Echocardiographic findings and joint hypermobility: Patients with mitral valve prolapse vs. healthy controls

Background: Mitral valve prolapse is a relatively common valvular abnormality in most communities and joint hypermobility (JHM) is also seen in many healthy people as well as in certain clinical disorders, such as Marfan syndrome. The present study was designed to investigate the association between joint hypermobility and mitral valve prolapse (MVP) in an Iranian population sample. Methods: Fifty-seven patients with nonrheumatic and isolated mitral anterior leaflet prolapse (24 men and 33 women, mean age 23.5 +/-2.3) and 51 healthy subjects (20 men and 31 women, mean age 22.9+/-2.3) were studied. The presence of JHM was evaluated according to the Carter-Wilkinson & Beighton criteria. Echocardiographic examination was performed in all subjects and the correlation between the echocardiographic features of the mitral valve and the hypermobility score were investigated. Results: The frequency of JHM in patients with MVP was found to be significantly higher than that of controls (26.3 vs. 7.8), with mean JHM scores of 3.1+/-2.2 and 1.9+/-1.7, respectively. The patients in the MVP group had significantly increased the anterior mitral leaflet thickness (AMLT, 3.4+/-0.4 mm vs. 3.0+/-0.3 mm; p<0.0005) and maximal leaflet displacement (MLD, 2.4+/-0.3 mm vs. 1.5+/-0.2 mm; p<0.0005) compared to the controls. Conclusions: We detect a statistically significant relationship between isolated MVP and joint hypermobility as well as between the severity of JHM and echocardiographic features of the mitral leaflets. These results suggest a common etiology for MVP and JHM, which should be investigated in future well-conducted studies. © 2008, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. All rights reserved

Assessment of cardiac risk factors in medical students of tehran university

Prevention of coronary heart disease, mainly by reducing the levels of known risk factors in the population, remains a priority in public health. This cross-sectional study on randomly selected medical students during their internship was conducted from July 2001 to April 2002 in order to determine the prevalence of major coronary artery disease (CAD) risk factors. This survey was done by filling the questionnaire, measuring physical parameters, and taking a fasting blood sample. Two hundred and sixty four medical students were evaluated in this study (48 female, 216 male) with the mean age of 26.5 ± 2.8 years. The main risk factors in descending order of frequency were physical inactivity (43.5%), low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (26.2%), family history of premature CAD (15.9%), smoking (10.3%), abdominal obesity (10.2%), high triglyceride level (5.3%), high blood pressure (3.4%), and high low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (1.5%). Also, 25% of married females were using oral contraceptives regularly. The number of risk factors per person was 2.2 on average (1.1 in females and 2.5 in males). Prevalence of CAD ri sk factors in this medical students’ population was unacceptably high. Additional studies should be done to gather more information and determine the need for preventive, educational or curative interventions

Effect of fish oil on circulating asymmetric dimethylarginine and adiponectin in overweight or obese patients with atrial fibrillation

Obesity and adipose-derived peptides might be involved in the pathogenesis of atrial fibrillation (AF). Adiponectin plays a major role in the modulation of several metabolic pathways, and asymmetric dimethylarginine (ADMA) has been suggested to be predictive of AF and associated adverse events. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of fish oil supplementation on circulating adiponectin and ADMA in overweight or obese patients with persistent AF. In this randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial, 80 overweight or obese (body mass index (BMI) � 25 kg/m2) patients with persistent AF were randomly assigned to two groups to receive either 2 g/day fish oil or placebo, for 8 weeks. Serum levels of adiponectin and ADMA, and anthropometric indexes were measured. This study showed that serum adiponectin concentrations increased significantly following fish oil supplementation compared with the placebo group (13.15 ± 7.33 vs. 11.88 ± 6.94 µg/ml; p =.026). A significant reduction was also observed in serum ADMA levels in the fish oil compared with the placebo group following the intervention (0.6 ± 0.13 vs. 0.72 ± 0.15 µmol/L; p =.001). The changes in serum adiponectin and ADMA concentrations remained significant after adjustments for baseline values, age, sex, and changes of BMI and waist circumference (p =.011 and p =.001, respectively). In conclusion, 8 weeks supplementation with fish oil increased serum adiponectin and decreased ADMA concentrations in overweight or obese patients with persistent AF. As adiponectin and ADMA are suggested to be involved in many pathways associated with AF, the current findings might be promising in the clinical management of this disease, an issue that needs further investigations. © 2020 The Authors. Food Science & Nutrition published by Wiley Periodicals, Inc

Unambiguous observation of F-atom core-hole localization in CF4 through body-frame photoelectron angular distributions

Citation: McCurdy, C. W., Rescigno, T. N., Trevisan, C. S., Lucchese, R. R., Gaire, B., Menssen, A., . . . Weber, T. (2017). Unambiguous observation of F-atom core-hole localization in CF4 through body-frame photoelectron angular distributions. Physical Review A, 95(1). doi:10.1103/PhysRevA.95.011401A dramatic symmetry breaking in K-shell photoionization of the CF4 molecule in which a core-hole vacancy is created in one of four equivalent fluorine atoms is displayed in the molecular frame angular distribution of the photoelectrons. Observing the photoejected electron in coincidence with an F+ atomic ion after Auger decay is shown to select the dissociation path where the core hole was localized almost exclusively on that atom. A combination of measurements and ab initio calculations of the photoelectron angular distribution in the frame of the recoiling CF3+ and F+ atoms elucidates the underlying physics that derives from the Ne-like valence structure of the F(1s-1) core-excited atom. © 2017 American Physical Society

Hydrogen and fluorine migration in photo-double-ionization of 1,1-difluoroethylene (1,1-C2H2F2) near and above threshold

We have studied the nondissociative and dissociative photo-double-ionization of 1,1-difluoroethylene using single photons of energies ranging from 40 to 70 eV. Applying a coincident electron-ion three-dimensional momentum imaging technique, kinematically complete measurements have been achieved. We present the branching ratios of the six reaction channels identified in the experiment. Electron-ion energy maps and relative electron emission angles are used to distinguish between direct and indirect photo-double-ionization mechanisms at a few different photon energies. The influence of selection and propensity rules is discussed. Threshold energies of double ionization are extracted from the sum of the kinetic energies of the electrons, which hint to the involvement of different manifolds of states. The dissociative ionization channels with two ionic fragments are explored in detail by measuring the kinetic energy release of the fragment ions, sum of the kinetic energies, as well as the energy sharing of the two emitted electrons. We investigate the migration of hydrogen and fluorine atoms and compare the experimental results to the photo-double-ionization of centrosymmetric linear and planar hydrocarbons (C[subscript 2]H[subscript 2] and C[subscript 2]H[subscript 4]) whenever possible

A survey of myocardial infarction in diabetic patients

This is a retrospective study on the records of patients with infarction admitted to C.C.U wards of Imam Khomeini hospital, Amir-alam hospital &amp;amp; Shariati hospital, during 7 months (1995-94). In total patients of 209 with average age of 59.5 years, there were 133 men with average age of 57.1 and 76 women with average age of 63.7 years. In this study, women with MI are older than men. From 209 patients with infarction, 51 patients had diabetes, that show diabetes prevalence of 24.4%. On the other side, there were 28 men &amp;amp; 23 women with diabetes, which indicates a prevalence of 21.8% among men and 30.2% among women. Thus diabetic women experience infarction more than diabetic men. This result is compatible with classic reports. The average age of diabetic patients is lower than non diabetics. This difference is between diabetic and non diabetic women (58.4 vs 66.1), but there&apos;s no difference between diabetic and non diabetic men (58.7 vs 57.7). Prevalence of diabetes in sixth &amp;amp; seventh decades has a peak among patients with infarction, and this is compatible with international reports that indicate CAD as prominent disease of diabetic patients in sixth and seventh decades. In our study hypertension and hyperlipidemia are the most frequent risk factors together with diabetes in infarction. The duration of disease before infarction was from 5 to 15 years. Concerning treatment of diabetic patients we showed that, as most patients in these ages are non insulin-dependant, they had taken oral antidiabetic drugs for long time or without treatment, and fewest were on insulin. Chief complaints of our patients were chest pain, epigastric pain, nausea and vomiting, weakness and dyspnea and faint. Fourteen percent of men and 30% of women had no chest pain on admission indicating to be careful about other symptoms of old diabetic patients with coronary artery disease