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Many pharmacists report they lack nutritional knowledge and believe the best time to educate pharmacists about nutrition is during pharmacy school. Purpose: This study was conducted to determine if today’s pharmacy students receive education in nutrition and if they realize the importance of a nutrition course. Methods: Ninety-five pharmacy students attending pharmacy school were surveyed in two pharmacy schools in the United States. Results: The survey showed only 13.7% received nutrition education and 82.9% of students believed nutrition education should be incorporated into the pharmacy degree curriculum. When the pharmacy-related experience was taken into account, 73.3% of students believed that a nutrition course should be incorporated into the curriculum. Conclusion: This study suggests that pharmacy students from two major universities in Alabama and Illinois realize the importance of nutrition education and believe a nutrition course should be incorporated into the pharmacy degree curriculum.

Today's pharmacists are likely to encounter questions about nutritional products sold in the pharmacy. This is due, in part, to the increased number of pharmacies in grocery stores and the availability of pharmacists. However, many pharmacists report that they lack nutrition knowledge and believe the best time to educate pharmacists about nutrition is during pharmacy school.PURPOSEThe purpose of this study was to determine if pharmacy students realize the importance of nutrition education during pharmacy school and if a background in nutrition education or pharmacy‐related experience influences student's responses.METHODSBoth male and female students from nine different pharmacy schools from southern part of India [IND, n=225, age: 18–34y, male: n=74 (32.9%), female: 151 (67.1%)] and two pharmacy schools (Alabama and Illinois) from the United States [USA, n=95, age: 18–45y, male: n=23 (24.2%), female: 72 (75.8%)] participated in this study.RESULTSThe response rate from IND was 97.0% (seven students did not complete survey) and USA was 100% (no incomplete surveys). When the students were asked about their nutrition education, 77.3% of students from IND and 55.8% students from the USA reported never taking a nutrition course. Students who took a nutrition course had to take it as an elective. While 37.8% students from IND and 93.7% students from USA had pharmacy‐related experience, 6.7% of students from IND and 3.2% students from USA said they were very confident in handling nutrition‐related questions. Regardless of previous nutrition education and pharmacy‐related experience, 88.0% of students from IND and 70.5% of students from the USA, believed that nutrition education is important and should be incorporated in the pharmacy school curriculum. Among those who took a nutrition course, 81.8% of students from IND and 82.9% from USA believed that a nutrition course should be incorporated into the pharmacy school curriculum. When pharmacy‐related experience was considered, 92.9% from IND and 73.3% from USA also believed that a nutrition course should be incorporated into the pharmacy school curriculum.CONCLUSIONResults from this study suggest that a nutrition course should be incorporated into the pharmacy school curriculum, regardless of past nutrition education or pharmacy‐related experience. A limitation of this study was that only students from the southern part of the India and two pharmacy schools in the United States were surveyed. Additional data is needed from other pharmacy schools in order to generalize the results of this study and influence curriculum changes for pharmacy schools.This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal.

Funding Acknowledgements Type of funding sources: Private company. Main funding source(s): Beximco Pharmaceutical Limited, Bangladesh OnBehalf Cardiology Study Group (Bangladesh) Background The fact that SAARS-Cov2 virus enters cells through ACE2 receptors and the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System Inhibitors (RAASi) upregulate the ACE2 receptors, there was speculation that use of RAASi may lead increased cellular entry of the virus.  There was a pause for a brief period of the use of RAASi in COVID 19 patients. But clinically the speculation has been found to be incorrect. Different professional societies come up with the assertion to continue to use RAASi. As the hesitancy among the clinicians appears to continue and there is no first hand data regarding the safety of the use of RAASi in Bangladeshi population, the study was undertaken to evaluate the safety of RAASi in COVID 19 patients. Aims & Methods This study was a prospective, observational multi-center study to evaluate the outcome of COVID-19 patients receiving RAAS inhibitors. Adult Hypertensive patients (age ≥18 years) with diagnosed COVID-19 confirmed by RT-PCR test who have a history of taking either ACE inhibitor/ARB or any other anti-hypertensive medication. Evaluation of outcome was assessed by rate of hospitalization, requirement of oxygen therapy, requirement of high flow nasal cannula, admission to ICU and mortality between two groups. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS for Windows, version 20.0 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL, USA). Results We collected data from 147 Covid-19 positive patients confirmed by RT-PCR. Among them, 117 (79.6%) had a history of taking RAAS inhibitor and 30 had history of taking other antihypertensive medications. Of them, two-third patients had more than 50 years of age and more than half of the patients had overweight or obesity. Other than hypertension they had several comorbidities such as Diabetes Mellitus (45.4%), Ischemic Heart Diseases (35.4%), Asthma or COPD (15%) etc. Rate of hospitalization had no statistical difference between RAAS inhibitor group and other hypertensive group (48.7% vs 46.70% respectively; p-value - 0.841). There was no statistical difference between two groups in terms of requirement of oxygen therapy (p-value - 0.297), High Flow Nasal Cannula (p-value - 0.430), intensive care unit (p-value - 0.194) and death (p-value – 0.383) also. Almost half and one-third of the patients had persistence of symptoms even after 14 days and 28 days respectively. Fatigue, cough, breathlessness, loss of appetite and taste were the most common symptoms among those. Conclusion In our study we found that RAAS inhibitor treatment had no adverse effect on the outcome of COVID-19 patients compared with other antihypertensive drugs. Patients may continue receiving ACEIs and ARBs for the treatment of any indication for RAASi without an increased risk of worse outcomes.