There's a cheap and effective way to treat childhood diarrhea. So why is it underused?

Every year, nearly 500,000 children die from an easily curable condition: diarrhea.

There's a simple and effective treatment: mixing oral rehydration salts — which are basically a mix of sugar and salt in the form of glucose and electrolytes — for the child to drink to restore the body fluids that are lost during bouts of diarrhea. It works by keeping the body hydrated. These salts are available in small plastic pouches.

But a new study published in the journal Science this month found that though doctors knew about oral rehydration salts (ORS), they just weren't prescribing them enough.

The study was conducted by researchers from RAND, the University of Southern California, Duke University and Indian Institute of Management in the Southern Indian city of Bengaluru.

, one of the study's lead authors and an economist and professor at