Tribal population of India constitutes 8.6% of the total population. They are more susceptible to undernutrition which is recognized as a prevalent health problem mainly because of their uncertainty of food supply, which has serious long term consequences for the child and adversely influences the development of the nation. The assessment of nutritional status is paramount importance because it impels to identify malnutrition which is an aggravation of morbidity and mortality. This review was aimed to find out the overall nutritional status of tribal preschool children. It also seek the major socio-cultural causes which influence the nutritional status from bio-cultural perspectives among the tribal children in India in order to make foundation of new research. In the present review, 41 papers on nutritional status of tribal preschool children published from January 1st 2000 till date, have been identified and included for analysis. To analyze the data, meta-analysis was done using MedCalc software. The meta-analysis revealed the average rate of prevalence of underweight, stunting and wasting among the preschool tribal children of India was 42.96%; 44.82% and 23.69%. Among the 41 different studies these rates vary among the different tribal groups of different states associated with their socio-economic status (10%), their cultures of food consumption (10%), maternal education (15%), child feeding practices (20%), dietary deficit during pregnancy (25%) and poor nutrition of the child (52%). Prevalence rate of under-nutrition and stunting is relatively high in comparison to WHO in India whereas, rate of wasting was lower in comparison to national level which reflect that immediate nutritional status was poor but chronic deficiency of nutrition was less. Nutritional education and short term appropriately planned nutritional intervention programs may also be useful for enhancing their nutritional status.

This study reports results of an extensive and comprehensive study of genetic diversity in 12 genes of the innate immune system in a population of eastern India. Genomic variation was assayed in 171 individuals by resequencing ~75 kb of DNA comprising these genes in each individual. Almost half of the 548 DNA variants discovered was novel. DNA sequence comparisons with human and chimpanzee reference sequences revealed evolutionary features indicative of natural selection operating among individuals, who are residents of an area with a high load of microbial and other pathogens. Significant differences in allele and haplotype frequencies of the study population were observed with the HapMap populations. Gene and haplotype diversities were observed to be high. The genetic positioning of the study population among the HapMap populations based on data of the innate immunity genes substantially differed from what has been observed for Indian populations based on data of other genes. The reported range of variation in SNP density in the human genome is one SNP per 1.19 kb (chromosome 22) to one SNP per 2.18 kb (chromosome 19). The SNP density in innate immunity genes observed in this study (>3 SNPs kb −1 ) exceeds the highest density observed for any autosomal chromosome in the human genome. The extensive genomic variation and the distinct haplotype structure of innate immunity genes observed among individuals have possibly resulted from the impact of natural selection.

Overall health and nutritional status of elderly population of India is not satisfactory. Therefore, present systematic review was conducted to determine the overall occurrence of malnutrition of Indian elderly and furthermore attempted to find out the underlying causes of malnutrition. Present review considered published article reported malnutrition of elderly as assessed by mini nutritional assessment (MNA) tool. Thus, literature searching, screening and data synthesis was made and recorded following preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) protocol. All published literature looked through utilizing the accompanying keywords. The MedCalc software was applied to estimate the overall prevalence of malnutrition by using meta-analysis statistical method. Thirty of 147 articles were included in this analysis. Overall mean MNA scores was 19.47±4.17. Study found overall prevalence of malnutrition among elderly was 17.93% (95% CI: 14.23-21.84). The prevalence of malnutrition was significantly higher in rural elderly (21.67%, 95% CI: 16.44-27.40) than urban (14.23%, 95% CI: 10.02-19.05) elderly of India. Rural elderly more likely to be 1.8 (OR: 1.76; CI: 1.56-1.99) times greater chance to be developed malnutrition than the urban elderly. Moreover, present study estimated that about 18.6 million Indian elderly population was malnourished and expected to be 22 million by 2021 due to elderly population growth, morbidity, poverty and joblessness by COVID-19 pandemic. Given the expansion of elderly malnutrition in future, there is felt need a special nutrition intervention programme for the rural elderly population. Thus, a dedicated geriatric friendly nutrition rehabilitation center (GFNRC) may be setup at every community development block of India.