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Aug 04
IndiaHeartBeat.Com voted as The Best Online Healthcare Provider at E-World Forum Awards 2011
IndiaHeartBeat.Com - World's First Medical Networking & Resource Portal has been awarded as The Best Online Healthcare Provider at The E-World Forum 2011, jointly organized by The Ministry of Communications & IT, Department of Science & Technology, Adhaar - UID Authority of India, Indra Gandhi National Open University, Elets, CSDMS & NSDI. The award ceremony was held at Delhi on 2nd August, 2011 as a part of the E-World Seminar. The Forum was chaired by several esteemed individuals and speakers which included Mr. Kapil Sibal (Minister of Human Resource Development and Communications & IT), Mr. Jyotiraditya Scindia (Minister of State for Commerce and Industry), Mr. R Chandrashekhar (Secretary,
Department of Telecom, Ministry of Communication & IT), VN Rajasekhran Pillai (Vice Chancellor Indira Gandhi National Open University) etc. to name a few.

This is the third National honor for DreamWeavers InfoCom, the company behind IndiaHeartBeat.Com & yet another extension of the success story. IndiaHeartBeat.Com has pioneered the concept of medical networking and continues to lead the healthcare category globally. This award comes shortly after IndiaHeartBeat.Com was named one of the 'Most Innovative Companies'. For this recognition, Vivek Aggarwal, Founder & Chairman, IndiaHeartBeat.Com said, "We are indeed honored with this recognition. Being the front runners in the e-health space, IndiaHeartBeat.Com has changed perceptions about seeking medical services online. From day one, innovation and customer satisfaction have been the center-pillars of our service model. Our customers have always been the centerpiece of our strategy in creating a world class professional networking service and we thank them as well as the E-World Forum for ranking IndiaHeartBeat.Com as the Best Online Healthcare Website."

IndiaHeartBeat.Com's innovative concepts and features have redefined the reach of medicine & has created a world-renowned service that has touched over millions of people to help them find & connect with the choicest of medical professionals & institutions at the click of a button.

Aug 03
Millions in South Asia have no access to vaccine: WHO
At a two-day consultation here, health ministers and senior officials from 11 SAARC nations emphasised on the need to improve routine immunisation services and WHO officials announced the formation of a regional committee to enhance and sustain the existing services among member countries.

Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad highlighted challenges of the programme in the country. "You can estimate the scale of India's immunisation programme from the fact that around 26 million children are born every year....We face challenges to cover this large birth cohort."

Aug 02
Weight Gain Riskier for South Asians
Gaining weight may be particularly dangerous for people of South Asian descent, a new study suggests.

The results show we don't all pack on fat in the same way. South Asians - people who originate from the Indian subcontinent - are more likely to carry extra fat around their internal organs, such as their liver, than Caucasians, Canadian researchers said.

This type of fat, known as visceral fat or belly fat, is thought to be more dangerous to health than subcutaneous fat, or fat just under the skin. Previous work has linked belly fat with the development of high blood pressure, unhealthy cholesterol levels and insulin resistance, which can develop into cardiovascular disease or Type 2 diabetes.

The results may explain why South Asians have previously been found to be at greater risk for cardiovascular disease and Type 2 diabetes, the researchers said.

Because of the way their bodies carry fat, South Asians may experience more health problems than Caucasians of similar body weights, said study researcher Dr. Arya Sharma, director of the Canadian Obesity Network. Doctors should screen people of South Asian heritage for heart disease and diabetes at lower body mass indices (BMIs) than Caucasians, Sharma said.

The researchers examined about 100 people of South Asian descent (defined as those with parents and grandparents who originated in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh) and Caucasians (whose ancestors originated in Europe).

The researchers used body scans to determine the distribution of the participants' body fat.

After adjusting for age, gender and BMI, the researchers found South Asians had less fat under their skin and more fat around organs than Caucasians did. This may be because South Asians' bodies are structured in a way that means they have less space to store fat below their skin than Caucasians, said Dr. Sonia Anand, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario.

"Their excess fat, therefore, overflows to ectopic compartments, in the abdomen and liver where it may affect function," Anand said.

The study was published Thursday (July 28) in the journal PLoS ONE. It was sponsored by the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Ontario.

Aug 01
Govt starts campaign against beedi smoking
Under flak for watering down pictorial warnings on tobacco products, and for coming under pressure from the tobacco lobby, for the first time the government is focusing on beedi smokers.

It has planned a new ad campaign to start from Monday and wants to set up 5 labs to test beedi content.

The Health Ministry's latest initiative to spread awareness on the ills of beedi smoking is a new ad campaign called Campaign Heartbreak that changes the focus from cigarettes and gutka to beedis.

Health Secretary BK Prasad said, "In our country 8-10 lakh people die of tobacco related diseases."

"When we look at the consumption pattern, it is mainly the low socio eco group for cigarettes, they are informed consumers, but with beedi, people don't know what they are consuming," said Tobacco Control Program CMO Dr Jagdish Kaur.

In fact, according to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey beedi is the second most highly consumed tobacco product in India. 16 per cent Indian males smoke beedis compared to nearly 10 per cent who smoke cigarettes.

In fact, beedi smoke contains three times the carbon monoxide and nicotine and

five times the amount of tar that cigarette smoke does.

The NGO World Lung Foundation helped pre-test and develop this ad campaign.

Nandita Murukutla of the World lung foundation said, "The first problem is that there are no regulations, secondly the tobacco lobby is very strong in India. But we applaud this project by the government because we know from our studies that these mass media campaigns do work."

The government has now identified 5 labs across the country to test tobacco products and will set up one lab dedicated for tobacco research. In December, the long-awaited pictorial warnings on all beedi products will also come into effect.

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