Can lifestyle factors be the key in deciding the COVID-19 outcome?

The COVID-19 recovery rate of 97.3% and the death per million of 345 in India are better than the corresponding values in the USA and most of Europe despite better health infrastructure in these countries. The mean COVID fatality rate of Europe and a few countries in America is seven times that of India. This warrants a systematic study of the factors behind this conspicuous disparity. It is time to study lifestyle and other factors that may be related to recovery with minimal medical intervention or serious complications, leading to belated recovery and sometimes mortality. Obesity and excessive consumption of soft drinks, red meat and processed food may have a role to play in the European and American countries. On the other hand, the use of turmeric, black pepper, ginger in daily cooking, consumption of Indian gooseberry, Tulasi, different decoctions (Kashaya) and practice of various immune-boosting breathing exercises including yoga might have had a role in India. A detailed study involving a sizable number of cases of recovery and death in India, USA and some European countries will throw light on these factors behind the significant differences. The results shall provide crucial learning to the world for managing future waves and pandemics.

Public understanding of intersex: an update on recent findings

Surgical interventions on infants with intersex characteristics are considered justified by some on the grounds that they carry a high risk of intolerable stigma. However, public understanding of intersex and its medicalization are under-researched. We review recent qualitative and quantitative studies of the understandings of intersex and its medicalization among people who have no particular professional or public experience of intersex. First, such laypeople reason about clinical dilemmas by drawing on values in similar ways as expert healthcare professionals do. Second, laypeople can over-estimate the utility of current ‘umbrella terms,’ including intersex, for people with direct familial experience of intersex. Third, beliefs about good and bad effects of medical intervention are affected by framing intersex as either a medical condition or the natural basis for a social identity. Fourth, sexual identity is the best evidenced predictor of opinions about early surgical intervention and its legal limitation on human rights grounds. We argue that possible stigmatizing reactions from the public may not be a solid basis on which to justify early surgical intervention on intersex characteristics.

Identification of Autism in Children Using Static Facial Features and Deep Neural Networks

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a complicated neurological developmental disorder that manifests itself in a variety of ways. The child diagnosed with ASD and their parents’ daily lives can be dramatically improved with early diagnosis and appropriate medical intervention. The applicability of static features extracted from autistic children’s face photographs as a biomarker to distinguish them from typically developing children is investigated in this study paper. We used five pre-trained CNN models: MobileNet, Xception, EfficientNetB0, EfficientNetB1, and EfficientNetB2 as feature extractors and a DNN model as a binary classifier to identify autism in children accurately. We used a publicly available dataset to train the suggested models, which consisted of face pictures of children diagnosed with autism and controls classed as autistic and non-autistic. The Xception model outperformed the others, with an AUC of 96.63%, a sensitivity of 88.46%, and an NPV of 88%. EfficientNetB0 produced a consistent prediction score of 59% for autistic and non-autistic groups with a 95% confidence level.

Retrospective study of toxoplasmosis prevalence in pregnant women in Benin and its relation with malaria

Background Globally distributed with variable prevalence depending on geography, toxoplasmosis is a zoonosis caused by an obligate intracellular protozoan parasite, Toxoplasma gondii. This disease is usually benign but poses a risk for immunocompromised people and for newborns of mothers with a primary infection during pregnancy because of the risk of congenital toxoplasmosis (CT). CT can cause severe damage to fetuses-newborns. To our knowledge, no study has been conducted in sub-Saharan Africa on toxoplasmosis seroprevalence, seroconversion and CT in a large longitudinal cohort and furthermore, no observation has been made of potential relationships with malaria. Methods We performed a retrospective toxoplasmosis serological study using available samples from a large cohort of 1,037 pregnant women who were enrolled in a malaria follow-up during the 2008–2010 period in a rural area in Benin. We also used some existing data to investigate potential relationships between the maternal toxoplasmosis serological status and recorded malaria infections. Results Toxoplasmosis seroprevalence, seroconversion and CT rates were 52.6%, 3.4% and 0.2%, respectively, reflecting the population situation of toxoplasmosis, without targeted medical intervention. The education level influences the toxoplasmosis serological status of women, with women with little or no formal education have greater immunity than others. Surprisingly, toxoplasmosis seropositive pregnant women tended to present lower malaria infection during pregnancy (number) or at delivery (presence) and to have lower IgG levels to Plasmodium falciparum Apical Membrane Antigen 1, compared to toxoplasmosis seronegative women. Conclusions The high toxoplasmosis seroprevalence indicates that prevention against this parasite remains important to deploy and must be accessible and understandable to and for all individuals (educated and non-educated). A potential protective role against malaria conferred by a preexisting toxoplasmosis infection needs to be explored more precisely to examine the environmental, parasitic and/or immune aspects.

Are Young Adults Ready to Complete Advance Directives?

Introduction: The dual objective of this study is to examine the perspectives of young adults toward advance directives (ADs) and their preferences related to life-sustaining treatment and care options. Methods: Participants include graduate students (n = 30) attending a university in New York State. Data were collected using a structured survey questionnaire and Medical Orders for Life-Sustaining Treatment (MOLST) form. Bivariate summary statistics were performed to address the study aims. Results: The mean age of study participants was 24 years, 60% were female, 60% white, and 27% Black. Most (87%) participants reported being comfortable discussing death and end-of-life care and preferring to make their own decisions. Under the circumstance of no pulse and/or not breathing, 87% want CPR. With a pulse and respiration, 96% want artificially administered fluids and nutrition, 90% want a trial period of intubation and/or mechanical ventilation, 67% want to be sent to a hospital, 67% want antibiotics, and 53% want no limitations on medical intervention. Conclusion: Our findings extend upon previous research by quantifying young adults’ specific beliefs, experiences, and preferences regarding advance directives and life-sustaining interventions. Young adults in our study preferred maximum medical interventions for life-sustaining treatment and care. Given the troubling trends in unintended injury (eg, car crashes and drug overdose) as the leading cause of death among young adults, they should be given an opportunity to understand the options and treatments available and should be encouraged to complete an AD.

Therapeutic Properties of Syzygium cumini (Jamun) and Tinospora cordifolia (Giloy) Against Various Lethal Diseases

Phytochemicals have recently been studied in vivo for their unmatched interactions in curing lethal diseases that can't be cured by allopathic medical intervention without any adverse effect on the patient health. These methods were being used in ancient India, where Jamun and Giloy have been used to decrease hormonal imbalance and pathological disorders. Signaling pathways of the active components of Tinospora cordifolia thus enable effective disease targeting. With so much to offer to the scientific world of medicine, the plant Tinospora truly acts as an incredible source as it deals with seasonal fever like Dengue, Malaria, Chickengunia, and anticancer and anti-HIV (research undergoing). Whereas the Syzygium cumini (Jamun) fruit and seed hold worth in treating various diet-related malfunctions, especially hyperglycemia. In the current research, Jamun seed and fruit extracts have been proved effective in the regulation of blood glucose and insulin parameters.

The International Childbirth Initiative: An Applied Anthropologist’s Account of Developing Global Guidelines

This chapter describes my personal experiences as an applied anthropologist serving as the lead editor in the development of a set of international guidelines focused on improving quality of maternity care: the International Childbirth Initiative (ICI): 12 Steps to Safe and Respectful MotherBaby-Family Maternity Care (2018). The ICI’s purpose is to encourage global awareness and local implementation of the MotherBaby-Family Model of Care. This is a model based on women’s rights and humane, respectful, family-centered care. The ICI’s creation story is continuous with global movements to improve the quality of maternity care and with a deep history of birth activism by practitioners, public health advocates, and social scientists aimed at decreasing unnecessary medical intervention in childbirth. This narrative is widely relevant for understanding how to develop and implement global guidelines that can flexibly adapt to local contexts. The ICI was developed by the merging of the 2015 FIGO Guidelines to Mother-Baby Friendly Birthing Facilities with the pre-existing International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI) in an intense and rewarding group process. The chapter discusses factors that contributed to the successful development of clear global guidelines for high-quality maternity care. These include attention to process, alignment with key values of the women’s health and midwifery movements, multilevel collaboration and networking around a clear vision, garnering input from many people with diverse voices and perspectives, and patience with and commitment to the tasks at hand.

Abandoning Gender “Identity”

International instruments fail to specify the meaning of gender identity. Yet gender identity has been invoked as a prohibited ground of discrimination, particularly in cases concerning trans persons. Trans existences fall outside the expectation of a correspondence between sex and gender. “Trans” is an umbrella term referring to people who do not identify with the sex attributed to them at birth. This broad definition encompasses pre-operative and post-operative transsexuals, as well as persons who have not undergone any medical intervention and do not conform to the social norms of expression and self-identification imposing the binary. Regional conventions do not define the concept of gender identity either. Documents issued by the United Nations (UN) and regional human rights bodies frequently rely on the category, without any clear explanation of the notion, or of what makes gender identity different from gender as such. Relying on Lacanian psychoanalysis, this essay argues that gender is an identity per se and challenges international law's treatment of gender and gender identity as distinct categories. Underlying this essay is the view that questioning the shape that the law gives to “gender identity” is the preliminary step to evaluating what protections human rights law can or cannot offer to individuals.