EFFECTS OF OMEGA-3 AND PROTEIN SUPPLEMENTATION ON NUTRITIONAL AND INFLAMMATORY INDICES IN HEMODIALYSIS PATIENTS – A PILOT STUDY.

Intervention to correct malnutrition and chronic inflammation in dialysis patients is often impeded by poor compliance due to medical and socioeconomic barriers. Therefore we performed a pilot study to investigate the technical feasibility of “directly observed treatment” of nutritional supplementation (protein and omega-3 fatty acids) and its effects on nutritional and inflammatory markers in low socio-economic status hemodialysis population. Sixty-three eligible patients agreed to participate. Two intervention groups received 30 mL of a liquid protein supplement plus either 2.4 gm omega-3 (1.8 gm eicosapentaenoic acid + 0.6 gm docosahexaenoic acid) or a placebo, three times per week after their routine dialysis session for 6 months. Serum albumin, plasma lipids, and other indicators of nutritional and inflammatory status were measured. Statistical differences after treatment and between groups were determined using paired t-test and independent t-test, respectively. Directly observed nutritional supplementation resulted in a significant improvement in the LDLC/HDLC ratio in the omega-3 group as compared to the placebo group (P = 0.043). For the omega-3 group, serum albumin was also marginally higher after 6 months as compared to baseline (P = 0.07). Other nutritional and inflammatory markers were unaffected by intervention. In conclusion, “Directly observed treatment” is technically feasible with an omega-3 based supplement (as opposed to a pure protein supplement) showed beneficial effects on the lipid profile

New Guinea has the world’s richest island flora

New Guinea is the world’s largest tropical island and has fascinated naturalists for centuries1,2. Home to some of the best-preserved ecosystems on the planet3 and to intact ecological gradients—from mangroves to tropical alpine grasslands—that are unmatched in the Asia-Pacific region4,5, it is a globally recognized centre of biological and cultural diversity6,7. So far, however, there has been no attempt to critically catalogue the entire vascular plant diversity of New Guinea. Here we present the first, to our knowledge, expert-verified checklist of the vascular plants of mainland New Guinea and surrounding islands. Our publicly available checklist includes 13,634 species (68% endemic), 1,742 genera and 264 families—suggesting that New Guinea is the most floristically diverse island in the world. Expert knowledge is essential for building checklists in the digital era: reliance on online taxonomic resources alone would have inflated species counts by 22%. Species discovery shows no sign of levelling off, and we discuss steps to accelerate botanical research in the ‘Last Unknown’8