City Air Found to Have Traces of Resistant Bacteria

The air you breathe may contain DNA from genes that make bacteria resistant to the most powerful antibiotics developed yet, a study has found. In the study, the researchers looked for genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics in a total of 864 samples of DNA collected from humans, animals, and different environmentsworldwide. “In the air samples from Beijing, we found a series of genes that provide resistance to carbapenems — a group of last resort antibiotics taken for infections caused by bacteria that are often very difficult to treat,”…

Male Workers More Affected by Diabetes: Survey

Women in the corporate sector are less afflicted with diabetes than men, show results of a survey by a health insurance company. Further, the average claims for diabetes-related ailments made by men is almost 13 per cent higher than women, showing that women are managing their diabetes better than their male counterparts, said the study by Apollo Munich Health Insurance In order to understand the trend in diabetes, Apollo Munich conducted the study on 800,000 corporate health insurance customers across the country. The findings also revealed that incidence of diabetes…

Smog Lifts, But Companies’ View of Polluted Delhi Skies is Dim

As New Delhi grappled with its worst smog in 17 years, the head of India’s largest mobile payment firm got on a plane and left, one of thousands of professionals escaping pollution that could cost the capital and the broader economy dear. Vijay Shekhar Sharma, founder of PayTM payment start-up, left last Sunday for a temporary stay in Mumbai, worried about the impact of hazardous clouds of dust, smoke and fumes that hang over Delhi during the winter months. “It became very visibly clear that it is going to be…

Peanut Butter Redux: More on Food Allergies

This week, we revisit the enthusiastically debated Oct. 2 column about food allergies in the workplace. To recap: After a peanut-allergic letter writer (LW) asked a colleague to stop bringing peanut butter sandwiches to work, someone deliberately smeared peanut butter on the LW’s desk, causing an allergic reaction. The boss dismissed the LW’s complaint and said the LW shouldn’t be able to dictate what co-workers eat. Many commenters argued that employees with severe food allergies are exclusively responsible for protecting themselves at work. The Americans With Disabilities Act, however, says…

Why Health Care Eats More of Your Paycheck Every Year

Millions of Americans are finding out this month that the price of their health insurance is going up next year — as it did this year, last year, and most of the years before that. And it’s not just that the price is going up, it’s that it goes up faster than wages and inflation, eating away at our ability to pay for other things we want (beer, televisions, vacations) or need (rent, heat, food). Does it have to be this way? Why does health care grow so much faster…

Friendly Colleagues at Job Your Gateway To Better Health

Your colleagues at work – and not your spouse or kids — decide how healthy you will be as you age, as you are likely to spend an average of one third of your day on the job. According to the researchers, health at work is determined to a large extent by our social relationships in workplace — and, more particularly, the social groups we form there. In a new meta-analysis covering 58 studies and more than 19,000 people across the globe, psychologists found out that how strongly we identify…