Right To Better Living

Imagine yourself as a soldier who just started his/her military training. You have to wake up early. Then you go for a morning run of up to 16-20 kilometers. Then you are grilled in parade ground with a 10+ kg rifle held over head. In the afternoon session, you are made to crawl through the muddy terrain. In the evening you are you have to complete an Obstacle training within the given time frame. Be it summer, winter or monsoon, you got to do it, period. What happens as a result of such grueling training? You become stronger,robust & develop the ability to adopt to the changing circumstances. This is exactly what is happening to viruses due over and unnecessary use of antibiotics. antibiotics have trained the organisms become "Superbugs" and now they have become so powerful that small infections are becoming fatal. We Indians have a special infatuation with Antibiotics. Whenever anyone falls ill, all he/she needs is a magic pill (read antibiotics) to ge

Well I have a bad news, some more bad news and consolatory good news. The bad news is, "We can not prevent ourselves from developing an antibiotic resistance". Another bad news is, not only antibiotics but any drug for that matter, will become ineffective in long run as our bodies grow resistant to them. You can't help it. This is how our bodies are designed. Just as humans adapt changing circumstances, bodies adapt to anything they are exposed to. But there is some good news. By making right choices about how we use antibiotics, we can delay/minimize the progression of the resistance. You may inculcate few of the following habits to not live live healthy but also prevent antibiotic resistance. Practical ways to prevent antibiotic resistance Never use antibiotics to treat common cold and flu. As these illnesses are caused by virus, antibiotics any ways do not have any effect on them. Take antibiotics when absolutely necessary. If you can avoid taking it

Diabetes Mellitus Diabetes Mellitus is a metabolic disorder that interferes with how sugar/glucose is utilized in our body. Every time we eat something, our digestive system converts food into sugar/glucose. This sugar is then transported to all the parts of the body through blood stream. When the blood sugar levels rise, which usually happens after we eat something, pancreas releases insulin. This insulin is responsible for making the sugar available for all cells of the body which will use for the energy needed for all the bodily functions. It is a simple lock and key arrangement. Insulin acts as key to open cell 'lock' so that the blood sugar can enter the cells for further utilization. But when someone has a diabetes, this mechanism does not work. Types of Diabetes Mellitus Type 1 Diabetes Mellitus In type 1 diabetes, due to some reasons (off course unknown to scientists) our immune system attacks and kills insulin producing pancreatic cells. As a

India is becoming the Diabetic Capital of the world. As per WHO estimates, currently 6% of the population has some form of diabetes in India. By 2020, the percentage will increase to 9%. More importantly, majority of the people who are now becoming diabetic, have no family history of diabetes. Now this is something to worry about but we hardly see anybody taking it seriously. The irony is, rather than making permanent changes in the basic lifestyle, people are waiting for scientists to find the genes that are responsible for diabetes. 1. Genetic vulnerability to Type 2 Diabetes: During primitive times when food the scarcest thing around, human's genetic make up was evolved to cope up with this scarcity. The populations spread across the globe, specially Indians are genetically designed to live in food scarce environment. As we became civilized, the life we were exposed to started changing. Among other things, there came a supply of unending food supply. The extra food (calo