Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant

Tell All The Truth But Tell It Slant is an exhibition of sculpture and drawings that focuses attention on the socio-political turmoil brought about by the ruling system in Iran. It also speaks to a shared melancholia in those who self-identify as Iranian. In Iran the oppressive regime continually and deliberately controls its citizens through enforcement of restrictive religious ideology. As a female artist of Iranian descent, using Karen Barad’s notion of agential realism, I seek to address power structures, and hegemonic systems of domination, while questioning dualisms and the sharp boundaries they produce that further impact power relations. Addressing life and politics in contemporary Iran, I purposely layer and fuse cultural and historical imagery from Persian and Islamic art and architecture along with contemporary images, ideas, and mass media stories. My practice accentuates the importance of materiality in relation to this political content by questioning subject-object relationships, and by revealing the agency that materials and spaces have

Effects of oat and wheat bread consumption on lipid profile, blood sugar, and endothelial function in hypercholesterolemic patients: A randomized controlled clinical trial

BACKGROUND: Increased lipid profile after each meal can disturb the endothelial function. The present study assessed the effects of bread supplemented with oat bran on serum lipids and endothelial dysfunction in patients with hypercholesterolemia. METHODS: This clinical trial was conducted on 60 isolated hypercholesterolemic patients. The subjects were randomly allocated to either intervention (consuming at least five daily servings of oat bread with 6 g beta-glucan) or control (receiving at least five servings of wheat bread). Anthropometric indicators, fasting blood sugar and lipid profiles ere measured at baseline and after 6 weeks (in the end of the intervention). Endothelial function was assessed using flow-mediated dilation (FMD). Within the group and between group differences were investigated using paired t-test and Student&rsquo;s t-test, respectively. RESULTS: Oat bread consumption could significantly reduce total cholesterol (P = 0.029). A significant increase in baseline and after ischemia brachial artery diameters at the end of the study was seen. However, it did not have a significant effect on FMD (P = 0.825). In the control group, none of the measured indices had changed significantly at the end of the study. Finally, only the mean change of brachial artery diameter after ischemia and baseline brachial artery diameter were significantly higher in the intervention group than in the control group (P = 0.036 and P = 0.012 respectively). CONCLUSION: Oat bread with beta-glucan could successfully reduce cholesterol levels. Furthermore, in this study oat bread did not reduce FMD more than wheat bread. Since hypercholesterolemia is a proven risk factor for endothelial dysfunction, hypercholesterolemic patients can hence be advised to eat oat bread. &nbsp; Keywords: Bread, Diet, Flow-Mediated Dilation, Hypercholesterolemia&nbsp;</p