A Hindu monk in Calcutta refuses to take his psychotropic medications. His psychiatrist explains that just as his body needs food, the drugs are nutrition for his starved mind. Does it matter how—or whether—patients understand their prescribed drugs? Millions of people in India are routinely prescribed mood medications. Pharmaceutical companies give doctors strong incentives to write as many prescriptions as possible, with as little awkward questioning from patients as possible. Without a sustained public debate on psychopharmaceuticals in India, patients remain puzzled by the notion that drugs can cure disturbances of the mind. While biomedical psychopharmaceuticals are perceived with great suspicion, many non-biomedical treatments are embraced. Stefan Ecks illuminates how biomedical, Ayurvedic, and homeopathic treatments are used in India, and argues that pharmaceutical pluralism changes popular ideas of what drugs do. Based on several years of research on pharmaceutical markets, Ecks shows how doctors employ a wide range of strategies to make patients take the remedies prescribed. Yet while metaphors such as "mind food" may succeed in getting patients to accept the prescriptions, they also obscure a critical awareness of drug effects. This rare ethnography of pharmaceuticals will be of key interest to those in the anthropology and sociology of medicine, pharmacology, mental health, bioethics, global health, and South Asian studies.

This pocket-sized reference is for clinicians who manage patients with dysphagia. Speech-language pathologists, occupational therapists, physicians, clinical dieticians, nurses, and pharmacists will find this book to be a helpful, handy resource. Drugs and Dysphagia is carefully organized, allowing quick access to precise information. The text comprises three parts: Part 1-overviews the nervous system and the swallow process. An overview of the effects of medications on swallowing is provided in Chapter 3. Part 2-addresses medications that affect the central nervous system. Medications associated with oral, pharyngeal, and esophageal dysphagia; causes of dysphagia; and drug-induced dysphagia are discussed. Part 3-deals with important medications that can cause dysfunction of the gastrointestinal system and those that are used to treat gastrointestinal dysfunction. Tables are included throughout for this quick and easy-to-use reference. These tables are organized into medication groups based on their use. Specific medications from each group are listed by both generic and brand name. The tables include the recommended doses of these medications; and the commonly encountered side effects associated with them, which may contribute to dysphagia.

The use of drugs in food animal production has resulted in benefits throughout the food industry; however, their use has also raised public health safety concerns. The Use of Drugs in Food Animals provides an overview of why and how drugs are used in the major food-producing animal industriesâ€"poultry, dairy, beef, swine, and aquaculture. The volume discusses the prevalence of human pathogens in foods of animal origin. It also addresses the transfer of resistance in animal microbes to human pathogens and the resulting risk of human disease. The committee offers analysis and insight into these areas: Monitoring of drug residues. The book provides a brief overview of how the FDA and USDA monitor drug residues in foods of animal origin and describes quality assurance programs initiated by the poultry, dairy, beef, and swine industries. Antibiotic resistance. The committee reports what is known about this controversial problem and its potential effect on human health. The volume also looks at how drug use may be minimized with new approaches in genetics, nutrition, and animal management.

Food as a Drug provides psychologists, psychiatrists, and counselors with a unique discussion about possible addictive qualities of some foods to assist clients who are struggling with obesity or eating disorders. Examining the pros and cons of treating eating disorders with an addictions model, this book also explores the tremendous societal and personal costs of eating disorders and obesity, such as increased risk of heart disease, health care costs, and death. Thorough and concise, Food as a Drug will assist you in providing better services to clients with these types of dilemmas. Comprehensive and current, this reference provides information on relevant topics, such as diet and behavior relationships; cross-cultural perspectives on the use of foods for medicinal purposes; regulatory perspectives on drugs, foods, and nutritional supplements; and whether foods have pharmacological properties. Food as a Drug address several important topics, such as: focusing on sugar to determine the effects of food additives on children's behavioral disorders, such as attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity addressing the role that your diet plays on serotonin levels, carbohydrate craving, and depression examining the phenomenological, psychological, and physiological correlations between overeating and how foods may be used to alleviate negative moods discussing the pros and cons of treating obesity and eating disorders with addiction models Written by experts in the field, this book offers you in-depth studies and information about the nature of food as a potentially addictive substance. Food as a Drug will help you understand these difficult-to-treat conditions and offer clients better and more effective services.

On July 9-10, 2014, the Institute of Medicine's Food Forum hosted a public workshop to explore emerging and rapidly developing research on relationships among the brain, the digestive system, and eating behavior. Drawing on expertise from the fields of nutrition and food science, animal and human physiology and behavior, and psychology and psychiatry as well as related fields, the purpose of the workshop was to (1) review current knowledge on the relationship between the brain and eating behavior, explore the interaction between the brain and the digestive system, and consider what is known about the brain's role in eating patterns and consumer choice; (2) evaluate current methods used to determine the impact of food on brain activity and eating behavior; and (3) identify gaps in knowledge and articulate a theoretical framework for future research. Relationships among the Brain, the Digestive System, and Eating Behavior summarizes the presentations and discussion of the workshop.

All I Eat Is Medicine charts the lives of individuals and the operation of institutions in the thick of the AIDS epidemic in Mozambique during the global scale-up of treatment for HIV/AIDS at the turn of the twenty-first century. Even as the AIDS treatment scale-up saved lives, it perpetuated the exploitation and exclusion that was implicated in the propagation of the epidemic in the first place. This book calls attention to the global social commitments and responsibilities that a truly therapeutic global health requires.

FOOD IS BETTER MEDICINE THAN DRUGS is an important and potentially controversial book from top nutritionist Patrick Holford and leading health journalist Jerome Burne. Brilliantly researched and based on solid scientific trials and illuminating case histories, Food is Better Medicine than Drugs will revolutionise the way you think about your health and put you back in charge. The authors reveal how modern medicine has become distorted and is now, for reasons largely to do with profit and power, heavily dependent on prescription drugs. They look at common health problems (pain/arthritis, heart, depression, diabetes, memory, hormones, digestion, breathing, infections etc) and compare the effectiveness of nutrition-based approaches with today's potentially harmful commonly used medicines.