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Alterations in PSP, PDP and CASP are already present in early life in normotensive offspring of hypertensive parents, with possible differences in mechanism between different sexes.

Hypertension continues to be the top global killer, contributing to over 10 million deaths annually. As prevalence and unawareness of hypertension remain high in Malaysia, this study was aimed to screen more individuals to identify those with undiagnosed hypertension. Respondents aged ≥18 years were recruited through opportunistic sampling at various screening sites including health clinics, hospitals, student health centres, universities, community halls, shopping malls, as well as through other health screening campaigns. Each respondent completed a questionnaire on socio-demographic, environmental, and lifestyle data. Anthropometric measurements as well as three blood pressure (BP) measurements were obtained from all participants. Hypertension was defined as a systolic BP ≥140 mmHg and/or diastolic BP ≥90 mmHg or taking antihypertensive medication. The total number of participants was 4866. The mean age of the participants was 39.8 (17.6) years with 61.1% female participants. Of the 4866 participants, 1405 (28.9%) had hypertension. The proportion of those aware of their hypertension status was 76.3% (1073/1405). The proportion of those with hypertension on medication was 71% (998/1405). Of those receiving antihypertensive treatment, 62.4% (623/998) had controlled BP. The proportion of hypertension in this study was 28.9%. The awareness rate of 76.3% compares favourably to a previously reported national level of 43.2%. Hence, BP screening programmes may be effective at increasing awareness and should be conducted annually.

Most overwhelming complications of Type 1 diabetes mellitus patients are responsible for complications related to the microvascular system most likely with kidney. In the kidney, hyperglycemia induced microangiopathy resulting not only thickening of the glomerular capillary basement membrane but also to the proliferation of the mesangial matrix and solidifying of the tubular basement membrane. Several biochemical and pathological, factors are concerned for the development of diabetic renal microangiopathy. These include the glomerular hyperperfusion and hyperfiltration, transformed morphology of podocytes accompanies these basement membrane modifications, Type IV collagen augmented synthesis following the hyperglycemia, and increased expression of tissue matrix metalloproteinase. The aim of this case review is to highlight the recent advances in understanding the pathogenesis, diagnosis, the overview and the potential renoprotective therapeutic agents that would prevent the development or the progression of diabetic nephropathy.

Background: Mounting evidence suggests that knowledge-retrieval practice is associated with improvement in retention. Eye-tracking technology has recently gained a lot of interest in educational research. Hence, the objectives of the present study were: 1) to compare between two specially designed educational diagrams for pharmacology of Autonomic nervous system (ANS) in terms of total fixation duration (TFD) and performance (assessed by multiple-choice questions related to the ANS pharmacology), among non-science students, and 2) to measure the performance of medical (MBBS) and pharmacology (BPharm) students before and after the exposure to a specially designed educational ANS Pharmacology diagram over 1 week. Methods: The present quasi-experiment study was conducted among non-science undergraduate students as well as MBBS and BPharm students. Eye-tracking technology was used to compare the “image” and “word” attractiveness of two specially designed educational diagrams for ANS pharmacology in non-science students (First Phase). Pre, post, and retention tests were carried out following exposure to the educational diagram, printed on front and back of customised t-shirts, to measure long-term memory, application and lecture learning among MBBS and BPharm students (Second Phase). Results: The TFD on the 'Image' as the area of interest (AOI) was longer for Diagram # 1 compared to Diagram # 2 among non-science students (3.96±1.12 sec and 3.43±0.87 sec, respectively, p> 0.05). On the contrary, Diagram # 2 had longer TFD on the 'Words' AOI compared to Diagram # 1 (1.24±0.52 sec and 0.99±0.64 sec, respectively, p> 0.05. Diagram # 2 also attracted the students’ eye gaze for both “Image” and “Word”. Therefore, Diagram # 2 was selected as the learning stimulus for the second interventional phase. MBBS and BPharm students completed a pre-test, were then exposed to customised t-shirts with the selected educational diagram for a week and completed a post-test 1 week and 1-year later to evaluate the retention of ANS pharmacology knowledge. Repeated measures analysis demonstrated a significant recall of knowledge (F (1.987, 162.9) = 20.53, p< 0.01). The mean at pre-test was 2.12±0.15, while at post-test (1 week) was 3.36 ±0.16 (p< 0.0001). The 1-year post-test retention was 2.7 ±0.14 (p< 0.01). Application and lecture-related questions showed no significant differences at pre, post and retention tests. Conclusions: Within the limitation of this quasi-experiment, specially designed educational Diagram # 2 was found to be more attractive and informative for learning “images" and related "words" in the short-term than Diagram # 1. Furthermore, special designed educational diagrams, printed on customised t-shirts, were associated with a significant improvement of long-term memory for pharmacy and medical students. The findings of the present study suggests that eye-tracking can be useful in designing learning material and knowledge retrieval outside the class for ANS pharmacology, and it might be a promising method in medical education in general.