A decade after "carb" became a four-letter word, scientists unveil a Catch-22 breakthrough for dieters:
Carbs may actually help you lose weight.
"The Skinny Carbs Diet" is the result of a University of Colorado study, wherein a link between specific types of carbs (known as "resistant starch carbs") and their potential to boost weight loss were put to the test. According to the study, "Starch can fall into one of three classifications: readily digestible, slowly digestible and resistant. The latter does not get absorbed in the small intestines. Starch foods that fall into the resistant category are only minimally digested. On a side note, any digestion that takes place is slow, which in turn results in a slow but steady release of glucose into the bloodstream."
In short: If you stick to the resistant form of starch, you may feel full much longer...and be less inclined to eat between meals. Recommended sources of resistant starch carbs include sweet potatoes, beans, whole grain pasta, artichokes, yams, and quinoa. These carbs are only minimally digested, but the "full" feeling they deliver can go a long way toward helping you push away the plate.
According to Health magazine, the study of involved 4,451 participants. Participants who ate the most carbs (from whole grains, fruits and vegetables), remained slim throughout the duration, while the heaviest participants ate less starch resistant carbs.
Saturday, 29 January 2011
Carbohydrates CARB is not a four letter word: it can help you loose weight
A decade after "carb" became a four-letter word, scientists unveil a Catch-22 breakthrough for dieters:
Carbs may actually help you lose weight.
"The Skinny Carbs Diet" is the result of a University of Colorado study, wherein a link between specific types of carbs (known as "resistant starch carbs") and their potential to boost weight loss were put to the test. According to the study, "Starch can fall into one of three classifications: readily digestible, slowly digestible and resistant. The latter does not get absorbed in the small intestines. Starch foods that fall into the resistant category are only minimally digested. On a side note, any digestion that takes place is slow, which in turn results in a slow but steady release of glucose into the bloodstream."
In short: If you stick to the resistant form of starch, you may feel full much longer...and be less inclined to eat between meals. Recommended sources of resistant starch carbs include sweet potatoes, beans, whole grain pasta, artichokes, yams, and quinoa. These carbs are only minimally digested, but the "full" feeling they deliver can go a long way toward helping you push away the plate.
According to Health magazine, the study of involved 4,451 participants. Participants who ate the most carbs (from whole grains, fruits and vegetables), remained slim throughout the duration, while the heaviest participants ate less starch resistant carbs.
Carbs may actually help you lose weight.
"The Skinny Carbs Diet" is the result of a University of Colorado study, wherein a link between specific types of carbs (known as "resistant starch carbs") and their potential to boost weight loss were put to the test. According to the study, "Starch can fall into one of three classifications: readily digestible, slowly digestible and resistant. The latter does not get absorbed in the small intestines. Starch foods that fall into the resistant category are only minimally digested. On a side note, any digestion that takes place is slow, which in turn results in a slow but steady release of glucose into the bloodstream."
In short: If you stick to the resistant form of starch, you may feel full much longer...and be less inclined to eat between meals. Recommended sources of resistant starch carbs include sweet potatoes, beans, whole grain pasta, artichokes, yams, and quinoa. These carbs are only minimally digested, but the "full" feeling they deliver can go a long way toward helping you push away the plate.
According to Health magazine, the study of involved 4,451 participants. Participants who ate the most carbs (from whole grains, fruits and vegetables), remained slim throughout the duration, while the heaviest participants ate less starch resistant carbs.
Thursday, 27 January 2011
Not all Cows are Created Equal... Try to find the Genealogy of Your Meat!
In today's encore excerpt - beef. In nature, cows graze and eat prairie grass. In the beef industry, cows are taken to CAFOs - Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations - where they live in small lots and are fed corn. It is this beef that ends up on our dinner tables:
"So then why [aren't steers fed grass]? Speed, in a word, or in the industry's preferred term, 'efficiency.' Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and for half a century now the industry has devoted itself to shortening a beef animal's allotted span on earth. 'In my grandfather's time, cows were four or five years old at slaughter' [a CAFO operator] explained. 'In the fifties when my father was ranching, it was two or three years old. Now we get there at fourteen to sixteen months.' Fast food indeed. What gets a steer from 80 to 1,100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn, protein and fat supplements, and an arsenal of new drugs. ...
"[At the CAFO's] thundering hub, three meals a day for thirty-seven thousand animals are designed and mixed by computer. A million pounds of feed pass through the mill each day. Every hour of every day, a tractor trailer pulls up to the loading dock to deliver another fifty tons of corn. ... [to which are added] thousands of gallons of liquefied fat and protein supplements, vats of liquid vitamins and synthetic estrogen and ... fifty-pound sacks of antibiotics - Rumensin and Tylosin. Along with alfalfa, hay and silage (for roughage), all these ingredients will be automatically blended and then piped into the parade of dump trucks that three times a day fan out from here to keep the [CAFO's] eight and a half miles of trough filled. ...
"We've come to think of 'corn-fed' as some kind of old-fashioned virtue, which it may well be when you're referring to Midwestern children, but feeding large quantities of corn to cows for the greater part of their lives is a practice neither particularly old nor virtuous. ...
"Cattle rarely live on feedlot diets for more than 150 days, which might be about as much as their systems can tolerate. 'I don't know how long you could feed them this ration before you'd see problems,' [Veterinarian] Dr. Mel Metzin said; another vet told me the diet would eventually 'blow out their livers' and kill them. Over time, the acids eat away at the rumen wall, allowing bacteria to enter the animal's bloodstream. These microbes wind up in the liver where they form abscesses and impair the liver's function. Between 15 percent and 30 percent of feedlot cows are found at slaughter to have abscessed livers. ... What keeps a feedlot animal healthy - or healthy enough - are antibiotics."
Author: Michael Pollan
Title: The Omnivore's Dilemma
Publisher: Penguin
Date: Copyright 2006 by Michael Pollan
Pages: 71-78
"So then why [aren't steers fed grass]? Speed, in a word, or in the industry's preferred term, 'efficiency.' Cows raised on grass simply take longer to reach slaughter weight than cows raised on a richer diet, and for half a century now the industry has devoted itself to shortening a beef animal's allotted span on earth. 'In my grandfather's time, cows were four or five years old at slaughter' [a CAFO operator] explained. 'In the fifties when my father was ranching, it was two or three years old. Now we get there at fourteen to sixteen months.' Fast food indeed. What gets a steer from 80 to 1,100 pounds in fourteen months is tremendous quantities of corn, protein and fat supplements, and an arsenal of new drugs. ...
"[At the CAFO's] thundering hub, three meals a day for thirty-seven thousand animals are designed and mixed by computer. A million pounds of feed pass through the mill each day. Every hour of every day, a tractor trailer pulls up to the loading dock to deliver another fifty tons of corn. ... [to which are added] thousands of gallons of liquefied fat and protein supplements, vats of liquid vitamins and synthetic estrogen and ... fifty-pound sacks of antibiotics - Rumensin and Tylosin. Along with alfalfa, hay and silage (for roughage), all these ingredients will be automatically blended and then piped into the parade of dump trucks that three times a day fan out from here to keep the [CAFO's] eight and a half miles of trough filled. ...
"We've come to think of 'corn-fed' as some kind of old-fashioned virtue, which it may well be when you're referring to Midwestern children, but feeding large quantities of corn to cows for the greater part of their lives is a practice neither particularly old nor virtuous. ...
"Cattle rarely live on feedlot diets for more than 150 days, which might be about as much as their systems can tolerate. 'I don't know how long you could feed them this ration before you'd see problems,' [Veterinarian] Dr. Mel Metzin said; another vet told me the diet would eventually 'blow out their livers' and kill them. Over time, the acids eat away at the rumen wall, allowing bacteria to enter the animal's bloodstream. These microbes wind up in the liver where they form abscesses and impair the liver's function. Between 15 percent and 30 percent of feedlot cows are found at slaughter to have abscessed livers. ... What keeps a feedlot animal healthy - or healthy enough - are antibiotics."
Author: Michael Pollan
Title: The Omnivore's Dilemma
Publisher: Penguin
Date: Copyright 2006 by Michael Pollan
Pages: 71-78
Wednesday, 26 January 2011
Globalization in a Paris Suburb: Daily Shopping
Paris Suburbs: Shopping for Everyday Goods
Globalization at Work
This morning I went shopping in one of the western suburbs of Paris and it was truly a lesson in Globalization and also on the movement of people.
Over 200 million people in this world live in countries, which are not theirs by birth, the largest migration seen since early 1900s when Europeans were flocking to USA Canada Australia New Zealand Chile Brazil Argentina. One in seven Australian and One in three Portenos is of Italian Origin to give the extent of that migration. Over 70 million Italian immigrants and their descendants live outside Italy currently. Lebanon is another great Emigrant Nation.
The tide has changed. I clearly remember a cartoon from the Punch when I was student in London. A plush mansion. A lord in Residence. A man dressed in typical Indian clothes of yester years is at the door, waiting to be ushered in. The butler goes up to Lord Clive (of India, a great Governor General during the East India Company rule) and says: Milord, a gentleman from Calcutta is here to see you!
In Paris, gentlemen and fully covered ladies are not from Calcutta from Mali and Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, Congo and Rwanda and others places in Africa. The East Indian presence is small since the French only had minor colonies in India: Pondicherry and some towns.
I walked over to the open-air market where I like to buy fruits and vegetables. I usually go to a grower or a representative of a farmer rather than a middleman who is trading on someone’s behalf.
Today the man in attendance was a young French man. He recommended Mona Lisa potatoes at 1.45 euros/kg and Royal Gala apples at 2.95 euros/kg. I paid him 5 euros for the purchase. (Calculating 1 euro=USD 1.4)
Walked over the Boulangerie Artisanal, and requested a baguette. The Algerian gentleman behind the counter sold one to me for 1 euro.
Walked past a Colombian/Spanish restaurant, an Italian home made pizza shop, a Chinese take away ( traiteur asiatique as they are called), on to a street which has a Moroccan take away, a Turkish restaurant and a Sushi place, usually owned by Chinese migrants from the mainland. At the Moroccan place, I looked at the menu, thought temptingly about the Couscous Lamb but today just bought a Salade with Surimi and some Moroccan sweets. A bottle of San Pellegrino (Italy) water was included in the deal for 7 euros.
My destination was the Chinese owned fruit shop where I always get a warm smile, unlike the usual Chinese owners who seem to carry a perpetual frown. But we had no language to communicate with. With great difficulty I wished him Gong Xi Fatt Choy, he had no idea what I was saying, I tried Spring Festival, New Year of the Rabbit, but he just returned a toothy smile. At least I tried. Litchis from Madagascar at 1.95 euros/kg and Bananas from Martinique at 1.85 euros/kg, for a total of 4.45 euros.
The shopping bag was becoming heavier but I decided to walk a little in search for Chai Tea. At the entrance to the Marche Exotique (Exotic Market), a crowded store of imported things from India and other warm climes, I was greeted by an elderly Tamoul gentleman. To another young man in the store, there were no customers, I asked him in French, Do you have any Chai Tea. He nodded his head to the part of the shelf where teas were held and of course no Chai Tea. I decided to get some Green tea with Mint made by Lipton’s, 20 bags packed nicely for 1.95 euros.
I thought of the ridiculousness of using a language, which does not belong to neither of us, just one generation ago, my father might have been able to converse with the old man in Tamoul!
One habit I have acquired in Paris is the taste for Champagne and there is always a bottle in the fridge but with that taste has come a love of white wines in general, my delicate stomach acquiesces to white of the Bacchus less so of his red gifts. Went inside Nicolas, a chain store that sells moderately priced wines like the ones they have in London. I opted for two suave whites, a sauvignon Blanc from Chile 2009 and a Torrontes (very different taste than its motherland, Spain) from Norton in Mendoza, Argentina. Both bottles together cost only 8.70 euros, each bottle costing slightly more than a kilogram of apples! Drinking and Eating is of excellent quality in France, and drinking is definitely cheaper! The woman behind the counter was French.
So a short expedition in shopping this morning was like a visit to various parts of the world, east and the west, north and the south.
Viola! This is the France of Today and this same story is repeatedly in all of Europe. The conquered ones from the colonies have sent their descendants to seek revenge, and a certain silent peace seems to reign, without excessive cordiality.
Above is what 26 euros would bring you, i.e. 36 dollars would buy you in a Paris suburb of today, but the experience is priceless to an anthropologist.
Globalization at Work
This morning I went shopping in one of the western suburbs of Paris and it was truly a lesson in Globalization and also on the movement of people.
Over 200 million people in this world live in countries, which are not theirs by birth, the largest migration seen since early 1900s when Europeans were flocking to USA Canada Australia New Zealand Chile Brazil Argentina. One in seven Australian and One in three Portenos is of Italian Origin to give the extent of that migration. Over 70 million Italian immigrants and their descendants live outside Italy currently. Lebanon is another great Emigrant Nation.
The tide has changed. I clearly remember a cartoon from the Punch when I was student in London. A plush mansion. A lord in Residence. A man dressed in typical Indian clothes of yester years is at the door, waiting to be ushered in. The butler goes up to Lord Clive (of India, a great Governor General during the East India Company rule) and says: Milord, a gentleman from Calcutta is here to see you!
In Paris, gentlemen and fully covered ladies are not from Calcutta from Mali and Mauritania, Morocco and Tunisia, Congo and Rwanda and others places in Africa. The East Indian presence is small since the French only had minor colonies in India: Pondicherry and some towns.
I walked over to the open-air market where I like to buy fruits and vegetables. I usually go to a grower or a representative of a farmer rather than a middleman who is trading on someone’s behalf.
Today the man in attendance was a young French man. He recommended Mona Lisa potatoes at 1.45 euros/kg and Royal Gala apples at 2.95 euros/kg. I paid him 5 euros for the purchase. (Calculating 1 euro=USD 1.4)
Walked over the Boulangerie Artisanal, and requested a baguette. The Algerian gentleman behind the counter sold one to me for 1 euro.
Walked past a Colombian/Spanish restaurant, an Italian home made pizza shop, a Chinese take away ( traiteur asiatique as they are called), on to a street which has a Moroccan take away, a Turkish restaurant and a Sushi place, usually owned by Chinese migrants from the mainland. At the Moroccan place, I looked at the menu, thought temptingly about the Couscous Lamb but today just bought a Salade with Surimi and some Moroccan sweets. A bottle of San Pellegrino (Italy) water was included in the deal for 7 euros.
My destination was the Chinese owned fruit shop where I always get a warm smile, unlike the usual Chinese owners who seem to carry a perpetual frown. But we had no language to communicate with. With great difficulty I wished him Gong Xi Fatt Choy, he had no idea what I was saying, I tried Spring Festival, New Year of the Rabbit, but he just returned a toothy smile. At least I tried. Litchis from Madagascar at 1.95 euros/kg and Bananas from Martinique at 1.85 euros/kg, for a total of 4.45 euros.
The shopping bag was becoming heavier but I decided to walk a little in search for Chai Tea. At the entrance to the Marche Exotique (Exotic Market), a crowded store of imported things from India and other warm climes, I was greeted by an elderly Tamoul gentleman. To another young man in the store, there were no customers, I asked him in French, Do you have any Chai Tea. He nodded his head to the part of the shelf where teas were held and of course no Chai Tea. I decided to get some Green tea with Mint made by Lipton’s, 20 bags packed nicely for 1.95 euros.
I thought of the ridiculousness of using a language, which does not belong to neither of us, just one generation ago, my father might have been able to converse with the old man in Tamoul!
One habit I have acquired in Paris is the taste for Champagne and there is always a bottle in the fridge but with that taste has come a love of white wines in general, my delicate stomach acquiesces to white of the Bacchus less so of his red gifts. Went inside Nicolas, a chain store that sells moderately priced wines like the ones they have in London. I opted for two suave whites, a sauvignon Blanc from Chile 2009 and a Torrontes (very different taste than its motherland, Spain) from Norton in Mendoza, Argentina. Both bottles together cost only 8.70 euros, each bottle costing slightly more than a kilogram of apples! Drinking and Eating is of excellent quality in France, and drinking is definitely cheaper! The woman behind the counter was French.
So a short expedition in shopping this morning was like a visit to various parts of the world, east and the west, north and the south.
Viola! This is the France of Today and this same story is repeatedly in all of Europe. The conquered ones from the colonies have sent their descendants to seek revenge, and a certain silent peace seems to reign, without excessive cordiality.
Above is what 26 euros would bring you, i.e. 36 dollars would buy you in a Paris suburb of today, but the experience is priceless to an anthropologist.
Wednesday, 5 January 2011
Pesticides and Cancer Greek Farmers Study
Pesticide exposure and lymphohaematopoietic cancers: a case-control study in an agricultural region (Larissa, Thessaly, Greece)
Maria Kokouva email, Nikolaos Bitsolas email, Georgios M Hadjigeorgiou email, George Rachiotis email, Nikolaos Papadoulis email and Christos Hadjichristodoulou email
BMC Public Health 2011, 11:5doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-5
Published: 4 January 2011
Abstract (provisional)
Background
The causality of lymphohaematopoietic cancers (LHC) is multifactorial and studies investigating the association between chemical exposure and LHC have produced variable results. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between exposure to pesticides and LHC in an agricultural region of Greece.
Methods
A structured questionnaire was employed in a hospital-based case control study to gather information on demographics, occupation, exposure to pesticides, agricultural practices, family and medical history and smoking. To control for confounders, backward conditional and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used. To assess the dose-response relationship between exposure and disease, the chi-square test for trend was used.
Results
Three hundred and fifty-four (354) histologically confirmed LHC cases diagnosed from 2004 to 2006 and 455 sex- and age-matched controls were included in the study. Pesticide exposure was associated with total LHC cases (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.05-2.04), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.00-3.51) and leukaemia (OR 2.14, 95% CI 1.09-4.20). A dose-response pattern was observed for total LHC cases (P = 0.004), MDS (P= 0.024) and leukaemia (P= 0.002). Pesticide exposure was independently associated with total LHC cases (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.00- 2.00) and leukaemia (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.02-4.12) after controlling for age, smoking and family history (cancers, LHC and immunological disorders). Smoking during application of pesticides was strongly associated with total LHC cases (OR 3.29, 95% CI 1.81-5.98), MDS (OR 3.67, 95% CI 1.18-12.11), leukaemia (OR 10.15, 95% CI 2.15-65.69) and lymphoma (OR 2.72, 95% CI 1.02-8.00). This association was even stronger for total LHC cases (OR 18.18, 95% CI 2.38-381.17) when eating simultaneously with pesticide application.
Conclusions
Lymphohaematopoietic cancers were associated with pesticide exposure after controlling for confounders. Smoking and eating during pesticide application were identified as modifying factors increasing the risk for LHC. The poor pesticide work practices identified during this study underline the need for educational campaigns for farmers.
Maria Kokouva email, Nikolaos Bitsolas email, Georgios M Hadjigeorgiou email, George Rachiotis email, Nikolaos Papadoulis email and Christos Hadjichristodoulou email
BMC Public Health 2011, 11:5doi:10.1186/1471-2458-11-5
Published: 4 January 2011
Abstract (provisional)
Background
The causality of lymphohaematopoietic cancers (LHC) is multifactorial and studies investigating the association between chemical exposure and LHC have produced variable results. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationships between exposure to pesticides and LHC in an agricultural region of Greece.
Methods
A structured questionnaire was employed in a hospital-based case control study to gather information on demographics, occupation, exposure to pesticides, agricultural practices, family and medical history and smoking. To control for confounders, backward conditional and multinomial logistic regression analyses were used. To assess the dose-response relationship between exposure and disease, the chi-square test for trend was used.
Results
Three hundred and fifty-four (354) histologically confirmed LHC cases diagnosed from 2004 to 2006 and 455 sex- and age-matched controls were included in the study. Pesticide exposure was associated with total LHC cases (OR 1.46, 95% CI 1.05-2.04), myelodysplastic syndrome (MDS) (OR 1.87, 95% CI 1.00-3.51) and leukaemia (OR 2.14, 95% CI 1.09-4.20). A dose-response pattern was observed for total LHC cases (P = 0.004), MDS (P= 0.024) and leukaemia (P= 0.002). Pesticide exposure was independently associated with total LHC cases (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.00- 2.00) and leukaemia (OR 2.05, 95% CI 1.02-4.12) after controlling for age, smoking and family history (cancers, LHC and immunological disorders). Smoking during application of pesticides was strongly associated with total LHC cases (OR 3.29, 95% CI 1.81-5.98), MDS (OR 3.67, 95% CI 1.18-12.11), leukaemia (OR 10.15, 95% CI 2.15-65.69) and lymphoma (OR 2.72, 95% CI 1.02-8.00). This association was even stronger for total LHC cases (OR 18.18, 95% CI 2.38-381.17) when eating simultaneously with pesticide application.
Conclusions
Lymphohaematopoietic cancers were associated with pesticide exposure after controlling for confounders. Smoking and eating during pesticide application were identified as modifying factors increasing the risk for LHC. The poor pesticide work practices identified during this study underline the need for educational campaigns for farmers.
Sunday, 2 January 2011
INDIA 3 year degree graduates in Primary Care as good as 6 yr MD
It's official now. At the primary healthcare level, there is no difference in the performance of MBBS doctors with five-and-a-half years' training and non-physician clinicians with three years' training who have been called "legal quacks" by the Indian Medical Association (IMA).
This has been demonstrated through a study conducted in Chhattisgarh that compared the performance of different types of clinical care providers at the primary care level. Following the controversy over the government's decision to start three-year courses to train clinicians for primary healthcare, especially in rural areas, called the Bachelor of Rural Health Care (BRHC), a study was conducted by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) and the State Health Systems Resource Centre in Chhattisgarh comparing MBBS graduates, the three-year trained non-physician clinicians or rural medical assistants (RMAs), ayurveda unani siddha and homeopathy (AYUSH) physicians and paramedical staff (nurses and pharmacists).
According to the Planning Commission, India faces a shortage of six lakh doctors, a shortage felt more acutely in rural areas as two-thirds of all medical personnel are concentrated in urban areas. The health ministry proposed a three-year bachelor of rural medicine and surgery course to cope with the shortage of doctors in rural areas. The IMA strongly objected to this saying it was "a frontal attack on the profession" and a "fraud on hapless villagers".
However, findings from this study suggest that medical officers (MBBS graduates) and RMAs are equally competent to manage conditions commonly seen in primary care settings. AYUSH medical officers are less competent and paramedics the least competent. This was observed for infectious, chronic and maternal health conditions and for a range of patient types — infants, children, adult men and women. These results hold even after controlling for various individual, facility and location characteristics. This relative performance was consistently found in all aspects of out-patient care — history taking, examination, investigation, diagnosis, prescription and home recommendations.
An important implication of this is that, in terms of clinical competence for primary healthcare, clinical care providers with short duration of training appear to be a viable alternative to physicians, concluded the study. It remains to be seen how the government is going to weather the howls of protest from the IMA, a powerful lobby of almost 1.8 lakh MBBS doctors in the country.
Read more: 'Docs, clinicians on a par in villages' - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Docs-clinicians-on-a-par-in-villages/articleshow/6576626.cms#ixzz19vO4VG1T
This has been demonstrated through a study conducted in Chhattisgarh that compared the performance of different types of clinical care providers at the primary care level. Following the controversy over the government's decision to start three-year courses to train clinicians for primary healthcare, especially in rural areas, called the Bachelor of Rural Health Care (BRHC), a study was conducted by the Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI), the National Health Systems Resource Centre (NHSRC) and the State Health Systems Resource Centre in Chhattisgarh comparing MBBS graduates, the three-year trained non-physician clinicians or rural medical assistants (RMAs), ayurveda unani siddha and homeopathy (AYUSH) physicians and paramedical staff (nurses and pharmacists).
According to the Planning Commission, India faces a shortage of six lakh doctors, a shortage felt more acutely in rural areas as two-thirds of all medical personnel are concentrated in urban areas. The health ministry proposed a three-year bachelor of rural medicine and surgery course to cope with the shortage of doctors in rural areas. The IMA strongly objected to this saying it was "a frontal attack on the profession" and a "fraud on hapless villagers".
However, findings from this study suggest that medical officers (MBBS graduates) and RMAs are equally competent to manage conditions commonly seen in primary care settings. AYUSH medical officers are less competent and paramedics the least competent. This was observed for infectious, chronic and maternal health conditions and for a range of patient types — infants, children, adult men and women. These results hold even after controlling for various individual, facility and location characteristics. This relative performance was consistently found in all aspects of out-patient care — history taking, examination, investigation, diagnosis, prescription and home recommendations.
An important implication of this is that, in terms of clinical competence for primary healthcare, clinical care providers with short duration of training appear to be a viable alternative to physicians, concluded the study. It remains to be seen how the government is going to weather the howls of protest from the IMA, a powerful lobby of almost 1.8 lakh MBBS doctors in the country.
Read more: 'Docs, clinicians on a par in villages' - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Docs-clinicians-on-a-par-in-villages/articleshow/6576626.cms#ixzz19vO4VG1T
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