Awareness and practice of patients' rights among hospitalized patients at Wad-Medani Teaching Hospital, Sudan

Patients' rights are a fundamental human right and an important part of modern health care practice. This is a cross-sectional descriptive analytic study, conducted amongst 263 patients at Wadi-Medani Teaching Hospital, Sudan, in March-April 2015. Most patients [95.2%] did not know about the Bill of Rights and most of them [92.8%] were not able to mention any of the patients' rights. The most practiced rights were: the right to be asked for permission before examination [88.1%], proper handling [87.8%], safety of the hospital [87%], presence of a third person when examining a female by a male doctor [85.6%], and admission file confidentiality [75.5%]. The awareness of Sudan FMOH Patients' Bill of Rights was very low among patients at Wad-Medani Teaching Hospital, yet they showed a high satisfaction rate probably due to their low socioeconomic status, educational level and expectations. Therefore, awareness of patients' rights must be increased

Frequency of gestational diabetes mellitus and impaired glucose tolerance in urban Sudanese pregnant women in the third trimester

Impaired glucose tolerance may be defined as intermediate group of individuals whose carbohydrate metabolism does not constitute diabetes but is not entirely normal. It carries a higher risk of developing microvascular disease and a significant percentage of these patients eventually become diabetics. Of the study was to estimate the frequency of gestational diabetes mellitus [GDM] and impaired glucose tolerance [IGT] in urban Sudanese pregnant women in the third trimester. The study also showed the effect of age and parity on IGT. The study was carried out on hundred pregnant women in the third trimester. The frequency of gestational diabetes was 2% and it was 6% for the IGT incidence whereas, 92% of the pregnant women revealed normal fasting plasma levels. The IGT pregnant women were older than the control pregnant women but, the age difference was not significant [28.7 +/- 5.5 years [mean +/- S.D] vs. 27.3 +/- 4.8 respectively, p>0.05]. Also, the IGT pregnant women were found to have mean parity significantly greater than that of the control group [6.7 +/- 2 [mean +/- S.D.] vs. 3.9 +/- 2.1 respectively, p<0.001]. The frequency of GDM and IGT in Sudanese pregnant women is within the universal estimates and parity is an important risk factor that affects impaired glucose tolerance incidence in pregnancy

Lactic acid- the innocent culprit of muscle fatigue

What causes muscle fatigue? Is lactic acid considered to be a major culprit in the underlying mechanisms of muscle fatigue? These are very important questions and the answers are difficult and sophisticated. For decades, lactic acid was the major culprit of muscle fatigue. This review reveals that muscle fatigue would occur more badly if lactic acid was not produced in anaerobic cellular conditions to regenerate NAD[+] required for continuation of glycolysis, the major pathway for generation of energy needed for muscle performance

Pregnancy and diabetes

Pregnancy is diabetogenic and characterized by increased insulin resistance. This review article discusses the definition, diagnostic criteria, maternal risk factors, classification of severity of diabetes in pregnancy, the effect of pregnancy on diabetes and the effect of diabetes on pregnancy and put some recommendations for dealing with the problem

levels of lipoprotein in male and female Sudanese diabetics

In view of the high incidence of coronary heart disease in diabetic women, lipid and lipoprotein values, including fasting triacylgycerol [TG], total cholesterol [TC] and its major fractions were obtained from 18 men and 30 women with insulin dependent diabetes mellitus [IDDM] and 22 men and 68 women with non insulin dependent diabetes mellitus [NIDDM], at Khartoum Teaching Hospital. 20 healthy men and 30 health females were chosen as control. Male diabetics showed significantly high levels of very low density lipoprotein - cholesterol [VLDL - C] compared to their sex matched controls, while female diabetics showed high total cholesterol and low density lipoprotein - cholesterol [LDL - C] compared to their controls. NIDDM diabetics showed significant triacylgycerol level and low HDL - C level than sex matched controls [P < 0.05, P < 0.001 respectively]. Considering all the obtained values from different parameters, we conclude that male diabetics were less liable to develop coronary heart disease than female diabetics who might be subjected to an increasingly risk to develop coronary disease