Coronary artery disease and coronary risk factors were two or three times higher among the urban compared with the rural subjects, which may be due to greater sedentary behaviour and alcohol intake among urbans. It is possible that some Indian populations can benefit by reducing serum cholesterol, blood pressure and central obesity and increasing physical activity.

We show that 2+1 dimensional Dirac oscillators in an external magnetic field is mapped onto the same with reduced angular frequency in absence of magnetic field. This can be used to study the atomic transitions in a radiation field. Relativistic Landau levels are constructed explicitly. Several interesting features of this system are discussed.Comment: Revised Version, Latex, 9 pages, No figs, To appear in Phys. Lett.

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The association between social classes, food intake and coronary risk factors was determined. Cross-sectional surveys were conducted in 6-12 urban streets in each of five cities, each one from five different regions of India using similar methods of dietary intakes and criteria of diagnosis. We randomly selected 3257 women aged 25-64 years inclusive, from Moradabad (n = 902), Trivandrum (n = 760), Calcutta (n = 410), Nagpur (n = 405) and Bombay (n = 780). All subjects, after pooling of data, were divided into social class 1 (n = 985), class 2 (n = 790), class 3 (n = 774), class 4 (n = 602) and class 5 (n = 206) based on various attributes of socioeconomic status. Social class 1 was the highest and 5 was the lowest social class. Social classes 1-3 had greater intake of pro-atherogenic foods; total visible fat, milk and milk products, meat and eggs, as well as sugar and confectionery, compared to social classes 4 and 5. The consumption of wheat, rice, millets, fruits, vegetables and legume/total visible fat ratio were inversely associated with social class. Mean body mass index (BMI), obesity, overweight, central obesity and sedentary lifestyle were also significantly more common among subjects from higher social classes. Spearman's rank correlation showed that bodyweight, BMI, wheat, rice, millets, total visible fat, milk and milk products, meat, eggs, sugar and jaggery intakes were significantly correlated with social class. Social class 5 subjects had a lower intake of all foods and a lower BMI, suggestive of a higher rate of undernutrition among them. The findings indicate that the consumption of pro-atherogenic foods and other coronary risk factors are more common in higher social classes compared to lower social classes.

Immune-mediated mechanisms have been found to play an important role in the progression of hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. The outcomes of infection do not appear to be determined by viral strains. Instead, allelic variants in human genome are likely to affect the disease progression. Allelic variation of proinflammatory cytokines such as interferon gamma (IFN-g) participates in the elimination of HBV, and interleukin-10 (IL-10) helps in inhibition of Th1 effector mechanisms for host defense. The aim of this study was to determine the influence of host genetic factors in chronic HBV infection and gene promoter polymorphism or single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis of IFN-c + 874 and IL-10 ( -1082, -592, and -819) on disease progression and persistence. A total of 232 patients along with 76 healthy controls were included. Allele-specific primers for IFN-g and restriction fragment length polymorphism for IL-10 were used. The study indicated that low IFN-g expression probably impairs host immune response to HBV, rendering these subjects more prone to HBV infection. No significant differences were detected between the 2 groups in the distributions of IL-10 genotype at the -1082, -819, and -592 positions. Odds ratio indicated that heterozygosity of genotypes -819 CT and -592 AC was more strongly associated with liver chronicity. Significantly, AA homozygous genotype was dominant in chronic hepatitis B cases in IFN-c + 874 and IL-10 ( -1082 and -592) and is associated with increased risk of persistent infection.

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A diisopropylcarbodiimide (DIC) mediated small library of thiazolidin-4-one and 1,3-Thiazinan-4-one derivatives were efficiently synthesized using one pot three component condensation of amino acid, aldehyde, and mercapto carboxylic acid on a polymer support. The study shows significantly higher yields of the thiazolidin-4-one derivatives thereby indicating a lower dependence on the nature of the amino acid and aldehyde components. As an obvious extension of this protocol, the reactions were performed using heterocyclic aldehydes and substituted hindered aromatic aldehydes instead of simple aromatic aldehydes. The synthesized library compounds were also screened for their antifungal acitivity against these three pathogenic fungi: Candida albicans (Ca), Candida parapsilosis (Cp), and Cryptococcus neoformans (Cn).