Adiponectin,Leptin and Ghrelin Levels in Obese Adolescent Girls with Polycystic Ovary Syndrome

Study ObjectiveTo evaluate the differences in adipokines, namely adiponectin, leptin, and ghrelin, in obese adolescent girls with or without polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS).DesignCase-control study.SettingUniversity hospital.Participants38 adolescent girls (age 15-20 years). Group I: 17 Obese adolescent girls with PCOS (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²); Group II: Control group of 21 obese adolescent girls (BMI ≥ 30 kg/m²).Main Outcome MeasuresAdiponectin, leptin, and ghrelin measurements.ResultsLH, LH/FSH, and cortisol levels were significantly higher in the obese PCOS girls compared to the obese controls (6.94 ± 3.28 vs 4.44 ± 1.79; 1.50 ± 0.72 vs 0.90 ± 0.36; 16.02 ± 4.28 vs 12.46 ± 5.29; P < .05, respectively). Adiponectin, leptin, and ghrelin levels were similar between the obese PCOS girls and the obese controls (11.13 ± 6.00 vs 15.26 ± 12.66; 23.66 ± 11.54 vs 23.11 ± 11.17; 665.69 ± 402.12 vs 650.22 ± 467.73, respectively). Adiponectin negatively correlated with BMI (r = ?0.32; P = .04) and positively correlated with fasting glucose (r = 0.40; P = .01). Leptin positively correlated with BMI (r = 0.534; P = .001), estradiol (r = 0.354; P = .02), and TSH (r = 0.374; P = .02). No significant correlation was found between ghrelin and the test parameters.ConclusionAmong obese adolescents with PCOS, adiponectin, and leptin levels do not seem to be determined by the existence of PCOS, while ghrelin presents no significant correlation.     

Níveis de Tiol Sérico e Homeostase Tiol/Dissulfeto em Pacientes com Doença Valvar Mitral Reumatismal e em Sujeitos Saudáveis

BackgroundRheumatic mitral valve disease (RMVD) is the most common presentation of rheumatic heart disease (RHD). Inflammation and fibrosis processes also play significant roles in its pathogenesis. Recent studies showed that thiols and thiol-disulfide are promising novel oxidative stress markers.ObjectivesThe present study aimed to evaluate differences in the serum thiol and thiol-disulfide levels in patients with RMVD and the control group.MethodsNinety-two patients with RMVD were enrolled in the study. Fifty-four healthy subjects, age, and gender-matched with the study group, were also included in the study as a control group. This study investigated thiol levels in patients with RMVD and the control group. P-values lower than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.ResultsThe patients with RMVD presented higher systolic pulmonary artery pressure (SPAP) and left atrial (LA) diameter levels than the control group. Native thiol (407±83 μmol/L vs. 297±65 μmol/L, p<0.001) and total thiol (442±82 μmol/L vs. 329±65 μmol/L, p<0.001) levels were higher in the control group. Disulfide (16.7±4.9 μmol/L vs. 14.8±3.7 μmol/L, p=0.011) levels were higher in the group of patients with RMVD. A positive correlation was found between disulfide/native and disulfide/total thiols ratio with SPAP, LA diameter, and MS severity. Disulfide/total thiols ratio was significantly higher in patients with severe MS than with mild to moderate MS patients.ConclusionsTo the best of our knowledge, this is the only study of its kind that has evaluated thiol/disulfide homeostasis as a novel predictor, which was more closely related to RMVD and the severity of MS.     

The effects of merocel and glove finger tampon applications on the nasal septum mucosa of rabbits

OBJECTIVE: The use of tampons after nasal septum surgery is important for both prevention of postoperative bleeding and stabilization of the nasal flaps and the septum. One of the most important factors in achieving rapid postoperative recovery is the choice of the nasal tampon material, among many, to produce minimal damage on the nasal mucosa. In this study, the histopathological effects of the glove finger and merocel tampons, which are commonly used in clinical applications, have been investigated on the nasal mucosa of rabbits. MATERIALS AND METHODS: In this study, merocel and glove finger tampons were used for nasal packing in one-sided nasal cavities of 16 adult New Zealand rabbits. The animals were randomized into two groups, each consisting of eight animals. The tampons were removed after 48 hours. RESULTS: Histological examination showed that if the merocel was in a glove finger, it did not create any damage to mucosal integrity and lamina propria. However, in the group where merocel was used directly, the epithelium of the nasal mucosa was shortened and demonstrated loss of cilia and in four of the eight specimens, it was partly from lamina propria. CONCLUSION: It is concluded that the use of merocel in glove finger tampon leads to a lesser degree of damage in the lamina propria, and may facilitate rapid mucosal wound healing postoperatively.     

Corneal densitometry in patients with arcus senilis and its correlation with serum lipid levels

Purpose:To evaluate corneal densitometry (CD) of patients with arcus senilis (AS) and its association with the serum lipid markers.Methods:This is a cross-sectional, case-control study. The AS diagnosis was made clinically. Forty-five eyes of 45 patients with AS and 38 eyes of 38 age-matched control subjects with no noticeable AS were enrolled in the study. All participants underwent detailed ophthalmologic examination along with corneal Scheimpflug imaging with CD measurement. The evaluated serum lipid markers of the participants included total cholesterol, triglyceride, low-density lipoprotein (LDL), high-density lipoprotein (HDL), and very-low-density lipoprotein (VLDL). The Spearman correlation analysis was used to correlate the serum lipid values and the CD. P < 0.05 was defined as statistically significant.Results:The male to female ratio was 26/19 and 14/24 in the study and control groups, respectively (P = 0.057). The mean age was 59.56 ± 8.7 and 56.47 ± 8.6 years in the study and control groups, respectively (P = 0.117). The mean total CD values in the zones extending from 2 to 12 mm were higher in the study group than in the control group (P < 0.001). The serum HDL level was found to be significantly decreased in the study group compared to the control group (P = 0.048 and Z = −1.976). There was a significant positive correlation between the serum triglyceride level and the CD value of the outermost zone (10–12 mm) (r = 0.334 and P = 0.025).Conclusion:The CD of patients with AS was found to increase not only in the peripheral zone but also in the cornea’s paracentral zone compared to the healthy controls. The serum triglyceride level should give an insight into the intensity of arcus senilis. The serum HDL levels were decreased in patients with AS.     

E-health literacy of nursing students and investigation of factors affecting e-health literacy during COVID-19 pandemic process: A cross-sectional study

The lack of knowledge on health literacy affects all segments of society, particularly health workers.The objectives were to identify nursing students’ means of accessing information during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, their level of health literacy, and the factors that affect it.This cross-sectional study was conducted in Turkey among 398 nursing students of Çukurova University and Van Yüzüncü Yil University between June 1 and June 30, 2020. As a data collection tool, E-Health Literacy Scale was used, with students’ characteristics and personal information form related to Internet use. These forms were converted to the online format. The survey link was sent to the students’ smartphones and/or e-mails to ask them to participate.Majority of participants were Van Yüzüncü Yil University nursing students (63.8%). E-SYO score average of all students was found to be 29.42 ± 4.39 (min = 14, max = 40); it was is found be at a good level. They used the Internet as the first source of information about coronavirus disease 2019 (65.1%).Among the participants, 65.8% stated that it was important to access the health resource on the Internet and 19.1% of the participants thought that it was very important. It was found that Internet use was being used for >3 times a day (72.9%). The age, class, gender, family type, income level, high school from which they graduated from, and their working status significantly were statistically affecting their health literacy (P < .05). The health literacy scale scores were significant and higher than those who did not know the concept of health literacy, and those who perceived Internet skills well and very well than those who perceived them poorly (P < .05).Nursing students were found to have good average health literacy averages. Improving the health literacy is important for making individuals healthier.     

High contrast,isotropic, and uniform 3D-imaging of centimeter-scale scattering samples using structured illumination light-sheet microscopy with axial sweeping

Light-sheet fluorescent microscopy (LSFM) has, in recent years, allowed for rapid 3D-imaging of cleared biomedical samples at larger and larger scale. However, even in cleared samples, multiple light scattering often degrades the imaging contrast and widens the optical sectioning. Accumulation of scattering intensifies these negative effects as light propagates inside the tissue, which accentuates the issues when imaging large samples. With axially swept light-sheet microscopy (ASLM), centimeter-scale samples can be scanned with a uniform micrometric optical sectioning. But to fully utilize these benefits for 3D-imaging in biomedical tissue samples, suppression of scattered light is needed. Here, we address this by merging ASLM with light-sheet based structured illumination into Structured Illumination Light-sheet Microscopy with Axial Sweeping (SILMAS). The SILMAS method thus enables high-contrast imaging, isotropic micrometric resolution and uniform optical sectioning in centimeter-scale scattering samples, creating isotropic 3D-volumes of e.g., whole mouse brains without the need for any computation-heavy post-processing. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach in agarose gel phantoms with fluorescent beads, and in an PFF injected alpha-synuclein transgenic mouse model tagged with a green fluorescent protein (SynGFP). SILMAS imaging is compared to standard ASLM imaging on the same samples and using the same optical setup, and is shown to increase contrast by as much as 370% and reduce widening of optical sectioning by 74%. With these results, we show that SILMAS improves upon the performance of current state-of-the-art light-sheet microscopes for large and imperfectly cleared tissue samples and is a valuable addition to the LSFM family.     

On Human Disease‐Causing Amino Acid Variants: Statistical Study of Sequence and Structural Patterns

Statistical analysis was carried out on large set of naturally occurring human amino acid variations, and it was demonstrated that there is a preference for some amino acid substitutions to be associated with diseases. At an amino acid sequence level, it was shown that the disease‐causing variants frequently involve drastic changes in amino acid physicochemical properties of proteins such as charge, hydrophobicity, and geometry. Structural analysis of variants involved in diseases and being frequently observed in human population showed similar trends: disease‐causing variants tend to cause more changes in hydrogen bond network and salt bridges as compared with harmless amino acid mutations. Analysis of thermodynamics data reported in the literature, both experimental and computational, indicated that disease‐causing variants tend to destabilize proteins and their interactions, which prompted us to investigate the effects of amino acid mutations on large databases of experimentally measured energy changes in unrelated proteins. Although the experimental datasets were linked neither to diseases nor exclusory to human proteins, the observed trends were the same: amino acid mutations tend to destabilize proteins and their interactions. Having in mind that structural and thermodynamics properties are interrelated, it is pointed out that any large change in any of them is anticipated to cause a disease.     

The importance of frontal QRS-T angle for predicting non-dipper status in hypertensive patients without left ventricular hypertrophy

Background: Frontal QRS-T angle is a novel marker of myocardial repolarization, and an increased frontal QRS-T angle associated with adverse cardiac outcomes. Non-dipper hypertension is also associated with adverse cardiac outcomes. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between frontal QRS-T angle and non-dipper status in hypertensive patients without left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH).

Methods: This study included 122 hypertensive patients without LVH. Patients were divided into two groups: dipper hypertension and non-dipper hypertension. The frontal QRS-T angle was calculated from 12-lead electrocardiography.

Results: Frontal QRS-T angle (47.9° ± 29.7° vs. 26.7° ± 19.6°, P < 0.001) was significantly higher in patients with non-dipper hypertension than in patients with dipper hypertension. In addition, frontal QRS-T angle was positively correlated with sleeping systolic (r = 0.211, P = 0.020), and diastolic (r = 0.199, P = 0.028) blood pressures (BP), even if they were weak. Multivariate analysis showed that the frontal QRS-T angle was independent predictor of non-dipper status (QR: 1.037, 95% CI: 1.019–1.056, P < 0.001).

Conclusion: Frontal QRS-T angle is independent predictor of non-dipper status in hypertensive patients without LVH.     

Prediction of difficult laryngoscopy using spirometry: a pilot study

Prediction of difficult laryngoscopy is still the uncovered secret of anesthetic practice. This pilot study is aimed to assess the efficacy of spirometry measurements in predicting difficult laryngoscopy compared with conventional airway assessment techniques. We enrolled 202 adults, ages 18–40 years, with an American Society of Anaesthesiologists score of I or II, scheduled for elective surgery and undergoing general anesthesia. Spirometry was used for lung capacity measurements before the operation. The Mallampati classification, neck circumference, sternomental distance, thyromental distance, maximum mouth-opening measurement, and upper lip bite test of the subjects were measured. During intubation, the Cormack–Lehane grade was recorded. Spearman’s correlation analysis was used to define the linearity between spirometry outputs and airway measurements. Receiver operating curves were drawn to discriminate the predictive features of the significant values. The thyromental distance showed a higher correlation with forced inspiratory vital capacity (ρ = 0.420, P < 0.001). In a multivariate linear regression model, all spirometry measurements revealed that forced inspiratory vital capacity (β = ?2.050, P = 0.022) was the significant predictor for difficult laryngoscopy. The area under the curve for forced inspiratory vital capacity with a cut-off value of 3.1950 L while using thyromental distance as difficult laryngoscopy indicator is 0.754 and forced inspiratory vital capacity showed a sensitivity of 0.718 and specificity of 0.714 with a positive likelihood ratio of 2.5104 and negative likelihood ratio of 0.3949. Forced inspiratory vital capacity showed a close association with the prediction of difficult laryngoscopy.