Strengthening your bones is not something that can happen overnight, it takes years for your body to build strong bones and even then, it is natural for them to lose their dexterity. All you can do is keep your body healthy to make sure it is prepared for any unexpected situations. For years, many older adults have been told to take vitamin D and calcium supplements to keep their bones strong and prevent falls. However, a new report from U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) is changing that advice. This report suggests that for most older people, these supplements don't actually prevent falls or broken bones. This might be surprising news, we must understand why falls happen more often as we age, what vitamin D and calcium do in the body, and most importantly, what you can do to stay safe and prevent fractures.

What the Report Says

According to the report, vitamin D supplements don't seem to help prevent falls or broken bones for most people over 60. They also found that these supplements, especially with calcium, might increase the risk of kidney stones. This report doesn't mean people with weak bones (osteoporosis), low vitamin D, or who take vitamin D for other health reasons shouldn't take it. It just means that for most healthy older people, these supplements don't prevent falls and fractures.

Why Older People Fall and Break Bones More Easily

There are many reasons why older people are more prone to breaking their bones. Our bones are strongest when we're in our 20s and 30s, and they get weaker as we age so naturally, they can break easily. It can also be harder to move around as we get older, sometimes because of problems like arthritis this can affect how we walk and make us less steady.

There are also different issues like neuropathy, which is a nerve problem that can also make it harder to feel your feet and keep your balance. Eyesight is also a culprit as it can cause you to feel dizzy and fall. Some medicines can also make people feel unsteady, and older people often take more medicines than younger people. Low vitamin D itself can also increase the risk of falls, so keeping vitamin D levels up is still important.

Better Ways To Protect Your Bone Health

USPSTF recommends a few better ways to protect your bone health and prevent broken bones and falls.

Walk Regularly

Regular walks strengthen your muscles and bones, which helps you stay steady on your feet. It is as simple as practice makes perfect so the more you walk, the better it is. Walking also improves your balance, making you less likely to fall.

Do Strength Training

Strength training, like lifting weights or using resistance bands, makes your bones stronger and helps prevent fractures if you do fall. It is like a safety cushion, but you must be careful while doing so because it can lead to injuries if done too much.

Practice Balance

Activities like tai chi, Pilates, and yoga can improve your balance and coordination, making you more stable and less prone to falls. These can also help you improve your muscle flexibility and strength that in turn helps your body be stronger.

Check Your Medicines

If you have osteoporosis, talk to your doctor about medications that can help strengthen your bones and lower your risk of fractures. Many medications can also have unsavory side effects like weakened joints, losing muscle strength, etc.

Eat Enough Protein

A proper diet goes a long way when it comes to your entire body health. So to keep up with your body’s nutrition and muscle health, eat more protein along with a balanced meal that includes loads of fiber, healthy fats and carbs.

Get Your Eyes Checked

Having poor eyesight can be difficult, not only does it make life difficult without glasses, but it also increases the possibilities of getting into minor accidents like bumping into people and missing objects placed in front of us.

Get Enough Sleep

Getting enough sleep is also important because when you are not sleeping, you get disoriented and can ignore even obvious things like the last stair in the staircase. Make sure you get enough sleep to keep you fresh and focused.

Make Your Home Safe

There are many things that can cause you to have accidents, even in your home. To avoid such falls, make sure there are no lose ends like crooked floor panels, rugs that are sticking out or protruding furniture that can hurt your knees

While fevers are often overlooked and brushed aside or even managed with antibiotics — a dangerous trend — an alarmingly nationwide study linked it to infectious diseases with far-reaching consequences.

The report, based on data of over one lakh individuals in India with fever, between 2023 and 2025, showed that these were not vague or self-limiting, but in more than 30 percent or one-third cases had clear links to serious infections, such as dengue, and typhoid.

According to the report by healthcare diagnostics company Thyrocare, the fevers were mostly linked with

• typhoid – in over 18 percent cases
• dengue -- over 14 percent cases.
• Other diseases include malaria, chikungunya, and leptospirosis.

Presence Of Multiple Infections

Importantly, the findings highlighted the presence of co-infections in 10 per cent cases. The most common was a combination of dengue and typhoid.

Dr Preet Kaur, Chief Scientific Officer, Thyrocare, said that a significant number of patients carry serious infections, sometimes more than one at a time, revealing patterns that simple assumptions cannot capture.

"Beyond the visible rise in temperature, laboratory markers highlight hidden stress on organs, from drops in platelet counts to elevated liver enzymes, underscoring that fever is a systemic signal, not an isolated event," she added.

Also read: ‘Breakbone Fever’: US CDC Warns Of Dengue Surge Across 17 Countries

Further, the report noted that dengue positivity declined significantly over the three-year report period, malaria increased despite its lower overall base.

Typhoid and chikungunya rose in 2024 before easing in 2025 but remained present across the testing population.

Also read: Drug Resistance Driving Severe Typhoid Disease, Death Among Children Under-5s in India: Lancet Study

Fever: Men Vs Women

The report noted that more women were affected with typhoid than men. On the contrary, men reported more malaria cases.

More than 32 percent of females had fevers compared to 29 percent of men. Fevers in women was largely driven by higher typhoid detection (21 percent vs 15 percent).

Malaria affected men more than twice as often as women (1.1 percent vs 0.5 percent).

The lab reports also revealed key physiological markers such as platelet counts and liver function among people with fever, dengue, and malaria.

Low platelet levels were seen in

• 27 percent of patients with fever
• 80 percent malaria positive patients
• 37 percent dengue-positive patients

• All fever patients (56 percent) showed elevated SGOT levels and 37 percent SGPT
• Liver stress was seen across patients with dengue, malaria and leptospirosis.

Dengue cases rose throughout the year and typically peaked around October.

Typhoid positivity steadily fell from 2023 to its lowest in 2025. Despite a mild monsoon spike each year, 2025 remained consistently lower overall.

Chikungunya cases rose gradually from lower, volatile levels in 2023, peaked sharply in 2024, and moderated to a softer trend in 2025.

Malaria positivity remained relatively low overall but increased during the monsoon months, with transmission peaking between May and September.

Over the three-year period, malaria positivity rose from 0.5 percent to 1.1 percent, indicating a gradual increase despite its lower overall base.

New Delhi: There is a particular kind of frustration that comes with lying in bed, physically spent after a long day, and finding that sleep simply will not arrive. The body is done. The mind is not. This experience has a name in sleep medicine, and it is becoming less of an anomaly and more of a pattern for a growing number of people.

In an interview with Health and Me, Dr Shivani Swami, Additional Director – Pulmonology, CK Birla Hospitals, Jaipur, decoded the role of cortisol in affecting sleep and rest patterns.

The explanation starts with cortisol

Stress, whether from work pressure, unresolved worry, or the accumulated friction of a demanding day, keeps cortisol levels elevated into the evening. Cortisol is the hormone that keeps the brain alert and ready to respond. It has an important job during the day. The problem arises when it does not fall away as the evening progresses, which is what stress prevents. The brain receives no signal that the threat has passed, so it stays primed. Sleep requires the opposite of primed.

Screen use in the hours before bed adds another layer. The blue light that phones, laptops, and televisions emit suppresses melatonin, which is the hormone the body uses to initiate sleep. This is not a subtle effect. It shifts the body’s internal clock, making the brain read the late evening as daytime. People who spend an hour on their phone before bed are, in physiological terms, making sleep harder to reach.

Read more: Just 3 Nights Of Poor Sleep Is Enough To Harm Your Heart Health

Irregular schedules create their own complications

The body’s circadian rhythm is calibrated by consistency. When sleep and wake times shift from one day to the next, the rhythm loses its anchor. The body cannot predict when rest is coming, so it stops preparing for it at a reliable time. This is why erratic schedules, even among people who eventually get enough total sleep hours, tend to produce poor-quality rest.

The mental dimension sits separately from all of this. A mind that is processing, planning, replaying, or anticipating does not transition easily into sleep, regardless of how exhausted the body is. The cognitive activity itself is stimulating enough to override physical fatigue. This is what produces the wired quality that makes the tiredness feel irrelevant.

Left unaddressed, the pattern compounds

Shortened or fragmented sleep affects concentration, mood, immune function, and judgement. People become harder to disturb at first and then more fragile over time as the deficit accumulates.

What interrupts the cycle is not dramatic. A consistent bedtime and wake time, maintained even when it feels inconvenient, gives the circadian rhythm something to organise around. Screens set aside an hour before bed allow melatonin to do its work. A brief wind-down practice, whether reading, stretching, or simply sitting quietly, gives the brain a transition rather than asking it to move directly from full engagement to sleep. Stress that is processed during the day through breathing, reflection, or physical activity is less likely to resurface at night looking for somewhere to go.

Read more: Struggling With Sleep? Neurologist Shares 3 Simple Tips For Better Sleep Health

The ideal sleep set-up

A cool, dark, and quiet sleep environment reduces the stimulation the brain has to work against. None of these are large interventions. The difficulty is the consistency they require, which is harder to maintain than any single habit change.

When the pattern persists despite reasonable adjustments, it warrants clinical attention. Chronic sleep disruption rarely resolves without some form of structured support, and the longer it continues, the wider its effects spread.

Healthcare in India must move beyond curative treatments to include preventive and holistic health, said experts today.

Speaking at a public health event in New Delhi, organized by the Illness to Wellness Foundation, the experts stressed the need to integrate technology, tradition, and lifestyle interventions to build a healthier, more resilient population in the country.

“Healthcare is not limited to curative treatments. It includes preventive, promotive, palliative, and rehabilitative care, much of which happens within the community,” said Rajesh Bhushan, Former Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare.

He called for building a culture of health-seeking behavior through community-focused programs and technology integration.

“Technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) can improve the efficiency and quality of healthcare delivery, when combined with systems of digital public health infrastructure, including the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM) and the Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA), which enable interoperability, longitudinal health records, and a more integrated healthcare ecosystem,” Bhushan added.

India today stands at a critical juncture in its healthcare journey. Rapid urbanization, changing lifestyles, rising stress levels, and increasing screen time are contributing to a growing burden of chronic conditions.

The experts argued that the real challenge will be to prevent disease and enable people to live healthier, longer, and more balanced lives.

Anil Rajput, Chairperson, Advisory Council, Illness to Wellness Foundation, urged for a more personalized and holistic understanding of health to build effective preventive systems.

Building Awareness On Healthcare

Dr. T S Kler, Chairman & HOD – BLK-Max Heart & Vascular Institute and Chairman Pan Max – Electrophysiology, spoke about the importance of leveraging public healthcare systems not only for treatment, but also for building awareness around health and prevention.

Amid rising cases of premature deaths linked to lifestyle risks and environmental factors, the experts advised keeping health as the foremost priority, far above all else.

"We must move towards an integrated, holistic model that combines allopathy with traditional systems of medicine, ensuring a more balanced and patient-centric approach. Equally important is the need to create greater awareness through continuous dialogue and education, as a lot can be achieved with the resources we already have,” said Dr. Kler, a Padma Bhushan awardee.

“The real shift we need is from managing disease to building a culture of health ownership. As stakeholders across sectors, our role is not just to develop systems, but to create awareness and belief that preventive and person-centric healthcare is achievable,” added Dr. Ravi Gaur, Co-Chair, FICCI Digital Health Task Force.

The event also featured a series of thematic discussions examining multiple dimensions of holistic health and well-being.

These include conversations around mental health as a critical component of productivity and daily life, with a focus on managing stress, addressing burnout, supporting students, and fostering more open and supportive environments across workplaces and educational institutions.