FICCI Ladies Meet: Lifespan depends on genes, quality of life

Hyderabad: The FICCI Ladies Organisation held an interactive, educational session about gastrointestinal health and living for its members in the city on Monday. The session, called “Love yourself enough to live a healthy lifestyle,” was led by Dr D. Nageshwar Reddy, chairman of the Asian Institute of Gastroenterology along with Dr Rupa Banerjee, consultant gastroenterologist and director, IBD Clinic.    

Dr Reddy spoke on why diseases affected longevity. “Whenever the topic of longevity comes up, we always say ‘there's something else’ and that is genes,” Dr Reddy said, adding that genes and the quality of life determines how long you live. The second factor, bacteria, exist in our intestinal tract, and Dr Reddy said that it was only recently discovered how important they were. “If you take medicine, how it acts is not because of the medicine alone, but how the bacteria reacts to it,” he said.

Dr Rupa focussed on acidity and acid reflux. “Gastric acidity and reflux affect people of all ages,” she said. “Today, the US and India are competing with each other in GEI prevalence. In India, about 4-7% of people suffer from heartburn daily and 34-44% have it once a month.”

Both doctors stressed that early diagnosis could help people know for certain whether intervention is needed. Dr Reddy gave the example of US news anchor Katy Couric, who had a colonoscopy performed on television, after her husband died of colon cancer because he was diagnosed too late. This made the procedure popular and forced the US government to make a law that made it compulsory for people over 50 to get colonoscopy done. Dr Rupa said, “An early diagnosis can cure the complication. Endoscopy is a must for evaluation and it is very simple. If drugs don’t work, endoscopic treatment can be done, and only a few cases may need surgery.”

The doctors also explained how simple things like lifestyle changes could go a long way in preventing diseases. “Simple things like isolation of patients helped control Ebola,” said Dr Reddy. Dr Reddy said for obesity surgical procedures aren’t always the solution. He explained how genome mapping can help prevent cancer from spreading.

FLO also used the opportunity to launch a skill development initiative, “Women In Transport.” The scheme aims to teach poor urban women how to drive so that they can become cab drivers. They aim to help around 1,500 women.

FLO chairperson Rekha Lahoti said, "We're giving them free driving lessons from Maruti Suzuki Driving School and we're doing this together with the government of Telangana and the Regional Transport Authority."