Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Eat and exercise

Sir, — The Editorial `Eat and exercise sensibly' (Sept. 4) was timely. As you have pointed out, it is indeed shocking that paradoxically literacy and economic improvement have brought about the psyche of easy susceptibility to catchy publicity and through this the commercial exploitation of the people afflicted with long-term disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma and coronary artery disease. These people are desperate to try out any new and so-called herbal/natural cures which may be poorly tested and unscientific and which abound in the market. Some of them are not only not harmless but also lead to kidney failure due to heavy metal content in them and others have steroids without the labelling.

I had written over a year ago (The Hindu, July 5, 2001) on this subject while decrying the wisdom of using chemical agents of poor track-record in the long-term prophylaxis of diabetes mellitus. This has since been vindicated by further developments in animal studies of this group of drugs.

Dr. C.V. Krishnaswami,

Chennai

Sir, — Your Editorial advocating guidelines for good health was highly educative. It is true that slimming centres, which promise a magic cure and charge a high fee, are usually ineffective and perhaps even harmful.

During my college days in Bangalore, more than five decades ago, physical culture was compulsory with 80 per cent attendance. The student was not allowed to sit for the examination even if attendance was one per cent less. If a student is late to the class even by one minute, he would be marked absent in the attendance register. The classes were held from 6 a.m. to 7.30 a.m. in the college grounds and one has to start early from home while it was still dark, in biting cold during winter. These simple exercises are keeping me fit today.

Arcot Easwaran,

Chennai

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• A retrograde signal
• Nation building and anti-terrorism
• A flawed strategy
• Observer or activist?
• Stop hate campaign
• Criminalisation
• Eat and exercise
• Wasteful effort
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