CDSCO has issued an urgent directive to all state & Union Territory drug controllers to stop the manufacturing and marketing of certain unapproved Fixed Dose Combination (FDC) drugs. These FDS drugs had been licensed for manufacture, sale and distribution without prior evaluation of safety & efficacy as per provision of NDCT Rules 2019, under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940. This poses a serious risk to public health and safety.

Following the expiration of Empagliflozin's patent, the Indian pharmaceutical market has seen a surge, with 71 new brands and 17 companies introducing their versions. This influx has significantly increased sales, driven by prices that are 80-90% lower than the original. The increased affordability is expected to improve access for a wider population, with further market expansion anticipated.

A survey of 45,202 young adults in Norway has discovered that screen-scrolling in bed drives up your risk of insomnia by 59% and cuts your sleep time by 24 minutes. While the study did not determine causality — for example whether screen use causes insomnia or if students with insomnia use screens more — researchers found that using a screen in bed at night makes it much more likely you will sleep less and sleep poorly.

In the past 3 years, at least 38% of Indian households have purchased packaged food items — well within their expiry date — which were found to be infested with insects, fungus, or other contaminants, reveals a new survey by LocalCircles, a community platform. The survey, which gathered over 40,000 responses from consumers across 341 districts, shows 59% of respondents said they are likely to completely avoid a brand after experiencing infested products. Another 25% said they would avoid that specific product, though not the brand.

Scientists have found that Gadolinium used in MRI scans can generate nanoparticles of the metal in human tissues. The worst disease caused by it is nephrogenic systemic fibrosis. People have succumbed after just a single dose. The condition can cause a thickening and hardening of the skin, heart and lungs and cause painful contracture of the joints. Even in people with no symptoms, gadolinium particles have been found in the kidney and the brain and can be detected in the blood and urine years after exposure.

A simple blood test may help determine whether your cervical cancer is responding to treatment or whether it has relapsed, shows early research by doctors from the AIIMS, Delhi. They found fragments of the DNA of human papillomavirus (HPV) — the virus responsible for the vast majority of cervical cancer cases — circulating in the blood, with their levels correlating with the size of the tumour. As patients began treatment, these levels dropped, indicating how the cancer cells were responding to treatment.

A 28-year-old MNC professional walked into the clinic of psychology at Apollo, Navi Mumbai, convinced she had bipolar disorder. She had been watching videos on social media on signs and symptoms and found that some of them, like mood swings and impulsive spending, matched hers. “She was utterly distressed and scared. But while taking case history, it was clear that she could not regulate her emotions very well because of prolonged burnout and emotional neglect. Hers was not a mood disorder, just burnout..

14-year-old Indian-origin student Siddharth Nandyala, who lives in Dallas, has developed an AI powered app called Circadian AI, which can detect heart conditions in just 7 seconds. The app analyses heart sound recordings captured via a smartphone, aiming to provide a swift and accessible diagnostic tool. The innovation has undergone testing on over 15,000 patients in the US & approx 700 patients in India, including at Guntur Government General Hospital. The application has demonstrated an accuracy rate exceeding 96% in identifying various heart conditions.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Dinesh Gundu Rao said that two-thirds of the bottled water samples collected for quality analysis from Karnataka are either totally unsafe or of poor quality. Out of 296 bottles of samples, 255 have been analysed so far. 72 of them were found to be safe (28%), 95 were unsafe, and 88 were of substandard quality. What next? Since these samples were only for survey, now the state’s Food Safety and Drug Administration will take samples from the company and initiate legal actions against those supplying unsafe water.

1 in 5 individuals in India suffers from Vitamin D deficiency. That’s according to a new report by the ICRIER and the ANVKA Foundation. India suffers from widespread micronutrient deficiency. Among them, Vitamin D deficiency has emerged as a silent epidemic. 46% of children (aged 0–10 years) suffer from rickets, while 80-90% of the elderly suffer from osteoporosis, which increases the risk of fractures and long-term disability, the report has revealed.