Assessment of Dietary Behavior of Children Aged between 3-12 Years Suffering from Thalassemia Visiting Tertiary Care Hospitals, Lahore Dietary behavior of Thalassemia children

Thalassemia is a hereditary blood disorder passed down through families in which the body makes hemoglobin in an abnormal form. Nutritional deficiencies in thalassemia children results in anemia and other medical complications. Objective: To assess dietary behavior of children aged between 3-12 years suffering from thalassemia. Methods: A cross-sectional study was carried out in the outdoor patient department of thalassemia at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital, Lahore for 4 months.100 patients were selected through non probability sampling technique. Data was tabulated and analyzed by SPSS version 21.0. Results: Thalassemia was more prevalent in the age group of 8-12 years. Nutritional deficiencies in thalassemia patients caused anemia as it was evident from results that 74% of thalassemic children had pale skin. As far as dietary intake was concerned only 4% of thalassemia children were consuming meat and meat products.58% of thalassemia children consumed milk on daily basis. Only 8% took green leafy vegetables on daily basis as it contains high amount of iron. Micro nutrient deficiencies as vitamin A, C were common among thalassemia patients as only 30% were consuming fruits on daily basis. Conclusions: Most of the thalassemiacchildren were found to be malnourished due to inadequate dietary intake. The caregivers and parents should be counseled to create awareness

Drought Induced Morpho-Physiological Changes in Okra and its Mitigation By

Okra is an important vegetable crop known for its high nutritional value. It needs frequent irrigation for good economic yield. Despite the fact that Pakistan has world’s best irrigation system, it is amongst world’s most water stressed countries. Keeping in view the upcoming water shortage in future, a study composed of four different experiments was conducted during summer season for two consecutive years (i.e. 2013 and 2014). In first experiment, to find out critical crop growth stage and to assess harmful effects of drought on okra growth, quality and yield parameters, deficit irrigation (50% less water than normal requirement) was applied at seedling (S), vegetative (V) and reproductive (R) stage, alone as well as in all possible combinations (i.e. S+V, V+R, S+R, S+V+R). While in second and third experiment the foliar application of salicylic acid and ascorbic acid at different growth stages of okra (2 leaf stage, 4 leaf stage, flowering stage and their combinations) was evaluated for drought mitigation. Additionally, in fourth experiment inoculation of okra seed with different doses of azotobacter prior to seed sowing were also tested under drought conditions. Results of study revealed that drought at seedling stage increased plant mortality percentage. However, the survived plants successfully recovered and gave good yield while drought at vegetative and reproductive stage was highly destructive for morphological and reproductive traits, respectively. However, drought at all growth stages (S+V+R) was found most destructive as compared to single stage. Foliar application of 2 mM salicylic acid at 4 leaf + flowering stage improved okra yield, while application of 2 mM ascorbic acid at 2 leaf + 4 leaf + flowering stage showed good results under water stress conditions. After application of ascorbic acid and salicylic acid revealed significant results in case of morphological (plant height, stem diameter, internodal distance, root length, root shoot ratio, number of leaves, number of branches, leaf area and leaf area index), physiological (photosynthetic rate, stomatal conductance, relative leaf water contents and cell membrane permeability), biochemical (N, K, Ca and chlorophyll pigments) and yield traits (pod length, pod weight, number of pods/plant, number of seeds/pod, fruit yield/plant, fruit yield/ha, seed yield/plant and seed yield/ha). Seed inoculation with 1.5 g per 10 g okra seed was found superior in improving all parameters under water stress conditions except number of branches/plant, total dry matter contents, phosphorus concentration, pod diameter, number of seeds/pod and 1000 seed weight.