A Comparative Clinical Study of Triphaladi Taila Abhyanga and Triphala Choorna Udhvartana in the management of Sthaulya

Obesity is considered as global epidemic which is increasing due to sedentary life styles and improved socio economic conditions. It has reached epidemic proportions in India in the 21st century with morbidity effecting 5% of the country’s population. If not treated it may lead to several complications like Diabetes, hypertension, atherosclerosis, heart diseases, arthritis, infertility etc. and diminishes the efficiency and happiness of those affected. Obesity is a condition in which there is an excessive accumulation of fat in the body. This disease is a metabolic disease generally occurring in affluent societies. Acharya Charaka has classified Sthaulya as one among Astaninditas producing Daruna Vikaras and even deaths. Presently available treatment modalities do have their own limitations and adverse effects and not giving satisfactory results in the treatment of obesity. Hence present study was undertaken to explore the efficacy of Ayurvedic therapies and formulations like Triphaladi Taila having Medohara properties mentioned by Chakradatta and Triphala Choorna having Kaphahara properties mentioned by Sharangadhara. 30 patients of Staulya were randomly selected, allocated in two groups of 15 patients each. Group A were subjected to Triphala Choorna Udhvartana for 14 days and group B were subjected to Triphaladi Taila Abhyanga for 14 days. The patients were assessed with severity of symptoms subjectively and objectively before and after treatment. Data from each group were statistically analysed and compared. Both the groups showed marked results but Triphaladi Taila Abhyanga gave better results than Triphala Choorna Udhvartana in the management of Sthaulya

Waterlogging and salinity management in the Sindh Province. Volume 1 - The irrigated landscape: resource availability across the hydrological divides

Irrigation management / River basins / Irrigated farming / Climate / Irrigation systems / Irrigation canals / Discharges / Water balance / Waterlogging / Salinity / Groundwater development / Tube wells / Water table / Drainage / Public sector / Land reclamation / Pakistan / Sindh Province / Indus Basin / Rohri / Larkana / Shikarpur / Hairdin / North Dadu / Ghotki / East Khairpur / Sukkur Barrage

Identification of resistant sources to Groundnut Bud Necrosis Disease (GBNB) in Groundnut (Arachis hypogaea L.) genotypes

Groundnut Bud Necrosis Disease (GBND) caused by Groundnut Bud Necrosis Virus (GBNV) has been considered as one of the major virus diseases in Andhra Pradesh. Survey conducted in groundnut growing areas of Anantapur district during kharif and rabi 2013-14 and in Karimnagar and Warangal districts during rabi 2013-14 season revealed the natural occurrence of GBND in different mandals with an overall average incidence of 3.47 per cent. Higher incidence of GBND was observed in Anantapur (8.50 per cent) followed by Karimnagar (0.97 per cent) and Warangal (0.94 per cent) districts. Groundnut cultivar K-6 was grown extensively in all the districts surveyed. The infected groundnut leaf samples collected from Anantapur district tested positive when subjected to DAC-ELIS

STANDARDISATION AND HPTLC METHOD DEVELOPMENT OF MARKETED AYURVEDIC FORMULATION – BALARISHTA

Objective: The present study aims to standardize four marketed brands of Balarishta, an Ayurvedic formulation viz. Baidyanath-Balarishta (BB), Dabur-Balarishta (DB), Zandu-Balarishta (ZB) and Nagarjuna-Balarishta (NB) with respect to their physicochemical (organoleptic properties, pH, specific gravity, total solid content, ethanol content, reducing and non-reducing sugar content), phytochemical and microbial parameters (total bacterial count, total fungal count and test for specific pathogens viz. P. aeruginosa, E. coli and S. aureus). It also aims to develop and validate a new highperformance thin layer chromatography (HPTLC) method for simultaneous determination of three major phytoconstituents present in Balarishta viz. withaferin A, gallic acid and ephedrine.Methods: ‘Protocol for testing Ayurveda, Siddha and Unani medicines' was used as a reference for conducting standardization experiments. HPTLC method was developed on Camag Linomat-5 using silica gel 60 GF254 as the stationary phase and Toluene: Chloroform: n-propanol: Ethanol: Formic acid (6: 3: 1: 2: 1, v/v/v/v/v) as the mobile phase. The analytical method validation studies were performed as per International Conference on Harmonization-Quality (ICH-Q2 (R1)) guidelines.Results: The results of standardisation tests obtained were compared with specifications mentioned in ‘Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India 2008 Volume 2, Part 2' and a comparative data of each Balarishta formulation was generated for all the quality control parameters performed. A new, accurate, precise and robust HPTLC method was successfully developed with Retardation factor (Rf) of 0.17±0.02, 0.35±0.01 and 0.54±0.02 for ephedrine, gallic acid and withaferin A respectively.Conclusion: The results of this research work will serve as a valuable quality tool for routine quality control analysis of Balarishta formulations.Keywords: Balarishta, Standardisation, Withaferin A, Gallic acid, Ephedrine and HPTLC

Towards Pharmacovigilance Using Machine Learning To Identify Unknown Adverse Reactions Triggered By Drug-Drug Interaction

Adverse Drug Reactions (ADRs) are a major cause of morbidity and mortality in world. There is thus a growing need of methods facilitating the automated detection of drugs-related ADR; especially ADRs that were not known from clinical trials but later arise due to drug-drug interactions. In this research our goal is to discover the severe unknown Adverse Drug Reactions caused by a combination of drugs, also known as Drug-Drug-Interaction. We propose to use Association Rule Mining to find the ADRs caused by using a combination of drugs yet not known to be caused if these drugs were taken individually. For evaluation, we will test out the proposed strategies on real-world medical data extracted from the spontaneous adverse drug reaction reporting system called FAERS. The results mined by our tool will be checked both manually by literature review and then verified by domain experts for interestingness and accuracy

Text Mining From Drug Surveillance Report Narratives

Analysis of postmarket drug surveillance reports is imperative to ensure drug safety and effectiveness. FAERS (FDA Adverse Event Reporting System) is a surveillance system that monitors Adverse Events (AEs) from drugs and biologic products. The AEs are reported through MedWatch voluntary reports (initiated from patients and healthcare providers) and mandatory reports (initiated from manufacturers). Much of the information in the voluntary AE reports is narratives or unstructured text. The increasing volume of individual reports, estimated at more than one million per year, poses a challenge for the staff to review large volume of narratives for drug clinical review. We are developing a computational approach using Natural Language Processing and UMLS MetaMap biomedical software to parse the narratives, recognize named-entities in the text and extract consumer/patient and related drug indications and adverse drug reaction information. The goal is to develop a text mining tool that automatically extracts relevant information from the report narratives which can be stored in pre-defined data fields in the FAERS database for efficient searching and querying during clinical review process

An audit on hospital management of bronchial asthma

Medical audit is a new concept in developing countries like Pakistan. We carried out this retrospective study on bronchial asthma. The purpose was to see if care given to patient with asthma meets the accepted international standard or not. During this audit several deficiencies were found. Documentation in notes about signs indicating severity of asthma was very poor. Peak flow recording in the notes was also very deficient. There was no documentation in notes whether inhalers technique of the patients has been checked or not. This audit shows that care given to asthma patients is far from satisfactory and we clearly need to improve in order to reach the accepted international standards