Factors Affecting Iodine Content in Dairy Cow’s Milk – a Review.

Recently, milk has been suggested as one of the main sources of iodine for human intake. However, there is the potential for problems resulting from excessive amounts of iodine in cow milk. Supplementary feed iodine increases milk iodine and is apparently the cause of many of the high milk iodine values. Iodine teat dips and sanitizers also contribute to increased milk iodine values. Variability of these practices may result in variation of iodine concentrations in milk. In addition, the transportation and processing phases of milk production, where iodophor sanitizers are used, season, geographic region, stage of lactation and iodine antagonists in feeds, may influence milk iodine concentration. It seems that Iodine concentration in milk should be monitored, regularly.

[Changes in blood pressure and its association with anthropometric indices and puberty during Ramadan in adolescent girl]

The present study was designed to evaluate blood pressure changes in Tehranian 8-13 y old fasting girls during Ramadan and determine effective factors in order to observe blood pressure alteration independently. Totally, 337 female students aged 8-13 years [mean 10+/-1], were selected by stratified randomized method among volunteer girls intending to fast the whole month of Ramadan. Study was conducted in three stages; before and during the 2nd and 4th weeks of Ramadan. At each visit, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, pulse rate and pulse pressure, and anthropometric indices were recorded. Girls were also evaluated for pubic hair, breast development and menarche. Totally, 283 girls completed all the three stages. Girls had been fasting for 9+/-3 and 25+/-4 days in the 2nd and 3rd visits, respectively. As compared to baseline, there were slight reductions in anthropometric indices during fasting. Mean systolic blood pressure decreased from 102+/-11 mmHg before fasting to 99+/-11 mmHg in the 2nd week of fasting and returned to basal level at the end of Ramadan [p<0.001]. Mean diastolic blood pressure were 70+/-9 and 71+/-8 mmHg before and in the 2nd week of fasting and increased to 74+/-9 mmHg at the end of Ramadan [p<0.001]. Systolic and diastolic pressures were significantly correlated with most anthropometric and pubertal indices. Weight showed the strongest correlation with systolic [r=0.48] and diastolic [r=0.40] blood pressure [p<0.001]. Linear regression analysis demonstrated weight as the best predictor for systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Adjusting systolic and diastolic blood pressure according to the weight of the girls did not cause considerable change in their values and patterns during fasting. Blood pressure changes in Tehranian 8-13 year old girls during Ramadan fasting in autumn season were slight, within normal range and independent from weight changes

frequency of thyroid autoantibodies is higher in the upper range of normal thyrotropin values

If the upper bound of serum thyrotropin [TSH] reference range is decreased from 5.0 to 3.0 mIU/L, a large number of pa tients in a tertiary care practice setting would be reclassified from "normal" to having "biochemical" hypothyroidism. The predictive value of very subtle, hypothyroidism is unknown. In this paper we investigated the frequency of positive thyroid autoantibodies in the upper range of normal TSH values in the general population. Between December 1999 and September 2000, 1434 people aged >20 years selected from families living in Tehran District13 were entered for evaluation. Serum TSH [normal range: 0.3-3.5 mIUjL], antithyroperoxidase [TPOAb] and antithyroglobulin [TgAb] antibodies were measured. "Reference sample" was defined by excluding those with a personal history of goiter, hypothyroidism, thyrotoxicosis, thyroid nodule, neck surgery or radiotherapy, hospital admission or taking of thyroid or antithyroid drugs, estrogens or androgens, and lithium during the previous month, pregnant women, abnormal TSH values, and TPOAb+ or TgAb+. Mean serum TSH was significantly lower in the "reference sample" as compared to the total population. The frequency of TPOAb+ and TgAb+ was significantly higher in those with TSH values of 2.6-3.5 mIUjL as compared to those with TSHtilde.5 mIUjL both in men and women. Once sequential rising values of TSH were entered into the binary logistic regression model, TSH values greater than 2.5 mIUjL could predict cases that were positive for TPOAb+ and/or TgAb+. Female sex and goiter were the two other significant predictors. In the general population studied, there is a significant positive correlation between the frequency of positive thyroid autoantibodies and TSH values in the upper range of normal values. Studies are recommended to demonstrate the possible benefit of monitoring or therapy for those with TSH values in the upper range of normal values and positive thyroid autoantibodies

Comparison of awareness, attitude, and professional function of graduates and senior nursing students

Nurses are the biggest group of health system professionals and have a considerable effect on the quality of the health care currently being provided. To investigate awareness, attitude, and professional function of nurses from the view points' of person himself colleagues, instructors and service consumers [patients]. This research is a cross-sectional study carried out to compare the awareness, attitude, and function in employed nurses and senior nursing students. Subjects of the study were 54 employed nurses who had B.S degree from Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences and had been in service for4 to 6 years in internal or surgery wards in one of the University's hospitals and were steel working at the time of the study. Subjects were chosen with purpose based sampling method and were compared with 54 senior university students from the faculty of nursing and midwifery who were ready to pass their training period in internal or surgery wards and were chosen randomly. The tools for collecting data were 4 questionnaires on the degree of awareness, attitude, professional functioning, and the viewpoints of patients, supervisors, and instructors. Mean score of awareness for the nurses and students was 63.7 +/- 3.2 and 45.3 +/- 2.1 respectively [P < 0.005]. Regarding internal and surgical hare and updates of nursing, the score of the nurses has been higher generally [P < 0.005]. But about paediatrics, health, and psychological nursing the two groups' were almost alike. 52% of all the persons studied had a positive attitude toward nursing and 46% of them were indifferent. From the patients' point of view all the nurses and students function was evaluated in a good level. But supervisors considered employed nurses better than the students with mean scores of 56.2 +/- 4 and 53.4 +/- 6 respectively. [P < 0.002] In subgroups' of care and treatment, education and personal characteristics, there was no meaningful difference between supervisors and instructors opinions. This research showed that employed nurses and students of nursing in Shaheed Beheshti University of Medical Sciences had a good level of awareness and mostly a positive attitude toward nursing. Patients had a favourable opinions about giving services and the behaviour of nurses and students

Biomedical publications on diabetes mellitus, research gap in developing countries

Diabetes today is a worldwide problem. The purpose of this study is to assess, in developed and developing countries, the productivity of research on diabetes and to evaluate the gap between the burden of diabetes and research conducted on diabetes

Materials and Methods: an extensive search in PubMed database for diabetes publications [all publication types, all languages] using diabetes as the MeSH term was carried out to ascertain the proportion of diabetes-related publications from countries of different regional [according to WHO regions] and economic [according to World Bank] classifications in 1992, 1997 and 2002. We excluded all publications without the name of a country as affiliation, as we did for publications from the U.S. following which the quota of international publications of countries was calculated. All information related to the distribution of the global burden of diabetes was extracted from the literature available

Results: worldwide, the overall growth rate of publications on diabetes during 1992-2002 was 66.3% with a higher rate during 1997-2002, as compared to that of 1992-1997 period [31% vs. 27%]. The highest growth rate was found in the South and East Asia region [226%], and the second highest in the Eastern-Mediterranean region [138%]. However, the quota of the international publications of these two regions reached 3.9'10 and 2.5% in 2002, respectively. Developed market economies [except for U.S.] contributed 85.4% [1668] of publications in 1992, 83.0% [2276] in 1997 and 76.7% [2806] in 2002. Contributions of developing countries increased from 12.3% [242] in 1992 to 13.8% [380] in 1997 and 19.8% [726] in 2002. Also, contributions of the developing eastern European countries rose from 2.2% [43] in 1992 to 3.1% [85] and 3.4% [125] in 1997 and 2002, respectively

Conclusion: despite the fast growth in prevalence of diabetes in developing countries, the quota of international publications on diabetes from developed countries is definitely higher than that of developing countries. Facilitating increases in financial resources and the indexing of national journals in these countries may serve to improve their quota

Timing of the effect of iodine supplementation on intelligence quotients of schoolchildren

Iodine deficiency is the most important preventable cause of mental deficiency. The aim of this study was to specify the phase during fetal and postnatal development when iodine supplementation would have optimum effect on the prevention of brain damage

Materials and Methods: forty schoolchildren aged 7-13 years, from the previously iodine deficient villages of Kiga and Randan, were divided into 3 subgroups: in subgroup I the mother had received iodized oil 1-4 years prior to conception and infant consumed iodized salt from the age 14 years onwards; in subgroup II mothers received iodized oil during pregnancy and the child received iodized salt from the age 2-4 years and in subgroup III the child received iodized oil injection from age 1-3 and iodized salt from 3-6 years of age onwards. Serum T4, T3, TSH and TJ uptake and urine iodide concentrations were measured. Bender-Guestalt and Raven tests were employed for psychomotor evaluation. A group of 40 age and sex matched schoolchildren from Tehran served as controls

Results: mean age of subgroups I, II and III were 8.9+/-1.7, 9.4+/-1.4 and 1l.9+/-1.2 years, respectively. Serum T4, T3, TSH and urinary iodine concentrations were normal in all children. Urinary iodine and serum T4, T3 and TSH concentration did not differ between the 3 subgroups. Mean IQ was higher in subgroup I [102+/-7], as compared to subgroup II [93+/-10, p<0.002] and subgroup III [95+/-10, p<0.05]. Mean IQ of subgroup I was not significantly different from age-matched controls, but a significant decrease in IQ was evident in subgroups II [93+/-10 vs 109+/-8, p<0.002] and III [96+/-10 vs 114+/-1l, p<0.00l], as compared to the control children

Conclusion: it is concluded that children whose mothers received iodide supplementation before conception had normal IQs of significantly higher values than those whose mothers received iodine during pregnancy and the children who received iodine after birth