The report, “Health spending to be 2.5% of GDP” (March 17), on the National Health Policy 2017, should instead have looked at the neglect of the poor rural population and those in backward, hilly and remote regions who are deprived of basic health infrastructure and personnel. Doctors are unwilling to serve in these areas, leading to the neglect of India’s rural health care. The poor state of crowded government hospitals, their unhygienic environment, inadequate medical personnel, outdated and non-functional medical and other infrastructure reveals the virtual collapse of health care under the public sector. The high cost of health services and the high prices of essential drugs have also made health care unaffordable for the poor. Medical research on drugs and vaccines for tropical diseases is another neglected area, unattractive for multinational pharmaceutical companies due to their low profitability. Moreover, the budgetary support and encouragement for the development of affordable, indigenous, alternative systems of medicine has been inadequate.
In a first, a team of researchers has found that high doses of Vitamin C and niacin or Vitamin B3 can kill cancer stem cells. A study published in Cell Biology International showed the opposing effects of low and high dose of vitamin C and vitamin B3 on colon cancer stem cells. Led by Bipasha Bose and Sudheer Shenoy, the team found that while low doses (5-25 micromolar) of Vitamin C and B3 proliferate colon cancer stem cells, high doses (100 to 1,000 micromolar) killed cancer stem cells. Such high doses of vitamins can only be achieved through intravenous injections in colon cancer patients. The third leading cause of cancer deaths worldwide, colon cancer can be prevented by an intake of dietary fibre and lifestyle changes. While the next step of the researchers is to delineate the mechanisms involved in such opposing effects, they also hope to establish a therapeutic dose of Vitamin C and B3 for colon cancer stem cell therapy. “If the therapeutic dose gets validated under in vivo...
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