The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Group-Therapy Alone and plus Family Psycho-Education on the Treatment of Major Depression Disorder Symptoms in Females

Abstract: Background & Aims: Major depression is one of the common psychiatric disorders imposing negative effects on patients and their families. There are several treatment methods for depression. The purpose of the present study was to determine the effect of combination of cognitive behavioral group therapy, family psycho-education and medication versus medication alone on the improvement of major depression disorder. Methods: This study was a clinical trial in which using convenience sampling 60 patients with major depression admitted in Hajar Hospital Shahrekord /Iran were randomly selected. The patients were randomly allocated into three groups (n=20). The first group underwent medication therapy as well as cognitive behavioral group therapy. The second group received medication therapy, cognitive behavioral group therapy and family psycho-education. The third group, served as the control group, only received medication therapy. Beck Depression Inventory II was applied to all three groups before and after therapeutic interventions. Results: Our findings indicate a significant difference between control group and both cognitive behavioral group therapy and family psycho-education after therapeutic interventions. In other words, while both cognitive behavioral group therapy and family psycho-education groups showed significant difference with medication therapy group, no significant difference was found between cognitive behavioral group therapy and family psycho-education group. Conclusion: Medication therapy accompanied by cognitive behavioral therapies and family psycho-education is more efficient in improving depression symptoms compared to pure medication therapy. Keywords: Major, Depressive disorder, Drug theraphy, Psychotherapy, Cognitive therapy, Wome

The effectiveness of knowledge-based cognitive therapy on resilience of spouses of schizophrenic patients

Background and aims: The spouses of people with schizophrenia experience much stress due to their spouses' disease, which leads to certain problems and decreased adjustability and efficiency in them. This study aimed to investigate the efficacy of mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) on resilience in schizophrenia patients. Methods: In this quasi-experimental study, 40 wives of patients with schizophrenia (20 assigned to experimental group and 20 to control group) whose husbands were kept in rehabilitation centers for mental disorders and they were enrolled according to cluster sampling. In the experimental group, the therapeutic protocol of MBCT was conducted as intervention. Study instrument was Connor and Davidson Resilience Scale. Data were analyzed by ANCOVA in SPSS. Results: The results showed that mean resilience score in the post-test of the experimental group (77.95±4.71) was much higher than that of the control group (71.75±5.81). There was a significant difference in the mean resilience score at post-test between the experimental and control groups (P<0.05). Conclusion: Training MBCT strategies was effective on resilience in the wives of schizophrenia patients. Therefore, this approach can be incorporated into mental health-related interventions for the families of patients with psychiatric diseases such as schizophrenia

Epigallocatechin gallate/layered double hydroxide nanohybrids: Preparation, characterization, and in vitro anti-tumor study

In recent years, nanotechnology in merging with biotechnology has been employed in the area of cancer management to overcome the challenges of chemopreventive strategies in order to gain promising results. Since most biological processes occur in nano scale, nanoparticles can act as carriers of certain drugs or agents to deliver it to specific cells or targets. In this study, we intercalated Epigallocatechin-3-Gallate (EGCG), the most abundant polyphenol in green tea, into Ca/Al-NO3 Layered double hydroxide (LDH) nanoparticles, and evaluated its efficacy compared to EGCG alone on PC3 cell line. The EGCG loaded LDH nanohybrids were characterized by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and nanosizer analyses. The anticancer activity of the EGCG-loaded LDH was investigated in prostate cancer cell line (PC3) while the release behavior of EGCG from LDH was observed at pH 7.45 and 4.25. Besides enhancing of apoptotic activity of EGCG, the results showed that intercalation of EGCG into LDH can improve the anti-tumor activity of EGCG over 5-fold dose advantages in in-vitro system. Subsequently, the in-vitro release data showed that EGCG-loaded LDH had longer release duration compared to physical mixture, and the mechanism of diffusion through the particle was rate-limiting step. Acidic attack was responsible for faster release of EGCG molecules from LDH at pH of 4.25 compared to pH of 7.4. The results showed that Ca/Al-LDH nanoparticles could be considered as an effective inorganic host matrix for the delivery of EGCG to PC3 cells with controlled release properties. © 2015 Shafiei et al.This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited

Biological Evaluation of a Novel Tissue Engineering Scaffold of Layered Double Hydroxides (LDHs)

Bone Tissue Engineering (BTE) Composed of Three Main Parts: Scaffold, Cells and Signaling Factors. Several Materials and Composites Are Suggested as a Scaffold for BTE. Biocompatibility is One of the Most Important Property of a BTE Scaffold. in This Work Synthesis of a Novel Nanocomposite Including Layered Double Hydroxides (LDH) and Gelatin is Carried Out and its Biological Properties Were Studied. the Co-Precipitation (PH=11) Method Was Used to Prepare the LDH Powder, using Calcium Nitrate, Magesium Nitrate and Aluminum Nitrate Salts as Starting Materials. the Resulted Precipitates Were Dried. X-Ray Diffraction (XRD), Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) and Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM) Analyses Were Used to Characterize the Synthesized Powders. the Results Demonstrated the Presence of Nanocrystals of Ca-LDH and Mg-LDH as Hexagonal and Layered Morphology. the Obtained Powders Were Composed to Gelatin Via Solvent Casting Method Then Freez Dried. the Scaffold Was Prepared Via Membrane Lamination Method from the Resulted Layers that Linked Together with Gelatin as Binder. in Order to Investigate the Scaffold Cytotoxicity MTT Assay Was Done with a Osteosarcoma Cell Line. No Toxic Response Was Observed in Specimens. as a Major Result, It Was Demonstrated that the Specimen Showed a Significant Cellular Response. Then Osteosarcoma Cells Were Cultured for 7-Day and 14-Day Extract of Powders. the Composites Osteoconductivity Was Investigate with Cells Alkaline Phosphatase Extraction. the Results Demonstrated that the Ca-LDH/gelatin Composite Scaffold Has a Good Potential for Bone Tissue Engineering Applications and Mg-LDH Specimen Has a Better Osteconductivity. © (2012) Trans Tech Publications

The serum zinc concentration as a potential biological marker in patients with major depressive disorder

Despite many clinical trials assessing the role of zinc in major depressive disorder (MDD), the conclusions still remain ambiguous. The aim of the present clinical study was to determine and comparison the zinc concentration in the blood of MDD patients (active stage or remission) and healthy volunteers (controls), as well as to discuss its potential clinical usefulness as a biomarker of the disease. In this study 69 patients with current depressive episode, 45 patients in remission and 50 controls were enrolled. The zinc concentration was measured by electrothermal atomic absorption spectrometry (ET AAS). The obtained results revealed, that the zinc concentration in depressed phase were statistically lower than in the healthy volunteers [0.89 vs. 1.06 mg/L, respectively], while the zinc level in patients achieve remission was not significantly different from the controls [1.07 vs. 1.06 mg/L, respectively]. Additionally, among the patients achieve remission a significant differences in zinc concentration between group with and without presence of drug-resistance in the previous episode of depression were observed. Also, patients in remission demonstrated correlation between zinc level and the average number of depressive episodes in the last year. Serum zinc concentration was not dependent on atypical features of depression, presence of psychotic symptoms or melancholic syndrome, age, age of onset or duration of disease, number of episodes in the life time, duration of the episode/remission and severity of depression measured by the Hamilton Rating Scale for Depression (HDRS), and the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS). Concluding, our findings confirm the correlation between zinc deficit present in the depressive episode, and are consistent with the majority of previous studies. These results may also indicate that serum zinc concentration might be considered as a potential biological marker of MDD

The relationship between ultra processed food consumption and premature coronary artery disease: Iran premature coronary artery disease study (IPAD)

BackgroundUltra-processed foods (UPF) consumption may affect the risk of PCAD through affecting cardio metabolic risk factors. This study aimed to evaluate the association between UPFs consumption and premature coronary artery disease (PCAD).MethodsA case–control study was conducted on 2,354 Iranian adults (≥ 19 years). Dietary intake was assessed using a validated 110-item food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and foods were classified based on the NOVA system, which groups all foods according to the nature, extent and purposes of the industrial processes they undergo. PCAD was defined as having an stenosis of at least single coronary artery equal and above 75% or left main coronary of equal or more than 50% in women less than 70 and men less than 60 years, determined by angiography. The odds of PCAD across the tertiles of UPFs consumption were assessed by binary logistic regression.ResultsAfter adjustment for potential confounders, participants in the top tertile of UPFs were twice as likely to have PCAD compared with those in the bottom tertile (OR: 2.52; 95% CI: 1.97–3.23). Moreover, those in the highest tertile of the UPFs consumption had more than two times higher risk for having severe PCAD than those in the first tertile (OR: 2.64; 95% CI: 2.16–3.22). In addition, there was a significant upward trend in PCAD risk and PCAD severity as tertiles increased (P-trend &lt; 0.001 for all models).ConclusionHigher consumption of UPFs was related to increased risk of PCAD and higher chance of having severe PCAD in Iranian adults. Although, future cohort studies are needed to confirm the results of this study, these findings indicated the necessity of reducing UPFs intake