Background: Hyperthyroidism is associated with altered cardiac autonomic nervous activity (CANA). Heart Rate Variability (HRV) analysis is a promising technique to quantify CANA and therefore can be done in hyperthyroidism. Objective: To observe the HRV parameters in patients with hyperthyroidism to find out the influence of excess thyroid hormone on cardiac autonomic nervous activities. Method: The cross sectional study was carried out on 60 hyperthyroid patients (groupB)aged 30-50 years in the Department of Physiology, BSMMU, Dhaka from 1 st July 2007 to 30 th June 2008. Age and sex matched 20 apparently healthy euthyroids were also studied for comparison (group A). On the basis of treatment, they were further divided into group B 1 consisting of 30 untreated newly diagnosed patients and group B 2 consisting of 30 hyperthyroid patients treated with antithyroid drugs for at least 2 months. The patients were selected from the Out Patient Department of Endocrinology, BSMMU, Dhaka. To assess thyroid status, serum TSH and serum FT 4 levels were measured by AxSym system and time domain measures of HRV such as mean R-R interval, mean heart rate, SDNN and RMSSD were assessed from 5minute(short term) ECG recording by a polygraph. For statistical analysis Mann-Whitney U test was done. Results: Mean R-R interval was significantly (P<0.001) lower but mean heart rate was significantly (P<0.001) higher in untreated patients than those of treated and euthyroids subjects. These values were found almost similar when compared between euthyroids and treated hyperthyroids. Similarly SDNN and RMSSD were significantly lower in untreated hyperthyroids than both euthyroids (P<0.001) and treated hyperthyroids (P<0.01). Conclusion: This study concluded that decreased vagal modulation on heart rate may occur in hyperthyroidism, which may be restored following adequate treatment of the disease.

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Background: Anemia is an important risk factor for the health of children as it leads to delayed growth and has long term impacts on neurodevelopment and behavior which causes child morbidity and mortality. Though the rate of severe anemia is almost ignorable in Bangladesh, the overall prevalence of anemia is still very high. Thus this study designed to identify determinants of severity levels of anemia among children aged 6-59 months from the nationally representative 2011 Bangladesh Demographic and Health Survey (BDHS). Method: A total of 2188 children aged 6-59 months with complete information on the selected predictors were finally identified from data of this cross sectional survey. Proportional odds model was applied to assess the impacts of determinant on severity level of anemia. Results: Among 2188 children sampled, 24.8%, 32.3% and 42.9% were severely or moderately anemic, mildly anemic, and non-anemic, respectively. Out of children who resided in urban areas, 27.1% were mildly anemic, and 21.1% were severely or moderately anemic. Stunting, division, wealth index, mother's anemia status, age of child, water facility and mother's body mass index were found to be statistically significant determinants of severity levels of childhood anemia. Test of parallelism showed that the odds ratios were constant across all cutoff points of childhood anemia status at 5% level. Conclusions: In summary, our analysis highlights concerning continuing public health challenge presented by anemia in Bangladesh. This study explores the factors associated with the severity level anemia.

The aim of this study was to determine trajectories of depression in older adults and to identify predictors of membership in the different trajectory groups. A total of 3983 individuals aged 65 or older were included. Latent class growth models were used to identify trajectory groups. Of 3983 individuals, 2269 (57%) were females, with a mean baseline age of 72.4 years ( SD = 6 years). Four depression trajectories were identified across 8 years of follow-up: “low-flat” ( n = 3636; 86.6%), “low-to-middle” ( n = 214; 9.2%), “low-to-high” ( n = 31; 1.3%), and “high-stable” ( n = 102; 2.9%). Compared to the low-flat depression group, high-stable depression group members were more likely to be female, have three or more chronic diseases, and were more likely not to own a home. Our findings will assist health policy decision-makers in planning intervention programs targeting those most likely to experience persistent depression in order to improve psychological well-being in the elderly.

Associations between sensory status and cognitive performance are now widely reported. However, important open questions remain, including whether the associations are similar across sensory modalities, whether sensory status predicts cognitive performance independent of the cognitive task modality, and whether demographic/health variables moderate these associations. We examined data from a population sample of 30,029 Canadians aged 45-85 (the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging). Hearing was measured as the better ear pure-tone threshold average and vision as the better-eye pinhole-corrected visual acuity. Controlling for age, education, sex, multilingual status, and the other sensory modality, participants with poorer hearing had poorer auditory verbal learning and memory (Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test) and executive function (Stroop, phonemic and semantic oral fluency, mental alternation) and those with poorer vision had poorer executive function. The sensory-cognitive associations were largely independent of the modality of test administration. The association between hearing loss and executive function was greater for persons who were data set Version 3.3 and Baseline Comprehensive data set Version 3.2, under Application Number 160605. The CLSA is led by Drs. Parminder Raina, Christina Wolfson, and Susan Kirkland. Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the authors' own and do not reflect the views of the CLSA. An earlier report of this was presented by Natalie A. Phillips and Paul Mick, "Hearing, Seeing, and Thinking: The cross-sectional relationship between sensory status and cognitive function in CLSA participants." Canadian Longitudinal Study of Aging Webinar Series. September 12, 2019. https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRugEF0ZDUw&feature=youtu.be.Access to the statistical code to replicate these analyses can be found at https://osf.io/e8n3z/?view_only=635f457e6df045adbd43ee2baece8f11.