Objective: To evaluate the effects of quinine and chloroquine against male mice infected withPlasmodium berghei and their adverse effects on the mice testes. Methods: In this study, 48 adult male mice, (20-25 g), aged 8 to 12 weeks were divided into four groups. This study was carried out from December 2009 until May 2010 in the School of Public Health, Tehran University of Medical Sciences. Results: The results showed that 58.33% of mice treated with chloroquine were completely recovered. Parasitemia was 4% on day 8 when compared to that on day 0, whereas it was 9% on day 9. There was no orchitis found in this group. The mortality of mice after exposing to quinine on day 5 was 8.3%, whereas from day 10 to day 14 it was 91.7%. We found 75% orchitis occurred in quinine treated group. There was a significant difference between quinine and chloroquine effects on the parasite and also mice testes (P<0.05). Conclusions: In this study, It can be concluded that male mice have full resistance to the quinine. Quinine does not only make male mice recover completely, but also cause inflammation on mice testicles tissue.

Objective: To investigate the prevalence of fecundity and other reproductive problems among a group of farmers in Kavar district of Fars province, southern Iran.
Methods: A total of 268 randomly selected married male farm workers were investigated. A questionnaire was devised and validated [Cronbach’s α-coefficient (0.81)]. Subjects were directly interviewed and the questionnaire forms were completed for them.
Results:The prevalence of current primary infertility among the studied population was about 7.4% (P=0.001). Similarly, 6.3% of farm workers had offsprings with congenital malformations. Finally, 1.5% and 9% of farmers’ wives had a history of stillbirth and abortion, respectively. It was concluded that the prevalence of current primary infertility were higher among farm workers families than in the normal population (P<0.05). Additionally, stillbirth and spontaneous abortion were more common in the wives of farm workers than in the normal population, although the difference did not reach statistical significance.
Conclusions:These effects are likely to be attributed to the exposure of farm workers to pesticides.

Background: Oxidative stress due to iron accumulation in patients with beta-thalassemia major (BTM) causes complications such as tissue damage and destruction. This study aimed to assess the association between the serum prooxidant/antioxidant balance (PAB) and blood parameters in patients with BTM. Methods: This cross-sectional study included 92 patients with BTM. In this study, PAB was measured using an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA). Serum ferritin, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), creatinine (Cr), alanine aminotransferase (ALT), aspartate aminotransferase (AST), thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH), total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), complete blood cell count (CBC), and history of blood transfusion were recorded. The association of the blood parameters was assessed across the tertiles (T) of serum PAB (highest T vs. lowest T). Results: The results showed that high serum ferritin was directly associated with serum PAB [odds ratio (OR), 12.80; 95% confidence interval (CI), 2.98‒54.91; T3 vs. T1]. Also, direct associations were found for high TC (OR, 4.97; 95% CI, 1.42‒17.32; T3 vs. T1), high ALT (OR, 4.95; 95% CI, 1.33‒18.46; T3 vs. T1) and high TSH (OR, 3.78; 95% CI, 1.10‒13.02; T3 vs. T1). Conclusion The findings of the present study showed that serum PAB levels were directly associated with ferritin, ALT, TC, and TSH levels. This indicates that improvements in blood parameters, especially ferritin and TSH levels, occur by ameliorating oxidative stress in patients with BTM.

OBJECTIVES: Diabetes is increasing in worldwide prevalence, toward epidemic levels. Diabetic neuropathy, one of the most common complications of diabetes mellitus, is a serious condition that can lead to amputation. This study used a multicategory support vector machine (MSVM) to predict diabetic peripheral neuropathy severity classified into four categories using patients' demographic characteristics and clinical features. METHODS: In this study, the data were collected at the Diabetes Center of Hamadan in Iran. Patients were enrolled by the convenience sampling method. Six hundred patients were recruited. After obtaining informed consent, a questionnaire collecting general information and a neuropathy disability score (NDS) questionnaire were administered. The NDS was used to classify the severity of the disease. We used MSVM with both one-against-all and one-against-one methods and three kernel functions, radial basis function (RBF), linear, and polynomial, to predict the class of disease with an unbalanced dataset. The synthetic minority class oversampling technique algorithm was used to improve model performance. To compare the performance of the models, the mean of accuracy was used. RESULTS: For predicting diabetic neuropathy, a classifier built from a balanced dataset and the RBF kernel function with a one-against-one strategy predicted the class to which a patient belonged with about 76% accuracy. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this study indicate that, in terms of overall classification accuracy, the MSVM model based on a balanced dataset can be useful for predicting the severity of diabetic neuropathy, and it should be further investigated for the prediction of other diseases.
Amputation ; Classification ; Cross-Sectional Studies* ; Dataset ; Diabetes Complications ; Diabetic Neuropathies ; Humans ; Informed Consent ; Iran ; Logistic Models ; Methods ; Peripheral Nervous System Diseases* ; Prevalence ; Support Vector Machine*

OBJECTIVES: Brain stroke is the second most important events that lead to disability and morbidity these days. Although, stroke is important, there is no treatment for curing this problem. Nowadays, cell therapy has opened a new window for treating central nervous system disease. In some previous studies the Mesenchymal stem cells and neural stem cells. In this study, we have designed an experiment to assess the combination cell therapy (Mesenchymal and Neural stem cells) effects on brain stroke. METHOD AND MATERIALS: The Mesenchymal stem cells were isolated from adult rat bone marrow and the neural stem cells were isolated from ganglion eminence of rat embryo 14 days. The Mesenchymal stem cells were injected 1 day after middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) and the neural stem cells transplanted 7 day after MCAO. After 28 days, the neurological outcomes and brain lesion volumes were evaluated. Also, the activity of Caspase 3 was assessed in different groups. RESULT: The group which received combination cell therapy had better neurological examination and less brain lesion. Also the combination cell therapy group had the least Caspase 3 activity among the groups. CONCLUSIONS: The combination cell therapy is more effective than Mesenchymal stem cell therapy and neural stem cell therapy separately in treating the brain stroke in rats.
Adult ; Animals ; Bone Marrow ; Brain* ; Caspase 3 ; Cell- and Tissue-Based Therapy* ; Central Nervous System ; Embryonic Structures ; Ganglion Cysts ; Humans ; Infarction, Middle Cerebral Artery ; Mesenchymal Stromal Cells* ; Neural Stem Cells* ; Neurologic Examination ; Rats* ; Stroke*

The purpose of the present overview of meta-analysis is to summarize and critically assess the effect of isoflavones and genistein on glucose metabolism among the peri- and post-menopausal women. Two independent authors searched the databases of MEDLINE, Scopus and Cochrane Library for meta-analysis. Three databases were searched from inception to January 2018. Methodological quality of each meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials was evaluated using the AMSTAR (a measurement tool used to assess systematic reviews). Four meta-analyses were included to the current overview. Fasting insulin levels and homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR) values were significantly lower in peri-menopausal and postmenopausal. Two meta-analyses showed that treatment with isoflavones could not alter fasting blood glucose. However, one meta-analysis depicted that isoflavones significantly improved blood glucose levels in non-Asian postmenopausal women. Treatment with genistein could have significant beneficial effects on fasting insulin, blood glucose and HOMA-IR in comparison to the control group. Regardless of the population, the treatment with genistein is effective in improving fasting insulin, HOMA-IR and glucose levels. Nevertheless, the high heterogeneity among studies and poor methodology of reviews made it difficult to draw a definite conclusion on the positive impacts of soy on glucose metabolism.
Blood Glucose ; Fasting ; Female ; Genistein ; Glucose Metabolism Disorders ; Glucose ; Humans ; Insulin ; Insulin Resistance ; Insulins ; Isoflavones ; Menopause ; Metabolism ; Population Characteristics

OBJECTIVETo investigate the prevalence of fecundity and other reproductive problems among a group of farmers in Kavar district of Fars province, southern Iran.

METHODSA total of 268 randomly selected married male farm workers were investigated. A questionnaire was devised and validated [Cronbach's α-coefficient (0.81)]. Subjects were directly interviewed and the questionnaire forms were completed for them.

RESULTSThe prevalence of current primary infertility among the studied population was about 7.4% (P=0.001). Similarly, 6.3% of farm workers had offsprings with congenital malformations. Finally, 1.5% and 9% of farmers' wives had a history of stillbirth and abortion, respectively. It was concluded that the prevalence of current primary infertility were higher among farm workers families than in the normal population (P<0.05). Additionally, stillbirth and spontaneous abortion were more common in the wives of farm workers than in the normal population, although the difference did not reach statistical significance.

CONCLUSIONSThese effects are likely to be attributed to the exposure of farm workers to pesticides.