Association between zinc deficiency and obesity among a sample of adult in Al-Najaf city, Iraq

Background: Obesity has become a major health problem, defined as an abnormal or excessive accumulation of fat in adipose tissue and is diagnosed with a BMI ≥30 kg/m2. The study aimed to find the correlation between zinc deficiency and obesity, also, to study the association between obesity and different socio-demographic factors. Material and Methods: A case-control study was conducted to achieve the aims of the study that has been conducted from the beginning of December 2021 until June 2022. The size of the sample comprises 140 participants who were equally divided into two groups, obese group (body mass index (BMI) ≥ 30 kg/m2) and the control group, (BMI18.5 - 24.9 kg/m2). All participants were taken randomly from adult peoples ages ranged between (18-65) years in Al-Najaf Governorate. Results: The association between serum zinc and obesity was significant (p-value = 0.041, O. ratio (95%CI) = 2.01(1.02-3.97)). The correlation between serum zinc level with both BMI and waist hip ratio (WHR) was negatively correlation (r = -0.241, r = -0.033, respectively). The association between obesity and socio-demographics characteristics was only significant with gender and marital status (P-value =0.002, 0.016, respectively), while the other characteristics were not significant (p-value = >0.05)

Evaluation of the knowledge toward communicable diseases prevention among health workers at In Al-Sadr Medical City in Najaf Governorate\ Iraq

Communicable diseases represent a severe burden on human life, so control and prevention are essential to maintaining the sustainability of life. Health workers are the first line of defense against these diseases. Poor knowledge and wrong attitudes of health workers can negatively affect efforts to combat infection.The study aims to evaluate the knowledge levels among health workers toward communicable diseases. Also, determine the relationship between dependent and independent variables with participants' levels of knowledge. A cross-sectional analytical study in Al-Sadr Medical City, Najaf Governorate, from mid-November 2021 to the end of June 2022. On 384 health workers who were using a randomly collected self-questionnaire, the data was collected and analyzed using a statistical program. The main results indicate that (66.1%) of the participants are females, the majority of the age group (20-26) years, half of them are married and hold a bachelor's degree, (66.4%) have less than five years of experience, and (35.9%) receive a training course, In terms of profession, (27.3)% were nurses. The results show that (57.2%) had good overall knowledge. it was found that there is a significant relationship between knowledge and training sessions, as for other socio-demographic characteristics, there is no significant association with both knowledge.&nbsp