Autism and Probable Prerequisites: Severe and Scheduled Prenatal Stresses at Spotligh

Background: Due to the importance of prenatal maternal stress as environmental factor on autism, the influ-ence of prenatal maternal psychological agitations was assessed in relation with the risk of autism. Methods: In this case-control study, some mothers of autistic children in Isfahan, central Iran, in 2014, were retrospectively compared with control mothers in terms of quantity, quality, andschedule of exposure to 45 stressful events in a 15-month period. In addition, dividing the stressors into two groups of genome-dependent/independent events, their prevalence was separately scrutinized and compared among patient and control families. Results: Although the child’s risk of autism increases significantly with the increase of maternal stress during months 4-7 of pregnancy, the increased stress during months 2-3 of pregnancy can lead to a significant increase in the severity of autism affliction as well as a slight but significant increase in the possibility of LFA in afflicted children (P<0.05). The overall prevalence of genome-dependent stressful events among two patient and control groups was significantly higher than that of genome-independent events (P=0.000), but genome-dependent events led to more stress inpatient families. Conclusion: Although the present study consistent with recent findings in the fields of epigenetics and gene-environment interactions can confirm the role of severe and scheduled prenatal stresses in causing autism, it does not deny the necessity of a perspective and wider study in Isfahan and Iran

How does external reference pricing work in developing countries: evidence from Iran

Introduction: Governments apply different pricing policies to ensure public accessibility, availability, and affordability of medicines. In this way, external reference pricing (ERP) because of its easy implementation is used widely across countries. However, ERP is completely path dependent, and it would both bring pros and cons, related to its implementing strategy which makes understanding of its impact in different countries challenging. In this study, we examine the performance of the ERP approach in Iran as a pricing tool.Method: We conducted a cross-sectional descriptive study. Although Iran officially uses a reference country basket for ERP, in this study, we use different reference countries based on socioeconomic comparability, access to their price data, medicine pricing approaches, and pharmaceutical expenditure to examine the effect of reference countries as well as the method performance. Then, an empirical study was applied to a list of selected samples of medicines in the Iranian market to compare their price with our new reference countries. Then, we discuss the performance of ERP process based on the real prices in the Iranian pharmaceutical market.Result: The prices of 57 medicines, which contain about 69.2% of the imported Iran pharma market in value, were compared with their prices in selected reference countries. It was found that 49.1% of prices were more expensive in at least one of the reference countries, and in 21% of products, the average price in Iran was higher than the average price in reference countries.Conclusion: Achieving efficient and fair pricing of pharmaceuticals between and within countries is still a complex conceptual and policy problem that ERP in short term can handle. ERP cannot be considered a perfect tool for pricing alone, although its effectiveness is acceptable. It is expected that using other pricing methods alongside the ERP will improve patients’ access to medicines. In Iran, we use value base pricing as the main pricing method for every new molecule. Then, we use other methods such as ERP as a complementary method

Blind separation of bilinear mixtures using mutual information minimization

International audienceIn this paper an approach for blind source separation in bilinear (or linear quadratic) mixtures is presented. The proposed algorithm employs the same recurrent structure as [Hosseini and Deville, 2003] for separating these mixtures. However, instead of maximal likelihood, our algorithm is based on minimizing the mutual information of the outputs for recovering the independent components. Simulation results show the efficiency of the proposed algorithm

Pyostomatitis Vegetant: An Important Diagnostic in Oral Diseases (Two Case Reports)

Background and Objectives: Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a term that refers to crohn's disease (CD) and ulcerative colitis (UC). Oral manifestations in this disease category precedes the onset of gastrointestinal symptoms. In many patients, intestinal symptoms may be minimal or remain undiagnosed. In this paper, two cases of Pyostomatitis vegetans have been investigated.   Case Report: The first case was a 29 year old man who was referred with complaints of diffuse oral lesions. According to the clinical diagnosis and oral lesions of the patient, he was referred to a gastroenterologist with possible diagnosis of ulcerative colitis. The second case was a 28 year old woman with painful gingival lesions who stated that she has been diagnosed with ulcerative colitis since three years ago and has not received appropriate treatment

Changes of overweight and obesity prevalence among school children in North West of Iran after 3 years follow-up (2009-2011): A longitudinal study

Background: Obesity and overweight among children is a major public health problem in developed and developing countries and has important health and economic implications. This longitudinal study aimed to assessing the prevalence trend of overweight and obesity in West Azerbaijan in North West of Iran. Methods: This study was a longitudinal follow-up study and was conducted in school children at 2009-2011 year. The subjects were all school children (12 years of age) that were recruited from rural and urban schools in West Azerbaijan. Overall, 22,820 girls and 28,763 boys were enrolled in 2009 and were followed for 3 years. A body mass index (BMI) 85 th -95 th percentile was classified as overweight and a BMI >95 th percentile was classified as obese. All statistical analyses were performed using the Excel Software. Descriptive statistics were used to characterize the sample in different time periods. The prevalence was calculated as the ratio of number of present cases to a given population number in a given subgroup at a given time. Results: In urban schools, the prevalence of overweight among girls and boys was 118.26 and 103.9 per 1000 persons in 2009 year, respectively, and this trend was increased in both girls (152.90 per 1000 persons) and boys (125.72 per 1000 persons) in 2011. The obesity trend was increased among both girls and boys (22.26 and 26.52 among girls and boys in 2009 to 24.66 and 28.65 per 1000 persons in 2011), respectively. In rural schools, the prevalence of overweight among girls was increased from 84.5 in 2009 to 108.89 per 1000 persons in 2011, but this trend was decreased among boys (from 95.49 in 2009 to 43.9 per 1000 persons in 2011), and the prevalence of obesity among boys was increased at the end of follow-up, but this trend was decreased among girls. Conclusions: Overweight and obesity in children has increased. Further studies are necessary to evaluate the relationship between obesity and overweight and risk factors such as dietary pattern and physical inactivity

Autism and Probable Prerequisites: Severe and Scheduled Prenatal Stresses at Spotlight

Abstract Background: Due to the importance of prenatal maternal stress as environmental factor on autism, the influence of prenatal maternal psychological agitations was assessed in relation with the risk of autism. Methods: In this case-control study, some mothers of autistic children in Isfahan, central Iran, in 2014, were retrospectively compared with control mothers in terms of quantity, quality, andschedule of exposure to 45 stressful events in a 15-month period. In addition, dividing the stressors into two groups of genomedependent/independent events, their prevalence was separately scrutinized and compared among patient and control families. Results: Although the child's risk of autism increases significantly with the increase of maternal stress during months 4-7 of pregnancy, the increased stress during months 2-3 of pregnancy can lead to a significant increase in the severity of autism affliction as well as a slight but significant increase in the possibility of LFA in afflicted children (P<0.05). The overall prevalence of genome-dependent stressful events among two patient and control groups was significantly higher than that of genome-independent events (P=0.000), but genome-dependent events led to more stress inpatient families. Conclusion: Although the present study consistent with recent findings in the fields of epigenetics and gene-environment interactions can confirm the role of severe and scheduled prenatal stresses in causing autism, it does not deny the necessity of a perspective and wider study in Isfahan and Iran

Pediatric hospital admission due to adverse drug reactions: Report from a tertiary center

Objective: Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are known as a cause of hospital admission. We have carried out a prospective study to characterize and assess the frequency, probability, preventability, and severity of ADRs, which lead to hospital admission in children. Methods: In a prospective observational study, a cohort of children admitted to a tertiary pediatric hospital was randomly screened to assess ADR as the cause of admission from June 2014 to January 2015. ADRs causing admissions were detected based on patients' records, interviewing their parents, and confirmation by medical team. The probability of the ADRs was assessed based on WHO criteria and Naranjo tool. The preventability assessment was performed using Schumock and Thornton questionnaire. Findings: Of the 658 evaluated emergency admissions, 27 were caused by an ADR giving an incidence of 4.1%. Among ADRs, 37.1% were estimated to be preventable. Antibiotics were the most common medication class which caused hospital admission. Conclusion: Pediatric pharmacotherapy still needs evidence-based strategies to improve child care including education, monitoring, planning for medications after ADR occurrence, and implementing preventive measures when applicable

Evaluation of hs-CRP, Antioxidant Markers andMDA in Patients of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) Containing Non-Smokers and Non-Diabetics

Background: The oxidative stress and inflammation are cooperative events involved in atherosclerosis development. In the present study we assessed the association of MDA, antioxidant markers, high sensitive C - reactive protein (hs-CRP) and lipid status parameters in the patients with coronary artery disease (CAD). Significant risk factors such as cigarette and diabet were excluded from the study. Methods: Oxidative stress parameters for example Malondialdehyde (MDA), antioxidant markers including: erythrocyte superoxide dismutase(SOD), Glutathion peroxidase (GPX), Total antioxidant capacity(TAC), The inflammation marker and serum lipid status parameters were measured in 120 subjects including 60 CAD patients with angiographically diagnosed CAD and 60 CAD-free subjects as a control group, also diabetics, smoking patients, patients with malignancy, renal and liver disease, and other disease were excluded from the study. Results: The serum MDA and hs-CRP levels were increased significantly as compared to controls. However, erythrocyte SOD, GPX activities and TAC level were reduced significantly in patients (P‹0.05 in all cases). The levels of total cholesterol, Triglyceride, LDL-C were significantly higher and that of HDL-C was meaningfully lower than those of control (P‹0.05 in all cases). Conclusion: The association between oxidative stress parameters, antioxidant markers, the inflammation index and lipid status parameters suggest their involvement in atherosclerosis development that may lead to CAD progressio

The Effects of Unripe Grape Juice on Lipid Profile Improvement

Introduction. Consumption of unripe grape juice (verjuice) has been portrayed by the traditional belief, as a means of combating dyslipidemia. We aimed to evaluate the effects of unripe grape juice consumption on lipid profile in healthy human volunteers. Methods. We asked 42 enrolled volunteers to drink 10 cc of verjuice within 30 minutes to 2 hours after lunch and 10 cc of it after dinner. After taking 120 doses of verjuice, another fasting lipid profile was obtained from each participant. The statistical analysis was performed by SPSS 13 software. Results. After analysis of the data, the mean ± standard deviation for all the variables was obtained. Among those improvement of HDL-C was significant after the trial (value<0.001). TG, TC, and LDL improvement were not significant. Conclusion. Our study declared that verjuice has a dramatic effect on improving HDL-C level of serum but no any other lipid improvement effect was obtained