M.E.(Env. Engg.)
Mobile: 9899300371
New Delhi, India
Environmental Engineer at Envo Projects,Delhi,India.www.envoprojects.com I am collecting Articles i found interesting here so that i can read them at my leisure later on.This blog is for my own self improvement.TO AVOID COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS, ALL POSTS ARE SHOWN ALONG WITH SOURCES FROM WHERE ITS TAKEN.PLEASE CONTACT ME IF YOU ARE THE AUTHOR AND YOUR NAME IS NOT DISPLAYED IN THE ARTICLE. +918076071358(WHATSAPP)
Subject: Sleep and Heart Attacks - What Killed Ranjan Das CEO SAP
Let's sleep more. I scored a 10 in the Sleepiness Test which is not good at all.
What killed Ranjan Das and Lessons for Corporate India
A month ago, many of us heard about the sad demise of Ranjan Das from Bandra, Mumbai. Ranjan, just 42 years of age, was the CEO of SAP-Indian Subcontinent, the youngest CEO of an MNC in India. He was very active in sports, was a fitness freak and a marathon runner. It was common to see him run on Bandra's Carter Road. Just after Diwali, on 21st Oct, he returned home from his gym after a workout, collapsed with a massive heart attack and died. He is survived by his wife and two very young kids.
It was certainly a wake-up call for corporate India. However, it was even more disastrous for runners amongst us. Since Ranjan was an avid marathoner (in Feb 09, he ran Chennai Marathon at the same time some of us were running Pondicherry Marathon 180 km away), the question came as to why an exceptionally active, athletic person succumb to heart attack at 42 years of age.
Was it the stress?
A couple of you called me asking about the reasons. While Ranjan had mentioned that he faced a lot of stress, that is a common element in most of our lives. We used to think that by being fit, one can conquer the bad effects of stress. So I doubted if the cause was stress.
The Real Reason
However, everyone missed out a small line in the reports that Ranjan used to make do with 4-5 hours of sleep. This is an earlier interview of Ranjan on NDTV in the program 'Boss' Day Out':
http://connect.in.com/ranjan-das/play-video-boss-day-out-ranjan-das-of-sap-india-229111-807ecfcf1ad966036c289b3ba6c376f2530d7484.html
Here he himself admits that he would love to get more sleep (and that he was not proud of his ability to manage without sleep, contrary to what others extolled).
The Evidence
Last week, I was working with a well-known cardiologist on the subject of 'Heart Disease caused by Lack of Sleep'. While I cannot share the video nor the slides because of confidentiality reasons, I have distilled the key points below in the hope it will save some of our lives.
Some Excerpts:
· Short sleep duration (<5 or 5-6 hours) increased risk for high BP by 350% to 500% compared to those who slept longer than 6 hours per night. Paper published in 2009.
As you know, high BP kills.
· Young people (25-49 years of age) are twice as likely to get high BP if they sleep less. Paper published in 2006.
· Individuals who slept less than 5 hours a night had a 3-fold increased risk of heart attacks. Paper published in 1999.
· Complete and partial lack of sleep increased the blood concentrations of High sensitivity C-Reactive Protein (hs-cRP), the strongest predictor of heart attacks. Even after getting adequate sleep later, the levels stayed high!!
· Just one night of sleep loss increases very toxic substances in body such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6), Tumour Necrosis Factor-Alpha (TNF-alpha) and C-reactive protein (cRP). They increase risks of many medical conditions, including cancer, arthritis andheart disease. Paper published in 2004.
· Sleeping for <=5 hours per night leads to 39% increase in heart disease. Sleeping for <=6 hours per night leads to 18% increase in heart disease. Paper published in 2006.
Ideal Sleep
For lack of space, I cannot explain here the ideal sleep architecture. But in brief, sleep is composed of two stages: REM (Rapid Eye Movement) and non-REM. The former helps in mental consolidation while the latter helps in physical repair and rebuilding. During the night, you alternate between REM and non-REM stages 4-5 times.
The earlier part of sleep is mostly non-REM. During that period, your pituitary gland releases growth hormones that repair your body. The latter part of sleep is more and more REM type.
For you to be mentally alert during the day, the latter part of sleep is more important. No wonder when you wake up with an alarm clock after 5-6 hours of sleep, you are mentally irritable throughout the day (lack of REM sleep). And if you have slept for less than 5 hours, your body is in a complete physical mess (lack of non-REM sleep), you are tired throughout the day, moving like a zombie and your immunity is way down (I've been there, done that L)
Finally, as long-distance runners, you need an hour of extra sleep to repair the running related damage.
If you want to know if you are getting adequate sleep, take Epworth Sleepiness Test below.
Interpretation: Score of 0-9 is considered normal while 10 and above abnormal. Many a times, I have clocked 21 out the maximum possible 24, the only saving grace being the last situation, since I don't like to drive (maybe, I should ask my driver to answer that lineJ)
In conclusion:
Barring stress control, Ranjan Das did everything right: eating proper food, exercising (marathoning!), maintaining proper weight. But he missed getting proper and adequate sleep, minimum 7 hours. In my opinion, that killed him.
If you are not getting enough sleep (7 hours), you are playing with fire, even if you have low stress.
I always took pride in my ability to work 50 hours at a stretch whenever the situation warranted. But I was so spooked after seeing the scientific evidence last week that since Saturday night, I ensure I do not even set the alarm clock under 7 hours. Now, that is a nice excuse to get some more sleep. J
Unfortunately, Ranjan Das is not alone when it comes to missing sleep. Many of us are doing exactly the same, perhaps out of ignorance. Please forward this mail to as many of your colleagues as possible, especially those who might be short-changing their sleep. If we can save even one young life because of this email, I would be the happiest person on earth.
Please copy/paste the following text to properly cite this HowStuffWorks article:
Bryant, Charles W. "How are sleep and heart disease related?." 03 September 2008. HowStuffWorks.com. <http://health.howstuffworks.com/sleep-and-heart-disease.htm> 11 November 2009.
Inside this Article
Effects of Sleep Deprivation on the Heart
There's an old joke among doctors that the function of sleep is to cure sleepiness. Despite an abundance of research, we still aren't sure exactly why we sleep. But we know we need to. Recent studies indicate that too much or too little sleep can be a factor in developing heart disease, just like smoking and packing on the pounds.
A 10-year study performed by Harvard University tracked the sleep habits and health of more than 70,000 women between the ages of 45 and 65 that had no previous history of heart disease. In the end, 934 of these women suffered from coronary heart disease and 271 died from it. The researchers accounted for factors like age, weight and whether they smoked, then looked at the subjects' sleep patterns. Five percent of the women slept less than five hours per night. Those women were nearly 40 percent more likely to suffer from heart disease than women who slept an average of eight hours. Women who slept more than nine hours per night were 37 percent more likely to have heart trouble.
Previous studies have shown similar results for men. Short-term sleep deprivation is known to raise blood pressure and stress hormones, lower glucose tolerance and even lead to irregular heartbeats. All of these factors are precursors to coronary disease. Chronic sleep deprivation promotes weight gain and diabetes, both of which can send you to the emergency room grabbing your chest. Going without enough sleep also affects the functioning of the lining inside the blood vessels and can cause some low-grade inflammation that could lead to heart disease.
Sleep apnea is another problem. This is a condition that makes your airway temporarily collapse when you sleep, forcing you to wake up and resume breathing. This makes for fitful sleep at best. Research has shown that people with sleep apnea also show marked increases in their blood pressure over the years. They also have a higher level of sympathetic nervous system (SNS) action. The SNS controls the heart rate and the constriction of the blood vessels. If you don't have sleep apnea, shortly after you fall asleep, your blood pressure and SNS activity will slowly fall. This can't happen when you're waking up at regular intervals to resume breathing.
If you think you're in the clear because you're a young whipper-snapper, think again. Teens that sleep less than 6.5 hours per night are more than twice as likely to get high blood pressure [source: AHA]. When you consider that teens average roughly seven hours of sleep when they require nine, it's clear that kids need to put down that Guitar Hero axe, shut off the iPhone and catch some Zs.
Now for the good news. If you want to eliminate this factor from whether you develop heart disease, all you need to do is go beddy-bye for eight hours. There are other factors, like what you eat and how much you exercise, but this one is taken care of by doing something most people love to do -- sleep. Doctors even believe that 30-minute naps a few times a week can improve your health, and many forward-thinking companies are outfitting their buildings with nap rooms.
If you have trouble sleeping, make your bedroom a haven for slumber. Paint your walls in cool blues. Ditch the TV and the laptop. Try to sleep eight hours each night -- you're doing your heart a big favor
Dr.Asim Rasheed
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
The information in this email (and any attachments) is confidential. If you are not the intended recipient, you must not use or disseminate the information. If you have received this email in error, please immediately notify me by "Reply" command and permanently delete the original and any copies or printouts thereof. Although this email and any attachments are believed to be free of any virus or other defect that might affect any computer system into which it is received and opened, it is the responsibility of the recipient to ensure that it is virus free and no responsibility is accepted by American International Group, Inc. or its subsidiaries or affiliates either jointly or severally, for any loss or damage arising in any way from its use.
--
CHRIS VERGHESE
BAM International Dubai, UAE
P.O. Box 25685
Tel (R.O.): 00971 4 3391655
Fax(R.O.): 00971 4 3392884
CELL: 00971 50 4430815
-----Sent: Thursday, November 19, 2009 6:17 PMSubject: Seeking opinion on Plastic BanSir,I am writing to you on behalf of Witness magazine-India's first magazine on legal and corporate affairs.We are seeking opinions on the following issue in around 300-350 words.Issue: We, the people of India, believe in fighting our rights to the hilt. However, when the same rights take the shape of laws, do we care to be instrumental in its implementation?Various laws have remained merely on papers and find no place in actual practice. Have we become skeptics, who crib and criticise the government for each and every lapse on its part, but fail to check our own deficiency? Is public apathy hampering the implementation of laws?For instance, smoking in public places is banned but we notice people smoking openly in public places without any resistance. List of such lawlessness is countless: talking on mobile while driving, dowry in marriages, child labour, jumping red light signals are but a few examples.Are not as the citizens of the world's largest democracy, there is a responsibility on our shoulder to set an example by abiding laws without being enforced by the law enforcement agencies? Have we become immune to all the wrong doings that have been taking place right in front of us? Is it due to the human tendency of not acting without a stick? Is it an attitude that if others are doing an illegal act without getting caught, then why not us or if others are not resisting an illegal act from happening then why should we? Is it public indifference or administrative failure?Since you are specialising in environmental activities, if you can give your opinion on the ban on plastic bans being flouted on a very wide scale and the suggestions to make it really work, we will incorporate it in our magazine.Thanking you.Regards,Kanupriya MalhotraGuest EditorWitness Magazine
Freshwater Becoming More Scarce
The United Nations estimates that by 2050 more than two billion people in 48 countries will lack sufficient water. Approximately 97 percent to 98 percent of the water on planet Earth is saltwater (the estimates vary slightly depending on the source). Much of the remaining freshwater is frozen in glaciers or the polar ice caps. Lakes, rivers and groundwater account for about 1 percent of the world's potentially usable freshwater.
If global warming continues to melt glaciers in the polar regions, as expected, the supply of freshwater may actually decrease. First, freshwater from the melting glaciers will mingle with saltwater in the oceans and become too salty to drink. Second, the increased ocean volume will cause sea levels to rise, contaminating freshwater sources along coastal regions with seawater.
Complicating matters even further is that 95 percent of the world's cities continue to dump raw sewage into rivers and other freshwater supplies, making them unsafe for human consumption.
The Need for Freshwater is Increasing Rapidly
Yet, while freshwater supplies are at best static, and at worst decreasing, the world's population is growing rapidly. The United Nations estimates that the world populationapproximately 6.5 billion in 2006will grow to 9.4 billion by 2050.
The cost of water is usually set by government agencies and local regulators. Water isn't traded on commodity exchanges, but many utilities stocks are publicly traded. Meanwhile, investments in companies that provide desalinization, and other processes and technologies that may increase the world's supply of freshwater, are growing rapidly.
Companies Investing in Water
General Electric Chairman Jeffrey Immelt said the scarcity of clean water around the world will more than double GE's revenue from water purification and treatment by 2010to a total of $5 billion.
GE's strategy is for its water division to invest in desalinization and purification in countries that have a shortage of freshwater. Saudi Arabia is expected to invest more than $80 billion in desalinization plants and sewer facilities by 2025 to meet the needs of its growing population. And while China is home to 20 percent of the world's people, only 7 percent of the planet's freshwater supply is located there.
"This will be a big and growing market for a long time," Immelt said at the GE annual meeting in Philadelphia in April 2006.
Saleem Asraf Syed Imdaadullah, Founder, Syed Envo Protect (I) Pvt Ltd in the year 1994 & ENVO PROJECTS, NEW DELHI in the year 2001...