Nutritional Status of Households of Rural Field Practice Area of a Tertiary Care Hospital in India

Introduction: In the world as a whole there appears to be a shift from under-nourishment towards over-nourishment making more and more children, adolescents, adults and even elderly to be overweight and obese. Objectives: Study aimed to find out the age and sex wise commonness of over-weight & obesity amongst the families of an overtly different socio-economic environment and its trend in the members of one type of families. Materials & Methods: The undergraduate medical students are supposed to maintain record of individual health (including height & weight) of their own family as well as that of the allotted family. The data collected (record maintained ) by students was utilized to calculate Body Mass Index (BMI). Results: Out of total 291 subjects (males 168; females 123) in students own family 28.9% (28.0%; 30.1%) were overweight and 5.9% (6.0%; 5.7%) were obese. The similar figures for 262 subjects (males 143 & females 119) in the allotted families were 20.2% (18.5%; 20.2%) and 6.5% (4.2%; 8.4%) respectively. The respective percentages of under nourished individuals were 18.6 (17.9; 19.5) and 35.5 (37.8; 32.8). Thus over-nutrition was more common amongst the members of students own families (34.8% vs. 26.7%) and under-nutrition was more common amongst the members of allotted families (35.5% vs. 18.6%) For the years 2000-2003, BMI amongst individuals of students own families the under-nutrition in the age group of 15-24 years amongst males increased from 15.9% to 32.9% and over-nutrition from 13.6% to 20.5%. There was no case of overweight and obesity up to the age of 34 years in the previous analysis which was 2.6% in the present analysis Previous results demonstrated overweight to be more common in males (32.4% Vs. 24.4% in females) and obesity being more common females ( 6.3% Vs. 2.6% in females). Conclusion: Males are increasingly becoming prey of malnutrition (adolescents for under-nutrition and adults & elderly for over-nutrition. More studies covering larger samples are required to be conducted on a more frequent basis

Efficiency of liquid culture systems over conventional micropropagation: A progress towards commercialization

The most common methods of micropropagation involve the proliferation of shoots via a semi solid system. While such semi solid systems have been moderately to highly successful in terms ofmultiplication yields, it has become increasingly important to improve productivity and reduce the time taken to multiply commercially important material. Micropropagation by conventional techniques istypically a labor intensive time taking means of clonal propagation. To overcome this, the use of shake cultures utilizing liquid culture medium has been promoted. The liquid medium allows the close contactwith the tissue which stimulates and facilitates the uptake of nutrients and phytohormones, leading to better shoot and root growth. Continuous shaking promotes lesser expression of apical dominance which generally leads to induction and proliferation of numerous axillary buds. Further, with in the shake culture conditions, the growth and multiplication rate of shoots is enhanced by forced aeration,since continuous shaking of medium provides ample oxygen supply to the tissue which ultimately leads to their faster growth. Bioreactor provides a rapid and efficient clonal propagation systemutilizing liquid medium to avoid intensive manual handling. Automation of micropropagation in bioreactors has been advanced by several authors as a possible way of reducing cost of micropropagation. Micropropagation in bioreactors for optimal plant production depends upon better understanding of physiological and biochemical responses of plant to the signals of culture microenvironment and an optimization of specific physical and chemical culture conditions to controlthe morphogenesis of plants in liquid culture systems

Unusual Renal Tumors — Report of Four Cases

Collecting duct carcinoma, plasmocytoma and malignant fibrous histocytoma are rare but aggressive tumors of the kidneys. We present four cases we have recently encountered in our practice. In most of the cases imaging did not help in the pre-operative diagnosis. Surgery is the mainstay of treatment when recognized early. Clinician should be aware about these rare varieties of renal tumors whose prognoses may be worse than that of renal cell carcinoma. The Annals of African Surgery, Volume 6, 201

Molecular characterization of Vibrio cholerae outbreak strains with altered El Tor biotype from southern India

Forty-four Vibrio cholerae isolates collected over a 7-month period in Chennai, India in 2004 were characterized for gene traits, antimicrobial susceptibility and genomic fingerprints. All 44 isolates were identified as O1 El Tor Ogawa, positive for various toxigenic and pathogenic genes viz. ace, ctxB, hlyA, ompU, ompW, rfbO1, rtx, tcpA, toxR and zot. Nucleotide sequencing revealed the presence of cholera toxin B of classical biotype in all the El Tor isolates, suggesting infection of isolates by classical CTXΦ. Antibiogram analysis showed a broad-spectrum antibiotic resistance that was also confirmed by the presence of resistant genes in the genomes. All isolates contained a class 1 integron and an SXT constin. However, isolates were sensitive to chloramphenicol and tested negative for the chloramphenicol resistant gene suggesting a deletion in SXT constin. Fingerprinting analysis of isolates by ERIC- and Box PCR revealed similar DNA patterns indicating the clonal dissemination of a single predominant V. cholerae O1 strain throughout the 2004 outbreak in Chennai

Host epigenetic modifications by oncogenic viruses

Epigenetic alterations represent an important step in the initiation and progression of most human cancers, but it is difficult to differentiate the early cancer causing alterations from later consequences. Oncogenic viruses can induce transformation via expression of only a small number of viral genes. Therefore, the mechanisms by which oncogenic viruses cause cancer may provide clues as to which epigenetic alterations are critical in early carcinogenesis

Micropropagation and conservation of selected endangered anticancer medicinal plants from the Western Ghats of India

Globally, cancer is a constant battle which severely affects the human population. The major limitations of the anticancer drugs are the deleterious side effects on the quality of life. Plants play a vital role in curing many diseases with minimal or no side effects. Phytocompounds derived from various medicinal plants serve as the best source of drugs to treat cancer. The global demand for phytomedicines is mostly reached by the medicinal herbs from the tropical nations of the world even though many plant species are threatened with extinction. India is one of the mega diverse countries of the world due to its ecological habitats, latitudinal variation, and diverse climatic range. Western Ghats of India is one of the most important depositories of endemic herbs. It is found along the stretch of south western part of India and constitutes rain forest with more than 4000 diverse medicinal plant species. In recent times, many of these therapeutically valued herbs have become endangered and are being included under the red-listed plant category in this region. Due to a sharp rise in the demand for plant-based products, this rich collection is diminishing at an alarming rate that eventually triggered dangerous to biodiversity. Thus, conservation of the endangered medicinal plants has become a matter of importance. The conservation by using only in situ approaches may not be sufficient enough to safeguard such a huge bio-resource of endangered medicinal plants. Hence, the use of biotechnological methods would be vital to complement the ex vitro protection programs and help to reestablish endangered plant species. In this backdrop, the key tools of biotechnology that could assist plant conservation were developed in terms of in vitro regeneration, seed banking, DNA storage, pollen storage, germplasm storage, gene bank (field gene banking), tissue bank, and cryopreservation. In this chapter, an attempt has been made to critically review major endangered medicinal plants that possess anticancer compounds and their conservation aspects by integrating various biotechnological tool

Polymorphisms in NFkB, PXR, LXR and risk of colorectal cancer in a prospective study of Danes

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Transcription factors and nuclear receptors constitute a link between exposure to heterocyclic amines and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons from meat and tobacco smoke and colorectal cancer (CRC) risk. The aim of this study was to investigate if polymorphisms in nuclear factor kappa-B, pregnane X receptor, and liver X receptor were associated with risk of CRC, and to investigate possible interactions with lifestyle factors such as smoking, meat consumption, and NSAID use.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>The polymorphisms nuclear factor kappa-B (<it>NFkB, NFKB1) </it>-94 insertion/deletion ATTG (rs28362491), pregnane X receptor (<it>PXR, NR1I2) </it>A-24381C (rs1523127), C8055T (rs2276707), A7635G (rs6785049), liver X receptor (<it>LXR-β, NR1H3) </it>C-rs1405655T, T-rs2695121C were assessed together with lifestyle factors in a nested case-cohort study of 378 CRC cases and 756 random participants from the Danish prospective Diet, Cancer and Health study of 57,053 persons.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Carriers of <it>NFkB </it>-94deletion were at 1.45-fold higher risk of CRC than homozygous carriers of the insertion allele (incidence rate ratio (IRR) = 1.45, 95% confidence interval (95% CI): 1.10-1.92). There was interaction between this polymorphism and intake of red and processed meat in relation to CRC risk. Carriers of <it>NFkB </it>-94deletion were at 3% increased risk pr 25 gram meat per day (95% CI: 0.98-1.09) whereas homozygous carriers of the insertion were not at increased risk (p for interaction = 0.03). <it>PXR </it>and <it>LXR </it>polymorphisms were not associated with CRC risk. There was no interaction between use of nonsteroid antiinflammatory drugs (NSAID) or smoking status and <it>NFkB</it>, <it>PXR </it>or <it>LXR </it>polymorphisms.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A polymorphism in <it>NFkB </it>was associated with CRC risk and there was interaction between this polymorphism and meat intake in relation to CRC risk. This study suggests a role for NFkB in CRC aetiology.</p

Association between hMLH1 hypermethylation and JC virus (JCV) infection in human colorectal cancer (CRC)

Incorporation of viral DNA may interfere with the normal sequence of human DNA bases on the genetic level or cause secondary epigenetic changes such as gene promoter methylation or histone acetylation. Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second leading cause of cancer mortality in the USA. Chromosomal instability (CIN) was established as the key mechanism in cancer development. Later, it was found that CRC results not only from the progressive accumulation of genetic alterations but also from epigenetic changes. JC virus (JCV) is a candidate etiologic factor in sporadic CRC. It may act by stabilizing β-catenin, facilitating its entrance to the cell nucleus, initialing proliferation and cancer development. Diploid CRC cell lines transfected with JCV-containing plasmids developed CIN. This result provides direct experimental evidence for the ability of JCV T-Ag to induce CIN in the genome of colonic epithelial cells. The association of CRC hMLH1 methylation and tumor positivity for JCV was recently documented. JC virus T-Ag DNA sequences were found in 77% of CRCs and are associated with promoter methylation of multiple genes. hMLH1 was methylated in 25 out of 80 CRC patients positive for T-Ag (31%) in comparison with only one out of 11 T-Ag negative cases (9%). Thus, JCV can mediate both CIN and aberrant methylation in CRC. Like other viruses, chronic infection with JCV may induce CRC by different mechanisms which should be further investigated. Thus, gene promoter methylation induced by JCV may be an important process in CRC and the polyp-carcinoma sequence