Search

Abstract Background A direct consequence of global warming, and strongly correlated with poor physical and mental health, food insecurity is a rising global concern associated with low dietary intake. The Coronavirus pandemic has further aggravated food insecurity among vulnerable communities, and thus has sparked the global conversation of equal food access, food distribution, and improvement of food support programs. This research was designed to identify the key features associated with food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic using Machine learning techniques. Seven machine learning algorithms were used in the model, which used a dataset of 32 features. The model was designed to predict food insecurity across ten Arab countries in the Gulf and Mediterranean regions. A total of 13,443 participants were extracted from the international Corona Cooking Survey conducted by 38 different countries during the COVID -19 pandemic. Results The findings indicate that Jordanian, Palestinian, Lebanese, and Saudi Arabian respondents reported the highest rates of food insecurity in the region (15.4%, 13.7%, 13.7% and 11.3% respectively). On the other hand, Oman and Bahrain reported the lowest rates (5.4% and 5.5% respectively). Our model obtained accuracy levels of 70%-82% in all algorithms. Gradient Boosting and Random Forest techniques had the highest performance levels in predicting food insecurity (82% and 80% respectively). Place of residence, age, financial instability, difficulties in accessing food, and depression were found to be the most relevant features associated with food insecurity. Conclusions The ML algorithms seem to be an effective method in early detection and prediction of food insecurity and can profoundly aid policymaking. The integration of ML approaches in public health strategies could potentially improve the development of targeted and effective interventions to combat food insecurity in these regions and globally.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the fragility of the global food system, sending shockwaves across countries' societies and economy. This has presented formidable challenges to sustaining a healthy and resilient lifestyle. The objective of this study is to examine the food consumption patterns and assess diet diversity indicators, primarily focusing on the food consumption score (FCS), among households in 38 countries both before and during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods: A cross-sectional study with 37 207 participants (mean age: 36.70 ± 14.79, with 77 % women) was conducted in 38 countries through an online survey administered between April and June 2020. The study utilized a pre-tested food frequency questionnaire to explore food consumption patterns both before and during the COVID-19 periods. Additionally, the study computed Food Consumption Score (FCS) as a proxy indicator for assessing the dietary diversity of households. Findings: This quantification of global, regional and national dietary diversity across 38 countries showed an increment in the consumption of all food groups but a drop in the intake of vegetables and in the dietary diversity. The household's food consumption scores indicating dietary diversity varied across regions. It decreased in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries, including Lebanon (p

Introduction Tobacco smokers are at high risk of developing severe COVID-19. Lockdown was a chosen strategy to deal with the spread of infectious diseases; nonetheless, it influenced people’s eating and smoking behaviors. The main objective of this study is to determine the impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on smoking (waterpipe and cigarette) behavior and its associations with sociodemographic characteristics and body mass index. Methods The data were derived from a large-scale retrospective cross-sectional study using a validated online international survey from 38 countries (n=37207) conducted between 17 April and 25 June 2020. The Eastern Mediterranean Region (WHO-EMR countries) data related to 10 Arabic countries that participated in this survey have been selected for analysis in this study. A total of 12433 participants were included in the analysis of this study, reporting their smoking behavior and their BMI before and during the COVID-19 lockdown. Descriptive and regression analyses were conducted to examine the association between smoking practices and the participant’s country of origin, sociodemographic characteristics, and BMI (kg/m 2 ). Results Overall, the prevalence rate of smoking decreased significantly during the lockdown from 29.8% to 23.5% (p

BackgroundFood literacy is capturing the attention worldwide and gaining traction in the Arab countries. Strengthening food and nutrition literacy among Arab teenagers are important promising empowering tools which can protect them from malnutrition. This study aims to assess the nutrition literacy status of adolescents with the food literacy of their parents in 10 Arab countries.MethodsThis cross-sectional study involving a convenient sample of 5,401 adolescent-parent dyads (adolescents: mean age ± SD: 15.9 ± 3.0, females: 46.8%; parents: mean age ± SD: 45.0 ± 9.1, mothers: 67.8%) was launched between 29 April and 6 June 2022 in 10 Arab nations. The Adolescent Nutrition Literacy Scale (ANLS) and the Short Food Literacy Questionnaire (SFLQ) were used to meet the study aims.ResultsMore than one-quarter (28%) of adolescents had poor nutrition literacy, with 60% of their parents being food illiterate. The top three countries with nutritionally” less literate” adolescents were Qatar (44%), Lebanon (37.4%), and Saudi Arabia (34.9%). Adolescents’ age, gender, education level, primary caregivers, employment status, and the inclusion of nutrition education in the schools’ curriculum predicted the nutrition literacy levels of Arab adolescents. Besides, parental weight status, health status, parent’s food literacy level, and the number of children per household were significant determinants too. Adolescents studying at a university and having parents with adequate food literacy had the highest odds of being nutritionally literate (OR = 4.5, CI = 1.8–11.5, p = 0.001, OR = 1.8, CI = 1.6–2.1, p

During the COVID-19 pandemic, most healthcare professionals switched from face-to-face clinical encounters to telehealth. This study sought to investigate the dietitians’ perceptions and practices toward the use of social/mass media platforms amid the transition from face-to-face to telenutrition in the time of COVID-19. This cross-sectional study involving a convenient sample of 2,542 dietitians (mean age = 31.7 ± 9.5; females: 88.2%) was launched in 10 Arab countries between November 2020 and January 2021. Data were collected using an online self-administrated questionnaire. Study findings showed that dietitians’ reliance on telenutrition increased by 11% during the pandemic, p = 0.001. Furthermore, 63.0% of them reported adopting telenutrition to cover consultation activities. Instagram was the platform that was most frequently used by 51.7% of dietitians. Dietitians shouldered new difficulties in dispelling nutrition myths during the pandemic (58.2% reported doing so vs. 51.4% pre-pandemic, p

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic along with its confinement period boosted lifestyle modifications and impacted women and men differently which exacerbated existing gender inequalities. The main objective of this paper is to assess the gender-based differentials in food consumption patterns, dietary diversity and the determinants favoring weight change before and amid the COVID-19 pandemic among Arab men and women from 10 Arab countries.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted based on a convenience sample of 12,447 households' family members (mean age: 33.2 ± 12.9; 50.1% females) and information from participants aged 18 years and above was collected about periods before and during the pandemic.ResultsFindings showed that, during the COVID-19 period, the dietary diversity, declined by 1.9% among females compared to males (0.4%) (p < 0.001) and by 1.5% among overweight participants (p < 0.001) compared to their counterparts.ConclusionsTo conclude, gender-sensitive strategies and policies to address weight gain and dietary diversity during emergent shocks and pandemics are urgently needed in the region.

The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed the Eastern Mediterranean Region's food system's fragility posing severe challenges to maintaining healthy sustainable lifestyle. The aim of this cross-sectional study (N = 13,527 household's family members, mean age: 30.3 ±11.6, 80% women) is to examine the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on food consumption patterns and household's dietary diversity in 10 Eastern Mediterranean countries. A food frequency questionnaire was used to investigate the consumption patterns along with the calculation of the Food Consumption Score (FCS), a proxy indicator of dietary diversity. Data collected on cooking attitudes, shopping and food stock explore the community mitigation measures. In the overall population, before and during the pandemic, most food groups were consumed less or equal to 4 times per week. As evident from our findings and considering that the pandemic may be better, but it's not over, small to moderate changes in food consumption patterns in relatively short time periods can become permanent and lead to substantial poor dietary diversity over time. While it is a priority to mitigate the immediate impact, one area of great concern is the long-term effects of this pandemic on dietary patterns and dietary diversity in Eastern Mediterranean households. To conclude, the COVID-19 crisis revealed the region's unpreparedness to deal with a pandemic. While the aggressive containment strategy was essential for most countries to help prevent the spread, it came at a high nutritional cost, driving poor dietary diversity.

Background Hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection is a severe public health problem with a worldwide predominance of 3%. An estimated 5–20% of infected patients develop cirrhosis annually, and 1–4% of them develop hepatocellular carcinoma. In Egypt, the prevalence of HCV antibody and HCV RNA are 10.0 and 7.0%, respectively, in the 15–59 years age group. In children of 1–14 years old, the prevalence of HCV antibody and HCV RNA are 0.4 and 0.2%, respectively. HCV infection is a cause of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and results in a significant problem in hemodialysis (HD) patients. Toll-like receptors (TLRs) might have an essential role in the pathogenesis of renal diseases. They include TLR1, TLR2, TLR3, TLR4, TLR5, TLR6, TLR7, TLR8, TLR9, TLR10, TLR11, TLR12, and TLR13, though the latter two are not found in humans. Recently, it is shown that the mouse and human kidney tubular epithelial cells appear to express TLR3 constitutively and upregulate its expression upon challenge with its legend. For this reason, it appears conceivable that this receptor might play an essential role in this organ in health and disease. Aim The present study was carried out to determine the value of TLR3 in CKD patients with HCV infection. Also, we aimed to study the levels of TLR3 for Child–Pugh different classes to determine its impact on the prognosis of liver disease in those patients. Patients and methods All participants were selected from the National Institute of Urology and Nephrology. Their ages ranged between 40 and 62 years. Our study included 130 individuals of which 105 patients were selected from a dialysis unit with the end-stage renal disease on regular HD three times/week for at least 1 year and 25 healthy participants as a control group. They were divided into three groups. The control group (GI) consisted of 25 clinically healthy participants matched for age and sex; GII constituted 45 HCV negative patients; and GIII had 60 HCV positive patients. GIII was subclassified into GIIIA, GIIIB, and GIIIC, each of which consisted of 20 patients according to the Child–Pugh scoring. All patients and control samples were subjected to the following tests: Antibody screening for HCV using the ELISA technique and quantitative HCV RNA by PCR. Detection of TLR3 was done using the ELISA technique. Other parameters such as Complete Blood Picture (CBC), Prothrombin Time (PT) (INR), urea, creatinine, Alanine Aminotransferase (ALT), Aspartate Aminotransferase (AST), total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase, albumin, cholesterol, and triglycerides levels were also estimated. Results The percentage of HCV-positive cases among a studied group of patients on HD was 57.2%, and the percentage of negative cases was 42.8%. There was no significant difference between GI, GII, and GIII as regards age and duration of dialysis. There was a highly significant difference between GIII as regards TLR3, INR, urea, total bilirubin, albumin, and triglycerides compared with GI and GII. There was a highly significant positive correlation of TRL3 with creatinine and PCR RNA and a significant negative correlation with albumin and cholesterol. We also found that there was a highly significant difference between GIIIC as regards INR, total bilirubin, and albumin compared with GIIIA and GIIIB. TLR3 showed no significant difference between GIIIA, GIIIB, and GIIIC. Conclusion TLR3 may have a role in the pathogenesis of HCV infection-related CKD and can be used as a new marker for the development of HCV related end-stage renal disease.

Background Myasthenia gravis (MG) is a common primary disorder of neuromuscular transmission, which is characterized by fluctuating weakness of a certain voluntary muscles, particularly those innervated by motor nuclei of the brain stem, that is, ocular and mastication muscles, and caused by antibodies binding to components in the neuromuscular junction. Most MG cases demonstrate elevated serum levels of acetylcholine receptor (ACh-R) antibodies, which cause partial or complete inhibition of receptor function and complement-mediated focal lysis of the postsynaptic membrane. ACh-R antibodies are detected in the serum of more than 80–90% patients with generalized MG, in ~50% with ocular myasthenia, and rarely in healthy people. Aims The aim of our study is to determine the value of anti-ACh-R antibodies in diagnosis and prognosis of MG and to evaluate their sensitivity and specificity in comparison between different types of myasthenia. Patients and methods All patients were recruited from the outpatient clinic of Mataria Teaching Hospital on their first visit to neuropsychiatry clinic with suspicious symptoms of MG within 3 months. Our study included 90 women, of whom 60 patients had clinical symptoms suspicious of MG. The patients were classified into five groups: four groups according to Osserman classification and the fifth group included the seronegative patients. Their age ranged from 20 to 30 years. There was another group, the sixth group, which included 30 age-matched healthy controls. All patients were subjected to full history taking, general examination, and neurological examination to facilitate clinical assessment and staging of the disease according to Osserman classification and detection of ACh-R antibodies (binding, modulating and blocking antibodies), prostigmine test, repetitive nerve stimulation, and single-fiber electromyography stimulation tests. Result There was no significant difference between studied groups regarding age. Moreover, we found significant differences between them and the control group regarding the levels of ACh-R antibodies (binding, blocking, and modulating antibodies), but there were no significant differences between them regarding the extent of MG. There is no correlation between the studied groups and the level of acetylcholine, except for a weak positive correlation between the Osserman class and level of blocking receptor antibodies. Receiver operating characteristic curves showed that all the three types of antibodies had poor value for discrimination between MG subgroups. Moreover, there is a significant difference between the studied groups regarding prostigmine, repetitive nerve stimulation, and single fiber electromyography tests. Conclusion ACh-R antibody levels are of major importance as a noninvasive sensitive and specific diagnostic test for different types of myasthenia. However, they had no role in predicting the prognosis of different classes of the disease.

Background Nephrolithiasis remains a public health problem around the world, affecting up to 20% of the population. There are many risk factors that increase one's susceptibility to kidney stone formation. These include specific food, urinary tract infection, kidney disorders, and metabolic disorder. Also, some people with a family history of kidney stones may be more susceptible to develop stones. Objective The aim was to isolate, purify, and identify bacteria from urinary stones. Also, determine the most bacterial isolate secreting uricase enzyme. Patients and methods A total of 100 cases were included in the study (66 men, 34 women) at the National Institute of Urology and Nephrology, Nephrology Department. Urine and stone culture identification of bacteria and purification of uricase enzyme. Results The study showed that there was the highest percentage of stones within the greater than 40 years age group and uric acid stones constitute the highest incidence (40%). The highest percentage of bacterial isolates was Klebsiella spp. (25%). Klebsiella pneumonia was the most potent uricase producer, out of all bacterial species isolated from human urine. Conclusion The study reported that uric acid stones were significantly affected by the uricase enzyme.