Cholesterol Ring in Iris: A Noninvasive diagnostic evaluation for dyslipidemia

BACKGROUND: Dyslipidemia is one of the major risk factors for cardiovascular disease. The prevalence of dyslipidemia is considered to be very high in India, which invites attention for urgent lifestyle intervention strategies on prevention and management of cardiovascular risk factors. Iridiagnosis is an alternative diagnostic tool and technique which claims that patterns, colors, and other characteristics of the iris can be examined to determine information about a patient's systemic health. Practitioners match their observations to iris charts, which divide the iris into zones that correspond to specific parts of the human body. Iridologists see the eyes as “windows” into the body's state of health. Early detection and treatment of dyslipidemia can prevent risk for atherogenic cardiovascular disorder. The technique presently employed to measure the cholesterol level is by doing blood test known as lipoprotein profile. The lipoprotein profile is an invasive method which causes discomfort amongst many patients. Since iris diagnosis is a noninvasive, quick, painless and inexpensive diagnostic tool, this has been used as tool to assess the abnormal cholesterol content in the body by observing “cholesterol ring” in the patient’s eyes. METHODS: This observational study was carried out among 74 adults of both the sexes aged between 35 and 65 years. An interactive introductory lecture about the purpose and design of the study will be explained to Subjects. After obtaining the written consent (bilingual), total plasma cholesterol (TC) and triglycerides (TG) levels was taken to rule out cholesterol level followed by taking High Definition Images of Iris of the patients using2014 CE FCC NEW 5.0 MP USB IRISCOPE IRIS ANALYSER Iridology Camera (with Pro Iris Software-GH11003, Germany). A photograph is taken of each iris serve as a record to compare with present population and in the future. RESULTS: Statistical values are presented as Mean ± SD, categorical data presented as n (%). The statistical analysis was performed using the SPSS (version 16.0). Total cholesterol and triglyceride levels were expressed as the mean ± SD. In this study, Frequency distributions are portrayed as Pie-charts. The study included 74 participants, of whom 20.27% were male and 79.73% were female. The two tailed Spearman rho correlation coefficient value of 0.206 confirms that there appears to be a positive correlation between the two variables (hypercholesterolemia and cholesterol ring grades). We conclude that the observed cholesterol ring grades was significantly different than hypothesized proportion [χ2 (2) = 38.45; p = 0.001]. The study showed that out of 100% hypercholesteremia, 71.6% were noticed with Cholesterol rings in their iris. CONCLUSION: The present study showed that the presence of cholesterol ring in iris of the participants is an indicators of hypercholesterolemia and the result was 71.6% positive correlation between serum increased cholesterol level and cholesterol ring appearance. Further research with a larger sample size is warranted to reveal more beneficial changes in this field

Search for dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks in √s = 13 TeV pp collisions with the ATLAS detector

A search for weakly interacting massive particle dark matter produced in association with bottom or top quarks is presented. Final states containing third-generation quarks and miss- ing transverse momentum are considered. The analysis uses 36.1 fb−1 of proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS experiment at √s = 13 TeV in 2015 and 2016. No significant excess of events above the estimated backgrounds is observed. The results are in- terpreted in the framework of simplified models of spin-0 dark-matter mediators. For colour- neutral spin-0 mediators produced in association with top quarks and decaying into a pair of dark-matter particles, mediator masses below 50 GeV are excluded assuming a dark-matter candidate mass of 1 GeV and unitary couplings. For scalar and pseudoscalar mediators produced in association with bottom quarks, the search sets limits on the production cross- section of 300 times the predicted rate for mediators with masses between 10 and 50 GeV and assuming a dark-matter mass of 1 GeV and unitary coupling. Constraints on colour- charged scalar simplified models are also presented. Assuming a dark-matter particle mass of 35 GeV, mediator particles with mass below 1.1 TeV are excluded for couplings yielding a dark-matter relic density consistent with measurements