Zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in adults and children: a systematic review and meta-analysis

In developing countries, deficiencies of micronutrients are thought to have a major impact on child development; however, a consensus on the specific relationship between dietary zinc intake and cognitive function remains elusive. The aim of this systematic review was to examine the relationship between zinc intake, status and indices of cognitive function in children and adults. A systematic literature search was conducted using EMBASE, MEDLINE and Cochrane Library databases from inception to March 2014. Included studies were those that supplied zinc as supplements or measured dietary zinc intake. A meta-analysis of the extracted data was performed where sufficient data were available. Of all of the potentially relevant papers, 18 studies met the inclusion criteria, 12 of which were randomised controlled trials (RCTs; 11 in children and 1 in adults) and 6 were observational studies (2 in children and 4 in adults). Nine of the 18 studies reported a positive association between zinc intake or status with one or more measure of cognitive function. Meta-analysis of data from the adult’s studies was not possible because of limited number of studies. A meta-analysis of data from the six RCTs conducted in children revealed that there was no significant overall effect of zinc intake on any indices of cognitive function: intelligence, standard mean difference of <0.001 (95% confidence interval (CI) –0.12, 0.13) P=0.95; executive function, standard mean difference of 0.08 (95% CI, –0.06, 022) P=0.26; and motor skills standard mean difference of 0.11 (95% CI –0.17, 0.39) P=0.43. Heterogeneity in the study designs was a major limitation, hence only a small number (n=6) of studies could be included in the meta-analyses. Meta-analysis failed to show a significant effect of zinc supplementation on cognitive functioning in children though, taken as a whole, there were some small indicators of improvement on aspects of executive function and motor development following supplementation but high-quality RCTs are necessary to investigate this further

Antioxidant activity of Arthritin-A polyherbal formulation

403-407In complete freund’s adjuvant induced arthritis in male albino rats, a significant increase in serum lipid peroxidase besides increase in paw swelling and a significant decrease in superoxide dismutase, glutathione peroxidase and total reduced glutathione levels were observed. Arthritin produced a marked reversal of these enzyme levels, besides a significant reduction in paw swelling. The results suggest that, the polyherbal formulation ‘Arthritin’ exerts its effects by modulating lipid peroxidation and enhancing anti-oxidant and detoxifying enzyme systems

Diagnosis of Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia from Microscopic Image of Peripheral Blood Smear Using Image Processing Technique

At present, cancer is a second leading cause of death which rises the global burden. Among them acute lymphoblastic leukemia is a subtype of blood cancer which is most common in child as well as adults. It occurs when the number of lymphoblast is more producing from stem cells. Over time the accumulation of this abnormal cells in bone marrow prevents to produce other healthy blood cells in our body which is very dangerous. So, early detection is one of the most important which can increase patient’s survivability and treatment options. For cancer diagnosis, Ultrasound, Mammogram, MRI and microscopic images are some common methods used in medical science. Some basic detection processes of leukemia are CBC, PBS test and bone marrow test based on microscopic images. For blood cancer diagnosis, microscopic images are used manually which is time consuming and less accurate and can produce non standardized reports. So, it needs to detect leukemia automatically. Recently some computer aided methods are generated to diagnosis leukemia which are more reliable, more accurate, more precise and faster than manual diagnosis methods. In this paper a new automatic system has been proposed to detect all based on several image processing techniques from microscopic image of blood smear such as, segmentation, preprocessing, enhancement for getting better performance. To, classify blast cells and healthy cells ensemble classifier has been used with several types of feature such as, texture features, geometric features, statistic features. In this paper 99.1% accuracy, 98% Sensitivity have been achieved