mohammad setayesh

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) is one of the most common functional disorders of the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Several pathophysiological mechanisms have been proposed for this disorder, but no effective treatment exists for all patients, making it a problematic chronic disease. The present article aims to review the perspective of Persian medicine (PM) scholars, including opinions on patients’ predisposing factors and lifestyle, on this disorder and compare it with recent findings.

In this review, we searched the leading Persian medical books from the 10th to the 18th century AD regarding the pathophysiology and predisposing factors and the six essential health principles of the diseases with the most congruity with IBS. Moreover, we searched the Google Scholar, Science Direct, and PubMed databases for recent evidence on each item.

According to PM, this syndrome is a heterogeneous disorder resulting from various dystemperaments of the GI tract. Dystemperaments are due to accumulated waste material or excess humors in body organs or exposure to unsuitable weather or diet. Diet, mental status, exercise, body excretions, sleep, and weather are the six essential principles for maintaining health, and imbalance in any of them can cause many diseases, including IBS. Several of these lifestyle recommendations regarding the six essential principles of health are supported by recent research.

PM strategies for preserving and restoring health through lifestyle modification in IBS patients may provide researchers with new viewpoints for exploration.

Although observational studies are valuable sources of scientific evidence, they are prone to bias and confounding. This study aimed to assess the quality of observational studies in Traditional Persian medicine (TPM).

A systematic search was conducted in national and international databases up to the end of 2022 to identify observational studies on TPM. The quality of articles was evaluated using the STROBE checklist and CARE guidelines.

Out of the 192 articles identified, 109 met the eligible criteria for quality assessment. Cross-sectional and case-control studies had a mean STROBE score of 1.2±0.51 out of 2, with the introduction section scoring highest and the results and methods sections scoring lowest. The worst reported items in the method section involved sensitivity analyses, bias control, and management of missing data. Case reports and case series had a mean score of 1.4±0.55 out of 2, with the section on therapeutic interventions scoring the highest. Other sections like keywords, follow-up and outcomes, diagnostic assessment, patient perspective, and informed consent scored below one.

Many reviewed articles did not adhere to the recommended formatting in the evaluation tools, making it challenging to assess their quality. Having said that, the quality of observational studies in the field of TPM is a point of concern.

Traditional Persian Medicine (TPM) has a thousand-year history and a holistic approach that respects personal characteristics in its diagnosis and management. The objective of this study was to explore the concepts of personal and precision medicine in traditional Persian and modern medicine. A qualitative study design with a content analysis approach was conducted. Purposive and snowball sampling approaches were used to select participants. Then, we approached experts in various fields, including TPM, genetics, epidemiology, physiology, pharmacy, and general medicine. In the beginning, we summarized the concept of personalized medicine (PM) and asked them how many similarities and differences they might find between TPM and PM. A semi-structured questionnaire with six parts was used to collect data. The duration of each interview varied from 30 to 65 min. The interviews and experts’ viewpoints were recorded via an online platform and transcribed verbatim. The data analysis process involved several sequential steps: initial familiarization, coding, theme generation, theme review, theme definition and naming, and final writing.  After coding all texts and extracting issues, categories and conceptual frameworks were created by interpreting the content. To analyze the data, the content analysis approach assisted by MAXQDA 2018 software was used. More than 70% of participants showed a favorable attitude in all evaluated parts. Approximately 80% of participants agreed that there are parallels between TPM and precision medicine; for example, in TPM and precision medicine, patients are treated with respect to their characteristics. More than 80% of participants thought temperamentology may help with patient diagnosis and treatment. They also suggested that TPM concepts could be used to improve and accelerate the implementation of precision medicine. The majority of participants acknowledged the use of phenotypes to reduce the reliance on genetics in precision medicine. However, several participants expressed skepticism. According to the participants, these concepts will not be beneficial unless TPM aligns with modern medicine. In addition, there must be scientific evidence confirming the association between different genes and temperaments. The advent of precision medicine does not mean disregarding TPM; rather, the concepts of TPM can be used in precision medicine. For example, phenotype can assist in reducing the reliance on genetics in precision medicine. Because phenotype, as an important concept in TPM, is the external manifestation of the genotype. In addition, like precision medicine, TPM can help to provide personalized medical treatment based on people's temperament.

Currently, a healthy lifestyle that also covers eating habits plays a vital role in the prevention of many diseases, especially chronic diseases. These habits have been precisely classified in the texts of Iranian traditional medicine. These classifications help better understand and make better use of food, which can be confirmed with new tools and information. This study aimed to evaluate the validity and reliability of dietary habits scale for adults derived from Iranian medicine.

This cross-sectional study was designed to develop the dietary habits scale and evaluate its validity and reliability. The scale was drafted with two subscales including eating manners and drinking manners based on the principles of Iranian medicine. Afterward, to determine the construct validity and reliability of the scale, it was administered to 40 people aged 25 to 55 years. Data were analyzed using SPSS21 and AMOS software.

The content validity ratio (CVR) and content validity index (CVI) were 0.99 and 0.79, respectively. The confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) test was used to evaluate its dimensionality. The CFMIN/DF was 1.80, and RMSEA, GFI, and CFI were 0.05, 0.91, and 0.93, respectively. The internal consistency of the scale was confirmed by calculating the Cronbach's alpha coefficient (α = 0.805).

The eating habits scale developed based on the Iranian medicine has acceptable reliability and validity for its administration on the participants. In future studies, researchers are recommended to focus on different demographic groups and examine the impact of contextual and clinical variables.

This study aims to assess the efficacy of local heat therapy (Kaiy) in alleviating symptoms of mild to moderate idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome (CTS). A single-blind clinical trial was conducted involving patients with mild and moderate idiopathic carpal tunnel syndrome. A total of 120 patients were randomly assigned to either the intervention or control group. Both groups utilized a medical wristband during nighttime. The intervention group received pen moxa as a local heat therapy tool (Kaiy) applied to the wrist region. The Boston questionnaire was employed for assessment. Heat therapy using Kaiy (pen moxa) significantly improved symptom severity (P≤0.0001), functional status (P≤0.0001), and pain scores (P≤0.0001) in patients with mild to moderate CTS compared to those in the control group without heat therapy. This study demonstrates the positive impact of heat therapy (Kaiy) as a non-surgical approach for reducing pain, symptom severity, and functional impairment in CTS patients. Integrating complementary and alternative medicine with conventional treatment modalities could enhance symptom management with minimal side effects.

The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19), as a global concern, has affected different economic and social aspects, as well as health costs in various communities. Finding effective and available treatment is an urgent need. A recent study has demonstrated that the ketogenic diet (KD) activates innate immunity and has a protective property against virus infection. Accordingly, we conducted this study to find the effect of oral medium-chain triglyceride (MCT) on COVID-19 and its clinical manifestations.

This was a randomized clinical trial on 195 patients clinically suspected of COVID-19 referred to infectious disease clinics of Kerman. Patients were randomly assigned into two groups. The Control group received standard supportive treatment, the recommendation for carbohydrate avoiding and diet modification. Patients in the intervention group received all mentioned recommendations beside MCT oil. Patients` clinical symptoms, including body temperature, respiratory rate, body pain, and dyspnea, were recorded in a checklist and analyzed.

The mean age of patients was 37.78 ± 12.42 years in the intervention group and 40.81 ± 13.23 years in controls (P = 0.231). The patients in the intervention group had lower duration of weakness (P = 0.004), body pain (P = 0.004), dyspnea (P = 0.004), gastrointestinal manifestations (P<0.001), sore throat (P<0.001), increased respiratory rate (P<0.001), and high intensity of cough (P=0.002). Indeed, weakness, cough frequency, sore throat, and gastrointestinal complications were significantly lower in the females of the intervention group (P=0.006, P=0.030, P=0.005, and P=0.001, respectively). In contrast, in the males of the intervention group, manifestations such as respiratory rates, dyspnea, cough intensity, and sore throat were significantly lower than those in the control group.

Administration of MCT in outpatients suspected of COVID-19 alleviated clinical symptoms such as increased respiratory rate, cough intensity, dyspnea, body pain, and gastrointestinal symptoms and helps them overcome the probable disease morbidity.

Banks as the largest financial intermediaries play a vital role in collecting savings and directing them toward manufacturing activities. Hence, assets and liabilities management is crucial for them and their depositors. In this study, through system dynamics approach, a dynamic model was proposed to manage assets and liabili-ties optimally. After building the model and conducting validation and sensitivity analysis, three scenarios were devised and were simulated and analyzed via the proposed model. The results revealed that taking effective decisions and actions to collect more deposits, especially time deposits as well as increasing the quality of credit assets (if allocated optimally) can be effective in improving the performance of banks. Therefore, using systems thinking and system dynamics can aid banks in managing their assets and liabilities optimally. mary of the significant items in the paper, including the results and conclusions.

Palliative care plays an essential role in improving the quality of life of patients suffering from chronic and incurable diseases; therefore, it seems necessary to remove barriers in improving palliative care. The present systematic review aims to describe the current status of palliative care, and determine the challenges of palliative care services.

In this systematic review study, we searched Scopus, Magiran,SID,Cochran,Embase, PubMed, Web of Science, and Google Scholar databases. Also, we retrieved articles published in English and Persian during 2000 to 2021. The keywords include "hospice care," palliative care," "health care," "terminal care," "end of life care," and palliative medicine". All retrieved articles were screened in three stages, namely review of titles, abstracts, and full texts. Meanwhile, we analyzed data based on the WHO 2018 framework and deductive-inductive approach.

A total of 3497 articles were found. After reviewing these articles, we were able to selecte 48 articles. Data were extracted and categorized according to four functions, namely service delivery, stewardship, resources generation, and financing. Service delivery had four themes, and nine sub-themes; stewardship had two themes and five sub-themes; resource generation had three themes and nine sub-themes; and financing had one themes and three sub-themes.

Findings of the present study can help policymakers improve the infrastructure and resources, as well as processes of palliative care that can consequently lead to an improvement in the outcomes of palliative care. Also, solving the challenges of palliative care requires strengthening the health systems so that they will be able to design and implement appropriate policies

Alcohol use has always been prevalent in human societies, but in many Muslim-majority countries, including Iran, national laws prohibit the consumption of this substance.

In this study, reference books on traditional Iranian medicine and electronic documents from Google Scholar, PubMed, and Scopus were searched for entries about the consequences and treatments of alcohol abuse.

Seminal books of traditional Iranian medicine refer to alcoholic beverages using two terms, namely, “khamr” and “sharâb” (wine). These sources indicate that the temperament of “sharâb” is generally warm but may vary depending on color, taste, concentration, and age. Traditional Iranian medicine views wine as a cause of multiple adverse effects on health.

Traditional Iranian medicine advocates the beliefs that no level of alcohol use is beneficial for health and that physicians should advise against alcohol consumption even in small amounts. Scholars of indigenous medical practices have long been opposed to the adoption of wine as a remedy or otherwise, as they believe that the benefits of alcohol are dwarfed by its harmful effects.

Abstract: Despite the importance of predictive variable in prediction, in most of the research in the field of auditors’ opinion the purpose was rendering the suitable models. Meanwhile, less attention was paid to the selection of optimal predictive variable and appropriate models of these selection. Therefore, in most of these research the predictive variables were chosen randomly and according to the prior research. The process of selecting variables could be used as a preprocess for omitting irrelevant variables and selecting optimal variables before creating the model. In this regard, this study investigates the usefulness of Correlation-Based Features Selection (CFS) in auditors’ opinion prediction of listed companies in Tehran Stock Exchange. The classifiers including Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) and logistic regression were used. In overall, the experimental results of investigating 1214 firms-years from 2008 to 2015, confirmed the usefulness of CFS Method in predicting auditor's opinion. In other words, the application of the CFS method, increases the mean of accuracy in comparison with using all variables, and reduces the occurrence of type I and type II errors. Furthermore, the results indicated that ANN outperforms the logistic regression.