Science and Technology › Health and disease
Non communicable diseases, nutrition and food safety
Diseases that are not caught from others, nutrition and food safety: cancers, diabetes, heart disease, inherited blood disorders, diseases carried in drinking water such as fluorosis, fortification, food labelling and tobacco. Prelims has asked about fluoride among the pollutants in India's drinking water.
All 5 subjects shown; the 1 that changed from 1 to 15 September 2026 are marked.Show only these
Fluorosis
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Fluorosis is not a poisoning that arrives from a factory: the fluoride is in the rock the groundwater passes through, so a village can drink it for years with nothing having gone wrong upstream. India's groundwater fluoride is largely geogenic, and the harm it does over years of drinking is read in two places, the teeth and the bone.
Dental fluorosis
- Mottles and pits tooth enamel
Skeletal fluorosis
- Builds up in bone over years
- Bones turn dense and brittle, joints stiff
What changed
9 Sep 2026
9 Sep 2026
- The remedy is safe water: either a source carrying less fluoride, or taking the fluoride out of the water there is, which is defluoridation.
- IS 10500, the Bureau of Indian Standards drinking water standard, sets 1.0 mg per litre as the acceptable fluoride limit, relaxed to 1.5 where no other source exists.
- The National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI) developed the Nalgonda technique, a low cost community defluoridation method.
9 Sep 2026
- The National Programme for Prevention and Control of Fluorosis is the health system's side of the answer, alongside safe water.
- The Health Ministry held a national workshop on National Fluorosis Day to strengthen the programme and widen its reach.
National Family Health Survey 6
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The National Family Health Survey is India's periodic household survey of health, nutrition and fertility; the sixth round covers 2023 to 24.
What changed
24 Jul 2026New subject
- The sixth survey covers 2023 to 24. Institutional deliveries rose from 88.6 to 90.6 per cent and full immunisation of children aged 12 to 23 months from 83.8 to 87.1 per cent.
- Stunting among children under five fell from 35.5 to 29.3 per cent, and the total fertility rate stayed at 2, below the replacement level of 2.1.
- Against this, 30.7 per cent of women and 27.3 per cent of men aged 15 to 49 are now overweight or obese, and high blood sugar has risen in both.
Mains: India now carries a double burden of undernutrition and metabolic disease.
PIB, 24 Jul 2026: NFHS-6 Highlights Rising lifestyle diseases among Adults (opens in a new tab)
Codex Alimentarius Commission
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Codex is the joint food standards body of the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization, whose standards are the reference for food trade under the World Trade Organization.
What changed
14 Jul 2026New subjectalso in news
- The 49th session adopted seven standards steered by India, including dried coriander seeds, fresh curry leaves, vanilla and large cardamom, and approved new work on cashew kernels. Codex is the joint food standards body of the Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Health Organization.
Cancer
Cancer as a notifiable disease
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Making cancer notifiable obliges doctors and hospitals to report every case to the State, which fills the gap left by cancer registries that cover only a small share of the population; the Centre holds that notification is meant for communicable diseases.
What changed
4 Jul 2026New subject
- Telangana became the seventeenth State to make cancer notifiable, while the Centre holds that notification is meant for communicable diseases. India's cancer registries cover only about 10 to 16 per cent of the population.
Global Status Report on Cancer, 2026
Copy link to Global Status Report on Cancer, 2026Prelims and Mains
The World Health Organization's report gives the global count of cancer cases and deaths and shows the survival gap between rich and poor countries.
What changed
8 Jul 2026New subject
- The World Health Organization's report estimates about 20.6 million new cases and close to 10 million deaths a year, rising to about 35 million cases by 2050.
- Five year survival from breast cancer is about 87 per cent in high income countries against about 42 per cent in low income countries.
Mains: the survival gap is largely a matter of price and access, which is the case for using compulsory licensing.
The Hindu, 8 Jul 2026 · The Indian Express, 20 Jul 2026: WHO's Global Status Report on Cancer puts the inequity in survival, not in incidence (opens in a new tab)