Utilizing randomly selected households of rural Honduran children ages 6 to 60 months, the objectives of this study were to determine 1) prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight, 2) factors associated with undernutrition, and 3) to geographically map prevalence’s of stunting and underweight by health center using latitude and longitude obtained via Global Positioning System (GPS). Randomized cross-sectional household surveys were conducted in 16 health centers in southwestern Honduras. Latitude, longitude and altitude were obtained at the household using a GPS. Geographic Information Systems—ArcGIS ® 9.2 software was used to create a series of maps of stunting and underweight by health center. 851 children participated and 56.8%, 20.8%, 1.6% of the children were stunted, underweight, and wasted, respectfully. Stunting and underweight were significantly associated with increasing age and altitude. Wasting decreased with increasing age. 57% of children were identified as having one, two, or all three of the growth deficiencies. Socioeconomic status indicators were significantly associated with stunting, underweight and wasting. Within the health centers of Hornitos, Cedritos, Mateo, and Arenalitos stunting was significantly more prevalent than that of the overall population and underweight was significantly higher in Hornitos, Cedritos, and Mateo. Wasting was significantly more prevalent in Santiago de Puringla and Hornitos. This is the first study reporting GPS mapping of the prevalence of stunting and underweight by health center in Honduras. Overall the prevalence of stunting is considered very high, underweight as high and wasting is low. Areas with the highest prevalence of undernutrition, mapped by health region, can be utilized by the Ministry of Healthy and other agencies to prioritize supplemental nutrition and education programs to areas at highest risk.

Plantar fasciitis is a common pathological condition of the foot. It causes heel pain in active as well as sedentary adults of all ages. It is a disorder of degenerative changes in the fascia. The condition is more likely to occur in persons who are obese or in those who are on their feet most of the day. The study populations were those who presented at the rheumatology clinic with heel pain. The study was carried out over three and a half years. 20 patients were seen over three and a half years spanning between July 2009 and December 2012. There were 7 (35 %) men and 13 (65 %) women with a male to female ratio of 1: 1.9. 6 (30 %) patients were obese, 4 (20 %) overweight, and 10 (50 %) were of normal weight. 18 (90%) had one foot affected and 2 (10 %) had both feet affected. Most of our patients benefited from conservative management. Plantar fasciitis is relatively common in the society. Women were more affected in this study, and conservative method of treatment achieved a good result.This result however may not be a good representation of what obtains in the society because it was a hospital based study.

Patients with liver diseases usually show a rise in insulin resistance (IR) leading to occurrence of DM2. Although, IR level depends on etiology, however, there is very little information available on IR in liver diseases caused by hepatitis viral infections. Present study was designed to investigate the occurrence of level of IR in patients with different liver disease and relate its level to viral etiology and cytokines level to explain the underlying mechanism. IR level was calculated using HOMA-IR formula. Blood analysis for insulin, C-peptide and cytokine level and hepatitis serology were done using EIA procedure. Our observations demonstrated raised IR level in all disease groups in comparison to healthy population. However, we could not find a definite relation of IR with viral etiology, C-peptide and cytokines level in these patients. The random changes in some parameters are not adequate for any explanation. IR is raised in liver diseases, however, appears to be related more to disease condition than etiology or cytokines level.

An understanding of the L4/L5 facet morphology should help in the design of facet instrumentation and decrease the risk of surgical complications. Despite the use of the axial plane, there are no reported normal values of the facet dimensions using the parasagittal-oblique plane on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). The aim of this study was to document the L4/L5 facet joint dimensions in terms of angles and linear distances in healthy subjects using MRI, and to explore both the correlation between the morphological characteristics of the L4-L5 facet joint, and the association between these characteristics and the parameters of gender, height, and weight, of the subjects. 123 volunteers (51 males and 72 females) participated in this investigative study. The facet heights and widths were measured on the parasagittal-oblique MRI plane. Since the axial plane clearly depicted the facet joint, this plane was used for the mesurements of the sagittal and transverse facet angles. Intraobserver reliability was found to be high (intraclass correlation coefficient being 99.5 %). The male linear and angular parameters were larger than the female ones. There were significant differences between males and females in terms of the lengths and widths of the L4 facets (p 0.01 and p 0.03, respectively). No associations were found between the facet dimensions and the parameters of height and weight. This study provides baseline information about the morphological characteristics of the L4/L5 facet joint, which may well contribute to the success of related surgical interventions and also make possible the accurate simulation of this component of the segment of motion.