Articles

Introduction: Number of obese people is growing on a daily basis in Brazil, including morbid obese ones, but there is still a lack of studies with this subject. Due to this, the main goal of this study was to identify body profile, physiological variables behavior and oxygen consumption in grade III obese women, submitted to an ergospirometric test in arm ergometer. Method: Take part in this study, thirteen (13) female grade III obese patients between 20 and 40 years. They were submitted to an electric bioimpedance test for body composition measurement and an Ergospirometric test in arm ergometer for oxygen consumption, heart rate, and oxygen saturation, systolic and diastolic arterial pressure, resting and after exercises, analysis. Results: The patients revealed a BMI of 46.5±3.81 kg/m², 51.9±1.59% of body fat percentage. The patients reached 168.2±4.57bpm of heart rate, didn’t make any hypertensive response to the effort reaching an arterial pressure of 171.1±22.15mmHg x 87.5±4.18mmHg. Oxygen saturation was 98±0.71% and oxygen consumption peak was, also in average, 12.3±2.75ml.kg.min-1. Conclusion: It was verified that there was no oxygen saturation drop nor hypertensive response and all of the patients reached the maximum heart rate. 

Background: Various studies examined the effect of birth order. First born children show usually better cognitive performance than their later born siblings. Studies on emotional aspects yield heterogeneous results, sometimes in favour of first born, sometimes in favour of later born children. Studies comparing only-children with children with siblings are rare. Method: An internet survey was performed in 508 Polish and 500 German subjects. Only-children, first born, middle born and latest born children were compared regarding body mass index, depression, anxiety and partnership. Results: No differences among first born, middle born and latest born children were detected. Only-children reported significantly less symptoms of social phobia than first born children (z=0.50, p< 0.01). Conclusions: Except for suicidality, the results of this study question the sense of further investment in studying effects of birth order. In contrast, examining differences between only-children vs. children having siblings seems to have the potential to yield interesting and new results. Optimally, such research would combine self-report measures with reports from others, such as parents, teachers or clinicians.

The etiology of abdominal obesity is multifactorial and has environmental factors as its most expressive risk factors. This study cross-sectional analyzed the association of abdominal fatness with physical inactivity and food inadequacy of 1,557 subjects, both genders, over 35yrs. old, enrolled in an ongoing epidemiological study. Waist circumference (WC) was the primary variable and demographic, social-economic, anthropometric and dietary intake data, were the co-variables. NCEP-ATP III, WHO, IPAQ-long (version 8) and Healthy Eating Index were used for functional definition of variables. Furthermore, longitudinal data from 50 subjects in an exercise protocol for 10 week receiving either regular diet (G1, n=22) or 30g fiber adequacy (G2; =28), were analyzed. The performed statistical analyses used software SAS for Windows, version 9.1 with p=0.05. In a predominantly female sample (74%), 76% aging 35-60yrs, 64% completed elementary school, 73% were living in a low income household, 77.5% overweight. The 62.5% presenting altered WC values were predominantly older, presented higher body fatness, and were consuming low variety-poor quality diet rich in fat (mainly saturated) and lower in fruit. WC correlated negatively with fruit intake and aerobic capacity (VO2max) but only carbohydrate (positive) and fruit intake (negative) were considered independent risk factors for abdominal obesity. In the longitudinal study, both G1 and G2 groups were similar at baseline and G1 maintained the anthropometry values throughout the experiment. Conversely, G2 decreased total body (4%) and WC (7%) fatness, reducing severe obesity by 16%, minimally affecting overweight and eutrophic rates. G2 presented 211% increase in fiber intake and 150% increase in plasma beta-carotene (colorful-fiber marker). Thus, in conclusion, recommended dietary fiber intake (increased fruit and low CHO intake) and physical activity would be the recommended changes against abdominal obesity and, by associating both physical exercises and dietary fiber there was indeed a decrease in abdominal fatness and obesity, predominantly at its higher grade.

Depressive disorders are so frequent and disabling health conditions which have been inarguably accepted to be a public health concern [1]. Many drugs have been developed to treat depression, however the efficacy of the antidepressants are inadequate particularly for mild or moderate depression [2-4]. It is also mentioned that when considering the trials about the treatment effect of the antidepressants, you should be careful about the results because of reflecting a small proportion of the society [4]. Despite the methodological issues related to the controversial results about the antidepressant efficacy, a recent review showed that the antidepressant effects of the drugs persist in a six month period [5,6].

Objectives: Care of a person with schizophrenia involves multiple problems, possibly leading to burnout which is a culturally influenced phenomenon. The aim of this study was to investigate burnout and related factors in caregivers of outpatients with schizophrenia. Methods: Subjects included in the study were 40 primary caregivers of outpatients with schizophrenia (15 males, 25 females) whom were assessed with the Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and the Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI). Patients were also administered the Calgary Depression Scale (CDS). Also, sociodemographic information about patients and their caregivers were taken. The significance of differences between two groups was determined by Mann-Whitney U-test. The relationships between the variables were evaluated by Pearson correlation analysis. Results: No significant difference was found in the MBI subscale scores in terms of caregivers gender, marital status, and education, being a family member, having enough information about the illness and taking support during caregiving. Emotional Exhaustion and Personal Accomplishment subscale scores of the caregivers were significantly different in terms of patients’ adaptation to treatment or not (respectively; p=0.010, p=0.030). The MBI-Emotional Exhaustion scores revealed significant positive correlations with the BDI and BAI total scores. Also, the MBI- Depersonalization scores and the BAI scores were positively correlated. Conclusions: Burnout levels in caregivers of patients with schizophrenia were lower when compared with other cultures. Only treatment compliance predicted burnout, while other factors were excluded. Therefore, professionals have to help to patients primarily adapt to their treatment.

Introduction: Obesity is a global-level epidemic. Together with this disease, called chronic subclinical inflammatory disease, many other diseases, known as comorbidities, arise. Objective: To show that the association between low-level laser therapy and physical exercise is supported, by experimental and clinical studies, being an instrument that maximizes the treatment of obesity as well as its comorbidities. Conclusion: This manuscript brings a compendium of accomplished work by our group that allows understand the mechanism base of interaction between the photonic technology and the physical exercise, allowing to potentiate the treatment of the obesity.

Alterations in cardiac autonomic modulation of children and obese preadolescents have attracted the attention of researchers around the world. These alterations cause disorders in the cardiac autonomic control and can interfere in cardiac output and in the homeostatic actions that depends on the cardiovascular system action.

Ginseng extracts are often used as adaptogen to improve mental performances and well being, helping to overcome stress. Thus, in our times a lot of ginseng extracts are continuously produced and sold into commercial channels. Both Asian and Korean red ginseng (Panax ginseng) and American ginseng (Panax quinquefolius) are the most extensively used and researched. Both Panax ginseng and Panax quinquefolium contain different types of saponins, also known as ginsenosides, which are the substances that give ginseng medicinal properties. Human and animal studies showed that ginseng extracts can also have hypoglycemic effects. The mechanisms by which ginseng reduces blood glucose levels are unclear; some mechanisms have been proposed to explain its hypoglycemic effect, especially modulating effects on insulin sensitization and/or insulin secretion and regulating actions on digestion and intestinal absorption. We describe a case of hypoglycemia by ginseng in type 2 diabetic patient treated with oral hypoglycemic agents. Although, in order to provide better assessments of a sure anti-diabetic efficacy of ginseng, larger and longer randomized controlled clinical trials will be required, in our case we think that we have enough evidence to believe that the cause of hypoglycemia was ginseng. Obviously, this report should not be taken as a proof of the hypoglycemic effect of ginseng, nor it wants to be a suggestion to use ginseng in the treatment of diabetes; instead, it wants to be an alert for patients and clinicians to avoid hypoglycemia in daily clinical practice.

It is the dart that penetrates deep into my soul, every time I see with my own eyes how the incidence of cancer has grown in recent years. I am a pathologist. I am dedicated to diagnosing the disease from the cellular and tissue point of view. The answer to the question that haunts me may seem easy, simple, but I am not satisfied with knowing that advances in technology make it possible to diagnose a greater number of entities, many of them in early stages [1]. Of course, this statement is true. However, in recent years we have verified a greater number of cases with aggressive phenotypes, a fact that makes us ask ourselves certain questions. The first one is: Why? We know that cancer is a multifactorial disease in which genetics and different environmental factors participate. Are we witnessing the concurrence of factors that facilitate the greatest degree of neoplasms? Are habits the cause of this paradigm shift? On the table for debate is the therapeutic success of new strategies, of new drugs, of new algorithms, but the morphology is also changing. This change is exacerbated in the times of pandemic that we have lived through [2]. Pathologists attend a number of cancer diagnoses that have grown exponentially, as has the histological grade, not the staging, of it. And the initial question remains in the air, why? The fear of going to the hospital, the fear of self-exploration, the diversion of media attention to topics that arouse greater interest ... may be having a harmful effect on the health of patients [3]. I do not tell anything new, at least nothing that cannot be assumed by analyzing what happens every day in this new world, a world that will soon have to face, if not already, a cut in resources, research and other parameters that will negatively influence the answers to the eternal question: Why? In the era of personalized medicine, the same one that has reached or is close to reaching great milestones in the survival of once-deadly diseases, the microscope shows a parallel reality and allows, at least, to be pessimistic, or at least realistic: suffering…

Cervical cancer constitutes an issue in public health, becoming the leading cause of death by cancer in women between 20-40 years of age in Latin America. In Argentina 5000 new cases are diagnosed each year, where more than 56% are in advanced stages. The aim of the present current opinion or critical review article is to remark the importance of the prognostic significance of the Central Tumor Size in stages IIB and IIIB cervical cancer, as well as to propose a new FIGO Staging System for Cervical cancer and trying to find out a role for the different therapeutic strategies for those cases.