Hypertension and associated risk factors in some selected rural areas of Bangladesh

Background:Although, Bangladesh has the ninth highest rate of age-standardized rates of deaths due to chronic diseases, mostly due to cardiovascular diseases and diabetes. There is scanty literature on the estimated burden, and the determinants of hypertension in the rural areas of Bangladesh.Methods:This facility based cross-sectional survey was conducted at sub-urban field research clinic from four unions of Araihazar upazilla of Narayangong district, Bangladesh. The analyses were based on 212 male and female respondents of more than 30 years of age. The prevalence of hypertension was the main outcome of interest.  Results:The study found that the prevalence of systolic hypertension among the respondents is 15.6% and that of diastolic pressure is 12.3%. Systolic pressure was found in an increasing manner with the increase of age and BMI. Tendency of increase systolic pressure was observed among those who took extra salt. Significant association was also found between increasing systolic pressure with the heart disease. No significant association was found between increasing systolic pressure with smoking habit, physical activity and vegetable intake and with the development of systemic diseases namely cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes mellitus and coronary obstetrics pulmonary disease.Conclusion:Suggestion on regular periodical health check-up especially including blood pressure monitoring and restriction of taking extra salt to all the people of age more than 30 years is recommended.

Response Ant Colony Optimization of End Milling Surface Roughness

Metal cutting processes are important due to increased consumer demands for quality metal cutting related products (more precise tolerances and better product surface roughness) that has driven the metal cutting industry to continuously improve quality control of metal cutting processes. This paper presents optimum surface roughness by using milling mould aluminium alloys (AA6061-T6) with Response Ant Colony Optimization (RACO). The approach is based on Response Surface Method (RSM) and Ant Colony Optimization (ACO). The main objectives to find the optimized parameters and the most dominant variables (cutting speed, feedrate, axial depth and radial depth). The first order model indicates that the feedrate is the most significant factor affecting surface roughness

A Prospective Study of Tobacco Smoking and Mortality in Bangladesh

Background: Limited data are available on smoking-related mortality in low-income countries, where both chronic disease burden and prevalence of smoking are increasing.Methods: Using data on 20, 033 individuals in the Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS) in Bangladesh, we prospectively evaluated the association between tobacco smoking and all-cause, cancer, and cardiovascular disease mortality during ∼7.6 years of follow-up.Cox proportional hazards models were used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for deaths from all-cause, cancer, CVD, ischemic heart disease (IHD), and stroke, in relation to status, duration, and intensity of cigarette/bidi and hookah smoking.Results: Among men, cigarette/bidi smoking was positively associated with all-cause (HR 1.40, 95% CI 1.06 1.86) and cancer mortality (HR 2.91, 1.24 6.80), and there was a dose-response relationship between increasing intensity of cigarette/bidi consumption and increasing mortality. An elevated risk of death from ischemic heart disease (HR 1.87, 1.08 3.24) was associated with current cigarette/bidi smoking. Among women, the corresponding HRs were 1.65 (95% CI 1.16 2.36) for all-cause mortality and 2.69 (95% CI 1.20 6.01) for ischemic heart disease mortality. Similar associations were observed for hookah smoking. There was a trend towards reduced risk for the mortality outcomes with older age at onset of cigarette/bidi smoking and increasing years since quitting cigarette/bibi smoking among men. We estimated that cigarette/bidi smoking accounted for about 25.0% of deaths in men and 7.6% in women.Conclusions: Tobacco smoking was responsible for substantial proportion of premature deaths in the Bangladeshi population, especially among men. Stringent measures of tobacco control and cessation are needed to reduce tobacco-related deaths in Bangladesh.</p

A Cross-sectional Study of the Impact of Blood Selenium on Blood and Urinary Arsenic Concentrations in Bangladesh

Background: Arsenic can naturally occur in the groundwater without an anthropogenic source of contamination. In Bangladesh over 50 million people are exposed to naturally occurring arsenic concentrations exceeding the World Health Organization’s guideline of 10 μg/L. Selenium and arsenic have been shown to facilitate the excretion of each other in bile. Recent evidence suggests that selenium may play a role in arsenic elimination by forming a selenium-arsenic conjugate in the liver before excretion into the bile. Methods: A cross-sectional study of 1601 adults and 287 children was conducted to assess the relationship between blood selenium and urinary and blood arsenic in a study population residing in a moderately arsenic-contaminated rural area in Bangladesh. Results: The results of this study indicate a statistically significant inverse relationship between blood selenium and urinary arsenic concentrations in both adult and pediatric populations in rural Bangladesh after adjustment for age, sex, Body Mass Index, plasma folate and B12 (in children), and ever smoking and current betel nut use (in adults). In addition, there appears to be a statistically significant inverse relationship between blood selenium and blood arsenic in children. Conclusions: Our results suggest that selenium is inversely associated with biomarkers of arsenic burden in both adults and children. These findings support the hypothesis that Se facilitates the biliary elimination of As, possibly via the putative formation of a Se-As conjugate using a glutathione complex. However, laboratory based studies are needed to provide further evidence to elucidate the presence of Se-As conjugate and its role in arsenic elimination in humans

Post-COVID-19 complications in home and hospital-based care: A study from Dhaka city, Bangladesh

A cross-sectional survey was undertaken to understand the management patterns and post-COVID-19 complications among hospital and home-treated participants. Retrospective information was collected from four COVID-19 dedicated hospitals and four selected community settings. Using probability proportional sampling, 925 participants were selected. Data were collected using a semi-structured questionnaire. Bivariate and multivariate logistic regression analysis and the exact chi-square tests were utilized to analyze the association between the studied variables. A total of 659 participants responded (response rate 70.93%); 375 from hospitals and 284 from communities. About 80% of participants were mild cases, 75% were treated at home, and 65% of hospital-treated participants were referred after home treatment. Participants treated at home-to hospital and directly in the hospital had 1.64 and 3.38 times longer recovery time respectively than what home-based participants had. A significant increasing trend (p < 0.001) of co-morbidities was found among referred and hospital treated participants. Age, level of education, physical exercise, practicing preventive measures, exposure to sunlight, and intake of carbohydrate, additional liquid, food supplements, and avoidance of junk foods were significantly associated with place of treatment. Post-COVID-19 difficulties of all factors were statistically significant for home treatment participants, whilst only depression (p = 0.026), chest pain (p = 0.017), and digestive disorders (p = 0.047) were significant (p < 0.05) for hospital treated participants. The outcomes from this study provide insight into a range of post-COVID-19 difficulties relating to at home and in hospital treatment participants. There are clear differences in the complications experienced, many of which are statistically significant. The health care professionals, the community people and COVID-19 survivors will be benefitted from the study findings, and the policy level people may use the information for designing health education program on post COVID-19 complications

A RESTful API for Accessing Microbial Community Data for MG-RAST

Many health outcomes are influenced by a person's body mass index, as well as by the trajectory of body mass index through a lifetime. Although previous research has established that body mass index related traits are influenced by genetics, the relationship between these traits and genetics has not been well characterized in people of South Asian ancestry. To begin to characterize this relationship, we analyzed the association between common genetic variation and five phenotypes related to body mass index in a population-based sample of 5,354 Bangladeshi adults. We discovered a significant association between SNV rs347313 (intron of NOS1AP) and change in body mass index in women over two years. In a linear mixed-model, the G allele was associated with an increase of 0.25 kg/m2 in body mass index over two years (p-value of 2.3·10−8). We also estimated the heritability of these phenotypes from our genotype data. We found significant estimates of heritability for all of the body mass index-related phenotypes. Our study evaluated the genetic determinants of body mass index related phenotypes for the first time in South Asians. The results suggest that these phenotypes are heritable and some of this heritability is driven by variation that differs from those previously reported. We also provide evidence that the genetic etiology of body mass index related traits may differ by ancestry, sex, and environment, and consequently that these factors should be considered when assessing the genetic determinants of the risk of body mass index-related disease

Urinary and Dietary Analysis of 18,470 Bangladeshis Reveal a Correlation of Rice Consumption with Arsenic Exposure and Toxicity

Background: We utilized data from the Health Effects of Arsenic Longitudinal Study (HEALS) in Araihazar, Bangladesh, to evaluate the association of steamed rice consumption with urinary total arsenic concentration and arsenical skin lesions in the overall study cohort (N=18,470) and in a subset with available urinary arsenic metabolite data (N=4,517). Methods: General linear models with standardized beta coefficients were used to estimate associations between steamed rice consumption and urinary total arsenic concentration and urinary arsenic metabolites. Logistic regression models were used to estimate prevalence odds ratios (ORs) and their 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for the associations between rice intake and prevalent skin lesions at baseline. Discrete time hazard models were used to estimate discrete time (HRs) ratios and their 95% CIs for the associations between rice intake and incident skin lesions. Results: Steamed rice consumption was positively associated with creatinine-adjusted urinary total arsenic (β=0.041, 95% CI: 0.032-0.051) and urinary total arsenic with statistical adjustment for creatinine in the model (β=0.043, 95% CI: 0.032-0.053). Additionally, we observed a significant trend in skin lesion prevalence (P-trend=0.007) and a moderate trend in skin lesion incidence (P-trend=0.07) associated with increased intake of steamed rice. Conclusions: This study suggests that rice intake may be a source of arsenic exposure beyond drinking water

A Prospective Study of Arsenic Exposure, Arsenic Methylation Capacity, and Risk of Cardiovascular Disease in Bangladesh

Millions of persons worldwide, including 13 million Americans (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency 2009) and over 50 million in Bangladesh (British Geological Survey 2007), have been chronically exposed to arsenic, a group 1 human carcinogen (International Agency for Research on Cancer 2004), through contaminated drinking water. Arsenic exposure from drinking water has been associated with cardiovascular disease (CVD) (Chen CJ et al. 1996; Chen Y et al. 2011; Chiou et al. 1997; Liao et al. 2012; Tseng et al. 2003; Yuan et al. 2007). However, prospective studies assessing susceptibility to CVD due to arsenic exposure are rare. Arsenic in drinking water is present as inorganic arsenic (iAS). Once ingested, iAs is methylated to monomethylarsonic acid (MMA) and dimethylarsinic acid (DMA). The relative distribution of urinary arsenic metabolites varies from person to person and has been interpreted to reflect arsenic methylation capacity (Hopenhayn-Rich et al. 1996; Vahter 1999). Mechanistic studies have shown that MMAIII is more toxic than iAs or any of the pentavalent metabolites (Petrick et al. 2000; Styblo et al. 2000). Incomplete methylation, indicated by a high percentage of urinary MMA (MMA%), has been consistently related to cancers (Chen YC et al. 2003; Pu et al. 2007; Steinmaus et al. 2006; Yu et al. 2000), and there is some evidence of stronger associations among smokers than nonsmokers (Pu et al. 2007; Steinmaus et al. 2006). However, the association between urinary MMA% and CVD risk is unknown, and research on the combined effects of arsenic and biomarkers of arsenic susceptibility on CVD risk is needed. We conducted a prospective case–cohort study nested in a large prospective cohort to assess associations of arsenic exposure from drinking water and arsenic methylation capacity, indicated using relative distribution of urinary arsenic metabolites, with CVD risk

Arsenic exposure from drinking water and mortality from cardiovascular disease in Bangladesh: prospective cohort study

Objective To evaluate the association between arsenic exposure and mortality from cardiovascular disease and to assess whether cigarette smoking influences the association