shima makaremi

Coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19), an infectious disease, has been known as a worldwide pandemic involving many countries, including Iran. Meantime, the analyses of clinical and demographic features of the fourth surge in COVID-19 patients provide a better overview of disease management and mortality reduction.

This study aimed to identify the effective clinical and demographic hallmarks of the fourth wave of COVID-19 in Ardabil Province, Iran.

We carried out a population-based analytical cross-sectional study using clinical and demographic characteristics of COVID-19 from February 2021 to May 2021 among confirmed COVID-19 patients who were admitted to the hospital during the fourth surge. Predictors of intensive care unit (ICU) admission and death were evaluated by controlling for intervening variables.

We evaluated 500 patients, of whom 54.5% were men, and 45.5% were women. Among them, 35.1% of patients had hypertension as the main comorbidity, followed by diabetes (21.4%), cardiovascular disease (8.4 %), renal diseases (2.4%), and others. The findings indicated that increasing age has increased mortality among patients with COVID-19. Moreover, our results showed that among the analyzed items, age, sex, and cerebral vascular accident (CVA) were indicated as predictors of ICU admission.

This evaluation demonstrated that old age and comorbidities are two major risk factors for reducing the probability of recovery and increasing admission to the ICU. Therefore, elderly individuals with at least one co-morbidity are at higher risk of becoming infected.

This study aimed to evaluate the potential apoptotic effects of Zingiber officinale Roscoe (ginger) and Rosmarinus Officinalis L. (rosemary) combination extracts on the mouse colorectal cancer cell line.

After the preparation of the extracts, cytotoxicity and cell viability were measured by MTT assay, and the IC50 of each extract was calculated. Next, the combination index (CI) of the mixture of the extracts was evaluated by CompuSyn software. The apoptosis induction was evaluated by Annexin V/PI assay and caspase-3, Bcl-2, and Bax genes expression.

The viability of the CT-26 cells exposed to ginger and rosemary extracts was significantly reduced in a dose-dependent manner (P < 0.05) with the confirmed synergistic effect of the mixture (CI = 0.89). Moreover, treatment of the cells with IC50 concentration of the extracts induced apoptosis, especially in the mixture group (P < 0.001). Additionally, expression levels of Bax and caspase-3 genes increased in the mixture group compared to the control (P < 0.001). Expression levels of Bcl-2 were increased in the rosemary and mixture groups compared to the control group (P < 0.05).

The results of the present study revealed that the mixture of the extracts has synergistic cytotoxic and apoptotic effects on colorectal cancer cells. Therefore, the mixture of ginger and rosemary extracts can be used as a potential complementary therapy in the context of other therapeutic approaches for colorectal cancer.