COVID-19 is a unique viral infectious illness that causes a variety of symptoms and health hazards, particularly to the respiratory system and has been declared a worldwide pandemic. The disease is characterized by a cytokine release in severe conditions. Interleukin-6 (IL-6), a proinflammatory cytokine, mediates an important immunomodulatory process. Also, vitamin D was identified to have a role in the innate immunity of individuals. Our study was designed to find the role of IL-6 and vitamin D in COVID-19 patients, as well as, to see whether there is a link between vitamin D deficiency and cytokine syndrome development. The study included 90 COVID-19 patients and 30 control people from Baghdad, Iraq. The age of the participants was non-significantly (P>0.05) different between COVID-19 and control, so was the body mass index. IL-6 level was significantly (P<0.05) higher in COVID-19 patients compared to control, while vitamin D level was significantly (P<0.05) reduced in COVID-19 patients. Nevertheless, the results have shown no significant correlation between vitamin D and IL-6 in the serum of COVID-19 patients. Furthermore, both IL-6 and vitamin D exhibited an excellent sensitivity in the diagnosis of COVID-19.
Rheumatoid arthritis is one of the common chronic disease, which lead to great disability and chronic pain, and has a main adverse economic and social effect upon patients. The reason for the addition of quality of life as a pointer for health outcome result is attributed to the affectability of this measure for the evaluation of patient's health status after taken treatment and its health outcome. The purpose of the current study was to assess quality of life among a sample of Iraqi patients with rheumatoid arthritis and to determine the possible association between health’s related quality of life and some patient-certain factors. This study is a cross-sectional study carried out on 250 already diagnosed rheumatoid arthritis pat
... Show MoreBlood samples of One hundred and twenty patients from different hospitals in Baghdad infected with hydatidosis in different sites of the body (Liver, Lung, multiorgans and kidney) were collected for this study. On the other hand, 30 healthy individuals were included as a control group. This study was conducted to evaluate the effect of this disease on the serum protein profile of the patients using electrophoresis. The results revealed four different protein banding patterns with difference in number of bands and their molecular weights in comparison to the control group, and these differences depended on the site of infection. However the data showed a presence of the same band in all patients with different site of infection.
The Growth Differentiation Factor -15 (GDF-15) is a member of the transforming growth factor β superfamily. İt represents an example of the stress response cytokines. It's mostly found in cardiac myocytes, adipocytes, macrophages, endothelial cells, and vascular endothelial cells, whether they're generated normally or not. GDF-15 levels have increased and are associated with cardiovascular risk. Aim of the study: To investigate the correlation between angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors and angiotensin II receptor blockers (ARBs) with the level of plasma GDF-15 in a group of hypertensive patients. Materials and methods: A case-control study involved 90 individuals, 60 hypertensive patients (36 on ACE inhibitors and 24 on ARBs)
... Show MoreBackground: The skin functions as a barrier to the external environment, damage to this barrier following a burn disrupts the innate immune system and increases susceptibility to bacterial infection. Objective: This study was carried out to determine the bacterial isolates and study their antimicrobial susceptibility in burned wound infections at one burn's hospital in Baghdad.Type of study:Cross-sectional study.Methods: The bacteria were identified at species level by using Analytic Profile Index (API) system and The antimicrobial susceptibility test was performed according to Kirby-Bauer (disk diffusion) technique.Results: Over a period of one year (from October 2014 to October 2015). Out of 848 patients with different degrees of burns
... Show MoreThe goal of this study was to investigate the protein peroxidation role by measuring serum levels of advanced oxidation protein products (AOPP) in type 2 diabetic patients with or without retinopathy and comparing them to controls to see if circulating AOPP levels can be used as a detection biomarker for DR. And see which of the two widely used antidiabetic treatment groups had the most impact on this oxidative stress marker. The groups were divided into two subgroups: 1) 70 type 2 diabetic patients (36 male, 34 female), 35 with diabetic retinopathy (DR) and 35 with no evidence of DR, and 2) non-diabetic controls (11 male, 9 female) were chosen from Ibn AL-Haitham Hospital for Ophthalmology and a Specialized Center for Endocrinology and Dia
... Show MoreBackground: Sex variations in coronary artery disease (CAD) are well documented. However, sex differences in coronary artery calcium (CAC) and its role in the detection of coronary artery stenosis remain controversial. Objective: To assess the impact of sex variation on coronary artery calcification and its efficacy in predicting coronary artery stenosis. Methods: This is a cross-sectional observational study including 230 consecutive patients with suspected CAD (120 men and 110 women) referred for coronary computed tomography angiography (CCTA). The study analyzed sex-based differences in the sensitivity and specificity of coronary artery calcification (CAC) for detecting moderate to severe stenosis across various coronary arteries
... Show MoreThis work studies the role of serum apelin-36 and Glutathione S-transferases (GST) activity in association with the hormonal, metabolic profiles and their link to the risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) in healthy and patients' ladies with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). A total of fifty-four (PCOS) patients and thirty-one healthy woman as a control have been studied. The PCOS patients were subdivided on the basis of body-mass-index (BMI), into 2-subgroups (the first group was obese-PCOS with BMI ≥ 30 and the second group was non-obese PCOS MBI<30). Fasting-insulin-levels and Lipid-profile, Homeostatic-model assessment-of-insulin-resistance (HOMA-IR), follicle-stimulating-hormone (FSH), luteinizing-hormone (LH), testosterone and
... Show MoreThe present study evaluates the effects of Ginkgo biloba extract as monotherapy on the glycemic status, insulin resistance (IR), body mass index (BMI), and visceral adiposity index (VAI), in addition to the inflammatory markers, oxidative status and leptin level in patients with metabolic syndrome in comparison with metformin.
The study is a randomized, double-blind pilot study conducted during the period May to September, 2020. Fifty patients were recruited in the study and they were allocated into two groups (25 per each group): Ginkgo biloba and Metformin groups, they received (120 mg Ginkgo biloba extract/ capsule) and (500 mg Metformin/ capsule) respectively; orally as a single dose for 90 days. Blood samples were taken at z
... Show MoreIt is no secret to anyone that studying and investigating books of jurisprudence, despite their suffering, is a pleasure that cannot be compared to pleasure, and it has benefits and importance that cannot be limited and summed up, and it has great fruits that researchers and students of knowledge reap, as well as enriching libraries with jurisprudential material, after dusting them and taking them out to the light of libraries to be seen. Researchers and scholars, generation after generation, so that this nation can benefit from this pioneering intellectual and scientific product that was written for us by our first ancestors of working scholars who enriched human civilization with this scientific material, which has become a beacon guid
... Show MoreA field experiment was conducted during the spring season 2020 in Karbala proving/ Al-Sharia Distrit, located at latitude N 32° 42' 13.8" and longitude E 43° 54' 36.6" and at an altitude of 27 m above sea level. The experiment included a study of two factors: the first, Irrigation Interval, three treatments were used: irrigation treatment every 2 days, Irrigation treatment every 4 days, and Irrigation treatment every 6 days. The second factor is the addition of soil conditioners, in which four treatments were used: the control treatment without any addition, the treatment of adding bio-organic fertilizers, the treatment of adding water-conserving technology (polymer), and the treatment of adding water-conserving technology + fertilizers O
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