Mapping local patterns of childhood overweight and wasting in low- and middle-income countries between 2000 and 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic

The analgesic effect of nitroglycerin added to lidocaine on quality of intravenous regional anesthesia in patients undergoing elective forearm and hand surgery

PURPOSE: To evaluate the effect of nitroglycerine (NTG) on sensory and motor block onset and recovery time as well as the quality of tourniquet pain relief, when added to lidocaine (LID) for intravenous regional anesthesia in elective forearm and hand surgery. METHODS: A randomized double-blinded clinical trial was performed on 40 patients that were randomly allocated into two groups received lidocaine 3 mg/kg with NTG 200 µg or received only lidocaine 3 mg/kg as the control. RESULTS: There was no difference between the two study groups in hemodynamic parameters before tourniquet inflation, at any time after inflation and after its deflation. There was no difference in the mean of pain score over time between the two groups. The onset time of sensory and motor blockades was shorter in the group received both LID and NTG. The mean recovery time of sensory blockade was longer in the former group. The frequency of opioid injections was significantly lower in those who administered LID and NTG. CONCLUSION: The adjuvant drug of NTG when added to LID is effective in improving the overall quality of anesthesia, shortening onset time of both sensory and motor blockades, and stabling homodynamic parameters in hand and forearm surgery

Investigation and Comparison of Recording Time of Steady State Evoked Potentials Using Three Methods of Kalman, Ziarani and adaptive

Background and Aim: Hearing assessment in infants and children younger than two years is an impor­tant issue, because the golden time of the language learning and speaking is under the age of two. Steady state auditory evoked potentials (SSAEPs) is one of the best ways of the objective hearing assess­ment for infants and young children. The need for long time of stimulation and recording re­stricted the clinical uses of this method. Therefore, the reduction of the recording time is a common prob­lem. SSAEP signals are contaminated with background EEG signals of the brain and nervous sys­tem. To discriminate these signals the approach is using averaging method.Materials and Methods: In this work two adaptive methods were programmed and tried on (SSAEP) sig­nals. The first method was the work of the Ziarani et al. and the second was the enhanced Kalman fil­ter. To assess suggested methods and to compare them with traditional averaging one, two sets of clini­cal signals prepared with Rotmen research group in university of Toronto were applied. Results: The speed of the extraction of the SSAEP signals with the Ziarani method is 1.6 times faster than the averaging method. The extraction time of the enhanced adaptive Kalman filter is 13.1 times faster than currently used averaging methods. Conclusion: The Kalman filter method seems to be more reliable than the other two methods. In addi­tion, this new application of the Kalman filter in hearing assessment could be more beneficial and faster than other methods as an objective method

Downregulation of miR-146a promotes cell migration in Helicobacter pylori–negative gastric cancer

MicroRNAs (miRs) are short noncoding RNAs that post-transcriptionally suppress gene expression. miR-146a acts as an oncogene or a tumor suppressor in various cancers, including gastric cancer, but it is unclear what determines whether miR-146a is oncogenic or tumor suppressive and the molecular mechanisms are still largely unknown. The aim of this study was to investigate the role of miR-146a in gastric cancer, by focusing on its expression in patients who were negative for Helicobacter pylori and its reduced and increased expression effect in vitro. Twenty gastric cancer patients who were negative for H. pylori infection were selected and the expression levels of miRNA-146a in these gastric tumors, in their matched normal gastric tissues and in gastric cancer cell lines with varying tumorigenic potential was measured. Further, the impact of increased and decreased miR-146a expression levels on the expression of predicted target genes, cell migration, viability, proliferation, and apoptosis was examined, respectively. Our results for the first time indicated that miR-146a is downregulated in H. pylori–negative gastric cancers and suggests that H. pylori infection determines whether miR-146a acts as an oncogene or tumor suppressor. The level of miR-146a expression inversely correlates with the tumorigenicity of three gastric cancer cell lines and low miR-146a expression predicts poor recurrence-free survival. It was also found that miR-146a reduces the expression levels of the prometastatic genes and suppresses MKN-45 cell migration. Functional studies showed that miR-146a acts as a tumor suppressor miR and identifies miR-146a as a candidate for antimetastatic miRNA replacement therapy for gastric cancer patients

MAPPING LOCAL PATTERNS OF CHILDHOOD OVERWEIGHT AND WASTING IN LOW- AND MIDDLE-INCOME COUNTRIES BETWEEN 2000 AND 2017

A double burden of malnutrition occurs when individuals, household members or communities experience both undernutrition and overweight. Here, we show geospatial estimates of overweight and wasting prevalence among children under 5 years of age in 105 low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) from 2000 to 2017 and aggregate these to policy-relevant administrative units. Wasting decreased overall across LMICs between 2000 and 2017, from 8.4% (62.3 (55.1–70.8) million) to 6.4% (58.3 (47.6–70.7) million), but is predicted to remain above the World Health Organization’s Global Nutrition Target of <5% in over half of LMICs by 2025. Prevalence of overweight increased from 5.2% (30 (22.8–38.5) million) in 2000 to 6.0% (55.5 (44.8–67.9) million) children aged under 5 years in 2017. Areas most affected by double burden of malnutrition were located in Indonesia, Thailand, southeastern China, Botswana, Cameroon and central Nigeria. Our estimates provide a new perspective to researchers, policy makers and public health agencies in their efforts to address this global childhood syndemic