Presence of depressive symptoms in patients with a first episode of acute Coronary Syndrome

AIM: to compare possible differences regarding the presence of depressive symptoms according to the clinical diagnosis of Acute Coronary Syndrome, gender and age, one week before the first cardiac event. METHOD: cross-sectional, descriptive and exploratory study, which used the Beck Depression Inventory. The sample consisted of 253 patients. RESULTS: it was found that patients with a clinical diagnosis of unstable angina, female and under 60 years of age reported the presence of depressive symptoms more frequently. CONCLUSION: a high percentage of patients presented depressive symptoms at the time of hospitalization for the first episode of Acute Coronary Syndrome, and this prevalence was significantly higher among women, under 60 years of age, with unstable angina. These results should provide support for the care in the hospitalization, discharge and planning of the rehabilitation of these patients, as it is known that depression impairs the control of coronary disease

Thickness and nanomechanical properties of protective layer formed by TiF4 varnish on enamel after erosion

Abstract The layer formed by fluoride compounds on tooth surface is important to protect the underlying enamel from erosion. However, there is no investigation into the properties of protective layer formed by NaF and TiF4 varnishes on eroded enamel. This study aimed to evaluate the thickness, topography, nanohardness, and elastic modulus of the protective layer formed by NaF and TiF4 varnishes on enamel after erosion using nanoindentation and atomic force microscopy (AFM). Human enamel specimens were sorted into control, NaF, and TiF4 varnish groups (n = 10). The initial nanohardness and elastic modulus values were obtained and varnishes were applied to the enamel and submitted to erosive challenge (10 cycles: 5 s cola drink/5 s artificial saliva). Thereafter, nanohardness and elastic modulus were measured. Both topography and thickness were evaluated by AFM. The data were subjected to ANOVA, Tukey’s test and Student’s t test (α = 0.05). After erosion, TiF4 showed a thicker protective layer compared to the NaF group and nanohardness and elastic modulus values were significantly lower than those of the control group. It was not possible to measure nanohardness and elastic modulus in the NaF group due to the thin protective layer formed. AFM showed globular deposits, which completely covered the eroded surface in the TiF4 group. After erosive challenge, the protective layer formed by TiF4 varnish showed significant properties and it was thicker than the layer formed by NaF varnish

Disease: A Hitherto Unexplored Constraint on the Spread of Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) in Pre-Columbian South America

Although debate continues, there is agreement that dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were first domesticated in Eurasia, spreading from there to other parts of the world. However, while that expansion already extended as far as Europe, China, and North America by the early Holocene, dogs spread into (and south of) the tropics only much later. In South America, for example, the earliest well attested instances of their presence do not reach back much beyond 3000 cal. BC, and dogs were still absent from large parts of the continent – Amazonia, the Gran Chaco, and much of the Southern Cone – at European contact. Previous explanations for these patterns have focused on cultural choice, the unsuitability of dogs for hunting certain kinds of tropical forest prey, and otherwise unspecified environmental hazards, while acknowledging that Neotropical lowland forests witness high rates of canine mortality. Building on previous work in Sub-Saharan Africa (Mitchell 2015) and noting that the dog’s closest relatives, the grey wolf (C. lupus) and the coyote (C. latrans), were likewise absent from South and most of Central America in Pre- Columbian times, this paper explores instead the possibility that infectious disease constrained the spread of dogs into Neotropical environments. Four diseases are considered, all likely to be native and/or endemic to South America: canine distemper, canine trypanosomiasis, canine rangeliosis, and canine visceral leishmaniasis caused by infection with Leishmania amazonensis and L. colombiensis. The paper concludes by suggesting ways in which the hypothesis that disease constrained the expansion of dogs into South America can be developed further