مجله دانشگاه علوم پزشکی اراک
سال نوزدهم شماره 12 (پیاپی 117، اسفند 1395)

Melatonin regulates the sleep-wake cycle and is protected against oxidants. Vitamin E has antioxidant effect. The aim of this study was to investigate effect of melatonin and/or vitamin E on the EEG, sleep quality and quality of life of female nurses working in hospitals in Arak.
60 female nurses were randomly selected from hospitals in the Arak city. Participants divided into three groups (melatonin3 mg/day, vitamin E 200 IU/day and melatonin and vitamin E groups) and a control group. Before and two months after the baseline, PSQTI and the quality of life of 26 questions questionnaire were completed and EEG was recorded. Finally, the findings for both groups before and after the intervention were compared with each other.
The average of sleep quality showed an improvement in groups receiving melatonin and melatonin븫媚 E (p>0.05). While data of life quality did not show any significant change between groups. In EEG activity, α waves in the range of 8-10 Hz showed maximum increase in melatonin group and minimum increase in vitamin E group. Also, α wave in the range of 10-12 Hz revealed the most decrease in the melatonin group.
It seems simultaneous administration of melatonin and vitamin E is able to improve sleep quality. In addition, melatonin could improve alpha-waves of brain activity.

Today, the role of word of mouth (WOM) in making decision particularly in service sector became important. Thus, this study aimed to investigate the effect of word of mouth on pregnant woman decision-making behavior to join the Royan Cord Blood Bank.
The research is operational and has a causal nature. The population of study was 790 pregnant women enrolled in Royan Cord Blood Bank in Arak city that 294 subjects were selected by available non-random sampling method. To collect data, questionnaire instrument was used. Data were analyzed according to Structural Equations Modeling (SEM) by LISREL (version 8.54) software.
The results of the study revealed that the effect of communication medium on personal information source and word of mouth was significant and positive. In addition, opinion leaders had a significant and positive influence on personal information source and word of mouth and also, the significant and negative effect of opinion leaders on perceived risk was seen. Personal information source had a significant and positive effect on decision-making. However, social structure didnt have any effect on word of mouth. Likewise, word of mouth didnt influence decision-making.
According to the findings of the research, it seems that paying attention to the prerequisites and conditions making a suitable bed for creating effective word of mouth and expanding it to making decision for joining the Royan Cord Blood Bank is very necessary.

Ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP) is one of the most important causes of mortality in intubated traumatic patients admitted in ICU. The aim of current study was to determine correlation between blood products transfusion with incidence of VAP in traumatic patients under mechanical ventilation in ICU.
This study was a prospective descriptive-analytical study. Current study was carried out on traumatic patients under mechanical ventilation admitted to Imam Khomeini hospital ICU wards of Sari city, from September 2015 to September 2016. In addition to demographic data, patient's clinical information were daily recorded.
Of total of 2304 patients admitted to ICU, 186 traumatic patients under mechanical ventilation longer than 48 hours were reviewed and analyzed. Among patients infected with VAP, 36 persons(87.8%) had transfusion of blood products before VAP incidence. Blood products transfusion (before and / or after 48 hours) had the highest adjusted risk ratio in the incidence of VAP (Odds ratio; OR=3.58). Also, amount of injected Packed Red Blood Cells and platelet were significantly higher in patients infected with VAP (p Considering remarkable increase in incidence of VAP following blood products transfusion and its correlation with injected PRBC and platelet, considering these modifiable risk factors for controlling and preventing the incidence of VAP in traumatic patients under mechanical ventilation in ICU is necessary and reasonable.

Family is the most important component of community and family health leads to spiritual excellence and intellectual growth. One of the debates in current society is to enhance the bases of marital life. More than half of the sexual problems which cause family life and marital relationships abolishment are due to insufficient knowledge or erroneous beliefs about sexual relationships. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of acceptance commitment therapy (ACT)-based premarital counseling on the couples’ sexual function.

The study population of this clinical trial consisted of all couples referring to premarital counseling centers of Isfahan in 2015. Sixty couples were selected and then randomly divided into two groups, an experimental group(30 couples) and a control group(30 couples). Then they completed a questionnaire of sexual function. The data were analyzed by SPSS 21 using the Mann-Whitney test.

The results of this study with the aforementioned condition showed the lack of significant difference in the couple’s sexual function between premarital counseling and the approach based on acceptance and commitment. So, it seems that performing a research with more samples and a target group having 1-5 marital experience would be necessary.

The results showed no significant difference between the effect of premarital counseling acceptance and commitment therapy – based approach on the couples’ sexual fanction in comparison with a premarital conventional approach(p>0.02).

The efficacy of evening primrose oil has been reported in metabolic syndrome and other diseases.The role of vitamin D has been proposed in the risk reducing of chronic diseases such as obesity, metabolic syndrome and diabetes too. We are aware of no study that examined the effects of evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplementation on metabolic profiles in gestational diabetes (GDM). This study was designed to assess the effects of evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplementation on metabolic profiles among pregnant women with GDM.
This randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial was performed among 60 women with GDM. Subjects were randomly assigned to receive either evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplements (n=30) or placebo (n=30) for 6 weeks. Fasting blood samples were taken at study baseline and after 6 weeks of intervention to quantify biochemical variables.
Evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplementation led to a significant decrease in serum high sensitivity-C reactive protein (hs-CRP ) levels (change from baseline: -1.9±4.0 vs. .6±2.6 µg/mL, p=0.006) and MDA (-0.8±2.1 vs. .6±1.5 µmol/L,p=0.005) compared with placebo. Furthermore, a significant increase in plasma NO (.5±3.8 vs. -1.9±8.1 µmol/L, p=0.009) and TAC levels (.4±174.8 vs. -36.4±143.1 mmol/L, p=0.005) was seen after evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplementation compared with placebo.
Evening primrose oil and vitamin D supplementation in GDM women had beneficial effects on metabolic profiles.

The injuries of peripheral nervous system cause the death of a number of motor cells of the spinal cord. Neurotrophins family genes such as NT3 involve in neuronal survive after nerve injury and their expression changes after it. With due attention to the expansion of portulaca pleracea in the world study was conducted to determine the effects of alcoholic and aqueous extracts of Potulaca oleracea on the NT3 gene expression after sciatic nerve compression in rat.
This study was performed on 88 male wistar rats that randomly were divided in 13 groups of 6 each. They consisted of control group, 4 compression groups (The sciatic nerve was compressed with locker pincer) and 8 treatment groups: compression treatment with dose of 75 mg/kg of alcoholic and aqueous extract of Portulaca oleracea on days 1 and 7 (never compression was done on the first day). In all groups, Total RNA was extracted from the lumbar spinal cord segment in 1, 7, 14, 28 days and cDNA was synthesized, then NT3 expression changes were compared in groups.
There was a significant increase in NT3 gene expression in the compression group compared to control (p The results reveal the Portulaca oleracea leaves extracts increase the NT3 gene expression after sciatic nerve injury. This effect is more in alcoholic extract than aqueous extract.

The aim of this study was to investigate the acute effect of supplementation Jadvar on aspartate aminotransferase (AST) and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) enzymes after exhaustive incremental exercise in men's handball.
In this semi-experimental double blinded study 12 handball players with at least 2 years record in league (with average age=21.42, height=186cm, weight=83.25, and body mass index=24.09kg/m2) divided into 2 groups (n=6) accidentally. Both groups performed maximum Bruce protocol until exhausting level. Before (fasting) and after performing protocol ,blood samples were taken from middle forearm vein and transferred to lab then supplementation group consumed three 500 mg jadvar capsules and control group consumed three 500 mg maltodextrin for 7 days daily. 24 hours after eating last capsule ,they performed maximum Bruce protocol up to exhausting level and the samples were collected like primary protocol blood samples before (fasting)and after performing protocol and were transferred to the laboratory.
The results of dependent and independent t-test showed that consuming jadvar supplements for 7days did not have significant effect on aspartate aminotransferase(AST) and alanine aminotransferase(ALT)(p≥0.05).But alanine aminotransferase in supplementation group (16.83 mg.dl-1) decreased in comparison to placebo group (20.5 mg.dl-1). Also, aspartate aminotransferase was increased from 28 mg.dl-1 to 35.17 mg.dl-1 , but neither decrease nor increase was not meaningful (p≥0.05).
It seems that acute consuming of jadvar supplement and one session incremental exercise does not have meaningful effect on AST and ALT in man handball players.

Stress oxidative factors are known to causes diseases resulting from metabolic disorders. Therefore, preventing, or at least decreasing the amount of these factors may have a positive impact on prevention or improvement of the metabolic problems. Recently, the herbal medicines are more considered due to more effectiveness. We designed the present study to evaluate anti-oxidant effect of aqueous extract of lavender (Lavandula angustifolia).
For extract preparation, the dry aerial part of lavender mixed with boiling water for 4 hours and then the container was filtered and condensed in a bain marie. Finally, the extract was powdered by freeze dryer. The anti-oxidant activities of the herbal medicine samples in 5, 10, 20 and 40 ppm concentrations were determined via DPPH method. This method is based on free radical scavenging of 2, 2- dipheny L-1-picrylhydrazyl(DPPH) reflected in the color and absorbance changes in spectrophotometery method in 520 nm. Finally the IC50 was calculated and compared with that of for vitamin C as a standard.
All doses of the aqueous extract of the lavender showed dose- dependent potent anti-oxidant activity, So that, their differences were significant compared to control sample. The IC50 of the herbal medicine was 24.66 ppm that was less than the vitamin C of 2.3 ppm.
As a potent anti-oxidant, the lavender aqueous extract can be effective in treatment of metabolic diseases.

Poor air quality has a lot of damage on the environment and humans. Awareness of the air quality situation reduces health effects of air pollution. This study was performed with the aim of the comparative investigation of Air Quality Health Index (AQHI) and its application in seven major cities of Iran in 2011.
This study was a descriptive–analytic one. First, the required data of four criteria pollutants were taken from Department of Environment in seven major cities of Iran. The data were validated by the World Health Organization criteria. The air quality health index was measured based on the instructions and classified into low, medium, high and very high degrees according to the air quality standard tables.
The results demonstrate that according to air quality health index, the level of air pollution in seven major cities of Iran has been undesirable and air quality has exceeded the standard level in Ahvaz 85%, Arak73%, Tehran70%, Esfahan60%, Shiraz 47%, Tabriz 43% and, Mashhad 29% of days.
Due to poor air quality and health consequences resulting from it, importance of Air Quality Health Index is explored in planning to control and reduce air pollution and awareness of peoples from daily status of air quality and its health effects.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third major cause of cancer death worldwide. Hepatitis B virus (HBV) and HBx gene play an important role in the development of HCC by influencing signaling pathways. Since there is no detectable symptom in the early phase of HCC, there is need to find new HCC-specific markers with high sensitivity for early detection and diagnosis of HCC. On the other hand, by the advent and development of bioinformatic sciences, it is now possible to predict miRNAs as biomarkers, and their targets. Therefore, in the present study, based on the results of the bioinformatic software applications with different algorithm, we selected the miRNA targeting HBx and NOTCH1 mRNAs according to higher score, suitable connection with target gene and confirming them in more softwares.
First, the sequences of NOTCH1 and HBx genes were retrieved from NCBI. Afterwards, several software applications such as TargetScan, mirWalk, miRBase, Miranda, PicTar, miRVir, and DIANA were applied to predict miRNAs.
Based on the high scoring by bioinformatics softwares and suitable targeting, miR-34a were selected to target NOTCH1 and miR-6510, miR-5193 and miR-214 were chosen to targetHBX gene.
Because of tumor suppression roles of miR-214 and miR-34a, they probably could be used as therapeutic strategy in cancer researches. It is also seems that the miR-5193 could act as a specific marker in Hepatocellular carcinoma.