transition

The childhood obesity is increased more than three folds in last two decades in developed world. There is nutritional transition seen in the developing world including India. The westernization in diet of the Indian population along with prosperity brings the brunt of overweight and obesity. This has future implications of liver diseases, heart diseases, hypertension, hyperlipidaemia, insulin resistance; malignancies. Mumbai is the prosperous city and an economical capital of India. Also, the rampant use junk food, common outdoor eating’s, no grounds to play for children make the high likelihood that the prevalence of obesity to be higher than rest of the country. It can profoundly affect children’s physical health, social, and emotional well-being and self-esteem. It is also associated with poor academic performance and a lower quality of life experienced by the child. One of the best strategies to reduce childhood obesity is to improve the eating and exercise habits of the entire family. Treating and preventing childhood obesity helps protect the child’s health and has tremendous impact on child’s Physical and academic performance. And hence we at Aastha Bariatrics took initiative and launched ECHO... for a change (‘E’radicating ‘C’Hild ‘H’ood ‘O’besity), a pan Mumbai campaign against childhood obesity. This campaign was done in 15 high schools across Mumbai, which covered in total of 9000 students.

The effect of acute administration of ethanol extract of F. thoningii on anxiety and fear in Swiss white mice was studied. 30 adult Swiss white mice of both sexes were randomly divided in to three groups of 10 mice each. Group1 served as the control and was administered normal saline only. Group 2 (low dose group) was administered 10mg/kg ethanol extract of the F. thoningii, while group 3 (high dose group) was given 20mg/kg of the same extract. All animals were allowed food and water ad libitum. Neurobehavioral parameter was assessed using the light/dark transition box. The analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to test for variability within and among groups. Results were expressed as Mean ±SEM (standard error of the mean) and probability level p<0.05 was accepted as significant. The result showed that the frequency of transition in the light/dark transition box was significantly increased in the test groups (p<0.05; p<0.01).Similarly, the Light Box Duration was also significantly increased (p<0.01) in the low and high dose groups respectively. However, the Dark box duration was significantly decreased (p<0.05; p<0.01) in the low and high dose groups compared to control. This index showed a decreased level of anxiety and fear in the test groups. This was followed by a corresponding trend of decreased frequency of stretch attend posture and duration of freezing in the light/dark transition box (p<0.01; p<0.001) compared to the control. Summarily, acute administration of ethanol extract of F. thonningii causes calmness and sedation in moderate and high doses. It is therefore likely that it reduces aggression. If the result from this finding is extrapolated to humans, F. thoningii could be used to reduce anxiety disorders.

Acriptega, a combination of Dolutegravir, Lamivudine, and Tenofovir, is a cornerstone of modern antiretroviral therapy due to its efficacy and tolerability. However, treatment failures persist despite this optimization, raising questions about barriers to successful treatment. Through the analysis of two clinical cases, this study explores the biological and behavioral factors contributing to these failures following a switch to this molecule.The first case is a 69-year-old female patient, diagnosed with HIV in 2002 following pulmonary tuberculosis, who was regularly monitored with an undetectable viral load and a CD4 count > 500 cells/mm³ until the Acriptega transition and the onset of tumor symptoms in 2024. The second case is a 62-year-old female patient, diagnosed with HIV in 2009 following cerebral toxoplasmosis. She was regularly monitored with good treatment adherence and an undetectable viral load. After switching her triple therapy, she developed gastroenteritis, which led to the discovery of her treatment failure.    This case study highlights that failure after switching to Acriptega is linked to the absence of prior resistance testing (genotyping). A safe switchover requires a rigorous assessment of the patient’s virological history to prevent the emergence of cross-resistance. Close monitoring via genotyping is essential.

Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a devastating autosomal recessive neuromuscular disorder characterized by progressive muscle weakness, atrophy, and respiratory failure due to selective degeneration of lower motor neurons arising from homozygous deletion of exon 7 (95%) or mutation in the SMN 1 gene (5%),with severity correlating with SMN2 copy number—from fatal Type1 to milder Type 4—affecting 1:6,000–10,000 births worldwide and burdening India with 1,500–2,000 annual cases amid diagnostic delays. Although the backup SMN2 gene compensates a bit for SMN deficiency, a critical C→T transition in exon 7 leads to exon skipping and production of a truncated, unstable and nonfunctional SMN protein. Recent advances in disease-modifying therapies-including antisense oligonucleotides, small-molecule splicing modifiers, and gene replacement-have significantly improved clinical outcomes; however, they do not restore endogenous SMN expression in all tissues and often require repeated administration. Despite these medications like Spinraza injections, Zolgensma gene therapy, Evrysdi pills that increase SMN protein, the condition still has got significant morbidity: Type 1 babies frequently die before the age of two, 60–95% develop scoliosis, which makes spinal injections uncomfortable and dangerous, and lifetime expenses for each patient surpass $2 million. What if we could edit the nucleotide base of SMN2(T6C) using ABE10 to make it emulate like SMN1 gene to restore stable functional SMN protein that would be the permanent cure for SMA. This cutting edge molecular tool “AI-based Adenine Base Editors” would facilitate an endogenous regulation, laying the groundwork for precision medicine in rare disease management.