Appropriate feeding practices have an important impact on diarrhoeal disease management in developing countries. We evaluated the efficacy of feeding dowdo, a wheat-milk gruel, traditionally used as a weaning food in the Northern Areas of Pakistan. Dowdo was compared with khitchri, a rice-lentil mixture, in acute diarrhoea through a randomized trial. Seventy- six children between 6 and 36 month...

Campylobacter spp. were the organisms isolated most frequently from 29 consecutive patients admitted with acute diarrhoea to an infectious disease unit. Rectal biopsies taken from 21 of the patients were abnormal in all but four, and in the patients with campylobacter infection there was a characteristic proctocolitis in each case. The histopathology was similar to that described for salmonella...

definition of some external characteristics used in the assessment of gestational age in the newborn infant. Sir, Dugdale et al.1 compared the results obtained in two groups of infants suffering from acute diarrhoea who were submitted to either a rapid or a graduated refeeding regimen, and concluded that weight loss during the first 24 hours of refeeding was less and the length of hospital stay...

Background Diarrhoea and acute lower respiratory infections are leading causes of childhood morbidity and mortality, which can be prevented by simple low-cost interventions. Integrated strategies can provide additional benefits by addressing multiple health burdens simultaneously. Methods We conducted a community-randomized-controlled trial in 51 rural communities in Peru to evaluate whether ...

A clinical study was undertaken using honey in oral rehydration solution in infants and children with gastroenteritis. The aim was to evaluate the influence of honey on the duration of acute diarrhoea and its value as a glucose substitute in oral rehydration. The results showed that honey shortens the duration of bacterial diarrhoea, does not prolong the duration of non-bacterial diarrhoea, and...

BACKGROUND It has recently been hypothesised that acute dehydration in early childhood may "programme" increased blood pressure via salt retention. We examined whether there was an association between episodes of diarrhoea (a proxy for acute dehydration) and later measured blood pressure. METHODS In the 1982 Pelotas birth cohort study (Brazil), parents/carers reported hospital admissions for ...

BACKGROUND Acute onset vomiting and diarrhoea is one of the most common illnesses of infancy, and is second only to respiratory illnesses as a cause of childhood deaths worldwide. Existing guidelines for management of diarrhoea are often ignored in public and private practice, possibly because of a perception that the guidelines are too simple, or because of expectations of the need to give 're...

INTRODUCTION Diarrhoea continues to cause significant morbidity in Egypt. AIM To determine the frequency and distribution of different enteropathogens in acute diarrhoeal episodes, utilising an expanded testing regimen, and to correlate clinical signs and symptoms associated with the detected pathogens. MATERIAL AND METHODS The case-control study enrolled 356 patients < 5 years old with acu...

Clinical features and laboratory tests that determine carbohydrate in faeces were evaluated to determine which was best able to distinguish between osmotic and secretory diarrhoea in infants and children. For this purpose 80 boys aged 3 to 24 months, with acute watery diarrhoea, were studied prospectively. The faecal osmolar gap (FOG) was calculated as: serum osmolarity-[2 x (faecal sodium + po...

In a controlled trial in Petrozavodsk, Karelia, the effects of oral rehydration and Lactobacillus strain GG (LGG) on recovery from acute diarrhoea (27% rotavirus, 21% bacterial aetiology) were studied in 123 children aged between 1 and 36 months of age. On admission to hospital, the patients were first randomized to receive either isotonic oral rehydration solution (ORS) with osmolarity 311 mos...