Daily Archives: March 11, 2013

Over 20 students from Bright Start Fellowship International School take part in the run

Hemant Padalkar | DNA

While most of the city's teenagers would choose to enjoy and make merry on a pleasant Sunday morning, a bunch of schoolchildren from South Mumbai ran the 5-km Fun Run at the Stayfree Women For Change DNA I CAN Womens Marathon. Their cause: To fight anaemia.

En route, they were munching glucose biscuits to maintain energy levels and also handed over nutrition bars, packed with goodness of ragi, sesame and jaggery, to fellow participants.

More than 20 students from Bright Start Fellowship International School (BSFIS), at Gowalia Tank in Grant Road were following the footsteps of a 21-year-old biochemistry student Rajvi Mehta. Mehta had introduced the concept of preparing and giving away 'gudness' bars that are similar to Indian chikki to school students in Mumbai under the project Let's be Well Red.

Mehta's brainchild of making available iron packed nutrition bars in SoBo schools was first reported in DNA on October 30, 2012.

Under the project, each nutrition bar containing 14mg of iron is made available at school canteens. It takes care of the nutritional needs, especially iron, of a child. Several schools in South Mumbai offer it at a minimal price of Rs10. We have undertaken the project in our school wherein we visit our peers at other schools and spread awareness about how low haemoglobin levels can be potentially fatal, said Aashani Shah, a Std XII BSFIS student.

While the ideal haemoglobin level for teenagers is 12mg/100 ml of blood, due to faulty food habits or lack of nutrition, children cutting across economic levels reel under the woes of low haemoglobin. This causes them to tire easily and leads to lack of concentration, said Dr Pragnya Mehta, principal of BSFIS.

Last month, the students along with the doctors involved in the project met the chief minister Prithviraj Chavan with an appeal to include the 'gudness' bar in the mid-day meal scheme at civic-run schools, rural schools and aanganwadis across the state.

Anaemia is responsible for upto 65% of maternal and infant deaths in the country. The fate of Maharashtra is no different. We have requested the state government to include the nutrition bar in the list of essential products due to it's high nutritive value and subsidised production costs, said Dr Hemant Mehta, anaesthesiologist, Jaslok Hospital. Mehta is closely involved with the project.

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DNA I Can Marathon: Bringing 'gudness' to Fun Run

Mar. 9, 2013 Can the length of strands of DNA in patients with heart disease predict their life expectancy? Researchers from the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center in Salt Lake City, who studied the DNA of more that 3,500 patients with heart disease, say yes it can.

In the new study, presented Saturday, March 9, at the American College of Cardiology's Annual Scientific Session in San Francisco, the researchers were able to predict survival rates among patients with heart disease based on the length of strands of DNA found on the ends of chromosomes known as telomeres -- the longer the patient's telomeres, the greater the chance of living a longer life.

The study is one of 17 studies from the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center that are being presented at the scientific session, which is being attended by thousands of cardiologists and heart experts from around the world.

Previous research has shown that telomere length can be used as a measure of age, but these expanded findings suggest that telomere length may also predict the life expectancy of patients with heart disease.

Telomeres protect the ends of chromosome from becoming damaged. As people get older, their telomeres get shorter until the cell is no longer able to divide. Shortened telomeres are associated with age-related diseases such as heart disease or cancer, as well as exposure to oxidative damage from stress, smoking, air pollution, or conditions that accelerate biologic aging.

"Chromosomes by their nature get shorter as we get older," said John Carlquist, PhD, director of the Intermountain Heart Institute Genetics Lab. "Once they become too short, they no longer function properly, signaling the end of life for the cell. And when cells reach this stage, the patient's risk for age-associated diseases increases dramatically."

Dr. Carlquist and his colleagues from the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center tested the DNA samples from more than 3,500 heart attack and stroke patients.

"Our research shows that if we statistically adjust for age, patients with longer telomeres live longer, suggesting that telomere length is more than just a measure of age, but may also indicate the probability for survival. Longer telomere length directly correlate with the likelihood for a longer life -- even for patients with heart disease," said Dr. Carlquist.

Dr. Carlquist and his colleagues from the Intermountain Heart Institute at Intermountain Medical Center drew on two unique resources that offer unparalleled opportunity for researchers to study the effects of telomere length and survival rates of heart patients:

"With so many samples and very complete electronic records, it's a unique resource," said Dr. Carlquist. "It's unmatched in the world, and it allows us to measure the rate of change in the length of a patient's telomeres over time rather than just a snapshot in time, which is typical for most studies."

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Length of DNA strands can predict life expectancy