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Background: Physical strength can be measured by means of hand grip strength. It is of great use as a functional index of nutritional status.Aims and Objectives: Physical strength can be measured by means of hand grip strength. It is of great use as a functional index of nutritional status. Association of hand grip strength with other variables is studied in order to predict the strength outcomes and to study the effect of factors that can influence hand grip strength performance.Materials and Methods: In the present study the correlations of dominant hand grip strength and anthropometric and body composition variables namely, height, weight, forearm length, arm length, hand breadth, body mass index (BMI), and fat mass in randomly selected 375 unrelated, normal, healthy Indian office going females of age 20-60 years with mean height and weight of 154.12 ± 5.94 cm and 59.86 ± 10.94 kg respectively has been studied.Result: Hand grip strength of the females varied from 17 kg to 32 kg with a mean of 23.86 ± 2.74 kg. The comparison of age, height, weight, forearm length, arm length, hand breadth, and fat mass with the hand grip strength showed good correlation (p

Introduction: Nutritional content of diet of vegetarian and non-vegetarian differs in terms of food composition and vegetarian diets are often low in protein, probably causing a difference in body composition, structure and strength characteristics. Purpose of study: To study anthropometric, body composition and hand strength differences among 641 vegetarian and 424 non-vegetarian Indian women, aged 20–60 yrs. Methods: ANOVA, t-test, multivariable stepwise regression and logistic regressions were performed to analyse association between BMI, hand grip strength and potential confounders using SPSS Version 17 for Windows. p < 0.05 referred to as statistically significant. Results: Vegetarians had less body fat than non-vegetarians. Statistically significant difference was found in their grip strength (GS) (t = 2.459, p < 0.05) and BMI (t = 2.188, p < 0.05). Height and weight were positively associated with grip strength in the vegetarian group while height and fat free mass were seen to be positively associated with grip strength in the non-vegetarian group. Grip strength was greater in non-vegetarian group and the vegetarians had lower BMI (25.33 kg/mt 2 ± 4.56) than nonvegetarians (25.95 kg/mt 2 ± 4.45, t-test = 2.188, p

Introduction: The study was designed to investigate back pain among working women in one of the largest Research and Development Organization in India and identify occupational factors associated with lower back pain by means of a survey of female employees. Methods: This study investigated the relative risk of whether different age groups, job types, body mass index (BMI), years or service, screen viewing distance, self perception of comfort level and duration of use of computer have a bearing on the occurrence of back pain and if such risk factors aggravate cases of back pain. Results: In the unadjusted table, there was a statistically significant chance of developing backpain as the age increases (odds ratio) OR 1.56, 95% (confidence interval) CI (1.030 - 2.372), however, after adjusting for the other co-variates, this chance was not of significance. Job types, body mass index (BMI) >30 (OR >1 (0.802-1.877), years of service and screen distance OR >1 (0.96-1.745) all showed a positive association with back pain though the p values were not of statistically significance. In the adjusted table, for those who use the computer daily at the workplace for more than 6 hours, there was a statistically significant association for this group of developing back pain as compared to the first group i.e. those who work for 0-2 hours, as shown by OR 1.79, (1.123 - 2.864).Conclusion: The present study indicated that backpain is present in as much as about 25.3% of the study population. For those who use the computer >6 hours daily, there was a statistically significant chance of developing backpain.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/ajms.v3i1.5567 Asian Journal of Medical Sciences 3(2012) 6-12