Arya Atherosclerosis
Volume:4 Issue: 4, Winter 2009

Family-based interventions are the most well-established way for the treatment of childhood obesity.For being applicable and sustainable; these interventions should be assessed in different community settings. The aim of this study was to compare the effects of two methods of nutritional intervention on weight loss of of obese children-parents pairs. This 12-week non-pharmacologic trial. With one year of follow up was conducted among 120 participants (60 pairs of obese children- parents). They were randomly assigned into two groups of equal number: one group received a diet with an energy content based on the calorie requirement for height, and the other group received dietary counseling about healthy nutrition for weight loss. Comparison of baseline characteristics vs. one-year follow up, showed that the mean value of body mass index decreased significantly in children, but not in their parents. In addition both groups of children had favorable changes in the mean consumption frequency of the studied food groups. The difference was not significantly different between the children in these two groups. This study showed that dietary counseling, consisting of simple and applicable improvement in dietary habits can be integrated to the usual diet of the family, and will result in sustainable changes. Furthermore, it confirmed the efficacy and sustainability of dietary coun-seling for weight control of obese children but not their parents; and emphasized on the impor-tance of healthy lifestyle establishment, from early life rather than trying to change it during adulthood.

Increased levels of lipoprotein (Lp)(a) is a risk factor for coronary heart dis-ease. In this study we evaluated levels of Lp(a) in patient with acute myocardial infarction (AMI) aged less than 50 years old in comparison to controls. In this case-control study, we compared 98 patients with AMI (case group) and an equal number of age- and sex-matched healthy subjects (control group). Serum Lp(a) level was measured after 12 hours of fasting in both groups. The mean age of the case and control groups was not significantly different (45.28 ± 5.09 vs. 44.89 ± 5.22 years, respectively P = 0.52).The mean Lp(a) level was significantly higher in the case group than in the control group (32.5 ± 24.5 vs.25.2 ± 22.6 mg/dl, respectively P = 0.04). Prevalence of LP(a) ≥ 30 mg/l was significantly higher in case group than in control group (43.5% vs. 27. %, respectively, P = 0.016, OR = 3.22, 95% CI = 1.24-8.3). Because of high prevalence of high LP(a) in premature AMI, it is necessary to control this disorder in young adults for preventing delayed MI.

Industrial method of butter production involves direct separation of butter fat from the milk, however in traditional-making process of butter and oil in rural regions of Ker-manshah province in west of Iran, the milk is converted to the yoghourt by the fermentation and following a few days maintenance of the yoghourt at room temperature, the butter fat is sepa-rated from the resulted yoghourt using several hours vigorous shaking. After melting of the but-ter and separation of its aqueous contents, traditional oil is prepared. A large body of evidence indicate that the type of fat has greater importance than total amounts of consumed fats with re-spect to risk of coronary artery disease (CAD), hence this study aimed to evaluate trend of fatty acids changes and cholesterol content from milk to oil, during the traditional method. Samples of milk, yoghourt, butter and oil prepared from the same bulk of milk were collected from different rural regions of Kermanshah province. To compare the traditional and industrial methods, samples of the industrially–prepared butter were purchased commer-cially. The total lipids of samples were extracted and subjected to fatty acids analysis by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). We found that significant reduction is taking place in the cholesterol and long chain fatty acids contents of butter and oil during the traditional method, while short- and medium- chain fatty acids are significantly increased. The fatty acid composition of industrially-made butter in our study however, was the same as that of the milk samples. Compared with the industrial method, the fatty acid composition of butter in the traditional method has better nutritional value. Some aspects of this process may be recom-mended for improvement of the commercial methods of butter production.

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is associated with chronic heart blocks. The purpose of this study was to find the frequency of CAD in four major types of cardiac conduction disorders i.e.: Sick Sinus Syndrome (SSS), 2nd degree atrioventricular (AV) block, complete heart block (CHB) and bifasicular and trifasicular blocks. During this one- year study, we performed coronary angiography (CAG) in all pa-tients with above mentioned conduction defects, who have been hospitalized for permanent pacemaker implantation; we determined the frequency of various degrees of CAD in different types of heart blocks. A number of 34 patient (64%) had no significant lesion in CAG, 20 (36%) had above 50% stenosis in at least one major coronary artery branch with 13% mono-vessel disease, 9.3% two- vessel disease and 14.8% three-vessel disease. Overall, 13 patients (24%) had critical CAD. CAD is common in patients with chronic conduction defects and might have a causative role in this regard.

Chronic stable angina is a common disease afflicting millions of people worldwide. The purpose of this study was to assess whether normal electrocardiogram (ECG) in this group of patients would mean normal cardiac systolic function. Ejection fraction was determined by cardiac angiography in 389 consecutive pa-tients with chronic stable angina who had normal resting ECG. Data was analyzed using t-test in SPSS 10.5. Only 15 patients (3.9%) with chronic stable angina and normal resting ECG had im-paired cardiac systolic function (low ejection fraction). Although a normal ECG by no means exclude possibility of coronary artery disease in patients with symptoms consistent with chronic stable angina, it makes the presence of left ventricular systolic function less likely and might predict a better prognosis.