Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in adolescents aged 10-18 years in Jammu, J and K.

OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome among adolescents attending school in the Jammu region, India. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study conducted between November 2009 and December 2010, among a total of 1160 school-going adolescents of both sexes aged 10-18 years. Relevant metabolic and anthropometric variables were analyzed and criteria suggested by National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel Third (NCEP-ATP III) modified forage was used to define metabolic syndrome. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 2.6%. Prevalence of metabolic syndrome was higher in males (3.84%) than in females (1.6%) and slightly higher in urban area (2.80%) than in rural area (2.52%), whereas prevalence of metabolic syndrome among centrally obese subjects was as high as 33.33%. High density lipoprotein cholesterol was the most common and high blood pressure was the least common constituent of metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome was most prevalent in 16-18 years age group (4.79%). CONCLUSION: This study demonstrates that metabolic syndrome phenotype exists in substantial number (up to 3%) of adolescent population in the Jammu region, India, and particularly 33% of obese adolescents are at risk to develop metabolic syndrome. These findings pose a serious threat to the current and future health of these young people.

In vitro clonal propagation and genetic fidelity of the regenerants of Spilanthes calva DC. using RAPD and ISSR marker.

An efficient in vitro protocol has been established for clonal propagation of elite plant of Spilanthes calva DC., an important source of spilanthol, an antimalarial larvicidal compound. Nodal explants excised from field grown plant of S. calva DC. when reared on Murashige and Skoog's medium augmented with different cytokinins, viz. N(6)-Benzyladenine (BA), N(6)-(2-isopentenyl) adenine (2iP) and 6-furfuryl aminopurine (Kn), differentiated multiple shoots from the axils. BA at 10 µM proved optimum for elicitation of multiple shoots in 91.6 % cultures with an average of 7.12 shoots per explant within 6 weeks. The excised shoots rooted on half strength Murashige and Skoog's medium supplemented with 0.1 µM IBA. Micropropagated plants were hardened and transferred to field for acclimatization, where 95 % plants survived and were phenotypically similar to the donor plant. Random amplified polymorphic DNA (RAPD) and inter-simple sequence repeat (ISSR) markers were employed to evaluate the genetic fidelity amongst the regenerants. Eleven individuals, randomly chosen amongst a population of 120 regenerants were compared with the donor plant. A total of 71 scorable bands, ranging in size from 100 bp to 1,100 bp were generated by a combination of the two markers in the aforesaid plants. All banding profiles from micropropagated plants were monomorphic and similar to those of mother plant. The similarity values amongst the aforesaid plants varied from 0.967 to 1.000. The dendrogram generated through UPGMA (Unweighted Pair Group Method with arithmetic mean) analysis revealed 98 % similarity amongst them, thus confirming the genetic fidelity of the in vitro clones.

Homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia.

Familial hypercholesterolema (FH) is an inherited autosomal dominant disorder of lipid metabolism. We report a 3 years old female child who presented with multiple eruptive xanthomatosis of skin since 6 months of age and had deranged lipid profile consistent with FH.