Awareness and opinion about polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) among young women: a developing country perspective.

OBJECTIVE: To explore the perception on PCOS and its prevalence among adolescent and young women. METHODS: The study was conducted over 2 year period in a tertiary care teaching hospital from Eastern India. A pre-formed, validated questionnaire was used to record the details. Descriptive statistics was used to report the findings. RESULTS: Of 965 young patients with mean (SD) age 20.64 (2.1) years, 27 (2.79 %) were aware of an entity called PCOS. Awareness among adolescents with PCOS was 25.9 % (7/27). All aware patients belonged to the urban sector with professionals constituting around 48%, of which 11% were students. The major source of information among aware patients was from doctors (40.7%), and friends and Internet (25.9%); rest being from books, newspapers, and teachers. Majority (70%) were aware that diet restriction and exercise were the primary modalities of treatment, whereas, only 3.7% knew about the role of contraceptive pills in PCOS. CONCLUSIONS: Awareness regarding PCOS among the young women is very low mainly in the rural set up. Doctors and health staffs should play a major role in spreading awareness of the entity to prevent long term complications.

Flavonoids of Enhydra Fluctuans exhibits analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity in different animal models.

Enhydra fluctuans (Compositae), an edible semi aquatic herbaceous vegetable plant, widely used in traditional system of Indian medicine. Total flavonoids of E. fluctuans (TFEF) were screened for analgesic and anti-inflammatory activity. Analgesic activity was studied in acetic acid induced writhing response and by hot plate method in Swiss albino mice. Anti-inflammatory activity was estimated by carrageenan and histamine induced acute inflammation and Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) induced chronic inflammation in rats. Two flavonoids, baicalein 7-O-glucoside and baicalein 7-O-diglucoside, were isolated from the ethyl acetate fraction. Oral administration of TFEF at the doses of 200 and 400 mg/kg provide 27.05 and 55.49% protection respectively in acetic acid induced writhing method. It also increased the pain threshold in mice evidenced by hot plate method. TFEF showed more potent anti-inflammatory activity. The results of this study may be attributed to high free radical scavenging and antioxidant potential of the flavonoids present in ethyl acetate fraction of Enhydra fluctuans.