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.