BURLINGTON, MA—More than 1,200 people attended Health & Wellness 2014, which highlighted 40 speakers, moderators and workshop instructors and covered a wide range of health issues from various perspective—ranging from traditional to alternative medicine and from yoga, meditation and dance workshops to breathing exercises.

“The phenomenal success of our second annual Health & Wellness Expo 2014 confirmed our belief that our community wants and needs such quality medical educational event,” said Dr. Manju Sheth, who chaired the conference. “Along with the expected success of talks on traditional medicine, we were very glad to see a great response to our introduction of health workshops, dental, alternative and holistic medicine segments also.”

Dr. Sheth said organizers of the expo also received invaluable feedback and suggestions from the attendees and speakers and they all will be incorporated into the next year’s Health & Wellness Expo 2015.

“We are thrilled and excited to have also been approached by leaders in medical world who want to collaborate with us and and support us to take this Expo to the next level in 2015,” said Dr. Sheth. “From the bottom of our heart, we would like to thank all the participants, speakers and volunteers who put hundreds of hours in this conference.”

More than 1,200 people attended the conference, which divided into four rooms: exhibition hall, conference room, and two rooms dedicated to health workshops. Anu Chitrapu, Senior Vice President at Bank of America and President of Vision Aid, an organization that serves the visually challenged, served as the leader of the workshop segment at the Health Expo.

Dr. Anju Nohria, who spoke about “Heart Disease in South Asian Women,” said South Asian women are at increased risk of coronary artery disease, stroke, and heart failure. She said major risk factors include obesity. “Early detection and lifestyle modification can prevent development of CVD,” she said adding that one of the measures women should avoid is excessive weight gain in pregnancy. “Breast feeding helps lose weight after pregnancy,” Dr. Nohria added.

Dr. Salil Midha said that number one cause of death in the world for both males and females is heart disease. “More people die of heart disease than due to cancer and accidents combined. Recent treatments have lowered the mortality significantly due to the heart disease.”

Dr. Sanjiv Chopra, Professor of Medicine and Faculty Dean for Continuing Medical Education at Harvard Medical School, was the keynote speaker and spoke about “Dharma, Happiness and Living with Purpose.”

“The concept of Dharma is at the core of Hinduism, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism. It is hard to define but in essence it is the distillation of right action, duty, ethos, moral compass, vocation, authenticity and truth,” said Dr. Chopra.

Health sessions were moderated by Apurv Gupta, Dr. Mina Paul, Dr. Seema Arora, Dr. Sapna Aggarwal and Pratibha Shah.

Here are the list of speakers and workshop participants and their topics:

DR. Dinesh Patel: Conservative and Surgical Management of Arthritis in Knee and Hip.
Dr. Salil Midha: Heart Disease, Prevention, Ethnic Differences and Management.
DR. Anju Nohria: Heart Disease in South Asian Women.
DR. Om Ganda: Diabetes in Asian Indians: Impact of New Research on Prevention, Treatment, and Healthy Living.
Dr. Neela Gandhi: Oral Health is Overall Health.
Dr. Amit Lala: Orthodontics and Aesthetics.
Dr. Anubha Sacheti: Happy, Healthy Teeth: A Guide to Children’s Oral Health.
Dr. Sonal Pandya: Non-Invasive Anti-Aging and Body Contouring and Aesthetic Rejuvenation of the Face and Body.
Kumkum Pareek Malik: Motherhood, Emotional Well-Being and Mental Health.
Dr. Sailaja Reddy: Food Choice, Life-Style Modifications and Health.
Sangeeta Pradhan: Diabetes and Indian Diet.
Kavita Chhiber: Energy healing.
Jay Gupta: Yoga.
Sneh Jaisingh: Demystifying Detox Myths.
Shraddha Oza: Physical Therapy.
Pratibha Shah: Role of Ayurveda in the 21st Century.
Ritu Kapur: Yoga for Healthy and Pain-Free Back.
Geeta Vallecha: Zumba & Fitness.
Shikha Bajpai: Bollywood Dance Workshop with Fitness & Health Twist.
Shiv Mundkur: Balanced and Holistic Approach to Health.
Meenu Singh: Hypnosis and Health
Dhanashree Ramachandran: The Science of Yogic Breath: Using Yogic breath to counter stress and increase wellness.
Nikita Rao: Bollywood Dance and Fitness.
Abhilas Barot: Skincare.
Pushpa Karna and Jhuma Biswas: Homeopathy.
Shanthi Yogini: Yoga-Dance-Story Alchemy.
Naresh Parmar: Medicine from a Patient’s Perspective.
Kaplesh Kumar: A New Approach to Analyzing Treating and Managing Disease.
Chetan Mepani: Health Care Proxy and Living Will.
Paresh Motiwala: Work-Life Balance Issues.

The free Health Expo was organized by INDIA New England News, the region’s largest and oldest print and online newspaper serving the South Asian community and was sponsored by Harvard Pilgrim HealthCare, Emerson Hospital, Beth Israel Deaconess Health Care, Bournewood Health Systems, The Mishra Group, Inc. and the Burlington Marriott Hotel.