September commemorates the National Nutrition Month, a reminder for a greater focus on diet and nutrition, and the role it plays to help improve our overall health and wellbeing. While malnutrition can lead to many ailments, the deficiency of B vitamins may lead to nerve damage.
Results of the ‘P&G Nerve Health Survey’ conducted among 1800 respondents across 12 cities, showed that over 60% of the respondents ignore early signs of poor nerve health. However, in Bhopal, the survey brought out that 72% of respondents ignore early signs of poor nerve health, higher than the national average.
Conducted by HEAL Health and Hansa Research, and supported by Procter & Gamble Health Limited, the national survey also highlights that while over 90% of the respondents believe that healthy nerves are important, only 38% know that nerves are different from blood vessels.
“Besides other factors, people with Vitamin-B deficiencies have a higher probability for nerve impairments. Special nutritional habits or malnutrition can lead to deficiencies in certain essential vitamins, like the neurotropic-B vitamins, which play a very important role in keeping your nerves healthy and protected. Like most vitamins, B12 can’t be made by the body. Instead, it must be gotten from food and supplements. Therein lies the problem as while some people don’t consume enough vitamin B12 to meet their needs, others can’t absorb enough, no matter how much they take in. As a result, vitamin B12 deficiency is found to be relatively common, especially among older people”, says Dr Satish Khadilkar, Dean and HOD Neurology, Bombay Hospital Institute of Medical Sciences.
The P&G Nerve Health Survey was conducted towards gauging the awareness levels and perceptions about nerve health and to understand if people can identify nerve related discomforts.