Good Food is First Food. It is not junk food. It is the food that connects nature and nutrition with livelihoods. This food is good for our health; it comes from the rich biodiversity of our regions; it provides employment to people. Most importantly, cooking and eating give us pleasure. …
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 the world over are agog at the discovery of flavonoids in tea by Michael Hertog of the National Institute of Public Health and Environmental Protection, at Bilthoven in the Netherlands. Hertog's discovery supports the belief held by most Chinese that tea is good for health. The East abounds with …
• WITH WESTERN governments trying to cut health-care costs and consequently, the pharmaceuticals market becoming more competitive, many companies including Glaxo are keen to move into untapped markets. Glaxo chief executive Richard Sykes insists that to be successful, the company must develop "innovative medicines". "Every week, 3,000 genes are being …
DON'T scoff the next time you have a severe cold and your grandmother gives you an onion to eat at bedtime, because by morning, you will find the cold has disappeared. Onions contain not only flavonoids, but many other ingredients yet to be isolated by scientists. Onions are used for …
IT IS THE season of the kerempt or "big rains", and the sky is often overcast. Four hours south of Addis Ababa, with the rain turning the roads into swamps, it is a different world. The sense of helplessness, the sense of waiting, the dependence on nature -- it's there …
NEARLY 37 million people in the United States have no health insurance at all. Meanwhile, the money spent on health care has been rising steadily till last year, it touched $800 billion -- more than 14 per cent of the country's gross domestic product. But all that will be a …
EVERY DAY, in all weather conditions, scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) receive data about the earth from spaceborne satellites that use specialised RADAR equipment. But converting these data into high resolution image of the earth is a mindboggling task: To process an image of a 100 km …
Experts from the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), the Indian Veterinary Institute and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have jointly proposed the establishment of "wildlife health centres" in India's national parks and sanctuaries. Five such centres are sought to be established …
CHITTOOR M Habibullah, principal of Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad, and his team of gastroenterologists have demonstrated, for the first time in India, that liver cells from a human foetus, when injected into a patient suffering from liver failure, can help the liver recover. Seven patients, whose livers had failed …
WHILE no two health care systems are alike, certain questions are germane to all: How do markets for health care work? Should governments work in the health care market? Why, and to what extent? What form could such intervention take? What is the trade-off between equity and efficiency? The first …
Two non-resident Indian scientists, Shibu Basuthakur and Supriya Roy, have proposed a project that will enable sick people in West Bengal to be examined by doctors in the US via satellite. The duo have presented a Rs 33-crore proposal to the West Bengal government to establish a healthcare network in …
MALAYSIAN exports of palm oil to the US are on the rebound. They shot up to 200,000 tonnes in 1992 -- double the 1989 level -- in the wake of a counter-offensive against propaganda that saturated fat from palm oil could induce heart failure. In 1987, the American Soyabean Association …
MEMBER-states of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation have drawn up a joint action plan to combat AIDS. At a recent seminar in New Delhi, delegates stressed the need to share information, provide guidelines on policy matters and develop a uniform surveillance system. The seminar was the first of …
WANT A healthy heart? Then eat a lot of walnuts. Just 28 grams of walnuts a day would be perfect, recommends a recent study that found the nuts to be an excellent source of heart-friendly fatty acids. And, to boot, walnuts do not contain any cholesterol (The Lancet, Vol 341, …
SOME AYURVEDIC hospitals in Kerala report their research into a novel method of tackling AIDS is showing promising early results, but they caution against raising hopes because their studies are far from conclusion. Unlike the generously funded research being undertaken at some of the world's most prestigious labs on eliminating …
THERE is more to health policy than just policy for the health sector. But the World Development Report 1993 clearly shows the mandarins -- read health experts -- of the World Bank have trivialised the issue because holism is a philosophy they still have to learn. Surely, for a hungry …
AMERICAN doctors are waving their scalpels against Hillary Clinton, head of the presidential task force on health. The American Medical Association, which fears that investments made in specialised training and equipment by physicians would be devalued if Hillary's proposed health care reforms come into force, has contended that the practice …
TRADITIONALLY, Indian women have played the role of health care providers. But the reality of their own health is quite a different matter. Adverse sex ratios, higher rates of malnutrition and lower hospital admissions among women in India stand as a sad testimony to the state of their health care. …
Centre for Health Education, Training and Nutrition Awareness Lilavatiben, Lalbhais Bungalow Civil Campus Road, Shahi Bagh Ahmedabad 380 004 Women's Health Forum 839, 23rd Main 10th Cross J P Nagar 2nd Phase Bangalore 644 963 Indira Kapoor Family Welfare Training and Research Centre 332 Sardar V P Road Bombay 400 …
THE NUMBER of people in Bombay who are infected with the AIDS-causing human immunodeficiency virus- 1 (HIV-1) are increasing at an alarming rate, says a recent study (The National Medical Journal Of India, Vol 6, No 1). H A Kamat and D D Banker of Bombay's Sir Hurkisondas Nurrotumdas Hospital, …
