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The effects of the hypocaloric diet under hospitalization on blood biochemical parameters (lipid, glycaemic, thyroid and liver profiles) were not reported in literature. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy and safety of a hypocaloric diet under hospitalisation in obese patients. A total of 151 obese subjects (49 males and 102 females, aged 69.38 ± 14.1 years, BMI 41.78 ± 7.1) were enrolled in this study. Participants were treated with an hypocaloric diet for a maximum period of 3 months. Outcomes were assessed at the beginning and at the end of the recovery period. The average duration of the hospitalisation was 47.5 days ± 1.3. The effect of the diet on all the outcomes was evaluated using the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) and the predictors of weight loss were identified using linear regression. The diet induced a reduction in the anthropometric (BMI decrease of −2.713 points) and DXA body measurements in addition to serum lipids, glucose, Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels without affecting the muscle mass, liver and thyroid profiles. During the intervention, there was a positive shift in body composition favouring fat free mass (FFM). Lower insulin but higher serum calcium and potassium levels were predictors of weight loss.

In this study, the bioactivity of some algal extracts were evaluated in vitro against different bacterial strains. Five commonly occurring benthic algae, namely Cystoseira myrica, Digenea simplex, Hormophysa triquetra, Sargassum cervicorne and Sarconema filiforme, were collected from Bahrain’s coastline in July 2007. A total of six chemical extracts were derived from those algal species, four of which were prepared by Soxhlet (petroleum ether, chloroform, ethyl acetate, methanol), aqueous and crude methanol. Their bioactivity was assessed against four testing bacterial strains using the agar well diffusion assay and expressed as the diameter of inhibition zone (mm). Results revealed that the petroleum ether extract of D. simplex exhibited the highest inhibition zone (24.3 mm) against Pseudomonas aeruginosa while the aqueous extract of C. myrica exhibited the lowest inhibition zone (13.3 mm) against Staphylococcus aureus. The Soxhlet extracts of all the algal species were biologically active only against P. aeruginosa. The aqueous extracts showed an inhibitory activity against S. aureus only. The crude methanolic extract was biologically broadly active on a wide range of tested bacteria, P. aeruginosa, Escherichia coli and Bacillus subtilis. The bacterium P. aeruginosa was the most susceptible microbe whereas S. aureus was the most resistant. On the average, The gram-negative bacteria tested were more sensitive than the gram-positive bacteria towards the extracts of the algal species used. The algal species that belong to the red algae class Rhodophyceae were more biologically active than algal species that belong to the brown algae class Phaeophyceae.

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