Sleep quality, stress and thyroid cancer: a case-control study.

BACKGROUND: Stress and sleep disturbance have been found to be associated with numerous adverse health outcomes, including cancer. Our study aimed to measure the association between quality of sleep, short-temperedness, and stress in life with the risk of thyroid cancer. METHODS: The present study is conducted on 361 newly diagnosed TC patients and 347 sex-age frequency matched controls. Control and case participants were registered with the same health centers. We used multiple logistic regression to investigate the association between TC risk and the interested factors. RESULTS: Based on the results of the multivariate analysis, stress (ORalways stressful/often calm = 3.07, 95% CI 1.42-6.63) and short-temperedness (ORnervous/calm = 2.00, 95% CI 1.28-3.11) were directly associated with the risk of TC. On the other hand having a quality sleep (ORsometimes/never = 0.36, 95% CI 0.16-0.79) and quality sleep (ORoften/no = 0.45, 95% CI 0.21-0.96, P = 0.041) seems to be a protective factor. CONCLUSIONS: Some community-based interventions, e.g., lowering stress levels and improving sleep quality, may help in preventing different types of cancer, including TC. We suggest further evaluation of these important findings in the prevention of TC cancer.

Fast food consumption and overweight/obesity prevalence in students and its association with general and abdominal obesity.

Nowadays, the prevalence of both fast food consumption and overweight/obesity has been increased. This study aimed to estimate the prevalence of fast food consumption and to assess its association with abdominal and general obesity. In an analytical cross-sectional study, 300 students were selected randomly from two largest universities in Qom, center of Iran, studying in medical and basic sciences fields in 2015. Data collection was conducted by a modified version of NELSON's fast food questionnaire and anthropometric measures including Waist-Hip Ratio (WHR) and Body Mass Index (BMI). Chi-square, independent t-test, and multivariate logistic regression were used for statistical analysis. According to our results, 72.4% (67.4% in females vs 80.7% in males) had at least one type of fast food consumption in the recent month including sandwich 44.4%, pizza 39.7%, and fried chicken 13.8%, The obesity prevalence based on BMI and WHR was 21.3% (95% CI: 19.4, 23.2%) and 33.2% (95% CI: 0.7, 35.7), respectively. Fast food consumption was related to abdominal obesity as WHR (OR: 1.46, 95% CI: 1.11, 2.26), but was not related to general obesity as BMI (OR: 0.97, 95% CI: 0.63, 1.52). The prevalence of fast food consumption and obesity/overweight in Iranian student is high. Fast food consumption was associated with abdominal obesity based WHR, but did not related to general obesity based on BMI.