Dr. Avnish Jolly, 16th May, 2008,Chandigarh: Health is wealth; a saying goes on and on. But now it seems it is coming out of the quotation books to our life practically. People now talk about it, discuss about, spend on it, as there is lots of material available in the market. You name the topic and the book is there even due to net revolution most of the latest information available to the people. Navneet Vermani of Shivalik Book Centre Sector-17, Chandigarh, says there is a sudden increase in the sales of health care books, some times people ask for a particular book, but mostly the customers ask which book is much in sales, we provide them with that but these days they started buying medical books (Medical Journals, Differential Diagnose, Practical Prescriber etc.).
People now are conscious about the fact that they should be worried about the fitness as they are about their career and professional skills. But the fact remains that people in such cases believe in buying books from the market, read it and try something or the other on their own, instead of consulting the professionals, doctors or physicians. Self medication for headache, constipation, acidity, fewer, cold and cough even performing yoga in daily life without basic knowledge is very common. But self medication for stress, diabetics, hypertension, and gout is harmful. Home remedies are one thing but self medication of scheduled medicine to children hampers their growth.
While reading the book and other sources one may get the idea (little) about the functioning of body or symptoms or something like that, but they can not get the comparative knowledge. What kind of food, in what circumstances, in what quantity or say it should be consumed or not. Similarly the workout, When? How? How much or not at all .It can only be checked by a professional and their advice plays vital role in health care.
Due to busy life style and high consultation fee of professionals they started self medication and visit clinical labs for self testing. After reading the causes for variation in the test reports they started self medication. More surprisingly the chemists are selling other than OTC (Over The Counter) Medicine without any prescription.