0
0
Three children did poetry recitation and a total of 50 fruit hampers was distributed among Children. For raising awareness in respect to cancer prevention, outdoor patients participated in an interactive discussion with Dr Arnab Gupta.
As a part of a nationwide campaign, the Public Relations Society of India, Kolkata Chapter organized an awareness programme on efforts to prevent the onslaught of cancer diseases in collaboration with the Saroj Gupta Cancer Care & Research Institute, one of the earliest institutions of cancer care in Kolkata.
The programme was spearheaded by Dr Arnab Gupta, director & surgical oncologist, who spoke on some of the lifestyle changes that are required to keep cancer from developing in human beings. The word cancer easily does send shivers through people and a compelling sense of desperation and inevitability that the disease will more often than not claim its victim sooner than later. Even as cancer treatment modernizes by the day eliciting faint hopes of longer survival, it is more about prolonging a patient’s life span rather than curing him of the ailment.
Not all types of cancer are immediately fatal. There are many instances of people surviving with the disease for more years than people bargain for. Some types get suppressed through aggressive treatment, lifestyle changes and a positive attitude towards fighting the dreaded disease.
While it is quite impossible to predict the onset of malignancy and subsequent metastasis of the condition, there are, however ways to prevent the diseases from attacking a human body, mostly through significant lifestyle changes and staying away from foods and habits like intake of all forms of tobacco and completely stopping or substantially reducing the intake of glucose which act as a catalyst to the onset of cancer forming processes in the human body.
“It is very important that we try to lead a healthy life. This is primarily to do with a certain disciplined approach to living,” Dr Gupta said. “ Some of the basic things like proper sleep exercises that help develop immunity, maintain good dietary habits, keep away from all forms of tobacco which are severely habit forming, avoid risky behaviours and ensure regular health checkups besides proactive medical care can, in many ways, help prevent the disease from sowing the seeds of devastation in us,” Dr Gupta averred.
Psychological interventions too can play a big role in helping us avoid cancer. “It is crucially important to remove depression from our minds and bodies,” Dr Gupta said. Depression is one of the biggest killers. And very often, it does not cancer to take us to our eventual doom, he said. Let us remember that potential cancer cells reside in our body. It takes certain situations to activate the movement and growth of the cells that become cancerous. Along with physical health, our mental health also plays a significant part, said Dr Gupta.
There is a certain inevitability to human life. Who is born shall die. When and how cannot be predicted? But what we can do with our efforts, our sensitivity, our sensibilities and our intelligence to lead a healthy life till as long it possible, must ideally be our goal.
We live in hard times. We have polluted our environment and made the air toxic. Newer diseases as dreaded as cancer or more have surfaced taking with them millions of lives, many snuffed out in their prime. So, we all need to change the way we lead our lives and make the world a better place for the younger generation, for our children and also those who are yet to be born.
Soumyajit Mahapatra
Chairman
