Health
Cheaper Sugar and Alcohol Raise Health Risks, WHO Warns
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New WHO reports find sugary drinks and alcohol have become more affordable as weak taxes fail to curb consumption or health harms.
The World Health Organization is urging governments to significantly increase taxes on sugary drinks and alcoholic beverages after new analyses showed these products are becoming more affordable in many countries, driving preventable disease and adding pressure to health systems.
Two global reports released on Tuesday assess how countries tax sugar-sweetened beverages (SSBs) and alcohol, and conclude that while most governments now levy some form of excise tax, rates are generally too low, poorly designed and rarely adjusted for inflation. As a result, consumption remains high, especially among young people, and noncommunicable diseases linked to diet and alcohol continue to rise.
“Sugary drinks and alcoholic beverages are getting cheaper, fueling obesity, diabetes, heart disease, cancers and injuries,” WHO said in its announcement. “Health taxes are one of the strongest tools we have for promoting health and preventing disease,” added Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
The first report focuses on sugary drinks and finds that at least 116 countries now tax at least one category of SSB 9789240118942-eng. However, the median excise tax on a standard 330ml soda amounts to just 2.4% of the retail price 9789240118942-eng — far below the level typically required to influence purchasing behaviour or encourage companies to reformulate products with lower sugar content.
Coverage is also uneven. While most countries tax sodas and energy drinks, many do not tax sweetened teas, fruit juices or sweetened milk drinks, which WHO notes are important sources of free sugar intake. Young people are especially exposed, with sugary drinks widely available in schools, supermarkets and convenience stores in both high-income and emerging economies.
WHO argues that stronger excise design — including regular adjustment for inflation and using sugar-content-based taxes — would be more effective and could generate revenue for health systems.
The second report evaluates alcohol taxes and finds 167 countries levy excise taxes on alcoholic beverages, while 12 countries ban alcohol sales entirely 9789240118928-eng. Yet alcohol remains inexpensive in many markets because tax rates have not kept pace with rising incomes and prices. Wine remains untaxed in at least 25 countries, mostly in Europe, despite alcohol’s well-documented health risks 9789240118928-eng.
Globally, excise taxes account for a median of 14% of the retail price of beer and 22.5% for spirits, levels WHO describes as insufficient to significantly reduce consumption or alcohol-related harm.
“More affordable alcohol drives violence, injuries and disease,” said Dr Etienne Krug, Director of WHO’s Department of Health Determinants, Promotion and Prevention.
Alcohol contributes to more than 2.6 million deaths annually and is associated with noncommunicable diseases, mental health conditions and injuries 9789240118928-eng. WHO also notes that alcohol-related harm disproportionately affects lower-income households, while health systems bear the downstream costs.
Fiscal and Health Opportunity
Both reports highlight the gap between formal adoption of taxes and their real-world effectiveness. Without regular inflation adjustments, even well-designed taxes lose value quickly. WHO points out that most countries lack automatic mechanisms to update rates, allowing sugary drinks and alcohol to become steadily more affordable relative to income.
The agency is calling for governments to incorporate stronger fiscal measures as part of its new “3 by 35” initiative, which aims to make tobacco, alcohol and sugary drinks less affordable by 2035.
Public support for higher health taxes appears stronger than policymakers often assume. WHO cited a 2022 Gallup poll showing that majorities in surveyed countries supported higher taxes on both sugary drinks and alcohol. While the organization stopped short of recommending specific rates, it emphasized that excise taxes remain one of the most cost-effective levers for reducing noncommunicable disease and alleviating budget pressures on health systems.
Health
Why you feel dizzy when you stand up
Why you feel dizzy when you stand up?
A young, healthy patient asked me: “Doc, sometimes when I stand up from the bed too fast, my vision goes completely black for two seconds and I get dizzy. Am I having a mini-stroke?”
No, it is actually proof that your nervous system is working perfectly.
The exact neurovascular cascade behind why your vision blacks out when you stand up too fast and why you don’t actually pass out. 👇
• The Gravity Drop: When you are lying down, your heart pumps blood easily on a flat plane. The moment you stand up abruptly, gravity instantly pulls about 500 to 800 mL of your blood straight down into your legs.

• The Transient Drain: This sudden pooling means less blood returns to your heart, which temporarily means less blood is pumped up to your head. For a split second, your brain experiences a drop in pressure.
• The Visual Blackout: The retina (the back of your eye) is incredibly sensitive to oxygen and pressure changes. When the blood pressure dips, the retina temporarily shuts down to conserve energy which is exactly why your vision goes black or static.
• The Baroreceptor Rescue: Luckily, you have pressure sensors (baroreceptors) in your neck. Within milliseconds, they detect the blood pressure drop and fire a panic signal to your brainstem.
• The Sympathetic Snap: Your autonomic nervous system instantly kicks in. It violently constricts the blood vessels in your legs and spikes your heart rate, physically squeezing the blood right back up to your brain. Vision restored.
Summary:
First time this happened to me I genuinely thought I was dying.
Turns out my body was just buffering.
Knowing the science changes everything
Here’s what’s actually happening:
When you stand up quickly, gravity pulls blood downward. Your body briefly has less blood reaching the brain. Your nervous system — specifically the baroreceptors –detects this drop and rapidly triggers your heart to beat faster and your blood vessels to constrict, restoring blood flow within seconds.
The momentary blackout and dizziness is just that brief gap before the correction kicks in.
👉Hi, I am Dr. Priyam. I break down complex medical science and advocate for Evidence-Based Medicine. FOLLOW ME for more clinical facts.
Health
Two A+ Parents, One O- Baby? The Blood Type âScandalâ Thatâs Actually Just Science
can a+ and a+ give birth to o+ or O negative?
Itâs a panic that lands in clinics and WhatsApp groups far too often: âBoth of us are A positive⦠how is our child O negative? Did the lab mess up? Or is something else going on?â
The short, reassuring answer is no lab error, no mystery, and no betrayal. This outcome is completely possible under normal genetics. Hereâs why the âmathâ actually maths perfectly once we look at what blood-type tests really reveal.
Your blood type is decided by two separate systems that most people only see the final phenotype of, not the hidden genes.
ABO system ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸

Type A means you carry at least one A allele. You could be AA or AO. The O allele is recessive and invisible in your test result. If both you and your partner are AO (very common), each of you has a 50 % chance of passing the O allele. When both pass O, the child is blood group O. Roughly 45â50 % of people with type A are actually AO carriers, so this pairing happens every day.
Rh (positive/negative) system ð©¸ð©¸ð©¸
âPositiveâ means you have the dominant D antigen. You can still be heterozygous Dd and carry the recessive d allele. If both parents are Dd, there is a 25 % chance the child inherits d from both and is Rh negative. About 15 % of people are Rh negative, which means a large portion of âpositiveâ people quietly carry the d gene.
When both parents are A positive but heterozygous for both traits (AO and Dd), an O-negative child is not only possible â it is mathematically expected in a predictable percentage of pregnancies. The child simply received the two recessive alleles that were hiding in plain sight in both parents.
Blood-group reports show only what antigens are expressed on red cells. They do not sequence your DNA or tell you whether you are homozygous or heterozygous. That hidden information is what allows âimpossibleâ combinations to appear regularly in perfectly ordinary families.
This is basic Mendelian inheritance, not infidelity or laboratory failure. The same recessive-gene logic explains blue-eyed children born to brown-eyed parents or curly-haired kids from straight-haired couples. It is science doing exactly what it is supposed to do.
If the result still feels unsettling, a simple conversation with your doctor or a genetics counsellor can walk you through your specific probabilities. In the overwhelming majority of cases, however, the only thing that needs updating is the outdated assumption that blood types behave like simple labels instead of the elegant, recessive-carrying system they actually are.
Your O-negative child is not evidence of a mistake. They are proof that genetics loves surprises â and that love (and science) are doing just fine.ââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââââ
Dr Parveen Yograj
Health
Why does BCG vaccine leave a scar?
Why does BCG vaccine leave a scar?
That scar on your arm is a battlefield, and the chemistry of how it forms is completely different from any other vaccine you’ve ever received.
Most vaccines inject dead or weakened pathogens into your muscle. Your immune system sees the threat, builds antibodies, done. No lasting damage to the tissue. The BCG tuberculosis vaccine does something radically different. It injects live Mycobacterium bovis bacteria directly into the top layer of your skin, the dermis, and then lets them multiply.

For the first six weeks, those bacteria are actively replicating at the injection site. Your immune system detects them and sends macrophages to engulf the invaders. T-cells get recruited to the area. Then something happens that no other routine vaccine triggers: your body builds granulomas. Those are organized clusters of immune cells that physically wall off the bacteria like a biological quarantine zone. The immune system can’t fully kill every bacterium, so it builds a containment structure around them instead.
That containment war destroys tissue. The granulomas break down the dermis. A blister forms, then an open ulcer that weeps for weeks. The entire process from injection to final scar takes about three months. What you’re left with is the structural aftermath of your immune system demolishing a section of its own skin to contain a live bacterial colony.
The wild part: 4 billion doses administered since 1921. 100 million newborns receive it every year. And the size of your scar correlates with how strong your immune response was. Studies in West Africa found that infants who developed a visible scar had half the mortality rate of infants who didn’t. Not just from TB. From everything. The scar tissue itself became a marker that your immune system trained correctly.
That circular mark is the one vaccine scar that actually means something went right. Your body fought a live infection in a controlled space, won, and left the evidence on your skin for life.
Aakash Gupta
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