India’s health infrastructure began crumbling under the daily increasing cases of coronavirus. However, the daily increasing cases against a recovery rate of 97.52 percent, which is the highest in the world highlights a different picture. The problem is not the virus contraction, but the inadequate healthcare infrastructure such as beds, oxygen, ventilator, the poor ratio of doctors and nurses per patient. 

Most towns and cities are burdened and under-resourced to do swab tests for a daily surge in cases, resulting in long waiting queues for sample collection and test results. This eventually delayed the covid treatment until it reached the peak of infection, and meanwhile, their infection might have spread to others if asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic. 

In many cases, the patient with mild symptoms of the virus panicked and admitted themselves to hospitals that could have been conveniently cured at home itself with proper medication. The third wave of the pandemic created absolute chaos where the person in the critical state could not avail a bed in the hospital.

Remote healthcare in India, which remained nascent, soon gained ground in the pandemic, as doctors and patients found it convenient to keep clinic visits to a minimum. Technologies such as AI were infused in home healthtech startups that improved the speed and accuracy of diagnostics. Imaging technologies have reduced the time of diagnosis from days to seconds as cutting-edge technologies interpret, imagine, and produce instant results.

According to a joint report from EY-IPA, India’s domestic telemedicine market is estimated to reach $5.5 billion in 2020-2025 and will be growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31 percent.

How AI in home healthtech startups is speeding up diagnosis? 

Home healthtech startups provide cost-effective medical assistance at home that comprises services such as at-home nursing, health screening, monitoring, telemedicine, and telehealth. 

Home healthtech startups effectively leverage AI for detecting symptoms. The AI checker uses natural language processing (NLP) that analyses a patient’s free-text symptom description. After gathering information on a patient’s illness history, the machine learning algorithms assess the symptom inputs to produce care recommendations concerning the severity of a disease. For instance, an AI symptom checker can recommend self-care for mild symptoms of a disease and will advise emergency care if history shows recently being attacked with strokes, increase in high blood pressure, or heart attack.

PM Narendra Modi’s 75th Independence Day speech promised to bring six big announcements out of which nutrition was one. In his speech, he mentioned that staple food rice should be fortified to make it nutritious. Fortified rice for the poor will be distributed from the year 2024 in mid-day meals, ration shops, and other distribution schemes.

India’s malnutrition numbers are still the most frightening in the world. According to the Global Hunger Index – calculated based on total undernourishment of the population, child stunting, wasting and child mortality – India stands at 94th position among 107 countries. Besides that, malnourishment in India causes losses worth $12 billion in GDP annually. Due to lockdown, several crucial government schemes were disrupted that could benefit millions of women and children.

Though the government is launching multiple schemes to eradicate malnourishment from the country, a change in the nutrition amount of nutraceuticals and food products can play a pivotal role in bridging the nutrition deficiency. 

Recently, FSSAI ( Food Safety and Standards Authority of India) has published new rules on the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of vitamins and minerals which will come into force from July 1, 2023. Here is what the food businesses and nutraceutical companies should know. 

New Rules on Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) by FSSAI 

• The RDA for vitamin C in men has been increased from 40 mg to 80 mg and for women, the same has been increased from 40 mg to 65 mg. 
• The amount of Zinc content in men has been increased from 12 mg to 17 mg whereas in women it has been kept 13.2 mg from 10 mg. 
• The RDA of sodium for men has been reduced from 2100 mg to 2000 mg and for women, the value has been increased to 2000 mg from 1900 mg. 
• The Calcium content for both men and women has been increased from 600mg to 1000mg. 
• The new Vitamin A amount for both men and women is now 1000ug and 840ug respectively.

Menstrual waste is aggravating India’s environmental pollution. Before you begin to ponder upon the premise ‘how’, allow us to present you with some glaring facts. Following statistics are from the report titled ‘Menstrual Products and their Disposal’ released by the environmental group Toxics Link.

• Disposable sanitary napkins are manufactured with 90 percent plastic.
• About 12.3 billion or 113,000 tonnes of used sanitary pads are dumped in landfills in India every year, adding to the 3.3 million tonnes of plastic waste already present in the country. 
• A single commercial non-organic sanitary pad will either take 250-800 years to decompose or may never decompose at all.  
• The amount of plastic a pad consists of is equivalent to 4 plastic bags.
• Currently, India lacks a proper recycling facility for this non-biodegradable menstrual waste. The menstrual waste dumped in landfills can stay undecayed for 100 years contributing to micro-plastic pollution and if burnt in incinerators can release toxic components like dioxins and furans. 

The statistics and facts presented displayed the sorry state of curbing plastic waste and menstrual waste in India that bothered Deepanjali Kanoria to launch her eco-friendly range of feminine hygiene products under the name ‘Heyday’. 

What is Heyday? 

Heyday is a Gurugram-based feminine hygiene startup founded in 2017 whose product portfolio comprises organic and biodegradable sanitary pads, panty liners, menstrual cups and baby diapers. Heyday currently has 24 SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) in total with prices ranging from Rs99 to Rs 399. Its products are available on e-commerce platforms like Amazon, Flipkart and Nykaa, apart from its website.

There have been several instances where we happen to come across individuals who own a beautiful mane and an athletic physique, and we aspire to be like them. Next what? We go home, search for care and health tips on Google to get lustrous hair or to achieve that Greek god physique and we hop on to a diet regime. But sometimes we do not achieve the desired results since the diet itself is not adequate to fulfill the essential nutrition required for which we need health supplements.Based on a sweet, delectable, rainbow textured candy Divij Bajaj, the founder named his nutraceutical start-up – Power Gummies- a vegan-based, gender-neutral chewable vitamin supplement to suffice the nutrition deficiency. 

We are Vegan 

The saying ‘Necessity is the mother of Invention’ feels apt in the inception of Power Gummies. Divij’s mother found it hard to swallow the allopathic vitamin supplements since she felt the supplement pills to be tasting like medicine. Divij made numerous efforts for his mother to make the allopathic vitamin pills a little taste worthy by crushing and fusing the pills with honey or liquid chocolate. In 2018, Divij soon came up with a million-dollar idea of giving these health pills a complete makeover by attractive packaging, making them tasty and easily consumable. Power Gummies nutraceutical products are manufactured without using ingredients of dairy, any animal products, allergens, hormones, gluten, or gelatine. The base is made up of pectin that is plant-based and its products have a shelf-life of 18 months.