Ashwagandha - 'Indian Ginseng'

  

Ashwagandha- Means 'the smell of a horse' as its fresh root smells like a horse's urine, and also perhaps because it is renowned for imparting the sexual stamina of a horse. . it’s frequently referred to as 'Indian ginseng' because of its rejuvenating properties .This herb is quite beneficial for women’s as it is good for hair and weight loss , 

Health benefits of this wonderful herb are

It Helps in Healing properties

It boosts Sexual Health in Men

It helps in Controlling Blood Sugar Level

It Enhance Fertility

It helps in maintaining the hormonal Balance in Women

Ashwagandha comprises . a unique medicinal properties which helps  in fighting with several  physical problems but on the flip side it should be taken with proper consultation of Ayurvedic Doctors and  should not be given to pregnant women’s 

Shatavari - Herbal Libido Enhancer for females

Shatavari Powder is a rejuvenative herb for both males and females it helps to nourish the female reproductive organs and helps to enhance the fertility. It also helps in enhancing the breast milk in lactating mothers and in healthy mensturation & helps to reduce the pain at the time of mensuration It is a rejuvenating herb that cools the body and strengthens and nourishes the tissues It's bitter and sweet also it has some cooling effect on the system. These combined qualities make it a rejuvenative for the reproductive system Shatavari calms the mind and promotes love

Shilajit Indian Viagra

Shilajit is the best natural anti aging product and helps to increase immunity. Shilajit works wonders for improving male sexual function and it’s been used for hundred of years to increase libido and sexual performance in a natural way. Furthermore, Shilajit is the main ingredient in Ayurvedic for treating low libido and sexual performance in general. It is an excellent herbal remedy for general debility in men and women. Shilajeet helps in increasing the physical as well as mental strength and delays signs of ageing.

Pharmacon: Antibiotic abuse in India

Pharmacon: Antibiotic abuse in India:    Antibiotic abuse and growing resistance Since the discovery of Penicillin in early 19 th century several classes of antibiotic...

Antibiotic abuse in India

  

Antibiotic abuse and growing resistance

Since the discovery of Penicillin in early 19^th century several classes of antibiotics came in market, however in last decades disease treatment using antibiotics is confronted with steep rise in resistance. Under the pressure of antibiotics, microbes evolve resistant mutants creating an arm-race between antibiotics and microbes in which eventually microbes will win if the antibiotic abuse is not checked

Antibiotic abuse (defined as overuse or misuse of antibiotics) is one of the major driver for developing resistance against antibiotics. India, as one of the main antibiotic abuser, has a sharp upsurge in antibiotic resistance with several thousand of dying with resistant form of diseases.^1,2 One of the classical example is NDM-based (New Delhi metallo beta-lactamase) resistance, which is prominently present in Klebsiella pneumoniae and Escherichia coli isolates and are extremely resistant to carbapenems, cephalosporin, etc.

Several factors contributes to antibiotic abuse and resistance development:

a)    Self-medication: Self-medication in the case of antibiotics can be really dangerous as it leads to un-appropriate antibiotics usage with less control on quality, specificity and dosage. This gives an ease to pathogenic microbes in overcoming the pressure of antibiotics by developing resistant mutants, making them difficult to treat.

b)    Easy access to all antibiotics: Self-medication is extremely aided by having easy access to antibiotics in India. Most often it is from drug stores but also some people keep the antibiotics from their disease treatment, and do not hesitate to give them to their family members or friends without going through doctors and prescriptions.

c)    Non-regularized sale of antibiotics: One of the huge problem is less-control and non-regularized sale of antibiotics at drug stores. A lot of drug stores sell antibiotics without doctor’s prescriptions or consult. Sometime these drug store people are even not educated enough to know which antibiotics are more effective against which type of disease.

d)   Pharmacy-Doctor benefit relationship: Often, big pharma companies and pharmacies have some sort of beneficial relationship with doctors in which doctors prescribe antibiotics or dosage which are more beneficial in terms of profits.

e)   Lack of awareness: All of the above points are directly or indirectly related to lack of awareness about dangers of un-appropriate usage of antibiotics. People are not aware about in what ways increasing resistance against antibiotics can be problematic for the society.

Apart of these, one of the major factor is increase use of antibiotics in livestocks (farm animals) where more education and awareness is required.³

To tackle this situation, several efforts have already been taken at different levels. Government has placed a revised over-the-counter sales implementation of antibiotics (H1 from Central Drugs Standard Control Organization) which includes 24 antibiotics that should be strictly sold under prescription by doctor and drugs stores are required to maintain a proper inventory for the sales of these antibiotics.³ In 2012, several medical societies of India have formulated a declaration to tackle the growing problem of antibiotic resistance at 2^nd annual conference of the Clinical Infectious Disease Society (CIDSCON 2012) known as ‘Chennai Declaration’.⁴ Under this declaration efforts for strict regularization of drug sales at pharmacies and hospitals were under taken. In spite of these efforts, a strong awareness about antibiotic resistance and dangers of antibiotic abuse is required at the base level. Government can also implement some education about antibiotic misuse and its disadvantages at the school level which will help us in bringing awareness for coming generations. A strong control on prescription of antibiotics in both government and private hospitals can be implemented. Hospitals can also implement simple awareness programs using which patients can be educated about growing problem of antibiotic resistance and how to prevent antibiotic abuse.  Along with government’s efforts we should avoid using antibiotics without doctor’s prescription at all and also advise people around us to do so. Social media and government-mediated advertisements can also play a big role considering the reach of social media even in small towns and villages.

           

……………………….

Dr. Sandeep Ameta, PhD

https://fr.linkedin.com/in/sandeep-ameta-2b827a42

Senior Research Scientist,

ESPCI ParisTech,

75005-Paris, France

                                           

References:

1.     Situation Analysis: Antibiotic Use and Resistance in India (Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy http://www.cddep.org/publications/situation_analysis_antibiotic_use_and_resistance_india#sthash.2OXKZx7D.dpbs

2.       Kumar et al. 2013, J Nat Sci Biol Med. Antimicrobial resistance in India: A review. 

3.      Laxminarayan and Chaudhury, 2016, PLoS Med, Antibiotic Resistance in India: Drivers and        Opportunities for Action.

4.     Chennai Declaration (http://chennaideclaration.org/)

Pharmacon: Tuberculosis

Pharmacon: Tuberculosis: TB (Tuberculosis) is as dangerous as HIV and one of the leading cause of death worldwide Even though there are impressive efforts by WHO ...

Tuberculosis

TB (Tuberculosis) is as dangerous as HIV and one of the leading cause of death worldwide Even though there are impressive efforts by WHO (World Health Organization), in 2014 around 96 lakh people fell ill with TB and from that 15 lakh lost their lives. In India alone, there were around 19 lakh cases of TB reported in 2014.

TB (Tuberculosis)

TB is an infectious disease caused by pathogenic bacteria, Mycobacterium tuberculosis which affects respiratory system of human being by infecting their lungs. There can be two form of TB disease

:

a)   Latent TB: This is an asymptomatic TB (where you don’t see prominent disease symptoms) in which you are infected with bacterium, however your body’s immune system keeps a strong check and doesn’t let the TB bacteria grow. This state has no symptoms of disease and is also non-infectious. However, they are at constant risk to re-activation of disease and can fall ill

b)   Active TB: This is contagious and symptomatic state which might occur several weeks later than after first infection. At this stage, you are at risk of spreading disease via coughing and sneezing. You get symptoms like intense coughing, rapid weight loss, fever, night sweats, loss of appetite, etc.

A person with weaker immune system is more prone to catch the disease as body doesn’t fight back the TB bacterial infection. Therefore, people with HIV infection possess higher risk of developing active TB (e.g. out of 96 lakh TB cases, around 12 lakh were carrying HIV) and it is a leading cause of death in HIV-positive people. It also has been reported that people with diabetes, malnutrition and tobacco-addiction are in high risk category of developing active TB.

Diagnosis and medication

Primary diagnosis includes physical examination, skin test (tuberculin) and blood test.  Further, chest X-ray, sputum test and other blood-related advance test can also be performed to check the TB and its state. Importantly, it is also necessary to conduct drug-resistance test in order prescribe proper medication. Treatment of TB includes intensive administration of isoniazid, rifampicin, pyrazinamide and ethambutol followed by mild-administration of isoniazid and rifampicin for four months.

Although due to continuous efforts by WHO, TB incidence rate is falling at 1.5 % each year since 2000, situation still far from under control. One of the main reason which impairs the disease control is drug-resistance.

MDR-TB (Multi-drug related tuberculosis):- A big concern

The pervasive development of antibiotic resistance is a major concern in the treatment of TB. This happens because TB bacteria becomes un-responsive against multiple drugs (MDR-TB), and therefore patients cannot be treated effectively which ultimately leads to their death. According to the WHO, in 2014 around 4.8 lakh people developed TB which doesn’t respond to rifampicin and isoniazid (most powerful first-line drugs for TB treatment). Though in such cases, TB can be tackled using second line drugs (e.g. fluoroquinolones, kanamycin, amikacin), however in some cases, TB bacteria is even get resistant to these drugs and develop

XDR-TB (extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis) which puts these patients under high-risk group and they are difficult to treat.

There are several reasons which leads to such high resistance and a general awareness can help to prevent  developing such high resistance against drugs. One of the main reason is not taking the full-course of drugs. A lot of people have habit of stop taking drugs as soon as they feel slightly better, even though doctors have prescribed full-course. This allows bacteria grow again in body and slowly they become resistant against the drugs. Another reason is self-medication and wrong-doing of drug stores to prescribe drugs without even concerning doctors. This leads to the use of improper, bad quality and wrong drugs which might not be effective against the disease and which allow bacteria to become resistant to the drug.

Since TB is an infectious disease, by not taking proper and prescribed medication people not only affect themselves but also contributes in spreading such resistant forms of TB in the society. Therefore more awareness about TB and drug-resistance is required for the better treatment and stopping the spread of disease.

Dr. Sandeep Ameta, PhD,

Senior Research Scientist,

ESPCI ParisTech,

10 rue Vauquelin,

75005, Paris, France

ametasandeep@yahoo.com

sandeep.espci@yahoo.com

References:

1.        Global tuberculosis report 2015, World Health Organization (WHO) (http://www.who.int/tb/publications/global_report/en/)

2.        Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Division of Tuberculosis 
(http://www.cdc.gov/tb/topic/default.htm)

3.        Zumla et al., Current concepts Tuberculosis, 368, 2013, The New England Journal of Medicine.

4.        WHO guidelines on tuberculosis (http://www.who.int/publications/guidelines/

Tuberculosis/en/)

5.        WHO: Drug resistant TB (http://www.who.int/tb/areas-of-work/drug-resistant-tb/en/)