Effects of Food Pollution on Human Health and Its management through Panchakarma

Air, water and food are the basic necessities of life. If one pillar is disturbed then we can’t expect the other two works positively for our health. In Ayurveda there is description of Triya Upstambh where food (aahar) placed in first place, which shows the importance of food.  We can define food pollution as, the presence of toxic chemical and biological contaminants which are not naturally part of our food. Examples are preservatives, taste enhancer, coloring agents. In present time our food is also contaminated by fertilizers, pesticides and heavy metals. This put very deleterious effect upon our body.  It is a silent killer, because these harmful effects come after a long time of consuming this polluted food. Adulteration in edible products is also a common cause of food pollution. Food pollution is causing so many diseases related to different system of our body, like digestive system related, nervous system related etc. some serious health problems are developing day by day such as hormonal problems and various types of cancer. Water pollution and soil pollution are trigger factor or we could say enhancer for food pollution. Growing crops in polluted soil with polluted water is also responsible for polluting the food. Not only polluted soil or water, there are so many sources of food pollution.  Panchakarma is the ayurvedic approach to get rid of these toxins and restores good health through detoxification of the human body. This article is related to polluted food, food adulteration, their adverse effects upon human body and its management through Panchakarma therapy

Preliminary Physiochemical Evaluation of Nagaradi Ointment: An Ayurvedic Formulation

Plants serve as a very rich source of bioactive molecules, which are used to treat various acute and chronic diseases in Ayurveda. Medicinal plant materials are formulated into various types of Ayurvedic medicine either by ancient or modern methods where standardization plays a pivotal role for authentication. Standardization confirms the identity, quality and purity of drugs. WHO has set up various parameters to evaluate the crude drugs and their finished products. Now a day’s application of several modern analytical techniques has become inevitable for evaluating quality, safety and efficacy of the polyherbal Ayurvedic formulations. Out of several formulations available in Ayurveda, Anjana is considered as unique in Shalakya Tantra due to its various forms (which are prepared by different ways). This article is about the formation of Nagaradi Anjana as ointment which can be taken as a form of Raskriyanjana. Most of the ingredients of Nagaradi ointment are Chakshushya i.e., good for eyes and also have Kaphashamak properties. That is why they are useful in ocular diseased conditions which have dominance of Kapha dosha like Kaphaja Abhishyanda. Keeping all these points in view, the present study has been undertaken with the aim to make the Ayurvedic formulation in the form of Raskriya Anjana or ointment, from the herbal drugs, mentioned in Astanga Sangrah, an Ayurvedic classical text and to develop the physiochemical profile of it. The eye ointment was prepared by using vaseline as base which is mixed with powdered Ghana Satva of the herbal drugs

Subglottic web: A rare cause of respiratory distress in neonate

A full term male neonate presented with stridor and respiratory distress at birth. Direct laryngoscopy after tracheostomy and patient stabilization revealed a subglottic web with a very small hole at 6 o′clock position. The patient was managed by cauterization of web using Bugbee electrode with resultant normal lumen post operatively

Subglottic web: A rare cause of respiratory distress in neonate

A full term male neonate presented with stridor and respiratory distress at birth. Direct laryngoscopy after tracheostomy and patient stabilization revealed a subglottic web with a very small hole at 6 o'clock position. The patient was managed by cauterization of web using Bugbee electrode with resultant normal lumen post operatively

Neonatal carrier: An easy to make alternative device to costly transport chambers

The transport of sick neonates to the surgical centers or transportation within the center is an essential requirement of neonatal surgery. Neonatal transport incubators are costly, space occupying, and are not available at many places in the developing countries. We report here a cheap yet effective and easy to make, alternate neonatal carrier device

Vascular Extracellular Vesicles Indicate Severe Hepatopulmonary Syndrome in Cirrhosis

Background: Hepatopulmonary syndrome (HPS) is a pulmonary vasculature complication in the setting of liver disease that is characterized by pathological vasodilation resulting in arterial oxygenation defects. We investigated the role of extracellular vesicles (EV) in cirrhosis patients with HPS, as well as the functional effect of EV administration in a common bile duct ligation (CBDL) HPS mouse model. Methods: A total of 113 cirrhosis patients were studied: 42 (Gr. A) with HPS and 71 (Gr. B) without HPS, as well as 22 healthy controls. Plasma levels of EV associated with endothelial cells, epithelial cells, and hepatocytes were measured. The cytokine cargoes were estimated using ELISA. The effect of EV administered intranasally in the CBDL mouse model was investigated for its functional effect in vascular remodeling and inflammation. Results: We found endothelial cells (EC) associated EV (EC-EV) were elevated in cirrhosis patients with and without HPS (p p = 0.004) than in those without HPS. The epithelial cell EVs were significantly high in cirrhosis patients than controls (p p = 0.02 mild vs. severe), and we were able to predict severe HPS with an AUROC of 0.85; p p = 0.031) and PaO2 (r = 0.690; p = 0.01) and a direct correlation with MELD (r = 0.32; p = 0.014). Further, both TNF-α (p = 0.001) and IL-1β (p = 0.021) as cargo levels were significantly elevated inside the EVs of HPS patients than without HPS. Interestingly, upon administration of intranasal EVs, there was a significant decrease in Evans blue accumulation and lung wet–dry ratio (p = 0.042; 0.038). A significant reduction was also noticed in inflammation and cholestasis. Conclusion: High levels of plasma EC-EV levels were found in patients with HPS with elevated pro-inflammatory cytokine cargoes. EC-EVs were indicative of severe HPS condition. In the CBDL HPS model, we were able to prove the beneficial effects of improving vascular tone, inflammation, and liver pathogenesis

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Not AvailableEfficient utilization of energy is the need of the hour. Being a time saving and energy efficient technique, ultrasonic assisted extraction (UAE) was utilised for optimization of sequential extraction of neem oil and azadirachtinoids from neem seed kernel (NSK) using response surface methodology (RSM).Not Availabl