Dual addictions, parallel treatments: nicotine replacement therapy for patients receiving methadone treatment in the Islamic Republic of Iran

This parallel, randomized, open-ended clinical trial tested the impact of nicotine replacement pharmacotherapy during the course of methadone treatment among opiate abusers. A total of 424 men entered the study at 4 drug treatment centres in Tehran, Islamic Republic of Iran. The intervention group received a 6-week regimen of nicotine replacement pharmacotherapy at no charge. After 6 months, 211 persons [99.5%] in the control group continued to smoke and 1 person [0.5%] had quit. In the intervention group, 117 [55.1%] persons smoked, 15 [7.1%] persons had quit and 80 [37.7%] had reduced by more than 50% the number of cigarettes they smoked at the start of the study [P < 0.0001]. The findings suggest that the use of nicotine replacement pharmacology in tandem with methadone maintenance treatment can lead to dramatically improved efficacy for treatment of dual addictions

effect of aging on resting- state brain function: an fMRI study

Healthy aging may be accompanied by some types of cognitive impairment; moreover, normal aging may cause natural atrophy in the healthy human brain. The hypothesis of the healthy aging brain is the structural changes together with the functional impairment happening. The brain struggles to over-compensate for those functional age-related impairments to continue as a healthy brain in its functions. Our goal in this study was to evaluate the effects of aging on the resting-state activation network of the brain using the multi-session probabilistic independent component analysis algorithm [PICA]. We compared the resting-state brain activities between two groups of healthy aged and young subjects, so we examined 30 right-handed subjects and finally 12 healthy aging and 11 controls were enrolled in the study. Our results showed that during the resting-state, older brains benefit from larger areas of activation. While in young competent brains, higher activation occurs in terms of greater intensity. These results were obtained in prefrontal areas as regions with regard to memory function as well as the posterior cingulated cortex [PCC] as parts of the default mode network. Meanwhile, we reached the same results after normalization of activation size with total brain volume. The difference in activation patterns between the two groups shows the brain's endeavor to compensate the functional impairement

Prevalence of atrial fibrillation in a primary health care centre in Fars Province, Islamic Republic of Iran

This study determined the prevalence of atrial fibrillation at a primary health care centre in Fars province of the Islamic Republic of Iran. All ambulatory people aged > or = 50 years visiting the centre between April and October 2001 were screened for atrial fibrillation using a st and ard 12-lead ECG. The mean +/- SD age of participants was 64.0 +/- 8.9 years. Of 463 participants aged 50-79 years, 13 [2.8%] had atrial fibrillation [median age 74 years], significantly more women [10/230] than men [3/233]. Unlike previous studies in industrialized countries, the prevalence tripled with each decade of life and increased significantly from 0.6% in the 50-59 years to 6.4% in the 70-79 years age group. With increasing longevity in some developing countries, atrial fibrillation and consequently stroke may become major health problems