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Background: Polypharmacy and inappropriate prescriptions are the most highlighted health issues among geriatric population, as they have multiple comorbidities. The objective of this study was to assess prescriptions using the World Health Organization (WHO) core indicators and Beers Criteria to discover polypharmacy and inappropriate prescriptions. Methods: This was a prospective, cross-sectional study of geriatric patients (65 years and above) who were attending the medicine outpatients clinic of a tertiary care teaching hospital hospital from May to December, 2016. World Health Organization (WHO) indicators and updated Beers Criteria were used to assess the drug utilization pattern and the prevalence of potentially inappropriate medications (PIMs), respectively. Results: The prescriptions of 250 geriatrics patients with a distribution of 57.6% male and 42.4% female were assessed for this study. The total numbers of drugs recorded from the prescriptions were 1635 drugs, with an average of 6.54 drugs per person. According to the Beers Criteria, it was found that nearly 23.05% of the total prescribed drugs were potentially inappropriate. Conclusion: Polypharmacy and use of inappropriate medicines presents a health risk to the geriatric population. Causes could include healthcare practitioner shortage, lack of awareness of PIMs, not understanding drug interaction, and the need for multiple drugs. Prescriber training and retraining is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Hepatitis B virus (HBV) is known as a metabolovirus due to its impact on lipid and glucose metabolism in the liver. Previous literature showed a trend of hypolipidemia and reduced risk of metabolic syndrome in hepatitis B surface antigen-positive patients. However, data from the Indian population are lacking. We evaluate the relation of lipid profile with HBV infection and severity of liver disease., Materials and Methods: This was an observational cross-sectional study in which 50 patients with chronic hepatitis B and 43 anthropometrically matched seronegative controls were enrolled. Demographical, clinical, and laboratory data including lipid profile (high-density lipoprotein [HDL], low-density lipoprotein [LDL], triglycerides, and total cholesterol [TC]) were collected. Seropositive patients were categorized based on prognostic models (model for end-stage liver disease [MELD] and Child-Pugh score) for further analysis., Results: Our study revealed significant low levels of serum TC, HDL, and LDL cholesterol in hepatitis B patients compared to seronegative controls (133.06 vs. 162.39, 35.56 vs. 43.65, and 76.62 vs. 99.95 mg/dl respectively, P < 0.05). The patients with high MELD and Child-Pugh score were associated with hypolipidemia. Significant low levels of LDL and TC were observed in Child-Pugh class C in comparison to class A (94.8 vs. 149.2 and 50.6 vs. 87.9 mg/dl respectively, P < 0.05)., Conclusions: A significant reduction in various lipid parameters was seen with chronic hepatitis B. Furthermore, prognostic score (high MELD and Child-Pugh score) were associated with hypolipidemia., Competing Interests: None

Background: Vitamin D is an important vitamin required to maintain an important physiological function of the body. The body should maintain an optimal level of vitamin D to maintain skeletal and metabolic functions. It was observed that inverse relationship is maintained by vitamin D level in the body with musculoskeletal symptoms and metabolic disorders., Objective: The study is conducted to associate between serum levels of vitamin D with self-reported symptoms (musculoskeletal) and blood pressure., Material and Methods: Venous blood sample was collected from 126 adults with musculoskeletal symptoms. The subjects were stratified based on their vitamin D levels. Groups were tested for the frequency of symptoms and the relationship of different parameters with vitamin D., Results: The frequency of subjects in the study was more in the deficient category (<20 ng/dL). In the study, vitamin D was found to have a significant association with "weakness." Body mass index (BMI), systolic blood pressure (SBP), and diastolic blood pressure (DBP) were found to have an inverse relation with serum vitamin D level., Conclusion: The study showed the effect of vitamin D level in musculoskeletal symptoms and inverse association of vitamin D with BMI and blood pressure., Competing Interests: There are no conflicts of interest., (Copyright: © 2020 Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care.)