Comparison of serum vitamin D level in multiple sclerosis patients, their siblings, and healthy controls

BACKGROUND

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is an autoimmune, neuro-inflammatory disease of central nervous system affecting physical, emotional, and cognitive aspects of patients. Association of vitamin D deficiency and MS has been shown in previous studies. The aim of this study was to evaluate serum vitamin D level in MS cases and their sex-matched healthy siblings (who are genetically near similar) and non-relative sex-matched healthy controls.

METHODS

A total of 135 subjects enrolled in this case-control study. Group one (n = 45) consisted of patients with established MS. Group two (n = 45) included sex-matched healthy siblings of the group one and group three participants (n = 45) were non-relative sex-matched healthy controls. Demographic data (age, sex), level of education, daily sun exposure duration, and month of birth gathered for all. Serum sample of all participants was collected for 25-hydroxy vitamin D measurement.

RESULTS

There was no significant difference between vitamin D level, sun exposure duration, education level, and season of birth in three evaluated groups. Mean vitamin D level was 8.2 ± 10.1 (nmol/l) in women and 13.3 ± 7 (nmol/l) in men (P = 0.001). There was a significant positive correlation between daily sun exposure duration and vitamin D level in whole participants (r = 0.28, P < 0.001) as well as in MS patients (r = 0.32, P = 0.030). Mean vitamin D level was significantly lower in participants who have born in spring and summer.

CONCLUSION

Vitamin D deficiency is high among Iranian population as well as MS patients.

Iran's shift in family planning policies: concerns and challenges

Iran's significant success in implementing Family Planning (FP) during the past 25 years, has made it a role model in the world. The Total Fertility Rate (TFR) in Iran has dropped from 6.5 in 1960 to 1.6 in 2012, which is well below the targeted value of 2.2 for the country. Iran's success story, however, did not merely root in the implementation of FP programs. In other words, families' strong tendency to limit fertility and delayed marriages had an undeniable role in decreasing the TFR. On the other hand, Iranian policy-makers are very concerned about such a decrease and have recently restricted access to contraception, while outlawing any surgery that reduces fertility. This paper, tries to highlight the pros and cons of such restrictive policies, and argue that the policy-makers might be jeopardizing the success of Iran's FP program by overestimating its role in the TFR reduction rate.

Migrant-nonmigrant fertility differentials in Anhui, China

"This analysis is designed to provide insights into the relation between migration and fertility in China. Survey data collected from Anhui Province in 1989 are used to evaluate whether fertility is higher or lower among the temporary migrants to urban places in comparison to permanent residents in those locations.... Our analysis will...assess the extent to which socioeconomic characteristics, family planning, and migration help to explain observed differences in the fertility of temporary migrants and permanent residents. In doing so, the basic question to be answered is whether temporary migrants have used their movement as a way to avoid official policies controlling fertility and, in so doing, have they contributed to a higher than average fertility in China?"

Infanticide as a terminal abortion procedure

In this investigation we examine the proposition that infanticide is a terminal abortion procedure, practiced when abortion attempts fail or when the decision to kill an infant is based on characteristics of the baby that can be observed only after birth. Three hypotheses were deivsed to test this assumption: (1) infanticide takes place before the infant's birth ceremony; (2) birth ceremonies are more prevalent in societies practicing infanticide; and (3) the reasons for infanticide and abortion are similar. Hypothesis 2 was rejected because of the presence of birth ceremonies in almost all societies, hypotheses 1 and 3 were confirmed.

Population education through poetry

The State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT) in Haryana has adopted a stimulating approach in propagating messages of population -- through poetry. Through a project called Students Poetical Symposiums, the first phase convened around 20 teacher poets to participate in a workshop. In this workshop, 300 poems regarding six population themes were developed by the teachers. In the second phase, the developed poems were finalized by the experts and 108 poems were selected for publication in a booklet. The poems were classified according to the following themes: population and its effects on resources, effects of population growth, population growth and environment, population growth and economic aspect, population and social aspect, and population and emotional aspect. Each of these sections has 18 poems. The booklet also provides the users with guidelines for conducting Students' Poetical Symposiums. In the third phase, 36 schools were selected and oriented about this project. Students Poetical Symposiums were organized first at school level and later at the district level. More than 500 student poets recited the poems on the population education themes during 42 symposiums at the school and district levels to an audience numbering around ten thousand, comprising both students and the public.

Folk musical dramas portray population issues. Gurgaon

The State Population Education Cell of the State Council of Educational Research and Training (SCERT) is now testing the use of folk musical dramas in promoting population messages. Being the language of the hearts, it is expected that about 50,000 students, teachers and members of the community will be oriented about the problems arising from rapid population growth through folk musical dramas. These musical dramas are innovative vehicles adopted under the Village Adoption and Population Education Laboratory Schools by the SCERT. It follows three phases. The first phase required poet teachers to develop three folk musical dramas on the themes of status of women and gender disparity, importance of small family and population growth and its impact on environment. The second phase saw the staging of these folk musical dramas in two adopted schools. The presentations were video taped and recorded into audio-video cassettes. For the last phase, another workshop will be organized to convene teacher poets to develop more folk musical dramas on the themes of adolescent problem, aging problem, mother and child care, delayed marriage, status of women and population growth and environment. The video cassettes produced previously will be used in the training of teachers, students and heads of schools on the development of folk musical dramas. After editing these dramas, they will be published in the form of booklets to promote wider dissemination to schools, which can stage these ready-made folk musical dramas during school celebrations and during the Population Education Week.

Establishment of Parliamentary Council on Population and Development, June 1987

The Government of Liberia has established a Parliamentary Council on Population and Development which is to have the following duties: a) to work to enact a national population policy; b) to mobilize effective financial support for population policy and programs; c) to encourage evaluation and implementation of policies to promote population and family and sex education in and out of school; d) to improve child health and survival; and e) to spearhead population awareness campaigns. The Council is also to "initiate legislation in support of policies that will help improve the status of women by ensuring the provision of increased education strategies, equal opportunities in employment and education, family planning, including natural family planning, elimination of cultural practices and beliefs which discriminate against women, and birth spacing that will enable spouses or couples to have the pregnancies they want and when they want them, confident that they can adequately take care of their offspring and enrich their quality of life from infancy to maturity, as well as ensuring health of mothers."

Indonesia. Adolescent reproductive health forms part of 5th country programme cycle

Indonesia is now entering the Fifth Country Program Cycle of Population. The reproductive health and family well-being of the youth forms part of the country program. In order to translate this component into concrete action program, a project document in its first draft was developed for UNFPA (UN Population Fund) funding by the government and with the assistance of UNFPA CST, Bangkok and UNFPA Field Office in Jakarta. The project aims to raise the level of commitment and degree of participation of families, particularly parents, for developing among their pre-adolescent and adolescent children a better understanding of the concepts/process of adolescent reproductive health and desirable attitudes and values dealing with family well-being. This is to be achieved through family-centered learning approaches that will contribute to the adoption of the small, happy, and prosperous family norm. To achieve this goal, the project will develop national capacity by creating management teams, developing sets of training and counseling materials, delivering key messages through the media, upgrading skills in adolescent counseling and developing better understanding of adolescent reproductive health and family well-being issues among the facilitators. The strategy to be used is to set up small groups of 20-30 families which will regularly meet to discuss adolescent problems and issues with the help of cadres. They will be supported by provincial reproductive health and family well-being counseling centers which will also be set up to handle serious cases difficult for parents to handle. These centers, to be run by NGOs, will provide counseling services to parents and youth, evolve innovative and culturally acceptable counseling techniques, and at the same time serve as material and information collection, development and dissemination centers. The project will be launched in collaboration with seven NGOs in seven selected provinces. It is currently under review by UNFPA and the Government.