Rheumatic Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease in Children

Indian Journal of Pediatrics - Acute rheumatic fever (ARF) and its sequelae, Rheumatic heart disease (RHD), contribute significantly to the cardiovascular morbidity and mortality in developing...     

A scoping review of social‐behaviour change techniques applied in complementary feeding interventions

Education and other strategies to promote optimal complementary feeding can significantly improve practices, but little is known about the specific techniques successful interventions use to achieve behaviour change. We reviewed the literature for complementary feeding interventions in low‐/middle‐income countries (LMIC) published since 2000. We systematically applied a validated taxonomy mapping process to code specific behaviour change techniques (BCTs) used in each intervention; effectiveness ratios for each BCT were estimated. Sixty‐four interventions met inclusion criteria, were abstracted, BCTs identified, and coded. Dietary diversity was the most commonly assessed component of complementary feeding, and interpersonal communication, either individually or in groups, was the most commonly used delivery platform. Of the 93 BCTs available for mapping, the 64 interventions included in this review applied a total of 28 BCTs. Interventions used a median of six techniques (max = 13; min = 2). All interventions used “instruction on how to perform the behaviour.” Other commonly applied BCTs included “use of a credible source” (n = 46), “demonstration of the behaviour” (n = 35), and “providing information about health consequences” (n = 30). Forty‐three interventions reported strategies to shift the physical or social environment. Among BCTs used in >20 interventions, five had effectiveness ratios >0.8: “provision of/enabling social support”; “providing information about health consequences”; “demonstration of the behaviour”; and “adding objects to the environment” namely, food, supplements, or agricultural inputs. The limited reporting of theory‐based BCTs in complementary feeding interventions may impede efforts to improve and scale effective programs and reduce the global burden of malnutrition.     

Illusory conjunctions in visual short‐term memory: Individual differences in corpus callosum connectivity and splitting attention between the two hemifields

Overloading the capacity of visual attention can result in mistakenly combining the various features of an object, that is, illusory conjunctions. We hypothesize that if the two hemispheres separately process visual information by splitting attention, connectivity of corpus callosum—a brain structure integrating the two hemispheres—would predict the degree of illusory conjunctions. In the current study, we assessed two types of illusory conjunctions using a memory‐scanning paradigm; the features were either presented across the two opposite hemifields or within the same hemifield. Four objects, each with two visual features, were briefly presented together followed by a probe‐recognition and a confidence rating for the recognition accuracy. MRI scans were also obtained. Results indicated that successful recollection during probe recognition was better for across hemifields conjunctions compared to within hemifield conjunctions, lending support to the bilateral advantage of the two hemispheres in visual short‐term memory. Age‐related differences regarding the underlying mechanisms of the bilateral advantage indicated greater reliance on recollection‐based processing in young and on familiarity‐based processing in old. Moreover, the integrity of the posterior corpus callosum was more predictive of opposite hemifield illusory conjunctions compared to within hemifield illusory conjunctions, even after controlling for age. That is, individuals with lesser posterior corpus callosum connectivity had better recognition for objects when their features were recombined from the opposite hemifields than from the same hemifield. This study is the first to investigate the role of the corpus callosum in splitting attention between versus within hemifields.     

Paediatric rehabilitation in a developing country—India in relation to aetiology,consequences and outcome in a group of 459 burnt children

Age, aetiology of burn, percentage body surface area burnt and post-burn sequelae have a direct relationship to the rehabilitative necessity in burnt children in a developing country—India. In spite of the gross disfigurements and sequelae, only adolescent children required psychosocial rehabilitation. These are the results following a retrospective analysis of 459 paediatric burn patients in Madras, India.     

Hesperidin attenuates mitochondrial dysfunction during benzo(a)pyrene‐induced lung carcinogenesis in mice

The present study is designed to assess the mitochondrial status during benzo(a)pyrene (B(a)P)‐induced lung carcinogenesis in Swiss albino mice and to reveal the modulatory effect of hesperidin over it. B(a)P (50 mg/kg body weight)‐induced mitochondrial abnormalities was evident from alterations in mitochondrial lipid peroxides, antioxidant status (superoxide dismutase, catalase, glutathione peroxidase, glutathione reductase, glutathione‐S‐transferase, reduced glutathione, vitamin E, and vitamin C), major tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle enzyme activities (isocitrate dehydrogenase, succinate dehydrogenase, malate dehydrogenase, alpha‐ketoglutarate dehydrogenase), electron transport chain (ETC) complexes activities and ATP levels. Ultrastructural changes in lung mitochondria were also in accord with the above aberrations. Hesperidin (25 mg/kg body weight) supplementation effectively counteracted all the above changes and restored cellular normalcy, indicating its protective role during B(a)P‐induced lung cancer.     

Effects of protein-calorie malnutrition on transplacental kinetics of aminoisobutyric acid in rats.

In order to find out if inefficient transport of amino acids contributes to a decrease in fetal weight during maternal malnutrition, we injected [14C]- and [3H]-labelled aminoisobutyric acid (AIB), respectively, in the mother and its fetuses and determined its transplacental kinetics on day 20 of gestation in rats fed a 21 per cent (control) or a low (5 per cent) protein diet. Rats fed a low protein diet consumed significantly less food than did the rats fed a control diet and thus suffered from protein-calorie malnutrition. A low protein diet led to a significant (P less than 0.05) decrease in maternal and fetal volume of distribution of AIB, a decrease in the clearance of AIB from the mother to the fetus and an increase in the time required for the fetal plasma AIB concentration following maternal injection to exceed the maternal plasma AIB concentration. The clearance of AIB from the fetus into the mother or to outside (e.g. amniotic fluid) was not altered by protein deficiency. It is concluded that a decrease in the efficiency of the placenta to deliver amino acids to the fetus may be a contributing factor in fetal growth retardation during maternal protein malnutrition.