Nocturia - Symptom or a Disease?

Waking at night to void is known as nocturia and it is a common condition experienced by both men and women with profound impact on patient's health, quality of life, and economic condition. It is often perceived as a symptom of an organic disease, but the pathophysiology of nocturia is now well-understood, and it is considered as a disease itself. It is classified based on four different pathophysiologic mechanisms (24-hour polyuria, nocturnal polyuria, reduced bladder capacity, and sleep disorders). The association of nocturia with impaired quality of life, cardiovascular morbidity and all-cause mortality is well established. Various pharmacological agents are available, of which desmopressin is considered safe and effective in both short- and long-term studies for the treatment of nocturia in men and women, including the elderly. Combining desmopressin with other agents provides an effective treatment option for nocturia in patients with lower urinary tract symptoms, benign prostatic hypertrophy or overactive bladder syndrome. This review covers the various aspects of pathophysiology and impact of nocturia, as well as the treatment of nocturia. We present the novel concept of a "nocturia clinic", which is a comprehensive diagnostic and management center for patients with nocturia. This set-up may help bring about a positive change in the underreported and undertreated status of nocturia, and bring relief to sufferers of nocturia. Therefore nocturia though perceived as a symptom of many disorders; it itself has a defined pathophysiology and needs treatment.

Evaluation of different egg quality traits and interpretation of their mode of inheritance in White Leghorns.

AIM: The experiment was carried out to evaluate different external and internal egg quality traits and to figure out their mode of inheritance from a set of hierarchically classified data. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data collected from 548 progenies (1 egg from each progeny) of 282 dams mated to 47 sires (1 sire mated to 6 dams) of a White Leghorn flock were used in the present study. Phenotypic means and their standard errors were calculated for all the quality traits. Heritabilities were estimated for these traits separately from "sire," "dam" and "sire+dam" (full-sib) components of variance using Statistical Package for Social Sciences-17 program. RESULTS: External quality traits such as; egg weight, length, width, shape index, surface area, shell weight, shell thickness, shell ratio, and internal quality traits such as; length, width, height, and weight of albumen and yolk, albumen index, albumen ratio, Haugh unit (H.U.), yolk diameter, yolk index, yolk ratio, and yolk albumen ratio were measured in 548 eggs of the experimental White Leghorn flock. The eggs were found to have optimum weight (57.78±0.20 g), shape index (73.53±0.18) and shell characteristics (6 g, 0.32 mm) as per its genetic potential. Higher values for albumen height (8.41±0.04) mm and H.U. (92.00±0.19) are attributable to the freshness of eggs and proper age of hens. Heritability estimates from "sire" component of variance were higher than "dam" and "sire+dam" components for the traits like egg weight, length, width, shape index, surface area, albumen width, albumen index, H.U., yolk width, yolk height, yolk weight, and yolk index whereas for rest of the traits the values estimated from "dam" component were higher. Estimates from "sire+dam" component were intermediate to the estimates derived from "sire" and "dam" components. CONCLUSION: The heritability estimates from different egg quality traits were moderate to high. Since most of the traits have high heritability values, these traits can be improved by mass selection.