Health Adda

Several of the hospitals in India have become world class, leaving very little to be gained by Indian patients planning to go overseas for treatment. The best scanners (CT, MRI, PET etc) are now available at home, treatment of heart diseases (co ronaru angioplasty, stenting, bypass surgery, valve replacements) is widely and safely available with excellent results that are predicatable, and transplantation of kidneys, bone marrow and liver has matured with time and numbers. Cancer treatment is also excellent and avavilable through many regional cancer centers across the country. Medical tourism has become a flourishing business in India, thanks to the high quality and reliability of health care in some Indian hospitals. The advances in medical care in India have unfortunately occured in private corporate hospitals. They cater to an urban middle class with rapidly expanding paying capacity for their health needs. They have also been quick to see and utilize the inevitable ne...

 It is indeed the time of the year when Indians try to reconnect with their families, travel long distances to congregate at their homes, pray and fast together,  perform rituals, wear new clothes, hug each other and rejoice and try to keep their traditions and faiths alive. The food is rich, roads are crowded, and offices and businesses crawl but the air seems charged with a renewed excitement. If sceptics and cynics find it amusing to see members of a family geting together to fast, eat, pray and  celebrate togetheras meaningless old fashioned ritualds, the laugh may be on them! It's not just lifestyle, human emotions too have a significant impact on an individual's well being, says a new study. Researchers from University of Kansas have found that positive emotions are critical for upkeep of physical health for people worldwide, especially for those who are deeply impoverished.  "We've known for a while now that emotions play a critical role in physi...

With the Asian games scheduled in Delhi next year, it is time we looked at how the crowded schedule of matches and leagues are impacting our lives and health. The involvement that most urban Indians have with sports today  is to watch it on television or to read it in the papers. We love watching cricket on TV, sometimes bunking office or college to catch it live.  Many who were not veteran cricket watchers have taken to it so as not to be left out of party or coffee shop conversation.  Watching games together with friends is even more thrilling, as passions rise higher with exchange of expert observations and comments. And  chips, pizzas, samosas  or nuts to munch during the matches adds that extra dash of fun that make these sessions so interesting, while making us couch potatoes. In urban India, the focus has shifted from “playing it” to “following it”, Boria Mazumdar style. Amongst youngsters, the question is no longer “What games you play?” but ...

Two thosand people will die today in India due to tobacco. India is home to 250 million tobacco users with around 900,000 succumbing to tobacco-related diseases every year.  We ranks 1 st  in the world for incidence of oral cancer, caused almost entirely by tobacco use. One of our senior ministers had to be operated in USA for cancer of the cheek due to his Gutka habit. Although his face reveals a lack of symmetry, it is a matter of satisfaction that he is cured of cancer, and has turned a major anti-Gutka campaigner in Maharashtra. One wonders how this habit started and spread in mankind’s history. There is no scientific doubt that tobacco may provide even the slightest benefit to human health. It has no nutritive value. While smoking, one inhales 43 cancer causing substances, 15 harmful chemicals and 400 poisons, all in a single puff.  Tobacco contains nicotine that provides what little kick that people get of it. It is however addictive and habit forming. The hab...

Children of Navjyoti School for the blind, located in Mohanlalganj love “watching” soap serials on TV. “They  follow the family dramas and all that is happening in the country by listening to the voices on TV and “picturing” the characters in their minds”, says Sister Jessy,  principal of the school that houses 65 blind children aged 6 to 14 years. And if your eyes turn moist with sadness for these “deprived” children, just hold on! They do not feel deprived as they do not know what they miss by way of vision, as they never had it. The term for them is neither “deprived” nor “handicapped”, but “challenged”, indicating that their inability to see poses a challenge for them to achieve almost all that their “visually eqipped” colleagues can. They can sing, dance, play on the swings, study, pass exams and get jobs. The way they appreciate beauty may however be somewhat different: Shreya Ghoshal may be more beautiful to them than Karina Kapoor, as it is through voice and ...

Swine flu has already infected more than a thosand people in this country and claimed 7 Indian lives, and seems poised to spread rapidly across the country causing  a great deal of havoc.  The virus has already infected 1.6 lac people in more than 168 countries of whom 1160 have died. The WHO has termed it a “pandemic”, implying that the disease has become global.  Its entry into India has been late, but with the high population density (jargon for “crowded”) in most cities here, it is expected to spread faster than wild fire. The swine flu germ is a virus that belongs to the family of Influenza viruses, and has a particular profile termed H1N1.  This particular virus normally causes flu in swines and pigs. Recently this virus mutated and crossed over to man, causing human disease. Further, it has mutated to adapt itself to spread from one person to another and thereby started an infectious cycle amongst humans.  The problem originated in Mexico and spread to o...

The Taj is iconic of Indian tourism and perhaps draws the largest number of International tourists. Those who dare to visit India and Agra are charmed and awed by the pristine and majestic beauty of this marble edifice.  It is a common site to see I nternational tourists arriving in air conditioned buses, huddling in groups with mineral water bottles in their hands, posing for that drawing-room-mantle photograph with Taj in the background, and then wrenching their noses and stealing glances at the squalor around the city of Agra darting off back to Delhi. We are lucky that the Taj and Agra are in India and in Uttar Pradesh, and that it is a monument admired and sought after by tourists from across the world, but can we market the Taj alone without improving the surroundings, the city of Agra and the fabled Yamuna that are so intricately entwined with each other? Tourists are warned before arriving at Agra to be careful of vendors, touts and self styled guides who might take them fo...