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Objective: Suboptimal nutrition among children remains a problem among South Asian (SA) families. Appropriate complementary feeding (CF) practices can greatly reduce this risk. Thus, we undertook a systematic review of studies assessing CF (timing, dietary diversity, meal frequency and influencing factors) in children aged <2 years in India.Design: Searches between January 2000 and June 2016 in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Web of Science, OVID Maternity & Infant Care, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, BanglaJOL, POPLINE and WHO Global Health Library. Eligibility criteria: primary research on CF practices in SA children aged 0-2 years and/or their families. Search terms: 'children', 'feeding' and 'Asians' and derivatives. Two researchers undertook study selection, data extraction and quality appraisal (EPPI-Centre Weight of Evidence).Results: From 45 712 abstracts screened, sixty-four cross-sectional, seven cohort, one qualitative and one case-control studies were included. Despite adopting the WHO Infant and Young Child Feeding guidelines, suboptimal CF practices were found in all studies. In twenty-nine of fifty-nine studies, CF was introduced between 6 and 9 months, with eight studies finding minimum dietary diversity was achieved in 6-33 %, and ten of seventeen studies noting minimum meal frequency in only 25-50 % of the study populations. Influencing factors included cultural influences, poor knowledge on appropriate CF practices and parental educational status.Conclusions: This is the first systematic review to evaluate CF practices in SA in India. Campaigns to change health and nutrition behaviour and revision of nationwide child health nutrition programmes are needed to meet the substantial unmet needs of these children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Atrial fibrillation is a common cardiac arrhythmia associated with debilitating complications, one of which is stroke. Anticoagulants (warfarin and the non-vitamin K antagonist oral anticoagulants) are recommended for stroke prophylaxis, their utilisation however requires stroke risk reduction to be balanced against hemorrhage risk. Current review of the literature suggests that despite the presence of risk stratification tools such as the CHADS2 and the newer CHA2DS2-VASc, clinicians often find it challenging to anticipate the risk-benefit ratio of anticoagulation. This results in both the underuse and overuse of anticoagulation in patients as well as uncertainty over whether to use anticoagulation in paroxysmal AF. This review looks at optimising anticoagulation by improving the assessment of bleeding risk and by improving the assessment of stroke risk. The percutaneous occlusion of the left atrial appendage is an emerging alternative to oral anticoagulation therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: Suboptimal nutrition among children remains a problem among South Asian (SA) families. Appropriate complementary feeding (CF) practices can greatly reduce this risk. Thus, we undertook a systematic review of studies assessing CF (timing, dietary diversity, meal frequency and influencing factors) in children aged <2 years in Pakistan.Design: Searches between January 2000 and June 2016 in MEDLINE, EMBASE, Global Health, Web of Science, OVID Maternity & Infant Care, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, BanglaJOL, POPLINE and WHO Global Health Library. Eligibility criteria: primary research on CF practices in SA children aged 0-2 years and/or their families. Search terms: 'children', 'feeding' and 'Asians' with their derivatives. Two researchers undertook study selection, data extraction and quality appraisal (EPPI-Centre Weight of Evidence).Results: From 45 712 results, seventeen studies were included. Despite adopting the WHO Infant and Young Child Feeding guidelines, suboptimal CF was found in all studies. Nine of fifteen studies assessing timing recorded CF introduced between 6 and 9 months. Five of nine observed dietary diversity across four of seven food groups; and two of four, minimum meal frequency in over 50 % of participants. Influencing factors included lack of CF knowledge, low maternal education, socio-economic status and cultural beliefs.Conclusions: This is the first systematic review to evaluate CF practices in Pakistan. Campaigns to change health and nutrition behaviour are needed to meet the substantial unmet needs of these children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]