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Background: The sexual dimorphism favours gender specific biological characteristics influenced by sex hormones. These sex hormones determined differences influence the health of an individual by influencing many physiological parameters. As the pulmonary functions are different between male and female and the susceptibility to different respiratory diseases varies between genders, this study has been designed to assess the relation between gender and the nasal mucociliary clearance, an inherent protective mechanism of the respiratory passages. Aim & objectives:To assess the relation between gender and nasal mucociliary clearance (NMC). Materials & methods:This cross sectional study was carried out on 60 randomly selected volunteers (30 male volunteers and 30 female volunteers) and NMC time was measured in them. The saccharin transit method was used to assess NMC. Saccharin transit time (STT) is the time taken by the participant to appreciate the taste of saccharin after placement of ¼ tablet of saccharin (1mm x 1mm) in the nostril. Results: The mean NMC in males was 7.71 ± 2.35min and in the females was 7.65 ± 2.22 min. There was no statistical significance as the p value is 0.9291. Conclusion: NMC time did not vary between male and female population. Therefore it could be inferred that gender has no apparent influence on nasal mucociliary clearance.

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Introduction: Exam stress is a set of responses that includes excessive worry, depression, nervousness and irrelevant thinking to a class of stimuli from an individual's experience of assessment and outcome. The rationale of this study is to assess the examination related stress among the first year MBBS students by measuring BMI (body mass index) and VAS (Visual analogue scale) as to determine the factors contributing to exam stress among first year medical students. Methods: The study was conducted over four weeks with 130 students in the month of March 2011. Questionnaire consisted of VAS to measure exam stress and 16 questions consisted of matters related to Academic factors, psychological problems, details of food intake and lack of physical activities. Body weight was measured before, during and after the exams to assess any weight loss due to exam stress. Results: There is a significant moderate level of stress marked on VAS during the examination. Among different factors contributing to exam stress, academic factors (63%), lack of physical exercise (89%), Details of food intake (59%) and psychological problems (50%) were most important factors reported by the students. There was no significant change in BMI during the various phases of examination. Conclusion: This study indicates that there is a significant moderate level of exam stress among the first year MBBS students based on VAS and it also highlights the various factors which can contribute to examination stress process.

Introduction. Physiological functions of women are different from men. Though the muscle strength of women is lesser than in men, their engagement in sports is markedly increased and is equal to man nowadays. Females are more prone for sports related injuries compared to males [1]. Young females have lot of restrictions in developing countries like India for participation in sports [2]. Fluctuating levels of sex steroids affect the sensory-motor association in females [3]. Fluctuating levels of sex steroids during menstrual cycle can affect the performance of woman both physically and psychologically. Ability to perform physical exercise largely depends on respiratory efficiency as it requires more amount of oxygen for utilization. The changes in skeletal muscle performance have been expected as a consequence of alteration in autonomic reactivity and metabolism during menstrual cycle [4]. With increase in participation of women in competitive sports, many studies have been conducted to learn the effect of female sex hormones on muscle strength and respiratory efficiency along the different phases of menstrual cycle [5, 6]. Menstrual cycle has appeared to have significant effect on pulmonary function test parameters. Cyclical endocrine profile of females do have a correlation with bronchial hyperreactivity, bronchial asthma related hospital admissions [7]. Different studies have showed varied results [8]. Because of the existing of controversies and lack of such studies in non-athletic females of our locality this theme of the study has been chosen. Aim. This study has been aimed at assessing of the muscle strength, time of fatigue and respiratory efficiency during different phases of menstrual cycle in non-athletic healthy females of our locality. Objectives. 1. To assess and compare the muscle strength and time of fatigue during premenstrual and proliferative phase of menstrual cycle. 2. To assess and compare respiratory blast test and respiratory endurance during premenstrual and proliferative phase of menstrual cycle. Materials and methods. After getting the institutional ethical committee clearance, this observational study has been conducted in the department of Physiology, Sri Venkateshwaraa medical college hospital and research centre. Fifty young healthy non-athletic female subjects aged 20-30 years, with history of regular menstruation have been selected. All the participants have had normal BMI (18-25 kg/m 2).