ABSTRACT
Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious respiratory disease that might be fatal to humans due to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronovirus-2. COVID-19 first appeared in Wuhan, China in 2019 and soon have spread all over the world. Therefore, it was accepted as a global epidemic by the World Health Organization in March 2020. The aim of this study is to reveal the effects of the demographic structure of the countries, their socio-economic development, the precautions, and health practices implemented by the governments against COVID-19 on the rate of transmission until the first peak days (plateaus) are appeared. Due to the socio-economic developments and reaching out the clear and transparent COVID-19 dataset, the sample of the study was formed from G20 and EU countries. The in terpretable factors affecting the transmission rate of COVID-19 were extracted with factor analysis and multidimensional scaling. Multivariate analysis figures out the effects of th e pr ecautions an d health practices implemented by G20 and EU countries with similar/different socio-economic development characteristics on the transmission rate. For instance, a result obtained from the multivariate analyzes is that COVID-19 cases in developed and developing countries differ from each other at their first plateaus. Another noteworthy inference is that COVID-19 cases are trending similarly within some developed countries with the higher ratio of population (65+) and Human Development Index (HDI). Furthermore, the population ratio (15-64) is itself an explanatory factor that can be used to characterize similar transmission patterns between countries. Consequently, these findings may help state authorities to take urgent precautions and manage such a global epidemic by much more efficient health policies.
ABSTRACT
Some studies have discovered a connection between prostate cancer and COVID-19. In this study, we evaluated the link between prostate cancer and COVID-19, contributing to elucidate the connection between TMPRSS2 and ACE2. We discovered 209 number of variants in TMPRSS2 gene, and 110 variants represent EA populations and 99 of them represent AA populations. Moreover, we found 23 suspected missense and 3 unknown variants. Then, linked genes to TMPRSS2 and ACE2 were found in our study. We investigated the expression level of TMPRSS2 and the results showed that it was very high in the prostate, colon, lung, kidney, and saliva-secreting gland. Also, the important role of the AR gene was revealed in addition to other oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes for prostate cancer by KEGG Pathway analysis. In conclusion, these results can highlight several molecular mechanisms of SARS-CoV-2, and also TMPRSS2, ACE2, and AR connection explains the high expression level of AR gene found in the male lung.
ABSTRACT
Animal originated proteins have great importance in meeting the daily protein need in a healthy and balanced diet due to their high protein content, amino acid pattern and good digestibility. Also, when included in a diet, they play an important role in the protection of individuals' health and improving the life quality with their vitamin and mineral content. The aim of this study is to investigate the changes in meat and meat products consumption habits of people and whether they are concerned about reaching meat and meat products during the COVID-19 pandemic. For that purpose, a 24-question survey of 1000 people from several cities of Turkey was carried out. The majority of the participants stated that their consumption of red meat (77%), poultry meat (81%) and fish (66%) did not change due to the COVID-19 pandemic, while 10%, 8%, and 3% of the participants said their red meat, poultry meat and fish consumption increased, respectively. In addition, 13%, 11%, and 31% of the participants said there was a decrease in their red meat, poultry meat and fish consumption, respectively. The major reason for the decrease in red and white meat consumption was economic reasons, however, the reason for the decrease in consumption of fish was difficulties in reaching. During the COVID-19 pandemic, until the date that the survey was done, 12% of the participants had concerns about reaching meat and meat products. The main cause of their concern was being unemployed or losing their job after the COVID-19 pandemic.