Zaburzenia seksualne u chorych na cukrzycę — ważne i pomijane powikłanie

Wstęp. Na cukrzycę choruje ponad 415 mln światowej populacji. W Polsce liczba ta sięga 3 milionów, z czego ponad milion pacjentów nie wie o swojej chorobie. Duża liczba chorych na cukrzycę zmaga się z licznymi powikłaniami nieprawidłowo kontrolowanej glikemii, w tym z zaburzeniami sfery seksualnej.Materiał i metody. W badaniu wykorzystano trzyczęściowy kwestionariusz własnego autorstwa dotyczący oceny satysfakcji seksualnej pacjentów z cukrzycą. Udział w badaniu wzięło 110 chorych na cukrzycę. Średnia wieku osób badanych wynosiła 42,2 (SD = 15,82).Wyniki. Najczęściej zgłaszanym przez chorych na cukrzycę problemem z zakresu życia seksualnego była utrata lub spadek zainteresowania seksem. Ponad 40% pacjentów jest niezadowolonych ze swojego życia seksualnego. Połowa badanych prowadzi życie seksualneniezgodne ze swoimi wyobrażeniami. Osoby badane, które stosują iniekcje z insuliny, miały istotnie mniejszy poziom satysfakcji seksualnej niż pacjenci korzystający z pompy insulinowej.Wnioski. Zadowolenie z życia seksualnego to ważna składowa dobrostanu pacjenta. Osoby z cukrzycą rzadko oceniają swoje życie jako satysfakcjonujące. Wyniki badania otwierają przed specjalistami przestrzeń do pracy, której efektem będzie poprawa jakości życiaseksualnego pacjentów z cukrzycą

Carbon Nanotubes-Based Potentiometric Bio-Sensors for Determination of Urea

The possibility of using disposable plastic-carbon potentiometric sensors as enzyme biosensors was examined. Urease enzyme was immobilized on poly(vinyl chloride) based H+- or NH4+-selective membranes using cellulose acetate. This approach has resulted in a potentiometric response on changing the pH of the solution or NH4+ ion content due to an enzymatic reaction that occurs between urease and urea. Both types of potentiometric biosensors for urea were characterized by good analytical parameters as high sensitivity and fast response time

Sexual dysfunction in diabetic patients — an important and overlooked complication

Introduction. Diabetes affects over 415 million of the world population. In Poland, the number of diabetics reaches 3 million people with more than one million of patients unaware about their disease. A large number of people with diabetes struggle with numerous complications including area of sexual dysfunction, resulting from improperly controlled blood glucose. Material and methods. The study used a proprietary three-part questionnaire for the evaluation of sexual satisfaction in patients with diabetes. Participation in the study included 110 patients with diabetes. The average age of the respondents was 42.2 (SD = 15.82). Results. The loss or decrease of interest in sex life were the most frequently reported by patients with diabetes problems in the field of sex life. More than 40% of patients are dissatisfied with their sex lives. Half of the patients have the sex life contrary to their expectations. The respondents using insulin injections had significantly lower level of sexual satisfaction than patients using insulin pumps. Conclusions. Satisfaction with sex life is a key component of the patient’s wellbeing. People with diabetes rarely evaluate their lives as satisfactory. The results of the study open the working area for professionals, which will result in improving the quality of sex life of patients with diabetes. We hope that the results of our research will contribute to improving patients quality of life by encouraging physicians to pay closer attention to the realm of sex as important source of patient satisfaction

Polyacrylate Microspheres for Tunable Fluorimetric Zinc Ions Sensor

A novel concept of optical fluorimetric sensing using polymeric microspheres is explored on example of zinc ions sensors. The novel approach proposed uses the advantage of concomitant presence in a microsphere of two compounds: a receptor, fluorescently silent complexing ligand and an optical transducer, fluorescent compound. Binding of the analyte by the ligand affects its absorption spectrum, leading to decrease of the free ligand absorption and increase of complex absorption band. The decrease of free ligand absorption exposes emission of the transducer, yielding increase in fluorescence intensity on analyte concentration increase. This approach was verified experimentally using Zn²⁺ as a model analyte, the fluorimetric sensor obtained uses 1-(2-pyridylazo)-2-naphthol (PAN) as analyte sensitive receptor and pyrene as optical transducer. In the absence of zinc ions in the sample emission of pyrene embedded in the spheres was significantly quenched, whereas increase of Zn²⁺ ions concentration in the sample resulted in dependence of fluorescence intensity on logarithm of zinc ions concentration in extraordinary wide range, from 10^–7 to 0.1 M. The response mechanism was explained by surface accumulation of zinc ion–PAN complex on the microsphere/sample solution interface. It was also shown that introduction of cation-exchanging sites to the microspheres significantly alters the responses pattern leading to high sensitivity over relatively limited concentration range (3–4 orders of magnitude). In the latter case the observed responses can be tuned to occur in chosen concentration range, simply by adjusting sample pH

Research on New Technology of Fiber Flax Harvesting

Modifications of combine harvester were introduced. Flax harvesting with the modified combine harvester following the dessication with Roundup did not affect the yield and weight of flax seeds when compared to the conventional pulling harvesting. A new method lead to a reduction in the yield of homomorphic fiber but losses depend on the cutting height and with the normal plant heigh (over 700 mm) and stubble height below 80 mm could be reduced to less than 10%. Flax harvesting by mowing can reduce the total labor costs by 30% and the labor costs of harvesting by more than 42%. Mowing of fiber flax fiber can significantly reduce and simplify the entire production technology

Fate of Poly(3-octylthiophene) Transducer in Solid Contact Ion-Selective Electrodes

An experimental approach allowing visualization and quantification of the underestimated spontaneous process of partition of conducting polymer transducer material to the ion-selective membrane phase is proposed. The approach proposed is based on optical properties of the transducer material applied, using polythiophene as a model system. It is shown that this process occurs not only during the sensor preparation step but also during pretreatment of the sensor before use. As shown, this uncontrolled partition of the transducer to the receptor leads to conducting polymer contents in the membrane phase reaching 0.5% w/w; this process is accompanied by a partial spontaneous change of the oxidation state of polythiophene. The conducting polymer present in the membrane participates to some extent in the overall response of the sensor, which can be observed as a change in the polythiophene optical emission spectra. Fluorescence microscopic images obtained clearly show that the conducting polymer is distributed throughout the membrane thickness, being present also at the membrane/solution interface. The experimental results presented were obtained for K⁺-selective sensors using poly­(3-octylthiophene) as a model transducer; however, the proposed approach is also applicable for other systems