Health Matters newsletter: What women want – from health care

On women’s health gaps, HPV vaccination, climate impacts on pregnancy, AI in healthcare, rising metabolic diseases, mental health concerns, and more.

At the health desk here, we do make sure there is sufficient reportage of health issues relating to women, consistently, but the observance of International Women’s Day, we thought was the right opportunity to step on that pedal a bit. As the field remains skewed with more attention to male health issues, fewer clinical trials or studies accounting for impact on women, women being told that they are imagining their conditions, even as their health seeking behaviour is not ideal, there remains a huge challenge ahead. We bring to you a range of issues over the arc of issues that affect women, from the HPV vaccine, rising incidence of breast cancer cases, to climate change and the impact of heat during pregnancy, and primordial prevention of diabetes.

Sathya Sriram says it as it is, underlining the position, or the systemic invisibility of women’s midlife health, with a bearing on the Indian situation, particularly. She compliments the government’s interest in the health of women of child-bearing age, but points out that women’s health does not conclude when the childbearing years pass.

After the announcement that India will roll out free HPV vaccines to girls aged up to 14, across the country, Dr. Kriti Hegde explains why it is significant: 74,000 deaths: why the HPV vaccine is necessary in India. Over a period of time, the human immune system is able to clear about 90% of HPV infections. However, since HPV is extremely common, millions of people are exposed to it during their lifetime. But because it is extremely difficult, almost impossible, to predict who will clear the virus successfully and who will develop persistent infection, the HPV vaccination provides a dependable way to block the infection before exposure occurs, she says. Jacob Koshy and Bindu Shajan Perappadan bring us up to date on the current thinking in scientific circles, here.

Dr. V. Seshiah, Dr. Anjalakshi C. and Dr. Pikee Saxena take a position that predates birth. They argue for strategies to preventing diabetes before birth, to ensure both the mother and the baby remain free of the huge, staggering load of diabetes that this country has: Offering hope for future generations.

A UN body recently voiced concerns of something we have been suspecting for long now: Climate change hits women hardest. Vaishali Nigam Sinha of the United Nations Global Compact Network India spoke about this recently, also underling how funding support is inadequate. Meanwhile, I wrote last week about a study in Sub-Saharan Africa and India about how exposure to high heat during pregnancy actually has an impact on sex ratio at birth – fewer male babies are born. And here, is Indulekha S. teaching children that menstruation is really a very normal occurrence: It’s ‘bloody’ normal, bro!

And, just like that, technology has crept up in to health columns, to stay. We bring to you the pick of the stories on this intersection between medicine and technology this week: the Karnataka government announced in its budget that it would ban social media for children under 16 years. In Andhra Pradesh, Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu also announced, on the heels of this , his intent to introduce similar measures in his State as well. In this content, do have a look at Aroon Deep’s article, reasoning that since regulating internet is Centre’s domain, this move might run into a jurisdictional barrier.

If you ever wanted to know what prompts to give before asking an AI chatbot for health advice, here goes, but remember experts say that you first need to speak to a doctor. In Florida, a family sued Google after its AI chatbot reportedly pushed a man to suicide

Meanwhile, we heard that Amazon has launched an AI-enabled platform to automate healthcare administrative tasks. There is a further danger with healthcare workers resorting to AI at the workplace – security of data. Read this story for more details: Healthcare workers’ use of GenAI platforms might risk leaks of sensitive patient data

Lest we forget the challenge that non communicable diseases pose to nations such as India, studies are always reminding us of the critical phase ahead. India and China top Asia-Pacific region with highest metabolic diseases burden, but this also means that they are the leaders in the sector globally. There is an urgent need for the government to address these challenges from awareness to diagnosis to presenting options for healthy living.

An editorial published in the journal Diabetes and Metabolic Syndrome: Clinical Research and Reviews urged that abdominal obesity be included as a vital sign in Asian Indians given the particular kind of fat accumulation in this group.

Afshan Yasmeen reported that in Karnataka, door-to-door screening reveals uneven burden of NCDs. Meanwhile,

Serena Josephine M. brought us up to scratch on how nicotine pouches have grown in popularity online and the call for regulating this.

A capsule of the articles with reference to mental health this week: Harsh Kabra writes on the long, invisible arm of intergenerational trauma; Zubeda Hamid in the In Focus Podcast asks: Does too much ultra-processed food affect mental health?Peerzada Ashiq records the finding from a study that showed 45% Kashmir students up to Class 12 report sub-optimal mental well-being due to social media

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Our long list of explainers is constantly growing, do read below:

Athira Elssa Johnson tells you All you need to know about: Cushing’s syndrome and also sheds light on Allvar Gullstrand and his Nobel achievement.

Patrick Paul weites on Why finding a stem cell match remains a major challenge for patients with aplastic anaemia

Dr. Priyanka Dass writes that there are many and varied medical uses for the placenta

Dr. C. Aravinda rethinks health care through commercial determinants

Debasree Purkayastha analyses how duty cuts in cancer drugs will ease burden for patients

A low down on the health care scenario in Tamil Nadu: Ahead in health, but with a new set of challenges

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There are a couple of articles we think we must leave you with this week, we hope you give them a dekho.

We have long reported about the unregulated aesthetics, cosmetology and hair transplant clinics. Here is a government order from Tamil Nadu that sets out to regulate them, in a welcome move.

Arun Panchapakesan writes about how we now know why some people had severe blood clots after COVID shots. A human protein called platelet factor 4 was at the heart of vaccine induced thromobocytopenia and thrombosis.

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Published – March 10, 2026 03:45 pm IST