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

A new international study led by the University of Melbourne and Deakin University has stated that as with a range of medical conditions, psychiatry and public health should now recognise and embrace diet and nutrition as key determinants of mental health.

Lead author, Dr Jerome Sarris said that while the determinants of mental health were complex, the emerging and compelling evidence for nutrition as a key factor in the high prevalence and incidence of mental disorders suggested that nutrition was as important to psychiatry as it is to cardiology, endocrinology and gastroenterology.

In the last few years, significant links have been established between nutritional quality and mental health. Scientifically rigorous studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the role of nutrition in mental health, he added.

Findings of the review revealed that in addition to dietary improvement, evidence now supports the contention that nutrient-based prescription has the potential to assist in the management of mental disorders at the individual and population level.

Studies show that many of these nutrients have a clear link to brain health, including omega-3s, B vitamins (particularly folate and B12), choline, iron, zinc, magnesium, S-adenosyl methionine (SAMe), vitamin D, and amino acids.

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The study is published in The Lancet Psychiatry

http://zeenews.india.com/news/health/healthy-eating/better-diet-and-nutrition-critical-in-maintaining-mental-health_1538836.html

Two state-of-the-art public hospitals in New Delhi are barely operational years after they officially opened – not for lack of funding but because officials did not spend the millions of dollars allocated to treat heart and kidney patients.

The empty hospitals in the heart of the Indian capital are emblematic of the paralysis gripping a public health system that is responsible for some of the world’s worst health indicators. Many of the country’s 1.2 billion people have a choice between expensive private care, or no care at all.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi faces many challenges to his stated goal of providing universal public health coverage, but one of the most daunting is ending the logjams that mean officials consistently fail to use their budgets.

At the 300-bed Janakpuri Super Speciality Hospital, gleaming marble-floored corridors disappear into dark wings, thick chains locking the doors to most of the five-storey building. Wards lie empty, without beds. It officially opened in 2008.

In another part of the city of 16 million people, the Rajiv Gandhi Super Speciality Hospital sits in a landscaped 13-acre complex. It started outpatient services in 2003 but more than a decade later only six beds – of the 650 the hospital was built for – receive overnight patients.

The hospitals were allocated $48 million in the current financial year but still lack basic equipment and, crucially, doctors. They will only spend a fraction of the amount by year-end: under 20 percent in the case of Janakpuri hospital.

A Reuters investigation found no evidence that corruption was responsible for the situation. Instead, officials and health experts blamed a tortuous procurement process, political wrangling and bureaucratic incompetence.

Janakpuri hospital Director M.M. Mehndiratta said he waited 15 months for approval to hire more doctors, with the request travelling to Delhi’s top health officials before getting stuck for months in the administrative and finance departments.

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India’s health system will need to add 3.6 million hospital beds, 3 million doctors and 6 million nurses over the next 20 years to meet the needs of the growing population, consultants PwC India estimate.

“We buy an X-ray machine, but there is no X-ray operator,” Health Minister J.P. Nadda said while discussing general health funding with reporters last month. “Money is not the major factor, it is (the lack of) optimal utilisation.”

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Data compiled by Reuters in collaboration with the Public Health Foundation of India shows the under-utilisation is a national problem. Even though India revised down its federal health budget mid-year in all but one year since 2005, the country only once managed to spend all the funds.

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A senior health official in New Delhi blamed delays such as those plaguing Rajiv Gandhi and Janakpuri hospitals on the incompetence of government employees and a “lethargic and slow” process of selecting vendors. Fearing corruption charges, officials work in an environment of “procurement phobia”.

“We need clearances from about 10 agencies before laying even a brick,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

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Since the Delhi government began building the Rajiv Gandhi and Janakpuri hospitals in 1998, dozens of private hospitals have sprung up to meet the city’s growing medical needs.

Industry body ASSOCHAM estimated in 2013 that India’s private hospital sector would grow at 20 percent annually and become a $125 billion market by 2017.

The private sector now accounts for 80 percent of India’s healthcare delivery market.

Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd., India’s largest listed hospital chain by revenue, classifies inadequate public spending as one of its growth drivers.

http://in.reuters.com/article/2015/02/12/india-healthcare-hospitals-idINKBN0LF2G220150212