HEALTH NEWS

LAUGH FOR A HEALTHY HEART

Maggie Fox

LAUGHTER may indeed be the best medicine, researchers said last week as they released a study showing that people who report that they laugh more are less likely to have heart disease.

"The old axiom that laughter is the best medicine appears to hold true when it comes to protecting your heart,'' Dr Michael Miller, director of the centre for preventive cardiology at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, told a news conference.

Dr Miller and colleagues told a meeting of the American Heart Association that they believe laughter may release chemicals that relax the blood vessels. "It's not just going 'ha, ha, ha','' Dr Miller said. "It's having a good, hearty laugh.''

For their study, they interviewed 150 patients who had either suffered heart attacks in the past or had undergone procedures such as angioplasty to clear out clogged arteries.

They compared their responses to those of 150 people the same age who did not have heart disease.

The questions came off standard tests used to measure humour in day-to-day situations, such as getting to a party to find someone else wearing the same outfit.

"If you were woken up in the middle of the night by a good friend who had been out of town and whom you hadn't seen for a while, how would you respond?'' Dr Miller asked.

"We found that individuals that had heart disease had a 40% to 45% reduced likelihood of laughing in response to those social situations.''

"We don't know yet if forcing yourself to laugh when you're angry is beneficial, but there may be effective, practical ways for people to lessen their discomfort or hostility, to improve their humour response, and to increase the amount of laughter in their lives,'' Dr Miller said.

"There is no reason we can't learn to regulate our laughing muscles, like all the other exercises we do,'' he added.

"Second, we may be able to find ways to take ourselves less seriously.'' Dr Miller said his team is now looking to see if the act of laughing releases chemicals that affect the blood vessels, perhaps like nitric oxide, known to dilate blood vessels.

The chemical, related to the nitrous oxide used to relax dental patients, is already targeted by some heart drugs.

Dr Miller said many studies had shown that feelings of anger and hostility cause the cells lining blood vessels to release chemicals that make them constrict.

Source: The Star, 20 November 2000

PHARMACISTS TO DISPENSE MEDICINE BY YEAR 2003

Pharmacists are expected to take over the dispensing of medicine from doctors by the year 2003, said Health Minister Datuk Chua Jui Meng. He said the ministry's stand for the prescribing and dispensing functions in the healthcare system to be separated was clear.

"There is no doubt that the public will benefit from a healthcare delivery system where doctors concentrate on the diagnostic and prescription functions while pharmacists perform the medication dispensing function as practised in many developed countries,'' he said in his speech read by his parliamentary-secretary S. Sothinathan at the Malaysian Pharmaceutical Society's fourth pharmacy night at a hotel on Sunday, 19 November 2000. Chua said the society was expected to come up with proposals after a thorough study on the matter and discussions with related parties to ensure a smooth changeover in the functions.

He said the number of practising pharmacists registered with the Pharmacy Board has increased to 2,646 as at October this year compared with 2,000 in 1995.

However, he said the current pharmacist to population ratio of one to 8,792 was still far behind than those of developed countries like the United Kingdom (1: 1280), Australia (1:2,700) and Japan (1:2000)

Chua said by 2005, the country expects to have 4,700 pharmacists to a population ratio of around one to 5,300.

"By 2020, we expect to have 13,500 pharmacists and a pharmacist to population ratio of one to 2,500,'' he said.

As for community pharmacies, there are 1,141 nationwide, concentrated mainly in the cities.

Chua said the number showed an increase of more than 100% since 1995 when there was only 500.

Source : The Star, 20 November 2000