Growth status of children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes mellitus

Background and Objectives: Growth parameters are important indicators of a child′s overall health, and they are influenced by factors like blood glucose control in diabetic children. Data on growth parameters of Indian diabetic children is scarce. This retrospective, cross-sectional, case control study was conducted at diabetes clinic for children at a tertiary care center at Pune, to study growth parameters of diabetic children in comparison with age-gender matched healthy controls and evaluate effect of different insulin regimes and age at diagnosis of diabetes on growth. Materials and Methods: One twenty five diabetic children (boys: 50) and age gender matched healthy controls were enrolled. All subjects underwent anthropometric measurements (standing height and weight). Mean height (HAZ), weight (WAZ) and body mass index (BAZ) for age Z scores were calculated. Diabetes control was evaluated by measuring glycosylated hemoglobin (HbA1C). Statistical analysis was done by SPSS version 12. Results: Mean age of diabetic children and age gender matched controls was 9.7 ± 4.4 years. Diabetic children were shorter (128.3 ± 24.3 cm vs. 133.6 ± 24.7 cm) and lighter (29.2 kg ± 15.3 vs. 31.3 ± 15.4 kg). HAZ (−1.1 ± 1.2 vs. −0.2 ± 0.8) and WAZ (−1.2 ± 1.3 vs. −0.7 ± 1.3) were significantly lower in diabetic children (P 14 years) were comparable to healthy controls. Conclusions: Growth was compromised in diabetic children in comparison to controls. Children diagnosed at younger age need more attention to optimize growth

Protective Effects of <i>Ammannia baccifera</i> Against CCl₄-Induced Oxidative Stress in Rats

Ammannia baccifera Linn. is commonly used as a traditional medicine in India and China. The antioxidant potential of an ethanolic extract of A. baccifera (EEAB; 250 mg/kg and 500 mg/kg) was evaluated against CCL4-induced toxicity in rats. Antioxidant activity was assessed by measuring the enzymatic and non-enzymatic antioxidants. Phytochemical constituents of EEAB were also analyzed by using UHPLC-QTOF-MS. EEAB treatment markedly reduced CCl4 effects on lipid peroxidation, cholesterol, triacylglycerides, and protein carbonyls. It increased the levels of phospholipids, total sulfhydryl, and antioxidant enzymes, which were reduced by CCl4 intoxication. Treatment with EEAB significantly alleviated the CCl4 effect on non-enzymatic antioxidants. Isoenzyme pattern analyses revealed that significant alterations in superoxide dismutase (SOD1), glutathione peroxidase (GPx2, GPx3), and catalase (CAT) occurred in rats that were exposed to CCl4 and restored post EEAB treatment. Moreover, CCl4-induced down regulation of SOD, CAT, and GPx gene expression was conversely counteracted by EEAB. Its bioactivity may be due to its incorporation of major compounds, such as chlorogenic acid, quercetin, protocatechuic acid, lamioside, crocetin, and khayasin C. These results suggest that EEAB may be used as a potent antioxidant and hepatoprotective agent since it is a rich source of flavonoids and phenolic compounds

Height-specific blood pressure cutoffs for screening elevated and high blood pressure in children and adolescents: an International Study.

Pediatric blood pressure (BP) reference tables are generally based on sex, age, and height and tend to be cumbersome to use in routine clinical practice. In this study, we aimed to develop a new, height-specific simple BP table according to the international child BP reference table based on sex, age and height and to evaluate its performance using international data. We validated the simple table in a derivation cohort that included 58,899 children and adolescents aged 6-17 years from surveys in 7 countries (China, India, Iran, Korea, Poland, Tunisia, and the United States) and in a validation cohort that included 70,072 participants from three other surveys (China, Poland and Seychelles). The BP cutoff values for the simple table were calculated for eight height categories for both the 90th ("elevated BP") and 95th ("high BP") percentiles of BP. The simple table had a high performance to predict high BP compared to the reference table, with high values (boys/girls) of area under the curve (0.94/0.91), sensitivity (88.5%/82.9%), specificity (99.3%/99.7%), positive predictive values (93.9%/97.3%), and negative predictive values (98.5%/97.8%) in the pooled data from 10 studies. The simple table performed similarly well for predicting elevated BP. A simple table based on height only predicts elevated BP and high BP in children and adolescents nearly as well as the international table based on sex, age, and height. This has important implications for simplifying the detection of pediatric high BP in clinical practice

A draft map of the human proteome

The availability of human genome sequence has transformed biomedical research over the past decade. However, an equivalent map for the human proteome with direct measurements of proteins and peptides does not exist yet. Here we present a draft map of the human proteome using high-resolution Fourier-transform mass spectrometry. In-depth proteomic profiling of 30 histologically normal human samples, including 17 adult tissues, 7 fetal tissues and 6 purified primary haematopoietic cells, resulted in identification of proteins encoded by 17,294 genes accounting for approximately 84% of the total annotated protein-coding genes in humans. A unique and comprehensive strategy for proteogenomic analysis enabled us to discover a number of novel protein-coding regions, which includes translated pseudogenes, non-coding RNAs and upstream open reading frames. This large human proteome catalogue (available as an interactive web-based resource at http://www.humanproteomemap.org) will complement available human genome and transcriptome data to accelerate biomedical research in health and disease. © 2014 Macmillan Publishers Limited