No abstract

Background: Decrease in serum sodium concentration is frequent observation among hospitalised elderly patients. The common causes for hyponatremia are degenerative physiology, dehydration, medications and infections. Hence the present study was undertaken to know the extent of hyponatremia among elderly with Lower Respiratory Tract Infections. Objectives: The present study was undertaken to assess the prevalence of hyponatremia in lower respiratory tract infection among geriatric age group and to determine the association between severity of hyponatraemia and LRTI. Methods: This was hospital based cross sectional study carried out in the Department of General Medicine of a tertiary care teaching hospital situated in north Karnataka, India during November 2016 to May 2018. 100 elderly patients (age e” 60 years) with history of cough for more than four to five days, clinical findings and X-ray findings suggestive of LRTI, were selected for the study. Results: In the present study 59% comprised of male whereas females constituted 41%. The prevalence of hyponatraemia among elderly patients with LRTI was 45%. The most common cause of hyponatraemia was GI loss (vomiting) 53.33%, Euvolemic hyponatramia 51.11%. The mean age was 69.99±8.44 years. Most of the patients were aged between 61 to 70 years. .Hyponatraemia was not associated with sex, age and type of LRTI. Duration of hospital stay was significantly longer in patients with hyponatraemia compared to those who did not develop hyponatraemia. Conclusion: Hyponatraemia among elderly individuals with LRTI is higher as compared to other age group hence leading to prolonged duration of hospitalisation. Bangladesh J Medicine Jan 2020; 31(1) : 13-17

Vitamin D has been found to be useful for a number of conditions. Various studies have found it useful in different disorders to varying degree. It is being prescribed very frequently in clinical practice. So, we decided to conduct review to clarify its role in prevention and treatment of different disorders. We found more than thousand articles and reviewed relevant literatute from databases like Cochrane, Pubmed, Medline that tested role of this vitamin in various spectra of diseases. We found vitamin D to be efficacious in conditions like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes mellitus, osteoporosis; but its role in treatment of certain conditions like multiple sclerosis, cognition needs to be assessed further studies.

Metabolic syndrome, a combination of various cardiovascular risk factors, is one of the fast increasing non communicable diseases. It has been considered to be mainly a disorder affecting cardiovascular system. Unfortunately, the subtle, but important clinical features of this syndrome due to involvement of other systems go unrecognized, leading to lot of morbidity for the patient. Hence, we conducted review to highlight the evidence about various complications due to this syndrome. We searched more than thousand relevant articles from Cochrane, pubmed, embase, medline databases. We have found that metabolic syndrome can affect virtually every organ systems in the body. But the silver lining is, most of them can be prevented by appropriate patient education, life style changes and other non pharmacologic intevention itself. Proper control of the components of metabolic syndrome with the drugs is also important in unresponsive cases. Increasing physical activity, weight reduction, dietary alteration are the key to prevent complications related to this preventable, treatable and curable disease.