No abstract

Background:Obesity and hypertension among school children have a huge impact on public health. Hence, we estimated the prevalence and sociodemographic correlates of childhood obesity and elevated blood pressure (BP) among adolescent schoolchildren (11-19 years) in urban areas of Gangtok, Sikkim, India.Materials and Methods:A population based cross-sectional study was conducted on 979 school children, during November 1, 2009 - April 30, 2010 in Gangtok, East Sikkim India. Anthropometric measurements and BP were recorded among the study population. Obesity and hypertension prevalent among adolescent school children and their correlates were analyzed.Results and Conclusion:Prevalence of obesity, overweight, and hypertension was 2.04%, 14.5% and 5.62%, respectively. The average fast food intake, screen time and limited outdoor activities were significantly associated with obesity. Increase in abdominal height positively correlated with increase in body mass index and body fat; however waist — hip ratio was not a reliable index. The burden of overweight/obesity as well as hypertension with all its associated risk was found to high among our study population, which necessitates framing of policies and actions at national level to address the risk associated with these noncommunicable diseases.

Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease responsible for significant human morbidity in modern life. However, oxidative stress is one of the key markers for determining pathophysiology of patients with RA. The interaction between cellular immune system and body's endogenous and/or exogenous antigens produce reactive oxygen species (ROS) and reactive nitrogen species (RNS) in autoimmune disease like RA. ROS and RNS include highly toxic superoxide (O) and peroxynitrite (ONOO) radicals, which activate the signaling cascades of inflammatory cells to synthesize pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines. Previous studies reported that Th1 cytokines could promote the development of autoimmune disorders like RA, whereas the Th2 cytokines may attenuate the same diseases. An increased awareness of the relationship between food and health led to a tremendous increase of antioxidant research in the last decade. Evaluation of the efficacy of dietary antioxidants is also becoming highly acceptable in RA research. A number of dietary phytomolecules are already established as having antioxidant activity in isolated synovial cellular infiltrate or peripheral blood neutrophils and lymphocytes. This review aims to highlight the oxidative stress in inflammatory cells of patients with RA and to summarize the clinical relevance of dietary antioxidants as a first step in assessing beneficial effect, safety and dose safety ratio in patients with RA.

Background: Teaching methods have failed to keep up with the pace of the changing curriculum. Clinical practice, an essential part of nursing education, links theory with practice, particularly in midwifery nursing. Thus, this study aimed to compare the effects of video-assisted teaching programs and traditional demonstration on nursing students learning obstetrical palpation skills. Materials and Methods: This is a quasi-experimental research work with pretest, posttest, control group design in which 60 third-year students of Bachelor of Science in Nursing were selected and assigned randomly, by lottery method, into an experimental group (video-assisted teaching program) and a control group (traditional demonstration) regarding obstetrical palpation. The data were collected through a self-designed rating scale. The validity of the rating scale was established by a panel of seven experts from the field of obstetrical and gynecological nursing, and the reliability was established through Cronbach's α(0.78), which showed the tool was consistent among the population. Results: The results showed a significant difference between the pretest and posttest skill scores of students who were exposed to video-assisted teaching program and traditional demonstration ( t = 18.35, p < 0.001). Although both the methods were equally effective in enhancing skill, traditional demonstration scored much better than the video-assisted teaching program when the posttest skills were compared ( t = 36.40, p = 0.001). Conclusions: The routine educational method, i.e., demonstration, is more effective in developing skills emphasizing the reinforcement of academicians in enhancing teaching skills by adopting blended teaching technique for enhancing memory storage, retrieval, cognition, and learning.