Two key numbers for 2017 !

Movement is medicine!

Excellent video on back pain cure !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOjTegn9RuY#t=13 

Read this excellent article too...

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/07/20/328273003/a-youtube-video-is-doctors-secret-weapon-against-back-pain 

Some recent clippings!

Health Care in India is cheap?

Jaipur Foot

Is this really true?

Ayurvedic Village

Not so smart!

Cactus Juice?

Lasik

Sunlight, Samskritam, Mehndi, and Gold

நம்மாழ்வார் சொல்லும் நான்கு ரகசியங்கள்!

நம்மாழ்வார் சொல்லும் நான்கு ரகசியங்கள்!

இருளும் ஒளியும் சந்திக்கும் அதிகாலையில் விழிப்பு, தாவரங்களோடு உரையாடிக்கொண்டே பண்ணைத் தோட்டத்தில் ஒரு நடைப்பயிற்சி, கொஞ்சம் யோகாசனம், கொஞ்சம் மூச்சுப்பயிற்சி என்று தன் நாளை ரம்மியமாய் ஆரம்பிக்கிறார் நம்மாழ்வார். 75 வயதிலும் 25 வயது இளைஞர்போல் உற்சாகமாக உழைத்துவரும் நம்மாழ்வாரிடம் ஃபிட்னெஸ் ரகசியம் பேசலாமா... 

''எனது ஆரோக்கியத்துக்கான அடிப்படைக் காரணம் என்னுடைய வாழ்க்கைமுறை. இது கிராமத்து வாழ்க்கை கொடுத்த பரிசு. தோட்டத்தில், பண்ணையில், மேடையில் என்று எங்காவது ஓரிடத்தில் உழைத்துக்கொண்டே இருப்பேன். உடல் நாம் சொல்வதைக் கேட்க வேண்டுமானால், நான்கு விஷயங்களில் முக்கியமாக கவனம் செலுத்த வேண்டும்.

ஒன்று... பசி வந்து சாப்பிட வேண்டும், இரண்டு... தாகம் வந்து தண்ணீர் அருந்த வேண்டும், மூன்று... சோர்வு வந்து ஓய்வு எடுக்க வேண்டும், நான்கு... தூக்கம் வந்து தூங்க வேண்டும்.

இந்த நான்கு விஷயங்களும் ஆரோக்கியத்துக்கு அத்தியாவசியமான விஷயங்கள். ஆனால், பட்டண வாழ்க்கையில் வேலைப் பளு காரணமாக இந்த விஷயங்கள் எதுவுமே சாத்தியம் இல்லாமல் இருக்கிறது.

தினமும் காலையில் கம்பு, தினை மாவு, கொஞ்சம் கருப்பட்டி சேர்த்து கஞ்சிவைத்துக் குடிக்கிறேன். இந்தக் கஞ்சி விஷம் இல்லாதது. அதாவது, ரசாயனம் இல்லாதது. கரும்புக்கு ரசாயனம் இடுவதால் வெல்லத்தில் ரசாயனம் இருக்கிறது. பனை மரத்தில் ஏறி நம் ஆட்கள் இன்னும் பூச்சி மருந்து அடிக்கவில்லை. அதனால்தான் பனை வெல்லம் சுத்தமான இயற்கை உணவாக இருக்கிறது.

பகல் வேளையில் ரசம் அல்லது மோர் மட்டுமே சேர்த்துக் கொஞ்சமாக சாதம் சாப்பிடுகிறேன். இடையில் காய்கறி ரசம். இரவில் இரண்டு அல்லது மூன்று இட்லி மட்டுமே ஆகாரம். பசிக்காவிட்டால் சாப்பிடுவது இல்லை. இதுதான் என்னுடைய சாப்பாட்டு அட்டவணை.

வெளியிடங்களுக்குச் செல்லும்போது உணவு விடுதிகளில் சாப்பிடுவது இல்லை. அதிகபட்சமாக நண்பர்களின் வீடுகளில் சாப்பிடுவேன். இல்லாவிட்டால் பழங்கள், கடலை மிட்டாய், பேரீச்சம்பழம் மட்டுமே என் உணவு. காபி, டீ சாப்பிடுவதைவிட்டுப் பல வருடங்கள் ஆகிவிட்டன.

ஆண்டு ஒன்றுக்கு  ஒரு லட்சம் டன் அளவு பூச்சிக்கொல்லி நஞ்சுகள் பயன்படுத்தி விளைவிக்கப்பட்ட உணவுப் பொருட்களையே இன்றைக்கு மக்கள் சாப்பிடுகிறார்கள். நோயோடு பலரும் வாழ்வதற்கு  பூச்சிக்கொல்லி நஞ்சுகள் ஒரு முக்கியமான காரணம்.

உடல் ஆரோக்கியமாக இருந்தால், மனமும் நன்றாக இருக்கும். உடல், மன ஆரோக்கியத்துக்கு இயற்கை ஒரு பெரிய வரப்பிரசாதம். செடி ஒன்றை நட்டுவைத்து, அது வளர்வதையும் மொட்டுவிடுவதையும் காய்ப்பதையும் கவனித்துவந்தால், மனதுக்குள் குதூகலம் பிறக்கும். இதை ஒரு சிகிச்சைமுறையாகக்கூட மருத்துவர்கள் சொல்வார்கள். தாவரங்களிடமும் செல்லப் பிராணிகளிடமும் அன்பு செலுத்திப் பாருங்கள். அதன் மகத்துவம் புரியும்'' என்றவரின் பேச்சு மெள்ள இன்றைய இளைஞர்களின் புகை, மதுப் பழக்கம் நோக்கிச் சென்றது.

''மது, புகை வியாபாரிகள் தங்களது லாபத்துக்காக இளைஞர்கள் மீது இந்தப் பழக்கத்தைத் திணிக்கிறார்கள். வருங்காலத் தூண்களாக விளங்க வேண்டிய இளைஞர்கள், மது - புகைப் பழக்கத்துக்கு அடிமையாகி நுரையீரலையும் குடலையும் கெடுத்துச் சீரழிகிறார்கள். இதன் தொடர்ச்சியாகச் சமூகச் சிக்கல், பொருளாதாரச் சிக்கல், குடும்ப உறவில் சிக்கல் என்று எல்லாத் தரப்பிலும் பிரச்னைகள் குவிகின்றன. இதை அனைவரும் சேர்ந்து ஒருமித்துக் கண்டிக்க வேண்டும். 'உடலுக்குத் தீங்கு விளைவிக்கும் எந்தச் செயலையும் நாம் செய்யக் கூடாது’ என்ற உறுதியான சுயக் கட்டுப்பாடு ஒன்றே இதுபோன்ற தீய பழக்கங்களின் பிடியில் சிக்காமல் நம் சமூகத்தை காக்கும்.

'இழிவறிந்து உண்பான்கண் இன்பம்போல்

நிற்கும்

கழிபேர் இரையான்கண் நோய்’

- என்கிறார் வள்ளுவர்.

அளவறிந்து அமைதியாய் சாப்பிட்டால் ஆரோக்கியம் நம் பக்கம் நிற்கும். இல்லாவிட்டால் வள்ளுவர் சொல்வதுபோல் நோய்தான் நம் பக்கம் நிற்கும். இன்றைய இளைய தலைமுறையினருக்குச் சாப்பிடக்கூட நேரம் இல்லை. அவசரம் அவசரமாக அள்ளி விழுங்கிவிட்டு ஓடுவது நிறைய வியாதிகள் வருவதற்குக் காரணமாகிவிடுகிறது.

பதப்படுத்தப்பட்ட உணவுகளைத் தவிர்க்க வேண்டும். கெட்டுப்போய்விடக் கூடாது என்பதற்காக அதில் கலக்கும் ரசாயனங்கள் நம் வயிற்றுக்குள் சென்றும் அதே வீரியத்தோடுதான் இருக்கும் என்பதைப் புரிந்துகொள்ள வேண்டும். பசித்தால் மட்டுமே உணவு, அதுவும் இயற்கை உணவு; அதையும் கொஞ்சம் கொஞ்சமாக உமிழ்நீரோடு சேர்த்து ரசித்து மென்று சாப்பிட்டால் எப்படி வரும் வியாதி? எல்லாமே கலைதான்!

நோய் வந்த பிறகுதான் உடலைப் பற்றிய ஞாபகமே மக்களுக்கு வருகிறது; மருத்துவமனைகளைத் தேடிப் போய்ப் பணத்தைக் கொட்டுகிறார்கள். ஆனால், நோய் வருவதற்கு முன் தங்களது உடலைக் காப்பதற்காக நேரம் செலவழிப்பது இல்லை.

உணவு, நீர், காற்று... இந்த மூன்றில் இருந்துதான் நம் உடலுக்குச் சக்தி கிடைக்கிறது. இந்த மூன்றில் இருந்து தவறான விஷயங்கள் ஏதேனும் உடலுக்குள் சென்றுவிட்டால்தான் நோய் வருகிறது.

நம்மை ஆரோக்கியமாக வைத்திருக்கும் நாளமில்லாச் சுரப்பிகளை தியானம், யோகாசனம் போன்றவைதான் ஊக்குவிக்கின்றன. அதனால், ஒவ்வொருவரும் தங்கள் உடலைப் பராமரிப்பதற்காக ஒரு குறிப்பிட்ட நேரத்தை ஒதுக்க வேண்டும். உடலுக்குள் தேங்கிவிடும் கழிவுகளை வெளியேற்றுவதற்கும், உணவின் கலோரிகள் எரிக்கப்படுவதற்கும் காரணம் இந்த மூச்சுக்காற்றுதான். நாம் சுவாசிக்கும் இந்த பிராண வாயுதான் ரத்தத்தை சுத்தப்படுத்துகிறது. மூச்சை இழுக்கும்போது, காற்று நுரையீரலுக்குள் முழுமையாகச் சென்று சேர வேண்டும். ஆனால், நாம் பெரும்பாலும் மேலோட்டமாகவே சுவாசிக்கிறோம். இதனால், நுரையீரல் முழுமையாகச் சுருங்கி விரிவது இல்லை. நுரையீரல் நன்றாகச் சுருங்கி விரிய மூச்சுப் பயிற்சி அவசியம்.

எந்த ஒரு வலியும் இல்லாமல் நம்மைக் குணப்படுத்தும் வல்லமை மூச்சுப் பயிற்சி மற்றும் யோகாசனங்களுக்கு உண்டு. நான் நாள் தவறாமல் யோகாசனம், மூச்சுப்பயிற்சி ஆகியவற்றைச் செய்கிறேன். முதுகெலும்பை நேராக வைத்திருக்கும் வஜ்ராசனமும் செய்வேன். இவைதான் என் ஆரோக்கிய ரகசியம்'' என்று தனது வெண்தாடியை நீவியபடி பளிச்செனச் சிரிக்கிறார் பசுமை நாயகன்!

Vegan Diet

JUNE 20, 2012, 12:01 AM

Can Athletes Perform Well on a Vegan Diet?

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

With the publication this month of "Eat and Run: My Unlikely Journey to Ultramarathon Greatness," by the vegan distance runner Scott Jurek, vegan diets have become a wildly popular topic on running-related Web sites. But is going totally meatless and, as in Mr. Jurek's case, dairy-free advisable for other serious athletes, or for the rest of us who just want to be healthy and fit?

To find out, I talked with three experts about why, and whether, those of us who are active should consider giving up meat or more. None of the experts are themselves vegan, though two are vegetarian: David C. Nieman, a professor of health and exercise science at Appalachian State University, who's run 58 marathons or ultramarathons and has studied runners at extreme events; and D. Enette Larson-Meyer, an associate professor of human nutrition at the University of Wyoming, as well as a longtime competitive athlete and author of "Vegetarian Sports Nutrition." A third expert, Nancy Clark, who describes herself as "two-thirds vegetarian" -- she doesn't have meat at breakfast or lunch, but does at dinner -- is a sports nutrition expert in Massachusetts and the author of "Nancy Clark's Food Guide for Marathoners."

Q.

Will a vegan diet make someone a better athlete?

A.

Nancy Clark: I was just at the American College of Sports Medicine Annual meeting in San Francisco, and there was a presentation about vegetarian athletes that basically concluded that there's not enough research to know how vegetarian -- let alone vegan -- diets affect athletes. But anecdotally, people do fine. It's possible that some vegan athletes are low on creatine, a nutrient that you get only from meat and that can help during short bouts of intense exercise, like sprinting, though supplementation isn't necessary. My feeling is that hard training trumps everything. Diet, if it's healthy, isn't going to make that much difference.

Q.

Is it hard for someone who's training vigorously to get enough protein on a vegan diet?

A.

David Nieman: The foods that vegans like Scott Jurek avoid, like dairy products and eggs, are the easy ways to get protein in a plant-based diet, obviously. But you still have grains, nuts, soy. Eat enough of that and you'll be fine. The one issue is vitamin B12, which is found only in meat; B12 is important for endurance athletes, since it affects red blood cell production. But many cereals and soy milks are fortified with B12 now, or you can take supplements.

Nancy Clark: You do have to be diligent about protein intake if you're vegan. I have clients, especially women, who say, 'Oh, I put a few chickpeas in my salad.' But that's not going to do it. Women need about 60 to 90 grams of protein a day, and athletes are on the high end of that. That means you have to eat cupfuls of chickpeas. And you can't eat a quarter of that cake of tofu. You need to eat the whole thing. It's not that there aren't good sources of vegan protein. But it's not as bioavailable as meat. So you need to have more.

Q.

Is it true that you can combine plant proteins throughout the day to create complete proteins? You don't have to eat them all at the same meal?

A.

D. Enette Larson-Meyer: Years ago, studies in rats showed that if they were fed only one source of protein, like corn, all day, they did not get sufficient amounts of essential amino acids. From that, the idea grew that you had to combine proteins at the same meal. But since then, other studies have found that if you get multiple sources of protein throughout the day, that's fine. Have rice at breakfast and beans at lunch or dinner.

Q.

Is it hard for someone who's training vigorously to get enough calories on a vegan diet?

A.

Nancy Clark: It's not hard at all. My favorite weight gain or weight maintenance advice is to drink juice. Grape juice, pomegranate juice, tart cherry juice. They have plenty of calories, and if you pick the right juice, especially pomegranate or tart cherry juice, it looks as if they can help with recovery. Tart cherry juice was a very popular topic at the recent American College of Sports Medicine meeting. It's a potent beverage, in terms of speeding recovery. And it's vegan.

Q.

Will vegan or even vegetarian diets help you to lose weight?

A.

David Nieman: Short answer: No. Vegetarians tend to weigh 6 to 10 pounds less than meat eaters. But that's probably due to self-selection bias. Many vegetarians are more health conscious to start with. You can overeat on a plant-based diet. There are obese vegetarians. Junk food can be vegetarian. You still have to make healthy food choices, whatever your diet.

Q.

Because of Scott Jurek's book and others, there's some sense out there that athletes should become vegans. Do you agree?

A.

David Nieman: I know Scott. He's been a subject in some of our studies at the Western States 100. He's a great guy -- opinionated, sure, but he's been very successful as a racer, so he can have opinions. But runners always think they have inside information on nutrition. They don't. It's my duty as a scientist to separate out the hype from what's been validated.

What we know is that when it comes to endurance performance, it's all about the fuel, primarily carbohydrates, and you can get sufficient carbohydrates whether you're a vegetarian or a meat eater -- unless you follow a really goofy diet, which some people do. It's possible to eat a lousy vegetarian diet, just as you as can eat a lousy meat-based diet.

Q.

So is there any compelling reason for those of us who are active but not necessarily running ultramarathons to decide to become vegan?

A.

D. Enette Larson-Meyer: In general, vegetarians are healthier, with less risk for heart disease and obesity, although there are obese vegetarians. Many people tell me after they start a vegetarian diet that they feel better, but then again, many of them -- and I believe this was the case with Scott Jurek -- were eating a pretty poor diet before, so of course they feel better. They could have switched to a healthier meat-based diet and they would probably have felt better.

I like to tell people that if we got most Americans to eat one less serving of meat every day, there would be far greater impact from that, in terms of improving overall public health and the health of the planet, than convincing a tiny group of endurance athletes to go full vegan.

Gretchen Reynolds is the author of "The First 20 Minutes: Surprising Science Reveals How We Can Exercise Better, Train Smarter, Live Longer" (Hudson Street Press, 2012).

We hope you'll "Like" the new Well on Facebook, where you'll find news and conversations about fitness, food and family health.

Welcome to Vegville!

Could a vegetarian diet work as well as a non-vegetarian one in providing proteins and amino acids necessary to power muscles?

Are you thinking of going vegetarian like those millions across the globe, but with doubts about whether a vegetarian diet can build your body and power your muscles, the way a non-vegetarian diet does? Relax. Nutritionists assure that a vegetarian diet is never a limiting factor when it comes to growing strong, tall or building muscles.

“It is possible to achieve maximum growth through a vegetarian diet. And yes, we can strengthen our muscles too. But to achieve this, apart from diet, exercise is a must,” says Dr. Bhuvaneshwari Shankar, Chief Dietician, Apollo Hospitals Group. The key is to ensure that a variety of vegetarian foods is consumed.

ENSURING VARIETY

A crucial fact that must be understood is that our bodies can synthesise some of the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) we need, from other amino acids that we acquire through food. The rest of the amino acids — isoleucine, leucine, lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, valine and histidine — can't be synthesised by the body and need to be acquired directly from the food we eat, and are termed ‘essential' amino acids.

Yes, most vegetarian protein sources are not complete protein sources, as they don't have all the essential amino acids present in the right proportion. But, vegetarian food can still give all the essential amino acids, provided a wide variety of foods that includes grains (wheat, rice, millets, oats, pulses), legumes (beans and lentils), nuts (especially groundnuts, almonds, walnuts and cashews), seeds (soya bean which is a very high quality protein source), and fruits and vegetables, is consumed. For instance, grains such as wheat and rice have low levels of the amino acid lysine, but this can be set right by complementing grains with legumes, as legumes have high levels of lysine. “For instance, if you are allergic to peanuts, you can still manage by eating other foods from the same food group,” says Dr. Nirmala Jesudason, consultant and head, food and nutrition, Frontier Lifeline. A dietician can help you work out a vegetarian diet that's ideal for growth, taking into account your food practices and choices. But, in general, traditional diet plans are a safe bet, as they the right proportion of various food groups have been arrived at over centuries.

Moreover, you don't have to get all your essential amino acids from every single meal, because, our body stores amino acids and uses them whenever needed. So eating a variety of foods over the course of the day can give you all the essential amino acids. Even vegetables and fruits do supply some protein. For instance, 49 per cent of the calories in spinach is protein, 11 per cent in potatoes, 15 per cent in oatmeal, 12 per cent in millets, 11 per cent in barley, 8 per cent in brown rice, 43 per cent in Tofu, 35 per cent in soy beans, 32 per cent in broad beans, 29 per cent in lentils, 21 per cent in pumpkin seeds, 18 per cent in peanuts, 13 per cent in sesame seeds, 13 per cent in almonds/cashews, 8 per cent in watermelon, and six per cent in papaya. So we don't really need meat. In fact, some scientists feel that too much protein, especially of animal origin, could lead to kidney stones, osteoporosis, and sometimes activates tumour growth.

GOOD CHOICES

And, of course, milk and eggs, which are high protein foods, are good choices for body building, if you are a lacto- or an ovo-vegetarian. “If you are a vegan (a vegetarian who doesn't consume milk and milk products too), Vitamin B-12 deficiency could be a concern,” cautions Dr. Jesudason.

Remember, the human requirement for protein is 4.5-10 per cent of total calorie intake. To put it in perspective, breast milk, which is touted as the complete food for the growing baby, is 5 per cent protein! “Kids require much more protein than adults, especially since they are growing. The requirement of protein is almost double for a sportsperson, compared to a non-sportsperson. Of course, a lot depends on the kind of sport that is being pursued,” Dr. Bhuvaneshwari elaborates. Protein needs also vary with state of health, body type, pregnancy and lactation.

Finally, remember that it is not only protein that determines growth. It's important to ensure adequate calcium intake in order to build sturdy bones. While milk and its products are a great calcium source, green leafy vegetables, orange juice, etc, have some calcium content too.

Says Dr. R. Parthasarathy, general physician, “Almonds, a rich source of vitamin E, help prevent free-radical damage to muscles, and foster growth. Olive oil helps prevent muscle breakdown. And drink plenty of water, as protein synthesis occurs better in hydrated muscle cells than in dehydrated cells.”

Lessons from a frugal innovator

Health care in India

Lessons from a frugal innovator

The rich world’s bloated health-care systems can learn from India’s entrepreneurs

Tom Pietrasik

ENTER the main cardiac operating-room at Bangalore’s Wockhardt hospital on a typical morning, and you will find a patient on the operating table with a screen hanging between his head and chest. On a recent visit the table was occupied by a middle-aged Indian man whose serene look suggested that he was ready for the operation to come. Asked how he was, he smiled and answered in Kannada that he felt fine. Only when you stand on a stool to look over the screen do you realise that his chest cavity has already been cut open.

As the patient was chatting away, Vivek Jawali and his team had nearly completed his complex heart bypass. Because such “beating heart” surgery causes little pain and does not require general anaesthesia or blood thinners, patients are back on their feet much faster than usual. This approach, pioneered by Wockhardt, an Indian hospital chain, has proved so safe and successful that medical tourists come to Bangalore from all over the world.

This is just one of many innovations in health care that have been devised in India. Its entrepreneurs are channelling the country’s rich technological and medical talent towards frugal approaches that have much to teach the rich world’s bloated health-care systems. Dr Jawali is feted today as a pioneer, but he remembers how Western colleagues ridiculed him for years for advocating his inventive “awake surgery”. He thinks that snub reflects an innate cultural advantage enjoyed by India.

Unlike the hidebound health systems of the rich world, he says, “in our country’s patient-centric health system you must innovate.” This does not mean adopting every fancy new piece of equipment. Over the years he has rejected surgical robots and “keyhole surgery” kit because the costs did not justify the benefits. Instead, he has looked for tools and techniques that spare resources and improve outcomes.

Shivinder Singh, head of Fortis, a rival hospital chain based in New Delhi, says that most of the new, expensive imaging machines are only a little better than older models. Meanwhile, vast markets for poorer patients go unserved. “We got out of this arms race a few years ago,” he says. Fortis now promises only that its scanners are “world class”, not the newest.

Mr Singh is not alone in thinking that many firms in the rich world are looking at innovation the wrong way. Paul Yock, head of the bio-design laboratory at Stanford University, which develops medical devices, argues that medical-technology giants have “looked at need, but been blind to cost.” Amid growing concern about runaway health spending, he thinks the industry can find inspiration in India.

Poverty, geography and poor infrastructure mean that India faces perhaps the world’s heaviest disease burden, ranging from infectious diseases, the traditional scourge of the poor, to diseases of affluence such as diabetes and hypertension. The public sector has been overwhelmed, which is not surprising considering how little India’s government spends on health as a share of national income (see chart). Accordingly, nearly four-fifths of all health services are supplied by private firms and charities—a higher share than in any other big country.

In the past that was more a reflection of the state’s failure than the dynamism of entrepreneurs, but this is changing fast. Technopak Healthcare, a consulting firm, expects spending on health care in India to grow from $40 billion in 2008 to $323 billion in 2023. In part, that is the result of the growing affluence of India’s emerging middle classes. Another cause is the nascent boom in health insurance, now offered both by private firms and, in some cases, by the state. In addition, the government has recently liberalised the industry, easing restrictions on lending and foreign investment in health care, encouraging public-private partnerships and offering tax breaks for health investments in smaller cities and rural areas.

Cheaper and smarter

This has attracted a wave of investment from some of India’s biggest corporate groups, including Ranbaxy (the generic-drugs pioneer behind Fortis) and Reliance (one of India’s biggest conglomerates). The happy collision of need and greed has produced a cauldron of innovation, as Indian entrepreneurs have devised new business models. Some just set out to do things cheaply, but others are more radical, and have helped India leapfrog the rich world.

For years India’s private-health providers, such as Apollo Hospitals, focused on the affluent upper classes, but they are now racing down the pyramid. Vishal Bali, Wockhardt’s boss, plans to take advantage of tax breaks to build hospitals in small and medium-sized cities (which, in India, means those with up to 3m inhabitants). Prathap Reddy, Apollo’s founder, plans to do the same. He thinks he can cut costs in half for patients: a quarter saved through lower overheads, and another quarter by eliminating travel to bigger cities.

Columbia Asia, a privately held American firm with over a dozen hospitals across Asia, is also making a big push into India. Rick Evans, its boss, says his investors left America to escape over-regulation and the political power of the medical lobby. His model involves building no-frills hospitals using standardised designs, connected like spokes to a hub that can handle more complex ailments. His firm offers modestly priced services to those earning $10,000-20,000 a year within wealthy cities, thereby going after customers overlooked by fancier chains. Its small hospital on the fringes of Bangalore lacks a marble foyer and expensive imaging machines—but it does have fully integrated health information-technology (HIT) systems, including electronic health records (EHRs).

New competitors are also emerging. A recent report from Monitor, a consultancy, points to LifeSpring Hospitals, a chain of small maternity hospitals around Hyderabad. This for-profit outfit offers normal deliveries attended by private doctors for just $40 in its general ward, and Caesarean sections for about $140—as little as one-fifth of the price at the big private hospitals. It has cut costs with a basic approach: it has no canteens and outsources laboratory tests and pharmacy services.

It also achieves economies of scale by attracting large numbers of patients using marketing. Monitor estimates that its operating theatres accommodate 22-27 procedures a week, compared with four to six in other private clinics. LifeSpring’s doctors perform four times as many operations a month as their counterparts do elsewhere—and, crucially, get better results as a result of high volumes and specialisation. Cheap and cheerful really can mean better.

But there is more to India’s approach than cutting costs. Its health-care providers also make better use of HIT. According to a recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association, fewer than 20% of doctors’ surgeries in America use HIT. In contrast, according to Technopak, nearly 60% of Indian hospitals do so. And instead of grafting technology onto existing, inefficient processes, as often happens in America, Indian providers build their model around it. Apollo’s integrated approach to HIT has enabled the chain to increase efficiency while cutting medical errors and labour. EHRs and drug records zip between hospitals, clinics and pharmacies, and its systems also handle patient registration and billing. Apollo is already selling its expertise to American hospitals.

Eye on the prize

A casual visitor to Madurai, a vibrant medieval-temple town in southern India, would not think it was a hotbed of innovation. And yet that is exactly what you will find at Aravind, the world’s biggest eye-hospital chain, based in the town. There are perhaps 12m blind people in India, with most cases arising from treatable or preventable causes such as cataracts. Rather than rely on government handouts or charity, Aravind’s founders use a tiered pricing structure that charges wealthier patients more (for example, for fancy meals or air-conditioned rooms), letting the firm cross-subsidise free care for the poorest.

Aravind also benefits from its scale. Its staff screen over 2.7m patients a year via clinics in remote areas, referring 285,000 of them for surgery at its hospitals. International experts vouch that the care is good, not least because Aravind’s doctors perform so many more operations than they would in the West that they become expert. Furthermore, the staff are rotated to deal with both paying and non-paying patients so there is no difference in quality. Monitor’s new report argues that Aravind’s model does not just depend on pricing, scale, technology or process, but on a clever combination of all of them.

C.K. Prahalad and other management gurus trumpet examples like Aravind, but do the rich countries accept that they could learn from India? Unsurprisingly, some reject the notion that America’s model is broken. William Tauzin, head of America’s pharmaceutical lobby, warns that regulatory efforts to cut costs could stifle life-saving innovation. Sandra Peterson of Bayer, a German drugs and devices giant, stoutly defends the industry’s record. She argues that overall cost increases mask how medical devices, “like cars or personal computers, give better value for the money over time.” Diabetes monitors and pacemakers have improved dramatically in the past 20 years and have fallen in price—but costs have gone up because they are now being used by more patients.

But those examples are exceptions. Many studies show that America’s spending on health care is soaring, yet its medical outcomes remain mediocre. Mark McClellen of the Brookings Institution, an American think-tank, says that a big problem is the overuse of technology. Whether or not a scan is needed, the system usually pays if a doctor orders it—and the scan might help defend the doctor against a malpractice claim. “The root cause is not greed, but tremendous technological progress imposed upon a fractured health system,” says Thomas Lee of Partners Community HealthCare, a health provider in Boston.

Dr McClellen, a former head of America’s Food and Drug Administration, points out that other innovative industries often sell new products at a loss, and recoup their investments later. In genuinely competitive industries, innovators are rarely rewarded with the “cost plus” reimbursements demanded by medical-device makers for their gold-plated gizmos.

That is why Stanford’s Dr Yock wants to turn innovation upside down. He has extended his bio-design programme to India, in part to instil an understanding of the benefits of frugality in his students. He believes that India’s combination of poverty and outstanding medical and engineering talents will produce a world-class medical-devices industry. Tim Brown, the head of Ideo, a design consultancy, agrees. In the past, he notes, health bosses thought all devices had to be Rolls-Royces or Ferraris. But cost matters, too. Pointing to another recent example of India’s frugal engineering, he says: “In health care, as in life, there is need for both Ferraris and Tata Nanos.”

Yoga

How Yoga Won the West

Vedanta Society of Southern California

Vivekananda, who traveled widely to deliver his spiritual message, in Pasadena, Calif., in 1900.

By ANN LOUISE BARDACH

Published: October 1, 2011

• RECOMMEND
• TWITTER
• LINKEDIN
• SIGN IN TO E-MAIL
• PRINT
• REPRINTS
• SHARE

Ann Louise Bardach is a writer at large for Newsweek. She is working on a biography of Vivekananda.

Enlarge This Image

Vedanta Society of Southern California

Vivekananda in Chicago, 1893.

THE party planning is in full swing throughout India. Never mind that the big day, Jan. 12, 2013, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of Vivekananda, is more than 15 months away. Not too long ago, Vivekananda, a household name in his homeland, was famous here as well, as the first missionary from the East to the West.

If you’re annoyed that your local gas station is now a yogastudio, you might blame Vivekananda for having introduced “yoga” into the national conversation — though an exercise cult with expensive accessories was hardly what he had in mind.

The Indian monk, born Narendranath Datta to an aristocratic Calcutta family, alighted in Chicago in 1893 in ochre robes and turban, with little money after a daunting two-month trek from Bombay. Notwithstanding the fact that he had spent the previous night sleeping in a boxcar, the young mystic made an electrifying appearance at the opening of the august Parliament of Religions that Sept. 11.

For most of the rest of the month, Vivekananda held the conference’s 4,000 attendees spellbound in a series of showstopping improvised talks. He had simplified Vedanta thought to a few teachings that were accessible and irresistible to Westerners, foremost being that “all souls are potentially divine.” His prescription for life was simple, and perfectly American: “work and worship.” By the end of his last Chicago lecture on Sept. 27, Vivekananda was a star. And like the enterprising Americans he so admired, he went on the road to pitch his message — dazzling some of the great minds of his time.

Yet precious few of the estimated 16 million supple, spandex-clad yoginis in the United States, who sustain an annual $6 billion industry, seem to have a clue that they owe their yoga mats to Vivekananda. Enriching this irony was Vivekananda’s utter lack of interest in physical exertions beyond marathon sitting meditations and pilgrimages to holy sites.

“You are not your body,” he often reminded Americans, who tend to prefer “doing” over “being.”  More distressing, for some, was his other message: “You are not your mind.” 

Yoga to the man who most famously delivered its message to America meant just one thing: “realizing God.” He abhorred channeling, séances and past-life hunts as diversionary. Worse, the great seer savored a good smoke, and on occasion chowed down on meat.

Lacking a fig leaf of false modesty, he informed one Brooklyn audience, “I have a message to the West as Buddha had a message to the East.”  

Among those who never doubted the messenger during his lifetime was Leo Tolstoy. The restless Russian was especially keen for writings on Ramakrishna, Vivekananda’s own guru. Two years before his death, Tolstoy wrote, “Since 6 in the morning I have been thinking of Vivekananda,” and later, “It is doubtful if in this age man has ever risen above this selfless, spiritual meditation.”

The Harvard philosopher and psychologist William James was fascinated by the 31-year-old Indian and quoted at length from Vivekananda’s writings in his seminal work, “The Varieties of Religious Experience.”

“A very nice man! A very nice man!” Vivekananda reported after his first meeting with James, who called his new friend “an honor to humanity.”

The novelist Gertrude Stein, then a student of James’s at Radcliffe, reportedly attended Vivekananda’s 1896 talk at Harvard — which so wowed the college’s graybeards that they offered him the chairmanship of Eastern philosophy. He declined, noting his vows as a monk.

A later convert to the mystic’s writings was Aldous Huxley, who wrote the foreword to the 1942 English-language edition of “The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna,” which he described as “the most profound and subtle utterances about the nature of Ultimate Reality.” Along with his friend Christopher Isherwood, Huxley was formally initiated at the Vedanta Center in the Hollywood Hills, where the two sometimes gave the Sunday lecture, often attended by their friends Igor Stravinsky, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh, Somerset Maugham and Greta Garbo.

In 1945, Henry Miller, famous for his sex-drizzled novels, reported that his most important discovery of recent years was “two volumes on Ramakrishna and Vivekananda.” By 1962, Miller concluded that “Swami Vivekananda remains for me one of the great influences in my life.”

J. D. Salinger’s commitment went deeper and he would leave Vedantic footprints in his work, often via his frontman, Seymour Glass. In his last published work, “Hapworth 16, 1924,” Salinger has Seymour hawking the wisdom of Vivekananda with the avidity of a pitchman on the Shopping Channel, calling him “one of the most exciting, original, and best equipped giants of this century I have ever run into; my personal sympathy for him will never be outgrown or exhausted as long as I live, mark my words; I would easily give 10 years of my life, possibly more, if I could have shaken his hand.”

The waning of Vivekananda’s popularity in America began around the time the baby boomers commandeered the yoga business and the ascetic seams between the New Age and the Old Age inevitably frayed. Vivekananda, who always took the long view, might have been amused. His enthusiasm for America was boundless and, quite fittingly, he died on July 4, 1902. He was just 39 years old, but was exhausted from ceaseless work and untreated diabetes. He had returned to India and was living in the monastery he founded outside Calcutta. He excused himself for the evening and went into his room, meditated awhile, then took two deep breaths — and passed away. Earlier, he had remarked, “I have given enough for fifteen hundred years.” He was done.

Vitamin B

‘B' healthy with B-vitamins

Is fatigue, hair loss and a lack of appetite dogging your days? Then increase your intake of vitamin B, the veritable powerhouse of mind and body

Several generations ago, cooking in India was considered a fine art, one that took up the better part of the day. Women pounded their own spices, had access to pesticide-free produce, stored their own grains and prepared every meal with fresh ingredients. Family members ate together, and savoured every morsel.

Today, technology has transformed not just the way we do business, but our personal lives as well.

Preservation of food has indeed made some things simpler—it's now possible to throw together a meal in less than 15 minutes.

However, most packaged food that's ready to serve on supermarket shelves come at a cost that goes much beyond the price tag—these are laced with preservatives that strip our bodies of essential vitamin B.

Perils of processed foods: While providing you with a quick and tasty meal, fast foods and packaged products rank poorly in nutrition. In the long-term, this can take a toll on your health and wellbeing.

“Several studies have demonstrated that diets high in fat and low in nutrition place individuals at higher risk of vitamin B deficiency. The more processed the food, the lesser the vitamin B it will contain. Processes which include heating, radiation, prolonged exposure to atmosphere (oxidation), cooking with acids (such as vinegar etc) destroy most of the B1, B12 in the food.

Vitamin B12 and B6 deficiency is also common in strict vegetarians who do not drink milk or dairy products,” says Geeta Shenoy, a registered dietician based in Chembur, Mumbai. “‘B' vitamins are required by the body for production of energy, proper functioning of the nervous system, metabolism of fats and proteins, and formation of red blood cells. If you're experiencing symptoms such as fatigue, body aches, tingling of nerves, weakness, hair loss, lack of appetite, this could be related to a vitamin B deficiency.”

B 6--The Queen ‘B': Among the B vitamins, vitamin B6, experts say, is especially significant. ”Because of its key role in the formation of new cells, vitamin B6 is crucial to the healing of wounds and for the repairing of body tissues. Many skin disorders (like eczema) have been associated with this deficiency. Another critical role played by this vitamin is in the formation of red blood cells. So a B6 deficiency can also result in anaemia and fatigue,” says Seema Singh, head nutritionist at Alchemist Health Institute, a hospital in New Delhi.

Involved in over 100 chemical processes that take place every minute in our bodies, Vitamin B 6, Singh says, is a good vitamin to befriend. “It aids in weight loss, so it's important that you make sure you're getting enough. This vitamin facilitates the breakdown of glycogen (a form of starch) stored in our muscle cells and liver and helps in improving athletic performance.”

A recent study published in the Journal ‘Circulation', has linked low vitamin B6 levels with higher risk for stroke and heart attacks.

Since food is the only source for Vitamin B6 (as your body cannot produce it on its own), you must include it in your daily diet. “Excellent sources of vitamin B6 include spinach, bell peppers, turnip greens and Shiitake Mushrooms,” says Singh.

“Other good sources are garlic, tuna, cauliflower, mustard greens, banana, celery, cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts and watermelon.”

Exercise

How Exercise Can Strengthen the Brain

By GRETCHEN REYNOLDS

Doug Menuez/Getty Images

Can exercise make the brain more fit? That absorbing question inspired a new study at the University of South Carolina during which scientists assembled mice and assigned half to run for an hour a day on little treadmills, while the rest lounged in their cages without exercising.

Earlier studies have shown that exercise sparks neurogenesis, or the creation of entirely new brain cells. But the South Carolina scientists were not looking for new cells. They were looking inside existing ones to see if exercise was whipping those cells into shape, similar to the way that exercise strengthens muscle.

For centuries, people have known that exercise remodels muscles, rendering them more durable and fatigue-resistant. In part, that process involves an increase in the number of muscle mitochondria, the tiny organelles that float around a cell’s nucleus and act as biological powerhouses, helping to create the energy that fuels almost all cellular activity. The greater the mitochondrial density in a cell, the greater its vitality.

Past experiments have shown persuasively that exercise spurs the birth of new mitochondria in muscle cells and improves the vigor of the existing organelles. This upsurge in mitochondria, in turn, has been linked not only to improvements in exercise endurance but to increased longevity in animals and reduced risk for obesity, diabetes and heart disease in people. It is a very potent cellular reaction.

Related

• More Phys Ed columns
• Faster, Higher, Stronger
• Fitness and Nutrition News

Brain cells are also fueled by mitochondria. But until now, no one has known if a similar response to exercise occurs in the brain.

Like muscles, many parts of the brain get a robust physiological workout during exercise. “The brain has to work hard to keep the muscles moving” and all of the bodily systems in sync, says J. Mark Davis, a professor of exercise science at the Arnold School of Public Health at the University of South Carolina and senior author of the new mouse study, which was published last month in The Journal of Applied Physiology. Scans have shown that metabolic activity in many parts of the brain surges during workouts, but it was unknown whether those active brain cells were actually adapting and changing.

To see, the South Carolina scientists exercised their mice for eight weeks. The sedentary control animals were housed in the same laboratory as the runners to ensure that, except for the treadmill sessions, the two groups shared the same environment and routine.

At the end of the two months, the researchers had both groups complete a run to exhaustion on the treadmill. Not surprisingly, the running mice displayed much greater endurance than the loungers. They lasted on the treadmills for an average of 126 minutes, versus 74 minutes for the unexercised animals.

More interesting, though, was what was happening inside their brain cells. When the scientists examined tissue samples from different portions of the exercised animals’ brains, they found markers of upwelling mitochondrial development in all of the tissues. Some parts of their brains showed more activity than others, but in each of the samples, the brain cells held newborn mitochondria.

There was no comparable activity in brain cells from the sedentary mice.

This is the first report to show that, in mice at least, two months of exercise training “is sufficient stimulus to increase mitochondrial biogenesis,” Dr. Davis and his co-authors write in the study.

The finding is an important “piece in the puzzle implying that exercise can lead to mitochondrial biogenesis in tissues other than muscle,” says Dr. Mark Tarnopolsky, a professor of medicine at McMaster Children’s Hospital, who was not involved with this experiment but has conducted many exercise studies.

The mitochondrial proliferation in the animals’ brains has implications that are wide-ranging and heartening. “There is evidence” from other studies “that mitochondrial deficits in the brain may play a role in the development of neurodegenerative diseases,” including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, Dr. Davis says. Having a larger reservoir of mitochondria in your brain cells could provide some buffer against those conditions, he says.

Dr. Tarnopolsky agrees. “Epidemiological studies show that long-term runners have a lower risk of neurological disease,” he points out.

More immediately, Dr. Davis speculates, re-energized brain cells could behave like mitochondrial-drenched muscle cells, becoming more resistant to fatigue and, since bodily fatigue is partly mediated by signals from the brain, allowing you to withstand more exercise. In effect, exercising the body may train the brain to allow you to exercise more, amplifying the benefits.

Revitalized brain cells also, at least potentially, could reduce mental fatigue and sharpen your thinking “even when you’re not exercising,” Dr. Davis says.

Of course, this experiment was conducted with animals, and “mouse brains are not human brains,” Dr. Davis says. “But,” he continues, “since mitochondrial biogenesis has been shown to occur in human muscles, just as it does in animal muscles, it is a reasonable supposition that it occurs in human brains.”

Best of all, the effort required to round your brain cells into shape is not daunting. A 30-minute jog, Dr. Davis says, is probably a good human equivalent of the workout that the mice completed.

Crisp!

Oh! how we miss our crispy groundnuts, spiced mangoes...

DR. V. PREMALA PRIYADHARSHINI

Food, undoubtedly, remains a major pleasure for many people. Besides easing hunger, food also serves as a signature of our identity. What we cook and eat reflects our culture, geographic area, our heritage and, of course, the religion and the community we represent. Good food is our passport to good health. Eating out has become a way of living for many of us due to globalisation and change in the working ethos, and also for women who have broken the shackles of the kitchen and are office executives. Ready-to-eat foods and ready-to-serve snacks find their place in almost every home, big or small and rich or poor. Even festivals and traditional ceremonies are not an exemption nowadays. I still remember my mother preparing the favourite sweets and savouries for us and our neighbours treating us a day prior to Deepavali, New Year or Krishna Jayanti. Every festival was a treat to the food lovers. But today we have readymade packs for Krishna Jayanti or Deepavali. Who knows, very shortly we may have readymade customised packages for Pongal and Mattu Pongal!!

Aspiring to become supermoms and to produce super kids, we have forgotten the golden days of our childhood and now we shamelessly deny our beloved young ones the joy of cooking, sharing and enjoying eating.

I am sure that every one of us will agree with me that if we rewind our memory to our schooldays, vow, what fun we had savouring a variety of small eats during the interval and lunchbreak. The vendors outside the school did brisk business selling mouth-watering eatables — mangoes, crispy groundnuts, sizzling gooseberries, soft and tasty sweet potatoes and, of course, the rice flakes ball and spicy sundal.

What a balanced meal even for a break! Groundnuts and sundal were a good source of protein, sweet potato gave us carbohydrate, gooseberries and garden fresh guava supplied Vitamin C and parched rice balls with jaggery were a rich natural source of iron.

Girls' geometry box contained pieces of gooseberry, tamarind, etc, besides pens and pencils. Relatives would visit us with home-made murukku and adirasam. Every evening, while returning home our minds would be musing on the hot delicious snacks awaiting us. What a variety of mouth-watering taste and goodness — are we giving this pleasure to our children now?

We take more pride than pleasure nowadays in giving our kids calorie-dense confectioneries and ready-to-eat snacks loaded with unwanted preservatives and chemicals. The quality and quantum of nutrients in these eatables are a matter of debate. These serve as the mother and cradle for the onset of childhood obesity, anaemia, dental caries, eating disorders, malnutrition and repeated infection in the G.I. tracts.

I know I would sound amusing if I ask every school to have vendors outside their premises, or dictate terms and conditions to my friends and relatives to come up with home-made preparations for their kids. Even if all these things happen, our children are not going to relish it for the simple reason we have not trained their taste buds for these delicacies right from childhood.

A small fantasy of the future foods for our children:

Introduce a wide spectrum of simple, healthy, fresh food.

A choice of the seasonal food (vegetables and fruits) in our day-to-day cooking will be ideal as it is not only healthy but also cheap.

A strong NO to commercial and ready-to-eat foods as they pose the risk of many non-communicable diseases.

Practise healthy food habits in front of your children. Do not restrict their food habits, let them get exposed to different flavours and taste but guide and teach them on healthy food and healthy eating.

Talk to them (no lectures please) on the benefits of fresh fruit, fruit juices, salads and homemade snacks, give them safe food and also all the goodness of minerals, vitamins and fibre that protect them from disease.