On November 7, Delhi Air Quality Index (AQI) logged its average pollution levels at 727. Previously, in 2024, on November 18, Delhi logged AQI at 795 (as per the AQI.in data, and reported by several other media outlets). Amid all this, on November 9, Delhiites, including parents, students, activists, and many more assembled at India Gate to hold a protest against the worsening AQI.

As Delhi pollution keeps worsening, it is no longer news that air pollution impacts much beyond just lungs and respiratory system of one's body. It could lead to hormonal imbalance, fertility, skin and hair problems, and even impact bone health.

The situation is of such a gravity that even doctors are now suggesting people to leave Delhi for a while, if they could afford to do so. Doctors are also suggesting people the Do's and Dont's of staying safe in this continuous worsening pollution. One such doctor is Dr Rahul Chawla, a neurologist trained at AIIMS, who, on his Instagram, posted a video where he shared 5 ways one could protect themselves from Delhi's Air Pollution.

Dr Chawla also criticized the government for not taking immediate actions. He said, "While Beijing’s AQI dropped from 754 (2013) to just 47 (2025) after strict climate action, Delhi’s air is getting worse every winter. Schools are shutting, visibility is zero, and people are literally breathing poison. Delhi is converting into a gas chamber. If lockdowns were for COVID, maybe the next one will be for air pollution.”

Also Read: Delhi Air Pollution Now Impacting Babies' Respiratory System As They Spend More Time In The Nursery, According To Doctor

Five Ways To Keep Yourself Safe

As city becomes 'gas chambers' one needs to be a step ahead to ensure their own safety. Here's what they can do:

Stay Indoors

Dr Chawla suggested that one should stay indoors as much as possible. "You can open the windows and doors only between 1 and 3pm in the day, when you feel that the sun is bright, so that the house gets proper ventilation," he said.

Why 1pm to 3pm is the only time he suggests to have exposure with air? As per a 2023 study by an air filter brand, Delhi's air pollution peaked at 9AM and gradually improved as the day progressed. On an average, Delhi sees roughly as half as much PM2.5 by 5PM. Similarly, in Kolkata, the pollution peaks at 8am and is lowered by 4PM. This is why the safest time to have any sort of air exposure is in the afternoon. Pollution levels also tend to be slightly lower in the afternoon because it is when the sun is at its peak. This heats the ground and causes warm air to rise and mix with atmosphere. This helps disperse pollutants.

He also advised against cleaning inside the house using a dry cloth, and suggested wet cloth to be in use, so that dust does not rise. "Please do not light up things inside the house like burning dhoop (incense for worship), agarbatti (incense sticks), or anything else that causes excessive smoke,” he said.

Use N95 Mask

“If there are elderly people at home, do not let them go for morning walks or evening walks, and if there are children, do not let them play in the park. Exercise at home. You can go up and down the stairs. You can do yoga. If you have a treadmill or a stationary bike at home, you can exercise with it. You can do weightlifting,” he said. However, he suggested that if going out is absolutely necessary, then one must wear N-95 mask properly before stepping out.

Air Purifier

“If you can afford an air purifier, buy one. But keep in mind that the air purifier you are buying should be appropriate for the size of your room,” the neurologist advised.

Work From Home

The neurologist also suggested that if your company permits it, seek work from home option to reduce your exposure from toxic air.

Leave Delhi

Lastly, he suggested that if people can afford, and their profession allows, they must leave Delhi for a few weeks. “Because this city has become a gas chamber,” he warned.

Note: This article is not a medical advice and the information is derived from the video shared by the doctor. Please seek advice from your doctor before making any changes in your lifestyle.

Health and Me had previously reported about the findings from an unpublished study that linked the long use of melatonin, a sleep inducing hormone, and often used as a supplement for the same with heart failures. However, experts are now asking the public to not panic. Their message is simple: this early research is not a reason to toss out your melatonin just yet.

The study, based on health records from more than 130,000 adults with chronic insomnia, found that people who took prescription melatonin for over a year had a higher likelihood of heart failure, hospitalization and death over a five year period compared with those who didn’t take the supplement.

However, the experts who are now reviewing the findings say that the research has major gaps and should be seen as an initial sign and not as a definitive warning.

This Is Not A Melatonin Crisis

As reported by the Washington Post, the spokesperson for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, Dr Muhammad Rishi, who reviewed the research, called the findings "provocative". However, Dr Rishi stressed that electronic health records can’t establish cause and effect. Other cardiologists echoed the sentiment, noting that melatonin has long been considered safe and even potentially beneficial for heart health because of its antioxidant properties.

This study, they say, is the first to suggest the opposite. One study alone is not enough to overturn years of research, especially when it hasn’t yet undergone peer review.

Joyce Oen-Hsiao, a Yale cardiologist, pointed out that people with chronic insomnia often have elevated risks for heart problems even without medication. Poor sleep itself raises heart rate, disrupts blood pressure and increases cardiovascular risk. So it’s entirely possible that insomnia, not melatonin, is the real culprit behind the outcomes seen.

What Did The Study Do In Its Analysis?

Researchers analyzed an international electronic-health-records database, looking at adults diagnosed with insomnia. About half had a record of being prescribed melatonin and reported taking it for at least a year.

Across five years, roughly 3,000 long-term melatonin users developed heart failure for the first time, compared with nearly 1,800 people listed as nonusers. The team matched melatonin users with nonusers to account for age, sex and other health conditions.

But here’s the catch that experts keep flagging: the “nonuser” group probably included plenty of people who did take over-the-counter melatonin but didn’t mention it to their doctors. In the United States, melatonin is sold as a supplement, not a regulated drug, so people often take it without any record in their medical file.

That alone, experts say, could skew the results.

The dose information was also missing, and researchers couldn’t tell whether the prescription melatonin actually improved users’ sleep. If someone continues to struggle with severe insomnia even while taking melatonin, the underlying sleep disorder could be driving heart risks, not the supplement.

Melatonin: To Continue Or Not To Continue

As per experts, you should not discontinue taking your medicines by just basing it off the study. The key is of course to speak to your doctor. However, no one is recommending widespread discontinuation. Experts, instead, are asking people to stay calm, informed, and talk to a doctor if they’ve been using melatonin for a long time, especially at high doses or if they already have heart disease risk factors.

NHS has now issued a "flu jab SOS" as fears grow that the flu cases will add up to a brutal winter. While it is every winter that the flu strikes, this year, there is something different. A seasonal flu usually mutates in the summer and thus evade some of our immunity, which may have kicked in early flu season before. A seasonal flu is thus a type that has a history of being more severe.

All thanks to flu staying all round the year, flu experts have now said that they won't be shocked if this flu season becomes the worst flu season for a decade.

Professor Nicola Lewis, the director of the World Influenza Center at the Francis Crick Institute told BBC, "We haven't seen a virus like this for a while, these dynamics are unusual. It does concern me, absolutely. I'm not panicking, but I am worried."

What Is Happening To Flu Season This Year?

Scientists have been able to track the evolution of influenza viruses because they mutate constantly, and thus the flu vaccines have to be updated every year to keep up. The evolution happens in a rhythm which is known as the "shift and drift". Most of the time the virus undergoes a minor change, however, every often there is also a sudden attempt for an abrupt shift as the virus keeps mutating.

Prof Derek Smith, who heads the Centre for Pathogen Evolution at the University of Cambridge, says seven mutations in a strain of the H3N2 seasonal flu have caused a rapid rise in cases involving this altered version of the virus.

Unusually, this spike happened outside the typical flu season, right in the middle of the northern hemisphere’s summer. “It will almost certainly spread worldwide, and quickly,” says Prof Smith. By September, once schools reopened and temperatures began to fall, cases started rising again.

Experts are still studying the exact impact of the mutations, but they likely help the virus slip past some of the immunity people have developed from past infections and vaccines. This makes it easier for the virus to infect and spread, which is why flu season has arrived early in the UK and countries like Japan.

If the virus spreads more easily, it doesn’t need to wait for cold winter conditions, when people stay indoors with closed windows, to trigger flu season. “We’re already far ahead,” says Prof Lewis. “This is likely to be a strong flu season.”

Using R numbers as a guide, the new mutated strain appears to have an advantage. Seasonal flu normally has an R value of about 1.2, but this year’s early estimates put it closer to 1.4. That means if 100 people were infected, they would typically spread it to 120 others, but this year that number could be around 140.

Could This Be The Worst Flu Season?

Professor Christophe Fraser, from the Pandemic Sciences Institute at the University of Oxford told BBC, "It's highly likely it's going to be a bad flu season and it's going to happen quite soon, we're already well into it. There are indicators that this could be worse than some of the flu seasons we've seen in the last 10 years."

In a normal flu season, about one in five people get infected, but that number could be higher this year, he warns. Still, there’s a lot of uncertainty around these predictions.

Many look to Australia for hints, since it saw its worst flu season on record, although it was dealing with a different H3N2 strain than the one spreading now.

Right now, the virus is circulating rapidly among children, especially in schools where germs spread easily. But the immunity of a 10-year-old is very different from that of an older adult, who has lived through many more flu seasons and carries different immune memory.

Because of this, experts will be watching closely as infections begin to move into older age groups in the coming weeks.

Smoking is the leading cause of lung cancer. As per the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), US, nearly 9 in 10 lung cancer deaths are caused by smoking, furthermore, the American Lung Association also suggests that 85 to 90% of all lung cancer cases happen due to smoking. However, recent cases have seen a rise in lung cancer even in those who do not smoke. This is such a case of a 31-year-old woman from Ghaziabad, who never smoked in her life, and then she coughed up blood.

While initially she was given some drugs which had given her some relief, she was soon complaining of a chest pain. She feared she had a lung infection and went to clinic of Dr Arvind Kumar, chairman, Lung Transplant, Chest Surgery and Oncosurgery at Medanta, Gurugram, as reported by The Indian Express.

“An X-ray showed a mass in the upper part of her left lung. A biopsy confirmed stage 2 lung cancer, a treatable window. She is disease-free and has returned to work but her case shows a disturbing trend,” said the doctor.

Lung Cancer Is No Longer A Smoker's But A Breather's Disease

"Younger non-smokers are being diagnosed. And there are as many women as men. This indicates that lung cancer is no longer a smoker’s but a breather’s disease. While we talk of particulate matter, the ambient air in the urban environment is full of carcinogenic gases. And this is emerging as a real threat to everybody," the doctor said. The doctor also pointed out that especially in non-smokers the diagnosis may come even at a later stage as they usually never think of cancer because they have never smoked. "Luckily my patient had made the right call at the first stop. Most patients don't," he said.

Is Pollution The Reason For Cancer In Non Smokers?

People talk about prevention and wearing masks in public places. We breathe 25,000 times a day, which makes it difficult to wear a mask all day. Besides, a mask only stops particulate matter, which is minor protection considering that carcinogens come in gaseous form. Be it benzene, ethylene oxide, radon, ozone, all are triggers,” explained Dr Kumar. He also highlighted that Ghaziabad is in fact one of India's most polluted cities and this could be linked to cancer.

Studies show that PM2.5 — the tiny particles smaller than 2.5 micrometers — can carry harmful substances like sulphates, organic chemicals, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, and heavy metals. These toxins are known carcinogens, and long-term exposure to them can significantly increase the risk of lung cancer.

Back To The Patient

The doctor revealed that one of her lobes was affected and localized, thus the doctors chose minimally invasive methods. "Her biopsy revealed her cancer to be moderately aggressive, so we followed it up with chemotherapy, which kills any hidden and remnant cancer cells. She was given up to six cycles. Over the years, data has shown that about 30 to 55 per cent of lung cancer patients die because of recurrence post-surgery. That’s why now we consider lung cancer to be a widespread disease from Day 1. And recommend post-surgery chemotherapy," he explained.

The woman was able to go to work after three to four weeks and physiotherapy, a high-calorie, high-protein diet also helped her recover fast. Her breath holding time too exceeded 40 seconds and tests showed that all her six lymph nodes were safe and that cancer had not spread there.