ABSTRACT
In July 2011 Nature carried a Comment titled “Grand Challenges to Global Mental Health”announcing research priorities to benefit people with mental illness around the world. The essay called for urgent action and investment. However, many professionals, academics, and service user advocate organisations were concerned about the assumptions embedded in the approaches advocated and the potential for the project to do more harm than good as a result. Nature refused to print a letter (sent on 20th August 2011) protesting against the issue, citing ‘lack of space’ as the reason. This letter is an effort to critique the initiative through wide participation and consensus
ABSTRACT
Objective: To examine the catch up growth in severely wasted children using energy dense local foods at a hospital based nutrition rehabilitation unit. Design: Retrospective cohort. Setting: In-patient ward at a tertiary care government pediatric hospital in Hyderabad. Patients: Children with severe malnutrition (n=309) admitted to nutrition ward from January 2001 to December 2005. Intervention: A diet based on energy dense local foods along with multivitamin-multimineral supplements. Main outcome measures: Catch up growth (g/kg/day) during each week of hospital stay. Results: Mean age of the children was 25 months (range 2-60). Their baseline weight for height (WHZ) Z score was –4.1. Mean weight gain was moderate (5g/kg/day) and baseline WHZ score had a significant negative relationship to the weight gain. The prevalence of morbidities was high and the commonest morbidity was fever. Weight gain was higher by almost 40% in the absence of morbidities in any week. Conclusions: The diet based on local energy dense foods was found to be suitable for the nutrition rehabilitation of severely malnourished children though the rate of weight gain was moderate.