Anti-breast cancer potential of honey: a narrative review

Cancer is responsible for the death of millions of people all around the world. Among the large group of cancers, the prevalence of breast cancer is highest in women. Therapeutic interventions, including removal surgery, radiation therapy, hormone therapy, and chemotherapy which is largely used, may cause adverse effects on the quality of patients’ life. This fact has encouraged researchers to find natural substances such as honey to overcome harmful effects. Nowadays, honey is recommended for plenty of abnormalities because of its antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and antimicrobial properties. Various studies have been conducted to explore the anticancer benefits of different types of honey from different origins. In this review, we are going to summarize in-vitro, animal, and human studies on the anti-breast cancer potential of honey

Intraoperative Assessment of High-Risk Thyroid Nodules Based on Electrical Impedance Measurements: A Feasibility Study

Precise diagnosis of thyroid nodules is challenging due to non-diagnostic/inconclusive results and uncertainties about the malignancy of follicular neoplasms (FNs), even in frozen-section pathology. Therefore, surgical management, especially in Bethesda III and IV categories, may be complicated, and sometimes a second surgery may be required. The Thyroid Nodule Impedance Measurement System (TN-IMS) consists of a metallic patch attached to submental skin and a G20 I.V. cannula inserted into the targeted nodules. Two impedance-based parameters named Z1kHz and impedance phase slope (IPS) in 100 kHz to 500 kHz of the thyroid nodules are recorded and compared with their histopathological results as the gold standard. TN-IMS was intra-surgically applied to 103 human thyroid nodules and normal thyroid tissues. A remarkable consistency between defined co-ranges of Z1kHz/IPS and the histopathological status of specimens was achieved (p < 0.001). Based on these measurements, it was concluded that intraoperative bioelectrical impedance scanning of thyroid nodules would be a helpful complementary approach to detecting high-risk excision-required thyroid nodules

Global Burden of Cardiovascular Diseases and Risk Factors, 1990-2019: Update From the GBD 2019 Study

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), principally ischemic heart disease (IHD) and stroke, are the leading cause of global mortality and a major contributor to disability. This paper reviews the magnitude of total CVD burden, including 13 underlying causes of cardiovascular death and 9 related risk factors, using estimates from the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) Study 2019. GBD, an ongoing multinational collaboration to provide comparable and consistent estimates of population health over time, used all available population-level data sources on incidence, prevalence, case fatality, mortality, and health risks to produce estimates for 204 countries and territories from 1990 to 2019. Prevalent cases of total CVD nearly doubled from 271 million (95% uncertainty interval [UI]: 257 to 285 million) in 1990 to 523 million (95% UI: 497 to 550 million) in 2019, and the number of CVD deaths steadily increased from 12.1 million (95% UI:11.4 to 12.6 million) in 1990, reaching 18.6 million (95% UI: 17.1 to 19.7 million) in 2019. The global trends for disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) and years of life lost also increased significantly, and years lived with disability doubled from 17.7 million (95% UI: 12.9 to 22.5 million) to 34.4 million (95% UI:24.9 to 43.6 million) over that period. The total number of DALYs due to IHD has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 182 million (95% UI: 170 to 194 million) DALYs, 9.14 million (95% UI: 8.40 to 9.74 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 197 million (95% UI: 178 to 220 million) prevalent cases of IHD in 2019. The total number of DALYs due to stroke has risen steadily since 1990, reaching 143 million (95% UI: 133 to 153 million) DALYs, 6.55 million (95% UI: 6.00 to 7.02 million) deaths in the year 2019, and 101 million (95% UI: 93.2 to 111 million) prevalent cases of stroke in 2019. Cardiovascular diseases remain the leading cause of disease burden in the world. CVD burden continues its decades-long rise for almost all countries outside high-income countries, and alarmingly, the age-standardized rate of CVD has begun to rise in some locations where it was previously declining in high-income countries. There is an urgent need to focus on implementing existing cost-effective policies and interventions if the world is to meet the targets for Sustainable Development Goal 3 and achieve a 30% reduction in premature mortality due to noncommunicable diseases