Understanding body clock can pave the way for better health

When sunlight falls on the skin, it forms an essential nutrient, vitamin D. For people in India, which has an average of 300 clear sunny days in a year, this sunshine vitamin should be available in abundance. However, reports show as many as 80 per cent people in urban India and 70 per cent in rural India are deficient in the vitamin. According to studies, this could be because of changing lifestyle, dietary habits, rising air pollution levels and high concentration of toxins, like pesticides, in the environment. To make up for the shortage, doctors prescribe supplements. Some even propose mandatory fortification of food. But there seem to be gaps in understanding this paradox of vitamin D deficiency amid plenty of sunshine. Vibha Varshney sifts through research data and suggests it would be prudent to understand these gaps before resorting to supplementation and fortification

They are natural archives of yearly waterflow pattern of rivers

Peter Littlewood is the associate laboratory director for physical sciences and engineering at the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA. He talks to Vibha Varshney on the sidelines of the Indian Science Congress about the vast potential of new materials being developed around the world

Ecosystems undergo dramatic fluctuations just before collapse

Spiders can tell us about the health of the environment

216 people across the country died of the disease

Mines release arsenic, contaminate water and soil

44 infant deaths per 1,000 live births is still higher than the 11th Plan target of reducing it to 30

The country’s planners are debating how to provide healthcare to all. In a drastic shift from the 65-year-old public health system, the Planning Commission in the 12th Five Year Plan considers introducing an insurance scheme, which will allow a major role to private players. Will it work?

Vibha Varshney in Delhi, Alok Gupta in Bihar and Aparna Pallavi in Andhra Pradesh examine how the existing health insurance schemes are faring. They find there is a lot to learn from their shortcomings and successes before a new model of healthcare delivery is prescribed

With no income options, Ghangharia residents want forestland for hotels

In times of rising costs of healthcare compounded by shortage of funds, UNITAID, a UN organisation, was set up in 2006 to improve access to life-saving drugs in developing countries. Unlike other UN bodies that depend on donors, the organisation is innovative in the way it collects funds and operates. Denis Broun, executive director of UNITAID, talks to Vibha Varshney about novel sources of financing and their potential to transform the market

A growing number of people are unable to shed those extra pounds despite strict diet regimes and long hours of workout. Evidence shows that the toxins in the environment could be playing the spoilsport. They modify the body’s physiology and make it difficult to lose weight. While the West is waking up to the complex linkages between chemicals and obesity, realisation is yet to dawn on doctors and researchers in India. Vibha Varshney, Dinsa Sachan and Sonal Matharu report on the new trigger for obesity and the way out

Cheap way to wash clothes using enzymes

Plants remember their past. Dehydrate them to find out

Smartphone apps are changing the way people manage health. They help people monitor symptoms and tailor treatment accordingly. But the data produced by these apps is private and there is fear it can be misused. Deborah Estrin, director of the Center for Embedded Networked Sensing, University of California, US talks to Vibha Varshney about the need to protect privacy of people who use these apps. Edited Excerpts:

A recent health survey throws up figures that defy logic. Some districts in India’s nine most backward states have curbed infant mortality rates to much lower than the national average. Down To Earth travels to some of these districts to understand how they have succeeded in breaking the mould. Vibha Varshney, Sonal Matharu, Ankur Paliwal and Dinsa Sachan report

It can protect dryland from withering due to climate change

The strong and mighty bacteria are all around us. They have hardened themselves to fight back the antibiotics administered to patients. This is because we allowed them to, by overusing drugs. Government has woken up from slumber and formulated a policy that targets antibiotic resistance. It restricts sale. But will it be able to contain irrational use of drugs? Vibha Varshney, Dinsa Sachan and Sonal Matharu investigate

Down To Earth filed an RTI application to find out the reason of vaccine shortage in India. The response revealed how a plan to promote private vaccine makers boomeranged. The health ministry was forced to get vaccines illegally from the very public sector manufacturers it suspended last year

Bhopal is a metaphor for disaster, industrial and human. It has been the object of much speculation and typically endless litigation. A case study in regulatory law, it could serve as wonderful proof in an argument to uphold the precautionary principle. Reams of paper -- research unpublished or not undertaken -- and crores of cash -- money unspent, or non-funding -- facilitate the entry of a new generation of the city's residents into the 21st century, and death by unknown illness

Scientists say the spread of the mysterious disease may be linked to wind patterns

Michigan State University scientists have developed a portable, effective device for testing plant diseases. Called Gene-Z, it was unveiled at the National Plant Diagnostic Network’s conference in California, US, recently. Team leader Syed Hashsham shares its potential with Vibha Varshney

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No confirmation yet on whether virus is a mutant one

Attempts are on to derail UN initiative to declare noncommunicable diseases a global priority

During its active stage, the star spews tonnes of plasma that can disrupt satellites and power grids. Is the world ready to protect itself?

India’s demand for mobile phones is almost insatiable. Telecom companies are falling over themselves to cash in on it, even if it means resorting to unethical deeds

Researchers and government call for new ideas to revive Indian science yet again. Will it work?

It reacts with disinfectants, can cause diseases including cancer

How to make healthy food taste as good as junk food
 

Agricultural areas get no rain, urban areas face water logging
 

Improved stoves will be standardized for fuel and emission efficiency

Scientists figure out how to make plants drought-resistant

Switching to ozone-friendly inhalers is not going to be easy

Johan Von Schreeb, a surgeon who has worked for the group Medicins Sans Frontieres, is a public health scholar with the Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. His recently published PhD thesis enquired into humanitarian health assistance in countries affected by disasters. He tells Vibha Varshney why such assistance has often failed to meet the real needs of people.

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Flying doctors save lives in remote areas of East Africa

135,000 affected by chikungunya disease, government yet to assess gravity of situation

Using yeast to produce a cure

Water scarcity in a Faridkot village

Typhoid could have caused the fall of the powerful city state during the Peloponnesian wars, says a new study

Divine wrath could put ski resort deal on ice

Stringent labelling norms

Nestl targets homoeopaths to promote its baby food

Can render ineffective the only antimalarial medicine against Plasmodium falci

UNICEF in dock over vitamin A fortification programme

No guidelines for severe malnutrition in children

A toxic conduit into the body

Herbal products for exports will have carry additional info

By giving up on traditional oils, we lose out on nutrition

Tasty and healthy

Minister sounds false alarm; government still mulling the ban

US Senate majority party leader opposes Bush

WHO endorses GM crops, overlooks negative reports

India plans to root out leprosy by 2005: can it?

Number of new infections dips in 2004, but is it false relief?

Brave front: Bimla hugs her son goodbye before leaving for Bikaner for her second round of radiotherapy

With a climber

US government's guidelines for 'good food' quite mild

Is it a threat to the artificial sweetener market?

A popular ayurvedic herb is blacklisted by the US media on unjustifiable grounds

A malaria vaccine shows encouraging results in trials

Sugar substitutes are an unhealthy business

Typhoid bacterium resilient to antibiotics

Dharam Prakash is an anti-injections doctor and kids love him

WHO introduces guidelines to promote traditional medicines

Gruelling discussions bear fruit. World Health Assembly formulates health strategy

It's also about not compensating suffering mineworkers

Herbal drug stuck in IPR jam, tribal group biggest loser

An optimistic note, about wiping out polio from the six afflicted countries, was to be sounded at a conference organised by the World Health Organisation in Geneva on January 15. Instead, the sudden re-emergence of the disease in two African nations -- Benin and Cameroon -- set the alarm bells ringing and turned it into an emergency meeting

Use of pesticides is responsible for the arsenic crisis

Cancer drug letrozole is at the centre of a controversy over its being promoted as a fertility enhancer. The Union government has issued notices in this regard to Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceuticals and Uttar Pradesh-based Dabur India Limited. While the latter has removed Foliripe -- the brand name under which it sells letrozole -- from the market, fresh evidence has reportedly surfaced that the former was encouraging the clinical trials of the medicine for this purpose

An experimental vaccine against the lethal Ebola virus has been administered to humans for the first time in November 2003. If the trial proves successful, then the vaccine will be commercialised by 2006, a decade sooner than the time, it was thought, it would take to develop the inoculation. The potential to use the virus as a bioterrorism weapon is one of the major factors determining the speed at which the vaccine was developed. It can also be used as a preventive tool in countries where the virus is endemic

In april this year, California became the first us state to introduce a bill to biomonitor breast milk. Activists and researchers hope that once this legislation is passed, it will help people realise that mothers pass on toxic material to their offspring. Breast milk monitoring would also help create awareness about the harmful effect of pesticides

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Incessant rains and the resultant stagnant water in canals and fields have spawned a malaria epidemic in the western part of the state

Can cure ringworm infection

Neem?

Indian exporters of chilli products are smarting. The EU has all but shut the door on them after recently detecting the presence of Sudan red 1, a carcinogenic industrial dye, in one of their consignments to France. And the Spices Board of India has cracked the whip on the three export companies whose products were found contaminated. The unsavoury row has thrown up serious questions regarding the domestic market, too, where adulteration is said to be rampant

The paanwallah-doubling-up-as-a-condom-vendor ad has been taken off the air. Instead, Doordarshan will show a village council member warning women about aids and exhorting them to be faithful. The shift in focus heralds a drastic change in India's aids prevention policy. No longer condom-centric. Harping on abstinence and fidelity. But also glossing over certain facts: like heterosexual transmission being responsible for more than 82 per cent of the country's nearly 4 million HIV positive cases, and the experiment having failed elsewhere in the world

By May 2003, the European Council was supposed to have reached a consensus on a directive that seeks to regulate the supply of herbal products in the European Union market. Once implemented this -- in tandem with two other regulations -- could rob consumers of the choice of cheap, alternative products and represent a serious setback for preventive healthcare

CII study recommends greater private role in India's healthcare sector, but the document centres around the lucrative tertiary care market only

Educational tools need not be the prerogative of the privileged

An attempt to revive vanishing medicinal plants through cultivation

Marine organisms like bivalves hold cures for viral diseases

Will the inclusion of Hepatitis B vaccination in the Universal Immunisation Programme help?

A clutch of conscientious citizens across India have collectively clamoured and crusaded against the decibel din

The tiny rodents that most people link only to pestilence and crop destruction have fascinated Ishwar Prakash -- one of that rare breed: a rat expert in India -- for most of his life

Plants affected by pollution are increasingly being used for indicating pollution levels

Dwindling forests in a Rajasthan sanctuary get a fresh lease of life with villagers effectively banning the use of axe