Category Archives: Health / Wellness

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR It’s agreed that one-third of all deaths from cancer can be prevented, not by way of sophisticated ‘pre-emptive’ methods, but through simple practices — such as balanced diet, reducing weight, if one is corpulent, and keeping active, or doing exercise. Yet another important resolve is giving up smoking. It’s the most important thing […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR You are caught in a traffic jam. No big guess. You have an important meeting lined up. No real surprise. Welcome to the stress labyrinth — an inevitable part of our life and existence. Stress is more than just a warped logjam. It has biotic and functional nitty-gritties and psychosomatic outcomes. It changes […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Your happiness quotient has a positive immune base — the true reflection of a strong immune system. This is because negative responses affect our immune response — while long periods of stress and negativism are evidenced to be a major risk for illness. To highlight virologist Ronald Glaser’s words, “Nobody believed, in the […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR Our mind and body are designed to react to anxiety and stress by generating a surplus of chemicals and hormones — cortisol, epinephrine and norepinephrine, among others. This prompts the ‘alarm bell,’ followed by frenetic activity through the adrenal glands. This is also, in effect, the trigger for the pituitary gland to respond […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR You’d sure think what the buzzword about nutraceuticals is all about. Because, the expression seems to be doing the rounds, much more than its equally noted ‘corollary’ — functional foods. Here goes — Nutraceuticals are simply functional foods with specific health and medical benefits. They also refer to dietary supplements and/or nutritional ingredients […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There is a good old, also timeless, Oriental aphorism: “If you have a good diet, of what use is a doctor? And, if you don’t have a good diet, of what use is a doctor?” This leads us to the big question: what is ‘good’ diet, or what, in effect, epitomises a ‘normal’ […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR We all know the remarkable connection that exists between psychology and immune function — in health and illness. While harmony between the two is suggested to denote optimal health and well-being, a ‘sickening’ imbalance between them is said to be the cause of a host of diseases, including tuberculosis and AIDS. Though a […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR We all know what anger is. We have all felt it, more or less, on a regular basis, whether as a definitive, or fleeting, epithet of annoyance, or as full-fledged rage. Anger is, in précis, a normal phenomenon. It is also a healthy human emotion. It becomes a dilemma, a difficult-to-handle emotion, or […]

RAJGOPAL NIDAMBOOR There’s this celebrated story of a patient, with flu, who went to his physician with the illness. The latter quickly scribbled a prescription in his customary difficult-to-decrypt handwriting. The patient put it in his pocket, but forgot to go the chemist. Each morning, for two years, he displayed it to the conductor as […]