Studies in Medical Sciences
Year:2016 | Volume:27 | Issue:4|Papers Count:12

Background & Aims: Cancer is one of the most causes of mortality worldwide. Products derived from natural plants that induce apoptosis are used for cancer treatment. Therefore investigation of different herbal components for new anti-cancer drug is one of the main research activities throughout the world.This study is the first to investigate the cytotoxic and apoptotic effect of Anacyclus pyrethrum plants extract in KB cancer cell lines.Materials & Methods: Cytotoxic effects of Anacyclus pyrethrum plant extract was measured using MTT assays. To show induction of apoptosis by this plant TUNNEL assay and DNA Fragmentation were performed.Results: In the present study, Anacyclus pyrethrum extract noticeably killed cancer cells. TUNNEL test and DNA Fragmentation assay showed apoptotic characteristic in Anacyclus pyrethrum extract treated cells.Conclusion: Our studies revealed that ethanol extracts of Anacyclus pyrethrum is effective in apoptosis inducing in KB cancer cells which may be beneficial in cancer therapy.

Background & Aims: Oxidative stress has a prominent role on function of injured peripheral nervous system. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effects of n-acetyl cysteine on functional, biochemical factors and ultrastructural changes induced by experimental crush on sciatic nerve in the rat.Materials & Methods: Sixty rats were divided into 5 groups, which contained 12 animals each. Left sciatic nerve was crushed using hemostatic forceps for 60 seconds. Animals received n-acetyl cysteine at doses of 10 and 40 mg/kg intraperitoneally for 15 consecutive days. Functional recovery of sciatic nerve was assessed using Sciatic Functional Index (SFI). Malondialdehyde (MDA) level and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity of sciatic nerve tissue were measured. Ultra-thin histopathological slides were prepared for electromicroscopical evaluation.Results: N-acetyl cysteine significantly accelerated recovery of SFI values (p<0.05). It also significantly improved MDA level and SOD activity of sciatic nerve tissue (p<0.05). Thinning, invagination and bleb formation of myelin sheath accompanied by vacuolation of axoplasm, which were observed in crushed sciatic nerve, were recovered in n-acetyl cysteine treated animals.Conclusion: Results of the current study revealed that n-acetyl cysteine accelerated the recovery of crushed sciatic nerve. This ability of n-acetyl cysteine may be due to its antioxidant property. Besides, n-acetyl cysteine exerts its neuroprotective effect by decreasing the alterations of myelin sheath as well as axoplasm.

Background & Aims: Non Alcoholic Fatty liver disease, "hepatic manifestation of metabolic syndrome", is the most common chronic liver disease in Western world with a prevalence of 20 to 30 percent. This study investigate the effects of Ramadan diet on fatty liver, metabolic indices and body mass index in obese women with metabolic syndrome associated hepatic steatosis.Materials & Methods: This cross-sectional study was done on 250 overweight and obese women referred to the maternal and childhood obesity research center of Urmia University of Medical Sciences.After obtaining written consent, physical examination, abdominal ultrasound and metabolic syndrome related laboratory tests were done and compared before and after Ramadan fasting. Data analysis was done using paired t-test and Pearson correlation coefficient.Results: From 250 ladies 37 women with fatty liver disease associated with metabolic syndrome who were fasting during Ramadan were studied. Changes in severity of fatty liver in these women was not significant after Ramadan. Mean cholesterol and LDL levels after Ramadan showed significant reduction. The mean HDL- cholesterol, waist-to-hip ratio and insulin significantly increased. Changes in weight, body mass index, waist circumference, hip circumference and mean triglycerides and fasting blood sugar in these people were not significant.Conclusion: Ramadan diet lowers serum cholesterol and LDL and increase HDL has been shown that the positive effects of Ramadan fasting on metabolic syndrome.

Background and Aims: Parkinson Disease (PD) as a second neurodegenerative disease has grown in developed and industrial countries due to high life span, and in Iran it is considered an important neurodegenerative disease either. The drug therapy of PD must be paralleled with other treatments because the age of PD occurrence has decreased in recent decades and disturbed active population life styles. The essential approach to PD is pharmacotherapy but alternative treatments were grown recently for alleviating the PD symptoms. The exercise is considered for PD muscular symptoms but the mechanism and effective exercise is not well known. This study was designed to assess the muscle strength in the PD animal model.Material & Methods: The study was conducted on 54 Wistar healthy male rats that were divided into 9 groups with substituable equal number as follows: naïve control, sham-operated, sham-endurance, sham-resistive, sham-combined, PD-control, PD- endurance, PD-resistive, PD-combined. Naïve, PD control and sham-operated had no training but other groups trained with motorized-treadmill and standard ladder for endurance, resistance and combined training. The muscle strength was assessed before and after training by weight lifting test and after the same duration in the untrained groups. PD was induced by intra Substantia Nigra application of 6-hydroxy dopamine.Results: Data analysis showed that the naïve control and sham-operated groups had no changes in the muscle strength but in the trained sham groups the muscle strength increased significantly from 17 to 55% according to training. Although PD-control group had showed lower muscle strength nonsignificantly, the muscle strength increased up to 32% of PD-control with equal increase.Conclusion: The different training can improve the muscular rehabilitation and neuronal recovery in the animal model of the PD. Although there are some differences in the efficacy of training types in the human cases, it seems that these have non-significant effects in the animals.

Background & Aims: Child Abuse (CA) is a multi-dimensional damage which is emerged and intensified by several elements. CA brings about physical, mental, and social aftermaths for the children and exposes them to several dangers. This study aimed to investigate the correlation between Substance Abuse and CA in Tehran.Materials & Methods: This study was conducted through a survey, and systematic random sampling method was used. The statistical population of this study was Child Abuse in Tehran in 2014-15. The sample population of this study was 273 individuals which were selected using Cochran Sampling Formula among the Child Abuse. The questionnaires were also analyzed after investigating validity and reliability of the questions.Results: The findings of this research showed that girls and boys are abused equally. Moreover, as the age of the children increases, the possibility of being abused increases too. The most common insult was physical and physical-mental abuse. Most of the children have experienced a combination of physical, mental, and sexual abuse and neglect. Also, findings of this study showed that addiction of the parents was the main element of CA (43% of cases); and there was a significant relationship between parental Substance Abuse and CA. Dependency to methamphetamine was the most common addiction compared to other drugs (83%).Conclusion: Considering these results, the necessity of multi-dimensional planning in individual, family, and social levels and in three preventive phases of first, second and third is needed for effective prevention and appropriate intervening on CA.

Background & Aims: Previous studies have confirmed the sidelong effects of Doxorubicin (DOX) on healthy tissues, but pretreatment effect of regular Aerobic exercise in restrain of hepatotoxicity induced by various dosages of doxorubicin is not clear. The aim of this study was to determine the pretreatment effect of six weeks aerobic exercise on stress markers level and liver injury, including heat shock protein (HSP72), Catalase (CAT), Alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and Aspartate transaminase (AST) in male Wistar rats.Materials & Methods: Forty-eight Wistar male rats were randomly assigned to control and training groups with three subgroups: DOX10mg/kg, DOX20mg/kg and saline. The training protocol included treadmill running progressively between 25 to 54 min/day and 15 to 20m/min, 5 days/week for six weeks. DOX and saline injection was performed 24 h after the last exercise session, and tissue collection was done 24 h after the injections.Results: Administration of DOX20mg/kg caused a significant increase in markers related to hepatic protection (HSP72, CAT) and hepatic injury (ALT, AST) as compared to saline group. Six weeks training before DOX 20mg/kg and DOX 10mg/kg administration led to insignificant increase in HSP72, ALT, AST and a significant increase in CAT as compared to control group. In addition, there was no significant difference between DOX20mg/kg and DOX 10mg/kg, just in HSP72.Conclusion: It can be concluded that pretreatment with sub-chronic aerobic exercise, probably by upregulation the antioxidant system, reduces hepatic damage and can be an effective strategy against DOXinduced hepatotoxicity.

Background & Aims: The aim of this study was to evaluate and compare the antioxidant activity and the collecting rate of free radicals in the environment of in vitro, by utilizing the methanol’s extracts from different parts of the plants such as Plantago major, Trifolium subterraneum, Boswellia thurifera, Juglans regia (walnut).Materials & Methods: Antioxidant and antiradical activities were determined using reducing power, ferric-reducing antioxidant potential (FRAP) ability to scavenge DPPH radical assays and ABTS methods. Moreover, the phenol and flavonoid contents were determined using UV/Vis spectrophotometric methods.Results: The results showed that the rate of IC50 in the inhibition of (DPPH) stable radical for the extracts of walnuts inner shell was 2.93. The assessment of ABTS and FRAP also showed that the extracts of walnuts inner shells, green shells cover of walnut and plantago in compared with the other extracts were more active and showed the higher level of antioxidant activity. The results of total phenol and flavonoid contents also showed that the extract of plantago contains the highest level of flavonoid, and also all of extracts excluding Boswellia contain the highest level of phenolic compounds. On the other hand, Trifolium despite of the high levels of phenolic compounds showed the lower level of the antioxidant activity.Conclusion: Results showed a significant relationship between the phenol content and the antioxidant activity of the extracts. Also the phenolic compounds with different structure have shown various antioxidant activities. Therefore the antioxidant activity of the plant’s extracts could not be explained just on the basis of their phenolic content but also required other characterization. Consequently, there is not a conclusive and direct relationship between the antioxidant activity and the phenol and flavonoid contents.

Background & Aims: Musculoskeletal Disorder is one of the most prevalent damages of dentists that is due to being in a unsuitable long time gesture and doing the same movement. Therefore, detection of risk factors that can cause disorder and pain seems necessary. The aim of this study was to evaluate the frequency and risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders in specialists in Babol Dentistry Faculty.Materials & Methods: In this descriptive cross sectional study, 64 professors of Babol dental faculty fill the Nordic questionnaire related to the frequency and risk factors of musculoskeletal disorders in year 2014 and then the data were analyzed with SPSS (18) and statistically analyzes using T-test and chisqure.Results: Specialist dentists consisted of 29 male and 35 females. The mean of their ages was (38.16+_ 7.43). And 39 (61.9%) people had pain in vertebral column and 24 ones (38.1%) were painless. The most pain was in the neck and then the waist. And 97.4% of dentists who had vertebral column pain have worked while sitting. The mean working of people who had pain was more than painless people (p=0.04). There wasn’t any significant relation between age, gender, BMI and vertebral column pain (P=0.5). The most amount of pain was in prosthodontics and the least was in periodontist.Conclusion: Due to almost high frequency of vertebral column pain in specialist dentists, the necessity of gesture correction in their work and education becomes of significance importance. In this study the least risk factors of musculoskeletal disorder was the average time of their work.

Background & Aims: Emotional and cognitive problems are common and annoying problems among patients with epilepsy. This study was carried out with the purpose of examining the cognitive profile and emotional distress of two groups of patients, one with the general and the other with the focal epilepsy.Materials & Methods: The method used in this study is descriptive, the causal-comparative kind. The statistical population included all the patients, with epilepsy, who referred to neurology specialists' offices in Ardabil city from April to September, 2015. The sample group consisted of 60 patients (30 focal epilepsy cases and 30 general epilepsy cases) across the age range of 13 to 20 years, which was selected as the sample in access. To study the cognitive profile, subjects under study were asked to answer Andre Ray’s test for visual memory assessment, and to examine immediate and delayed auditory memory subscales, they were asked to answer the Wechsler Memory Scale. Also, in order to examine the patients’ emotional distress, they were asked to answer Lewinda’s depression, anxiety and stress scale. Research data were analyzed by the use of descriptive statistics and multivariate analysis (MANOVA).Results: The results showed that patients with focal epilepsy, compared with the general epilepsy patients, show poorer performance in cognitive abilities related to auditory and visual memory. Also, patients with focal epilepsy display higher emotional distress than patients with general epilepsy.Conclusion: The results of this study prove that cognitive profile and emotional distress vary among the two groups of patients one with general and the other with focal epilepsy.

Background & Aims: Acute phase proteins are synthesized mainly by the liver and macrophages in an inflammatory conditions as a result of some trauma and malignancies. Increased levels of these proteins have been reported in many cancer tumors and multiple myeloma as an important indicator of prognosis of malignancies. Because of importance of this issue, we investigate the serum level of alpha- 1antitrypsin in multiple myeloma stage I.Materials & Methods: The serum level of alpha-1antitrypsin was measured 30 in patients with multiple myeloma stage I and 30 persons as a control group. Patients aged 69 years. Measuring alpha-1 antitrypsin by using Capillary zone electrophoresis and high resolution (HR) and total protein by biuret method. The data were analyzed by SPSS program.Results: The values obtained from results of the test and statistical calculations in two groups of patients and control showed that serum alpha-1 antitrypsin level in multiple myeloma stage I (0.37±0.21) compared to the control group (0.82 ± 0.16) was decreased. The reduction was significant. (P=0.0001) Conclusion: The results of this study indicate the reduction of serum alpha-1 antitrypsin in stage I patients compared to control group, which is inconsistent with previous studies in this field. These proteins may considered as specific prognostic and diagnostic factors in multiple myeloma stage I.However, further studies are needed to asses’ accurate results.