Individuals with binge-eating disorder (BED) may be at high risk of getting diagnosed with illnesses associated with the endocrine and circulatory systems, a study suggests.

Binge-eating disorder is a serious eating disorder in which an individual frequently consumes unusually large amounts of food and is unable to stop craving for more.

Individuals with BED could be at an increased risk of 2.5-times of having an endocrine disorder and at 1.9-times of having a circulatory system disorder.

The endocrine system influences heart, bones and tissues growth, and even fertility.

It plays a vital role in determining whether there were chances of developing diabetes, thyroid disease, growth disorders, sexual dysfunction, and a host of other hormone-related disorders.

BED is closely associated with hypertension – commonly called high blood pressure – that causes the heart to work harder and could lead to such complications as heart attack, stroke, or kidney failure, among others.

Among individuals with obesity and BED, there is a 1.5-times increased risk of having a respiratory disease and a 2.6-times of having a gastrointestinal disease.

“We encourage clinicians to — have the conversation — about BED with their patients. Accurate screening and detection could solve BED problem with treatment,” said Professor Cynthia Bulik, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, in the US.

“BED afflicts people of all shapes and sizes. The somatic illnesses that we detected were not simply effects of being overweight or obese,” Bulik clarified, in the study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.

Usually stuck at work for long hours?Your sedentary lifestyle will definitely ruin your fitness. So, in between all the deadlines and pending work, make sure you do some stretching exercises at your workplace, suggests an expert.

Workout exercises while standing:

1. Try to walk around your office or walk the stairs to stretch your legs, which is the best workout. You can also try taking the widest step and lunge forward.
2. Raise your heels off the floor and slowly lower them. It will help in relaxing your calf.
3. Stand in front of your chair and repeat sitting down and standing up 10 times. You can do this at least three times in a day.
4. You can stand in front of a desk or other piece of furniture which is comfortable for you to hold on to for balancing yourself, lean on a sturdy piece of furniture and gradually push your body off it in a sort of standing push up.
5. Rest your back against a wall and move your feet away from the wall. The wall should only be supporting the weight of your back and your knees should be bent. Hold the position as long as possible and repeat it.
6. Attempt to do jumping jacks by raising your right arm and at the same time tapping your left toe to the side. And keep your right foot on the floor. Try for alternate sides for a full minute. Avoid this if there is weakness in the knees.
7. You can also do chair squats by lifting your rear end off your seat and hold for a few seconds.

Workout exercises while sitting:

1. Move your toes by lifting them while keeping your heels firmly on the ground; it works very well while seated.
2. Most of the football players practise rapidly tapping their feet in place, simulating a run. You can also do the same thing while seated, for 30 seconds at a go.
3. While sitting in your chair, lift your left leg a few inches off of the floor. Keep your knee bent at a 90 degree angle and hold the position as long as you are comfortable.
4. Do leg extensions exercise while sitting in your chair, extend your right leg until it is level with your hip and hold as long as you are comfortable and then relax it. Do it the same for left leg.
5. Just pull your shoulders as high as you can and roll them forward and backward ten times throughout the day. This is a shoulder shrug exercise.
6. Your fingers are busy in typing on computers in that case make fists, spread your fingers and bend your fingers.
7. You can also raise your shoulder to your ear, hold and then relax. Repeat with the alternating shoulders.
8. Also try abdominal stretch while sitting on the edge of your chair and stretch both your arms out in front. At the same time, keep your back straight, contract your abdominal muscles. Relax and repeat the same.
9. Neck rotation is very important when sitting for long. Drop your chin and roll your neck. Raise your chin up and bend your neck to each side.

Paracetamol sales surge each year during seasonal flu, dengue and chikungunya outbreaks across India because it is the safest drug to treat fever and pain. Unlike aspirin and other popular NSAIDS (non-steroidal anti inflammatory drugs that treat pain and inflammation) such as ibuprofen and naproxen, it has fewer side effects and does not raise the risk of bleeding associated with dengue and other fevers of unknown origin.

What most people don’t know is that paracetamol (acetaminophen in the US and Canada) overdose, along with alcohol abuse, is among the leading causes of acute liver failure in the US, Canada, UK and Australia. And almost half of the hospitalisations and deaths associated with the painkiller are from accidental overdoses.

In India, where few people get vaccinated against liver-damaging hepatitis A and B infections, infections that spread through contaminated blood ,food and water are the biggest cause of liver damage, followed by alcohol abuse, liver cancer, haemochromatosis (a genetic condition that leads to over-absorption of iron in the liver), and drug toxicities, mostly paracetamol overdose.

How much is too much?

Paracetamol is widely used to treat headaches and minor aches and pains from the common cold, viral and bacterial infections, toothache, sprains, strains and menstrual cramps. It is also a component of hundreds of widely used over-the-counter medicines and syrups, including cold and cough medicines. This often leads to people unwittingly taking more than the safe daily dose that is capped at 4,000 mg (eight tablets, 500 mg each) a day. Selling the drug in smaller quantities in blister packs, as in the UK and India, helps prevent overdose –intentional and accidental – by making it difficult for a person in pain to pop a handful unintentionally.

Toxicity occurs when the drug builds up in the bloodstream faster than it can be cleared by the body. In most people, small amounts of paracetamol is broken down into non-toxic forms and secreted in the urine, but more than the maximum amount can cause the built-up byproducts to disrupt liver function.

Drug toxicity

Though physicians are supposed to voluntarily report adverse drug reactions to the directorate general of health services in India, it is rarely done. Canada, with a population of 35 million reported 4,500 hospitalisations due to paracetamol overdose, of which 16% are accidental, shows Health Canada data, which is asking for stricter labelling. The northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, with a population of more than 200 million, has reported none.

Am I at risk?

There’s a very clear threshold for what constitutes a safe dose, which has led to regulatory bodies across the world, including in India, to recommend adults have no more than 4,000 mg a day. People with compromised livers – it could be because of three or more alcoholic (30 ml) drinks for men and two for women every day, or have undiagnosed liver infection or damage –should have it in doses lower than the recommended limit. In children, taking slightly more than the therapeutic dose over long periods can also cause toxicity.

The symptoms of toxicity depend on how much paracetamol is there in your blood. More than 50% of people with underlying liver disease have no symptoms, with signs of liver damage often showing up in late-stage liver disease. It usually begins with vomiting, stomach ache and progresses to jaundice (yellowing of the whites of the eyes and skin due to high levels of bilirubin, a yellow pigment found in bile that is when the liver breaks down old red blood cells), dark urine, pale or light coloured stool, mental confusion, and retention of fluids in the abdomen or belly.