Effect of oral ingestion of Nigella sativa seeds on some blood parameters

The effect of 2 weeks daily treatment with 2 g Nigella sativa [N. sativa] on the blood levels of glucose, uric acid, cholesterol, triglycerides, BUN and creatinine was studied on 16 second year male medical students. Nine students took 2 capsules of 500 mg N. sativa twice daily and served as the test group. Seven students served as controls and took 2 capsules of 500 mg brown sugar twice daily. In the test group, the parameters which showed a significant decrease by the end of the first week of treatment were glucose [p < 0.01] and cholesterol [p = 0.05]. However, both levels went up by the end of the second week of the treatment but remained below baseline. Creatinine was significantly elevated [p < 0.01] by the end of the first week. Uric acid showed a progressive but a nonsignificant decrease. A finding of interest was that the control group showed a progressive and significant increase in uric acid. It is concluded that N. sativa has a potential reducing effect on the blood levels of both glucose and cholesterol

Use of blood in elective surgery: an area of wasted hospital resource

Unavailability of blood is a common cause of canceled operations but clinicians' blood ordering habits have been shown to waste hospital resources. A prospective audit was set up in a blood bank in a teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia. Data were separately logged on blood transfusion for all surgical operations between August 1991 and December 1992. Standard terminology was employed. During the 16 months, 565 consecutive operations were logged. Only two of eight departments met the criterion of efficient blood ordering, vis-a-vis a C:T ratio [units crossmatched divided by units transfused] of 2.5:1. Similarly, in the four most frequently performed operations, the transfusion index [Ti] was <0.25, indicating that blood would have been required for <25% of these cases. The study confirms others' experience of inefficiency in blood ordering for surgical operations, plus its attendant waste of resources. It is recommended that unless written and binding guidelines are published on a nationwide basis, clinicians' inefficient methods in ordering blood are unlikely to alter rapidly