30 min of sunbath a week can make infants’ vitamin-D sufficient

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Tue, 08 May 2018 09:41:17 +0000

It used to be a routine practice in India to massage infants and give them a sunbath. But changing lifestyles in recent decades have confined kids to indoors. This has led to the emergence of Vitamin D deficiency as a major problem among infants.

A study from Delhi has suggested an estimate for the minimum duration for which infants need to be exposed to sunlight every day to achieve sufficient levels of vitamin-D in their body.

Doctors at the University College of Medical Sciences, New Delhi enrolled 100 infants and asked their mothers to record the time, duration, and the body area exposed during sunbath every day starting 6 weeks of age.

The study found that an exposure of as low as about 30 minutes of sunlight per week with about 40% of the child’s body exposed to the sunlight can help achieve adequate vitamin-D status at 6 months of age. The researchers also found that the ideal time to give the sunbath is between 10 AM and 3 PM.

Also Read: India’s Nutrition Atlas Goes Live

“This small intervention can help improve levels of vitamin D in infants without the need for supplements or formula feed. And can possibly benefit more than 16 million babies born in the country every year,” Dheeraj Shah, professor of pediatrics at the University College of Medicine Sciences, New Delhi, who is a co-author of the study.

The study took into account factors like the skin color of infants and season of sunbath. About 90% of the mothers in the study were themselves vitamin D deficient. Mothers who were on vitamin D supplements were excluded so that the study results remained unaffected. The journal Indian Pediatrics publishes the study.

“We are planning further studies with a larger group of infants to test it as an intervention therapy”, said Piyush Gupta, corresponding author of the paper. The skin synthesis with Vitamin D when ultraviolet rays from the sun convert a molecule,7-dehydrocholesterol, on the skin into an inactive form of the vitamin. This enters the blood circulation and converts to its active form in the liver and kidney.

Several studies over the years have shown that more than 50% of the Indian population is vitamin D deficient. This is a matter of concern, especially for infants. Because Vitamin D is important for calcium absorption, normal growth and development, and maintenance of bone health and hair follicles. Insufficient vitamin D levels cause lethargy, irritability, and a predisposition to infections. Extreme Deficiency of vitamin D can cause rickets which results in malformation of leg bones.

Umesh Kapil, professor of Gastroenterology at the AIIMS, New Delhi, felt that the proposed strategy may not be feasible in winters when the temperature remains low. While agreeing with Kapil, Shah said, “We have reported that for the winter months. If the child is fully clothed with only face and hands are exposed, the required sunbath is calculated to be two hours per week or approximately 17 minutes per day.”

Ramesh Agarwal, professor of Pediatrics AIIMS New Delhi, suggested that randomized control trials must be done to test this intervention as a therapy. He also highlights the need to evaluate the safety of sun exposure in relation to hyperthermia, burns and skin cancer in infants.

(Shared from India Science Wire)

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Alcohol addiction: Counselling can be of great help

InnoHEALTH Magazine — Wed, 28 Mar 2018 10:31:46 +0000

Alcohol abuse contributes to illness and premature deaths in a big way. It is also associated with several socio-economic consequences such loss of earnings and domestic violence.

Over the years, several measures have been launched to overcome the problem including imposition of ban on alcohol sale and setting up of de-addiction centres to help the drinkers.

A group of researchers drawn from several national and international institutions have now found that it is possible to address the issue in a significantly effective manner at low costs. They have found that lot of benefit can be derived by merely equipping public health workers with different counselling techniques.

The study was conducted at 10 public primary healthcare centres in Goa. A total of 377 heavy drinkers in the age group of 18 to 65 years were enrolled. They were randomized into two groups- one receiving just the routine care and the other who also received counselling for two months. Their alcohol use was measured after 12 months.

In the group that received counseling, as much as 68 per cent of the men were found to have reduced their consumption to the safe level, as against 40 per cent in the case of the group that received only the routine care. The counselling programme was also not too intense. It consisted of just one to three sessions.

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The counselors were also just non-specialist health workers. They had no prior professional training or qualification in the field of mental health. However, they were given rigorous training on various aspects of counselling and they gave advice on how to deal with craving and motivated patients to quit drinking.

Speaking to India Science Wire, Vikram Patel, professor at the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine of the Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts in USA, who was the corresponding author for the study, said, “Given the great social and health harms associated with heavy drinking in India, and the effectiveness of this relatively brief and cheap treatment to reduce drinking levels,the government needs to scale up this treatment by training primary care health workers across the country”.

Besides Dr. Patel, the study team included Abhijit Nadkarni, Helen A Weiss, Benedict Weobong, David McDaid, Daisy R Singla, A-La Park, Bhargav Bhat, Basavaraj Katti, Jim McCambridge, Pratima Murthy, Michael King, G Terence Wilson, Betty Kirkwood, Christopher G Fairburn, and Richard Velleman.

National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS) in Bengaluru and Sangath, a NGO in Goa participated in the study. They collaborated with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Oxford, University of Bath, University of York, University College London and London School of Economics and Political Science in United Kingdom, University of Toronto in Canada, Rutgers University in New Jersey, and Harvard Medical School in United States of America. The Indian Council of Medical Research gave the ethical approval for conducting the trial.

(Article shared from India Science Wire)

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The post Alcohol addiction: Counselling can be of great help appeared first on InnoHEALTH magazine.

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30 min of sunbath a week can make infants’ vitamin-D sufficient

Alcohol addiction: Counselling can be of great help

Alcohol abuse contributes to illness and premature deaths in a big way. It is also associated with several socio-economic consequences such loss of earnings and domestic violence.