Driving me crazy!

Tweet I've just driven from the centre of Ireland to the city of Galway and back again to catch up with a friend of ours who has been doing an intensive English course there. And although I want to concentrate on posture in this article, I first must make a few observations of what I saw in that lovely city: 1. So many people were smoking that my heart sinks for their future health, because so many of these people are young people. 2. The number of seriously overweight people was remarkable. But as we know, this is not just an Irish problem, but a universal challenge. But yet again it was the number of young people who are literally carrying 40 to 50 kilos of extra fat around on a daily basis that must inevitably lead to serious health consequences. 3. Being a tourist area there is an added emphasis on alcohol, and yet again it's the young who are at the pointy end of the problem. In all these situations there are those who are putting in a huge effort to promote a healthier alternative, but to the average punter, they are not having the required impact. One obvious casue of these problems is the ease of availability of cigarettes, fast foods and alcohol. I do not advocate prohibition, but perhaps we should look at reducing the number of outlets for each of these products within each community. Naturally there would be a screetching outcry at such a suggestion, but tough decisions need ot be made if we are not to end up paying billions of dollars in the years ahead to combat the health and social impacts of the negative consrquences of these three challenges. Meanwhile, back to the problem of posture. Maybe I am deformed - a suitable pause for ribald comments - but at my age I find that the driving seats in cars eventually will cause me neck and shoulder pains. I find that they cause me to bend forward in the seat with rounded shoulders resulting in my cervical spine (neck) being in an uncomfortable position. Unless I force myself to constantly tighten my lower abdominal muscles to fix my lumbar spine in the correct position, to stick my chest out and push my shoulders back, then after an hour I find myself with tense shoulders and the onset of a mild headache. Perhaps all the creative geniuses out there who deal with ergonomics can give me some good advice!

Alcohol and sleep disturbance

Tweet

One of my happy memories as in Intern is the ward Sister on one of the wards where I worked. In those days of open Nightingale wards with 10 patients down each side and Sister very much in charge of everything, "Frankie" ruled supreme!

One of her great delights was hidden in the linen cupboard. Here amongst the sheets and pillow slips were to be found two large Winchester bottles containing hospital grade brandy! What she did was to get the Interns to order a "wee dram" of Brandy for all the elderly ladies on the ward - and that meant 90% of the patients - which was duly administered in a cup of warm milk .... minus about 5mls of the prescribed "dose". Over a period of months she managed to fill two Winchesters that she kept for the Staff Christmas party, which was always a roaring success!!

Since then I've always been under the impression that a small drop of spirits was the least offensive form of night sedation for the elderly: but sadly recent research may be proving me wrong. What the researcher found was that sleep quality ratings were worse for those drinking alcohol compared with those who received a placebo drink in the trial. And women who drank alcohol suffered more sleep disruption than their male tipplers!

The only thing that I can say about the study was that the researchers got their subjects to drink until intoxicated, something any self respecting senior would reject with great indignity! In fact the study reinforces the serious downsides of drinking outside ones safe individual limit -as a rule of thumb that means one to two standard drinks for a woman and two to three for a man, allowing for size variations, medications, illnesses etc -.

What I'm looking forward to is the result of a trial where those with mild sleep disturbances are enrolled and one group gets the "Hot Toddy" and the other gets the Warm Milk: anyone interested?

image

Its enough to make a man drink!

Tweet Three stories appeared in the paper today all related to alcohol: two of them were about how drunken young men had ended up in court for their various misdemeanors that has left two young women with the life long scars, both physical and emotional, as a result of those encounters. The other alcohol related article was to do with Champagne quaffing Health Department Staff enjoying some Pharmaceutical Company perks on overseas trips, all of which produced a bit of "holier than thou" response from certain quarters.
To paraphrase the US astronauts on an ill-fated way to the Moon many years ago: "Mission Control: we have a problem": and the problem is alcohol.
Now we all know that there really aren't any benefits from smoking tobacco, apart from keeping heart specialist and Oncologist in business: so from a health point of view, that's a definite "No No" as far as I'm concerned. But what about alcohol then? The figures there are almost as bleak: domestic violence, MVAs, various head and neck cancers, damage to unborn children, liver and brain damage: and yet.... we still see in the media that there are positive health benefits for some middle aged people from modest alcohol consumption as it reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, and we all know that heart disease is the biggest killer of all!
So where does that leave us?
Firstly, prohibition doesn't work: it never has and I suspect, never will. BUT, we have to learn from the facts; for the vast majority of people who drink, we need to drink less; and certainly we have to teach each and every generation of young people, that Binge drinking is dicing not only with your life, but also dicing with the lives of others.
Secondly, I have to ask why is it that you can buy soft drinks, milk and water in containers of varying sizes, and yet when it comes to alcohol there is so little choice - especially with wine bottles? There is no "if" about it: we need to promote safe drinking habits and that means less is best. The chemistry of alcohol's effect on the brain is that after a couple of drinks you go from "chilling the system" to poisoning the system - there is no middle ground: so after that first or second glass you are actually paying good money to make yourself feel ill!
As for those Health Dept honchos who are probably feeling very ill from the exposure they've received in the press, you should know that there is no such thing as a free lunch!
PS If any "Company" wants to send me to Vienna, business class, and put me up at the Intercontinental for a couple of weeks .... I am open to all offers, but be aware that I will naturally pass the information onto all my dear followers: I might even send them all a postcard!