Health

Chandigarh, June 19: Calorie conscious consumers are rapidly shifting to ‘lassi’, a drink popular in rural areas, making it one of the biggest money spinner for Punjab’s Milk Cooperative– Milkfed.

The sale of lassi has registered a 49 per cent growth this year clocking Rs 7.42 crore, an official spokesman said here today.

He said that Milkfed had been changing its product profile keeping in view the fast changing preferences of consumers especially young consumers who are showing great interest towards low calorie drinks including Verka’s Lassi.

New Delhi, June 19: Swine flu cases in the country today touched 50 with six more persons, including a two-year- old boy and 66-year-old woman, testing positive for the disease.

Three fresh cases were reported from Delhi while two were from Bangalore and one from Mumbai. Out of the new cases, one case in Delhi was of human to human transmission.

“Six new cases have been reported from Delhi (3), Bangalore (2) and Mumbai (1). Of the 50 cases, 16 have been discharged while the rest are all stable and remain admitted to health facilities,” a Health Ministry official said.

Tokyo, June 19: Health experts have long warned of the risk of obesity, but a new Japanese study warns that being very skinny is even more dangerous, and that slightly chubby people live longest.

People who are a little overweight at age 40 live six to seven years longer than very thin people, whose average life expectancy was shorter by some five years than that of obese people, the study found.

Dubai, June 19: Drinking just one cup of black tea everyday might protect against cardiovascular disease, a new research has found.

According to the study conducted at University of L’Aquila in Italy and supported by the Lipton Institute of Tea, black tea consumption improves blood vessel reactivity and reduces blood pressure and arterial stiffness, indicating a notably better cardiovascular health profile.

Using a group of 19 healthy men (mean age 33), the researchers assigned the participants to one of five prescribed intakes of the tea over five periods lasting one week each.

Washington, June 19: While every mother wants what is best for their infant, those moms with multiple sclerosis (MS) have difficult choices to make. Breastfeeding, which is the best option for a baby, may not be possible due to medications taken to control the symptoms of MS. However, it has been shown that exclusive breastfeeding may help protect women that suffer from multiple sclerosis against relapses of their disease, possible by delaying the immediate return to normal monthly cycles after giving birth.

Washington, June 19: Computer injuries bring to mind tired eyes, carpal tunnel syndrome, and back or shoulder pain. Workdays of constant data entry can cause all of those problems, but that’s not the kind of computer injuries that have the medical profession talking.

The best way to care your baby is to go extra miles for feeding and preparing the right recipes. As your baby grows, he needs extra nutrients to be supplied in his food.

The food supplements for your babies also keep changing with each passing month. The healthy option to feed your toddlers the right kind of supplement is to give them home made baby food recipes.

Bangalore, June 18: Over the years, the blood vessels supplying blood to the heart muscle get blocked due to a deposit of cholesterol and fat. Angina or Coronary Heart Disease develops when the blockage becomes 70 per cent or more.

WHO estimates that Indians will make for 60 per cent of the world’s cardiac patients by 2010. It is not just the elderly but those in their late 20s and 30s who are now becoming vulnerable to blocks.

What are the Causes?

Gandhinagar, June 17: An 11-year old girl and her parents have been quarantined in a government civil hospital in north Gujarat after she displayed swine flu-like symptoms after returning from the US, a health official said here Wednesday.

The state Health Department official said the girl had cold and cough after her return from Michigan June 14 and was quarantined for the past three days at the civil hospital of Himmatnagar, the headquarters of Sabarkantha district, about 80 km from here.

New Delhi/Hyderabad/Jalandhar, June 17: Four people including a six-year-old boy tested positive for swine flu in the national capital, taking the total number of influenza A (H1N1) cases in India to 35, health officials said here Wednesday.

‘Four more people tested positive for the swine flu Wednesday morning,’ Delhi Health Minister Kiran Walia told IANS.

She said these people were admitted to the Airport Health Organisation hospital (APHO).

New Delhi, June 17: Though no new H1N1 influenza cases have been confirmed in the capital, 14 new suspected cases were reported on Tuesday. The Delhi
government’s health department swung into action soon after it received calls from three students, part of a 20-member contingent that visited Nasa on an educational trip, complaining of flu-like symptoms on Tuesday evening.

Mumbai, June 16: Doctors warn swine flu cases may escalate when the mercury dips during monsoon..

The rains may not bring good news this year. Doctors warn of a spurt in the number of cases of swine flu during monsoon.

As the number of swine flu patients in the country climbed to more than 20 over the weekend, the Union health ministry warned of a sudden escalation in the disease in the next couple of months.

Doctors from across the country say the menace of the H1N1 virus is less in the scorching summer, as it cannot survive in temperatures above 40-45 degrees.

New Delhi, June 16: The Indian government is urging people not to travel abroad until swine flu in the country is under control, after seven more people tested positive.

The new cases come from the Indian city of Jalandhar where a group of students had recently returned from a trip to the US space agency, Nasa.

The total number of those infected by swine flu throughout India now stands at 30.

Last week the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global flu pandemic.

The swine flu (H1N1) virus first emerged in Mexico in April and has since spread to at least 74 countries.

Bangalore, June 16: After the scorching heat, the rains definitely come as a relief, but they also signal the need for extra protection, be it of our homes, vehicles or us. Maintaining those lovely, long, shiny tresses is quite a task during the monsoon and the problems faced seem endless.

What are the causes?

New Delhi, June 16: Swine flu cases in India mounted to 30 Monday after seven more teenaged students who returned from an educational tour of the US tested positive for the virus. On its part, the government urged the people, especially students, to suspend their visits abroad.

According to health officials here, seven of a group of 31 students from the Guru Amar Das Public School in Jalandhar, who had gone to New York and Florida to visit National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) facilities, tested positive for swine flu.

Paris, June 15: Now it’s official: We have a flu pandemic. But what does it mean? For many, the term may be tinged with fear. It evokes folk memories of three influenza pandemics that erupted last century and claimed tens of millions of lives.

The worst was the 1918-19 “Spanish flu.”

The greatest plague of the 20th century killed as many as 50 million people, particularly the young and healthy, who could be dispatched to their grave in just a few days, their ravaged lungs filled with blood.

New Delhi, June 15: With four confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza reported in the country on Sunday, the number of people hit by the pandemic
Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bangalore Support staff stand outside the swine flu ward at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases in Bangalore. rose to 23. Of the four, three were reported in Hyderabad and one, of a schoolboy from Punjab, in Delhi.

Washington, June 13: Now it’s storm in a coffee cup. Though a cup of coffee might help you beat drowsiness, a new research suggests that caffeine might hinder your short-term recall of certain words.

Caffeine made it harder for people to find a word that they already knew — the “tip-of-the-tongue” phenomenon, BBC News portal reported on Friday.

Valerie Lesk, of the International School for Advanced Studies in Italy, believes caffeine improves alertness by shutting down other brain pathways. This makes it harder to recall words, she says in Behavioural Psychology.

New Delhi, June 12: Tibetan medical science, a 2,000-year-old legacy of herbal and spiritual healing born in the Buddhist monasteries of high-altitude Tibet, offers cures for diseases like cancer and thalassaemia but is yet to be recognised by the Indian government, says one of its leading woman practitioners here.
“This system can contribute a lot to ease suffering. If it is recognised by the Indian government, students can carry on research because we have no country of our own,” Tsewang Dolkar Khongkar, a Tibetan doctor, told IANS.

Washington, June 10: Want to keep your vision clear as the years go by? Put fatty fish on your menu at least twice a week says a new study.

Researchers have found that eating fish like salmon and tuna at least twice a week can help prevent a devastating eye disease the age-related muscular degeneration which is said to be the leading cause of blindness in the elderly.

Over time the back part of the eye can degenerate causing the disease which can also be triggered by new blood vessels growing and bleeding in the region.

Washington, June 09: Pregnant women who consume extra calories and gain too much weight may face complications at birth such as pre-eclampsia (hypertension),

or may require a C-section. Moreover, both mother and child face a higher risk of being obese later in life.

Wellington, June 09: New Zealand researchers have developed a mouth swab test to predict smokers’ risk of getting lung cancer, news reports said Tuesday. Associate Professor Robert Young, of Auckland University, said the test combined clinical risk factors, including age, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and family history of lung cancer, with DNA obtained through mouth swabs.

He said all smokers faced an increased risk of developing lung cancer but the risk was much greater for some than others.

Banglore,May 29: Inhaling air exposed to `bidi’ or cigarette smoke is more hazardous to health than contracting a disease from a garbage dump!

At the launch of a study titled `Current science of tobacco’, director of Healis Sekhsaria Institute of Public Health P C Gupta said tobacco is the single largest cause of death in India, more than HIV/AIDS, TB or malaria combined.

“Smoking kills 9 lakh people per year. The challenge is to protect India’s young population of 600 million people below 30 years,” he explained.

Washington, May 15: The recession might be a little less painful for some Americans, who won’t lose their prescription medications if they lose their jobs.

Pfizer Inc. said Thursday it will give away more than 70 of its most widely prescribed drugs, including Lipitor and Viagra, for up to a year to people who have lost jobs since Jan. 1 and have been taking the drug for three months or more. The announcement comes as the unemployment rate topped 8.9 percent in April.

New Delhi, May 01: This could be the worst health crisis facing the world in 90 years.

With the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday raising its People wait outside a mobile clinic in Mexico City to get tested for swine flu. (Reuters Photo)
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