters of required classes, YLS only has a single semester of such mandatory courses. Also unusual is the fact that the school allows first-year students to represent clients through one of its many clinics; other law schools typically offer this opportunity exclusively to second-year and third-year students.
   I was very proud to discover that a Bangladeshi is among YLS's students. I have yet to meet her, though.
   Rayyan Kamal is a sophomore at Yale University.

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Oh What Love!!!

Saad Quasem

What a pleasure this Valentine's Day brings to the lives of lovers of all ages and kinds. Romance seems to have shadowed the state of the globalized world. Gift stores are over stocked with either red or heart shaped presents. Heart chocolates, "I Love You" soft toys, red roses and heart printed clothes are few of the available special gift choices, one gives to their loved ones on Valentine's Day. This lover's day has been prevalent in the West since the Common Era, however the innovation of greeting card stores such as Hallmark and Archie's have made such a day a possible all over the world.
   During a ban on marriages of Roman soldiers by the Emperor Claudius II, St. Valentine secretly helped arrange marriages. Valentine's Day is mentioned by the character Ophelia in Hamlet: "Tomorrow is Saint Valentine's Day." In 1836, relics of St. Valentine of Rome were donated by Pope Gregory XVI to the Whitefriar Street Carmelite Church in Dublin, Ireland. In the 1960s, the church was renovated and relics restored to prominence.
   Many restaurants had altered their menus to offer dishes fit for the occasion. A topnotch eatery was remarked by the local press for presenting the best desert, and apparently the menu read: "Heart shaped Strawberries and cream, covered with chocolate and served in a lusty shell." The crèmes of Philadelphia like the mayor John Street, actor Will Smith and singer Patti La Belle is known to have enjoyed their nights out at this restaurant and indulge in such succulent desserts.
   Despite the gifts and the date of Valentine's Day, many Romeo and Juliet's simply enjoy the time they spend with each other and the memories this day leaves behind. Lauren, my friend experienced a wonderful situation this year and it shall be part of her memory forever and ever.
   Lauren says she has kept me completely in the dark about what her boyfriend and she would be doing or the day. At lunch that day, her boyfriend called her to look in the car. So, she went down and found a note saying, "Roses are red, chrysanthemums are blue..." Lo and behold, there was a blue chrysanthemum on the seat of her car. When she returned home, there were rose petals on the doorstep. Upon stepping inside, she saw a rose-petal path leading all the way to a table, where the Romeo had laid out a dozen roses and a gift basket full of bath gels and soaps. Then she found the rest of the poem! The rest of it read: "Chocolates are sweet and so are you." He had attached a chocolate rose to that card. This seems overly romantic, nevertheless very cherished story of hers.
   Many find Valentine's Day to be rather mushy and cliché. Another friend of mine said, if you love someone there is no time or certain day of it, every day is a celebration so why make one day special. As long as Hallmark and Archies celebrate the day with aplomb and are making big bucks, some couples enjoy it the day should be spent in accordance of the lovers.

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Maswood Alam Khan

The only son of his parents, my friend now wonders if he dies incognito in a strange land chances are that he would be cremated there instead of being buried as he would be assumed a Hindu though in reality he is a Muslim. He is uncircumcised as he didn't allow his foreskin to be removed by Hazaam (a quack surgeon who circumcises Muslim boys in rural areas) defying repeated attempts by his parents. Every time the Hazaam turned up in their house my friend, in his teens, routinely rushed to the roof of their three-story house, climbed on to the unguarded sunshade and shouted with a threat to jump down to kill himself if the Hazaam didn't leave immediately.
   Out of sheer frustrations his parents gave up and allowed their son to grow up uncircumcised. Always doted on by his parents, my friend compelled his guardians many a time to meet a plethora of his demands all his life. His last demand met was to marry a lady 10 years his senior though the marriage didn't last more than one year.
   In the recent political scenarios we have witnessed how governments had to meet demands raised by different quarters and people have learned how easy or difficult it is to organise people to compel government machinery to yield to their demands. Lessons thus learnt will invariably be used in future to realise demands, constitutional or unconstitutional.
   Pick anyone, even the naughtiest boy who never played cricket, as an umpire in your local annual cricket tournament and watch how, once he wears a white coat and a visor cap with a walkie-talkie clipped on his waist belt, he stands at ease and focuses his eyes and mind at the wicket in no lesser a grace than the way the legendary umpire David Shepherd behaves on the pitch. He cannot afford to enter history as a poor umpire. He is all on a sudden overwhelmed with unimaginable trust and the onus he had to shoulder. He is too stunned to be a biased judge.
   Now imagine a lawyer who earned tons of money during his entire juridical career. Now he is mellow in age and a little bored with money. His ego demands him to have some prestige and position to stand out in his society. He took oath as a Judge of High Court knowing full well that the pay and perks of a sitting judge is a minuscule compared to his earnings as a veteran lawyer. He hears appeals and broods days and nights before penning his judgments. He cannot afford to enter history as a biased judge. And when this same judge climbs up the ladder first to become a judge of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court and lastly reaches the pinnacle as Chief Justice he no more remains a human being -- he dwells somewhere in a gravitation-free zone between heaven and earth. He represents the Providence. He knows that there are only a few steps he has to march in humanity's temporal procession to grave. He aspires to enter history in grace and glory. He longs to be a model for others to emulate.
   A Chief Justice is a Chief Justice. He is above many judges. He is far superior to a cricket umpire. Aware that his raised forefinger will break millions of hearts, including maybe his own son's, we find David Shepherd serene and composed while pronouncing LBW in the tensest moment of a cricket match. David Shepherd does not care how his son may look at his raised finger. A Chief Justice too does not care how his chum will react when he endorses a death sentence of a chum of his chum.
   Still Chief Justices of our country fearing questions on neutrality had to say no to run as a Chief of a 90-day long caretaker government though we gladly accept a politically nominated Prime Minister, who must be deemed neutral, to run a 5-year long government if his/her party wins a razor thin majority in election. What a paradox!
   Anyway, let's turn to the tale of my uncircumcised friend. My friend is now obsessed with a research on merits and demerits of circumcision. He is also advocating in favour of declaring Sunday as weekly holiday instead of Friday.
   He wants to organise public opinions to ban circumcision. Will my friend invite fellow revolutionaries to shout with threats to commit suicide if their demand against circumcision is not met by the government the way he, in his teens, blackmailed his parents? My friend said: No. It's very simple. He needs a few tools to compel the authority to meet their demands. A few leftover tires to ignite fire, some huge bowls to cook 'khichuri' and his fiery speech to mobilise mobs. He also needs to erect a few stages where some musical soirees by females and dances by eunuchs may keep the morale of the demonstrators high and agile.

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Mecca agreement may pave way
for peace in Palestine

Khalid Mish'al

A historic new phase in the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence has begun. Last week's Mecca agreement between Hamas and Fatah will pave the way for the first ever truly Palestinian national unity government. Hamas and Fatah, joined by all the other Palestinian factions, will now seek to rebuild Palestinian society following the destruction brought upon it by Israeli occupation and resume the campaign for our national rights.
   We are determined to make sure that the recent internal fighting, which appalled our people and dismayed their supporters around the world, becomes history. We firmly believe that it would never have happened had it not been for foreign intervention and the brutal sanctions imposed on our people by Israel and its allies. The crisis would not have existed had international and regional powers respected the results of last year's democratic elections in Palestine.
   The Mecca agreement has laid the foundations for a power-sharing process that will produce a functioning government capable of attending to our people's needs. It will also pave the way for rebuilding the PLO to include all the factions and become the legitimate representative of all Palestinian people. The partnership born out of the Mecca meeting is possible because of the consensus among the Palestinians that their primary objective is to win their freedom, and that their struggle should be solely against occupation. It is now up to the international community to respect this accord and the will of the Palestinian people.
   We Palestinians have been the victims of invasion, occupation and oppression for almost a century. Yet we have been constantly blackmailed to make concessions and give up yet more of our legitimate rights. Since the elections of January 2006 our people have been boycotted and punished by the international community for exercising their democratic rights. In the meantime, Israel has continued to kill and detain Palestinians on a daily basis, demolishing hundreds of houses and making thousands homeless.
   Today Israel has more than 11,000 of our brothers and sisters in jail and continues to deny millions of refugees the right to return to their homeland. It has defied international law by proceeding with the construction of the apartheid wall and building settlements on land expropriated from Palestinians. Meanwhile, excavation resumed last week in the compound of al-Aqsa mosque, and on Friday the mosque, to which access is denied to Palestinians below the age of 45, was invaded by Israeli troops who wounded scores of worshippers.
   Now that Hamas and Fatah have agreed to form a national unity government, the international community has no excuse to maintain the siege against our people. We know that many governments around the world are unhappy with these sanctions and want to see an end to them. The Palestinian national accord achieved in Mecca envisages the establishment of a truly sovereign and independent Palestinian state on the territories occupied by Israel in June 1967 - with Jerusalem as its capital, the dismantling of the settlements in the West Bank, the release of all Palestinian prisoners and the acknowledgement of the right of the refugees to return to their homes.
   Once translated into reality, this vision will pave the way for real peace in the region. There must be no more blackmail of Palestinians, for there is nothing else they can give away. Global powers should have learned by now that neither sanctions nor any other form of pressure or bribery will force the Palestinians to abandon their struggle for freedom and independence.
   All previous peace proposals have failed because they were intended to impose an unjust pro-Israel settlement on our people, and were based on the assumption that the Palestinian struggle was a form of terrorism that the Palestinians had to renounce. The attempt to divide Palestinians into moderates and extremists or peacemakers and terrorists has failed. Now we are united in our determination to seek an end to oppression and occupation.
   So, will the international community seize this historic opportunity, require Israel to respect our rights and stop hindering this attempt to turn the Palestinian national agreement into a reality? Or will it remain weak and ineffective in the face of Israeli intransigence and risk alienating not only Hamas but also Fatah and all the other Palestinian factions?
   If the latter is the choice, the outcome will be dire indeed: the entire Middle East region will be driven towards another cycle of bloody escalation that may last for many years to come - and an entire Palestinian generation, which might not be willing to accept what we accept today, will be left profoundly embittered.
   The west needs to wake up and realise that time is no longer on the side of Israel and its policies of occupation, destruction and expansion. Time no longer favours the continuation of policies biased towards Israel. It will not serve the best interests of the west to support Israel while it continues to terrorise our people, occupy our land, violate our basic human and national rights and encroach on Muslim and Christian holy places. Such blind support has proven to be very costly for the west and will increasingly damage its vital interests.
   It must be understood by all that the people of Palestine have the key to both peace and war in the Middle East. There can never be peace and stability in the region without settling the Palestinian question. And that can only be achieved by ending the occupation and recognising our people's rights.
   Khalid Mish'al is head of the Hamas political bureau khmishal@gmail.com

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