Cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis - Indians are facing an unhealthy future burdened with a slew of lifestyle diseases. But instead of expensive medication and therapy, the cure lies in making exercise a compulsory part of everyday life, health experts say.

"Indians are increasingly leading a sedentary and machine-dependent life, which may seem comfortable but has extremely adverse effects on health," T.S. Kler, Head of the Department Cardiology, Fortis Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, told IANS.

Kler said with increasingly hectic lifestyles, most Indians in urban areas nowadays do not walk to the neighbourhood store but rather order groceries on phone for home delivery or drive down.

"We do not climb stairs any more, with lifts being omnipresent. Riding bicycles to work or to school is not cool in urban areas any more. Forget adults, this conditioning begins with children who prefer to stay indoors watching television or playing video games rather than spending time in the playground," he added.

"We all know that cardiovascular diseases are today a major health concern in India. They are the single largest leading cause of deaths in the country, and relatively younger people are today afflicted by coronary artery disease," the noted cardiologist said.

Various surveys done in India have shown that the incidence of coronary heart disease is 8-10 percent in urban areas and 5-6 percent in rural areas.

Kler said regular exercise can help prevent risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and type II diabetes. It also keeps the weight in check.

"Incidences of coronary artery disease can be reduced substantially if the entire Indian population religiously takes to physical exercise. Even 30 minutes of moderate exercise daily can be immensely beneficial. We need a national focus on this less-talked about subject," Kler said.

According to Rajeev K. Sharma, senior consultant orthopedics and joint replacement surgery, Indraprastha Apollo Hospital: "Adequate levels of physical activity decreases the risk of a hip or vertebral fracture and helps control weight. In fact, exercise is very crucial for maintaining good bone health, besides adequate intake of calcium."

"WHO estimates that globally, one in four adults is not active enough while more than 80 percent of the world's adolescent population is insufficiently physically active. This is a dreadful scenario as all these inactive people are making themselves vulnerable to several health issues," he said.

Osteoporosis-related injuries such as vertebrae fractures not only cause pain but also degrade the quality of life, curtail movement and increase dependence. Since the bone is a living tissue, it becomes stronger when subjected to exercise, Sharma said, adding that loss of bone mineral density that begins during the 30s can be curtailed by exercising regularly.

"People who exercise are found to have greater peak bone mass as compared to people who do not exercise."

According to the International Osteoporosis Foundation, the malaise annually causes more than 8.9 million fractures around the globe.

"Though exercising can, to a large extent, help in building strong bones, there is a general lack of an exercise culture in India. This needs to change. Schools, colleges and other institutions should take the lead in nurturing an exercising culture."

Harvinder Singh Chhabra, medical director and chief of spine services at Indian Spinal Injuries Centre, Vasant Kunj, said Indians generally do not realize the importance of exercising unless hit by an ailment.

"Many patients start walking regularly after back pain or osteoarthritis has already set in their bodies. We tell them they could have delayed it by being active all their lives," he added.

According to Chhabra, in the West, there is a lot of focus on physical activity and people are moving away from sedentary ways of life. "They are junking television and going for cycling, running, or adventure sports such as rock climbing. This shift is yet to take place in India."

To make exercise a national culture, apart from awareness, many enabling policy measures are also needed.

"In urban areas, several environmental factors discourage people from leading more active lives even if they want to. Lack of public spaces such as parks and grounds, safety issues on the roads, pollution and irksome traffic do not allow many people to step out of homes to run or walk. This needs to change," he said.

The latter half of the 20th century has brought substantial progress in disease control due to expansion of health infrastructure. With food and nutritional consumption also improving for a vast majority of population, life expectancy in India has gone up over the years. Experts say that deaths due to communicable diseases have decreased while those from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) have risen.

NCDs at present account for 53 percent of all deaths and 44 percent of disability adjusted life-years lost. Projections indicate a further increase to 67 percent of all deaths by 2030. Cardiovascular disease is the major contributor to this burden, attributable to 52 percent of NCD-associated deaths and 29 percent of total deaths.

Your coffee may do more than just waking you up in the morning, as in a new study, scientists are trying to see caffeine as a potential cure for Alzheimer's disease.

The latest evidence linking beta amyloid protein to Alzheimer's disease and explores the relationship between caffeine and beta amyloid.

Abhishek Mohan, BS, Old Dominion University (Norfolk, VA), and coauthors identified the potential opportunities for using caffeine to reduce beta amyloid levels as a means of preventing, treating, and slowing the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

Patricia A. Broderick, PhD, editor-in-chief of the journal featuring the article, said that "to say that strategizing medicines to treat Alzheimer's disorders is important is an understatement. Moreover, to say that caffeine is just an ordinary staple in our lives, whether caffeine is part of coffee or a chocolate bar, is also an understatement. Thus, what Dr. Mohan has published herein is elegant in its simplicity; his work is critically on target."

The article is published in the Journal of Caffeine Research.

Make sure that the food you eat is pesticide free, as new study has claimed that fruits and vegetables containing higher levels of pesticide residues can harm semen quality.

According to a new study by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, men who ate strawberries, spinach, and peppers with high pesticide levels had lower sperm count and a lower percentage of normal sperm than those who ate produce with lower residue levels.

It is the first study to look at the connection between exposure to pesticide residues from fruits and vegetables and semen quality.

The researchers used data from 155 men enrolled in the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) study, an ongoing National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences-funded study at a fertility center in Boston. Data included 338 semen samples provided during 2007-2012 and validated survey information about participants' diets.

The results showed that men who ate greater amounts of fruits and vegetables with higher levels of pesticide residue-more than 1.5 servings per day-had 49 percent lower sperm count and 32 percent lower percentage of normal sperm than men who ate the least amounts (less than 0.5 serving per day). They also had a lower sperm count, lower ejaculate volume, and lower percentage of normal sperm.

The men who ate the most fruits and vegetables with low-to-moderate levels of pesticide residue had a higher percentage of normal sperm compared with those who ate less fruits and vegetables with low-to-moderate levels.

Study's senior author Jorge Chavarro said that the findings should not discourage the consumption of fruit and vegetables in general, as they found that consuming more fruits and vegetables with low pesticide residues was beneficial.

The study is published in the journal Human Reproduction.

Mixing lettuce varieties could help provide protection against the chain reactions of free radicals, molecules that can cause cell damage and generate various diseases, suggests a study.

The findings, published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, said that mixing lettuce, one of the indispensable vegetables in the Mediterranean diet, could be a good idea as not all lettuce varieties have the same antioxidant effect.

The researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU) in Spain and the University of Pisa in Italy analysed the compounds of three lettuce varieties: the green-leaf 'Batavia', the semi-red-leaf 'Marvel of Four Seasons', and the red-leaf 'Oak Leaf'.

Using Electron Paramagnetic Resonance (EPR) techniques, they were able to observe the behaviour of the speed (kinetics) of the antioxidant compounds of each variety.

The results showed that the green-leaf lettuce contains water-soluble, antioxidant compounds that act at a slow and intermediate speed, the red-leaf one has compounds with intermediate and rapid kinetics, and the semi-red-leaf one has three kinds of compounds, with a rapid, intermediate and slow speed.

"The fact that there are compounds that act at different speeds does not mean that some are better or worse than others," said Usue Perez-Lopez, researcher at UPV/EHU.

It is also important that our bodies should acquire foods with antioxidants that have slower kinetics so that the latter will continue to act over a longer period of time.

"That is why people say that it is very interesting to mix different types of lettuce because they have different, complementary characteristics," Perez-Lopez added.

Free radicals harm our body by causing, in the best of cases, ageing and, in the worse, serious diseases.

Lettuce is rich in antioxidants, as it contains compounds like phenolic acids, flavonoids, anthocyanins, and vitamins A and C, among other things, the researchers said.

A new survey has suggested that women should do regular exercise as physical inactivity is the biggest risk factor for heart disease in women over the age of 30.

The Heart Foundation survey on the exercise habits, found that 24 per cent of male students did 60 minutes or more of exercise a day, compared to 11 per cent of females, News.com.au reported.

Trevor Shilton, Heart Foundation spokesman said that women who exercise enough to cause sweating or a faster heart beat for 30 minutes five times a week, were up to 35 per cent less likely to suffer from heart disease, strokes or blood clots.

Shilton added that there were certain times in a woman's life like in late teens and after having children when she went through more at risk of cutting out exercise due to study and work pressures.