Best herbs for managing diabetes: a review of clinical studies

Diabetes mellitus é um problema de saúde pública que leva a complicações graves ao longo do tempo. Experimentalmente, muitas ervas têm sido recomendadas para o tratamento da diabetes. Contudo, na maior parte dos casos as recomendações são baseadas em estudos em animais e existem evidências limitadas sobre a sua utilidade clínica. Esta revisão tem como foco as ervas nas quais as ações hipooglicêmicas são apoiadas por três ou mais estudos clínicos. Realizou-se pesquisa no Google Scholar, Medline e Science Direct utilizando palavras-chave diabete, plantas, ervas, glicose e pacientes. Segundo os estudos clínicos, Aegle marmelos, Allium cepa, Gymnema sylvestre, Momordica charantia, Ocimum sanctum, Nigella sativa, Ocimum sanctum, Panax quinquefolius, Salacia reticulate, Silybum marianum e Trigonella foenum-graecum mostraram atividade hipoglicêmica e, em alguns casos, hipolipidêmica em pacientes diabéticos. Entre elas, Gymnema sylvestre, Momordica charantia, Silybum marianum e Trigonella foenum-graecum apresentam grande reputação no manejamento da diabetes. Portanto, parece que os médicos podem confiar nessas ervas e aconselhar aos pacientes para que melhorem o tratamento da diabetes.Diabetes mellitus is a public health problem which leads to serious complications over time. Experimentally, many herbs have been recommended for treating diabetes. In most cases, however, the recommendations are based on animal studies and limited pieces of evidence exist about their clinical usefulness. This review focused on the herbs, the hypoglycemic actions of which have been supported by three or more clinical studies. The search was done in Google Scholar, Medline and Science Direct databases using the key terms diabetes, plants, herbs, glucose and patients. According to the clinical studies, Aegle marmelos, Allium cepa, Gymnema sylvestre, Momordica charantia, Ocimum sanctum, Nigella sativa, Ocimum sanctum, Panax quinquefolius, Salacia reticulate, Silybum marianum and Trigonella foenum-graecum have shown hypoglycemic and, in some cases, hypolipidemic activities in diabetic patients. Among them, Gymnema sylvestre, Momordica charantia, Silybum marianum and Trigonella foenum-graecum have acquired enough reputation for managing diabetes. Thus, it seems that physicians can rely on these herbs and advise for the patients to improve management of diabetes

Pancreatic beta cell protection/regeneration with phytotherapy

Although currently available drugs are useful in controlling early onset complications of diabetes, serious late onset complications appear in a large number of patients. Considering the physiopathology of diabetes, preventing beta cell degeneration and stimulating the endogenous regeneration of islets will be essential approaches for the treatment of insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. The current review focused on phytochemicals, the antidiabetic effect of which has been proved by pancreatic beta cell protection/regeneration. Among the hundreds of plants that have been investigated for diabetes, a small fraction has shown the regenerative property and was described in this paper. Processes of pancreatic beta cell degeneration and regeneration were described. Also, the proposed mechanisms for the protective/regenerative effects of such phytochemicals and their potential side effects were discussed.Embora medicamentos disponíveis atualmente sejam úteis no controle de complicações da Diabetes, complicações aparecem em grande número de pacientes. Considerando-se a fisiopatologia do Diabetes, a prevenção da degeneração de células beta e o estímulo da regeneração endógena de ilhotas será abordagem essencial para o tratamento de diabetes mellitus insulino-dependente. A presente revisão aborda compostos fitoquímicos, cujo efeito é provado na proteção/regeneração de células beta de pâncreas. Entre centenas de plantas que têm sido investigadas para o diabetes, pequena fração tem mostrado propriedade regenerativa, que será descrita neste trabalho. Os processos de degeneração e de regeneração das células beta do pâncrease são descritos. Além disso, mecanismos propostos para efeitos de proteção e regeneração desses compostos fitoquímicos e seus possíveis efeitos colaterais também serão discutidos neste trabalho

Simulation of flood risk area in Kelantan watershed, Malaysia using numerical model

Flood events have recently increased and caused extensive damages to the agricultural area and infrastructures, despite enormous efforts to decrease this hazard. Modeling of runoff can be a suitable approach to determine the effective factors in flooding, and to explore reasonable solution and thus to be able reduce hazard on watersheds. The current work attempted to derive basin and sub-basins, stream network, aspect, slop and all relevant physiographic parameters of Kelantan watershed in order to estimate depth of runoff using DEM data , satellite images and field study. In addition, the maximum rainfall intensity of all the meteorological stations were extracted and the interpolation of the values obtained, led to derive a contour map as rainfall intensity for the watershed. Soil Conservation Service (SCS) model was employed to calculate the surface flows, and to derive the flood hydrograph for all the sub-basins at the return periods of 5,10,25,50,100, considering to the Curve Number (CN) is a function of land use, soil, and primary moisture content. HEC-HMs model was calibrated for the study area using observed storm rainfall and recorded floods at the number of hydrometric stations. A good agreement was obtained between simulated and observed data with a correlation of 82%. Calibrated model was used to simulate depth of runoff in different return period that led to derive flood risk maps for Kelantan watershed. Results obtained revealed that flooding could be moderated and managed within a number of the sub - basins through implementing a technical scheme, depending on characteristic of the sub- basin, and its effect on the flood peak

Effects of Social Media on People’s Tendency Toward Aesthetic Dental Treatments

Objectives This study aimed to investigate the impact of social media on people’s tendency toward aesthetic dental treatments in Iran. Methods This cross-sectional study was performed on 410 individuals, including dentists or dental students and laypeople, who were selected via convenience sampling. A questionnaire, consisting of sociodemographic characteristics, frequency of social media use, tendency toward aesthetic dental treatments, and factors affecting people’s decisions, was completed for data collection. This online questionnaire was created using the Porsline© website and posted on social media. The collected data were analyzed in SPSS version 21, using Chi-square test. A P-value less than 0.05 was considered statistically significant. Results Of 410 participants, 157 (38.3%) were dentists or dental students. Only 38.2% of the participants in the dentist group were willing to receive aesthetic dental treatments, whereas laypeople were significantly more inclined to receive such treatments (69.2%) (P<0.001). Almost half of people who used social media platforms several times a day and also 71.8% of people who used social media once a day or less showed tendency toward aesthetic dental treatments (P=0.01). Conclusion Based on the results, the time spent on social media was not significantly associated with people's tendency to receive aesthetic dental treatments. Also, dentists were less interested in such treatments for themselves

The effect of pipe collectors in reducing the drainage coefficient rate

A high groundwater table and soil salinity, especially in arid regions, often cause serious problems for agriculture. In irrigated areas the subsurface drainage can be an effective technique to lower the depth of the groundwater table and reduce soil salinity. In drainage systems, lateral pipes are designed to collect the free water from soil and convey it into collectors. In other words, collectors are commonly designed to convey drainage water from laterals downstream, while the laterals play an additional role in removing excess water from irrigated land. The present research was conducted to investigate the effects of collectors in discharging excess water from soil using a laboratory-tank model. The results indicated that on average 24% of drainage water was directly discharged through the collector pipe when the hydraulic gradient of the flow was sloped toward the collector pipe. Hence, it was concluded that, with proper monitoring, collectors were capable of reducing the drainage coefficient from an average of 32.5 to 24.5 mm/day, while drain spacing of the laterals can increase the results by about 15% in comparison with the present situation

In Vitro Cytotoxicity of a New Nano Root Canal Sealer on Human Gingival Fibroblasts

Introduction: The aim of this in vitro study was to evaluate the cytotoxicity of a new nano zinc-oxide eugenol (NZOE) sealer on human gingival fibroblasts (HGFs) compared with Pulpdent (micro-sized ZOE sealer) and AH-26 (resin-based sealer). Methods and Materials: The Pulpdent, AH-26, and NZOE sealers were prepared and exposed to cell culture media immediately after setting, and 24 h and one week after setting. Then, the primary cultured HGFs were incubated for 24 h with different dilutions (1:1 to 1:32) of each sealer extract. Cell viability was evaluated by methyl thiazolyl diphenyl tetrazolium bromide (MTT) assay. The results were compared using two-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s post hoc test. The level of significance was set at 0.05. Results: All sealer extracts, up to 32 times dilutions, showed cytotoxicity when exposed to HGF immediately after setting. The extracts obtained 24 h or one week after setting showed lower cytotoxicity than extracts obtained immediately after setting. At all setting times, NZOE showed lower cytotoxicity than Pulpdent and AH-26. While one-week extracts of NZOE had no significant effect on the viability of HGF at dilutions 1:4 to 1:32, both Pulpdent and AH-26 decreased the cell viability at dilutions of 1:4 and 1:8. Conclusion: NZOE exhibited lower cytotoxicity compared to Pulpdent and AH-26 on HGF and has the potential to be considered as a new root canal filling material.Keywords: Cytotoxicity; Human Gingival Fibroblast; MTT assay; Nano; Seale

A social work study on relationship between transactional and laissez-fair leadership style and personality traits: A case study of educational system

Leadership style plays an essential role on personality trait in educational systems. In this paper, we present a study among 180 school principals in city of Khomeinishahr, located in province of Esfahan, Iran. The study selects a sample of 123 principals and examines ten hypotheses including the effects of personality trait neuroticism, extroversion, resilience, participative, conscientiousness on leadership style. The study examined the effects of two groups of leadership, namely transactional leadership and Laissez-fair leadership styles on five personality traits. The results have shown that there were some meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait extraversion, resilience, participative and consciousness but there was not meaningful relationship between transactional leadership and personality trait neuroticism. In addition, while there were meaningful and positive relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait extraversion as well as being resilience, our survey did not find any meaningful relationship between Laissez-fair leadership style and personality trait neuroticism, extraversion and being consciousness

Solving 2-D gravity inversion problems using a PDE model in geophysics exploration

Inverse modeling is one of the useful solutions to create a logical model with relationships between observed and measured values. In geophysical and subsurface investigations such as cavities or mineral explorations, solving inverse problems using problem physics in a partial differential equation (PDE) system is very important. In this research, COMSOL multiphysics’ optimization interface, combined with a PDE or physics interface, was used to solve inverse-modeling problems. Also, a framework is presented to solve undetermined inverse problems using COMSOL multiphysics’ optimization. COMSOL multiphysics does not include a gravity calculation module. However, since Poisson’s equation governs gravity and electrostatics, a gravity model can be created in the electrostatics module by changing the electrical permittivity value. We present a general adjoint state formulation that may be used in this framework and allows for faster calculation of sensitivity matrices in a variety of commonly encountered underdetermined problems. First of all, 2D inversion of gravity data has been run and validated in COMSOL multiphysics software using one synthetic model and synthetic data in a forward modeling process. Afterward, using real gravity data surveyed along a cross-section of the sinkholes in the NW of Abarkuh, the lateral structure and subsurface cavities were estimated. The inverted gravitational acceleration values, then cross-correlated with observed gravity data and available surface pieces of evidence such as sinkholes and circular structures. The results indicated that our COMSOL-based routines for the solution of PDE-based inverse problems using adjoint states, while high in computational speed, can be used in modeling a wide range of physical systems governed by the partial differential equation laws and also can accurately discriminate between low-density contrast regions and background

Comparison of Standard and Percutaneous Tracheostomy Complications in Shariati Hospital in Iran

Background: Tracheostomy is a procedure which aims at better managing patients’ airway. It can be done using two methods: standard and percutaneous. The percutaneous method is a favorable choice for critically illpatients because it is a less invasive procedure. This study compares the short-term complications of these two methods (during 7 days after the procedure).Methods: This study was a cross-sectional research performed on 50 ICU patients in need of tracheostomy.The patients were divided into two groups of percutaneous procedure (15 patients) and standard procedure(35 patients). The complications were registered in questionnaires and the data were analyzed using SPSS software (χ² test and t-test).Results: The two groups had no significant difference in age, sex, and vital signs. Average duration of the procedure was 24.4 minutes in the standard procedure (10-45 minutes) and 26.78 minutes (5-70 minutes) in the percutaneous procedure, and there was no significant difference between two groups (P = 0.814). Average bleeding during 7 days after the procedure was 44 cc (10-150 cc) in standard procedure and 24.7 cc (10-50 cc) in the percutaneous procedure, and the difference was significant (P = 0.012). The other variables were not significantly different in two groups.Conclusions: There was no difference in short-term complications between percutaneous and standard tracheostomy method should be selected considering other important factors