International Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism
Volume:17 Issue: 4, Oct 2019

The title of a paper is “like a hat on a head or the front door to a house” and its initial impression. Writing a good and effective title makes the paper more retrievable by search engines and maximizes its impact in the scientific community. The paper’s title presents what has been studied, how it has been done, and what are the major results. A well-written title is balanced for being informative and concise, as well as attractively conveying the main topic, highlighting the importance of the study. For writing a good title, it should be drafted correctly, accurately, carefully, and meticulously by the main study keywords. By removing extra and unspecific words, the final title should be unambiguous, memorable, captivating, and informative. Here, we provided an overview of the importance and function of the title as well as different types of titles in scientific medical writing. We also focused on the content and organization of the title of a hypothesis-testing paper. In addition, the features of a good title were discussed.

Vitamin D is an important steroid that can regulate bone metabolism including osteoclast (OC) differentiation. Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 5 (TRPV5), is a calcium channel protein involved in OC differentiation. However, the impact of vitamin D on TRPV5 expression during OC differentiation is not clear.

To determine if 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D3 (1,25(OH)2D3) regulates the expression of TRPV5 during OC differentiation.

Bone marrow mononuclear macrophage (BMMs) were induced to differentiate intoOCwith or without treatment with 10 nM1,25(OH)2D3. The expression levels of vitamin D receptor (VDR) and TRPV5 were examined. The expression of several OC markers, including tartrate resistant acid phosphatase (TRAP), carbonic anhydrase II (Ca II), cathepsin K (CTSK), and vacuolar-type H+-ATPase (V-ATPase) were also detected.

We found that theVDRwas expressed in murine bonemarrow-derived macrophages at the early stage of OCdifferentiation. TRPV5 expression was increased during OC differentiation, which was down-regulated by 1,25(OH)2D3 after a prolonged exposure. The 1,25(OH)2D3 and TRPV5 inhibitors inhibited OC differentiation.

1,25(OH)2D3 can inhibit TRPV5 expression as well as TRPV5 inhibitors during OC differentiation. This suggests that
1,25(OH)2D3 may suppress OC differentiation by inhibiting TRPV5 expression.

We aimed to compare the markers of thyroid hormone status in treated euthyroid Graves’ patients and levothyroxine (LT4)-treated hypothyroid Graves’ patients.

We collected the data of 277 patients, including 140 radioiodine-treated hypothyroid Graves’ patients on LT4 treatment (group 1), 83 euthyroid Graves’ patients on methimazole (MMI) therapy (group 2), and 54 euthyroid Graves’ patients off MMI or radioiodine therapy for > 2 years (group 3). After the exclusion of diabetic patients, 130, 73, and 52 patients remained for analysis in groups 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Pearson and Spearman correlation coefficients were employed to assess the relationships between T3:T4 ratio and variables in each group along with univariate and multivariate linear regression models.

The mean age and female/male ratio were similar in the three groups. Serum fT4 was significantly higher and T3, TSH, TPOAb, and TRAb were significantly lower in group 1 than in group 2 and combined groups 2 and 3, which translated to 27% lower serum T3:T4 ratio in group 1. Higher BMI, serum cholesterol, and LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol were observed in group1 than in combined groups 2 and 3. In multivariate regression analysis, the T3:T4 ratio was significantly higher in combined groups 2 and 3 than in group 1 in the presence of BMI and serum fasting blood glucose, triglycerides, and TSH.

Hypothyroid Graves’ patients using LT4 exhibited lower T3:T4 ratio despite lower TSH levels and their BMI and lipid parameters differed from those of euthyroid Graves’ patients.

This study aimed to assess the prevalence of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM) based on two sets of criteria, namely the old criteria suggested in 2009 by the American Diabetes Association and newcriteria of the International Association of Diabetes in Pregnancy Study Group. We also evaluated the predictive power of the risk factors of GDM.

Pregnant women from three outpatient clinics in Tehran, Iran, participated in this cross-sectional observational study. During the first perinatal visit, demographic data, medical histories, weight, and height of mothers were recorded. The mother’s fasting glucose and glycosylated hemoglobin were measured. An oral glucose tolerance test was also performed. The prevalence of GDM, based on the two criteria, was estimated and its predictive factors were investigated.

Of 1,117 pregnant women, 156 (15.6%) and 71 (7.1%) patients had GDM based on the new and old criteria, respectively. Multivariate analysis showed that older age at pregnancy (OR = 1.05; 95% CI: 1.006 - 1.107; P = 0.03), higher body mass index (OR = 1.2; 95% CI: 1.15 - 1.3; P < 0.001), family history of diabetes (OR = 1.97; 95% CI: 1.11 - 3.5; P = 0.02), and history of macrosomia (OR = 7.8; 95% CI:1.96 - 30.9; P = 0.004) were independent predictive factors for GDM.

Using the new criteria, the prevalence of GDM increases by 2.2 folds compared to the old criteria. Several factors can independently predict the occurrence of GDM.

Standard treatment of hypophosphatemic rickets (HR) is oral phosphate tablets plus vitamin D. Due to the rapid absorption of phosphate tablets, frequent daily doses are necessary, which is cumbersome and may cause fluctuations in plasma phosphate and risk of secondary hyperparathyroidism. It was hypothesized that phosphate from milk or cheese is less rapidly absorbed, and reduces fluctuations in plasma phosphate.

The current randomized, multiple crossover study aimed at investigating if an equivalent phosphate dose given as milk or cheese is comparable to phosphate tablets in patients with HR.

Seven females with HR were included. They went through three different four-day treatment sessions of either oral phosphate tablets consisting of 800 mg elemental phosphorus divided into five doses over the day or an equivalent phosphorus dose ingested as skimmed milk or cheese divided over five daily doses. Blood and urine samples were taken from patients after each treatment session. Except the usual doses of vitamin D, no phosphate or calcium-modifying treatments were allowed. Statistical analyses were performed using mixed models.

Treatment feasibility was independent of the phosphorus source. The study demonstrated reduced plasma levels of parathyroid hormone (PTH), reduced fluctuations in plasma phosphate and plasma PTH, and reduced renal phosphate excretion when ingesting phosphorus supplementation as milk compared to phosphate tablets. The same trend was observed when administering phosphorus as cheese, though not statistically significant.

Phosphorus supplements can be administered as phosphate tablets, milk or cheese when given in equimolar doses. The current study findings indicated that milk may be superior to phosphate tablets as the phosphate source in patients with HR.

Graphs, an effective form of data presentation, are used for summarizing complex information and making them easier to understand. Extracting numerical data from graphs, which is commonly required in systematic reviews and meta-analyses, is however a challenging issue. Since this kind of results presentation is common, ignorance of such data may result in publication bias when conducting meta-analyses. On the other hand, contacting the authors of a particular publication in order to retrieve the data may take a long time and is often not very fruitful. In this case, there are a few software and methods that may be used for data extraction; however, using these software is costly and not simple as well as different types of graphs need different extraction methods. Here, we have described a simple reproducible method for extracting data from graphs using Adobe Photoshop.