Archive for category: News

Maharashtra- The recent notice from the Directorate of Medical Education and Research (DMER) Maharashtra has announced the online application process and allocation details for the Government Bond Service for MDS PG degree holders for the Winter-2023 batch. Additionally, the list of MDS-eligible candidates and the available vacancies for bond service allocation has also been released.

New Delhi: Sun Pharma is recalling about 55,000 bottles of a generic medication to treat bowel disease in the American market, according to the US Food & Drug Administration (USFDA).

Read also: Lupin, Sun Pharma recall rheumatoid arthritis, thyroid drugs in US

Sun Pharma is an Indian multinational pharmaceutical company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra. The company manufactures and markets a large basket of pharmaceutical formulations covering a broad spectrum of chronic and acute therapies. It includes generics, branded generics, specialty, complex or difficult-to-make technology-intensive products, over-the-counter (OTC), antiretrovirals (ARVs), Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), and Intermediates.

Read also: Sun Pharma to buy 16.33 percent stake in Surgimatix for over Rs 25 crore

In a shocking incident, a second-year post-graduate medical student at the Government Medical College Hospital (GMCH) Vellore recently became the victim of alleged physical assault by a patient and her male companion.

UK: A recent study published in eClinicalMedicine has revealed an increased risk of hypertension, obesity, metabolic syndrome, and even heart attack in adulthood among those who had amblyopia (‘lazy eye’) in childhood.

The authors stress that while they have identified a correlation, their research does not show a causal relationship between amblyopia and ill health in adulthood.

The researchers analyzed data from more than 126,000 participants aged 40 to 69 years old from the UK Biobank cohort, who had undergone ocular examination.

Participants had been asked during recruitment whether they were treated for amblyopia in childhood and whether they still had the condition in adulthood. They were also asked if they had a medical diagnosis of diabetes, high blood pressure, or cardio/cerebrovascular disease (ie. angina, heart attack, stroke).

Meanwhile, their BMI (body mass index), blood glucose, and cholesterol levels were also measured and mortality was tracked.

The researchers confirmed that from 3,238 participants who reported having a ‘lazy eye’ as a child, 82.2% had persistent reduced vision in one eye as an adult.

The findings showed that participants with amblyopia as a child had 29% higher odds of developing diabetes, 25% higher odds of having hypertension and 16% higher odds of having obesity. They were also at increased risk of heart attack – even when other risk factors for these conditions (e.g. other disease, ethnicity and social class) were taken into account.

This increased risk of health problems was found not only among those whose vision problems persisted, but also to some extent in participants who had had amblyopia as a child and 20/20 vision as an adult, although the correlation was not as strong.

Corresponding author, Professor Jugnoo Rahi (UCL Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Great Ormond Street Hospital), said: “Amblyopia is an eye condition affecting up to four in 100 children. In the UK, all children are supposed to have vision screening before the age of five, to ensure a prompt diagnosis and relevant ophthalmic treatment.

“It is rare to have a ‘marker’ in childhood that is associated with increased risk of serious disease in adult life, and also one that is measured and known for every child – because of population screening.

“The large numbers of affected children and their families, may want to think of our findings as an extra incentive for trying to achieve healthy lifestyles from childhood.”

Amblyopia is when the vision in one eye does not develop properly and can be triggered by a squint or being long-sighted.

It is a neurodevelopmental condition that develops when there’s a breakdown in how the brain and the eye work together and the brain can’t process properly the visual signal from the affected eye. As it usually causes reduced vision in one eye only, many children don’t notice anything wrong with their sight and are only diagnosed through the vision test done at four to five years of age.

A recent report from the Academy of Medical Sciences* involving some researchers from the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute for Child Health, called on policymakers to address the declining physical and mental health of children under five in the UK and prioritise child health.

The team hope that their new research will help reinforce this message and highlight how child health lays the foundations for adult health.

First author, Dr Siegfried Wagner (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology and Moorfields Eye Hospital), said: “Vision and the eyes are sentinels for overall health – whether heart disease or metabolic disfunction, they are intimately linked with other organ systems. This is one of the reasons why we screen for good vision in both eyes.

“We emphasise that our research does not show a causal relationship between amblyopia and ill health in adulthood. Our research means that the ‘average’ adult who had amblyopia as a child is more likely to develop these disorders than the ‘average’ adult who did not have amblyopia. The findings don’t mean that every child with amblyopia will inevitably develop cardiometabolic disorders in adult life.”

Reference:

Siegfried Karl Wagner, Vasiliki Bountziouka, Pirro Hysi,Jugnoo Sangeeta Rahi, Associations between unilateral amblyopia in childhood and cardiometabolic disorders in adult life: a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of the UK Biobank, EClinicalMedicine, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2024.102493

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