MOSCOW, June 23. /TASS/. More than 40% in Russia suffer from cardio-vascular diseases or die of arterial hypertension. In the Arctic these diseases develop without symptoms and "burn" young and strong people within a few years. Professor Lyudmila Gapon knows how to see the disorder, how to diagnose the disease and how to protect shift workers and Arctic residents.
The doctor and researcher told TASS how an adventure of a young student turned out to be a rescue operation, which saved lives for thousands. She told about the connection between a Western and live expectance of the Arctic indigenous peoples. Can a computer do a job of cardiologist?
A newspaper ad which made a life
Lyudmila is the author of hundreds of research works, she manages dozens of best cardiologists in Tyumen and a research station, equipment in which many clinics may envy. The story, the professor told us, began as an adventure and developed from passionate love for sciences.
"I was born in West Ukraine, and in 1973 graduated from a Medical University in Chernovtsy, worked as an ambulance doctor. During my university years, I collected material for a work on pathology physiology. I received my first degree when I worked at the ambulance. Back then, I realized that medicine is my fate, and the science which attracted me is the clinical science," she said.
In 1978, she saw an ad in a medical newspaper, where the Tyumen medical university announced a vacancy competition.
"I won it and went there. It was my first time in Siberia, I knew nothing about what Siberia was like. For all my relatives and friends that trip was like traveling to nowhere. I hoped to gain higher medical experience and stay there for a few years. I thought it would be an adventure, but it became my life," she continued.
In Tyumen, cardiology was not the first clinical science, which Lyudmila studied. Her first scientific research in that city of oil workers was in cirrhosis. In 1986, she was offered to drop everything and join a new cardiology center (presently, it is the Academy of Sciences’ Cardiology Scientific Center in Tyumen).
"The department, which I was to manage - of arterial hypertension - was just a table and three chairs," the doctor said. "We began everything from the zero level."
The young doctor developed regional medical services at a territory of more than 2,000 km - from Tyumen to the Arctic Ocean. She had to travel north of the Polar Circle - to the Yamburg village, where shift workers worked on fields of natural gas.
"Nowadays, we have a research center there, and for a few recent years I haven’t traveled to Yamburg. Expeditions take Gazprom flights to get there. Back then, we had to fly to Novy Urengoi and then to take a car. Now, 30 years later, I can remember clearly my first trip - the tundra is something very different from what we have seen. We normally fix the eye on something, but there you can’t find anything to fix it on - an endless sea of moss and the rare crippled birch trees."
Time machine for diseases
At the Tyumen Cardiology Center, Lyudmila Gapon organized a team to work on "Northern" diseases. The key direction being: development of arterial hypertension and atherosclerosis.
One group looked into the shift workers’ labor in the North, another focused on daily rhythm disorders in patients with arterial hypertension in the North, and the third group studied arterial hypertension in the indigenous residents, who had changed their traditional nomadic lives for sedentary lifestyles and European foods.
The disorder develops gradually, it may be seen by high blood pressure from 120-130 by 80 to 140/90 mmHg. If treatment begins early, the disease could be controlled, and it would not affect the target organs - heart, kidney, brain and vessels.
"In the Arctic a young person may face complications earlier - in two-three years. Without treatment and medication the disease will hit the target organs very quickly - first of all the heart’s left ventricle and the carotid artery. On the mainland, like, for example, in Tyumen, the disease could progress for 12-15 years. By the way, the organs get affected by relatively modest blood pressure of 145-150 mmHg. In such cases, we need complex diagnostic measures."
Patents, patens and again patents
Further discoveries came one after another. By 2020, Doctor Gapon in more than a hundred research works pointed to reasons of the disease in residents of the Siberian North. Those are the cold climate, the atmospheric pressure, the stress from living in complicated conditions, bad habits, and even the polar day and night seasons.
"At night, blood pressure is lower by about 20% - the body is relaxed, but in the Arctic, it remains unchanged, which is very bad," she said.
In 2005, she received the first patent on new treatment methods.
"Since the disease goes differently, it should be treated differently. We have checked various standard medicines and chose the most effective," she explained, adding such medicines are used practically for all patients in Tyumen’s north, and they are very helpful in guaranteeing longer lives.
To keep papers handy
In 2005, Lyudmila Gapon insisted on new equipment to diagnose quickly the shift workers at the gas field in Yamburg: blood pressure monitors, ECG and ultrasound equipment. At that time a clinic was organized there as well. The modern equipment is used not only to diagnose arterial hypertension, but also to watch the target organs.
Since 2010, the patients’ data are kept on an electronic base, on which Gapon has insisted.
"Within a year, a half of records on paper gets lost, some tests are outdated, new are still due. My software is a base, which shows the history, all tests, and by using it a doctor may see progress in real time, which means in case of worse results a doctor may react immediately without waiting for a person to return from the Arctic," she said.
In 2010, Doctor Gapon insisted on another measure: everyone leaving for the Arctic is to undergo medical tests. If a person wants to work in the Arctic, medical records from the mainland are not sufficient, and a medical inspection in Yamburg would be binding. The tests they make there will show arterial hypertension even if the blood pressure level is within the norm.
Smoker, drinker and sick
Results of studies in the Arctic are always too few, and expeditions cost millions.
Thus, since 2015, Lyudmila’s colleague - Alexander Vetoshkin took over the studies in Yamburg. He works there permanently.
The studies also included peculiar development of diseases among the indigenous peoples.
"In fact, the indigenous peoples usually begin suffering from cardio-vascular disorders about 15 years later, than other people. But our studies show that this peculiarity remains only if people continue the traditional life and take traditional food. The local population has been "westernized" lately - they come to take western values and bad habits - they smoke, drink and eat food, which is not typical for them. Thus, the diseases develop like in those who come to work here," the doctor said.
Believe reliable information only
The cardio-vascular diseases nowadays are accompanied with a new threat of coronavirus.
"The pandemic is a colossal stress, both for us and for our patients. Overcoming the pandemic would be very complicated not only financially, but medically - it is a huge number of delayed diseases, as patients would not ask for assistance now, they will do it later on," Lyudmila Gapon said.
All patients nowadays must do the following - continue taking the medicine prescribed by your doctor and do not believe the fakes, which spread on the background of the current pandemic.
"We can hear many speculations, like ‘drop taking medicine for arterial hypertension.’ 14 international medical societies have disclaimed this statement. The medications we use for treatment do not affect the coronavirus infection, and interrupting the therapy will cause bigger problems. So continue the treatment," the scientist said.
The professor will go on with the studies. The topic is so vast, that research may continue for years to go. Lyudmila Gapon has been studying how diabetes is related to cardio-vascular diseases. She has been working on another patent, which, however, she would not reveal until an official opinion from experts.