Articles: disease.
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Am. J. Trop. Med. Hyg. · May 1984
Randomized Controlled Trial Clinical TrialDoxycycline prophylaxis of travelers' diarrhea in Honduras, an area where resistance to doxycycline is common among enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli.
Daily doxycycline (DX), known to be effective prophylaxis against travelers' diarrhea (TD) in areas of the world where enterotoxigenic Escherichia coli (ETEC) are sensitive to the drug, has not been extensively studied in geographic areas where antibiotic resistance is common. Therefore we studied 44 U. S. ⋯ From the PL group, ETEC from 7 of 13 stool samples (54%) were resistant to DX, whereas from the DX group, ETEC from 10 of 11 stool samples were resistant (P less than 0.05). TD that developed in persons taking DX was also found to be less severe, as judged by length of illness (P less than 0.01) and frequency of stools (P less than 0.05). This study demonstrates that DX 1) significantly prevents TD even in areas where antibiotic resistance is common, although it does not prevent TD caused by docycycline -resistant ETEC, and 2) significantly diminishes the severity of illness.
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In a prospective study on breast-feeding in Jerusalem, 274 middle-class Jewish women were interviewed about their breast-feeding practices, and symptoms and signs of disease, episodes of illness and hospitalization of the infant. Women of a higher education level breast-fed more often and for a longer period than did women with less education. Infants exclusively breast-fed had significantly fewer symptoms of disease than did those not breast-fed or partially breast-fed. ⋯ Infants who were breast-fed for 20 weeks had the least number of illness episodes; 52% of them had no episode compared with only 15% who were not breast-fed. Comparison of the numbers of illness episodes among non-breast-fed infants of mothers with low and high education levels indicated that the infants of better educated mothers had a significantly lower percentage of illness episodes (P less than 0.05). Even infants of a middle-class and well-educated population benefit from the breast-feeding practice and its protective effect, more so if they are exclusively breast-fed and for a longer period.
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Int J Gynaecol Obstet · Apr 1984
Maternal weight and weight gain in pregnancy and obstetric outcome.
We studied 3002 antenatal patients to assess the relationship between maternal weight at booking in the first trimester and the total weight gain during the pregnancy and the birth weight of infants, pregnancy complications and mode of delivery. We found if the weight of the mother in the first trimester was lower or higher by 20% as compared with the standard weight, and the weight gain was more than 16 kg and less than 2.5 kg, there was higher incidences of maternal and fetal morbidity (P less than 0.01).