The New Nation - Internet Edition

Jamayet Ali

Radish (Mula) is an annual herb of the cabbage family. It is a winter crop cultivated throughout the plains of Bangladesh. It is also cultivated in India and in temperate and warm countries. There are several varieties cultivated in our country-the large white, large long pale-pink, the small longish pale-pink, and the small round bright red. It is eaten raw as salad or cooked as vegetables. It is much relished for its pungent flavour and is considered an appetiser. The leaves are also boiled and eaten. Sometimes due to climatic or other conditions the crop is likely to be poor and produces very small or inferior roots. Then it is allowed to flower and produce pods, which are commonly known as mungra. These are also eaten raw or cooked as vegetable. It may be pointed out that radish produced in Bangladesh is almost tropical in its habit instead of temperate. It is often transplanted from one field to another, yielding its seed into second year. The root grows to an enormous size, sometimes as large as man's leg and rises partly above the ground like a stem.

The radish has also been tried successfully as a fodder crop in some countries like the U.K. and South Africa. In the latter country the giant radish of Japan has been grown for this purpose and yields of more than 60 tonnes/ha, of roots and 12-25 tonnes/ha, of leaves have been obtained. It is said to be relished by all animals and the characteristic pungent smell of the root is not imparted to the milk. In feeding value, radish is said to compare very favourably with any other root crop. The root and seed yield oils apparently similar to those obtained from other cruciferous plants. They have a most disagreeable odour, but they are said to be sometimes used for burning and for curinary purposes. Radish seed oil is colourless, heavier than water in which it dissolves pretty freely, contains a considerable quantity of sulphur. Non-drying radish fatty oil obtained from seeds is suitable for soap making, illuminating and edible purposes. The radish comes to harvest within 30-50 days of sowing and should be pulled out when the root reaches edible size and is still tender and crisp, as otherwise with delay it soon becomes tough, pithy, hollow and unpalatable.

Botanical name of Radish is Raphanus sativus Linn. All parts of this vegetable are necessary for human consumption. The leafy tops of radish are sometimes eaten as vegetable or fed to animals. They are highly nutritious, being a good source of vitamins and minerals. They are particularly rich in calcium, iron, and ascorbic acid and are also considererd to be one of the richest sources of vitamin A and vitamin C among the leafy vegetables. The leaves can constitute a good supplement to diets consisting mainly of rice. An analysis of per 100gms. edible leaves gave the following values: moisture, 94.6; mineral matter, 06; fibre, 1.0; calorie, 24 (energy), protein, 1.7; fat, 0.9; and carbohydrate, 2.3g./100g.; calcium, 28; iron, 3.6; vitamin B-1, 0.04; vitamin B-2, 0.09; vitamin C, 148mg./100g. and carotene (equivalent to vitamin A), 9,700ug/100g. On the other hand, root contains: moisture, 92.7; mineral matter, 0.5; fibre, 0.6; calorie, 28 (energy); protein, 1.3; fat, 0.1; carbohydrate, 5.4g./100g.; calcium, 10, iron, 0.5; vitamin B-1, 0.43 and vitamin C 34mg./100g. (Food Processes and Analyses, Mohammad Yunus, Bangladesh Agricultural Research Council, 46, 47). Moreover, the leaves of radish are a good source for the extraction of protein on a commercial scale.

Medicinal Properties: The radish has a hot, sharp, bitter taste; stomachic, binding, anthelmintic; destroys "vata;" good in tumours, piles, and all inflammations; useful in diseases of the heart, amenorrhea, hiccough, leprosy, cholera; the juice relieves carache. The flowers and bechic and cholagogue (Ayurveda). The root is useful for urinary complaints and piles. The seeds are sharp and bitter; laxative, tonic, emmenagogue, carminative; good for spleen and in paralysis; produce alopecia; mixed with wine they counteract the effects of the bites of snakes and other poisonous animals (Yunani).

Radish seeds are peptic, expectorant, diuretic, laxative, carminative, and corrective. In the Punjab they are considered to be emmenagogue (Stewart). The roots are used for urinary and syphilitic diseases; they are a reputed medicine for piles and gastrodynic pains. The juice of the fresh leaves is also used as a diuretic and laxative. The seeds are not an antidote to snake venom (Mhaskar and Caius). (Indian Medicinal Plants, Kirt, & B.D. Basu, Vol. I, 179,180)

Radish is credited with refreshing and depurative properties. Radish preparations are useful in liver and gall bladder troubles. In homoeopathy they are used for neuralgic headaches, sleeplessness and chronic diarrhoea. Roots, leaves, flowers and pods are active against Grampositive bacteria. The roots are said to be useful in urinary complaints, piles and in gastrodynia. A salt extracted from roots dried and burnt to white ash, is said to be used in stomach troubles. The juice of fresh leaves is used as diuretic and laxative. The seeds are said to be peptic, expectorant, diuretic and carminative (Wealth of India, Raw Materials, Raphanus, 371).

The seeds are considered diuretic, laxative, and lithontriptic. In the Punjab, they are also believed to have emmenagogic properties. The roots are used in native medicine for urinary and syphilitic diseases. In Bombay, the juice of the fresh leaves is used medicinally for the same purposes as the seeds.

Special Opinions: "The root of Raphanus sativas (the radish) is stimulant, diuretic, stomachic, and antilithic, and the seeds demulcent and diuretic. In full and repeated doses, the seeds produce vomiting sometimes, but this is so rare that they cannot be considered as an emetic. The juice of the radish is useful in dysuria and strangury, and also in some slight cases of ischuria and calculus in the bladder. Eaten before a meal the radish improves appetite, and increases the digestive power. The dry seeds of the radish are also useful in some slight cases of dysuria and strangury, but their action is rather uncertain and irregular. The juice of the radish is to be pressed out through a cloth by bruising it without water. The seeds are used in the form of a draught by bruising and rubbing them with water and straining the liquid through a cloth. The dose of the juice is from one ounce and a half to three ounces repeated frequently till the desired effect is produced; of the seeds from one to two drachms" (Honorary Surgeon Mooden Sheriff, Khan Bahadur, G.M.M.C., Triplicane, Madras). "The seeds in doses of one drachm are useful in gonorrhoea" (Narain Misser, Kathe Basar Dispensary, Hosangabad, Central Provinces). "The root is a reputed medicine for piles and gastrodynic pain" (Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, Raphanus, 394).

Claire Cain Miller

Cervical cancer is almost entirely preventable with a new genetic test. Yet doctors still cling to the highly unreliable Pap smear. Something is very wrong here.

Christine Baze and her husband of seven years were planning to start a family in 2000 when she found out she had cervical cancer. At 31 she underwent a hysterectomy followed by three months of drugs and radiation.

Baze was, as she describes it, "the girl who was doing everything right," getting annual Pap smears that screen for pre-cancerous cervical cells. But the Pap test missed the cancer that had been growing inside her for a decade. Each test had returned a negative result. With early detection, Baze could have treated her cancer with chemotherapy and radiation."I was devastated, and incredibly pissed at my doctor's office. If they'd found the tumor three years earlier, I could have kept my uterus and had a child," says Baze, now 39 years old and executive director of the Yellow Umbrella, a cervical cancer prevention group she founded in 2002.

It borders on the scandalous that cervical cancer, among the few cancers that are preventable, kills 310,000 women a year worldwide. In 2007, 11,150 women in the U.S. were diagnosed with it. Half of them had not had a recent Pap test. Another third did get tested but got false negatives from the 65-year-old Papanicolaou biopsy. The Pap test is valuable, having cut the rate of cervical cancer by 70%, but it is archaic. It calls on a lab technician or machine to peer at a daub of cervical cells under a microscope to spot the abnormal precancerous ones. This artisanal approach yields false negatives between 13% and 45% of the time.

The persistence of the Pap--55 million are performed each year-is especially frustrating for Qiagen (nasdaq: QGEN - news - people ), the German diagnostic tools firm that paid $1.6 billion in cash and stock to buy Digene (nasdaq: DIGE - news - people ), a Gaithersburg, Md. biotech firm that invented a far more accurate test.

For $49, 12 bucks more than a Pap, Qiagen's HPV test can spot the genetic fingerprint of the human papilloma virus that hides within cervical cells. HPV infection is a necessary precursor to cancer. Catch it early and you won't get cervical cancer. The Food & Drug Administration approved Digene's HPV test in 2003 for cervical cancer screening alongside the Pap for women over 30. It gives a false negative for precancer only 5% of the time. Yet three-quarters of women in the U.S. have never taken it.

One reason doctors like the Pap is that it brings patients back every year. The HPV test is needed only once every three years because the test is so accurate and most women fight off HPV infections on their own. Without Pap as a draw, doctors are concerned their patients will fall behind on other checkups like breast exams. Docs are also afraid of losing the income from annual visits, says Walter Kinney, a gynecologic oncologist at Kaiser Permanente in Sacramento, Calif.

Kaiser added the HPV test in 2004 for routine screening alongside the Pap. That move saved Kaiser's doctors from having to go back and remove more cells from patients in the 6% of Paps that return inconclusive results. For every dollar spent doing Paps, it was spending another on follow-ups, which are often unnecessary: Irregular Paps are often the result of inflammation that goes away on its own.

Ellen Sheets, chief medical officer of Pap maker Hologic (nasdaq: HOLX - news - people ), says that, while the Pap does produce more false negatives than the HPV test, it produces fewer false positives. "We believe your best bet is to get the Pap smear so you know what's wrong today, not find out what might go wrong in the future."

Other clinicians disagree. "The time has come that we need to make a conversion [to the HPV test]. It would be doing women a disservice not to," says Cosette Wheeler, a University of New Mexico School of Medicine professor who has spent her career studying HPV.

Three studies published in October, two in the New England Journal of Medicine and one in Lancet, supported using the HPV test in place of or in tandem with the Pap. Roche also has an HPV test now under FDA review, and biotechs Third Wave, Gen-Probe (nasdaq: GPRO - news - people ) and SensiGen are developing tests.

Merck (nyse: MRK - news - people )'s heavy marketing of its two-year-old Gardasil HPV vaccine ($1.3 billion in annual sales) has educated young women about the link between HPV and cervical cancer, but it may also create problems for Qiagen, which now has to convince vaccinated patients that they still need to be screened. Gardasil protects against only 2 of the 15 types of cancer-inducing genital HPV strains, and its long-term effectiveness is unproved.

HPV gets picked up eventually by nearly all sexually active people through skin-to-skin contact. Researchers discovered in the mid-1980s that the virus was linked to cervical cancer. A decade later they determined that 15 of the more than 100 HPV types caused virtually all cases of cervical cancer.

Digene's test, shepherded by marketer Douglas White and researcher James Godsey, uses a chemical reagent to separate a cervical cell's DNA into two strands in a vial. A robotic arm squirts in RNA molecules culled from 13 high-risk HPV strains. The RNA is designed to bind to the cell's DNA if the virus is present, forming a hybrid molecule. Antibodies and enzymes added to the sample will light up if they find the hybrid.

Qiagen, which grossed $560 million in the last 12 months from sales of diagnostic test components, says the HPV test will add $265 million next year. Its chief executive, Peer Schatz, says the potential market is $1.5 billion worldwide and could grow as countries replace the Pap with the HPV test.

Qiagen is developing a genotyping test that would tell the patient whether she has one of the two more virulent types of HPV that cause 70% of cancers. It could be available by 2009. Qiagen is also readying for delivery a briefcase-size device called FastHPV for use in developing countries. Funded by the Gates Foundation and developed with global health not-for-profit path, the FastHPV machine requires no electricity or potable water, is simple to use and returns results in two hours, so women can get treated immediately. One Harvard study predicts that the test could halve cervical cancer rates in the developing world. The test could be introduced in China in 2009. Trials in India are under way.

Christine Baze is confident that, with the combination of the HPV test and the vaccine, cervical cancer like hers will someday be a thing of the past. "I truly believe we can eliminate this cancer."

Deaths from cardiovascular disease are declining among men with diabetes, but not women, and poorer control of blood pressure and cholesterol levels may be to blame, a new study suggests.

Among diabetic patients with existing cardiovascular disease, Dr. Assiamira Ferrara of Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, California and colleagues found, women were 5.4 percent less likely than men to have systolic blood pressures at recommended levels, and 5.9 percent less likely to have their "bad" LDL-cholesterol under control.

"Women with diabetes should be more concerned about their risk of developing cardiovascular disease," Ferrara told Reuters Health in an interview, adding that diabetic women should make sure that their doctor is doing the appropriate screening for blood pressure and cholesterol and keeping these two parameters under control.

Over the past 25 years, Ferrara and her colleagues note, deaths from cardiovascular disease among men with and without diabetes have fallen. While women overall are also experiencing a decline in deaths from heart disease, women with diabetes are not, they explain in the medical journal Diabetes Care.

To determine if gender differences in control of heart disease risk factors might help explain this disparity, the researchers looked at 8,821 men and women with diabetes belonging to 10 different managed care plans in the U.S. About one-third had a history of cardiovascular disease.

Among people with no heart or blood vessel disease, there was no difference in the percentage of men and women who had their blood sugar, blood pressure or LDL cholesterol under control.

But for those who did have cardiovascular disease, 41.2 percent of men had systolic blood pressure (the top number in a blood pressure reading) of 140 mm/Hg or greater, compared to 46.6 percent of women. And 22.4 percent of men had LDL-cholesterol levels above the recommended 3.35 mmol/l, compared to 28.3 percent of women. Women whose LDL levels were too high were 9 percent less likely than their male counterparts to be receiving intensive medication to lower their LDL.

Given that better LDL-cholesterol and blood pressure control is known to reduce heart disease-related mortality among people with diabetes, the researchers say, "more intense treatment in women with diabetes offers the opportunity to reduce the observed gap between men and women with diabetes in the reduction of CVD mortality."