A privilege: Dr. Shanta and Vijay Viswanathan, MD, M.V. Centre for Diabetes, handing over the Senior Citizen Outpatient Privilege Card to 99-year-old Ramasamy (left).  Photo: K.V. Srinivasan / The Hindu

Chennai:

“Lack of exercise, consumption of fast-food, obesity and sedentary lifestyle can lead to diabetes,” said V. Shantha, Chairperson, Cancer Institute.

Speaking at the launch of M.V. Centre for Diabetes, Senior Citizen Outpatient Privilege Card at M.V. Hospital for Diabetes, Royapuram, on June 16, she said that the number of people with diabetes in India was high when compared to other countries.

“The medical fraternity has moved from cure to control. Prevention should be given more importance in non-communicable diseases such as cancer, diabetes and cardio-vascular diseases.

“There is lack of medical care and medical insurance in non-communicable diseases. Care, cure and control should be the focus in non-communicable disease than treatment and management,” she said.

“Diabetes is more of a lifestyle disorder that can be attributed to modifiable risk factors such as lack of physical exercise, obesity and eating junk food.

Awareness and education on diabetes must be done on a large-scale, which should be a continuing programme,” Shanta pointed.

Adequate diabetic control and participation of family and physician is important in diabetic care and preventing health complications, she noted.

M.V. Hospital for Diabetes Managing Director, Dr. Vijay Vishwanathan, said that 4.6 million people died around the world in 2011 due to diabetes, of which 50 per cent of people were below the age of 60.

“India spends 31 billion on diabetic care. Around 60 million people in India are estimated to have diabetes. In India, diabetes patients have to spend money from their own pocket whereas in the United States of America, patients can avail themselves of health insurance policies,” he said.

The hospital launched the Privilege Card for senior citizens aged 80 and above in M.V. Centre for Diabetes, Mylapore and Perungudi, where it would provide a concession of 50 per cent.

The cynosure of all eyes was 99-year-old P.V. Ramasamy of Sivaganga district, who has been suffering from diabetes for the past 25 years. He said that diet control, daily exercise and regular intake of medicines have helped him to live a longer life. More than 20 people, who are 80 years and above and surviving with diabetes, were honoured on the occasion.

source: http://www.TheHindu.com / Home> Health / by T. S. Swaminathan / Chennai, June 24th, 2012

Indian Institute of Crop Processing Technology (IICPT), Thanjavur, is now calling for the need to look at high pressure processing for food safety.

Food safety is the responsibility of the growers, manufacturers and processors and food handlers. The supply to consumers is in different forms such as fresh, preserved and processed products of plant, animal and marine origin.

During the past two decades, numerous researches on food preservation using emerging technologies have been developed. Since these processing techniques have little or no new thermal effects on food, they are commonly referred to as non-thermal preservation technologies. Among these emerging technologies, the most promising ones for food application are high-pressure processing and use of pulsed electric fields. Although the fact that high pressure kills microorganisms and preserved food in the early 19th century, its commercial benefit became available to the food processing industry in a decade ago, stated officials at IICPT.

The concept of high pressure treatment of foods involves subjecting food materials to pressures as high as 9,000 times the atmospheric pressure. It is uniformly applied throughout a food material independent of its mass and time, they added.

Typically, the pressurisation time for foods is independent of the quality of food placed in the pressure vessel, The presence of air in the food increases the pressurisation time, since air is more compressible than water.

According to IICPT, in contrast to the thermal treatment, high pressure processing does not break the ‘covalent bonds’ in food, and thus helps to preserve the flavour. The effect of high pressure on enzymes is largely due to the nature of the proteins.

In fact, the first commercial production of high pressure processed jam was carried out in Japan in 1992, which was well received by consumers. Since then a diverse range of foods, including fruit juices, vegetables, milk, yoghurt, cheese, fish, pork, beef, ice cream, Japanese unrefined rice wine and rice cakes containing herbs are processed using this technology, stated IICPT.

The non-availability of suitable equipment burdened early application of high pressure. There has also been considerable progress made in equipment design which has ensured global recognition of the potential for such technology in food processing. Moreover, high pressure technology can supplement conventional thermal processing for reducing microbial load or substitute the use of chemical preservatives. The advantage of high pressure technology includes that it enables, food processing at ambient temperature or even lower temperature. Causes of microbial death leads to improvements in overall quality of foods and it can be used to create ingredients with novel functional properties.

The food technologists globally recommend high pressure processing to prevent hazardous micro-organisms like E Coli, Salmonella and Vibrio. Presently the food industry is interested in eliminating the harmful organisms.

IICT officials’ said that High pressure processing was not likely to replace traditional methods. However, they observed that high capital expenditure could limit the application initially but this could be offset by lowering the cost expenses of lower operating costs if efficient energy systems were used.

source: http://www.fnbnews.com / Home> Top News / by Nandita Vijay, Bengaluru / Saturday, May 19th, 2012