Categories
Herbs & Plants

Cyclea hypoglauca

Botanical Name : Cyclea hypoglauca
Family : Menispermaceae
Domain: Eukaryotes
Kingdom: Plants
Division: Vascular plants
Class: Dicotyledonous flowering plants
Order: Ranunculales
Genus: Cyclea

Synonyms:
*Cyclea migoana Yamam.
*Cyclea deltoidea Miers
*Cissampelos hypoglauca Schauer

Habitat : Cyclea hypoglauca is native to E. Asia – China. It grows on open woods and shrub thickets. Forest edges or bushes on hills. S Hunan, C & S Jiangxi, C & S Fujian, SE Yunnan, Guangxi, Guangdong, Hainan Provinces.
Description:
Cyclea hypoglauca is a dicotyledonous plant species first described by Johannes Conrad Schauer, and received its current name of Friedrich Ludwig Diels. It is a perennial vine, woody when old, glabrous except for hairy leaf axils. Branchlets slender. Petiole slender, 1.5-4 cm; leaf blade usually conspicuously peltate, ovate-triangular to ovate, 2.5-7 × 1.5-4.5 cm or slightly more, papery, both surfaces glabrous or sparsely whitish puberulent, base truncate to rounded, margin entire, slightly involute, apex acuminate, palmately 5-7-veined, slender, reticulation not very conspicuous. Inflorescences axillary. Male inflorescences scattered spicate; rachis unbranched or sometimes shortly branched at base, slender, glabrous; bracts small, lanceolate. Male flowers: sepals 4 or 5, free, obovate or obovate-cuneate, 1-1.2 mm; petals 4 or 5, usually connate, cup-shaped, rarely free, 0.5-1(-1.5) mm; synandrium slightly exserted, 1-1.2 mm. Female inflorescences thicker, thyrsoid; rachis conspicuously twining, up to 10 cm. Female flowers: sepals 2, rotund, ca. 0.8 mm in diam.; petals 2, unequal, large one ca. as long as sepals; ovary glabrous. Drupes red, glabrous; endocarp ca. 3.5 mm, subtruncate or slightly emarginate, abaxially bearing 3 rows of tubercles, row bordering condyle sometimes inconspicuous.

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Cultivation:
We have very little information on this species and do not know if it will be hardy in Britain. However, judging by its native range, it could succeed outdoors at least in the milder areas of the country. The following notes are based on the general needs of the genus. Plants are dioecious, both male and female plants must be grown if seed is required.

Propagation :
Seed –
Medicinal Uses:
Anodyne, carminative, depurative, diuretic, febrifuge

Disclaimer : The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplement, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider.

Resources:
http://www.pfaf.org/user/Plant.aspx?LatinName=Cyclea+hypoglauca
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=auto&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fsv.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FCyclea_hypoglauca

Cyclea hypoglauca

Categories
News on Health & Science

Device For Your Heart

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Shabina Akhtar on a new instrument that records the heart‘s functioning and shows exactly what goes wrong during a fainting spell .
CLICK & SEE THE PICTURE

When V.S. Prasad, 58, lost consciousness for about half a minute in his bathroom last September, none of the doctors he went to initially could fathom why. They thought it was a case of syncope  simply temporary loss of consciousness. All the usual tests failed to give any indicationsEven the 24-hour Holter monitoring(an ambulatory electrocardiography device for monitoring the heartbeat  round the clock) failed to indicate any underlying heart disorder. The Tilt test (to detect syncope of neurological origin), too, was negative because of which the neurologist ruled out epilepsy,” says Arunangshu Ganguly, consultant interventional cardiologist at the Apollo Gleneagles Hospital, Calcutta.

Prasad’s case is not uncommon; cardiologists worldwide are often faced with such tricky situations. Dr Emilio Vanoli, associate professor at the Dipartimento di Cardiologia Policlinico of Monza, Italy, says: Syncope is a symptom that a doctor needs to interpret. Unfortunately, in more than 40 per cent of cases, it goes unregistered.” Lack of awareness — even among doctors — makes things difficult, he adds. Patients who complain of fainting spells are often treated as epileptics and the cardiac problem, if any, goes undetected. Similarly, epileptics are sometimes wrongly implanted with pacemakers.

Prasad was, however, more fortunate. Says Dr Ganguly: “I suspected some electrical problem in his heart. But none of the tests backed my intuition. Then I advised him to get an Insertable Loop Recorder (ILR) implanted. The device records the heart’s functioning, providing evidence of what goes wrong during a fainting spell.”

So when Prasad fainted again in December, he pressed the activator button on regaining consciousness. This, to store data about how his heart had behaved during the episode.

When Dr Ganguly analysed the data, he found that Prasad’s heart had stopped beating for nearly 20 seconds. The doctor then concluded that Prasad was suffering from an abnormally low heart beat rate — less than 60 beats a minute is a cause for worry — and needed a pacemaker.

Launched in India in October 2007, the ILR has been on the US market for some years now. It costs around Rs 35,000 to get the thumb-sized device inserted through a non-invasive procedure under local anaesthesia. It has a battery life of 14 months, during which it can continuously record the user’s heart beat.

The ILR promises to be of great use to many. “About 1.5 million people worldwide suffer from unexplained syncope. In almost 10 per cent of cases syncope has a cardiac cause, in 50 per cent a non-cardiac cause, and in the remaining 40 per cent of cases the cause remains unknown. The recorder is of great help as the fainting occurs suddenly and for a very brief duration. Moreover, there is no definite pattern of repetition, which makes documentation very difficult. We cannot perform an electrocardiograph (ECG) right then and the ECGs before and after are usually normal,” explains Dr Vanoli.

With the number of patients complaining of unexplained loss of consciousness increasing, unfortunately, there are instances where pacemakers are implanted without proper documentation of the cause, says Dr Ganguly. Not all cases of loss of consciousness are due to cardiological reasons; neurological, metabolic and other factors too could be at play.

The heart, explains the doctor, is an electromechanical pump which uses its muscles to continuously pump blood to the body system. The valves in it ensure a uni-directional blood flow. A mechanical failure of the organ doesn’t lead to syncope except when there is a critical obstruction in the outflow valve or when there is an uncoordinated contraction of the heart muscles. All other causes of loss of consciousness attributed to a cardiological reason are due to a power failure in the electrical supply to the heart. This electrical supply originates in a generator (Sinus node) and is carried through a nerve to a distribution box (AV node) from where it reaches the heart by means of three nerves (one right bundle and two left bundles). Now when the generator or distribution point or any of the wires becomes incapable of providing uninterrupted power flow to the heart, the heart stops functioning and the brain — on not getting its blood supply — switches off, and the person faints. A stoppage of more than three seconds is fatal. And that is where you need an inverter to back you up, which is a pacemaker.
………………………………

The ILR has helped us provide evidence-based treatment rather than fall back on presumptive management,” says Dr Ganguly. However, the cost could pose a problem for some, he feels.

Nonetheless, it comes as a huge relief to many people, sparing them the travails of presumptive management of their disease.

Sources: The Telegraph (Kolkata, India)

Categories
Exercise

Cycling

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Most people follow three paths to good health DOCTOR,DIET and EXERCISE. Some times normal people who decides to respond to health alert tend to go to overboard on neutrition and adopt the wrong exercise.

Rather than exortic neutrents,normal human being needs a diet consisting mainly of grains,fruits,and vegetables with reduced amount of meat and cheese. Rather than weightlifting, TV “aerobics” and so on.. We actually need true arobic exercise that help to strengthen the heart, such as fast walking,cycling,swmming,jogging etc.

I believe byclicing has several extra advantagse over the other exercises:-

A. Cycling exercises the heart better than walking without the pounding of jogging.

B. One can ride bicycle almost all the places,at any time of the year, and at a low cost.

C.A very little or no time has to be lost , as bike travel can be used to go to work,performe errands , or enjoy the out doors.(when the weather condition is favourable)
D.Commuting by bike reduces POLLUTION (which is today’s great concern )that causes several diseases like asthma,bronchitis etc.A commuting cyclist is also less exposed to air pollution than a commuting motorist.(ofcourse, one can do it as and when it is possible to do)

On the down side, cycling does involve some risk of injury which has been greatly exaggerated by fearmongers. Cycling actually has similar risks to traveling by automobile.

BUT ONE SHOULD ALWAYS TAKE PROPER SAFETY PRECAUTIONS WHILE CYCLING ,LIKE WEARING HELMET,FOLLOWING ROAD RULES ETC.

Children and teen agers enjoy riding bycycle. Every parent should encourage them to learn bycycle riding.

Between the ages of five and eight is the most popular time for kids to learn how to ride a bicycle. Make it the most popular time to learn safe riding skills, too.

At the time of teaching kids how to ride bycycle ,certain steps to taken care of.

Here are the steps:

  • First, teach them the four rules to avoid fatal crashes!
  • :1.Never ride out into the street without stopping first. 2. Always obay stop signs. 3.Check always before turing. 4. Never follow another rider without applying the rules.
  • Then, teach them to wear a helmet,
  • Then, help them learn to balance and ride according to the rules.

Many parents begin and end with teaching balance. But step one is the most important: teaching your child how to avoid the situations that produce hundreds of dead children every year. And you probably are aware already that a helmet is essential when they make a mistake. Teaching them to balance is the easiest part for most kids. Then you have to practice the basic safety rules in actual riding. It can take you an extra couple of hours, but the result is well worth the effort!

Now The Fun Part: Time to Ride and Practice the Rules

Start with a helmet, gloves to protect the skin on their hands and perhaps even skaters’ knee and elbow pads for the first rides. Adjust the bicycle for your child and be sure they can reach pedals, bars and brakes comfortably.Brakes first! Show your kid how to stop the bike. Hold them up and gently move them forward as they use the brakes to stop until you are sure they know how.

Balance: Run alongside the bike, holding it up by the seat with one hand on the handlebars to show how you turn them to keep the bike upright.

Riding: Nobody learns without practice. Riding with your child is probably the best way to practice the rules. Go over the rules, then ride, stopping occasionally to review what they have just done and praise their good performance,never shout much for little mistake,rather encourage for rectification. Notice that if they are behind you, your rule about not following automatically will be severely challenged, even if you ride through a red light or directly into the path of a car! As with almost any other skill, practice is required to ingrain techniques. More than one session will be needed. But the result is worth your time

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