MALNUTRITION kills 3.1million young children every year – equivalent to one every 10 SECONDS – according to the latest shocking figures. 

Almost half of the 6.3 million worldwide deaths of children under five can directly be linked to having inadequate nutrition. 

That figure is more than the entire population of Wales yet shockingly experts say there IS enough food to go around – it just doesn’t go to everyone. 

Poverty, a lack of appropriate healthcare and education – and often a lack of political will – are among the reasons why innocent children are needlessly dying.

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“It is rare people actually die of starvation – which is a complete lack of food like the famine in Ethiopia. But they do die of malnutrition.”

The appalling statistics emerged as world leaders recently met to pledge extra money and support for the silent killer. 

Ms Prinzo said it should theoretically be possible to wipe out mortality from malnutrition within a generation but it needs a more targeted approach by governments and aid agencies. 

“We are talking mortality here and that should be the aim for sure,” she added. “We will never reach zero for malnutrition but we have to reach zero mortality. We have to aim that children are not dying.”

Fabricating test results after dumping blood samples in the sink. Stitching up the cervix of pregnant women on the pretext of preventing miscarriage. Labeling healthy people as having diabetes.

When it comes to health providers duping patients to fatten their wallets, Dr. Arun Gadre, a gynecologist-turned-health activist in India, has heard it all, and then some.

Last year he interviewed 78 doctors from across India about the professional malpractice they’d encountered during their careers. His findings, while shocking to outsiders, were less of a surprise to Gadre.

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Details from the interviews appeared online February 24 in the BMJ, alongside two other papers on the lack of effective regulation and whistleblower protection in India’s chaotic health sector.

Most experts agree that healthcare fraud is rampant in the world’s largest democracy, with recent corruption scandals engulfing everyone from doctors to drug companies and health regulators.

Gadre’s work suggests that three types of malpractice are particularly common: kickbacks for referrals, irrational drug prescribing and unnecessary interventions.

One interviewee told Gadre that doctors typically get 30,000 to 40,000 Indian rupees (US$480-640) for referring patients for angioplasty. For perspective, many Indian health providers make less than US$10,000 a year.

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Gadre said that when he started practicing, physicians referred patients to him without expecting a cut. But that changed, and he began to lose business when he refused to pay up.

“As the medical sector became more and more commercialized, the same doctors started asking for commission and the number of patients who came to my hospital started to drop,” he says.

While kickbacks are illegal in India, they are nearly impossible to avoid, health providers say. Young doctors in particular, many with towering student debts, find it hard to survive without them.

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The health sector in India is largely private, and most people pay out of pocket. A 2011 study in The Lancet found that 39 million Indians fall into poverty yearly from medical expenses.

Another theme in Gadre’s interviews is irrational drug use. He tells of a girl who received steroids for red eyes from a homeopathic health provider. She later developed cataracts, a known side effect from prolonged use, and needed surgery.

Alternative practitioners such as homeopaths and Ayurvedic healers are common in India, and many people prefer them over doctors with a diploma in modern medicine. While not allowed to use modern drugs, in practice they do so with impunity, often encouraged by drug company sales representatives.

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In the so-called “sink test,” the doctor orders lab tests despite not suspecting any medical problems.

“Only a few of the tests are performed, and the extra blood collected is dumped in the sink,” Gadre writes. “Fabricated results are given in the normal range for all tests that were not performed. The patient pays a large sum, which is shared by the referring doctor and the pathologist.”

Other examples include unwarranted C-sections and hysterectomies, he said, or cervical stitches based on false reports suggesting a pregnant woman might miscarry.

Although India’s public health centers are known to be understaffed and dysfunctional, Gadre and many public health experts believe privatization of medical services and education is at the root of the problems.

India’s filthy air is cutting 660 million lives short by about three years, according to research published Saturday that underlines the hidden costs of the country’s heavy reliance on fossil fuels to power its economic growth with little regard for the environment.

While New Delhi last year earned the dubious title of being the world’s most polluted city, India’s air pollution problem is extensive, with 13 Indian cities now on the World Health Organization’s list of the 20 most polluted.

That nationwide pollution burden is estimated to be costing more than half of India’s population at least 3.2 years of their lives, according to the study, led by Michael Greenstone of the University of Chicago and involving environmental economists from Harvard and Yale universities. It estimates that 99.5 percent of India’s 1.2 billion people are breathing in pollution levels above what the WHO deems as safe.

“The extent of the problem is actually much larger than what we normally understand,” said one of the study’s co-authors, Anant Sudarshan, the India director of the Energy Policy Institute of Chicago. “We think of it as an urban problem, but the rural dimension has been ignored.”

Added up, those lost years come to a staggering 2.1 billion for the entire nation, the study says.

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For the study, published in Economic & Political Weekly, the authors borrowed from their previous work in China, where they determined that life expectancy dropped by three years for every 100 micrograms of fine particulate matter, called PM2.5, above safe levels. PM2.5 is of especially great health concern because, with diameters no greater than 2.5 micrometers, the particles are small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs.

The authors note, however, that their estimations may be too conservative because they’re based in part on 2012 satellite data that tend to underestimate PM2.5 levels. Meanwhile, India sets permissible PM2.5 levels at 40 micrograms per cubic meter, twice the WHO’s safe level.

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India has a sparse system for monitoring air quality, with sensors installed in only a few cities and almost unheard of in the countryside. Yet rural air pollution remains high thanks to industrial plants, poor fuel standards, extensive garbage burning and a heavy reliance on diesel for electricity generation in areas not connected to the power grid. Wind patterns also push the pollution onto the plains below the Himalayan mountain range.

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“Everything comes down to a lack of monitoring data in India,” said Guttikunda, who was not involved in the study. “If you don’t have enough monitoring information, you don’t know how much is coming out in the first place.”

India developed extreme air pollution while relying on burning fossil fuels to grow its economy and pull hundreds of millions of people up from poverty. More than 300 million Indians still have no access to electricity, with at least twice that number living on less than $2 a day.

While India has pledged to grow its clean energy sector, with huge boosts for solar and wind power, it also has committed to tripling its coal-fired electricity capacity to 450 gigawatts by 2030. Yet there still are no regulations for pollutants like sulfur dioxide or mercury emissions, while fuel standards remain far below Western norms and existing regulations often are ignored.

To meet its goal for coal-fired electricity, the Power Ministry says the country will double coal production to 1 billion tons within five years, after already approving dozens of new coal plants. That will have predictable consequences for the country’s already filthy air, experts say.

The coal expansion plans through 2030 will at least double sulphur dioxide levels, along with those of nitrogen oxide and lung-clogging particulate matter, according to a study published in December by Urban Emissions and the Mumbai-based nonprofit group Conservation Action Trust.

http://www.wiscnews.com/lifestyles/health-med-fit/article_39e5d127-bcc1-5f02-ac11-f5ecf7f98bea.html

Mental health experts have given the thumbs down to the BMC’s plan to exploit Aarey colony for commercial use. In a city where more than three people take their lives daily, open spaces and greenery are a critical necessity that the government cannot deny its citizens, they say.

Child specialists are on the same page and feel open spaces play a unique role in developing a child’s social, emotional and cognitive skills. “It is proven that any child who spends more than two hours on a gadget does not perform very well in school. But, as doctors when we advise parents to take their children to the outdoors, the reply often is where to take them? So we need to look at creating more greenery and not hacking them,” said paediatrician Dr Deepak Urga, who consults at Lilavati Hospital in Bandra.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Open-spaces-critical-for-mental-well-being-Experts/articleshow/46304945.cms