Zakir Hussain

Explore 60 years of Singapore's foreign policy through curated episodes, highlighting its principled stances and trusted partnerships. Read more at straitstimes. Read more at straitstimes.

One of the most enduring and widely quoted dialogues in Indian cinema is: “Do not throw stones at others’ houses when your own house is made of glass.” Unfortunately, this wisdom appears to be lost…

Prime Minister Modi became the first Indian Prime Minister to undertake a full-fledged state visit to the Kingdom of Jordan on 15–16 December 2025, at the invitation of King Abdullah II ibn Al Hussein.

The growing demand for robust food authentication methods has driven the establishment of fast, sensitive, and field-based detection systems for identifying meat species.

President Donald Trump has once again assured the US “intervention” to rescue protesters in Iran.

Alappuzha: A series of controversial decisions taken in the Public Relations Department (PRD) during the previous LDF government's tenure has come

Best Contemporary Instrumental Album - Winner As We Speak. Béla Fleck, Zakir Hussain, Edgar Meyer, Rakesh Chaurasia

Background Conventional biomarkers, such as the urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio (uACR), detect diabetic nephropathy (DN) late in its course and may miss early podocyte injury. Urinary podocalyxin (u-PDX), a sialylated glycoprotein shed from podocytes, may offer an earlier means of detection. Methods We conducted a cross-sectional analytical study at Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujib Medical University between March 2023 and August 2024. Eighty-eight adults were enrolled: 59 participants with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and 29 healthy controls. Participants with diabetes were stratified into normoalbuminuric (n = 29), microalbuminuric (n = 15), and macroalbuminuric (n = 15) subgroups based on uACR. Clinical variables and biochemical indices were recorded. u-PDX concentrations were measured using ELISA, and associations with uACR and eGFR were analyzed using Kendall’s tau-b and Pearson’s correlation coefficients. Diagnostic performance was assessed using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves with bootstrap internal validation. Results Among participants with diabetes, u-PDX levels increased progressively across normo-, micro-, and macroalbuminuric groups (p < 0.001). u-PDX correlated positively with fasting blood glucose, post-glucose plasma glucose, HbA1c, serum creatinine, serum urea, and uACR, with the strongest correlation for uACR (r = 0.79, p < 0.001), and inversely with serum albumin (r = −0.62, p < 0.001) and eGFR (r = −0.51, p < 0.001). In pairwise ROC analysis, a u-PDX cutoff of 0.80 ng/mL discriminated healthy controls from diabetic patients without albuminuria (sensitivity 100.0%, specificity 96.4%); 1.60 ng/mL discriminated diabetic patients without albuminuria from those with microalbuminuria (86.7%, 93.1%); and 5.51 ng/mL discriminated microalbuminuric from macroalbuminuric patients (86.7%, 93.3%). For overall discrimination of albuminuria-defined DN among diabetic patients, the optimal u-PDX cutoff was 2.92 ng/mL (AUC 0.96, 95% CI 0.90–1.00). Conclusions Urinary podocalyxin is a sensitive early biomarker of diabetic nephropathy, rising before overt albuminuria and correlating with albuminuria severity and declining eGFR. However, longitudinal validation is required before u-PDX can be recommended for routine screening in adults with T2DM.

G Sudhakaran, the Ambalapuzha MLA who broke ranks with the CPM ahead of the recent Assembly election, weighs in on the party's course correction, leadership and future.