Author: Sameed Chaudhary

Mitha fruit is one of those seasonal staples that most Pakistani households know by feel and smell long before they know its English name. You’ll spot it piled high at fruit stalls in Lahore’s Liberty Market or Karachi’s Empress Market from around August to November, looking like an undersized, slightly flattened orange with a pale green skin. Vendors squeeze it fresh on the spot, and the juice disappears fast on a hot day. What makes meetha fruit interesting is a small quirk in its name. “Meetha” means sweet in Urdu, yet the fruit itself is only mildly sweet and turns…

If you are in crisis right now If you or someone you know is in immediate danger, go to your nearest emergency department or call 1122 (Rescue Pakistan). Suicidal thoughts are something many people in Pakistan carry quietly, often for months or years, without telling anyone. The shame attached to mental health struggles in our culture makes it hard to speak up. But staying silent doesn’t make the thoughts go away. A 2026 study published in Health and Social Care in the Community surveyed over 5,000 Pakistanis and found that nearly 46% had experienced suicidal thoughts at some point in…

Multan earns its nickname — the City of Saints and Sun — honestly. From May through August, temperatures regularly cross 46°C, and the combination of scorching UV rays, low humidity, and frequent dust storms creates a skin environment unlike anywhere else in Pakistan. Karachi’s problem is humidity; Multan’s is relentless dry heat layered with fine particulate dust that strips the skin’s protective barrier before noon. Residents who commute on foot or by motorbike, or who work outdoors, often notice skin changes within weeks of summer starting: a rough, tight feeling across the cheeks, dark patches around the forehead, and a…

Tap water in Karachi has a reputation that most residents know well. The pipelines are old, the sewage system leaks into supply lines in dozens of neighbourhoods, and the Karachi Water and Sewerage Corporation’s filtration plants have been running under capacity for years. What comes out of the tap is not always what you’d call safe. The consequences show up in hospitals every summer. Around 1,500 gastroenteritis patients are reported daily at Civil Hospital Karachi during peak contamination periods, with experts pointing to contaminated water as a key driver. According to the Pakistan National Conservation Strategy report, over 40 per…

Gout is one of those conditions that Pakistani patients tend to dismiss as “just joint pain” until a flare hits at 2 a.m. and the big toe feels like it is on fire. The pain comes from uric acid crystals, sharp needle-like deposits that form inside joints when blood uric acid stays too high for too long. A 2019 cross-sectional study conducted across out-patient clinics in Karachi, published in PubMed Central, found that roughly 30 out of every 100 adults tested had elevated serum uric acid levels. Men were affected nearly twice as often as women. This is not a…

That sudden, overwhelming urge for something sweet after dinner, or the way the smell of fresh samosas from a Lahore street cart makes you feel like you absolutely need one right now — that is a food craving. It is not the same as ordinary hunger, and it does not mean you have weak willpower. Food cravings are one of the most common eating challenges reported by Pakistani adults, particularly in cities where ultra-processed snacks, sugary drinks, and late-night delivery apps have become part of everyday life. A published study in a peer-reviewed journal found that Pakistani students tend to…

Badam has been part of the Pakistani morning routine for generations. Grandmothers across Lahore and Karachi have been placing a handful of almonds in water every night, long before nutrition science had a name for what they were doing. Soaking almonds overnight is one of those traditional habits that turns out to have a reasonable basis in nutrition, even if the full picture is more nuanced than most blogs let on. Pakistan imports badam from California, Iran, and Afghanistan, with American California almonds and local Gurbandi badam being the most common varieties found in Lahore’s Liberty Market or Karachi’s dry-fruit…

Late dinners are a way of life in Pakistan. Most families sit down to eat at 9 or 10 pm, chai arrives well after that, and during Ramadan the sehri meal is at 3 am. So when health advice says “don’t eat after 7 pm,” it doesn’t quite fit the reality of how Pakistanis actually live. The real question isn’t whether you eat late. It’s what happens to your body when you do, and whether the habit is causing harm you can’t see yet. The answer depends on how often it happens, how much you eat, and what your health…

Most Pakistani families talk about everything at a dawat — the food, the relatives, the latest news. What rarely comes up is who in the family had sugar (diabetes), who had a heart attack in their fifties, or whether a grandmother on the maternal side had breast cancer. That silence has a cost. Pakistan carries one of the heaviest burdens of non-communicable diseases in the region. According to the World Health Organization, non-communicable diseases account for over 58% of all deaths in Pakistan. Diabetes alone affects an estimated 33 million adults in the country, per the International Diabetes Federation’s 2021…

Waking up to a pale or white coating on your tongue is one of those things that feels alarming but is, in most cases, harmless. It is a common complaint in Pakistani clinics, particularly during the summer months when dehydration sets in fast and people reach for chai instead of water. That said, not every white tongue is the same. The coating’s texture, location, and whether it wipes off cleanly are the three things that tell a doctor the most. A thin, even film that scrapes away easily is very different from a thick, raised patch that stays put no…