-The Telegraph New Delhi: India could prevent an estimated 400,000 people from becoming patients of diabetes over the next decade if the government imposes a 20 per cent extra tax on sweetened beverages, a new study has suggested. The study by researchers at the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), New Delhi, and academic institutions in the US and the UK has also indicated that such a tax on soft drinks might...

-Frontline DAVID SANDERS, Professor Emeritus and founding Director of the School of Public Health at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in South Africa, is a specialist paediatrician with postgraduate qualifications in public health. One of the founders of the global public health movement, he has over 30 years' experience in health policy and programme development in Zimbabwe and South Africa, having advised governments as well as organisations such as...

-The World Bank   Policy Interventions Can Turn the Tide, Says World Bank Report WASHINGTON: A new World Bank report warns that risky behaviors -smoking, using illicit drugs, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets, and unsafe sex- are increasing globally and pose a growing threat to the health of individuals, particularly in developing countries. The report looks at how individual choices that lead to these behaviors are formed and reviews the effectiveness of interventions...

-PTI Mumbai: Younger women in the age bracket of 30-35 years are prone to diabetes because of sedentary lifestyle and wrong eating habits, according to a study. Population in Western India tends to eat fried food and no fruits, due to which several people are seen to be at higher risk of diabetes and obesity. Diabetes risk levels have been observed to be high among men and women in the age bracket of...

-The Business Standard India has to come to terms with a growing obesity problem that is rapidly becoming a crisis obesity, an epidemic often thought to be exclusive to wealthy countries, is becoming a rapidly growing crisis for India. The National Family Health Survey of 2006 revealed that roughly one in four urban Indians was overweight or obese, and several more recent studies indicate that these numbers are increasing. A new study...