Prevalence of overweight and obesity in Royal Thai Army personnel.

OBJECTIVE: Determine the prevalence of overweight and obesity in the Royal Thai Army (RTA) personnel. MATERIAL AND METHOD: A cross-sectional study was performed on 4,276 RTA personnel aged 20-60 years between January and July 2005. They were interviewed for general health status, history of smoking, alcohol consumption, and physical activity. Blood pressure, weight, height, waist, and hip circumference were measured. RESULT: The prevalence of overweight and obesity in RTA personnel were 27.1% and 4.9% respectively. The mean value of age, weight, body mass index, waist, and hip circumference, waist hip ratio, blood pressure in overweight, and obese personnel were significantly higher than those of non-overweight personnel. Logistic regression analysis showed that significant risks of being overweight were positively associated with age, male, and working in a combat unit. Current smoking was inversely associated with overweight and obesity, whereas physical activity > or = 3 times/wk was inversely associated with obesity. Overweight and obesity were also associated with hypertension. CONCLUSION: These baseline data are useful for future trends monitoring and may be used for health promotion planning to prevent obesity in RTA personnel.

Roles of the Royal Thai Army Medical Department in supporting the country to fight against HIV/AIDS: 18 years of experience and success.

Human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) are global major public health problems and have a major impact on social and economic development. Thailand has been affected from HIV/AIDS epidemic since the first AIDS case was reported in 1984, making the cumulative number of reported AIDS cases more than 160,000 and estimated HIV-infected people more than 1,000,000 by the end of 2004 and more than 300,000 of them are dead. There has been a strong national response to this scourge by multi-sectoral cooperation and many evidences show Thailand's success in HIV/ AIDS control. The Royal Thai Army Medical Department has played an important role in supporting the country to fight against HIV/AIDS since 1987 by providing HIV/AIDS education to army personnel, families and civilians. It has established the sero-surveillance system in young Thai men entering the army since 1989 and behavioral surveillance system since 1991. The other important activities have been training of personnel, care and research, especially for an HIV vaccine. It facilitates the research that the army conscripts which represent young Thai men are used as samples. The experience of the RTA Medical Department and the civil-military alliance against HIV/AIDS of Thailand are good lessons for other developing countries to learn and adopt the strategies in the battle against HIV/AIDS.

Teaching medical ethics: Phramongkutklao College of Medicine's model.

BACKGROUND: Third-year (first preclinical year) Royal Thai Army (RTA) medical cadets were exposed to a rural community in a community medicine field activity. The poor, kind rural people gave good conditions for student's professional development and empathy. OBJECTIVES: To report a community medicine field work activity for professional development of the RTA medical school. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Descriptive analysis on two occasions to evaluate the third-year RTA medical cadets' impressions immediately after the community medicine field activity in a rural area in central Thailand and one year later using baseline scores of cadets' impressions against our institute's objectives. RESULTS: At the end of the field work, 90.9% of the cadets reported they achieved several institute objectives. The four most frequent mentioned were ethical development (70.6%), professionalism (84.3%), human relationship & communication skills (92.2%), and capability to work in the cmmunity (64.7%). Furthermore, RTA medical cadets rated the staff as good role models (51%). CONCLUSION: The community field work course provided a good environment for the third year medical cadets in building morality and professional development to be good doctors.

Dietary behaviors and nutritional status of adolescents in a remote rural area of Thailand.

INTRODUCTION: Nutritional status among adolescents is an important health indicator. The up-to-date information about nutritional status and food consumption pattern in the remote rural area is required for the effective public health intervention in the rural area of the country. The present study aimed to demonstrate the prevalence of malnutrition, eating behavior and nutritional knowledge among secondary school students in a remote rural area in Thailand. MATERIAL AND METHOD: Body weight and height data were collected from 298 secondary school students for nutritional status calculation using the Institute of Nutrition Research, Mahidol University, INMU-Thaigrowth program. Eating behavior and nutritional knowledge were observed by self-administrated questionnaires. RESULTS: The prevalence low height-for-age (<-2SD) 6.1% and it was 0.7% for low weight-for-height (<-2SD). Fruits (69%) and vegetables (79.4%) consumptions were in the high level. The authors found that the students always consumed commercial snacks especially salted chips more often than regular Thai dessert (74.0% VS 52.3%). The inappropriate behavior found in the present study included always drinking caffeine beverage (43.5%), always drinking alcoholic beverage (6.5%) and always consuming instant noodles (64.4%). CONCLUSION: The prevalence of malnutrition was low among this population. The studied population had a fair knowledge about nutrition. The authoes found that regular consumption of highly commercialized snack products especially salted chips and instant noodles were at a high level in this remote rural area of Thailand. The pattern of nutritional problems in Thailand may have changed in which a public health program for children in rural areas of the country should recognize this transition.

Dyslipidemia in Thai rural adults.

The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of dyslipidemia in adults in a rural area of Thailand. Random sampling was conducted in 443 volunteers, 187 males and 256 females, aged > or = 35 years in Chachoengsao Province. After a 12-hour fast, the blood was drawn for the analysis of total cholesterol, triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol. Mean serum lipids of cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol and triglycerides were 207.79 +/- 46.98, 117.26 +/- 36.59, 50.53 +/- 2.14 and 201.21 +/- 131.07 mg/dL, respectively. Nineteen percent of them had cholesterol > or = 240 mg/dL and 10% had LDL cholesterol > or = 160 mg/dL. Seven percent had HDL cholesterol < or = 35 mg/dL. However, LDL/HDL cholesterol ratios > 5, were found in only 0.9%. In conclusion, the prevalence of dyslipidemia was high in rural Thai adults. Further surveillance in this population is essential in verifying the impact of dyslipidemia as a risk of cardiovascular disease in rural Thai adults.

Prevalence of etiologic bacteria and beta-lactamase-producing bacteria in acute and chronic maxillary sinusitis at Phramongkutklao Hospital.

BACKGROUND: To date, there is an increasing trend of prescribing antibiotics that cover beta-lactamase-producing bacteria as the first line drug for sinusitis patients in Thailand This practice dose not only increases the treatment cost but might also induce resistance to antimicrobial agents. OBJECTIVE: To determine the prevalence of the pathogenic bacteria in acute and chronic maxillary sinusitis as well as the prevalence of beta-lactamase-producing bacteria. MATERIAL AND METHOD: The maxillary aspiration fluid specimens of 52 acute and chronic sinusitis patients at Phramongkutklao Hospital, Bangkok, Thailand during May 2002-May 2003, were collected. Aerobic and anaerobic cultures were performed and the beta-lactamase activities of isolated bacteria were determined. RESULTS: Of 58 specimens, 44 (75.9%) and 14 (24.1%) specimens were collected from acute and chronic maxillary sinusitis patients, respectively. Of 44 specimens of acute maxillary sinusitis, the predominant isolates were Haemophilus influenzae (13, 29.5%), Streptococcus pneumoniae (4, 9%), Streptococcus viridan (4, 9%), and Klebsiella pneumoniae (4, 9%). 6 (13.6%) of them were beta-lactamase-producing bacteria. Of 14 specimens of chronic maxillary sinusitis, the predominant isolates were Pseudomonas aeruginosa (3, 16.6%), Staphylococcus spp (3, 17.5%) and Streptococcus spp. (2, 11.6%). 1 (7.1%) Haemophilus influenza isolate from this group was beta-lactamase-producing bacteria. The percentage of anaerobe was 8.9%, 23.3% for acute and chronic maxillary sinusitis, respectively. CONCLUSION: The present study was indicated that the common organisms in acute maxillary sinusitis were Haemophilus influenzae and Streptococcus pneumoniae, Streptococcus viridians which were similar to a previous study. But the authors found an increased prevalence of anaerobe bacteria in acute maxillary sinusitis and also found beta-lactamase-producing bacteria, 21.4% Hemophilus influenzae less than the previous studies (which found beta-lactamase-producing bacteria around 50% to 70%). The authors found 23.3% anaerobe bacteria in the chronic maxillary sinusitis, less than the previous studies, and the authors also found 8.9% anaerobe in acute maxillary sinusitis.