In India, a country with a vast population and a diverse socio-economic fabric, healthcare remains fraught with challenges including disparities in access. These socio-economic disparities are deep, and they influence health outcomes. It is imperative to bridge these gaps amid the ongoing epidemiological, nutritional and demographic transitions that are bringing …
TURMERIC -- the age-old panacea for headaches, pimples and fractured limbs -- could also keep cancer away, say scientists at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition. Kamala Krishnaswamy and her colleagues have recently reported that curcumin, the active ingredient of turmeric (Curcuma longa), which is known to have an anti-cancer …
SCIENTISTS at the Hyderabad-based National Institute of Nutrition (NIN) say a healthy diet rich in spinach and other leafy green vegetables offers protection against cancer of the mouth. Their studies also show that certain vitamins and minerals taken regularly can retard the development of malignant oral cancers. The team of …
* PATENT wars are heating up. British drug manufacturer Glaxo has won one patents case against a Canadian manufacturer, but faces a second against another. Both claim Glaxo's products -- stable and unstable forms of Zantac -- are not different enough to justify different patents. Zantac is the world's best-selling …
CANCERS occur when some cells break free from the body's control and multiply prolifically. That's the classical view. But now there is a new way of looking at cancer -- it may be because cells are not dying fast enough. Advocates of this novel view are confident that if death-defying …
CALCULATED in monetary terms, the benefits of plants used against cancer is estimated to be $1,100 billion. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development puts the value of a human life at $12.4 million and plant-based cancer drugs save 90,000 lives a year in rich countries. A US Environmental Protection …
ASPIRIN -- the world's most popular pain-killer -- if consumed regularly, may reduce the risk of cancer of the digestive system, suggests a study undertaken by Michael J Thun and his team from the American Cancer Society and the Emory University School of Public Health in Atlanta. They found a …
In response to the threat posed by multinational companies to the Himalayan yew (Taxus baccata), which yields the anti-cancer drug taxol, the Centre for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) has launched a conservation programme for the tree. Having depleted yew resources in the US, drug manufacturers have now turned to …
HOUSEHOLD electrical appliances may be convenient, but exposure to the electromagnetic fields (EMFs) they generate may not be safe. In fact, such EMFs and those generated by power transmission lines, radars and satellite equipment can even cause cancer, say scientists citing experimental results. But other scientists are not convinced and …
LED BY giants Philip Morris and RJR Nabisco, the US tobacco industry has sued the environmental protection agency (EPA), claiming its report on passive smoking -- the inhalation of exhaled cigarette smoke -- was unscientific and arbitrary. The EPA report, published in January, classified exhaled tobacco smoke in the most-serious …
THE US patent and trademark office last December issued patents for three transgenic animals, which are animals that have been implanted with genes at an early developmental stage. The only previous animal patent issued was four-and-a-half years ago for the Harvard onco-mouse, into which cancer-causing genes had been introduced. Animal …
YOU DON'T have to be a smoker or tobacco chewer to be at risk of cancer from tobacco. Just handling large amounts of raw or processed tobacco can lead to changes in human cells, which give rise to uncontrolled cancerous growths. Rajani Bhisey and her team at Bombay's Cancer Research …
NEXT TIME you liberally smear suntan lotion on your body and linger too long in the sun, beware: Sunscreens are not sunproof, say scientists. According to US epidemiologists Cedric and Frank Garland, though the lavish use of sun lotions blocks out the most damaging sun rays and prevents sunburn, it …
SCIENTISTS have found that the ability of certain rats to reject a tumour can be transferred to other rats using a simple technique that could one day be used to enhance human resistance to cancers. Ashok Khar of Hyderabad's Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) discovered a certain type …
FOR CHEMIST Andrea Stierle, it was like searching for the proverbial needle in the haystack. She was scouring the ancient cedar forests in Montana, USA, for a fungus that produces a compound called taxol, which is used to treat ovarian cancer. And find it she did, though she herself had …
PERHAPS one of the worst fears a woman harbours is that of getting breast cancer, a justifiable fear for, in USA alone, 46,000 women die every year of breast cancer -- and, this rate is increasing by 1 per cent annually. Despite the vast amounts of time and money pumped …
TIBETAN emigres accuse China of seeking to build a nuclear reactor near Lhasa, the Tibetan capital; of dumping nuclear waste on the Tibetan plateau, and of setting up sites there for missiles aimed at India. The US-based International Campaign for Tibet adds forced prison labour is being used to build …
TRADITIONALLY associated with young lovers and new life, spring may soon become a time of worry because new data shows winter depletion of the protective ozone layer over Antarctica begins much earlier than was believed. The data also shows ozone levels over the Northern Hemisphere are falling rapidly. Both findings …
GIVEN Doordarshan's current preoccupation with movies for entertainment, it seems to have cheerfully tossed science and environment programmes out through the window. Nothing notable has been shown on the small screen in recent months except for a film on the Narmada dam, already reviewed in this column. Fortunately, Star Plus …
THOUGH reports linking brain, cancer to the use of mobile phones pushed down shares of US Cellular telephone companies, Japanese firms remain mostly unaffected. Tokyo stock market analysts explain this is because the Japanese have been inoculated by earlier reports of radioactive cellular phones. Says Edward Staiano of Motorola, the …
MORE than 70 new chemicals are registered every hour in the US alone. The public - battered and bemused by daily press reports about the dangers of smoking, pesticides, pollution and food additives - looks to scientists to pronounce on the safety of this rising chemical tide. But the scientists …
