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BACKGROUND: Mental disorders have got high prevalence and low priority among the elderly in most of the countries worldwide, of which depression being the most common treatable condition. The causes for elderly depression are multifactorial and preventable. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this study is to estimate the prevalence of depression and to assess the factors associated with depression among the elderly age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted among participants more than 60 years of age residing in tenements under resettlement scheme in Semmenchery, Kancheepuram district, Tamil Nadu with a sample size of 184. Systematic sampling method was adopted to collect data at participants door step. A predesigned, pretested questionnaire was used to assess the factors associated with depression, and the Geriatric depression scale-30 was used to assess depression. The data were analyzed using SPSS and Chi-square <0.05 was considered significant. RESULTS: The overall prevalence of depression was 35.3%. The factors such as female gender, educational status, occupation, type of family, financial dependency, history of depression, smoking and medical factors such as hypertension, cardiac disease, and chronic kidney disease and life events like conflict in family, unemployment, and financial problem were statistically significant (P < 0.05). CONCLUSION: Loss of spouse, financial dependency, neglected care, lack of awareness about the disease were found to be barriers in reaching basic mental health care for the elderly. Depression remains one of the main causes of DALY, especially among elders. National Program for Health care of elderly provides doorstep services, so incorporation of depression screening into that can impart the effects of depression on quality of life and DALY.
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INTRODUCTION: The double burden of malnutrition is the co-existence of undernutrition along with overweight/obesity. The underweight can cause cognitive impairment, increase mortality, and over nutrition increases the chance of noncommunicable diseases like type 2 diabetes and hypertension. Women are vulnerable for early marriages, early conception, and so forth, which have an impact on their nutritional status. OBJECTIVE: To estimate the prevalence of double burden of malnutrition among women residing in tenements in a resettlement area, Kancheepuram district. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study conducted among women aged above 18 years residing in a tenement in a resettlement area, Kancheepuram district using a semi-structured questionnaire. The sample size was 211. RESULTS: The median age of the participants was 44. 78; 2% were married; 30.8% belong to class III. Based on BMI 1.4% were underweight, 17.1% had normal BMI, 48.8% were pre-obese, and 19.9% were under obese stage 1. Based on the waist circumference, 23.7% were under high risk and according to the waist-hip ratio, 69.7% were under high risk. The prevalence of diabetes among the high-risk category for waist-hip ratio was higher (80.3%) with statistical significance. CONCLUSION: The national programs are concentrating more on the undernutrition. The importance of obesity as a risk factor for many noncommunicable diseases should be stressed in the nutritional programs thereby providing proper interventions to prevent them, which could be done by interlinking with NPCDCS.
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The genome of the virus H1N1 2009 consists of eight segments but maximum number of mutations occurs at segments 1 and 4, coding for PB2 subunit of hemagglutinin. Comparatively less number of mutations occur at segment 6, coding for neuraminidase. Two antiviral drugs, oseltamivir and zanamivir are commonly prescribed for treating H1N1 infection. Alternate medical systems do compete equally; andrographolide in Siddha and gelsemine in Homeopathy. Recent studies confirm the efficacy of eugenol from Tulsi and vitamins C and E against H1N1. As the protein structures are unavailable, we modeled them using Modeller by identifying suitable templates, 1RUY and 3BEQ, for hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, respectively. Prior to docking simulations using AutoDock, the drug likeness properties of the ligands were screened using in silico techniques. Docking results showed interaction between the proteins individually into selected ligands, except for gelsemine and vitamin E no interactions were shown. The best docking simulation was reported by vitamin C interacting through six hydrogen bonds into proteins hemagglutinin and neuraminidase with binding energies -4.28 and -4.56 kcal/mol, respectively. Furthermore, vitamin C showed hydrophobic interactions with both proteins, two bonds with Arg119, Glu120 of HA, and one bond with Arg74 of NA. In silico docking studies thus recommend vitamin C to be more effective against H1N1.