Dr Rajiv Desai
An Educational Blog
ALCOHOL
ALCOHOL: Today, I will discuss the most controversial topic for about 12000 years,namely, Alcohol.The alcohol is consumed by 80 % of people at some time in their lives. Alcohol or Ethanol or Ethyl Alcohol is defined as an organic compound composed of carbon,hydrogen and oxygen atoms with the molecular configuration as CH3CH2OH. I will not discuss other alcohols like methyl alcohol,propyl alcohol etc etc. The human beings have been consuming alcohol in various alcoholic beverages since 10000 year BC…. I wrote my thesis on alcohol in the year 1986 for my MD exam and concluded that the life-span of a heavy alcoholic is reduced by 12 years; and one out of six deaths in a government hospital is related to alcoholism.I was novice and naive then and the sample size of my study was limited. Whisky is a short form of usquebaugh where uisce means water and bethad means of […]
THE FOOD
THE FOOD : The health of a human being is dependent on his nutrition which is dependent on his diet(Food).The healthy diet is defined as a diet which maintains/improves the health and prevents disease. The diet choice is dependent on family tradition,eating habits,religion,culture,food availability,food taste,socio-economic factors,nutritional value,animal love,doctor’s advice,etc. Vegetarianism is defined as a practice/habit of diet which avoids/prohibits eating meat/poultry/fish etc.(no flesh). Non-vegetarianism means eating food from animal sources plus plant sources.Even plants have life like animals albeit with lesser consciousness than animals and therefore the issue is not cruelty on animals as far as meat eating is concerned.WHO has classified milk as vegetarian.I believe that eggs are vegetarian because there is no flesh in it.Pure Vegans avoid all animal products including dairy products,eggs,honey etc.Generally speaking,vegetarian diet means eating cereals,pulses,fruits,vegetables,nuts,milk/yogurt etc. 2.8 % Americans and 11 % Britons are vegetarians.30 % Indians are vegetarians which constitute 70 % of […]
THE WATER
THE WATER : Water is defined as a ubiquitous chemical substance having 2 hydrogen and 1 oxygen atoms bonded to form a molecule H2O, also known as hydrogen oxide.Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen which combines with oxygen to form heavy water(D2O). Water is essential for survival of life as well as essential for economy,industry,ecology,climate cycle and agriculture. 60 % of human body and 80 % of human brain is water.Adult human needs 2 to 3 liters of water daily for drinking and a human can not survive for more than few days without drinking water.75 % of all people in the world are chronically dehydrated leading to day-time fatigue,cancer risk,poor mental ability and body pains.Minimum water requirement per person per day is 50 liters for drinking,bathing,cooking and sanitation.America/Canada uses 2 to 8 times more water per person than most developing nations.Civilisations have developed around water sources/rivers. Water refers to […]
