Health Services disrupted across the country as RG Kar rape and murder case goes to CBI

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Health Services disrupted across the country as RG Kar rape and murder case goes to CBI

Rajasthan, Tripura, Telangana, Delhi, several AIIMS in the list of hospitals where services have been affected

 

The rape, torture and murder of a doctor in Kolkata’s R G Kar Hospital continued to disrupt medical services for the third consecutive day Tuesday with resident doctors in Rajsthan, Tripura, Telangana, Delhi, Jharkhand and several other states refusing to get back to work. Meanwhile the Calcutta High Court ruled that the case must be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Health minister J P Nadda has slammed the law and order situation in West Bengal even as Trinamool leader Kunal Ghosh took to X to claim that the government of the state is doing everything possible to nab the culprit. Meanwhile protests continued in several states of the country including in AIIMS New Delhi and several other institutes. Even as gory details emerged about the torture that the 31-year-old woman went through, doctors’ associations stuck to their guns demanding a law for the safety of healthcare workers. 

“We are going to continue with the strike. This time we will make sure that this is never ever repeated in our country. When this can happen in the biggest hospital of state capital what is the security at PHCs for female doctors and health care workers. We Never asked for  taali thali. But now All we get is “maar pitae maut aur gaali.” Now is the time for *CENTRAL PROTECTION ACT FOR HEALTHCARE WORKERS*@MamataOfficial @JPNadda @MoHFW_INDIA @NMC_IND,” posted Dr Rohan Krishnan, chairman of FAIMA Doctors’ Association on X.

In 2019, the government of India had started an initiative and had circulated a draft legislation The HealthCare Service Personnel & Clinical Establishments (Prohibition of Violence and Damage To Property) Bill, 2019 to protect healthcare workers but that was not ultimately tabled in Parliament. That Bill however had been drafted primarily to protect doctors from being manhandled by patients’ relatives and did not deal with heinous crimes such as the one that has happened in R G Kar Hospital.

 

In 12 years, India will have over 150 crore people, with a higher proportion of senior citizens

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In 12 years, India will have over 150 crore people, with a higher proportion of senior citizens

Declining fertility will see the population of under 15 years decrease relative to where it stood in 2011

By 2036, the population of India is expected to reach 152.2 Crore, with a slightly improved female percentage of 48.8% as compared to 48.5 percent in 2011. 

The proportion of individuals under 15 years is projected to decrease from 2011 to 2036, likely due to declining fertility. Conversely, the proportion of the population aged 60 years and above is anticipated to substantially increase during this period. The 25th issue of “Women and Men in India 2023” a publication brought out by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

The sex ratio is set to rise marginally from 943 in 2011 to 952 by 2036. The link between dipping fertility and the changed age profile of the population is borne out by the fertility trends of various age groups. “It is evident that from 2016 to 2020, Age Specific Fertility Rate in the age group of 20-24 and 25-29 has reduced from 135.4 and 166.0 to 113.6 and 139.6 respectively. The ASFR for the age 35-39 for the above period has increased from 32.7 to 35.6 which shows that after settling in the life, women are thinking of expansion of family. Adolescent Fertility Rate was 33.9 for illiterate population whereas 11.0 for the literate in 2020. This rateconsiderably lower for even those who are literate but without any formal education (20.0) as compared to illiterate women reemphasizing the importance of imparting education to women,” the report says.

The publication also recorded some interesting trends including the gender breakup of voters. It noted that up to the 15th National Election (1999), less than 60% of women electors participated, with men’s turnout being 8 percentage points higher. However, the 2014 elections marked a significant change, with women’s participation increasing to 65.6%, and further rising to 67.2% in the 2019 elections. For the first time, the voter turnout percentage was marginally higher for women, highlighting the impact of increasing literacy and political awareness among women.

The Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recognized a total of 1,17,254 start-ups since its inception in January 2016 up to December 2023. Among these, 55,816 start-ups are led by women, constituting 47.6% of the total recognized start-ups. This significant representation underscores the growing influence and contribution of women entrepreneurs in India’s start-up ecosystem.

 

Artificial sweeteners can predispose long term users to clots, finds new study

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Artificial sweeteners can predispose long term users to clots, finds new study

Researchers suggest erythritol should be re-evaluated as a food additive

Long term use of erythritol, a commonly used sweetener can predispose users to blood clots, a new study has found. Erythritol is a commonly used food additive and sugar substitute.

US researchers have reported in the journal Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology about the link they found in healthy volunteers and suggested that erythritol should be reevaluated as a food additive. “Ingestion of a typical quantity of the non-nutritive sweetener erythritol, but not glucose, enhances platelet reactivity in healthy volunteers, raising concerns that erythritol consumption may enhance thrombosis potential. Combined with recent large-scale clinical observational studies and mechanistic cell-based and animal model studies, the present findings suggest that discussion of whether erythritol should be reevaluated as a food additive with the Generally Recognized as Safe designation is warranted,” they wrote.

Erythritol is one of the commonest artificial sweeteners and is very frequently used in food items that are sold with the branding that they are safe for diabetics or people trying to lose weight. It is said to have zero calories in one gram while having the sweetening properties associated with sugar.

The authors pointed out that although artificial and non-nutritive sweeteners are widely used and generally recognized as safe by the US and European Union regulatory agencies, there have been no clinical trials to assess either long-term cardiovascular disease risks or short-term cardiovascular disease–relevant phenotypes. Food items using artificial sweeteners are also gaining in popularity in India.

How long you smoked may be better indicator of lung cancer risk than daily number

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How long you smoked may be better indicator of lung cancer risk than daily number

Researchers call for revision of pack-year smoking history as screening parameter, calling it imperfect and biased

Harvard researchers have called for a change in the parameters for assessing lung cancer risk based on how many cigarettes a person has smoked each day, basing it instead on the duration of the smoking habit.

Calling the current practice of evaluating lung cancer risk by pack-year smoking history an imperfect and biased measure of cumulative tobacco exposure, they have pointed out that the benchmark leads to different results in people of different races. “Use of a 20-year smoking duration cutoff instead of a 20-pack-year cutoff greatly increases the proportion of patients with lung cancer who would qualify for screening and eliminates the racial disparity in screening eligibility between Black versus White individuals; smoking duration has the added benefit of being easier to calculate and being a more precise assessment of smoking exposure compared with pack-year smoking history,” they wrote in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The current recommendation in the US is to test all 50 to 80-year-old adults for lung cancer if they have been smoking at least 20 cigarettes a day for at least a year (this is denoted as 20 pack-year) or have quit smoking within the last 15 years. 

“Our proposed guideline—which uses a 20-year smoking duration cutoff instead of a 20-pack-year smoking history cutoff—has several important advantages. First, use of the new cutoff increased the proportion of patients with lung cancer who would have qualified for screening to over 80% for both Black and White SCCS participants and 64% for Black women in the BWHS. Second, the proposed guideline eliminated the racial disparity in screening eligibility between Black versus White individuals,” the researchers wrote. SCCS refers to Southern Community Cohort Study and BWHS to the Black Women’s Health Study.

 

Immunisation cover at 93.5%, govt tells RS; Delhi, Maharashtra record over 100%

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Immunisation cover at 93.5%, govt tells RS; Delhi, Maharashtra record over 100%

Last month a report by UNICEF had estimated that India has the second highest number of “zero dose” children in the world

The government Tuesday informed the Rajya Sabha that for the 2023-24 financial year the childhood immunisation cover stood at 93.5%. States like Delhi, Maharashtra and Telangana were reported to have over 100% immunisation cover.

“Under the Universal immunization program, all eligible children up to the age of 2 years are administered vaccination doses as per the immunization schedule. Mission Indradhanush (MI) and Intensified Mission Indradhanush (IMI), are special catch-up campaigns conducted at regular intervals to ensure vaccination of the left out and dropped-out children and pregnant women in the areas of low immunization coverage, minister of state for health Prataprao Jadhav told the Upper House in a written reply.

“The Government of India encourages States/UTs to have model Immunization centers. Immunization camps are also conducted in the states as per the requirements. The model Immunization centers are already operational in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and in the Union Territories of Chandigarh and Ladakh,” he added.

A recent report by UNICEF had estimated that India has the second highest number of zero dose children in the world, second only to Nigeria. The World Health Organisation defines zero dose children as those that have not received any routine immunisation services. The government of India had said that these estimates give an incomplete picture of the country’s immunization data, as they do not factor in the population base and immunization coverage of the countries compared.

“The country’s Universal Immunization Programme is the largest public health initiative, targeting a massive cohort of 2.6 crore children and 2.9 crore pregnant women annually through 1.2 crore vaccination sessions. The Full Immunization Coverage for FY 2023-24 stands at 93.23% nationally. With consistent efforts to reach and vaccinate all eligible children against vaccine preventable diseases, the country has been able to achieve a noteworthy reduction in the Under-5 Mortality Rate (U5MR) declining from 45 per 1000 live births in 2014 to 32 per 1000 live births (SRS 2020). In addition, India has widened the basket of vaccines with the introduction of six new vaccines under the UIP to increase breadth of protection since 2014,” the ministry of health and family welfare had said last month in a statement.

Young people are more at risk for some forms of cancer, shows analysis by American society

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Young people are more at risk for some forms of cancer, shows analysis by American society

The study looked at incidence data for 34 types of cancer and mortality data for 25 types of cancer for individuals aged 25–84 years 

Young people are more at risk of some types of cancers, an analysis published in The Lancet Public Health has found. It looked at incidence data for 34 types of cancer and mortality data for 25 types of cancer for individuals aged 25–84 years for the period Jan 1, 2000, to Dec 31, 2019.

It found that the incidence rate was approximately two-to-three times higher in the 1990 birth cohort than in the 1955 birth cohort for small intestine, kidney, renal pelvis and pancreatic cancers in both males and females; and for liver and intrahepatic bile duct cancer in females.

“17 of 34 cancers had an increasing incidence in younger birth cohorts, including nine that previously had declining incidence in older birth cohorts. These findings add to growing evidence of increased cancer risk in younger generations, highlighting the need to identify and tackle underlying risk factors,” the researchers from American Cancer Society wrote. The team had previously reported that incidence rates increased in successively younger birth cohorts for eight cancer types—six of which are obesity-related.

The rising cancer incidence for many cancer types in successively younger generations suggests increases in the prevalence of carcinogenic exposures during early life or young adulthood, which have yet to be elucidated, the researchers said about the implications of their findings.

India has a high and many experts feel, underreported burden of cancer. According to the Indian Council of Medical Research, in 2022, the projected number of new cancer cases in India was 1,461,427, with a crude incidence rate of 100.4 per 100,000 individuals. Approximately one in nine people in India is expected to face a cancer diagnosis during their lifetime.

 

Vision loss, cholesterol among childhood risk factors linked to dementia, says Lancet study

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Vision loss, cholesterol among childhood risk factors linked to dementia, says Lancet study

Nearly half of dementia cases could be prevented or delayed by tackling 14 risk factors starting in childhood

The third Lancet Commission on dementia prevention has identified 14 preventable childhood risk factors that, if tackled early on, could prevent or delay dementia onset. Among these are vision loss and high cholesterol.

The other risk factors are lower levels of education, hearing impairment, high blood pressure, smoking, obesity, depression, physical inactivity, diabetes, excessive alcohol consumption, traumatic brain injury [TBI], air pollution and social isolation. They are linked to 40% of all dementia cases. The new report estimates that the risk factors associated with the greatest proportion of people developing dementia in the global population are hearing impairment and high LDL cholesterol (7% each), along with less education in early life and social isolation in later life (5% each).

The Commission, authored by 27 world-leading dementia experts, calls for governments and individuals to be ambitious about tackling risks across the life course for dementia, arguing that the earlier we can address and reduce risk factor levels, the better. The report outlines a new set of policy and lifestyle changes to help prevent and better manage dementia. 

“Our new report reveals that there is much more that can and should be done to reduce the risk of dementia. It’s never too early or too late to take action, with opportunities to make an impact at any stage of life”, says lead author Professor Gill Livingston from University College London, UK. “We now have stronger evidence that longer exposure to risk has a greater effect and that risks act more strongly in people who are vulnerable. That’s why it is vital that we redouble preventive efforts towards those who need them most, including those in low- and middle-income countries and socio-economically disadvantaged groups. Governments must reduce risk inequalities by making healthy lifestyles as achievable as possible for everyone.”

In 2020 there were an estimated 50 million people world over who were suffering from dementia and this number if expected to go up significantly by 2050.

Semaglutide may help quit smoking, shows new study that calls for clinical trials 

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Semaglutide may help quit smoking, shows new study that calls for clinical trials 

The diabetes drug with weight loss benefits that has taken the world by storm could help people who are addicted to tobacco and have physiological problems linked to that

A new study has raised hopes that semaglutide which was originally designed as a diabetes drug and also has weight loss benefits may also be effective in disorders that are linked to tobacco use.

Researchers while reporting this finding in the Annals of Internal Medicine called for clinical trials to evaluate semaglutide’s potential for treatment of tobacco use disordersn(TUD). The study had been triggered by some initial reports of reduced urge in semaglutide users to smoke.The study compared 222 942 new users of antidiabetes medications including 5967 of semaglutide. Semaglutide was associated with a significantly lower risk for medical encounters for TUD diagnosis compared with other antidiabetes medications, and was strongest compared with insulins 

“Semaglutide was associated with lower risks for TUD-related health care measures in patients with comorbid T2DM (Type 2 diabetes melitus) and TUD compared with other antidiabetes medications including other GLP-1Ras, primarily within 30 days of prescription,” they reported. Semaglutide is currently used as a diabetes medication and for long term weight management. It works by increasing the insulin level in the body.

The drug has become so popular that the USFDA recently brought out a warning against falsified versions of the drug.

Much about semaglutide is still being discovered with some reports suggesting that it might also help people with kidney diseases while others say its use may be linked to some rare forms of blindness.

 

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No data on deaths due to air pollution, government tells Rajya Sabha

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No data on deaths due to air pollution, government tells Rajya Sabha

Lancet had estimated that air pollution was responsible for 2.3 million premature deaths in India in 2019

Throwing to the winds multiple peer-reviewed publications in reputed medical journals, the government of India Tuesday told the Rajya Sabha that there is no conclusive data in the country on deaths due to air pollution.

Replying to a question by Trinamool Congress MP Jawhar Sircar, minister of state for health and family welfare Anupriya Patel said: “There are no conclusive data available in the country to establish direct correlation of death/disease exclusively due to air pollution. Air pollution is one of the triggering factors for respiratory ailments and associated diseases. Health effects of air pollution are synergistic manifestation of factors which include food habits, occupational habits, socioeconomic status, medical history, immunity, heredity etc. of the individuals.”

Earlier this month the medical journal The Lancet Planetary Health estimated that air pollution kills more than 33000 people every year in ten Indian cities, with Delhi alone accounting for a third of those deaths. The study, by the Karolinska Institute analysed the association between PM2·5 exposure and approximately 3·6 million daily deaths in ten Indian cities between 2008 and 2019. It came to the conclusion that every year air pollution kills 2495 people I. ahmedabad, 2102 in Bangalore, 2870 in Chennai, 11964 in Delhi, 1597 in Hyderabad, 4678 in Kolkata, 5091 in Mumbai, 1367 in Pune, 59 in Shimla and 831 in Varanasi. The total death toll in these ten cities because of air pollution comes to 33627.

Patel in her reply listed out the various initiatives taken by the government of India to minimise exposure to air pollution. The ministry of health, she said, has launched National Program on Climate Change and Human Health (NPCCHH) atn the  National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), with the objective to create awareness, capacity building, health sector preparedness and response and partnerships related activities on the climate sensitive health issues in the country since 2019. 

“The Programme has expanded in all the State/UTs and activities are conducted in the form of training on Climate Sensitive Diseases, Surveillance on Acute Respiratory Illnesses and Heat related Illnesses, generation & dissemination of Information, Education and Communication (IEC) on Air Pollution & Heat and its health impacts on health which include children. Further, guidelines on ‘Air Pollution and its Impact on Children’s Health’ have been developed in both Hindi and English under National Programme on Climate Change and Human Health in 2020 and shared with States for implementation,” she said.

 

In Lancet report, WHO flags intimate partner violence in 15-19 year old girls 

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In Lancet report, WHO flags intimate partner violence in 15-19 year old girls 

Nearly a quarter (24%) will have experienced physical and/or sexual intimate partner violence by the time they turn 20 years old

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has flagged widespread prevalence of intimate partner violence in young girls aged between 15 and 19 years, estimating, in an article in The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, that by the time they reach the age of 20 about a quarter of girls – about 19 million – would have experienced intimate partner violence.

The analysis used used the 2018 global, regional, and country estimates on intimate partner violence published by WHO and economic, social, and political metadata from subject-specific databases.

 

“Intimate partner violence is starting alarmingly early for millions of young women around the world,” said Dr Pascale Allotey, Director of WHO’s Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research Department. “Given that violence during these critical formative years can cause profound and lasting harms, it needs to be taken more seriously as a public health issue – with a focus on prevention and targeted support.”

While violence against adolescent girls occurs everywhere, the authors highlight significant differences in prevalence. Based on WHO’s estimates, the worst affected regions are Oceania (47%) and central sub-Saharan Africa (40%), for instance, while the lowest rates are in central Europe (10%) and central Asia (11%). Between countries, there is also a substantive range: from an estimated 6% adolescent girls subjected to such violence in the least affected countries, to 49% in those with the highest rates.  

“Our findings highlight the widespread prevalence of intimate partner violence against adolescent girls across the globe and its relationship with country-level contextual factors. They emphasise the need for promoting and ensuring policies and programmes that increase and ensure gender equality. Countries should strive to provide secondary education for all girls, ensure equal property rights for women, eliminate discriminatory gender norms, and address harmful practices such as child marriage,” the authors wrote in the medical journal.

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