By Pankajbala R Patel

DO you know that more men than women contact a disease like tuberculosis? The reasons are anyone’s guess. A Dr Praneet and Dr Nihal at the Goa Medical College & Hospital in response to a query revealed that tuberculosis is a huge disease and when diagnosed most folk try to hide it! “Men especially can never believe that they can contact a disease like tuberculosis and their ego gets hurt, they refuse to accept the diagnosis and go off in a deep end…”
As a matter of fact more men than women contact tuberculosis or TB and no research has been done in this respect, why do more men get TB? Is it because of various reasons including a poor diet, being always on the run chasing a job, not much time to drink and eat sensibly?
We know that those who enjoy a strong immune system and are not anaemic or poorly nourished are naturally protected from the ravages of TB…the poor and especially urban poor suffer more from TB, but even the rich do suffer from TB? Meaning the eating habits of the poor are no better than the eating and drinking habits of the rich! GMC’s Dr Rajesh Patil tells me that even doctors have suffered from tuberculosis…doctors don’t necessarily know anything about how changing their drinking and eating habits can lead to better health parameters. In search of easy mod con lifestyles the well-to-do feast on the junk foods of the industrial revolution morning, noon and night…men, women, children, only the seniors remember a time when at least the most basic meals were cooked in each home.

This has a reflection on the diseases from A to Z which we suffer from today, look around, almost everyone is sickly and that too in a wonderful sunny tropical climate like Goa which yields wondrous fruit of the fields, hills, rivers and seas!
COMING to tuberculosis do you know that this disease can manifest in almost all parts of the body and not just the lungs (most of us associate TB with the lungs only and this is not true). Also, tuberculosis has been around so long that now it has also become multi-drug resistant – 12%-17% cases of TB in Goa are multi-drug resistant. Meaning the bacteria of the disease do not respond to conventional TB antibiotics and medicines. Goa sees 1,000 to 1,500 TB cases annually with 12% to 17% of these being multidrug resistant.
Actually, the government has a TB registry but only 1,300 patients are registered; understandably so because most folk don’t want to tell all and sundry that they have got tuberculosis. There is the general perception that TB is contagious or infectious but this is not true of all the genres of TB – some are, some are not. In any case most TB patients are advised to keep their own vessels for eating and drinking until they are in remission and fully cured.
Interestingly, in India, Delhi has the highest incidence of TB with over 534 cases emerging per 1,00,000 population. At 316 per lakh population India’s TB prevalence is one of the highest – WHO’s 2021 statistics quite 2,590,000 million cases with the rate of 188 per 100,000 . India’s TB cases make one-fourth of world population at two billion…4,000 TB patients die every day! Undoubtedly, the urban environment we live in and the kind of food we eat impacts what kind of immune system we enjoy and if it is down then it is easier to contact tuberculosis.
With such stunning statistics why bother about covid-19? A scheme was launched by President Droupadi Murmu last year under which free medication and Rs500 towards expenses to improve nutrition is offered to TB patients. But you must register with the TB registry first and it’s reported that only 800 patients so far would like to receive community support – the scheme envisages a donor who adopts a TB patient for treatment and improving the quality of his/her life. Donors too may register offering their support. The Union Health Ministry is anxious to meet the goal of TB-free India by 2025!

NOWADAYS there is a TB skin test called Mantouz tuberculin skin test (TST) which over two visits can confirm the presence or absence of tuberculosis bacteria. TB blood test/TB skin test, chest ex-ray and sputum test are the key diagnosis tests to do to confirm TB infection. There was some talk of TB serologist test kits being sold so that privacy may be maintained by patients – but these test kits are banned.
In conclusion, one would like to state here that tuberculosis is ignored and its symptoms not recognised in many homes. It is time we learned that weight loss, a loss of appetite, a dry cough which is more present at night – these are all common symptoms of TB; if you suffer such symptoms visit your doctor to rule out TB first (last heard of there is a model MDR-TB Centre at St Inez in Panaji), you may visit it if you wish. In the meantime improve your eating habits by including such things as A, B and C and D in your diet. Eat carrots, greens, sprouted grain, and bask in the sunshine in some sunshine daily! Indian gooseberries or aonla are coming in season currently, the juice of these offer excellent value for vitamin C which is the healing vitamin amongst all vitamins.
Also do include green, red and yellow capsicums or peppers in your salads. Some things we must eat fresh to benefit max from enzymes and vitamins values which are affected by the cooking process…include fresh fruit like pineapple in your diet, said to be the best fruit of them all for those who are diabetic or insulin-resistant patients of tuberculosis.
Don’t let tuberculosis, ordinary or drug-resistant defeat you! Nowadays, nobody needs to die of tuberculosis, an ancient disease of bad living and poor diets!