Browsing by Author "Bera, Om Prakash"

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Citation - WoS: 6
Citation - Scopus: 8
Dietary Salt Consumption Pattern as an Antecedent Risk Factor for Hypertension: Status, Vision, and Future Recommendations
(Elsevier, 2022) Bhattacharya, Sudip; Bera, Om Prakash; Saleem, Sheikh Mohd; Hossain, Md Mahbub; Varshney, Deep Shikha; Kaur, Ravneet; Rana, Rishabh Kumar; Gokdemir, Ozden
Multiple salt reduction strategies have been devised from time to time, addressing the issues of hypertension without considering the other essential factors, like the variability of salt sensitivity from the person to person. In this paper, we discuss how high salt consumption is one modifiable risk factor associated with hypertension among Indians, and there needs to be updated cut-off values. A thorough literature search on salt consumption articles on well-known search engines like Cochrane Library, PubMed, Google Scholar and Embase electronic database revealed a paucity of data in this field for India. Several studies revealed that the mean salt intake among the Indian populations ranges between 5.22 and 42.30 g/day. Moreover, among other risk factors analysed, salt intake (> 5 gm/day) was significantly associated with the development of hypertension. Although the need to address reduced salt intake for primordial prevention of hypertension and related cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) in India is well acknowledged by the key stakeholders, social and cultural beliefs, unorganized food retail sector and lack of existing food policing are some of the potential barriers that affect the progress and employment of such effective strategies. Some multinational food companies have already research is warranted to evaluate the contextual barriers and facilitators and to adopt effective strategies to improve awareness among consumers, to encourage the endorsement of salt reduction by the food industry, and to facilitate the adoption of countrywide consumer-friendly food labelling. We concluded that salt consumption is high in India, although this assessment has been done primarily by subjective methods in India. People all across are recommended the same cut-off value of dietary salt consumption regardless of the diversity in dietary patterns and environmental conditions across the country. There is an urgent need to address these issues through evidence-based population research. (C) 2021 European Society for Clinical Nutrition and Metabolism. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Citation - WoS: 5
Optimizing the Impact of Health and Related Programmes / Policies To Address the Issue of Childhood Obesity in India- Narrative Review
(Wolters Kluwer Medknow Publications, 2021) Bera, Om Prakash; Saleem, Sheikh Mohd; Singh, Dhananjay Kumar; Gokdemir, Ozden; Tripathi, Shailesh; Ghatak, Nishantadeb; Hossain, Md Mahbub
Non-communicable diseases are already acknowledged as a double burden, and now childhood obesity is putting extra strain on our health system. The current paper aimed to analyze the ongoing health and related programmes/policies in India, and we discussed the existing opportunities in the programmes to address the issue of childhood obesity in India. We searched the MEDLINE, PsycINFO, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases using the following keywords: (overweight) and (obesity), (childhood obesity), (nutritional programmes in India), (Health policies in India), (malnourished children in India) in combination with each other and in truncated form. All the relevant articles and policy documents (MOHFW, INDIA) available in the public domain were included to support the argument for this narrative review. We found that we have programme gaps like guidelines issues by Food Safety Standards Authority of India to tackle childhood obesity and it has not been strictly implemented due to multiple reasons. School health programme has an opportunity to address the issue of childhood obesity, but at the ground level the outcomes are not very promising. The National Nutrition Mission have only focussed on undernutrition and anemia problem, ignoring the overweight/childhood obesity. Primary care physicians are key players in the treatment of childhood obesity, yet rates of obesity management in the primary care setting are low. National Programme for prevention & Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases & stroke is dealing with health promotion and prevention, early diagnosis, and management of all ages, except children. Diet provided in Integrated Child Development Scheme is calculated based on calories, not by the quality which is a concern to us. The breastfeeding promotion programme named Mothers Absolute Affection programme has not been implemented with letter and spirit. Other than health programmes, we assume that Ministry of Urban Planning, Foreign Direct Investment policy, Advertisement Council of India and many more sector/policy/programme are indirectly responsible for the increasing burden of childhood obesity in India. Lack of awareness and wrong perception also responsible for the development of childhood obesity. We have multiple National Health Programmes and Policies to address the childhood malnutrition, but are focussing the undernutrition component only, ignoring overnutrition problem in the children, which is emerging as quadruple burden to our health system. Appropriate actions and inclusion of suggestions provided in this study for the improvement of the programmes at the practical level needs to be considered by the policy makers to halt the ever-rising trend of childhood obesity and primary care physicians should play a leadership role.