Cardiovascular Risk Factors Among Lower Silesian Students of the Faculty of Medicine: Knowledge and Distribution.

BACKGROUND: Cardiovascular disease is a major contributor to the global burden of disease. Further reduction of cardiovascular mortality will require multidirectional prevention. Popularizing prevention measures requires the involvement of qualified and well-educated personnel. Before any modifications of educational programs it is necessary to assess the level of knowledge of future physicians. OBJECTIVES: The aim of the study was to evaluate medical students' knowledge of cardiovascular (CV) risk factors. The paper presents the outcomes of a study investigating the knowledge of CV risk factors and the prevalence of those risk factors in the study population. MATERIAL AND METHODS: The study was conducted between 2007 and 2012 and the study population was comprised of 1406 students (497 men and 909 women) from South and South Western Poland. A survey designed by the authors, based on the Framingham survey, was used for the interviews. RESULTS: The students correctly identified 4.38 ± 0.91 CV risk factors. The most frequently listed risk factors for cardiovascular diseases were a lack of physical activity and a fat-rich diet. The study participants who identified CV risk factors more or less accurately do not follow the recommendations aimed at prevention. Awareness, even relatively high awareness, does not correlate with a healthy lifestyle. Extreme examples of this are people who are aware of the negative effects of cigarette smoking but continue to smoke. CONCLUSIONS: The study revealed an insufficient level of awareness of CV risk factors among medical students.

Brain-stem auditory evoked potentials in children and adolescents with anorexia nervosa.

OBJECTIVE: In the course of anorexia nervosa (AN), the central nervous system (CNS) undergoes both anatomic and functional changes that may cause disturbances of stimulation transmission in the sensory areas of CNS. Method of brain-stem auditory evoked potentials (BAEPs) was used in the children with AN to test the auditory pathway transmission. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 37 children and adolescents, aged 10-18 years, with clinically diagnosed AN. BAEPs were recorded after a click stimulation of 75 dB intensity. Then, wave I latency (response from the auditory nerve) and inter-peak latency I-V (IPL I-V; response from the brain-stem) were analyzed. RESULTS: Abnormalities of the BAEPs recordings were noted total in 32.4% of the study patients. Predominantly (in 24.3%), a decreased transmission within the brain-stem, expressed as the IPL I-V prolongation, was observed. It was also found that the percentage of the abnormal BAEPs results and the degree of IPL I-V prolongation were increasing together with enhancing AN severity. CONCLUSIONS: IPL I-V prolongation observed in the AN children reflects a disturbed neural transmission in the brain-stem section of the auditory pathway and can be ascribed to impairments in the nerves myelin sheath.

[Evaluation of ambulatory cardiac rehabilitation influence on the intensity of erectile dysfunction in patients with ischemic heart disease]. / Ocena wplywu ambulatoryjnej rehabilitacji kardiologicznej na natezenie zaburzen erekcji u chorych na chorobe niedokrwienna serca.

UNLABELLED: Considering a progressive course of cardiovascular disease, often leading to premature death, and difficulty in obtaining long-lasting stabilization of clinic state, it is deeply justified to take preventive interventions completing repairing actions and pharmacotherapy. Addressing various preventive programs to the patients with CVD, we put a special emphasis to simple and low-cost modification of physical activity, which has a beneficial influence on the circulatory system. As it has been proved, protective action of physical activity on the vessels concerns the whole arterial system including the vessels responsible for erectile dysfunction (ED) creation. THE AIM OF THE STUDY: The analysis of the influence of physical activity modification, taking place within frames of a six-month supervised cardiac rehabilitation, on ED intensification in the population with ischemic heart disease (IHD). MATERIAL AND METHODS: The analysis has been conducted on 129 patients with IHD, whose preliminary test IIEF-5 (International Index of Erectile Function-5) showed < or =21 scores, which justified ED diagnosis. The analyzed group consisted of 98 patients with IHD at the mean age of 62.35 +/- 8.88 years, who were subjected to the six-month cardiologic rehabilitation. The testing group comprises 31 patients with IHD at the mean age of 61.71 +/- 7.35, who were not rehabilitated for objective reasons. The patients of both groups filled in an IIEF-5 questionnaire twice, at the interval of six months. RESULTS: As a result of cardiologic rehabilitation in the analyzed group, a statistically significant increase in scores occurred in the IIEF5 test, from 11.88 +/- 6.2 to 13.69 +/- 7.07, which was not observed in the control group. Moreover, a division of the analyzed group into ED intensity categories (severe, medium-severe, moderate, light) confirmed the occurrence of significant changes of ED intensity for subsequent ED severity categories. For the subsequent ED intensity categories, from the greatest to the lightest, the statistically significant increase of the scores from a sheet IIEF-5: 4.66 +/- 0.98 vs. 5.34 +/- 1.41 (p < 0.01); 9.5 +/- 1.2 vs. 10.9 +/- 1.58 (p < 0.01); 14.67 +/- 1.22 vs. 17.7 +/- 1.80 (p < 0.01) and 19.62 +/- 1.11 vs. 21.85 +/- 1.23 (p < 0.01) has been found. Bearing in mind the dependence of results on the credibility of data from the sheet IIEF-5, the last element was the analysis of 'truthfulness test', which has not shown any statistically significant differences obtained for first and next filling in the questionnaire. CONCLUSIONS: The performed analyses allowed drawing the conclusions. A six-month cardiac rehabilitation cycle led to a significant positive modification of erectile dysfunction intensity. The greatest positive ED modification occurred at the groups of the patients, in whom the erectile dysfunction intensity was the smallest.