Infertility and Obesity: A Cross-Sectional Study in North Indian Women

The present study assessed the relationship between primary infertility and obesity in women of Delhi, India, independently, and in light of various demographic trait, lifestyle and reproductive variables. The present study was a part of a major project funded by the National Commission for Women of India, Government of India. The data were collected from 334 women, including 167 fertile and 167 infertile individuals. A two-part pretested modified quantitative interview schedule was used to collect data. The first part of the interview schedule included demographic traits, reproductive profile and lifestyle variables. The second part consisted of anthropometric measurements for BMI which were taken using an anthropometric rod (height) and digital weighing scale (weight). All the data were analysed through SPSS 22.0. The results revealed a higher prevalence of obesity and underweight among infertile women. There is a clear-cut indication that usual risk factors of obesity like physical inactivity, increasing age, higher age at marriage, and infertility-related biological issues seem to be promoting obesity in combination with infertility. Public health education is needed to increase awareness about the age at marriage. As physical inactivity leads to obesity among infertile women, counselling, awareness raising or improvement of lifestyle factors should be considered in the infertility treatment protocol

Prevelance of malnutrition among Chiru children of Manipur India

The present study describes the nutritional status of 4 to 12 year-old Chiru children of Manipur, India evaluated with the help of anthropometric measurements. The Chiru is one of the 33 Scheduled tribes of Manipur. The study is based on height and weight of 322 children among whom 172 were boys and 150 girls. It also aims to throw light on different conventional methods of nutritional assessment based on height and weight and their varied results. The Chiru children are shorter in height and lighter in body weight as compared to the NCHS (National Centre for Health Statistics) and ICMR data on Indian children in all the age groups. According to Waterlow’s classification of height for age, about 51% of the Chiru boys and girls are below -2SD score, whereas according to Gomez’s classification of weight for age shows that 31.37%, 49.69% and 15.53% fall under mild, moderate and severe malnourished, respectively categories. Waterlow’s classification of weight for height depicts 70.50% of the children as normal

SARS-CoV-2 in Kidney Transplant Recipients: A Systematic Review

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become a global healthcare crisis. Kidney transplant (KTx) patients and the patients with chronic kidney disease are two of the most vulnerable populations to the risks of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). A systematic literature search on PubMed and Web of Science was conducted. We analyzed published case reports, case series and articles on COVID-19’s clinical presentation, management, outcomes and vaccination among kidney transplant recipients. A total of 33 studies were included in the study, which included 1676 KTx recipients and 108 waiting list patients infected with COVID-19. These studies reported the clinical presentation, management and immunosuppressive adjustment among the KTx recipients. The remaining studies focused on other aspects, such as vaccination and transplantation, during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mortality due to COVID-19 was observed to be the highest for KTx recipients, followed by patients on hemodialysis, and lowest in the general population. There is no definitive treatment of COVID-19 yet, and managing transplant patients is enigmatic of this: the treatment is based on symptom management. There is an urgent need for guidelines on managing kidney transplant recipients and immunosuppressive adjustments for the course of COVID-19 treatment

Characteristics of study participants.

BackgroundMore than 250 loci have been identified by genome-wide scans for type 2 diabetes in different populations. South Asians have a very different manifestation of the diseases and hence role of these loci need to be investigated among Indians with huge burden of cardio-metabolic disorders. Thus the present study aims to validate the recently identified GWAS loci in an endogamous caste population in North India.Methods219 T2D cases and 184 controls were recruited from hospitals and genotyped for 15 GWAS loci of T2D. Regression models adjusted for covariates were run to examine the association for T2D and fasting glucose levels.ResultsWe validated three variants for T2D namely, rs11634397 at ZFAND6 (OR = 3.05, 95%CI = 1.02–9.19, p = 0.047) and rs8042680 at PRC1 (OR = 3.67, 95%CI = 1.13–11.93, p = 0.031) showing higher risk and rs6813195 at TMEM154 (OR = 0.28, 95%CI = 0.09–0.90, p = 0.033) showing protective effect. The combined risk of 9 directionally consistent variants was also found to be significantly associated with T2D (OR = 1.91, 95%CI = 1.18–3.08, p = 0.008). One variant rs10842994 at KLHDC5 was validated for 9.15mg/dl decreased fasting glucose levels (SE = -17.25–1.05, p = 0.027).ConclusionWe confirm the role of ZFAND6, PRC1 and TMEM154 in the pathophysiology of type 2 diabetes among Indians. More efforts are needed with larger sample sizes to validate the diabetes GWAS loci in South Asian populations for wider applicability.</div