Public health
fromNature
1 day agoThe hunt for the next antibiotics
Antibiotic resistance threatens routine care, prompting research that combines extreme-environment microbes, folk traditions, and AI to discover and optimize new antibiotics.
However, it is regrettable that an organisation such as the World Health Organization appears willing to promote the incorporation of traditional and other medicines into mainstream practice by leaning heavily on emotive language heritage, tradition, and the sharing of local resources rather than on clinical evidence. Then it appears to contradict itself by saying that it doesn't support it if there isn't robust and reliable evidence.
From herbalists in Africa gathering plants to use as poultices to acupuncturists in China using needles to cure migraines, or Indian yogis practising meditation, traditional remedies have increasingly being shown to work, and deserve more attention and research, according to a World Health Organization official. A historical lack of evidence, which has seen traditional practices dismissed by many, could change with more investment and the use of modern technology, according to Dr Shyama Kuruvilla, who leads the WHO Global Traditional Medicine Centre.
My family has an interesting dynamic when it comes to medical decisions. While my older sister is a trained doctor in western allopathic medicine, my parents are big believers in traditional remedies. Having grown up in a small town in India, I am accustomed to rituals. My dad had a ritual, too. Every time we visited his home village in southern Tamil Nadu, he'd get a bottle of thick, pungent, herb-infused oil from a vaithiyar, a traditional doctor practising Siddha medicine.
What we do offer here are both Western health care practices as well as traditional health care practices. The main purpose of all of that is... vital to their health and well-being.