‘Why did my child de­vel­op Autism?’ It’s a ques­tion of­ten asked by par­ents who have a child with the de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­der. As physi­cians, we try to ad­dress that ques­tion through­out our prac­tice, but Autism, in fact, is not a sin­gle con­di­tion; it is a spec­trum of dis­or­ders. At one end we have a child who is non-ver­bal and can­not speak, so he us­es tech­nol­o­gy to com­mu­ni­cate his thoughts and his con­cerns, and if he gets up­set enough, can be­come vi­o­lent to­wards oth­ers or him/her­self. At the oth­er end of the spec­trum, we have a child who is quite re­mark­able and gift­ed in math­e­mat­ics, yet, when it comes to try­ing to have a con­ver­sa­tion or be­ing so­cial, these things are more dif­fi­cult to him than oth­ers. What be­comes con­fus­ing to many par­ents, is that both of these chil­dren have the same di­ag­no­sis of Autism Spec­trum Dis­or­der (ASD).

This quick healthy recipe is a great way to add more veg­gies in­to your dai­ly meals. Loaded with crunchy veg­gies like red and white cab­bage, car­rots, sweet pep­pers with el­e­vat­ed flavours com­ing from the fresh chives and toast­ed sesame seeds, this colour­ful sal­ad. The gin­ger vinai­grette is the best! Made with in­gre­di­ents you al­ready have in your kitchen , this sauce adds el­e­ments of sweet­ness, spice and a hint of tart­ness that your taste­buds will love. Pair this slaw with rice, noo­dles, fish, to­fu, chick­en or as a taco fill­ing and burg­ers.

Re­fu­el your body with healthy nu­tri­ents with these nat­ur­al detox foods. Tox­ins can end up in our body de­pend­ing on one’s di­et, bac­te­rias al­ready ex­ist­ing in one’s body and one’s en­vi­ron­ment. By con­sum­ing these foods you can re­duce the work­load of or­gans like the liv­er and kid­neys and stim­u­late them to a jump in per­for­mance which can lead to im­proved blood cir­cu­la­tion and boost tox­in elim­i­na­tion. These six ex­ot­i­cal­ly lo­cal foods can help your body nat­u­ral­ly detox and give you a healthy re­set your body needs.

Many per­sons across the coun­try and around the world are re­quired to stay at home in an at­tempt to curb the spread of this high­ly in­fec­tious dis­ease, COVID-19. The or­der of life has def­i­nite­ly changed, in­clud­ing our var­i­ous lifestyle adap­ta­tions to in­clude ex­er­cise and phys­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ty en­gage­ment. How­ev­er, stay­ing home may en­cour­age seden­tary be­hav­iour (ly­ing down all day, sit­ting all day, etc.), anx­i­ety, de­pres­sion, and phys­i­cal in­ac­tiv­i­ty which in and of it­self is a huge pub­lic health cri­sis and lead­ing risk fac­tor for death.

We met Dr. Lalchan­dani just over 13 years ago. He was one of JB’s doc­tors when JB was first di­ag­nosed. He was shy, some­times smil­ing, with a de­meanour that spoke ‘no non­sense.’ An avid (for­mer) crick­eter and ten­nis play­er who en­joys cook­ing tra­di­tion­al meals, to­day he’s pret­ty much the same, smiles a lot more now ac­com­pa­nied by a burst of laugh­ter - that’s al­ways a sur­prise. “Dr. Lals” is re­spect­ed by his peers, par­ents and pa­tients alike as he ex­e­cutes his care with the same ‘no non­sense’ at­ti­tude.

Boost your im­mune sys­tem func­tion and re­duce your risk of catch­ing the pesky cold or flu by in­creas­ing your Vi­t­a­min C in­take! Kill those germs and re­ju­ve­nate your body with this quick and de­li­cious vi­t­a­min C smooth­ie! This recipe us­es sim­ple in­gre­di­ents and tastes sweet de­spite not adding ex­tra sug­ar. Our bod­ies do not pro­duce Vi­t­a­min C for it­self so we have to in­take through our di­et. This pow­er­ful an­tiox­i­dant guards your cells from the dam­ag­ing ef­fects of free rad­i­cals and of­fers promis­ing health ben­e­fits like iron ab­sorp­tion, and healthy skin. This smooth­ie is awe­some be­cause it com­bines a va­ri­ety of cit­rus fruits and veg­eta­bles like or­ange, ba­nana, car­rots, cran­ber­ries and ap­ples that you drink eas­i­ly in a few sips.

Chan­na, the savoury sta­ple of our lit­tle is­land. Chan­na isn’t just yum­my, you know. They have a lot of health ben­e­fits too. Chan­na, or chick­peas or gar­ban­zo beans are a good source of fiber, pro­tein and fo­late. The fiber helps pre­vent con­sti­pa­tion, pro­mot­ing reg­u­lar­i­ty and guess what else? The pro­tein and fiber in chick­peas can al­so help keep your ap­petite un­der con­trol.

Things that are hap­pen­ing in the world around us can make us feel scared, un­hap­py or wor­ried. Lots of peo­ple are talk­ing about COVID-19 or coro­n­avirus at the mo­ment and this can make us feel all of these feel­ings and more. You’re not alone. A lot of peo­ple will be feel­ing this way right now, but there are some small mind­ful things you can do to help you feel more pos­i­tive and to help you look af­ter your­self and oth­ers in your com­mu­ni­ty, the best of hu­man na­ture can rise to the chal­lenge.

World Tu­ber­cu­lo­sis (TB) Day is cel­e­brat­ed on March 24th an­nu­al­ly to raise pub­lic aware­ness about the dev­as­tat­ing health, so­cial and eco­nom­ic con­se­quences of TB. It is al­so com­mem­o­rat­ed in an ef­fort to end the glob­al TB epi­dem­ic. March 24th marks the date in 1882 when Dr. Robert Koch made the an­nounce­ment that he dis­cov­ered the bac­teri­um that caus­es TB, herald­ing the way to­wards di­ag­nos­ing and cur­ing this dis­ease.