Health Notes

A workplace disorder
Roger Dobson
You’re irritable and restless — sometimes impulsive — at work. You fidget through meetings, lose track of appointments and jump at the sound of a mobile phone. Sometimes you wonder if you are becoming overwhelmed by the stress of your job. But then you look around and you notice that others are working just as hard, enduring the same amount of pressure — and looking just as ragged as you are. Is there something wrong with you? Or is there something wrong with the modern work culture?
Attention deficit trait (ADT) is a newly recognised workplace disorder caused by the pressure of modern office life. When the pressure gets too great, fear takes over as the driving force, and the result, it’s suggested, can be ADT, a perpetual state of low-level panic, guilt and fear, with difficulty in organising, setting priorities and managing time.
As many as one in three employees, especially managers, may have some symptoms of the disorder, but it’s claimed whole organisations can be engulfed by it, leading to widespread depression, anxiety and a host of other complications. “It’s a response to the hyperkinetic environment in which we live,” says psychiatrist Dr Edward Hallowell. “But it has become epidemic in today’s organisations”. ADT joins a growing list of workplace health problems that now include stress, anxiety, burnout, bullying, workaholism, alcoholism and post-traumatic stress. — The Independent http://www.tribuneindia.com/2006/20060719/health.htm#top



Morning sickness: Are you taking a wrong diet?

LONDON: Morning sickness may leave a woman feeling terrible, but a new study has found that it could also be the body’s way of telling her that she’s eating the wrong things.
The study was carried out at the University of Liverpool, in which researchers analysed 56 studies on morning sickness from 21 countries and looked at typical diets to see if food could play a part in the problem. It suggests that morning sickness may have come about as a way of ensuring that the foetus is not exposed to potentially damaging foods, after it was found that women who consume lots of sugars, sweeteners, fried food, meat, milk, eggs and stimulants such as caffeine and alcohol, are more likely to suffer from it.— ANI
Smoking accounts for health inequalities
LONDON: Smoking is to be blamed for half of the difference in male death rates between men in the top and bottom social classes, say international researchers.
In England, Wales, the US, Canada and Poland, men of lower social class, income or education have a two-fold increased risk of dying earlier.
More than half of this involved differences in smoking-related death risk, they found.
Experts said the Lancet study showed the impact stopping smoking could have.
Professor Sir Richard Peto, co-author from the University of Oxford, said: “Widespread cessation of smoking could eventually halve the absolute differences between these social strata in the risk of premature death.” — ANI
Genetic link found to noise-induced hearing loss
LONDON: Belgian scientists have pinpointed three genes which could explain why some people exposed to loud noise suffer hearing loss.
The genes discovered by Professor Guy Van Camp and researchers at the University of Antwerp are involved in the recycling of potassium in the inner ear, which is essential for normal hearing.
Dr Ralph Holme, of Britain’s national charity for the deaf and hard of hearing RNID, which funded the research, described the finding as a very exciting breakthrough. — Reuters
Eye artery narrowing seen in migraine NEW YORK: Adults who suffer from bouts of migraine without aura have slightly narrower retinal blood vessels, or arterioles, than adults without migraine, research shows. The finding supports the hypothesis that microvascular disease may be associated with certain types of migraine, investigators note in a report in the journal Headache.— Reuters
 
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