Annatto: A vibrant source of healthy lifestyle.

Recent flamboyant lifestyle has changed the viewpoint of the modern society.  Apart from food, cloth and shelter; humans have started to seek for resources to support their existence. Among these, cosmetics were one of the foremost. Simultaneous to researches in medical development, people have also contemplated in cosmetology to adorn their appearance.
In this endeavour they have relied upon nature, where the widespread flora and fauna have contributed hugely.
Annatto seeds from a plant called Achiote (Bixa orellana) is one of the best sources of natural color, used as lip colourant since thousands of years.
Achiote is a tall shrub to small evergreen tree 6–10 m (20–33 ft) high. It bears clusters of 5 cm (2 in)
bright white to pink flowers, resembling single wild roses, appearing at the tips of the branches. The fruits are in clusters: spiky looking red-brown seed pods covered in soft spines. Each pod contains many seeds covered with a thin waxy blood-red aril. When fully mature, the pod dries, hardens, and splits open, exposing the seeds. The color of the seed coating is due mainly to the carotenoid pigments bixin and norbixin.
Chemistry of Bixin:
The major phytochemical of the plant, is found in the seeds, which is known as Bixin. Annatto seeds contain about 5% pigments, which consist of 70-80% bixin.
Bixin is soluble in fats but insoluble in water. Upon exposure to alkali, the methyl ester is hydrolyzed to produce the dicarboxylic acid-norbixin, a water-soluble derivative.

Benefits of Annatto Seeds:

1. Colouring agent for cosmetics and foods: Bixin, a phytochemical obtained from the Annatto Seeds is a very good source for natural and safe food and cosmetic color.
2. Eye Health: The red color of annatto seeds and the pigment extracted from them is due to the carotenoid content of those seeds. The high carotenoid content will function as antioxidants in your ocular system and prevent the development of cataracts, while also staving off macular degeneration, keeping your vision strong for years.
3. Antioxidant Capacity: The other organic compounds that make up annatto, like tocotrienols, also act as antioxidants in other parts of the body, which is one of the reasons that annatto is so sought after for treatment of the skin. If you’ve been looking for an anti-aging solution for your skin, annatto pastes made from the seeds can be topically applied to reduce the signs of wrinkles, blemishes, and other imperfections, while also tightening up the skin and making it look younger.
4. Strengthen Bones: A significant level of calcium found in annatto makes it important if you want to supplement your bone mineral density and ensure strength and durability as you age. Osteoporosis can affect anyone, so preventing it with essential minerals like calcium is crucial.
5. Promotes wound healing: Annatto seeds can catalyze the healing process of the burns and wounds on your skin. Moreover, it can even alleviate skin irritations and remove skin marks.
6. Possible anti cancer role: A powerful antioxidant, Norbixin found in Annatto Seeds have been found to possess a potent free radical scavenging activity thus blocking the cell oxidation process. So, it can be employed to prevent cancerous cells from spreading.

Exploring the kitchen can take you towards alleviating Cervical pains

With the advancement of technology, our society is developing in leaps and bounds, where every moment we are blemished in order to stay at par. Amongst all these, our health is majorly throbbed. Increased work load resulting in prolonged sitting in front of the computers is a common issue now a days, where often people experience pain and stiffness in neck. Initially though people ignore yet with time the condition worsen to an unbearable affliction- Cervical Spondylosis.

What causes Cervical Spondylosis?

Cervical spondylosis is a term used to describe the degenerative changes to the vertebrae, joints and discs of the neck (cervical spine ) as a result of aging, over stress or injury. The vertebrae and discs wear down, possibly resulting in pain, which agonizes gradually.

The disease occurs mainly due to roughening of the vertebral bones forming Osteophytes. Moreover, the discs get dried becoming stiff and brittle. Thus, an anatomical change takes place leading towards degenerative conditions resulting in Cervical Spondylosis.

Disease prodromes:

Initially the disease is characterized by stiffness and localized pain in the neck, which frequently occurs. This condition upon ignorance, augment into spinal stenosis, cervical radiculopathy and cervical myelopathy, restricting even normal movements, robbing off the simple pleasure of living.

A painless solution to rule out your pains:

Absolute cure from this ailment might be difficult but maintaining a healthy lifestyle can serve you better. A couple of simple exercises like rotating your arm clockwise-anticlockwise, opening-closing of fingers and twisting your wrist might relieve your pain.

The patient should avoid fatty, spicy and fried foods, sour curd, sweets, sugar, condiments as well as tea and coffee. Those who smoke and take tobacco in any form should give up completely.

Diet should comprise of consist of salad of raw vegetables such as tomato, carrot, cabbage, cucumber, radish, lettuce and at least two steamed or lightly-cooked vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, carrot, spinach and plenty of fruits. The patients should have four meals daily.

Home remedies for instant relief:

Certain food remedies have been found beneficial in the treatment of  cervical spondylosis. Garlic oil prepared by frying 10 cloves of garlic in 60 grams of oil in a frying pan, should be fried slowly till they are brown. After it is cooled, it should be applied vigorously on the affected part and allowed to remain there for three hours. The patient may thereafter have a warm bath. This treatment should be continued for at least 15 days or till pain is mitigated.

Relief from pain can also be obtained by taking lemon juice mixed with common salt twice or thrice daily. A piece of the chebulic myrobalan taken after principal meals might also give quick relief. So, there is no reason for patients to bear with the intense pain as breaking all myths, treatment and relief from Cervical Spondylosis is possible, where the answer lies in the age old traditional medical knowledge, which can be found out by exploring our kitchen. 

Bhils- The forerunners of Indian tribal medical knowledge:

Bhils are listed as Adivasi residents of the states of Gujarat, Madhya  Pradesh, Chhattisgarh,

Maharashtra and Rajasthan - all in the western Deccan regions and central India - as well as in Tripura in far-eastern India, on the border with Bangladesh. Bhils are divided into a number of endogamous territorial divisions, which in turn have a number of clans and lineages.
The origin of the Bhils dates back to the medieval and colonial period, where apart  from serving as hunters (“Shikaris”) for the Rajput rulers or as furious warriors in Mewar army under great rulers like Maharana
Pratap and Shivaji, they made significant contribution to the field of traditional medical development in India.
The Bhils were said to possess an excellent knowledge of the Indian terrain, which served in varied knowledge of the Indian flora. The priest or Badwai was the chief physician among the Bhils, though most old men were supposed to know something about medicine. The myths and legends of the tribal people reveal that they suffered from a wide range of ailments – endemic as well as epidemic – in the past. Before the 1880s, they were left largely to their own devices when ill. In a few cases, they may have sought herbal and faith based cures from wandering mendicants – such as sadhus and pirs – who resided in forest tracts. Most healing was by relatives and neighbors using herbal and other folk remedies. Tribal specialists who used herbal remedies, cauterization, divination and exorcism, treated the more intractable cases for them.
Bhils had classified diseases as per their knowledge, where they specialized themselves in curing various ailments, which are still prevalent in recent times and sometimes proved to be quiet promising like:
• Fever (Bukhar/Taav): The first stage of treatment normally is giving the patient some tea.
Then, people seek the help of the badwai, the faith-healer  (also called jhare wala or Bhopa). If it does not get cured, then people resort to allopathic medicine.

Likewise, in the case of Malaria (Malaria taav) also, which is very common during and after the rainy season, the treatment sought is the same. This was the general trend in case of most of the villages, but at certain places located on the highways and where health facilities existed, non-tribal people directly went to the hospitals after the home treatment. In the villages with 100% tribal population, and located off the main roads, people normally went to the bhopas. Since most of them could not afford to visit towns or cities for treatment, they stuck to the treatment offered by the faith healers for a relatively longer period.
• Dental Problems: The dental problems identified were caries (keera), tooth-ache (dant dard),

swelling (sujan) and pyorrhoea (peek). It was observed that  people do not attach much importance to dental problems. They apply i.e. rub tobacco (tambhacoo) to the aching parts. It was reported that most of their problems got cured by tobacco, and none was reported going to a hospital for dental treatment in any of the villages.

Some people mentioned applying cloves (long) or clove oil (long ka tel) for curing dental problems. Some others mentioned applying the juice of the leaves of the Climbing bean (Dolichos lablab) (Sem ki phali ki pattion ka ras) or Garhia ki patti as home treatment. Other problems mentioned during the discussion included cough and cold. The common treatment mentioned for this problem was taking honey, crushed tulsi leaves (sacred basil) and tea with black pepper. Again, as in the case of dental problems, not much attention was paid to them. People believe that these problems are part of one's life, and carry on as normally as possible in such cases.
• Jaundice (peelia): In this case the sufferer is given sugarcane juice as local treatment. This, people believe, is an effective treatment and none mentioned  going to a hospital for treatment of
jaundice.

Bhopas or faith-healers (jhare wala) were especially called in for removing the ill effects of 'evil eye' (nazar), spells of black magic (tona), etc. Though some people were initially reluctant to admit this, later on they admitted that though they knew the treatment was not as effective as allopathic treatment, it was still being used by poor people owing to the very high cost of allopathic medicine.

Constipation (kebjee)  and abdominal pain (pet dard) were other allied health problems worth mentioning, which were treated by prescribing various fruits including Banana (Kela), Wood apple (Kodbel), etc were prescribed.
• Children’s problems: 
 Diarrhoea (dast) was the main problem faced by children under 5 years of age. The local
treatment administered at home was giving some water  with lemon (nimbu paani) and salt, milk with sugar (doodh) or a kind of soup.
Acute Respiratory Infection (ARI) (Saans Chalna): After Diarrhoea, Acute Respiratory Infection (Pneumonia) was the second most common  problem among the children. The domestic treatment included giving nutmeg (jaiphal), clove (long) and saffron (kesar) at the first stage, were in severe cases light roasted black cumin( Kala jeera) was very popular.
• Reproductive Health Problems of the Females: The
problems faced by pregnant women during their term included indigestion, vomiting, oedema  (haath pag sooje), general weakness (kamjori) and body ache (haath pag toote). Some home remedies practised include giving “burnt and ground corn cobs” to those suffering from vomiting. The problems identified during childbirth are: excessive bleeding (gano khoon chale) and weakness following the delivery (kamjori). The home remedies for these include giving a solution of unrefined sugar in water (gurh ka paani), solution of the gum of certain trees such as Babool (Acacia nilotica) (gond ka pani), and turmeric powder in milk (haldi ka doodh).
Though with the flow of time, this knowledge perished gradually being crushed under the wheels of development yet the little documented history that has been dug out from the sands of time, still speaks about the Bhils as pioneers of medical development in India and the forerunners of traditional medical knowledge.