The rising trend of BMI in Indian children and adolescents observed in this multicentric study rings alarm bells in terms of associated adverse health consequences in adulthood.

Objective: To evaluate the continuous metabolic syndrome score (cMetS) in Indian children and to investigate its relationship with the risk of carotid arterial stiffness. Methods: Data on weight, height, mean arterial pressure, serum lipids, insulin, glucose, carotid intima-media thickness and stiffness parameters, that is, pulse wave velocity (PWV), elasticity modulus (Ep), stiffness index (b) and arterial compliance (AC), were assessed in 236 children (6-17 years) from Pune city, India. cMetS was computed using standardized Z-scores for metabolic syndrome (MS) components. cMetS cutoff was obtained by receiver operating characteristic curve analysis across MS components. Results: cMetS was lowest (À3.6 ± 2.0) in normal children and highest (3.3 ± 2.4) in MS children. cMetS increased progressively with number of risk components. The cutoff of cMetS yielding maximal sensitivity (80%) and specificity (94%) for predicting the presence of MS was À0.8 (area under the curve ¼ 0.921 (95% CI: 0.877-0.964)). In children with cMetS above À0.8, average PWV (4.3±0.6 m s À1 ), b (3.8±1.2) and Ep (50.4±14.5 kPa) were significantly higher than the respective values (3.7 ± 0.5 m s À1 ; 3.4 ± 0.8; 37.0 ± 10.0 kPa) in children with cMetS below À0.8, whereas AC was lower (1.2 ± 0.5 mm 2 kPa À1 ) in children with cMetS above À0.8 as against AC (1.4±0.3 mm 2 kPa À1 ) in children with cMetS below À0.8 (Po0.05), demonstrating the risk of stiffness with increasing score. Pearson's correlation coefficients of cMetS with PWV (r ¼ 0.575), b (r ¼ 0.347), AC (r ¼ À0.267) and Ep (r ¼ 0.530) were statistically significant (Po0.01). Conclusion: Results demonstrate the usefulness of cMetS over individual MS components as a better tool for assessment of atherosclerotic risk in children.

Background:Dysmenorrhea is a common gynecological condition with painful menstrual cramps of uterine origin. Prevalence of primary dysmenorrhea is not yet clearly studied in central India.Objective:To study prevalence of primary dysmenorrhea in young girls and to evaluate associated clinical markers of dysmenorrhea.Materials and Methods:In a cross-sectional study, data was collected among 310 girls (18–25 years) on age at menarche, presence and absence of dysmenorrhea, dysmenorrhea duration, pre-menstrual symptoms (PMS), family history, menses irregularities, menstrual history, severity grading using visual analogue scale (VAS) using a semi-structured questionnaire.Results:Dysmenorrhea was reported in 84.2% (261) girls and 15.8% (49) reported no dysmenorrhea. Using VAS, 34.2% of girls experienced severe pain, 36.6% moderate and 29.2% had mild pain. Bleeding duration was found to be significantly associated with dysmenorrhea (χ2 = 10.5; P < 0.05), girls with bleeding duration more than 5 days had 1.9 times more chance of getting dysmenorrhea (OR: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.7–3). Moreover, girls with the presence of clots had 2.07 times higher chance of having dysmenorrhea (OR: 2.07; 95% CI: 1.04–4.1) (P < 0.05). Almost 53.7% girls who had some family history of dysmenorrhea, 90.9% experience the condition themselves (χ2 = 11.5; P < 0.001). Girls with family history of dysmenorrhea had three times greater chance of having the same problem (OR: 3.0; 95% CI: 1.5–5.8; P = 0.001).Conclusion:Dysmenorrhea is found to be highly prevalent among college going girls. Family history, bleeding duration and presence of clots were significant risk factors for dysmenorrhea.

PWV may be considered an important marker for evaluation of early functional changes of the carotid artery in children and adolescents.

Percentile curves developed in the current study would be useful in assessment of adiposity and thus cardiometabolic risk in Indian children.

Objective:To study the effect of lifestyle intervention in the presence of multivitamin-zinc supplementation in improving the cardiometabolic status of overweight children.Materials and Methods:Data were evaluated in 74 overweight children (11.3 ± 2.9 years) randomly assigned to three groups of intervention for 4 months as follows: group A: diet-exercise counseling with multivitamin-zinc supplementation; group B: diet-exercise counseling; and group C: placebo. Anthropometric, biochemical, carotid arterial and lifestyle parameters were assessed.Results:Lifestyle counseling resulted in significant reduction in inactivity, energy and fat intakes and increase in micronutrient density of diets and physical activity in groups A and B in comparison to group C. Percent decline in body fat was more in group A than in groups B and C. Percent change in triglycerides (–13.7%) was significantly higher in group A than in groups B (–5.9%) and C (5.7%). Pulse wave velocity and elasticity modulus reduced and arterial compliance improved significantly in group A than in group B.Conclusion:Multivitamin-zinc supplementation with lifestyle intervention has a positive effect of on the cardiometabolic status of overweight children.

Introduction of spacers in enzyme conjugates is known to exert an influence on the assay parameters of steroid enzyme immunoassays. We have introduced 3 to 10 atomic length linkers between enzyme and steroid moieties and studied their effects on sensitivity and specificity of dehydroepiandrosterone enzyme immunoassays. Dehydroepiandrosterone-17-carboxymethyloxime-bovine serum albumin (DHEA-17-CMO-BSA) was used as an immunogen to raise the antiserum in New Zealand white rabbits. Five enzyme conjugates were prepared using DHEA-7-CMO as carboxylic derivative of DHEA and horseradish peroxidase (HRP) as label. These were DHEA-7-CMO-HRP, DHEA-7-CMO-urea-HRP (DHEA-7-CMO-U-HRP), DHEA-7-CMO-ehylenediamine-HRP (DHEA-7-CMO-EDA-HRP), DHEA-7-CMO-carbohydrazide-HRP (DHEA-7-CMO-CH-HRP), and DHEA-7-CMO-adipic acid dihydrazide-HRP (DHEA-7-CMO-ADH-HRP). The influence of different atomic length linkers on sensitivity and specificity were studied with reference to label without linker. The results of the present investigation revealed that with incorporation of linkers, the sensitivity improves, whereas specificity only marginally improves. These differential behaviors of various linkers toward the sensitivity and specificity of assays might be due to the difference in the magnitude of overall forces of attraction between the antibody and the enzyme conjugates.

Background: Indians are suspected to have higher body fat percent at a given body mass index (BMI) than their western counterparts. Objective: To estimate percent body fat in apparently healthy Indian children and adolescents by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and explore linkages of BMI with body fat percent for better health risk assessment. Methods: Age, weight, height of 316 boys and 250 girls (6-17 years) were recorded. Body composition was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA). High adiposity was defined as body fat percent (BF%)  McCarthy's 85th percentile of body fat reference data. Receiver operating characteristic analysis (ROC) was carried out for CDC BMI Z score for it's ability to judge excess fatness. Results: High BF% was seen in 38.5% boys and 54.0% girls (p  0.05). Percentage of obese children as defined by the BMI cutoffs of International Obesity Task Force (IOTF) (2.1% for boys and 6.9% for girls) was lower than that using Indian (13.7% for boys and 20.9% for girls) and CDC (14.1% for boys and 20.9% for girls) cutoffs. The point closest to one on the ROC curves of CDC BMI Z-scores indicated high adiposity at BMI cutoff of 22 at the age of 17 yr in both the genders. Conclusions: Higher body fat percentage is associated with lower BMI values in Indian children.