Shiraz Emedical Journal
Volume:18 Issue: 7, Jul 2017

Mental health is the most important factor that influences all aspects of life including academic achievements. The present study aimed at evaluating students’ mental health who started their education in September 2014 at Islamic Azad University of Medical Sciences in Tehran. The present cross-sectional study included 907 medical students (biology, health, medical, paramedical, medical engineering, nursing, and midwifery). All students in the first week of their university activities filled the mental health questionnaire. Subsequently, they were coded and their demographic information was analyzed by SPSS. Our results revealed that 19.5% of the medical students suspected to have a mental disorder.

Relieving a very painful procedure such as impacted lower third molar surgery by combining analgesics into a single product using their synergistic effects is favorable. We designed a prospective, randomized, double-blind clinical trial to study the beneficial effect of the combination of acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and caffeine on reducing the severity of postoperative pain after impacted lower third molars surgery.
This was a double-blinded clinical trial on 108 patients scheduled for impacted third molar surgery. The patients were randomly assigned into 2 groups. Two hours before the procedure the intervention group received combination therapy of acetaminophen (600 mg), ibuprofen (400 mg), and caffeine (15 mg) as pre-emptive analgesia, and the control group received placebo. All patients received gelofen capsules (400 mg) uniformly after the intervention as PRN. Postoperative assessment of pain severity [using a 10-point visual analog scale (VAS)] and analgesic consumption was performed at 2, 4, 6, and 8 hours after the operation. All statistical analyses were performed using SPSS software (version 19.0, SPSS Inc., Chicago, Illinois), with chi-square test or Fisher’s and Mann-Whitney U test.
The severity of preoperative pain did not differ before receiving the first dose of study drugs. However, at any time points after the surgery, the mean pain score was significantly lower in the group who received combination regimen than the control group (P The pre-emptive combination therapy including acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and caffeine can be used efficiently to control postoperative pain after impacted third molar surgery.

The association between serum zinc levels and cognitive impairment is a controversial issue.
The association between serum zinc levels and cognitive impairment was investigated in the elderly population of Amirkola city, northern Iran.
The data of this cross-sectional study came from a large cohort study, known as the Amirkola health and ageing project (AHAP). The sample included 1004 eligible participants aged 60 years or older (486 females and 518 males). The staff of healthcare centers interviewed the participants and completed the Persian version of the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE). Their serum zinc levels were measured using the ZishChem diagnostic kit.
Of all of the participants, 347 (33.3%) had cognitive impairment. Furthermore, 254 participants (25.2%) were classified as having mild cognitive impairment, 82 (8.2%) moderate, and 11 (1.1%) severe. A total of 160 females (32.9%) and 180 males (34.7%) were within the normal range of serum zinc (80 to 120 μg/dL), 133 females (27.4%) and 121 males (23,4%) were within the high range of serum zinc (> 120 μg/dL), and 193 males (39.7%) and 217 males (41.9%) were at low range of serum zinc ( The results do not support the belief that serum zinc levels may be associated with cognitive function in the elderly population.

This study compared formant frequencies in vowel production among children with different degrees of hearing loss (HL) and normal hearing.
This study was carried out on 40 children with different degrees of HL (moderate, moderate to severe, severe, and profound). Forty age (7 to 9 years old) and gender (22 males and 18 females) matched children with normal hearing were included. After collecting acoustic data during vowel production (/a/i/,/u/) for 3 seconds, the mean of the F1 and F2 were selected using the Praat software. The data were analyzed using analysis of variance (ANOVA) and Dunnett’s Post Hoc test.
Several differences in formant frequencies were confirmed with ANOVA tests. The results from Dunnett’s post hoc test showed that the F2 value of /a/ and /i/ in the control group were significantly different from all groups with HL (P There was little distinction between vowels of HL children, and their vowel space had become centralized presumably due to limited auditory feedback, relative invisibility of the articulatory gestures needed for vowel production, and similar tongue position for all vowels. The second formant tended to be affected more than the first formant because less audibility and the difficulty of its learning through vision.

Paraoxonase-1 (PON1) is an anti-atherosclerotic enzyme that protects high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) against oxidation. There are contradictory studies about the effects of exercise training on PON1 activity.
The purpose of the present study was to elucidate the effects of sprint and endurance exercise training on serum PON1 activity and lipid profile in rats.
Twenty-four Albino Wistar rats were divided to sedentary control (SC), endurance training (ET), and sprint training (ST) groups. The animals were subjected to endurance (at a speed of 27 m/minute) and sprint (at a speed of 40 to 54 m/minute) training on a treadmill for 6 weeks, 6 days per week. Using commercial kits, PON1 activity and lipid profile levels were measured by spectrophotometry and enzymatic methods, respectively. The data were analyzed by one-way analysis of variance followed by Tukey’s post-hoc test at P Both ET and ST regimens increased PON1 activity in the serum, and the alteration was greater following ST than ET (F1, 23 = 17.87, P = 0.001). In contrast, neither ST nor ET changed significantly the serum levels of triglyceride (F1, 23 = 0.288, P = 0.753), total cholesterol (F1, 23 = 0.385, P = 0.685), LDL (F1, 23 = 1.07, P = 0.361), and HDL (F1, 23 = 1.36, P = 0.277). In addition, serum PON1 activity was positively correlated with serum HDL levels in rats (R = 0.44, P = 0.032).
Despite the lack of change in serum lipid profile, sprint training can lead to greater protection against lipid peroxidation than endurance training through increases in serum PON1 activity.