RESUMO
Background: Copper deficiency can weaken immunity and increase the incidence of infections or infections may reduce the serum copper levels. Objectives: The present investigation assessed the serum level of copper in the cases of leptospirosis. Methods: The study involved 55 patients of whom had either icteric or non-icteric type of leptospirosis, 25 as other febrile and 25 as healthy controls. Serum copper was evaluated using commercially available kits. All the 55 patients are serologically confirmed for leptospirosis by using both ELISA and MAT. Twenty five age-matched febrile cases other than leptospirosis and twenty five healthy normal individuals were taken as control. The serum copper level was estimated by calorimetric method of Di-Br-PAESA. Results: The maximum and minimum age of patients was 54 and 18 years respectively; males dominated with 47 cases in this study. Out of 55 cases, 45 cases are considered as high risk groups of having minimum of 10 years of occupational exposure. There was a significant decrease of serum copper level among 55 leptospirosis confirmed cases (ranged from 26 to 63 μg/dl) when compared with controls (ranged from 114.12 to 126.32 μg/dl); whereas in febrile cases other than leptospirosis showed maximum of serum decrease upto 52.7 μg/dl. Conclusion: In all cases including non leptospirosis febrile cases also, the serum copper levels are significantly decreased after treatment with doxycycline and other antibiotics. This indicates that serum copper can be used as a biochemical marker for screening leptospirosis, as a valuable prognostic indicator for monitoring disease
RESUMO
Hyperlipidaemia is the greatest risk factor of coronary heart disease. Currently available hypolipidaemic drugs have been associated with number of side effects. Herbal treatment for hyperlipidaemia has no side effects and is relatively cheap and locally available. Literature claims that Saponins are able to reduce hyperlipidemia. Based on high saponin content in herbal plants, Spermacoce hispida (S. hispida) was selected and the present study focus on the antihyperlipidaemic activity of ethanolic seed extract of S. hispida against triton-WR-1339 induced hyperlipidaemia in rats. Hyperlipidaemia was induced in Wistar rats by intraperitoneal (i.p) injections of Triton WR-1339 at a dose of 400 mg/kg body weight. S. hispida was administered orally at a dose of 200 mg/kg to triton WR-1339 induced hyperlipidaemic rats. After administration of S. hispida shows a significant decrease in the levels of cholesterol, phospholipids, triglycerides, LDL, VLDL and significant increase in the level of HDL in serum and liver tissues against triton induced hyperlipidaemic in rats. Therefore it effectively suppressed the triton induced hyperlipidemia in rats, suggesting the potential protective role in Coronary heart disease.
RESUMO
It is a well known fact that iodine is a very important trace element for normal growth and metabolism. Iodination of biomolecules has many important functions in the field of research, assay procedures, investigation and diagnosis of diseases. The present study is done to compare the iodine uptake by the serum of diabetes mellitus cases and healthy controls. Methods: The study was carried out on 50 cases of known diabetes mellitus with mean fasting blood glucose level of 324 mg/dl and 25 healthy controls with mean fasting blood glucose level of 78 mg/dl. The modified version of the colorimetric method was employed for the assay of iodine uptake. The data’s were analyzed using SPSS version 10. Results: Serum total iodine uptake was decreased significantly in cases as compared to healthy controls (p <0.01). Conclusion: The results of our study indicate that there is decreased iodine uptake by diabetic serum. The cause for decreased iodine uptake may be related to high blood sugar level which possibly may be causing some alteration in the structure of biomolecules by glycation leading to decrease in the binding sites of iodine.