Study of pulmonary functions in tea industry workers in North Bengal.

This study was intended to compare pulmonary function parameters in tea garden factory workers who are on chronic exposure to tea dust with tea garden plantation workers on the basis of dynamic ventilatory pulmonary function tests. The pulmonary function tests done on 128 subjects included 64 tea garden factory workers and 64 tea garden plantation workers. In tea factory workers the values of vital capacity (VC), forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in one second (FEV1), forced expiratory volume in first 0.75 second (FEV0.75), FEV1/FVC%, peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were found significantly lower (p < 0.001) than those of tea garden plantation workers. It may be concluded that pulmonary functions are more affected in tea factory workers than those of tea plantation workers.

Assessment of iodine and non-iodine deficiency hypothyroidism in women of reproductive ages in the sub-Himalayan plains of West Bengal.

Indian women of reproductive age groups commonly suffer from hypothyroidism which may be due to iodine or non iodine deficiency causes. This study was undertaken with a view to ascertain the leading cause of hypothyroidism in women of reproductive age group residing in the sub-Himalayan plain areas of Darjeeling district of West Bengal. Serum TSH, T4, T3 and Urinary Iodine Excretion (UIE) levels were measured in 101 non pregnant women. Our results reveal that among 37.62% (n=38) of bio-chemically established hypothyroid women; majority 76.32% (n=29) are suffering from iodine deficiency and the rest 23.68% (n=9) have Hypothyroidism due to other causes. Moreover, iodine deficiency persists among 57.42% (n=58) of the women in our study. We conclude that iodine deficiency disorders are still a major problem in this region and hypothyroidism due to iodine deficiency is more prevalent than the non iodine deficiency causes. Hence lacunae in the iodine supplementation process needs to be reviewed.