The prevalence of hookah smokers among Belarussian children and adolescents.

Introduction: The purpose of this survey was to assess the prevalence of hookah smokers among children and adolescents aged 12-16 years in Belarus.

Methods: This survey involved 3485 people, including 1737 girls and 1726 boys, and included 6 questions from the main questionnaire of the GYTS aimed at hookah consumption. The statistical processing was performed using the SUDAAN software package; a 95% confidence interval was calculated to calculate weighted prevalence estimates and standard errors.

[On integration of the iodine deficiency elimination and salt reduction programs].

Excessive salt intake is a risk factor for noncommunicable diseases, but salt iodization is the most effective method of population-based prevention of iodine deficiency. Therefore, an assessment of dietary iodine intake from the use of iodized salt in the food industry and potential reductions in salt intake is needed. .

Development and validation of the HPLC-DAD method for the quantification of 16 synthetic dyes in various foods and the use of liquid anion exchange extraction for qualitative expression determination.

Synthetic dyes can cause many health problems, and their use as food additives is rigorously regulated worldwide. Two methods for the determination of synthetic dyes in food are described in this article. The visual qualitative expression method was based on the extraction of synthetic dyes using a liquid anion exchanger (0.

[Actual problems of the microbiological safety of food products].

Food-borne infectious diseases remain an actual problem of health care. In the Republic of Belarus the level of food-borne diseases persists to be stable, at the same time these diseases remain to be significant. Despite the insignificant number of nonconforming food samples the prevalence rates of food-borne acute infectious diseases of various etiology with dominantly food transmission pathway remain to be rather high.

[ Delayed effect of prenatal irradiation on the critical organs functional state in children after Chernobyl accident].

Some indexes of a metabolism in 186 children exposed in utero through the Chernobyl accident were investigated ten years after the irradiation. All the children (basic and control groups) live in the territory with contamination less than 15 Ci/km2. It was shown, that the activity of alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), alkaline phosphatase and the level of bilirubin (conjugated and unconjugated) differed from the corresponding indexes in the control group (p < 0.