Pulmonary Function Assessment in Young Female Medical Students Suffering from Anemia.

Introduction: Anemia is common problem in people of high socioeconomic status of all age group. Th is is usually seen with reduced work capacity, early fatigability, mental irritation, dyspnea etc. Despite of good and easy availability of food, young girls of high socioeconomic status still remain anemic mainly due to lack of self care in terms of nutritional diet, somewhat hate for green leafy vegetables, charm of junk foods devoid of nutritional substances including iron, inadequate physical exercise. Present study was conducted to assess the pulmonary functions in young anemic female medical students belonging to high socioeconomic status. Methods: Based on Hemoglobin level subjects were divided in to 2 groups. Group 1 comprised of obese students (Hb>12 gm/dl) and group 2 comprised of anemic students (Hb<12gm/dl). Age, height and weight, of all subjects were noted. Body mass index was calculated by dividing weight (in Kg) with height in meter2. Data obtained were analyzed using t-test. Result: Forced Vital Capacity (FVC), Peak expiratory fl ow rate (PEFR), FEV1 and Maximum voluntary ventilation (MVV) in anemic group subjects were signifi cantly lower in comparison to control group. However FEV1/FVC did not show any signifi cant diff erence. Conclusion: Anemia leads to decreased pulmonary functions which further hampers the oxygenation of the tissue and may worsen the physical and mental capabilities.

Microbial forensics: a new forensic discipline.

In microbial forensics, researchers work to track down the source of a microbe, whether in a criminal investigation of bioterrorism attacks or a study of naturally occurring disease outbreak. It is interplay of classical microbiology, microbial genomics, phylogenetics and bioinformatics. Although microbes have been used as weapons for centuries, the anthrax letter attacks of 2001 generated great terror in the public and revealed the need to establish "attribution." The benefit is that it might deter at least some potential terrorists and also help in tracing natural outbreaks of disease. Microbial forensic data must hold up not only to the scrutiny of scientists in the health care community, but also to the scrutiny of judges and juries and national policy and decision makers. It poses a great challenge to develop newer techniques as the present techniques like gene sequencing, hybridization, microarray, spectrophotometry, PCR etc. are inadequate. A national microbial forensics plan needs to be developed.