New Delhi:

People across all age groups in India, both men and women, are consuming inadequate amounts of micronutrients critical for health, including iron, calcium and folate, as estimated in a study published in The Lancet Global Health journal.

The study is the first to provide estimates of insufficient consumption of 15 micronutrients across 185 countries, taken through diets without the use of supplements, according to an international team, including researchers from Harvard University, US.

The findings suggested that around the world, almost 70 per cent, or over five billion, people do not consume enough iodine, vitamin E, and calcium.

The researchers also found that within a country and an age group, more women were consuming inadequate amounts of iodine, vitamin B12 and iron, compared to men, whereas more men were consuming inadequate amounts of magnesium, vitamin B6, zinc and vitamin C, compared to women.

In India, while more women consumed insufficient amounts of iodine, compared to men, more men consumed inadequate amounts of zinc and magnesium, compared to women, the team found.

While analyses over the past 10 years have looked at micronutrient deficiencies, the researchers said large data gaps remain for many micronutrients and population groups.

In this study, the authors used publicly available data from the Global Dietary Database to estimate the prevalence of insufficient nutrient intakes for 99.3 per cent of the global population.

Men and women aged 10-30 years were most prone to low-levels of calcium intake, especially in South Asia, Southeast Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, the team said.

The authors said that the findings could be used by public health professionals to target populations in need of dietary interventions.

They added that since they did not account for intake of fortified foods or supplements, the results could possibly be an overestimate for some key nutrients in particular locations where people consume high amounts of fortified foods and supplements. 

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New Delhi:

Drugs to treat common infections in children and babies are no longer effective in large parts of the world, including India, due to high rates of antibiotic resistance, a study has found.

The team led by researchers at the University of Sydney in Australia found many antibiotics recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO) had less than 50 per cent effectiveness in treating childhood infections such as pneumonia, sepsis (bloodstream infections) and meningitis.

The findings, published in The Lancet regional Health-Southeast Asia journal, show global guidelines on antibiotic use are outdated and need updates.

The most seriously affected regions are in Southeast Asia and the Pacific where thousands of unnecessary deaths in children resulting from antibiotic resistance occur each year, the researchers said.

The WHO has declared that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the top 10 global public health threats facing humanity. In newborns, an estimated three million cases of sepsis occur globally each year, with up to 570,000 (5.7 lakh) deaths.

Many of these are due to lack of effective antibiotics to treat resistant bacteria.

The study adds to mounting evidence that common bacteria responsible for sepsis and meningitis in children are often resistant to prescribed antibiotics.

The research shows the urgent need for global antibiotic guidelines to be updated, to reflect the rapidly evolving rates of AMR. The most recent guidelines from the WHO were published in 2013.

The study found that one antibiotic in particular, ceftriaxone, was likely to be effective in treating only one in three cases of sepsis or meningitis in newborn babies.

Another antibiotic, gentamicin, was found likely to be effective in treating fewer than half of all sepsis and meningitis cases in children, according to the researchers.

Gentamicin is commonly prescribed alongside aminopenicillins, which the study showed also has low effectiveness in combating bloodstream infections in babies and children.

“Antibiotic resistance is rising more rapidly than we realize,” said study lead author Phoebe Williams from the University of Sydney.

“We urgently need new solutions to stop invasive multidrug-resistant infections and the needless deaths of thousands of children each year,” Williams said.

The study analysed 6,648 bacterial isolates from 11 countries across 86 publications to review antibiotic susceptibility for common bacteria causing childhood infections.

The data collated largely arose from urban tertiary hospital settings with over-representation from particular countries, especially India and China.

Williams said that the best way to tackle antibiotic resistance in childhood infections is to make funding to investigate new antibiotic treatments for children and newborns a priority.

“Antibiotic clinical focus on adults and too often children and newborns are left out. That means we have very limited options and data for new treatments,” she noted.

“This study reveals important problems regarding the availability of effective antibiotics to treat serious infections in children,” said study senior author Paul Turner, a professor at the University of Oxford, UK.

“It also highlights the ongoing need for high quality laboratory data to monitor the AMR situation, which will facilitate timely changes to be made to treatment guidelines,” Turner added.
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Cases of death by suicide among Indian men have grown over one-third in the past seven years, claimed a report by The Lancet Regional Health. In 2014, 89,129 men died by suicide as against 42,521 women. The ratio rose to 2.64 times in 2021. This year, 1,18,979 males died by suicide against 45,026 females.

The situation was even more concerning among married men. In 2021, married men recorded triple the suicide death rate — deaths per one lakh people– of 24.3 compared to women where this figure was 8.4.

The study on changing patterns of suicide in India pointed out that family problems and health issues were two major factors behind the rising vulnerability of Indian men to suicide.  Low suicide among women might indicate better coping mechanisms for dealing with stress.

 “Owing to these two reasons, the male-to-female ratio of suicides has increased from 1.9 and 2.5 to 2.4 and 3.2, respectively, during 2014–2021. There was a 107.5% increase in citing family problems as a reason among men during 2014–2021, approximately two-fold of that in women,” the report said.

The findings of the study are based on data from the National Crime Records Bureau.

The suicide death rate remained the highest — 27.2 — among men between the age group of 30-44 years. The SDR spiked nearly 5 points from 22.7 in 2014 to 27.2 in 2021. Between the age group of 18-29 years, the suicide rate saw a steeper rise of 5.6 points from 20 in 2014 to 25.6 in 2021. 

Overall, the cases of suicide death among Indian men between 2014 to 2021 grew by 33.5 per cent compared to women where the change was 5.89 per cent.

Among social groups, daily wage workers were at a greater risk of death by suicide. The instances of suicide had nearly tripled between 2014 and 2021. From 13,944 in 2014, cases of death by suicide rose to 37, 751 in 2021 among men involved in daily wage work. In women, the number showed a similar alarming trend– rising from 1,791 in 2014 to 4,246 in 2021.

The report further revealed unemployed men and women both had a high SDR of 48.2 and 27.8, respectively, in 2021.