Prevalence and Associated Factors for Dual Form of Malnutrition in Mother-Child Pairs at the Same Household in the Gaza Strip-Palestine

Background

In many developing countries nutritional, and epidemiological transitions are emerging into continuing undernutrition and escalating overnutrition, giving rise to the double burden of the malnutrition phenomenon.

Objectives

This study aims to determine the prevalence of the dual form of malnutrition (overweight mother/underweight child) in the same household and its associated factors in the Gaza Strip.

Methods

A total of 357 mother-child pairs from the same households were surveyed from three different geographical locations in the Gaza Strip, namely, El Remal urban area, Jabalia refugee camp, and Al Qarara rural area. The height and weight of mothers aged 18–50 years were measured, and their body mass index (BMI) was computed. The mothers were categorized according to the criterion of the World Health Organization (WHO) for BMI as overweight if they have a BMI ≥ 25 kg/m². Anthropometric indices were measured for children aged two to five years to classify the underweight children Z-score <-1.

Results

The results showed the prevalence of the dual form of malnutrition in the Gaza Strip was 15.7%, and its associated factors were child’s birth order (OR_adj, 1.50, 95% CL, 1.22, 1.82; p = <0.001), father’s educational (low or medium) levels (OR_adj, 3.19, 95% CL, 1.07, 9.5; p = 0. 036), or (OR_adj, 3.4, 95% CL, 1.12, 10.37; p = 0. 031), high scores of mothers'' nutrition knowledge (OR_adj, 1.23, 95% CL, 1.01, 1.52; p = 0. 048), and low monthly income (OR_adj, 0.28, 95% CL, 0.09, 0.88; p = 0. 030).

Conclusions

The results from this study showed the dual form of malnutrition in the same household was prevalent in the Gaza Strip. This is a public health issue that must be understood and addressed and policy makers must implement an appropriate nutrition action plan to control dual form of malnutrition based on the underlying specific risk factors in the study population. In addition, interventions are needed to help individuals to translate their nutrition knowledge into healthy dietary behaviors.     

Evidence for long poly(dA).poly(dT) tracts in D. discoideum DNA at high frequencies and their preferential avoidance of nucleosomal DNA core regions

The eukaryote, Dictyostelium discoideum, has one of the most (A+T) rich genomes studied to date. Isolated nuclear D. discoideum DNA (AX3 strain) was used to qualitatively determine the frequency and length distribution of long (dA).(dT) homopolymer tracts in this genome, in comparison to the less (A+T) rich calf thymus and Schistosoma mansoni DNAs that had few observable long tracts. These experimental data accurately reflect the significantly elevated frequencies of long tracts found computationally within the D. discoideum intron and flanking sequences, but not exons. PCR amplification of long (dA).(dT) homopolymer tract containing sequences was carried out. Then experimental biotinylated (dT)18 probe hybridization to the PCR amplified DNA showed that the long (dA).(dT) homopolymer tracts were enriched in D. discoideum sequences only hundreds of base pair in length, under conditions where no equivalent hybridization was observed to S. mansoni DNA or calf DNA sequences. Similar probe hybridization to DNA isolated following micrococcal nuclease digestion of D. discoideum chromatin demonstrated that long (dA).(dT) homopolymer tracts were more highly enriched in nucleosomal DNA lengths that included the internucleosomal linker as compared to shorter linker free mononucleosomal lengths. This observation is in agreement with the frequency of tract spacing results calculated from GenBank sequence data. These frequency data indicate that adjacent long tracts plus the intervening spacer DNA are found at peak lengths (average 42 bp), exactly characteristic of the internucleosomal spacer region of D. discoideum chromatin and are in sufficient number to be found in nearly half of all nucleosomes. Compared to shuffled tract sequence controls, these lengths of adjacent long tracts plus the intervening spacer DNA were found to be significantly enriched. Lesser enrichments are observed at lengths corresponding to adjacent tracts being separated by nucleosomal core length DNA sequences (145-185 bp). These data strongly suggest that adjacent long tracts occur spaced at selected lengths so as to avoid the central core regions of nucleosomes and instead are found localized within internucleosomal DNA linker and core edge regions in D. discoideum chromatin.