Vitamin A Fortification Quality Is High for Packaged and Branded Edible Oil but Low for Oil Sold in Unbranded,Loose Form: Findings from a Market Assessment in Bangladesh

Although mandatory fortification of oil with vitamin A is efficacious, its effectiveness can be compromised by suboptimal compliance to standards. In this study, we assessed (1) the availability of oil brands across the eight divisions of Bangladesh, (2) fortification quality (the extent to which vitamin A content is aligned with fortification standards) of oil brands and producers and (3) the market volume represented by available edible oil types. We visited different retail outlets in rural and urban market hubs to ascertain available oil brands and bulk oil types and collected samples. We used high-performance liquid chromatography to quantify average vitamin A content and compared them to the national oil fortification standards. Among the 66 packaged brands analyzed, 26 (39%) were not fortified, and 40 (61%) were fortified, with 28 (42%) fortified above the standard vitamin A minimum. Among the 41 bulk oil type composites analyzed, 24 (59%) were not fortified, and 17 (41%) were fortified, with 14 (34%) fortified below and 3 (7%) fortified above the standard minimum. Vitamin A fortification is high for packaged and branded edible oil but low for oil sold in unbranded, loose form. As bulk oil makes up a large proportion of the oil market volume, this means the majority of the oil volume available to the population is either not (25%) or fortified below the standard requirement (39%). Regulatory inspections of producers selling bulk oil should be prioritized to support and incentivize the industry to make all oil traceable and fortified to standard.     

Assessing glomerular filtration rate in healthy Indian adults: a comparison of various prediction equations

BACKGROUND: Accurate measurement of renal function is important for the diagnosis, stratification and management of kidney disease. As the use of recommended filtration markers is limited by cumbersome and costly techniques, renal function is typically estimated by using various specifically derived prediction equations. Most of these equations have been derived from Caucasian patients suffering from varying degrees of chronic kidney disease. This study considers the validity of these equations in an Indian population without known kidney disease. METHODS: One hundred and twenty-two consecutive renal donors who had undergone 99mTc-diethylenetriaminepentaaceticacid (DTPA) glomerular filtration rate (GFR) estimation were enrolled. The predictive capabilities of the Cockcroft and Gault equation for creatinine clearance corrected for body surface area (CG-CrCl), CG-CrCl corrected for GFR (CG-GFR), modification of diet in renal disease (MDRD) 1, MDRD 2 and 24-hr urinary creatinine clearance (urine-CrCl) were evaluated with DTPA GFR as measured GFR. RESULTS: The mean age of the study population was 44.7 yrs with 72.2% being female). The mean measured DTPA GFR was 83.42 ml/min with a range of 61-130 ml/min. The median % absolute difference between the calculated and measured GFR was 19.7, 15.4, 19.3, 20.8 and 25.5, respectively, for CG-CrCl, CG-GFR, MDRD 1, MDRD 2 and urine-CrCl. Pearson's correlation between the measured and estimated GFR varied from 0.09-0.27. The precision as reflected by R2 value was 0.05 for CG-CrCl and CG-GFR, 0.06 for MDRD 1 and MDRD 2 and 0.01 for urine-CrCl. The bias was -14.14, 1.46, 11.89, 17.70 and -2.80 for CG-CrCl, CG-GFR, MDRD 1, MDRD 2 and urine-CrCl, respectively. The accuracy within 30% was 71.3, 85, 86, 76 and 69% for CG-CrCl, CG-GFR, MDRD 1, MDRD 2 and urine-CrCl, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: Our results from a healthy Indian population suggest that of all the predictive equations, MDRD 1 and MDRD 2 were the most precise, MDRD 1 the most accurate and CG-GFR the least biased. However, the poor correlation and error level exhibited by these equations makes them sub-optimal for clinical use.     

Coumarin: a potential nucleus for anti-inflammatory molecules

Numerous research reports have indicated the coumarin nucleus as a potential candidate for development of anti-inflammatory drugs. Various phytoconstituents such as umbelliferone, scopoletin, columbiatnetin, visniadin, marmin, and many more derived from coumarin nucleus are found to have potent anti-inflammatory as well as antioxidant activities. A large number of coumarin derivatives have also been designed, synthesized, and evaluated to have mild-to-very potent anti-inflammatory activity through different mechanisms. However, despite the continuing efforts in search of these drugs, no major breakthrough has been achieved so far. In the present review, a critical analysis of various reports on naturally as well as the synthetically derived coumarin derivatives having anti-inflammatory activity has been carried out and a structural–activity relationship around the coumarin nucleus has been proposed to assist the medicinal chemists in rationally designing the anti-inflammatory drugs.     

Estimation of lipid peroxidation induced by hydrogen peroxide in cultured human lymphocytes

Malondialdehyde (MDA) is used for the estimation of damage by reactive oxygen species. MDA is a major reactive aldehyde resulting from the peroxidation of biological membranes. The most common method used to assess MDA production is the thiobarbituric acid (TBARS) assay. However, the value of this method is curbed by low specificity and has been criticized for its use in human studies. In the present study we have used an alternative method for the estimation of MDA production i.e. reaction of MDA with a chromogenic agent 1-methyl-2-phenylindole at 45°C. The paper describes the method of preparing standards for the estimation of MDA (lipid peroxidation) after the treatment with an oxidative stress inducing agent hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)). In the present study, the treatments of 1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 150 and 200 μM of H(2)O(2) induced significant increase in lipid peroxidation as compared to the untreated ones. The results suggest that the present method can be used to measure the lipid peroxidation in cultured human peripheral blood lymphocytes and is specific for MDA estimation.