BMI does not accurately predict overweight in Asian Indians in northern India

Asian Indians are at high risk for the development of atherosclerosis and related complications, possibly initiated by higher body fat (BF). The present study attempted to establish appropriate cut-off levels of the BMI for defining overweight, considering percentage BF in healthy Asian Indians in northern India as the standard. A total of 123 healthy volunteers (eighty-six males aged 18–75 years and thirty-seven females aged 20–69 years) participated in the study. Clinical examination and anthropometric measurements were performed, and percentage BF was calculated. BMI for males was 21·4 (SD 3·7) KG/M2 AND FOR FEMALES WAS 23·3 (sd 5·5) kg/m2. Percentage BF was 21·3 (sd 7·6) in males and 35·4 (sd 5·0) in females. A comparison of BF data among Caucasians, Blacks, Polynesians and Asian ethnic groups (e.g. immigrant Chinese) revealed conspicuous differences. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis showed a low sensitivity and negative predictive value of the conventional cut-off value of the BMI (25 kg/m2) in identifying subjects with overweight as compared to the cut-off value based on percentage BF (males >25, females >30). This observation is particularly obvious in females, resulting in substantial misclassification. Based on the ROC curve, a lower cut-off value of the BMI (21·5 kg/m2 for males and 19·0 kg/m2 for females) displayed the optimal sensitivity and specificity, and less misclassification in identification of subjects with high percentage BF. Furthermore, a novel obesity variable, BF:BMI, was tested and should prove useful for interethnic comparison of body composition. In the northern Indian population, the conventional cut-off level of the BMI underestimates overweight and obesity when percentage BF is used as the standard to define overweight. These preliminary findings, if confirmed in a larger number of subjects and with the use of instruments having a higher accuracy of BF assessment, would be crucial for planning and the prevention and treatment of various obesity-related metabolic diseases in the Asian Indian population

An epidemiological study of dengue in Delhi, India

International audienceDelhi, the capital of India, is an important metropolitan hub for major financial and sociocultural exchanges, offering challenging threats to current public health infrastructure. In recent past, an upsurge of dengue cases in Delhi posed a significant menace to the existing dengue control policies. To reform the control strategies and take timely intervention to prevent future epidemics, an epidemiological study on the proportion of both asymptomatic and symptomatic dengue infections in selected population was conducted. The aim of the study was to investigate and assess the epidemiology of dengue infection and to estimate the proportion of asymptomatic and symptomatic dengue infections in Delhi. In this study, around 50 confirmed dengue cases, a total of 2125 individuals as household and neighbourhood contacts, with or without dengue febrile illness, were finger pricked and serologically detected as dengue positive or negative using SD Duo Bioline Rapid Diagnostic Test (SD Inc, Korea) with NS1, IgM & IgG combo test, which detected dengue virus antigen and antibodies to dengue virus in human blood. Out of 2125 individuals , 768 (36.1%) individuals showed positive dengue test with past (25.5%), primary (1.88%) or secondary (8.8%) dengue infections. Higher percentage of IgG was found in age groups 15–24 years and 25–50 years (36% each). Infants (<1 year) presented higher incidence of new infections (22% of NS1 + IgM positives) as compared to adults. Further analysis revealed that out of the 226 newly infected cases (including NS1 and IgM positives), 142 (63%) were asymptomatic and 84 (37%) were symptomatic, as per WHO guidelines. Our findings also suggest that out of the total population screened, 10.6% dengue infection was either primary or secondary. On the basis of these results, it may be hypothesized that there are large number of asymptomatic dengue infections in the community as compared to reported symptomatic cases in Delhi. For the effective control of dengue transmission in such community like Delhi where dengue epidemics have frequently been encountered, it is essential to ascertain the proportion of asymptomatic dengue infections which may act as a reservoir for dengue transmission, as well as threat for developing dengue haemorrhagic fever (DHF)

From QTL to variety- Harnessing the benefits of QTLs for drought, flood and salt tolerance in mega rice varieties of India through a multi-institutional network.

Rice is a staple cereal of India cultivated in about 43.5 Mha area but with relatively low average productivity. Abiotic factors like drought, flood and salinity affect rice production adversely in more than 50% of this area. Breeding rice varieties with inbuilt tolerance to these stresses offers an economically viable and sustainable option to improve rice productivity. Availability of high quality reference genome sequence of rice, knowledge of exact position of genes/QTLs governing tolerance to abiotic stresses andavailability of DNA markers linked to these traits has opened up opportunities for breeders to transfer the favorable alleles into widely grown rice varieties through marker-assisted back cross breeding (MABB). Alarge multi-institutional project, “From QTL to variety: marker-assisted breeding of abiotic stress tolerant rice varieties with major QTLs for drought, submergence and salt tolerance” was initiated in 2010 with funding support from Department of Biotechnology, Government of India, in collaboration with Interna-tional Rice Research Institute, Philippines. The main focus of this project is to improve rice productivity inthe fragile ecosystems of eastern, northeastern and southern part of the country, which bear the brunt ofone or the other abiotic stresses frequently. Seven consistent QTLs for grain yield under drought, namely,qDTY1.1, qDTY2.1, qDTY2.2, qDTY3.1, qDTY3.2, qDTY9.1and qDTY12.1are being transferred into submergence IR64-Sub1. To address the problem of complete submergence due to flash floods in the major river basins,the Sub1 gene is being transferred into ten highly popular locally adapted rice varieties namely, ADT 39,ADT 46, Bahadur, HUR 105, MTU 1075, Pooja, Pratikshya, Rajendra Mahsuri, Ranjit, and Sarjoo 52. Further,to address the problem of soil salinity, Saltol, a major QTL for salt tolerance is being transferred into sevenpopular locally adapted rice varieties, namely, ADT 45, CR 1009, Gayatri, MTU 1010, PR 114, Pusa 44 andSarjoo 52. Genotypic background selection is being done after BC2F2stage using an in-house designed50K SNP chip on a set of twenty lines for each combination, identified with phenotypic similarity in the field to the recipient parent. Near-isogenic lines with more than 90% similarity to the recipient parentare now in advanced generation field trials. These climate smart varieties are expected to improve rice productivity in the adverse ecologies and contribute to the farmer’s livelihood