Every year, World Toilet Day is observed to raise awareness about the global sanitation crisis and encourage action to solve it. The goal set by the United Nation is to achieve safe toilets for all by 2023, as a part of their Sustainable Development Goals.

The UN also states that 3.5 billion people live without proper sanitation and many children also lose their lives due to poor sanitation and unsafe water. This is why World Toilet Day is observed to raise awareness on this issue.

Theme

This year, the theme for World Toilet Day 2024 is "Toilets - A Place for Peace'. This focuses on the growing threat to sanitation that is caused by conflict, climate change, disaster and neglect. When there is a threat to using toilets, it can lead to many health risks.

Not using toilets for too long may lead to Urinary Tract Infection or UTI. For many who do not have access to clean toilets do not drink enough liquid or hold pee for too long. Doctors suggest that holding in pee for too long can cause bacteria to multiply and lead to UTI. By not drinking enough water, your bladder fails to tell the body to pee often, and can cause the bacteria to spread through the urinary tract, which can lead to infection.

Symptoms of UTI:

• Burning or stinging feeling while urinating
• Pain in pelvis or lower abdomen
• Constant urge to empty the bladder
• Strong or foul smelling urine
• Consistently dark urine
• Blood in urine

Holding in pee for too long can also cause your bladder to stretch, making it difficult or even impossible for the bladder to contract and release pee normally. It can also damage your pelvic floor muscles or could lead to kidney stones.

World Toilet Day History And Significance

To prevent such conditions, it is important that everyone has access to clean and safe toilets. In terms of history, the day was established in 2001, by the World Toilet Organization (WTO), which was founded by Jack Sim. However, it was officially recognised by the UN in 2013. The Government of Singapore worked with WTO to create the first UN resolution called Sanitation for All.

India too promotes safe and hygiene toilet through its Swachh Bharat Yojna.

Night shift workers often face the risks of poor sleep or sleep deprivation. They have long been advised to aim for one uninterrupted block of daytime sleep after work.

However, a new review suggests that splitting sleep into two separate periods, known as biphasic sleep, can help them avoid certain health risks.

Can Biphasic Sleep Help Night Shift Workers?

Night shifts have become an unavoidable part of our lives. Healthcare professionals, emergency responders, factory employees, and transportation workers often work overnight.

Night shifts can disrupt the body's internal clock, increasing the risk of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, depression, and cognitive decline.

Research also shows that night shift workers typically sleep one to four hours less than daytime workers, leading to chronic sleep debt over time.

The recent review, published in the journal Sleep Medicine Reviews, examined existing research on biphasic sleep among shift workers.

Researchers found that while evidence is still emerging, dividing sleep into two episodes can help workers get more sleep, improve alertness during night shifts, and potentially reduce a few long-term health risks associated with chronic sleep deprivation.

The researchers noted that although sleep recommendations traditionally focus on obtaining one long sleep period, many shift workers naturally divide their sleep into two episodes. They usually sleep for a few hours immediately after work and then take another longer sleep before returning for the next night shift.

Also read: Not Just Exhaustion, Sleep Disorders Can Alter Your Brain's Attention & Decision-Making Centres: Study

"Biphasic sleep may help mitigate sleep loss-related impairments," the authors wrote, while observing that its potential benefits have not been fully understood until now.

According to the review, this split-sleep pattern could help workers accumulate more total sleep over a 24-hour period while fitting better around their daytime commitments.

Evidence also suggests biphasic sleep may improve alertness, reduce fatigue, and enhance cognitive performance compared to one uninterrupted daytime sleep, which is often shortened and disrupted by noise, light, or social obligations.

The findings build on a growing body of research suggesting that sleep does not necessarily have to occur in one continuous block to provide health benefits.

A 2025 review also stated that biphasic sleep may be a natural and flexible sleep pattern for some people and could be particularly useful for shift workers, new parents, and others facing unavoidable sleep disruption.

Split Sleep Is Not A Permanent Fix

Experts do caution that split sleep is not a permanent solution. The latest review emphasizes that evidence is still limited as there are just a few reliable studies that directly compare biphasic and monophasic sleep among night workers.

Factors like shift schedules, chronotype, workplace demands, and individual health conditions can all influence whether the strategy is effective.

Sleep specialists also stress that the total amount of sleep remains the most important factor.

Adults should still aim for seven to nine hours of sleep within a 24-hour period whenever possible. Good sleep hygiene, including using blackout curtains, reducing noise, avoiding caffeine before bedtime, and maintaining a consistent sleep schedule, continues to play a key role in protecting long-term health.

A new study suggests that rising temperatures, floods and droughts could affect the predictability and frequency of waterborne disease outbreaks. Climate change can alter the traditional patterns of disease transmission in ways that are more complex than previously understood.

Researchers state that public health systems can no longer rely on existing weather-disease relationships, as global warming has significantly changed the environmental conditions and their influence how pathogens survive, spread and infect people.

Effect Of Climate Change On Waterborne Diseases

The review says that increasing temperatures, extreme rainfall, prolonged droughts and flooding do not simply increase disease risk. Instead, they can alter the timing, intensity and location of outbreaks, making them less predictable.

"Climate change is resetting many of the environmental conditions that determine when and where waterborne diseases emerge," the researchers noted, emphasizing that disease surveillance systems must evolve to keep pace with these changing dynamics.

According to the researchers, several climate-related factors work together to increase the likelihood of contaminated water and disease transmission.

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Higher Temperatures

Warmer water allows bacteria, viruses and parasites to multiply more rapidly. Pathogens such as Vibrio cholerae, which causes cholera, thrive in warmer aquatic environments.

Heavy Rainfall And Floods

Extreme rainfall can overwhelm sewage systems and contaminate drinking water with human and animal waste. Floodwaters also spread pathogens into rivers, lakes and groundwater supplies.

Drought

Although drought reduces water availability, it can also increase disease risk. Limited water supplies often become more concentrated with pathogens, while communities may be forced to use unsafe water sources.

Poor Sanitation After Climate Disasters

Storms, cyclones and floods frequently damage sanitation infrastructure, creating conditions where waterborne infections can spread rapidly.

These factors interact in different ways depending on geography, infrastructure and local climate, making future outbreaks increasingly difficult to forecast.

Also read: How To Spot Leptospirosis, Dengue, Malaria During Monsoons? Early Symptoms Not To Neglect

What Diseases Are Likely To Be Affected By Climate Change?

Researchers say climate-sensitive waterborne illnesses include:

• Cholera
• Acute diarrheal diseases
• Typhoid fever
• Hepatitis A
• Gastroenteritis
• Other bacterial and parasitic infections spread through contaminated water

Children, older adults and people living in regions with limited access to safe drinking water and sanitation are expected to face the greatest risks.

What Do Experts Recommend?

The researchers stress that instead of reacting to outbreaks the governments should strengthen climate-friendly public health systems. The key recommendations include:

• Expanding water quality monitoring
• Improving disease surveillance
• Investing in resilient water and sanitation infrastructure
• Developing climate-informed early warning systems
• Strengthening emergency preparedness for floods and droughts

Researchers say that understanding the evolving relationship between climate and infectious diseases will be essential to protecting communities across the world as global temperatures continue to rise.

Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a major public health threat, extending beyond heatwaves and air pollution to affecting patterns of infectious diseases.

The new review suggests that future waterborne disease outbreaks may not simply become more frequent but also less predictable, requiring health systems to adapt quickly to a changing climate.

As extreme weather events become more common worldwide, researchers warn that protecting safe water supplies and strengthening surveillance will be critical to reducing the growing burden of waterborne diseases.

Nearly nine out of every 10 Indian adults have at least one abnormal blood lipid level, according to a recent nationwide study by ICMR-INDIAB.

The findings highlighted a massive looming public health crisis that could increase the risk of heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular diseases across the country in the near future.

India’s Silent Cholesterol Crisis

The findings, which were reported between July 17 and July 19, 2026, reveal that dyslipidemia, an unhealthy imbalance of cholesterol and triglycerides in the blood, affects an alarming number of Indian adults.

Despite being preventable and treatable, the condition often remains undiagnosed because it presents with little to no symptoms until serious complications surface.

The study was conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research’s India Diabetes (ICMR-INDIAB) in what is one of the country’s largest community-based metabolic health surveys, involving over 113,000 adults from different states and Union Territories.

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Women And Urban Residents At Greater Risk

According to the study, women, those living in urban areas, and residents of Central India carried a disproportionately higher burden of abnormal lipid levels.

Researchers also found that dyslipidemia was significantly more common among people with prediabetes or diabetes, obesity, and hypertension.

These metabolic conditions substantially increasing the risk of various cardiovascular diseases and complications.

What Is Dyslipidemia?

Dyslipidemia refers to unhealthy levels of fats circulating in the bloodstream. These include:

• High LDL (bad) cholesterol, which contributes to plaque buildup in the arteries.
• Low HDL (good) cholesterol, reducing the body’s ability to remove excess cholesterol.
• High triglycerides, another blood fat that contributes to cardiovascular disease and pancreatitis.
• Elevated total cholesterol

ICMR-INDIAB programme has already shown that lipid disorders remain one of the concerning health risks. However, the latest study highlights just how serious the problem has become, with nearly 90% of adults exhibiting at least one lipid abnormality.

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Why Is India Facing A Cholesterol Crisis?

Factors like rapid urbanisation, sedentary lifestyles, unhealthy diets, obesity and rising diabetes rates are likely contributing to the worsening burden of cholesterol.

Unlike many chronic diseases, dyslipidemia can be managed through early detection and lifestyle change. Doctors recommend the following preventive measures:

• Regular lipid profile screening, especially after age 30 or earlier for high-risk individuals.
• Maintaining a healthy body weight.
• Exercising regularly.
• Eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains and healthy fats while limiting saturated and trans fats.
• Managing diabetes and blood pressure.
• Taking cholesterol-lowering medications such as statins when prescribed.

India has witnessed a steady rise in metabolic disorders over the past two decades, with cases of diabetes, obesity, hypertension and abnormal cholesterol increasingly surging.

Researchers warn that unless preventive measures are strengthened and strict lifestyle changes adopted, the country could face an even greater burden of heart disease and other related disorders in the future.