The Pyramid of Transgender Health Therapeutics

Transgender care needs a multidisciplinary team approach. The awareness about transgender health has increased over the past few years in India. The pyramid of transgender health helps to demystify the care of transgender individuals. The 7 S's of lifestyle modification need to be followed in the routine clinical care of transgender individuals. The individuals also need psychological care and support, metabolic and medical care, endocrine management, and later surgery in some cases. The policy makers can use the pyramid to decide about financial help to the community for their holistic care. The physicians involved in the care of transgender individuals can also take guidance about comprehensive care and management of transgender and gender diverse individuals.

Ghost of Medical Gaslighting

Medical gaslighting is when the actual symptoms of patients are dismissed or downplayed by medical professionals. It occurs frequently among patients suffering from chronic illnesses for which medical science gives no authoritative diagnostic protocol or effective treatment and those from populations underrepresented in clinical trials such as the female gender, specific races and ethnicity, third gender and patients with disability. Gaps in scientific knowledge and missing empathy have been cited as possible reasons. Respecting patient symptoms, accepting epistemic humility and investing in research may be possible solutions for this disharmony.

Heart Smart Diabetes Care

The world is growing smarter day by day, and so is health care. In spite of innumerable inventions and tech-tools, however, we struggle to contain chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. We need to work together and design a rational, scientific and socially sustainable Heart Smart diabetes care ecosystem, with Heart Smart management strategies, to ensure happiness and harmony in persons who live with diabetes.

Noncommunicable and Communicable Diseases: Finding Common Ground

As the world grapples with unprecedented health challenges, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and now monkeypox, the focus on traditional concerns, like maternal and child health, and relatively newer pandemics, e.g., diabetes and obesity tend to get diluted. This is especially concerning in countries which face a dual challenge of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In this article, we list the factors that are common to both communicable disease and NCDs, and suggest measures to integrate procedures for their screening, management and prevention.

Vitamin D in Clinical Practice: Current Perspectives

India is a heliophobic country; despite ample sunshine, almost 490 million people are vitamin D deficient in the country. Additionally, the Indian diet has not been successful in providing the daily need for vitamin D, leading to a vitamin D deficiency. The need to fortifying food with vitamin D has been raised several times. Besides, there have been discussions about whether vitamin D is a hormone or a vitamin? In this review, the authors have reviewed vitamin D deficiency and its status in India, assessment and screening, the role of vitamin D in various disease conditions, dosage recommendation and regimen.

Vitamin D in Clinical Practice: Current Perspectives

India is a heliophobic country; despite ample sunshine, almost 490 million people are vitamin D deficient in the country. Additionally, the Indian diet has not been successful in providing the daily need for vitamin D, leading to a vitamin D deficiency. The need to fortifying food with vitamin D has been raised several times. Besides, there have been discussions about whether vitamin D is a hormone or a vitamin? In this review, the authors have reviewed vitamin D deficiency and its status in India, assessment and screening, the role of vitamin D in various disease conditions, dosage recommendation and regimen.

Heart Smart Diabetes Care

The world is growing smarter day by day, and so is health care. In spite of innumerable inventions and tech-tools, however, we struggle to contain chronic illnesses like diabetes and heart disease. We need to work together and design a rational, scientific and socially sustainable Heart Smart diabetes care ecosystem, with Heart Smart management strategies, to ensure happiness and harmony in persons who live with diabetes.

Glucometric Guardianship

This communication conceptualizes, defines and describes glucometric guardianship, as a means of ensuring optimal glycemic management. We define glucometric guardianship as the process of ensuring appropriate measurement, monitoring and analysis of glucose levels, so as to ensure alertness in glycemic management, and agility in anticipating and detecting suboptimal glycemic parameters, and responding to them. This paper hopes to draw attention to the need for glucometric science, encourage debate and discussion and facilitate research on the topic.

Therapeutic Patient Education in Transgender Care

This communication visits the concept of therapeutic patient education (TPE), and explores its relevance to transgender health care. It suggests a novel term, therapeutic education (TE), and defines it as “educational activities essential to the optimization of health, offered by health care providers duly trained in the field of education, designed to help a transgender individual (or a group of individuals and their families) to manage their treatment and prevent avoidable complications, while maintaining or improving their quality of life. It describes the soft and hard skills required for TE, and suggests a classification that can help in structuring TE programs.

An Expert Group Consensus Statement on “Approach and Management of Prediabetes in India”

The prevalence of prediabetes, a forerunner of diabetes is very high, and its conversion to diabetes is also more rapid among Asian Indians. Prediabetes also predisposes to the development of macrovascular and to a lesser extent of microvascular complications of diabetes. In a large community-based epidemiological study, the Indian Council of Medical Research–India Diabetes (ICMR–INDIAB), data reported an overall prevalence of prediabetes of 10.3%, derived from 15 Indian states. This shows that the diabetes epidemic is far from over as many of them may soon convert to diabetes. Prediabetes, however, should not be considered a path to diabetes rather it should be a window of opportunity for the prevention of diabetes. This early screening, detection, and treatment of prediabetes should be made a national priority. Several countries have introduced lifestyle programs to prevent diabetes and, when indicated, pharmacological intervention with metformin as well. This consensus statement outlines the approaches to screening and lifestyle and pharmacological management of prediabetes in Asian Indians.

Adult Immunization

Vaccination is accepted as an integral part of preventive and community health. However, adult vaccination has not received the same attention as childhood immunization. This communication describes the advantages of adult immunization, and lists high priority populations for the same. It highlights the need to focus on health care workers, sanitation workers and food workers for effective prevention of disease through vaccination.

Choosing Glucose-lowering Therapy: A Collaborative Choice Model

Diabetes care is challenging, and the increasing number of available therapeutic options has made it even more complex. Moreover, with an increasing prevalence across the world, it needs to be managed right from the primary care level to a quaternary care hospital. This calls for an easy-to-use algorithm that can be used by a general practitioner, who is often the first contact of a patient to manage diabetes in many countries. There are multiple models to assist in choice of pharmacotherapy, and these have evolved over time. We propose a user-friendly collaborative choice, as an aid to clinical decision-making. This alliterative framework supplements and strengthens existing guidance, by creating a comprehensive, yet simple, thought process for the diabetes care professional.

The Expanding Role of Dapagliflozin Beyond the Glucose-lowering Effect

Sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors have varied metabolic effects beyond increasing glycosuria. This consensus review examines the role of dapagliflozin in health promotion, particularly its benefits in patients with and without type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and in cardiorenal rehabilitation post-coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Consensus recommendations were developed by subject experts in Endocrinology and Diabetology based on the online meeting held on 27 June 2020 to review the available evidence related to the role of SGLT2 inhibitors, with a focus on cardiovascular and renal metabolic therapy. Evidence suggests that dapagliflozin has a direct role in improving clinical outcomes in patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) or heart failure (HF). These benefits of dapagliflozin were independent of reduction in blood pressure, glycemic control and weight, and also extend to patients without diabetes. The use of dapagliflozin in metabolic syndrome was endorsed by the majority of the experts; however, this would be off-label. It was opined that the role of dapagliflozin would currently be limited to treating T2DM with a focus on preventing HF or kidney disease progression. The need for conducting multidisciplinary academic meetings to have a balanced approach regarding the use of dapagliflozin among nondiabetic patients and the need for detailed evaluation of the role of SGLT2 inhibitors in vasculometabolic and cardiorenal rehabilitation post-COVID was also suggested.

Noncommunicable and Communicable Diseases: Finding Common Ground

As the world grapples with unprecedented health challenges, such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and now monkeypox, the focus on traditional concerns, like maternal and child health, and relatively newer pandemics, e.g., diabetes and obesity tend to get diluted. This is especially concerning in countries which face a dual challenge of both communicable and noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). In this article, we list the factors that are common to both communicable disease and NCDs, and suggest measures to integrate procedures for their screening, management and prevention.

Assessment of Prevalence and Associated Risk Factors of NAFLD in People Living with Diabetes in India: A Retrospective, Multicenter, Electronic Medical Records Based Study

Introduction: Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a leading cause of liver disease worldwide. The prevalence of NAFLD varies depending on population studied and type of diagnostic tools used to screen or diagnose the patients. There is a strong relationship between metabolic syndrome components and NAFLD prevalence. This study aims to understand the prevalence of NAFLD along with the associated risk factors and their interaction with other comorbidities among people living with diabetes in Indian context. Materials and methods: It is a retrospective, observational study based on data retrieved from electronic medical records (EMRs) of people living with diabetes from more than 250 individual diabetes centers located in more than 30 cities across 14 states in India. Medical records of 171,996 adults living with diabetes were included in the analysis. The assessment of prevalence of NAFLD in diabetes was done using algorithm based on alanine transaminase (ALT) and aspartate aminotransferase (AST). Results: Overall, 44.48% of people living with diabetes were found to have NAFLD. A significantly higher proportion of males (58.64%) had NAFLD compared to females (36.91%) (p<0.001). Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease prevalence was >50% in seven of the states. People living with diabetes along with dyslipidemia and hypertension had a significantly higher prevalence of NAFLD (p<0.001). Obesity (57.1%), dyslipidemia (59.1%), and hypertriglyceridemia (42.3%) had significantly higher odds of NAFLD among people living with diabetes. Conclusion: This study highlighted high-risk categories for NAFLD in diabetes, like young, obese, hypertriglyceridemia, poor glycemic control, etc. This information will help health care providers in prioritizing screening among high-risk diabetes population.

Motivating Persons Living with Diabetes for Insulin/Injectable Therapy

Motivating patients to initiate or intensify insulin is a challenging aspect of diabetes practice. This paper reviews certain motivational strategies and methods used for insulin initiation/intensification. It places various domains of motivational interviewing in perspective, under a single umbrella, making it easier for practitioners to understand the art and science of insulin motivation.

Losartan: Benefits Beyond Hypertension

Losartan was the first angiotensin AT1 receptor blocker (ARB) approved by US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hypertension. In addition to its established antihypertensive and end organ effects, several benefits of losartan beyond its antihypertensive effect have been demonstrated in clinical trials. Apart from its class effects of ARBs, losartan has pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic properties that are unique to it. It has shown considerable benefits as uricosuric agent, in erectile dysfunction and in prevention of stroke in hypertension patients with left ventricular hypertrophy. This review presents the benefits of losartan beyond being a hypertensive agent and associated clinical outcomes.

Indian Reality of Clinical Practice and Patient Profile in Diabetes Care: Lessons from the IMPACT survey

India shoulders a heavy burden of diabetes mellitus (DM), the management of which is suboptimal globally. Objectives: Insulin Management: Practical Aspects in Choice of Therapy (IMPACT) survey was designed to gain insight into the ground (in-clinic) reality of DM management by physicians in India. Methods: A survey consisting of 12 multiple-choice questions was conducted by SurveyMonkey ® , focusing on practice profile, patient profile, and other aspects of DM management. Results: The survey included 2424 physicians. Majority of them were general physicians (58.5%) followed by diabetologists (31.1%). Most (49.2%) of the respondents specified that the ideal time for a DM consultation is 15 min. However, 73.4% of them provided consultation of <10 min because of heavy patient load. Nearly half of the respondents reported that their patients consumed a diet with carbohydrate content of 60% to 80%, and 79.4% of them admitted that <50% of their patients adhered to dietary advice. About 73.5% of the respondents believed controlling fasting plasma glucose (FPG) level alone would not adequately control postprandial plasma glucose (PPG) level, and 93.0% of them preferred an insulin therapy at the initiation that controls both FPG and PPG levels. Conclusion: Limited consultation time, high-carbohydrate diet, and a need for choosing insulin regimens that provide control for both PPG and FPG levels are some ground realities of DM management in India. These realities need to be factored in while choosing treatment options to achieve the desired glycemic control and improve the status of diabetes care.

Rare Form of Crusted Scabies in Diabetes: A Case Report

Crusted scabies is an uncommon manifestation of parasitic infection caused by Sarcoptes scabiei var. hominis. This variant of scabies is seen in various immunocompromised states. Uncontrolled diabetes is an immunocompromised state which is characterized by increased incidence of various infections, and rarely, may be associated with this rare crusted scabies, which may pose a real diagnostic challenge. A high index of suspicion is required for timely and correct diagnosis in the best interest of the patient and the public health point of view to prevent the spread of this highly contagious infestation.