Dr. Rohan J. Shenoy, MBBS

Many people patients believe that jaggery is a better sweetener than refined sugar. Their reasons for such belief vary. While jaggery does contain traces of proteins, minerals like sodium, calcium, magnesium, jaggery is still 98% sugar. This '98% sugar' is the same which lands on your table as table sugar after chemical treatment for removal of unwanted colors and other elements in it. From the sugar control point of view - using jaggery instead of white sugar has no benefits. The 2% extra things like protein, sodium, calcium, magnesium, etc. do not give any benefit in sugar control. The spike in blood glucose level will be the same whether jaggery or refined sugar is used. If one wants to use jaggery instead of sugar for the reason of taste, avoiding chemically treated sugar, then its fine. But if one has expectations of better sugar control by using jaggery instead of refined sugar - then person will be disappointed. Jaggery may have numerous benefits, but better sugar contro

Many persons who have been taking benzodiazepines or other tranquilizing prescription medicines will experience withdrawal symptoms if they try to stop the medicine abruptly. Tapering-off, i.e. reducing the doses gradually is recommended. But specific details on how to taper-off are usually unavailable or inadequate. Tapering-off can be done by changing two variables, i.e, dose quantity or amount(like 2 mg, 1.5 mg, 1 mg, etc) and interval between subsequent doses(like once in a day, or twice a day). For example: A person has been taking "2 mg clonazepam a day"(Clonazepam 2 mg at once, every 24 hours) may taper as follow: He can increase the interval between doses from 24 hours to 30 hours for the first 10 doses, while maintaining the same dose, i.e. 2 mg. Reduce the dose to 1.5 mg, while keeping the interval the same, i.e. 30 hours, for the next 10 doses. Increase the interval from 30 to 36 hours while keeping dose the same, for the next 10 doses. Reduce the dose to 1 mg, whi