Background. The effects of coconut fat and soya fat on serum lipids are controversial. This study was designed to investigate the lipid effects of coconut milk and soya milk supplementation on the lipid profile of free living healthy subjects. Methods. Sixty (60) healthy volunteers aged 18–57 years were given coconut milk porridge (CMP) for 5 days of the week for 8 weeks, followed by a 2-week washout period, subsequent to which they received isoenergetic soya milk porridge (SMP) for 8 weeks. Results. The LDL (low density lipoprotein) levels decreased with CMP and reached statistical significance in the total study population and in the >130 baseline LDL group. The HDL (high density lipoprotein) levels rose significantly with CMP supplementation (P = 0.000). Conclusions. We conclude that coconut fat in the form of CM does not cause a detrimental effect on the lipid profile in the general population and in fact is beneficial due to the decrease in LDL and rise in HDL. SMP will be of benefit only in those whose baseline LDL levels are elevated.

Background: Chronic Kidney Disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) is prevalent in North Central Province (NCP) of Sri Lanka. Consumption of un-boiled dug well water has been identified as one of the causative factors. This in-vivo study was performed to investigate some of the suspected factors associated with the pathogenesis of CKDu mediated via ground water.Method: Rats were given water, collected from high and low disease prevalent areas from the NCP of Sri Lanka and the results compared with those obtained from previously identified low disease prevalent area; Colombo. Blood Urea Nitrogen, creatinine, urinary microalbumin:creatinine ratio together with ALT and AST levels were analyzed and results were compared using one-way ANOVA and paired t-Test. Histopathology was analyzed using non-parametric method.

Introduction Chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu) is prevalent in the North Central Province (NCP) of Sri Lanka and ingestion of dug well water is considered a potential causative factor. Three CKDu prevalent villages were selected from the NCP based on the number of CKDu patients in the locality.

Justification for the selection of water sources for the study Questionnaire based study was performed in two Medical Officer of Health (MOH) areas in North Central Province (NCP) namely, Dimbulagala and Medirigiriya in order to select suitable water sources. Previous investigations carried out by health authorities using dipstick method revealed that high microalbuminuria and these areas were identified as CKDu prevalent. Other causative factors such as diabetes mellitus, high blood pressure etc. were excluded in these investigations. Each MOH area comprised of Public Health Inspectors areas of New Town Medirigiriya (NTM) and Bisobandaragama (BB) from Medirigiriya and Divuldamana (DD) from Dimbulagala. People were questioned in order to identify whether they have CKDu patients in their families identified by health authorities, their regular water source, depth of their wells and number of years of consumption of water and boiled and unboiled water and nature of consumed water. One hundred and thirty nine families were recruited to the study and according to the questionnaire based study, 23 families were identified as affected and of them, 9 families were from New Town Medirigiriya and 9 families from Bisobandaragama Medirigiriya whilst 5 families were from Divuldamana, Dimbulagala [1]. Wells were selected considering number of CKDu patients in the locality or close proximity to the locality in the selected villages [2]. According to questionnaire based study there was a significant association between number of years of consumption of water and development of CKDu [2]. Water from Colombo was used as a control from a low CKDu disease prevalence area based on scientific evidence. A previous study by Gunarathne et al among This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.