Economic burden of obesity: a systematic literature review

Background: The rising prevalence of obesity represents an important public health issue. An assessment of its costs may be useful in providing recommendations for policy and decision makers. This systematic review aimed to assess the economic burden of obesity and to identify, measure and describe the different obesity-related diseases included in the selected studies. Methods: A systematic literature search of studies in the English language was carried out in Medline (PubMed) and Web of Science databases to select cost-of-illness studies calculating the cost of obesity in a study population aged ≥18 years with obesity, as defined by a body mass index of ≥30 kg/m², for the whole selected country. The time frame for the analysis was January 2011 to September 2016. Results: The included twenty three studies reported a substantial economic burden of obesity in both developed and developing countries. There was considerable heterogeneity in methodological approaches, target populations, study time frames, and perspectives. This prevents an informative comparison between most of the studies. Specifically, there was great variety in the included obesity-related diseases and complications among the studies. Conclusions: There is an urgent need for public health measures to prevent obesity in order to save societal resources. Moreover, international consensus is required on standardized methods to calculate the cost of obesity to improve homogeneity and comparability. This aspect should also be considered when including obesity-related diseases.(AU)

Pharmacological evaluation of Musa seminifera Lour. fruit / 中西医结合学报

To study potential antioxidant, analgesic, antidiarrheal, and antibacterial activities of the ethanol extract of Musa seminifera Lour. fruit in different established in vivo and in vitro experimental models.

Shift in cytoarchitecture of immunocytes of mudcrab exposed to arsenic.

Estuarine mudcrab, Scylla serrata is an economically important species and inhabitant of Sundarban ecosystem. This intertidal species is under constant exposure of diverse xenobiotics including toxic metalloid arsenic. Arsenic, being a major environmental contaminant of selected districts of the state of West Bengal poses a serious toxicological threat to this edible species. Toxicity of arsenic was investigated in the cytoarchitecture of hemocyte of S. serrata by exposing the animals to the sublethal concentrations of 1, 2 and 3 ppm sodium arsenite for a maximum period of 30 days in controlled laboratory conditions. Arsenic induced hemocytic disruption in relation to shape, size of cell and nuclear morphology is indicative to possible dysfunction of blood cell. Blood cells or hemocytes are reported as chief immunoeffector cells of invertebrates and are capable of performing multiple immunological functions including nonself adhesion, aggregation, phagocytosis and generation of cytotoxic agents. The toxic exposure may impaired or altered the innate immune response of hemocyte of the animal that may lead to decline of this economically important species in Sundarbans Biosphere Reserve. This study would help to be selected S. serrata as bioindicator species and also formulate sustainable strategy of conservation of this important species inhabiting the biologically unsafe habitat of Sundarbans.

Activity of phosphatases in the hemocytes of estuarine edible mudcrab, Scylla serrata exposed to arsenic.

Sundarbans biosphere reserve is an ecologically important area of West Bengal, which supports a wide variety of estuarine species including Scylla serrata estuarine mudcrab of economic value. In this present study, activity of phosphatases (acid and alkaline) of hemocytes was estimated under the sublethal exposure of arsenic in controlled static water environment for 1, 2, 3, 4, 7 and 15 days of exposure. Exposure to 3 ppm of sodium arsenite for 15 days, resulted a maximum inhibition of activity of acid phosphatase (ACP) as 0.016 .M mg-1 protein min-1 with intermediate activity in different spans of exposure against the control value of 1.83 .M mg-1 protein min-1. Similar mode of maximum inhibition of activity of alkaline phosphatase (ALP) was recorded as 0.008 .M mg-1 protein min-1, when the crabs were exposed to 3 ppm of sodium arsenite for 15 days against the control value of 0.694 .M mg-1 protein min-1. Exposure to 1 ppm of sodium arsenite caused inhibition of activity of ACP which ranged from 1.76 to 0.70 .M mg-1 protein min-1. For 2 and 3 ppm of exposure activity of ACP ranged from 1.12 to 0.42 and 0.67 to 0.016 .M mg-1 protein min-1 respectively. For the activity of ALP exposure to 2 and 3 ppm of sodium arsenite yielded an inhibition of activity which ranged from 0.472 to 0.279 and 0.275 to 0.008 .M mg-1 protein min-1 respectively. Arsenic exposure resulted a dose dependent decrease in the activities of both of the phosphatases and may be considered as a suitable biomarker of aquatic pollution in Sundarbans mangrove.