Word: vitamins
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...excerpt from Dr. Andrew Weil's book Healthy Aging was well presented [Oct. 24]. Weil gave a balanced view of nutritional advice on aging, and I was glad to see someone point out the dubious nature of the antiaging business. Most of what we spend on vitamin supplements and health food represents unreasonable expectations of our ability to control aging. Such purchases only distract from what is truly important: taking the realistic steps necessary to delay age-related disease. I will read Weil's entire book and recommend this article to my patients. John Kaufmann, M.D. Boca Raton, Florida...
Shrestha had some ideas. A onetime Peace Corps employee who earned his master's degree in international health at Tufts University in Massachusetts, he returned to Nepal in 1991, at about the time the vitamin program was getting under way, and offered his assistance...
...first thing he realized was that no matter who sponsored the program, the villagers were not going to be receptive unless they felt some ownership of it. So he began traveling through remote areas, explaining the benefits of vitamin A and looking for volunteers to help distribute the pills. When he signed someone up, he would return for a follow-up visit, accompanied by the district chief. Shrestha would make a show of asking passersby for directions to the volunteer's home; with the chief in the car, it was clear they must be on some vital business. "Whole families...
...make the volunteers more distinctive still, he issued them all green canvas bags stamped with a vitamin-A logo and suggested that they carry the bags all the time, not just on their rounds. He instructed supervisors in the program who had cars to stop whenever they saw anyone carrying a green bag and offer a lift...
...they have. Today there are more than 48,000 grandmothers, also known as female community health volunteers (FHCVs) distributing vitamin A to 3.5 million Nepalese children every year. Since the 1980s, infant mortality in the country has been cut in half; the program is now getting the vitamin to pregnant women too, among whom eye disease has plummeted, from 23% to 3%. Shrestha does not minimize what he has accomplished for his country, but he is too modest to make a fuss about it. "As a Nepali," he says, "I figured it was my duty...