A Healthy Nation Through Proper Nutrition:

One in six babies are born with low birthweight

By Manjula Fernando

"We need to highlight that nutrition is not just about food, malnutrition is a state of being under or over nourished, this will result in a combination of factors"-

Deputy Country Representative, UNICEF

'A Healthy Nation Through Proper Nutrition,' is the theme of June, dedicated by the Government as 'Nutrition month' .

Despite having impressive demographic indicators compared to its neighbours and many developed nations, Sri Lanka sadly is yet to improve nutrition levels in children.

In Sri Lanka official statistics state that nearly one quarter of all children under five years are underweight. In addition 13 percent of children under five have stunted growth. Apart from this one in six babies are born with low birthweight. This information was relayed at a media conference in Colombo last week.

Malnutrition also plays a part in more than 1/3 of all child deaths in the developing countries. Stunted children are inches shorter than what they could have been with proper nutrition. They are weaker and have a poor immune system, making them more vulnerable to disease. Stunting also slows brain development and results in loss of two to three years of learning.

When stunted children are in the workforce their diminished physical and cognitive development may reduce their earning capacities by as much as 22 percent. This in turn affects national development and health care spending.

Sadly, improvement in nutrition after the age of two does not usually lead to the recovery of lost potential. This means the attention of nutrition in babies, under the age of two is absolutely critical because any damage that have caused before the age of two is not recoverable.

Medical experts are of the view that low birthweight is a primary cause for the development of non- communicable diseases such as diabetes, hypertension and heart disease later in life.

Therefore, it is crucial for a child to be born weighing 2.5 kg or more, for a healthy future.

Malnutrition is caused by insufficient protein, energy and micro-nutrients; frequent infections or disease; poor childcare and feeding practices; inadequate health services; or even overeating. Malnutrition affects a child's physical and mental development. Under- nourished and anaemic children have a higher risk of illness.

Proper nutrition helps give every child the best start in life. It ensures that children have equal opportunities to grow into healthy citizens.

Proper nutrition involves exclusive breast feeding for the first six months and continued breast feeding with age appropriate complimentary food. It goes hand in hand with prevention and treatment of disease and proper childcare.

Instilling proper food habits too is vital in preventing the risk of non-communicable diseases in adulthood.

They suggest, limiting consumption of sweets. Children develop tastes for certain food at an early age.

Eating habits and attitudes learned as a child are likely to last a lifetime. It is important to set less salt and less sugar policies in a family with young children.

Doctors say 'today's behaviour is tomorrow's risk factor and today's risk factors are tomorrow's diseases'. They categorise unhealthy diet ( high calorie , high salt and less fruits an vegetables) and physical inactivity as 'Risky Behaviour', while 'Risk Factors' like blood sugar, blood pressure, blood lipids and obesity, overweight are raised. These are the signs of developing coronary heart disease, diabetes, stroke and cancer later in life.

A proper family meal is described by health experts as addressing different nutritional needs of individual members who are at different stages of the lifecycle.

Age, level of activity and state of health affect the nutritional requirements of the individual.

The main nutrients the body needs for survival are, protein, carbohydrates, fat, fibrer, vitamins, minerals, and water.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the body's main source of energy and should consist a major part of the total daily intake of food.

There are two types of carbohydrates - Simple Carbohydrates ( such as sugar, honey, chocolate, cake sweets) and Complex Carbohydrates (grains, beans, peas, potatoes).

Complex carbohydrates are better because they allow better blood glucose control than Simple Carbohydrates which is absorbed into the blood stream quickly and makes you hungry quickly. Rapidly absorbing sugar increases blood sugar and compel the pancreas to work double shift. The frequent release of large quantities of insulin results in insulin insensitivity, insulin stress and finally leads to diabetes.Medical practitioners use the Glycaemic Index(GI) to rate carbohydrates. GI measures how fast carbohydrates absorb into the blood as sugar. High GI foods are not healthy food. Low GI is less than 55 and High GI is over 60.

Sugar Consumption

Doctors warn that sugar consumption among the average Sri Lankan is high. The recommended daily intake of sugar per person is a maximum of three tablespoons.

This includes the sugar you take in the form of biscuits and the rest in other forms. The World Health Organisation recommends that less than 10 percent of the calories should come from free sugar.

The other food additive that we should be aware is salt (Sodium Cloride). Salt is added to food as table salt, sea salt, seasoning salt, baking soda, Mono Sodium Glutamate (MSG) and high salted food such as processed, takeaways and restaurant food.

Excess sodium causes the body to retain fluid, swelling of body tissues and increase in blood pressure. It is recommended to restrict added salt to 5mg per person per day.

Schizophrenics to benefit from study of normal people who hear voices

Researchers from the Bergen fMRI Group at the University of Bergen (UiB) are working on how to help schizophrenics, who hear voices. The way they do this is by studying people who also hear voices, but who do not suffer from a mental illness. For a five-year period, the group is studying the brain processes causing people to hear voices. A recent report published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience shows some of the group's startling results.

"We have found that the primary auditory cortex of healthy people who hear voices, responds less to outside stimulus than the corresponding area of the brain in people who don't hear voices," says Post Doctor Kristiina Kompus.

Variations in cognitive control

The primary auditory cortex is the region of the brain that processes sound. Kompus' study shows that healthy people who hear voices share some attributes with schizophrenics, as the cortical region in both groups reacts less to outside stimulus.

However, there is an important difference between people who hear voices. Whilst those with schizophrenia have a reduced ability to regulate the primary auditory cortex using cognitive control, those who hear voices but are healthy are able to do so.

"Because of this cognitive control, healthy people who hear voices are able to direct their attention outwards. This sets them apart from schizophrenics, who have a tendency to direct their attention inwards due to their decreased ability to regulate their primary auditory cortex," says Kompus before adding. "These discoveries have brought us one step close to understanding the hallucinations of schizophrenics and why the voices become a problem for some people but not for others." - ScienceDaily

Type 2 diabetes in youth increases risk for heart, kidney disease

The news about youth and diabetes keeps getting worse. The latest data from the national Today diabetes study shows that children who develop Type 2 diabetes are at high risk to develop heart, kidney and eye problems faster and at a higher rate than people who acquire Type 2 diabetes as adults.

"Once these children have Type 2 diabetes, they seem to be at very high risk for early complications when compared to adults," said Jane Lynch, professor of paediatric endocrinology .

The study, led by UT Medicine paediatricians, includes 699 children and young people, with 44 San Antonio participants. The rise in youth obesity rates has been accompanied by increasing Type 2 diabetes rates in young people. "It's really a public health issue," said Dr. Lynch, who is principal investigator in the San Antonio arm of the study.

There are many unanswered questions and few guidelines for treatment of youth with early onset Type 2 diabetes, she said. Type 2 diabetes should not be confused with Type 1 diabetes, formerly called juvenile diabetes.

Of the TODAY participants, more than a third required medication for hypertension or kidney disease 3.9 years after they had joined the study. In the study, published online Thursday afternoon in Diabetes Care, 699 adolescents were randomised into three groups that received metformin, metformin plus rosiglitazone, or metformin plus intensive lifestyle intervention.

While the children on the combined drugs did the best of the three groups, Dr. Lynch said, all did poorly.

The researchers were particularly disappointed that the intensive lifestyle intervention group did not do better.

The rate of deterioration of beta cell function in youth was almost four times higher than in adults, researchers found, noting a 20-35 percent decline in beta cell function per year on average, compared to 7-11 percent for adults. Beta cells store and release insulin. It does not make things easier that these adolescents with early onset T2 diabetes have a tough time managing complex health problems.

"In puberty, everyone becomes somewhat insulin-resistant ... and when you're insulin-resistant you're hungry, plus when you have diabetes you're thirsty.

This becomes a huge issue when there's the tendency to make poor choices."One sobering aspect of the study results is that the young patients all had to fit certain health parameters, such as not having high blood pressure or having a treatable level of high blood pressure, and they all received the best possible care, education and medical support.

They had to have a parent or guardian who would also participate in the clinic visits and lifestyle education. Their medicine was paid for and they were brought to the clinic by taxi if that's what it took to get them there.

"That's Cadillac treatment for any kids with diabetes - and we still had these outcomes," Dr. Lynch said.

Despite the interventions in all three treatment arms, the children kept getting sicker. Boys and girls both developed kidney disease at about the same rates, but obese teenage boys were 81 percent more likely to develop hypertension, Dr. Lynch said. - MNT

World's first human trials of synthetic blood 'agreed'

The world's first human trials of synthetic blood will take place in Scotland, it has been reported.

Researchers from the Scottish Centre for Regenerative Medicine (SCRM) in Edinburgh have been granted a licence to make blood from stem cells which can be tested on humans, The Scotsman has reported.

The licence from the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will allow scientists at SCRM to attempt to manufacture blood on an industrial scale which will help to tackle shortages and stop the transfer of infections from blood donors, according to the paper.

These trials on humans will be the first stage in establishing more large-scale clinical trials and could result in regular use of synthetic blood.

Researchers will use stem cells from adult donors - known as induced pluripotent stem cells - as part of this project instead of the more controversial embryotic ones. Project leader Marc Turner said: "In the first part of the project we used human embryonic stem cell lines and one of the problems with using those lines is you can't choose what the blood group is going to be. "Over the last few years there has been a lot of work on induced pluripotent stem cells and with those an adult can donate a small piece of skin or a blood sample and the technology allows for stem-cell lines to be derived from that sample. "This makes our life a lot easier in some ways because that means we can identify a person with the specific blood type we want and get them to donate a sample from which we could manufacture the cell lines."With the licence scientists will also be able to work on stem cell products used to help patients with Parkinson's disease, diabetes, cancer or those who have suffered a stroke.

- PA