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Background and Objective: There are some reports on the association between helicobacter pylori infection and typhoid fever in different parts of the world. The aim of this study was to estimate the co infection of helicobacter pylori and typhoid fever in Ahwaz city in South-West of Iran.

Materials and Methods: In this case – control study, fifty hospitalized patients with definite diagnosis of typhoid fever in Razi and Abuzar hospitals in Ahwaz were investigated. For each patient, one subject was matched with age, sex and socioeconomic characteristic as control. All of the case and control were tested for IgG –anti helicobacter pylori by ELISA method. Data were analyzed by chi squared test in SPSS software.

Results: Seroprevalence of helicobacter pylori in case (66%) was higher than control (44%) (p<0.05). There was a significant difference between patients and control in male (p<0.05), but not in female.

Conclusion: This study indicated that typhoid fever is associated with helicobacter pylori co-infection in this region.

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Background and Objective: Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) is a definition of dysfunction of immune system in human that is induced by infection with a virus named human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). The most high risk group in HIV infected people are intravenous drug users (IDUs) with unsafe sex. This study was conducted to evaluate knowledge and attitude of IDUs with unsafe sex about AIDS and relation with socioeconomic levels in Golestan province in North of Iran. Materials and Methods: This Cross-Sectional study was conducted on 134 IDUs in Golestan province during 2007. Samples were chosen by a random systematic method. Data was collected with interview by standard questionnaire. Data was analyzed by SPSS-16 and One-way ANOVA,T-test student, Kruskal-wallis, Mann-Whitney U and Kendall tests. Results: This study showed that 36.6% of samples had moderate knowledge about AIDS and 49.3% of them had negative attitude about AIDS. 67% of subjects had education between 6-12 years, 44.8% were married and 53% were jobless and without income. Level of knowledge had a significant relation with age (P<0.05) and education level (P<0.05). Older subjects had better knowledge. Level of knowledge in 25-34 years group was higher than other age. Well educated people had higher knowledge compared with low educated and illitrate subjects. Level of knowledge had a significant relation with attitude (P<0.05). Conclusion: The findings of this study showed that 65% of subjects with high risk behavior on HIV/AIDS had a appropriate knowledge about transmission of HIV, but half of these population have a poor HIV/AIDS attitude.

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Background and Objective: Quality of medical articles is effective at improvement of medical science. This study was done for determining of published medical articles quality in approved Medical Journals. Materials and Methods: This cross- sectional study was done on 690 medial articles, which published between 1983-2005 in scientific journals, approved by special Medical Journal committee of Ministry of health and medical Education (MOHME) in Iran, during 2007. Source of data was indexed medical journal in the Iranmedex database. Results: Type of study in 52% of articles was descriptive, 21.2% was interventional and 5.8% of them were analytical. In recent years the number of analytic and interventional articles have been increased significantly in comparison to other types (P<0.05). There was no qualitative type article in published papers. The percentages of original, case report and review articles were 44.9%, 36.9% and 14.1%, respectively. In recent years the rate of original articles has increased in comparison to case report and review articles (P<0.05). In 80% of articles, at least one statistical test was applied. 60% of articles were clinical and 82% of them have been written in Persian language. Conclusion: Findings showed an increasing trend in quality indexes of published articles. It seems in recent years, the changes of MOHME policies in evaluation of the research deputy of medical science universities implementation of research and scientific writing workshops ratting protocol of approved medical journals and academic members promotion guidelines, resulted in improvement qualitative index of articles.

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Background and Objective: Tuberculosis caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis is one of the deadliest infectious diseases in the world. The amount of the bacilli in tuberculosis will reduce rapidly by starting effective antibiotic treatment and the remained bacilli in the sputum will be an important scale to respond to treatment. This study was conducted to evaluate the examin factors associated with the conversion of positive smear to negative one in tubercular-pulmonary patients in Golestan province, in northern Iran.
Methods: This retrospective cohort study was carried out on 2093 patients with smear positive pulmonary tuberculosis registered in Golestan province, northern Iran from March 2009-14 referred to health centers. The outcome of this study was to determine the time of changing to negative of the first smear during the treatment and evaluating its relationship with demographic variables, the density of bacilli in the smear, culture, chest x-ray, diabetes and HIV.
Results: 67.5% of patients among 2093 smear-positive pulmonary tuberculosis patients were conversion rate of smear at the end of the second months. Results of Cox model showed relationship between gender, age, weight, density bacillus smear and culture results at the start of treatment and negative smears(P<0.05). Old age, low weight, high density of bacillus in primary smear in the beginning of treatment and increasing of the number of colonies in culture of positive smear patients were considered as predictor factors in changing positive smear to negative one.
Conclusion: This study revealed that Conversion rate and treatment success in Golestan province was less than what was expected.

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Background and Objective: Obesity by releasing inflammation factors such as Interleukin-6 (IL-6) cause atherosclerosis and cardiovascular diseases. Also, L-carnitine reduces inflammatory factor such as IL-6. The study was done to determine the effect of eight week endurance training with L-carnitine supplementation on IL-6, nitric oxide (NO), blood pressure, and body composition in young obese women.
Methods: In this clinical trial study, 40 volunteer young obese women (age: 23.3±2.3 yrs. and BMI: 31.1±1.4 kg/m²) randomly assigned in the endurance training with L-carnitine (ETL; n=10), endurance training with placebo (ETP; n=10), L-carnitine supplementation (LCS; n=10) and control (Con; n=10). The training protocol consisted of endurance training with gradually increasing of duration and intensity (25-min at 50% HR max and increased to 45-min at 70% HR max), three session a week for 8 weeks. The supplement groups consumed 3gr of L-carnitine daily, while the placebo group ingested the same amount of maltodextrin. Blood pressure and blood samples were obtained before and 36 hours after training protocol, and serum levels of IL-6 and NO were measured by ELISA method.
Results: IL-6, weight, fat mass and fatty percent was significantly reduced in ETL and ETP groups compared to control and LCS groups (P<0.05), and this reduction was lower in the ELT than ETP group (P<0.05). Also, NO was significantly increased in the ELT and ETP groups compared to the LCS and controls (P<0.05).
Conclusion: Although the implementation of endurance training with and without L-carnitine for 8 weeks caused to decrease of IL-6, increase of NO and improved body composition, but the effect of endurance training with L-carnitine on decreasing of IL-6, weight and fat mass was significantly better.