59 research outputs found
Disordered eating attitude and associated factors among late adolescent girls in Gondar city, northwest Ethiopia: a community-based cross-sectional study
No full textBackgroundDisordered eating attitudes are characterized by abnormal beliefs, thoughts, and feelings regarding food and weight control. Dieting, intentional weight loss, and weight control affect 41–62% of girls worldwide. However, there is limited information related to disordered eating attitudes and associated factors among late adolescent girls in Ethiopia, including in the study area. Thus, the study aimed to assess disordered eating attitudes and associated factors among late adolescent girls in Gondar city, northwest Ethiopia.MethodsFor this community-based cross-sectional study, which was conducted from 26 June to 26 July 2022, in Gondar city, Ethiopia, 1,188 adolescent girls were included. Multistage stratified sampling followed by a systematic random sampling technique was applied to recruit participants for the study. Data were collected using an interviewer-administered questionnaire containing the Eating Attitudes Test-26 (EAT-26). Anthropometric measurements were also taken. Bivariable and multivariable logistic regressions were employed to identify factors associated with disordered eating attitudes. In the final model, variables with a p-value of < 0.05 were considered statistically significant.ResultsA total of 1,158 late adolescent girls (a response rate of 97.5%) participated in the study. The prevalence of disordered eating attitudes among late adolescent girls was 9.7% [95% confidence interval (CI): 7.96, 11.4%]. Having a mother who was unable to read and write [adjusted odds ratio (AOR): 3.88 (95% CI: 1.07, 14.11)], having a mother who could read and write [AOR: 4.31: (95% CI: 1.14, 16.24)], having a father who only attended primary school [AOR: 3.78 (95% CI: 1.33, 10.78)], having severe anxiety [AOR: 3.26 (95% CI: 1.42, 7.49)], and severe usage of social media [AOR: 2.80 (95% CI: 1.22, 6.46)] were factors significantly associated with disordered eating attitudes among late adolescent girls.ConclusionThis study revealed that disordered eating attitudes among late adolescent girls were relatively high. The educational status of parents, anxiety, and severe usage of social media were positively associated with disordered eating attitudes. Therefore, nutritional education for parents of adolescents who are vulnerable to unhealthy behavior is imperative. The finding also implied the importance of an inclusive strategy to mitigate the emerging problem of targeting vulnerable groups
Herbal Medicines for the Management of Diabetic Mellitus in Ethiopia and Eretria including their Phytochemical Constituents
No full textDevelopment and validation of a nutrition assessment questionnaire based on the social and behavior change model for adolescents in Ethiopia
No full textBackgroundA reliable assessment of behavior change requires the use of a validated tool based on an appropriate behavior change model. Research on tools for assessing nutrition behavior change is limited.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop and validate a questionnaire for assessing plant-protein food consumption behaviors based on Pender’s behavior change model, specifically for adolescent girls in Ethiopia.MethodsA collection of items was generated by examining relevant behavior change theories and manuals, dietary guidelines, and literature focused on pulses’ food function, processing, and preparation. The items were examined for content and face validity. Exploratory factor analysis was performed after verifying its assumptions, such as the factorability of the instrument using Bartlett’s test of sphericity and Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) measure of sampling adequacy. Eigenvalue and scree plot were used to determine the number of factors. Factor loadings and communalities were employed for item retention. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated to assess the reliability at the scale and dimension levels.ResultsOf the 53 items analyzed, 29 items and 6 factors were retained. The overall scale-level reliability was measured at 0.7210, while the factor-level reliabilities were as follows: 0.69 for factor 1 (i48, i49, i50, i52, i53, i31, and i32), 0.67 for factor 2 (i7, i8, i9, i10, i12, i13, and i14), 0.63 for factor 3 (i23, i24, i25, i26, fi27, and i28), 0.31 for factor 4 (i4, i5, i40), 0.59 for factor 5 (i35, i36, and i37), and 0.58 for factor 6 (i18, i19, and i20).ConclusionThe tool has an acceptable scale-level reliability. The factors are theoretically meaningful and align with the recommendations. The tool can serve as a foundation for developing tools in related fields. However, it requires further refinement before it can be used as a standard tool
Dietary practice and nutritional status and the respective effect of pulses-based nutrition education among adolescent girls in Northwest Ethiopia: a cluster randomized controlled trial
No full textBackgroundThinness and stunting are the most severe public health problems among adolescent girls in Ethiopia. An inadequate intake of protein-source foods is the most critical cause, mainly due to the non-affordability of animal-origin foods. However, research into what extent improving pulses-based food consumption could contribute to decreasing the magnitude of protein-energy undernutrition is limited.ObjectiveThis trial aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of pulses-based nutrition education in reducing the proportion of thinness among adolescent girls.MethodsA two-arm cluster randomized controlled trial was conducted among adolescent girls in Northwest Ethiopia from December 2021 to June 2022. A total of 602 adolescent girls from four schools were enrolled in the trial. Schools were assigned to intervention and control groups using the stratified cluster randomization method. Pulses-based nutrition education was the intervention, whereas the usual dietary practice of adolescent girls was the comparator. The education was delivered over 4 weeks on a 45–60-min session per week basis. Thinness was the primary outcome of the trial, measured by anthropometry. An intention-to-treat analysis method was used. A log-binomial regression model was fitted to the data. Relative risk with the respective confidence interval and value of p was calculated. A value of p < 0.05 was used to declare statistical significance. Stata 16 software was used for the analysis.ResultsAbout 89.37% of the participants in the intervention group and 92.36% in the control group completed the trial. The pulses-based nutrition education intervention did not show a significant difference in reducing the proportion of thinness among the participants in the intervention group compared to the participants in the control group even though a significant difference was observed in terms of the consumption of pulses-based food.ConclusionThe present trial was statistically non-significant in reducing thinness among adolescent girls. Similar studies that utilize objective methods for ascertaining pulses-based food consumption need to be conducted.Clinical trial registration: https://pactr.samrc.ac.za/Search.aspx, the trial was registered in the Pan African Clinical Trials Registry (PACTR202111605102515) on November 12, 2021
Barriers of eating among rural adolescent girls in Ethiopia: a qualitative study
No full textAbstract Background Short stature and thinness among adolescent girls continue to be a severe public health problem in Ethiopia, due mainly to inadequate dietary intake, which turn affected by several factors. Evidence shows that in low and middle-income countries, the factors related to culture and belief play a pivotal role in making a difference in eating, negatively affecting girls. In Ethiopia, the roles of these factors in influencing the eating behavior of adolescent girls have not been well investigated. Objective This qualitative study was conducted to explore the barriers of eating among adolescent girls in Ethiopia. Methods A qualitative study was employed in northwest Ethiopia from January to April 2021. A focus group discussion of adolescent girls and an in-depth interview of mothers and adolescent boys were separately conducted. A total of six focus group discussions involving a total of forty-three adolescent girls and an in-depth interview of twelve adolescent males and ten mothers were performed. The adolescent girls and boys were aged 15 to 19, attending grades 9–12. The participants were selected using a purposive sampling method. Content analysis was employed to identify the predominant themes. The analysis was conducted using Open Code. Results Four themes emerged from the current study. These included religion, the culture of male dominancy, roles and responsibilities, and perception related to girls' body food requirements and the consequences of proper feeding of adolescent girls on their behavior. Specifically, girls start fasting at an early age due to religious reasons; girls do not eat before the males eat and outside the home out of respect for males; girls spend most of their time at home doing less energy-demanding work; girls’ body food requirement is lower and girls better tolerate hunger than their counterpart boys; and if girls eat well, they would not be disciplined, were among the reasons mentioned by the study participants for girls’ intake of lower quality and quantity food. Conclusion Religion, the culture of male dominancy, roles given to females and males and the perception that girls’ bodies require a lower quantity of food and well-nourished girls will not be disciplined were common factors responsible for the poor dietary behavior of adolescent girls. Educating the community about the food requirements of girls, the consequences of their inadequate feeding, and the misconception existing in the community about girls' food requirements is crucial. Strengthening policies and strategies helpful for empowering women and balancing gender inequalities may be required
A systematic review and meta-analysis protocol on stunting and its determinants among school-age children (6-14years) in Ethiopia.
No full textBackgroundIn Ethiopia, stunting is a common public health problem among school-age children. Even though several studies were conducted in different parts of the country, the national pooled prevalence of stunting and its determinants not estimated. Therefore, this study intends to determine the pooled prevalence and determinants of stunting among school-age children in Ethiopia.MethodsThis review protocol is registered at PROSPERO with Registration number: CRD42020160625. Online databases (Medline, PubMed, Scopus, and Science direct), Google, Google Scholar, and other grey literature will be used to search articles until June 2020. The quality assessment will be performed using the Joanna Briggs Institute checklist. The analysis will be organized and presented according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis. The presence of heterogeneity among studies will be examined using a chi-squared test on Cochran's Q statistic with a 5% level of statistical significance, subgroup analyses, and meta-regression will be performed to investigate sources of heterogeneity. To identify influential studies, sensitivity analysis will be conducted. Presence publication bias will be examined by observing funnel plots. The presence of a statistical association will be declared at a p-value DiscussionStunting is a major public health problem in Ethiopia, which affects the health of children. So, designing and implementing different nutritional strategies and promoting healthcare services is extremely mandatory to overcome stunting problems in the country. To understand this, estimating the prevalence of stunting at the national level and determining the pertinent common determinants using high-level evidence is fairly imperative. Therefore, this study will offer a summarizing finding
Ethyl Pyruvate Emerges as a Safe and Fast Acting Agent against Trypanosoma brucei by Targeting Pyruvate Kinase Activity.
No full textHuman African Trypanosomiasis (HAT) also called sleeping sickness is an infectious disease in humans caused by an extracellular protozoan parasite. The disease, if left untreated, results in 100% mortality. Currently available drugs are full of severe drawbacks and fail to escape the fast development of trypanosoma resistance. Due to similarities in cell metabolism between cancerous tumors and trypanosoma cells, some of the current registered drugs against HAT have also been tested in cancer chemotherapy. Here we demonstrate for the first time that the simple ester, ethyl pyruvate, comprises such properties.The current study covers the efficacy and corresponding target evaluation of ethyl pyruvate on T. brucei cell lines using a combination of biochemical techniques including cell proliferation assays, enzyme kinetics, phasecontrast microscopic video imaging and ex vivo toxicity tests. We have shown that ethyl pyruvate effectively kills trypanosomes most probably by net ATP depletion through inhibition of pyruvate kinase (Ki = 3.0±0.29 mM). The potential of ethyl pyruvate as a trypanocidal compound is also strengthened by its fast acting property, killing cells within three hours post exposure. This has been demonstrated using video imaging of live cells as well as concentration and time dependency experiments. Most importantly, ethyl pyruvate produces minimal side effects in human red cells and is known to easily cross the blood-brain-barrier. This makes it a promising candidate for effective treatment of the two clinical stages of sleeping sickness. Trypanosome drug-resistance tests indicate irreversible cell death and a low incidence of resistance development under experimental conditions.Our results present ethyl pyruvate as a safe and fast acting trypanocidal compound and show that it inhibits the enzyme pyruvate kinase. Competitive inhibition of this enzyme was found to cause ATP depletion and cell death. Due to its ability to easily cross the blood-brain-barrier, ethyl pyruvate could be considered as new candidate agent to treat the hemolymphatic as well as neurological stages of sleeping sickness
Insecticide resistant Anopheles from Ethiopia but not Burkina Faso show a microbiota composition shift upon insecticide exposure
No full textAbstract Background Malaria remains a key contributor to mortality and morbidity across Africa, with the highest burden in children under 5. Insecticide-based vector control tools, which target the adult Anopheles mosquitoes, are the most efficacious tool in disease prevention. Due to the widespread use of these interventions, insecticide resistance to the most used classes of insecticides is now pervasive across Africa. Understanding the underlying mechanisms contributing to this phenotype is necessary to both track the spread of resistance and to design new tools to overcome it. Methods Here, we compare the microbiota composition of insecticide-resistant populations of Anopheles gambiae, An. coluzzii and An. arabiensis from Burkina Faso, and in the latter case additionally from Ethiopia, to insecticide-susceptible populations. Results We show that the microbiota composition between insecticide-resistant and -susceptible populations does not differ in Burkina Faso. This result is supported by data from laboratory colonies originating in Burkina Faso across two countries. In contrast, An. arabiensis from Ethiopia demonstrates clear differences in microbiota composition in those dying from and those surviving insecticide exposure. To further understand resistance in this An. arabiensis population, we performed RNAseq and saw differential expression of detoxification genes associated with insecticide resistance and changes in respiration, metabolism and synapse-related ion channels. Conclusions Our results indicate that, in addition to changes in the transcriptome, microbiota can contribute to insecticide resistance in certain settings. Graphical Abstrac
Cytotoxicity evaluation of ethyl pyruvate on human erythrocytes.
No full text<p>(A) 6x10<sup>5</sup> red blood cells were mixed to 2x10<sup>5</sup><i>T</i>. <i>brucei</i> cells in 5 ml fresh medium in a flask. Cells were first incubated at 37°C in 5% CO<sub>2</sub> for 24 hrs. Out of this 1 ml-aliquots were distributed into 24-well plates and incubated with 100 μl of increasing concentrations of ethyl pyruvate (1–15 mM). Controls contained cells without ethyl pyruvate but 100 μl of fresh medium. The cells were then re-incubated for 3 hrs. Afterwards, the number of trypanosomes and human erythrocytes was counted using a haemocytometer. (B) Effect of ethyl pyruvate (10 mM) on red blood cell haemolysis was determined by measuring the optical density of the medium containing the <i>T</i>. <i>brucei</i> and red blood cells co-incubated for 3 hrs. Before measurement, the cells were spun down by centrifugation. Total haemolysis of an equivalent number of cells (labelled as ‘Control’) was achieved by sonication (70% power, 5x5 sec) using an ultrasonicater. Cells without ethyl pyruvate were used as negative controls (labelled as ‘Blank’).</p
Effect of ethyl pyruvate at cellular ATP level in <i>T</i>. <i>brucei</i>.
No full text<p>Trypanomomes (3x10<sup>5</sup> cells/well) were cultured in 24-well plates in the absence (control) or presence of ethyl pyruvate (1 to 20 mM) and incubated for 3 hrs at 37°C in 5% CO<sub>2.</sub> After incubation, cells were centrifuged at 1500 rpm for 10 min and supernatant was removed. The cell sediment was re-suspended smoothly in 500 μl of fresh medium. From this suspension 50 μl (equivalent to 3x10<sup>4</sup> cells) was added into a 96-well black opaque-walled plate in duplicates and mixed with 50 μl of test reagent per well. Luminescence was read at 560 nm. The actual ATP level was calculated from the trend line formula of the standard curve (n = 3), *p<0.05.</p
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