One of the commonest causes of illness, a sore throat often clears up on its own, but knowing what's causing it is important to treat it properly. Viral, bacterial, or caused by allergic elements - these kinds of sore throats have different characteristics that need different responses.

Sore throats have several origins, including infection and environmental factors. Some common causes include:

Viral infections: Viruses cause 90% of sore throat cases. Sore throats may result due to flu or common cold as well as those from chickenpox and measles that can all cause irritation.

Bacterial Infections: Streptococcus bacteria, the most common cause of strep throat, is the most common bacterial source. Strep throat is contagious and can lead to complications if untreated.

Allergies: Pollen, pet dander, and mold can trigger throat irritation, often accompanied by postnasal drip, sneezing, and watery eyes.

Environmental Factors: Dry air, pollution, and smoke can dry out or irritate the throat, creating a scratchy sensation.

Other Causes: GERD, vocal strain, even tumors may be responsible for chronic sore throats.

How to Distinguish Between Viral, Bacterial, and Allergic Sore Throats

Determining your cause of sore throat requires analysis of symptoms that accompany it, how long the sore throat lasts, and how bad the sore throat is.

Viral Sore Throats

The viruses that cause a sore throat are usually similar to a cold in their symptoms and tend to be milder than bacterial infections.

Symptoms of Viral Sore Throat

- Red, swollen throat without white patches

- Persistent cough

- Runny nose and nasal congestion

- Fever, usually mild

Duration: Viral infections last for 7–10 days without antibiotics.

Treatment: Home remedies, such as warm fluids, saltwater gargling, and over-the-counter pain relievers can help alleviate it.

Also Read: Flu Season Grips 40 States In US, CDC Reports Alarming Numbers

Bacterial Sore Throats

Bacterial sore throats, mainly strep throat, are more severe and require prompt medical attention to prevent complications.

Symptoms of Bacterial Sore Throat

- Red and swollen tonsils with white patches or streaks of pus

- High fever

- Absence of a cough

- Nausea, vomiting, or stomach pain (especially in children)

- Small red spots on the roof of the mouth

Diagnosis: Rapid strep tests or throat cultures confirm the presence of bacteria.

Treatment: Antibiotics are necessary to eliminate the infection. Without treatment, complications like rheumatic fever or abscesses can develop.

Sore Throats Caused by Allergies

Throat irritation is caused by postnasal drip. Allergies create a buildup and drip of mucus down the back of the throat.

Allergic Sore Throat Symptoms

- Irritation of the throat and ears

- Runny eyes, sneezing, and nasal congestion

- These symptoms are usually relieved by antihistamines or removal from the source of the allergen

Duration: Allergic sore throats are sustained for as long as the allergens are exposed.

When to Seek Medical Care?

A sore throat should be taken to a doctor if:

- The condition lasts more than a week.

- There is shortness of breath or swallowing becomes painful.

- Swelling is too pronounced or the pain in the throat is extreme.

- High fever, rash, or joint pain occur along with the sore throat.

- A child shows signs of dehydration or refuses fluids due to throat pain.

Early diagnosis can prevent complications and speed recovery.

Effective Treatment for Sore Throats

Home Remedies for Viral and Allergy-Related Sore Throats

Viral infections and allergies often respond well to non-invasive treatments:

• Drink warm teas, broths, or water to soothe the throat.
• Gargling with warm, salty water can reduce inflammation.
• These help soothe an irritated throat and can alleviate coughing.

Let your body rest sufficiently. Humidifying dry air will help keep the throat moist, especially when winter is on its way.

Why Not All Sore Throats Require Antibiotics?

Bacterial infections require antibiotics such as penicillin or amoxicillin. Finish the treatment completely to avoid reoccurrence or resistance.

How to Keep Sore Throats at Bay When Winter Is Near

Prevention is better than cure, and simple lifestyle changes can reduce your risk:

• Wash your hands frequently to avoid infections.
• Avoid close contact with sick individuals.
• Use air purifiers to minimize exposure to irritants.
• Stay hydrated and maintain a balanced diet to boost immunity.

Understanding the cause of your sore throat—whether viral, bacterial, or allergic—is key to effective treatment and recovery. While many sore throats resolve on their own, seeking timely medical advice for persistent or severe symptoms can prevent complications. Prioritize self-care, and don’t hesitate to consult a doctor when needed. Remember, your throat’s health is a vital part of your overall well-being.

If you regularly drink your tea or coffee “very hot,” you may be at three times higher risk of developing a type of esophageal cancer, according to a new study.

The team found that drinking hot beverages at very high temperatures may increase the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), which forms in the mucosal lining of the food pipe.

Very Hot Drinks Linked To Higher Cancer Risk

Studies in Asia, Africa, South America and the Middle East have consistently shown that drinking tea or mate (a herbal drink) at very high temperatures (around 70°C) increases esophageal cancer risk. However, evidence has been limited for drink temperatures typically consumed in Western populations.

To explore this, a team at Oxford analyzed data from around 980,000 UK adults and tracked their health records for more than 10 years to see whether they developed esophageal SCC.

Also read: Why You Suddenly Can’t Tolerate Foods You Once Ate Easily

Compared with people who reported drinking their beverages “warm,” those who preferred their drinks “hot” had nearly twice the risk of esophageal SCC, while those who drank them “very hot” had a three times higher risk.

The findings “add to existing evidence that drinking very hot drinks could increase the risk of esophageal squamous cell carcinoma,” said Dr Keren Papier, lead researcher and senior nutritional epidemiologist at Oxford Population Health.

It’s The Temperature, Not Tea Or Coffee

But does the beverage matter? No, the study did not find that consuming tea and coffee increased the risk of esophageal SCC. Instead, the risk was associated with the temperature of any hot beverage consumed.

“Our findings suggest that reducing drink temperature in populations where tea and coffee are frequently consumed could offer an important means of SCC prevention,” the researchers said.

How Could Very Hot Drinks Raise Cancer Risk?

It is unclear how higher drink temperatures may affect esophageal cancer risk. However, existing evidence suggests that very hot drinks may damage the lining of the esophagus, which, over time, can increase the chance of cancer.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) also classifies drinking very hot beverages above 65°C as “probably carcinogenic” to people.

What Is Esophageal Cancer?

Read More: Attention Ladies: More Than 5 Cups Of Coffee Linked To Lower Bone Density; Tea May Help

The esophagus is a long, hollow tube that helps move swallowed food from the back of the throat to the stomach for digestion. Esophageal cancer is a malignant tumor in the food pipe and primarily affects people over the age of 55.

Lifestyle factors that may predispose a person to esophageal cancer include tobacco use, alcohol consumption, chronic acid reflux, obesity, and poor diet choices.

In the UK, there is a 1% lifetime risk of being diagnosed with esophageal SCC.

How Can You Reduce Your Risk?

While the evidence linking hot drinks to cancer risk is still evolving, there are proven ways to reduce the risk of esophageal SCC.

“The most important ways to reduce the risk of this cancer type are not smoking and cutting down on alcohol,” said Fiona Osgun, head of health information at Cancer Research UK. Letting your tea or coffee to cool down a little before taking a sip, may be a good idea.

An eclectic approach combines therapeutic frameworks according to an individual's symptoms, personality, developmental history, cultural and socioeconomic context, coping patterns and readiness for change—while keeping the therapeutic relationship and client participation central to recovery.

Psychological difficulties rarely exist in isolation. Anxiety, depression, relationship difficulties or trauma-related symptoms may be influenced by cognitive patterns, emotional regulation, personality, developmental experiences, relationships and social circumstances.

This is why psychotherapy cannot always follow a single therapeutic model. Eclectic therapy allows clinicians to draw from established approaches such as CBT, psychodynamic therapy, trauma-informed interventions, attachment-based approaches, emotion-focused work, mindfulness and behavioural strategies, based on the individual's clinical needs.

Importantly, eclectic therapy is not an arbitrary combination of techniques. Each intervention should have a clinical rationale and be linked to the individual's psychological formulation.

Treatment begins with understanding the individual

A clinical formulation considers more than symptoms or diagnosis. Personality factors, developmental history, attachment patterns, family dynamics, cultural expectations, socioeconomic circumstances and social identities may all influence how psychological distress develops and is maintained.

For example, the same anxiety symptoms may reflect perfectionism and conditional self-worth in one person, while being associated with attachment insecurity or previous adverse experiences in another.

Therapeutic readiness is also important. A client experiencing significant trauma-related dysregulation may initially require safety, stabilisation, psychoeducation and emotional regulation before deeper trauma processing is appropriate.

Also read: Teachers' Day 2026: How Teachers Shape Students’ Mental Health

Previous coping attempts are clinically relevant

People often arrive in therapy after already trying to manage their difficulties through self-help, lifestyle changes, support from family or friends, boundary-setting or previous therapy.

These efforts should not be dismissed simply because they were unsuccessful. Understanding what the person tried, what helped, what did not and why provides valuable information for case formulation and treatment planning.

Coping mechanisms such as avoidance, perfectionism, emotional suppression or reassurance-seeking may also have served a protective function at an earlier stage. Therapy therefore focuses not merely on labelling a behaviour as maladaptive, but on understanding its function and developing more adaptive alternatives.

Also read: Mental Health Emergency Visits Among Children Aged 6-9 Rise 62% In England

How eclectic therapy may look in practice

Relationship difficulties: A client who becomes highly distressed by emotional distance in relationships may require a combination of attachment-based psychoeducation, emotion-regulation strategies, cognitive and behavioural interventions, alongside exploration of earlier relational experiences.

Emotional disconnection: A high-functioning client who feels emotionally numb may require less emphasis on problem-solving and greater focus on emotional awareness, intellectualisation, experiential work and exploration of how emotions have historically been managed.

Cultural and social context: Anxiety or depression in a client navigating family expectations, sexuality, gender, financial pressures or minority stress cannot always be understood solely through individual psychological processes. Cognitive, emotional, relational and contextual factors may need to be addressed together.

Therapy is a collaborative process

The therapist provides clinical expertise, psychological formulation, therapeutic skills and appropriate challenge, but the client remains an active participant in the therapeutic process and recovery.

This may involve reflecting on patterns, practising skills between sessions, experimenting with new behaviours and communicating openly about what is or is not working. This responsibility should not be confused with blame; therapy is a collaborative process in which the therapist provides guidance while the client gradually develops greater agency in managing their psychological wellbeing.

The therapeutic relationship remains central. Respect, psychological safety and appropriate therapeutic challenge are particularly important in trauma-informed practice. Respecting a client's history does not mean agreeing with every decision; it means understanding the experiences and circumstances within which those decisions were made.

Eclectic therapy recognises that psychological difficulties are multidimensional and that individuals differ in their personality, history, circumstances, coping mechanisms and capacity for change.

The central clinical question is therefore not simply which therapy works? but which therapeutic approach is most appropriate for this individual, for this difficulty, at this stage of treatment?

When grounded in clinical formulation and evidence-informed practice, eclectic therapy provides flexibility without losing therapeutic structure—allowing treatment to address the person rather than simply the presenting symptom.

Recent reports of more than 7,000 people aged 18 to 25 testing HIV positive in Karnataka have put the spotlight on HIV among India's younger population.

The development has prompted the Karnataka government to expand HIV awareness, counselling, and voluntary testing initiatives across colleges. But the numbers raise a bigger question: are young people actually seeing higher HIV transmission, or are more infections simply being detected?

In an exclusive conversation with HealthandMe, Dr. Ishwar Gilada, President Emeritus, AIDS Society of India and a globally acclaimed HIV/STI/infectious diseases expert, sheds light on the recent trends and patterns of HIV cases in India in the last few years. He also explained the shifting nature of HIV awareness, sexual behaviour, testing and prevention in India.

Factors Driving HIV Risk Among Young Population

1. The Cohort Effect

According to the doctor, India's HIV epidemic initially showed a steady increase after the first cases were identified in 1986 until at least 2005. He said cases were static from 2005 to 2010 and even started going down till 2020. He said that we started seeing an increase again in the last five to six years.

The doctor attributed the sudden increase in cases to what he described as a “cohort effect” which is affecting people born around or after 2000.

He explains, "Cohort affects those who are born, whom we call millennium babies, who are born either in 2000 or after that. Millennium babies, who are now 20-25 are more vulnerable."

2. Lack of HIV Awareness Campaigns

The doctor believes another reason could be that young people today were not exposed to the intensive HIV awareness campaigns that existed during the early 2000s.

He says, “They are vulnerable because high-profile campaigns for HIV awareness were there from around 2000 to 2005. After that, they stopped as improved HIV treatment started.”

Also read: Thailand’s HIV Cases Cross 550,000 In 2026; Over 25,000 Among 15–24s

3. Changing Sexual Behaviour

The doctor said another important factor is the changing nature of sexual relationships and how people perceive risk.

“Earlier it was believed that if you frequent red light areas, you may pick up HIV from sex workers. But young people say that we don't go to red light areas.”

According to the doctor, this perception can be misleading because sexual contact can occur in many different settings like massage parlours where one may also have access to services related to sex work.

He also pointed towards sexual relationships involving multiple partners. He says that there is a lot of interpersonal sexual contact happening and without any commitment with unknown partners. He says, "They do not consider them either self or that person at risk.”

He also highlighted HIV risk among homosexual men. He says, "After Section 377 has been repealed, same sex among has become more frequent. They do not consider themselves to be at high risk because they think that they are not having sex with the female or a sex worker.”

4. PrEP And PEP Awareness Are Misunderstood

The doctor also raised an interesting concern about growing awareness of HIV prevention medicines like PrEP and PEP.

“There is awareness about PEP, post-exposure prophylaxis, and pre-exposure prophylaxis. So what they started thinking even if we take a risk, there is a PEP available. If we have to take a risk, we can take a PrEP and we can have a medicine and then we can have sex.”

He also said people may selectively use prevention based on how risky they believe another person appears. The result, he said, is a potentially dangerous mismatch between perceived risk and actual risk.

5. Stigma May Stop People From Testing And Taking Treatment

The fear of being identified as someone living with HIV can become a barrier to diagnosis and treatment. For younger people, the problem can be even more difficult because they may live with their families and have little privacy. The doctor said society needs to recognise that HIV is now a manageable infection.

“Society has to accept that this is now infection, manageable, better than diabetes, better than many other diseases.”

He also argued that stigma is not confined to the public. “We have to blame medical community.”

He alleged that in healthcare, patients continue to get treated differently. He recalled a case involving one of his patients who was hospitalised.

He says, “One of my patients told me they wrote they had written HIV positive on my bed when I was hospitalised. So, if this is the way you are discriminating, that person won't be maintaining his anonymity of HIV that he did for 25 years.”

Also read: Tivicay: US FDA Approves Drug to Treat HIV In Newborns

How To Prevent HIV Transmission?

1. HIV Self-Testing Should Be Improved

The doctor identified HIV self-testing as one area where he believes India's programme could be strengthened. He says, “One of the flaws of the national program is home HIV testing kit is not allowed in the program. Though you can buy the home testing kit on Amazon,it is not available in the program. So marginalised people will not get tested.”

He also raised concerns about the price of commercially available kits. He says kits that cost Rs 700 to 800 must not priced more than Rs 100 to 200.

2. Limited Access To PrEP

PrEP, or pre-exposure prophylaxis, was another area the doctor believes requires greater attention. “PrEP is not part of the national program,” he said, adding that PrEP has been approved in India but is not sufficiently integrated into the public programme. He said if this is fixed, people who are not aware of their HIV status will also try to find out.

3. HIV Stigma Remains A Major Problem

One of the strongest messages the doctor gives is how HIV treatment has changed dramatically, but it is still stigmastised. He explained that treatment can also suppress the virus to the point where sexual transmission does not occur.

He says, “HIV treatment is so powerful that a person with HIV can stay alive for as much as the normal lifespan of any person in the.” But while treatment has transformed HIV medically, the doctor said society has not kept pace. “Currently, the major killer, if at all, we can call, is the stigma and discrimination.”

Also read: Unlicensed Injection Business Sparks Health Alert In Canada: How HIV & Hepatitis Spread Through Medical Procedures

4. People Should Not Wait For Symptoms

Another important point the doctor stressed is that HIV can remain clinically silent for years. But as the immune system becomes progressively weakened, the person becomes vulnerable to infections that would ordinarily be easier for the body to fight.

“Talking about symptoms, when virus multiplies initially, the person will have no symptoms. It takes two to four years, five or even 10 years' time. If you wait till you fall sick, then a lot of valuable time will pass.”

His message was therefore to test and start treatment before advanced immune damage occurs.

5. Prevention Should Go Beyond Awareness

When asked about prevention, the doctor divided it into pharmacological and non-pharmacological approaches. He emphasised upon safe sex and reducing exposure to multiple sexual partners.

The larger lesson from his interview is that HIV prevention cannot depend on a single intervention. It requires testing, treatment, condoms, PrEP and PEP where appropriate, harm-reduction measures, awareness and, perhaps most importantly, an environment where people are not afraid to seek care.

The Bigger HIV Challenge

India has made significant progress against HIV over the past several decades. The government has reported substantial reductions in new HIV infections since 2010, while the National AIDS Control Programme continues to focus on prevention, testing, treatment and reducing AIDS-related mortality.

But the Karnataka numbers have brought the concern of young people's vulnerability to infection. The biggest challenge is no longer simply whether HIV can be treated. It is whether people will get tested early enough, have access to prevention and treatment, continue taking their medicines, and be able to live without fear of being discriminated against.