Assessment of healthiness among long term inhabiting army soldiers in dry zone of Sri Lanka

Abstract

Objectives: Military personnel, because of the unique nature of their duties, are reluctant to face stressors. Living in hot and humid conditions they frequently suffer dehydration. Army soldiers living in dry zone of Sri Lanka, were screened for chronic kidney disease (CKD), common non-communicable diseases and methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) colonization. Albumin creatinine ratio > 30 mg/g urine taken as cut-off for detection of CKD. Results: Screened 417 soldiers, all were men and body mass index were 21.4 ± 2.2 kg/m2. They smoke 0.5 ± 0.1 pack years while consume alcohol 32 ± 3 units/week and were having 100/min average daily moderate physical activity. Eight of them (0.2%) were having essential hypertension, 4 (0.1%) of them were having diabetes mellitus. Blood cholesterol was within normal range. CKD unknown etiology (CKDu) prevalence among screened army soldiers was 0.009. All were from native army recruits. Further, 71.2% had MRSA colonization. In a group of middle aged army recruits, despite tobacco smoking and moderate level of alcohol consumption while continuously having healthy dietary practices with physical activities would leads to low prevalence of communicable diseases. Further, compared to native group of solders, visitors but living long time recruits CKDu incidence is zero.