Journal of Archives in Military Medicine
Volume:10 Issue: 2, Jun 2022

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is one of the major non-communicable diseases, causing morbidity and mortality worldwide. There is no study on T2DM status in Iran Army Forces.

We aimed to measure the prevalence of T2DM in this population and identify variables associated with T2DM risk in order to classify individuals.

Data from 3661 Iran Army Ground Forces were employed. Characteristics of the subjects with and without T2DM were compared. We examined the classification ability of logistic regression with two tree-based supervised learning algorithms, decision tree and random forest (RF). The ethical committee of AJA University of Medical Sciences approved this study by the approval code 995685.

The prevalence of T2DM was 3% less than in the general population. Our results showed that the incidence of T2DM increases as subjects become older. The proportions of staff members with T2DM were more than the other military ranks. T2DM is more common in obese and overweight groups. The highest prevalence of T2DM is in the subjects with high levels of lipid profile. The areas below the receiver operating characteristic curve for logistic regression, decision tree, and RF were 73.8%, 77.1%, and 97.1%, respectively.

Age, body mass index, total cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, and triglyceride are associated with T2DM risk. The RF has superior classification performance in comparison with logistic regression and decision tree.

In late December 2019, the emerging disease of COVID- 19 was first diagnosed in China. It was caused by a coronavirus and caused limitations in most parts of the world.

We investigated the epidemiology of COVID-19 in continental Africa.

This ecological study described the epidemiological features of COVID-19 in Africa. We extracted the data related to identified definitive cases and deaths due to this disease and other information from the reports released by the World Health Organization and transferred the data to the SPSS 24 software. Also, the fatality rate was separately determined for each country.

The highest number of cases diagnosed with COVID-19 was in South Africa with 2907619 cases, and the highest number of deaths due to COVID19 was found in South Africa with 87922 cases. The highest case fatality rate was in Liberia, with 4.93%.

Prevention of COVID-19 transmission is possible by vaccinating most age groups in the community and observing social distance. Upgrading diagnostic equipment and identifying healthy and quarantined carriers is also effective in reducing COVID- 19 transmission. The cooperation of health officials and volunteers is effective in more fully identifying patients and enforcing quarantine rules. The World Health Organization provides financial support, diagnostic equipment, and vaccines for low- and middle-income countries in all parts of the world, especially in Africa. Financial support from charitable groups to provide insurance services and medical and pharmaceutical equipment is an effective help in reducing the damage of COVID- 19.

The present study aimed to compare the effects of three therapeutic methods, including regular aerobic training, hyaluronic acid (HA), and mesenchymal stem cells, on Wnt/β-catenin signaling of cardiac tissue in rats with the experimental model of knee osteoarthritis.

Sixty-three male rats were divided into nine groups (seven in each group): (1) Healthy control, (2) patient control, (3) sham, (4) saline, (5) exercise (EXT), (6) mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs), (7) hyaluronic acid, (8) EXT + MSCs, and (9) EXT + HA. After inducing the osteoarthritis (OA) model, we conducted 5 days of running on the treadmill for five weeks for the EXT group. Also, HA was injected intra-articularly. After 12 to 14 hours of fasting and 72 hours following the last training session, we conducted cardiac tissue sampling for β-catenin, GSK-3β, Wnt, Fz, TCF, and DKK1 analysis. We used RT-PCR to analyze the expression of the β-catenin, GSK-3β, Wnt, Fz, TCF, and DKK1 genes in cardiac tissue. The data were analyzed using one-way ANOVA and Tukey's post hoc test (P < 0.05).

Osteoarthritis induction significantly decreased the expression of the GSK-3β and DKK1 genes but significantly increased the expression of the β-catenin, Wnt, Fz, and TCF genes of cardiac tissue compared to the control group. However, the EXT, HA, MSC, and combination methods increased the expression of the GSK-3β and DKK1 genes but decreased the expression of the β-catenin, Wnt, Fz, and TCF genes of cardiac tissue, which were significant in the combination group.

Regular exercise, along with HA and MSCs, may have protective effects for the following reasons: (1) reducing the expression of the β-catenin, Wnt, Fz, and TCF genes; (2) increasing the expression of the GSK-3β and DKK1 genes in cardiac tissue; and (3) inhibiting Wnt signaling in the heart.

Heart failure (HF) is an important public health issue whose prevalence, hospitalization rate, and costs have increased over the years. Treatment adherence is the behavior of the patient in taking medications, correcting diet, and ability to change lifestyle with the recommendations of the health care provider. Poor treatment adherence contributes to worsening disease outcomes. Currently, according to the literature, no specific instrument is available to measure treatment adherence of HF patients.

The aim of this study was to develop and evaluate the heart failure treatment adherence questionnaire (HFAQ) for military personnel and their family.

Items were generated by literature review, patient field interviews, and expert opinions. Content validity was assessed by measuring CVR and CVI, while face validity was evaluated by measuring the impact score of each item. The research team performed EGA, bootEGA, and CFA to assess the construct validity, and reliability was assessed by measuring ICC and Cronbach’s alpha.

Item pool with 86 items was generated consisting of 45 medications, 10 lifestyles, nine diet items, and 22 common items between these three categories. Forty-three items with CVR score lower than 0.62 were removed from the HFAQ. All remained items had acceptable face validity. Cronbach’s alpha and ICC of HFAQ were reported as 0.73 and 0.97, respectively. EGA results represented a four-dimension model for HFAQ with a relatively narrow confidence interval (CI 95% [3.769, 4.231]), and the stability of items, in constructs, ranged from 0.96 to 1. Goodness-of-fit results was reported as χ2 = 535.657, df = 293, χ2/df = 1.828, P-value < .001, CFI = 0.851, and RMSEA = 0.050.

HFAQ is the first treatment adherence questionnaire developed specifically for assessing treatment adherence of HF patients and is a valid and reliable 26-item questionnaire that evaluates patients' treatment adherence in three main contexts of medication, physical activity, and diet. HFAQ has four dimensions of health literacy, social and economic, barrier, and patient-provider relationship, which can be used as an intervention for improving treatment outcomes and disease burden.

Wheezing and chronic cough are the most common respiratory disorders in children. They, as a multifactorial disorder, have different respiratory-associated illnesses and occur due to different etiologies.

In this study, we investigated the correlation between wheezing and cough conditions and different probable risk factors.

This is a cross-sectional and hospital-based study conducted on 485 children with wheezing and chronic cough in hospitalized and outpatients. The pediatrician confirmed these disorders after evaluating children’s respiratory systems. Interns filled out the related standardized questionnaires for evaluating the risk factors.

In total, 485 children were evaluated, 268 children (55.3%) were male, and 217 children (44.7%) were female. Smoke and steam were recorded as the most common etiologies and risk factors of chronic cough and wheezing. Other factors evaluated in this study included 14% dust, 9% flowers, and plants, 10.9% cold air, 5.8% sporting, 4.5% spicy, and 35.7% other stimulants foods, and out of these factors had other stimulating factors (P = 0.0001).

Based on these findings, lifestyle, diet, location, contact with triggers, treatment, and control of underlying disease, environmental hygiene, and type of fuel consumption may be effective in reducing the symptoms.

Septic arthritis of the sternoclavicular (SC) joint is an uncommon disease with some risk factors. Because of being rare and insidious, a diagnosis could probably be difficult, delayed, or even missed until complications occur, resulting in severe and life-threatening outcomes. It should be noted that early recognition and diagnosis, followed by immediate treatment, play an essential role in the patient’s prognosis. Septic arthritis of the SC joint is a relatively infrequent infection. Clinical symptoms are mostly sudden, and from days to months, the patients may have pain in the chest, shoulder, or neck, limited movement in the upper extremities, and fever.

We report a patient without predisposing factors who developed septic SC arthritis with infraclavicular abscess and was rapidly treated with partial clavicular resection

Diagnosis of septic arthritis in the SC region is often deferred. Early diagnosis allows more accessible medical or surgical treatment and a significant prognosis.