Pulse Beat

Prof Dr BM Hegde 13 February 2017

Litchi, the Solution to Diabetes?

A study published in The Lancet in January 2017 shows a possible link between litchi and diabetes treatment. The study was done by Indian and CDC (Centre for Disease Control and Prevention) scientists. Though it is a good study, it is in the stage of hypothesis, as yet.

There was an epidemic of children dying in a part of Bihar some time ago. This joint group of researchers zeroed in on the litchi fruit grown in that area in summer. Poor children eat a lot of them and many of them later starve as their night meal is poor in nutrition. These children died of a peculiar syndrome. They had fits and other signs of encephalopathy. The only clue the researchers got was that these children had very low blood sugar levels. They deduced that the fruit must have the capacity to lower one’s blood sugar which, coupled with starvation, must have lowered the sugar to the critical levels to kill the children.

As usual, this association has been made into a cause-effect relationship. Good for publication. One wonders how even the serious starvation in millions of children in India and in other parts of the world does not attract this low blood sugar killer syndrome. Even diabetics who go into serious hypoglycaemia do not present this syndrome. Is there something missing here? If true, could we make use of that ingredient in litchi (or the whole litchi) to treat diabetics without the dangerous reductionist chemicals?

Microcephaly Linked to Vaccine

There is a little-known study conducted by the US government. This reveals a clear link between the popular Tdap vaccine for tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (whooping cough), and microcephaly, a neurological birth defect that, in recent years, authorities have been erroneously blaming on the Zika virus.

The National Centre for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) offered clear evidence at the time showing that the combination vaccine can cause not only brain damage in young children but also heart problems, meningitis and epilepsy. “Epidemiological evidence from human case studies showed that within weeks or even days of getting the Tdap shot, children developed infantile spasms and other common symptoms of microcephaly directly related to the vaccine.”

Adverse Effects of Pertussis and Rubella Vaccines is a good book that has a section, “Evidence concerning pertussis vaccines and central nervous system disorders, including infantile spasms, arrhythmia, aseptic meningitis, and encephalopathy.” It is a very good exposition on the subject for a serious student.

Walk Your Way to Good Health

A sedentary lifestyle and its effects on health are very well researched and we all are aware that a sedentary lifestyle is not healthy. A recent elegant study shows that a sedentary lifestyle is bad even for cellular ageing. A study of a group of nearly 5,000 people, men and women, showed that a sedentary lifestyle made the telomeres, the bands at the end of the chromosomes, get shorter. The good news is that even half an hour of daily walking could halt this deterioration. Telomere length is a good indicator of cellular health. Earlier, I had indicated in these columns that regular meditation helped increase the length of telomeres. Yoga, together with medication and vyaayama, which is a pre-requisite for yoga, might be a double whammy!

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