Body Composition Changes after Weight-Loss Interventions among Obese Females: A Comparison of Three Protocols

AIM: To evaluate body composition changes after use of three different types of obesity management protocols: dietary measures and physical activity; acupuncture or laser acupuncture with healthy diet; aiming at achieving stable weight loss among obese Egyptian females.METHODS:  A randomized longitudinal prospective study included 76 obese adult females; aged 26 up to 55 years. Anthropometric, body composition, ultrasonographic and biochemical assessments were done.RESULTS: The three types of obesity management protocols showed significant improvement in body composition (decrease in fat% and increases in FFM and TBW) and visceral fat by US. However, nutritional intervention showed highly significant improvement in the skin fold thickness at triceps and biceps sites and peripheral adiposity index.  Acupuncture intervention showed highly significant improvement in fasting blood glucose (decreased) and lipid profile (decreased triglycerides, total cholesterol and LDL, and increased HDL). Laser intervention showed highly significant improvement in all the skin fold thickness and some parameters of lipid profile (decreased total cholesterol and LDL). CONCLUSIONS: The three obesity management protocols have significant effect on body composition, but acupuncture has the best effect in improving the lipid profile and fasting blood sugar. In addition, Laser intervention was recommended to improve skin fold thickness and subcutaneous fat

Impact of high fat low carbohydrate enteral feeding on weaning from mechanical ventilation

Introduction: Diet can affect the outcome of mechanical ventilation in patients with chronic respiratory failure. Aim of the work: To compare the effect of a high fat, low carbohydrate enteral feeding to a standard iso-caloric enteral feeding on arterial carbon dioxide tension and ventilation time in patients with type II respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary disease requiring mechanical ventilation. Subjects and methods: One hundred patients with type II respiratory failure secondary to pulmonary disease requiring mechanical ventilation who could be enterally fed in the respiratory intensive care unit of Ain Shams University Hospitals were enrolled in this study. They were divided randomly into: Group A: included fifty patients who received standard iso-caloric feeding with carbohydrates (53.3%), fats (30%) and proteins (16.7%). Group B: included fifty patients who received iso-caloric high fat low carbohydrate feeding with carbohydrates (28.1%), fats (55.2%) and proteins (16.7%) also through the Ryle tube. Results: Group B had 16% decrease in arterial carbon dioxide tension, 8% decrease in the minute volume at weaning, and spent on average 62 h less on mechanical ventilation. Conclusion: A nutritional regimen with a high fat content may reduce ventilatory requirements and therefore reduce the duration of mechanical ventilation

A Disease Without History? Evidence for the Antiquity of Head and Neck Cancers

There has been a long-running debate in anthropological, archaeological, and medical literature regarding the prevalence of cancer in various ancient human populations. At one extreme, some scholars have claimed that past human societies had rates of cancer roughly equivalent to those seen among modern peoples; at the other extreme, some researchers have effectively claimed that cancer is a disease of modernity. The present study aims to shed further light on this topic, at least insofar as cancers of the head and neck are concerned. A review of ancient art, medical texts, and paleopathological reports revealed somewhat discordant accounts of the age, geographical distribution, and prevalence of head and neck cancers. While representations of these neoplastic conditions in art are relatively rare and patchy in geographic distribution, descriptions of suspect lesions in ancient medical texts are rather more widespread, if unevenly distributed geographically, and the paleopathological record was found to contain surprisingly abundant evidence for cancers of the head and neck, especially as compared to what are, in modern societies, more ubiquitous cancers of the breast, lung, or prostate. While establishing the absolute prevalence of any of these conditions in antiquity is impossible, the present work establishes that cancers of the head and neck have long been present, and perhaps even prevalent, in human societies