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. …
EVEN the master organ - the brain - can at times get fooled. Sometimes a person feels that a limb that had been amputated is still there but is paralysed. The patient can actually feel all the parts of the phantom limb but cannot move it and this causes extreme …
IT WAS darkness at noon for Delhiites on June 6, when a huge blanket of smoke covered the sun as the 3,000 odd shops in Asia's biggest market of poly-vinyl- chloride (PVc) goods in Jwalapuri, west Delhi, was gutted. Initial loss estimates put it at Rs 80 crore. None died, …
BRAZIL has been a favourite hunting ground for mysterious killer viruses. Unknown illnesses, giving occasion to much brainracking in medical circles, have been its bane. Four deaths recently in Cuiaba in the state ofMato Grosso - mortalities attributed to a virus called the Hanta virus ( closely related to the …
A FEW zealous social rehabilitators attempted to cheer up the lives of those women who lost their male offsprings in the Latur earthquake. In the past they had adopted family planning measures (tubectomy), and is no longer capable of bearing children. A male child would put the smiles back on …
THAT nightmarish faction book, The Hot Zone, told the story of the deadly Ebola virus. Now Outbreak tells us an even more horrifying story of a fictional virus, Motaba. Like Ebola, which dissolves the insides of monkeys and humans in a week or 10 days, Motaba also spreads through body …
CUBA's plans to rehabilitate its hiv patients within the community rather than locking them up in hospitals has not met with much success. "Uptill now, only 170 people have joined the out-patients scheme, and I have already received several letters requesting readmission," says Jorge Perez Avila, director of the Santiago …
DOES'vasectomy lead to prostate cancer in the long run? Conflicting findings of studies abroad led the Indian Council of Medical Research to initiate in August 1994 a comprehensive hospital based study. Due for completion in 2 years, the study is part of a World Health Organization multicountry evaluation which aims …
ON THE eve of World Health Day, 4 infants died hours after being inoculated against measles at government pri- mary health centres, acutely embarrassing a government anxious to fulfil its (ill-defined) objective of "Health for all by 2000 AD". In the first incident, 9-month-old Soma and I 1-month-old Bandana and …
The London High Court's recent intervention in a case could make the difference between life and death for an anorexic girl. In late April, she had won the right to be treated at a special adolescent unit for eating disorders after her parents were given a go-ahead by the High …
Ciba-Geigy is marketing a hormone sachet, for women, to cope with menopause, an indication of diminishing oestrogen and ovarian functions. The symptoms are hot flushes and perspiration to osteoporosis. Sealed in air tight sachets - the Estraderm TTS (transclermal thera- peutic system) - the patch is applied to skin below …
MARK Harrison's book is a tale of the trials and tribulations of the Raj on the battlefield of disease and medicine. The colonial government's political strength hinged on the wellbeing of its troops. Hence, its interest in public health - soldiers cannot be kept in perpetual quarantine. Harrison's book takes …
What are the primary causes of blindness in the world today? How widespread is the problem? There are 23-45 million blind people in the world. We define blindness differently for those 2 figures: "economic blindness" and "social blindness". Economic blindness would be less than 6/60th vision, which is the top …
Multiple sclerosis has no cure in allopathy. How did you develop an interest and begin your ayurvedic research in this? My father was a vaidya -- the late Chandra Prakash -- who dealt with Rasayan Shastra in the field of ayurveda. In 1960 he successfully treated a patient suffering from …
Now health statistics are available at a glance. The National Atlas and Thematic Mappings Organisation (NATMO) has released a Health Map of India. This map highlights the health care facilities and medical attendance available in different parts of the country. In addition to this, the map gives a comprehensive picture …
FOR the poor villagers inhabiting the underdeveloped villages of central Bihar, an access to cheap and timely health care is a distant dream. However, for the last 2 years, in many villages of Arrah, Gaya, Patna and Nalanda, 60 young and committed health workers are working hard to transform this …
MEASLES vaccine killed 3 infants at Debagram in Nadia district of West Bengal. This was confirmed by members of the inquiry committee which investigated the incident. However, the exact cause is yet to be identified. Officials at the wHo and doctors elsewhere rule out the lethality of the polio vaccine, …
SUCCOUR came from Rome. For the "pro-lifers" in the US -- as the members of the anti-abortion camp style themselves -- the 11th encyclical of Pope John Paul II, a 189-page pronunciation of papal wrath against abortion and euthanasia -- came at a moment when the battle for the fate …
DESPITE widespread apprehensions about its potential health hazards, super-unleaded petrol is set to stay in the UK. In late March, the British govemment rejected the calls bya group of mps to ban the sale of unleaded petrol, which accounts for around 6 per cent of petrol sales in the country. …
A FUNGUS, Aspergillus fumigatus, which can kill people with damaged immune systems, has provided an important weapon for fighting against coronary heart disease (CHD), according to researchers from Tokyo's Kitasato University. They found that a previously unknown group of compounds produced by this fungus can block an enzyme responsible for …
Enter the food pharmacy: while major competing pharmaceutical firms scour their laboratories for a wonder drug to outsmart the newest disease on the block, a new breed of nutritionists and naturopaths have announced their arrival in medicine's big league. For food pharmacists, treatment goes beyond the "You are what you …
