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Background: Listening to music alleviates stress but the gender specific difference in the beneficial response elicited by the music on autonomic function is not clear. Therefore this study has been undertaken to look for the significant difference in the autonomic modulation between males and females on listening to a classical music, Rag Bilahari. Aims& Objectives: To assess the effect of music on autonomic modulation between genders. Materials and methods: 60 medical students between the age of 17 and 20 years were divided into study group of 30 students who were to be exposed to classical music and 30 for controls who were not exposed to music. Each group had 15 participants from each gender. The study group was exposed to the preselected music for half an hour for 30 days and 5 min HRV was recorded before and after the intervention, using PHYSIOPAC-PP 4 software (MEDICAID SYSTEMS, Chandigarh) for all the participants of both the groups and the basal cardiovascular parameters of heart rate, blood pressure and the time domain parameters of HRV such as mean RR interval, standard deviation of all normal RR intervals (SDNN), root mean square of differences between adjacent normal RR intervals (RMSSD), and the percentage of adjacent RR intervals with a difference of duration greater than 50 msec (PNN50) were analysed using Kubios analyser. Results: Significant difference in heart rate being lower in females (p=0.0006) and mean RR interval being higher in females (P=0.0004) was observed in music group while parasympathetic activity was increased in both genders. Conclusion: Music listening enhances parasympathetic activity which is more pronounced in females.

Background: Heart rate variability (HRV) is a used to assess autonomic nervous system input to the heart. Studies on the impact of HRV on underweight are limited. Aims/Objectives: To evaluate HRV in age matched young adults of different BMI category. Methodology: This cross-sectional study was done among healthy young adult volunteers between 18 and 25 years of age. Anthropometric variables were measured. ECG was recorded in lead II configuration for 5 minutes. Heart rate variability was analysed with Kubios HRV analyzer. Results: HRV indices were reduced in underweight (UW), overweight (OW) and obese group compared to normal weight (NW) BMI group. Second order polynomial regression between BMI and HF log power in both genders shows an inverted U-shaped relationship with BMI. The association between BMI, waist circumference and body fat (percentage) with HRV indices shows a significant relation to heart rate variability among which waist circumference (WC) shows a greater association with HRV indices than BMI. Comparison of HRV parameters among men and women of different BMI group shows female had greater heart rate variability compared to males across BMI Conclusions: underweight individual also have increased cardiovascular risk like obese group and abdominal obesity is better indicator of cardiovascular risk than BMI.

Background: The sexual dimorphism favours gender specific biological characteristics influenced by sex hormones. These sex hormones determined differences influence the health of an individual by influencing many physiological parameters. As the pulmonary functions are different between male and female and the susceptibility to different respiratory diseases varies between genders, this study has been designed to assess the relation between gender and the nasal mucociliary clearance, an inherent protective mechanism of the respiratory passages. Aim & objectives:To assess the relation between gender and nasal mucociliary clearance (NMC). Materials & methods:This cross sectional study was carried out on 60 randomly selected volunteers (30 male volunteers and 30 female volunteers) and NMC time was measured in them. The saccharin transit method was used to assess NMC. Saccharin transit time (STT) is the time taken by the participant to appreciate the taste of saccharin after placement of ¼ tablet of saccharin (1mm x 1mm) in the nostril. Results: The mean NMC in males was 7.71 ± 2.35min and in the females was 7.65 ± 2.22 min. There was no statistical significance as the p value is 0.9291. Conclusion: NMC time did not vary between male and female population. Therefore it could be inferred that gender has no apparent influence on nasal mucociliary clearance.