400 human limbs cut off annually in Trinidad

ABOUT 400 limbs are amputated each year in Trinidad — this was stated by Dr Denaesh Ariyanayagam, a gastro-intestinal and vascular surgeon, when he addressed the San Juan Rotary Club at its Valsayn headquarters, last Monday night. Dr Ariyanayagam, was speaking on the topic “Healthy Lifestyles” when he made the revelation, citing the incidence of diabetes as the reason for the amputations. “Everyday we do surgery on people who come in with simple injuries. They  are diabetics — they get stuck by a needle, they wear bad shoes, they get an infection in their foot and before you know it they are at risk of losing their limbs. It is a sad thing to say in Trinidad now, but on average in big hospitals like Port-of-Spain and San Fernando General hospitals, they do about 400 limb amputations a year and the sad thing about this, it is something preventable.” He urged Rotarians to embark on educating the public about the hazards of diabetes and also high blood pressure.

Dr Ariyanayagam noted that at present the life span of humans is longer than it has ever been. He said: “Just to give an example, in the 1800’s the average life span was between 25-50 years. At present men live an average of 73 years and women live 77 years. There are different reasons for this, of course, we don’t have to deal with wars on a regular basis, famine is generally something of the past except in certain parts of the world and diseases which we didn’t have treatment for we do now have something we can do about them. For example, for communicable diseases there is vaccination,”  listing antibiotics as also a form of treatment for other ailments. Dr Ariyanayagam said the quest to see how long people can survive continues. “But the question is, how long is the human machine designed to function, in other words, like all machines at some stage the parts are going to break down and at some stage you can’t fix it, so it is feasible that we can live longer and longer.

“If you look in certain parts of the world like South East Asia and parts of Japan there are isolated populations where the average lifespan is over 90 years. Lots of people have gone into these communities and they have researched why these people have been able to live so long. Anytime they do this the answers come back pretty much consistently. These are — the air, it is fresh air, and the people exercise, not because they want to but because they are living in a rural area and there is no car so they have to, and they have to walk, and they continue walking into their 90s, so there is a level of physical activity that is a part of their lives; they rest, they sleep an average of eight hours a day. Then there is a diet — their diet has no artificial products, they avoid fat, most of their diet is fish, and they eat lots of fibre in the form of fresh fruits and vegetables, and they drink lots of water.”

Dr Ariyanayagam added: “And of course they live a simple lifestyle. When I was younger I didn’t want to give lots of credence to the word — stress — I call it a ‘high demand situation.’ We have to deal with it and if you look at Trinidad now compared to five years ago, we are rushing about. You go to the grocery on a Sunday and the place is filled. Twenty five years ago groceries used to close down on a Thursday, it doesn’t happen anymore, so we are always on the go, taking our time and energy.” He said people must try their best to avoid high demand situations. “If you look at the causes of the deaths in the childhood age group you are going to have diseases such as infections, and then about teenage to about 40, deaths are accidental. Ninety percent of the deaths between 40-45 are caused by cardiovascular disease or malignant disease.”

He outlined cardiovascular disease due to narrowing blood vessels because of cholesterol and calcium build-up. He said that diabetes and high blood pressure, high lipids in the blood and smoking are real  dangers — which cause stroke, kidney failure, “and you are predisposed to getting gangrene to your lower limbs.” He recalled how the term diabetes originated. “Many many years ago there  was this young physician who noticed that some people passed excessive amounts of urine and ants were attracted to the urine. He had an inquisitive mind, so what he did was he drank some of the urine and it tasted sweet so that condition was called diabetes mellitus, as opposed to another condition diabetes insipidus — when the urine is not sweet.” Summing up, Dr Ariyanayagam recommended eating wisely, exercising, and if on medication, continue taking it, for a healthy lifestyle.