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Indian Pediatr 2011;48: 82 |
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Amit P Shah
Email:
[email protected]
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Use of Probiotics and Prebiotics –
Evidence Based Study (Pediatrics - doi:10.1542/peds.2010-2548) |
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Probiotics are used to treat childhood H. pylori gastritis,
irritable bowel syndrome, chronic ulcerative colitis, and infantile colic,
or to prevent childhood atopy. Evidence to date has not shown a benefit of
probiotics in treating or preventing human cancers or in treating
pediatric Crohn’s disease. AAP subcommittee conducted this review to help
pediatricians to make appropriate decisions. It was concluded that the
clinical applications for probiotics, including the optimal duration of
probiotics administration as well as preferred microbial dose and species
is still to be studied and the long-term impact on the gut microflora in
children is unknown.
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Risky vs Rapid Growth in Infancy
(Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2010;164:1091-1097) |
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This retrospective cohort study was done to systematically analyze growth
data from infant health maintenance records to
characterize infant weight gain increasing risk for
childhood overweight, and to identify additional
information from those records that could refine
risky infant weight gain as a screening tool.
Childhood overweight prevalence was 24.8%.
At-risk infants gained at least 8.15 kg
from ages 0 to 24 months. While 31.4% of
at-risk infants became overweight children, 68.6% were
resilient. At-risk, resilient infants had parents with
more education, had lower weight gain from ages 18 to 24
months and 0 to 24 months and a smaller
area under the weight-gain curve from ages
0 to 24 months, were more often exclusively
breastfed for 6 months or longer, and were introduced to
solid foods later than at-risk, overweight
participants.
While most pediatricians would not recognize
weight gain of 8.15 kg or more from ages 0 to 24 months as rapid
growth, it was a fair screening tool for childhood overweight
in this study and had the potential to be refined using information
about demographic characteristics, growth patterns, and parental
feeding choices.
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Single-breath counting (SBC) – A novel
technique for measuring pulmonary function in children (AJEM
2011;29(1):33-36) |
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It is well known that measuring peak expiratory flow rate in children is
problematic because it is effort dependent. Forced expiratory volume in 1
second (FEV1) and the ratio of FEV1 to forced vital capacity (FEV1/FVC)
are more accurate, but generally not available in the emergency
situations.Single-breath counting (SBC)
is the measurement of how far an individual can count in a normal speaking
voice after a maximal effort inhalation. The count is in cadence to a
metronome set at 2 beats per second. SBC correlates with standard measures
of pulmonary function in adults, but it has never been tested in children.
The aims of this study were to determine if SBC can be easily performed by
children and to assess the correlation between SBC and standard measures
of pulmonary function in a pediatric population. Single-breath counting
was found to be easy to perform in children, seems to correlate well with
standard measures of pulmonary function, and shows promise for measuring
asthma severity in children. The range of reference SBC values (as a
function of age and/or body size) and an evaluation of the utility of SBC
in an outdoor clinic are yet to be finalized.
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