Daneshvar Medicine: Basic and Clinical Research Journal
Year:2011 | Volume:18 | Issue:93|Papers Count:10

Background and Objective: Different studies have shown that emotional disclosure by writing in order to express affective and emotional experiences would decline negative affect, inhibition, and would help to select adaptive behaviors by infusing into the self. Thus, this research investigated whether instructing emotional disclosure by writing and applying more adaptive defense mechanisms decline depression severity among depressed individuals.Materials and Methods: In this study, 38 subjects (26 females, and 12 males) with major depression were selected and randomly assigned into experimental and control groups (each group contained 19 subjects). These 2 groups were paired by dose and type of medications they received during the period of study. They completed BDI and DMQ items prior to and after instructing and applying emotional disclosure for 4 weeks.Results: Data analysis (by SPSS software, version 16) and conducting independent t test revealed that emotional disclosure with writing can significantly reduce depression severity in experimental group in comparison with control group (p<0.05). IN addition, using mal-adaptive defense mechanisms (suppression, reaction formation, and compensation) in experimental group significantly declined in comparison with control group (p<0.05).Conclusion: Since creating insight, empathy and support sense due to applying emotional disclosure in depressed individuals can decline the load of input emotional burden to cognitive system and lead to improvement of cognitive performance, so, the individual would reduce using mal-adaptive defense mechanisms. Therefore, performing emotional disclosure is an efficient strategy in companion with other therapeutic strategies.

Background and Objective: In recent years, DNA microarray technology has become a central tool in genomic research. Using this technology, which made it possible to simultaneously analyze expression levels for thousands of genes under different conditions, massive amounts of information will be obtained. While traditional clustering methods, such as hierarchical and K-means clustering have been shown to be useful in analyzing microarray data, they have some limitations. These methods assume that a gene or an experimental condition can be assigned to only one cluster and a gene belongs to a group of genes that are coexpressed under all conditions. Therefore, to overcome these shortcomings, biclustering methods are used. The purpose of this paper was to evaluate the efficiency of a biclustering method in analyzing yeast gene expression data.Materials and Methods: In this study, Large Average Submatrices (LAS) method has been used to analyze the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae expression dataset, provided by Gasch et al. (2000). The dataset contains 2993 genes and 173 different experimental conditions. In this study, the software packages such as LAS, JMP and GOAL has been used for analyzing data.Results: Results showed that the LAS method is able to produce biologically and statistically relevant biclusters.Conclusion: This study showed that LAS can be used to discover biologically significant subsets of genes under subsets of conditions for microarray data analysis.

Background and Objective: Severe menstrual bleeding is a leading cause of poor quality of life and iron deficiency anemia in reproductive aged women. The aim of this study was to investigate the efficacy and acceptability of long-term use of medroxyprogestrone acetate in menorrhagia management.Materials and Methods: In a pre-post trial, 44 eligible women were allocated to long term medroxyprogestrone acetate treatment (for 3 consecutive cycles). Changes in duration and amount of bleeding, quality of life and also hemoglobin and ferritin values were checked out and compared before and after treatment.Results: Medroxyprogestrone acetate reduced mean PBLAC score from 220.15 (±74.99) in control cycle to 108.81 (±74.98) in third cycle (p<0.0001). Hemoglobin increased from 12.24 (±0.89) to 13.21 (±0.88) g/dl and ferritin increased from 13.38 (±6.81) to 30.85 (±8.51) ng/dl (p<0/0001). Duration of menstrual bleeding decreased from 8.4 (±1.47) days to 8.06 (±1.53) days (p=0.001). Medroxyprogestrone acetate reduced mean MQ score from 66.46 (±13.82) to 14.13 (±7.98) (p<0.0001). SF-36 quality of life scores increased in all aspects (except for bodily pain) (p<0.0001).Conclusion: Our results showed that long term use of MPA is an effective treatment for idiopathic menorrhagia in terms of menstrual blood loss, hematologic indices and quality of life (p<0.05) and observed complications are not significant. This makes long-term MPA a favored drug choice in idiopathic menorrhagia management in premenopausal women.

Background and Objective: Deficiency in the proprioception, balance and postural control are mostly found in patients after anterior cruciate ligament reconstruction surgery (ACLR). These factors play a role in symmetric weight distribution on the lower limbs. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of taping on the proprioception and weight distribution on lower limbs in ACLR patients.Materials and Methods: Twenty volunteer athlete men with isolated ACL injury, aged 27±5.5 years, 4 to 6 months after surgery participated in the study. This study was performed in the Biomechanics Laboratory of Tarbiat Modares University. Subjects were randomly divided into two groups using random number table. Proprioception and weight distribution symmetry were measured by a digital goniometer and force platform. Measurements were performed before and after taping and 10 days after continues usage of taping.Results: The findings showed that the weight loading on the injured knee was toward increasing in 30 degree of squat but did not show a significant difference. There was not a considerable difference in 60 degree squat too. Angle reproduction test precision also significantly improved after taping.Conclusion: It could be concluded that taping has a positive effect on the reducing angle reproduction absolute error via providing sensory inputs on the knee joint.

Background and Objective: Although many helpful procedures are used in pathology for the prognosis of aggressive behavior of lesions, but their morphometric values were not detected. The purpose of the present study was to detect and compare the morphometric characteristics of KCOT and dentigerous cyst and to determine whether morphometric evaluation is a valuable and helpful method in the prognosis of aggressive behavior of these odontogenic lesions.Materials and Methods: This cross- sectional study was done on 40 paraffin blocks of above odontogenic lesions from the archive of Dentistry Faculty. After hematoxylin-eosin staining, special software was used for determination of mean nuclear and cytoplasmic area, nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio (N/C) in each layer and all layers of odontogenic epithelium, mean microvessel density (MVD) and number of inflammatory cells, the epithelial thickness, and ferret ratio (F, R) in these odontogenic lesions.Results: Mean nuclear and cytoplasmic area, N.C ratio in all layer of KCOT was 9551.1±4543.1 mm2, 20140.4±7729.8 mm2, 0.47±0.1 and in dentigerous cyst was 5166.9±3082 mm2, 12232.1±6191.8 mm2, and 0.4±0.9. Mean epithelial thickness, number of inflammatory cells and MVD, F.R in KCOT was higher than detigerous cyst (p<0.001).Conclusion: From high nuclear to cytoplasmic ratio and high MVD, it is suggested that histomorphometry should be a helpful method in the prognosis of aggressive behavior of the above odontogenic lesions.

Background and Objective: Non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) is part of a broad spectrum of chronic nonalcoholic fatty liver disease. Patients in 90% of cases characterized by elevated levels of serum aminotransferases. The purpose of this study was to compare the effect of diet and aerobic training with diet on serum aminotransferases levels in patients with NASH.Materials and Methods: Twenty-three NASH patients with an age range of 25 to 50 years old were randomly divided into two groups of diet (n=11) and aerobic training with diet (n=12). In this study, diet in both groups included 500 kilocalories of energy and loss was daily calculated. The second group in addition to diet also participated in aerobic training which consisted of walking, jogging and running for a period of 8 weeks, 3 days a week with 55–60% heart rate reserve.Serum aminotransferases levels before and after the intervention was measured by photometric method. Data were analyzed by paired samples and independent-samples t-test at a significance level of p<0.05.Results: The changes within groups regarding serum ALT and AST levels were not significant in patients of diet group; but changes were significant in aerobic training plus diet group. The comparison of between groups showed that there exists a significant difference between both groups in levels of serum aminotransferases.Conclusion: Reduction of serum aminotransferases levels occurs due to reduced risk factors pathogeneses and reduced hepatocyte inflammation. Probably, the combined program (aerobic exercise with diet) is more effective for prevention, control and treatment of NASH.

Background and Objective: Lipoprotein lipase (LPL) is a key enzyme in lipid metabolism and maintenance of energy homeostasis. Acute and delayed response of LPL to one session of exercise has not been well studied. The purpose of the present study was to examine the effect of one session of prolonged treadmill running on soleus muscle LPL mRNA and activity and plasma LPL activity in male Wistar rats.Materials and Methods: Twenty four male Wisatr rats (weight: 388 ± 31 g) were randomly divided into two groups: control group (n=12) and trained group (n=12). The exercised rats ran on treadmill for 120 minutes (18 m/min, 0o incline). Rats were anesthetized, sacrificed, and blood and soleus muscle sample were taken 0, 2, and 24 h after exercise. Semiquantitative RT-PCR was used to measure LPL mRNA level in soleus muscle. Data were analyzed using repeated measures ANOVA.Results: The results showed that muscle LPL mRNA significantly increases 2 and 24 hours after exercise (p=0.002 and p=0.004 respectively). Also, muscle LPL activity significantly increased 2 and 24 hours after exercise (p=0.03 and p=0.007 respectively). Plasma LPL activity also significantly increased 24 hours after exercise (p=0.004).Conclusion: The study showed that single session of prolonged exercise via increasing muscle LPL gene expression can promote triglyceride hydrolysis. Therefore, the ability of muscle for FFA oxidation increases and lipid metabolism improves.

Background and Objective: Inefficiency of deep cervical flexor muscles are correlated with chronic neck pain. The purpose of this study was to determine and to compare longus colli muscle dimensions between rest and maximum isometric contraction in patients with chronic neck pain and healthy subjects.Materials and Methods: For this case-control study, 16 healthy matched subjects and 16 patients with chronic neck pain were recruited. Using ultrasonography, anterio-posterior, lateral, and cross-sectional dimensions of longus colli in resting position and during maximal isometric contraction of deep cervical flexor muscles were determined. Data were analyzed using paired and independent t-tests.Results: Cross-sectional area of longus coli muscle in patients with chronic neck pain in resting position and during contraction was 107.6±38.2 and 89.4±32.03 (p<0.0001) and in healthy subjects was 89.31±32.97 and 75.94±29.43 (p<0.0001) respectively. There was no significant difference between two groups regarding study variables in both resting position and contraction (p>0.05).Conclusion: The results showed that cross-sectional area and lateral diameter of longus coli muscle in both patients and healthy subjects and anterio-posterior diameter only in healthy subjects during contraction are lower than resting position. However, anterio-posterior diameter of longus coli in patient with chronic neck pain during contraction was similar to resting position.

Background and Objective: Dental caries is one of the most important diseases in all societies. Saliva and its pH plays an important role to keep mouth wet and control factors influencing dental caries. Furthermore, chemical control of microbial plaque by mouth washes is accepted as an adjunctive treatment option besides the standard treatment procedures. The aim of this study was to compare the effect of mouth wash consumption Irsha and Persica on salivary pH.Materials and Methods: In this experimental cross-over study, 38 patients with a mean age of 27 years who meet the study criteria were selected from students and patients referred to Shahed Dental School. The unstimulated salivary pH was calculated prior to mouth wash consumption. The patients used Irsha mouth wash according to manufacturer's directions and their salivary pH was calculated after 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes. After 72 hours wash out period, they were recalled for Persica mouth wash usage while their salivary pH was assessed similarly as done for the Irsha mouth wash. Then, t test, paired t test and ANOVA test for repeated measurements were used for data analysis.Results: The study showed the mean salivary pH was not statistically significant prior to mouth wash consumption (a mean value of 7.180 before Irsha and 7.16 before Persica consumption). The mean value of salivary pH were 7.255, 7.245, 7.184 and 7.230 after 5, 10, 20 and 30 minutes respectively when patients received Irsha mouth wash; these values were 7.406, 7.475, 7.421 and 7.347 when patients used Persica mouth wash and exhibit statistically significant differences at all time sequences (p<0.004, p<0.0001, p<0.001 and p<0.006). The mean salivary pH changes was statistically significant during times studied when patients used Persica mouth wash while these changes was not statistically significant after the use of Irsha; although no significant difference was found between baseline and 30 minutes time sequence after the Persica usage.Conclusion: Based on the results of this study, it seems that Persica mouth wash usage is accompanied with higher values of salivary pH than Irsha mouth wash in different time consequences studied.