Background: This study was conducted among diabetic persons to assess the sweet and salty taste sensitivity with its effect on gingival health in relation to salivary serotonin levels. Materials and methods: A cross-sectional comparative study design was used. All patients with diabetes aged 12-14 years that attend the Paediatric hospital at Baghdad medical city with specific inclusion criteria were involved in the sample of the present study (patients group 50 patients) compared with non-diabetic persons matched in age and gender of the study sample (control group 70 patients) who were attending dental unit in the college of dentistry/university of Baghdad. A two-alternative forced choice question including each component presented at five different quantities was used to evaluate the threshold sensitivity of salt and sweet taste, sub-sample of 44 subjects was recruited from each group and matched in age and gender for salivary analysis and serotonin measurement and gingival health status was measured by using the gingival index. Results: Data analysis of this study revealed that the occurrence of the highest sweet threshold was found among diabetic persons with no significant difference. The data revealed no significant difference in the mean gingival index while salivary serotonin value was lower in diabetic subjects with a significant difference; meanwhile, it showed no significant relation with both taste thresholds. Conclusions: Within the limitation of this study, it was observed, that diabetes did not affect salty and sweet taste thresholds in addition to gingival health. Whereas salivary serotonin had a role among the diabetic patients by which it was lower among diabetic subjects.
Academia Open Vol 8 No 2 (2023): December DOI: 10.21070/acopen.8.2023.8087 . Article type: (Medicine)Impact of COVID-19 on Dental Students' Psychological Health Maryam Hameed Alwan, [email protected], (1) Department of Oral Diagnosis, College of Dentistry, Baghdad University, Iraq, Iraq (1) Corresponding author Abstract This study investigates the psychological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on dental students at Baghdad University College of Dentistry. Conducted between December 2021 and January 2022, this cross-sectional survey aligns with ethical guidelines and the Helsinki Declaration. The study utilized Cochran's equation to determine a sample size of at least 400, ensuring a 95% confidence level with a 5% margin of e
... Show MoreThe current research aims to examine the effect of the rapid learning method in developing creative thinking among second-grade female students in the subject of history. Thus, the researcher has adopted an experimental design of two groups to suit the nature of the research. The sample of the study consists of (36) randomly selected students from Al-Shafaq Secondary School for Women, which are divided randomly into two groups. The first group represents the experimental; it includes (31) students who studied the subject of history using the quick learning method. The second group, on the other hand, is the control group, which consists of (32) students, who studied the same subject using the traditional way. Before starting with the exp
... Show MoreInflammatory bowel disease includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis, is a chronic, progressive relapsing disease of gastrointestinal tract that require long-term treatment or maintenance therapy. Taking patient’s beliefs about the prescribed medication in consideration had been shown to be an important factor that affects compliance of the patient in whom having positive beliefs is a prerequisite for better compliance. The aim of the current study was to investigate and assess beliefs about medicines among a sample of Iraqi patients with inflammatory bowel disease and to determine possible association between these beliefs and some patient-specific factors.
This study is a cross-sectional study carried out o
... Show MoreDiabetic retinopathy is an eye disease in diabetic patients due to damage to the small blood vessels in the retina due to high and low blood sugar levels. Accurate detection and classification of Diabetic Retinopathy is an important task in computer-aided diagnosis, especially when planning for diabetic retinopathy surgery. Therefore, this study aims to design an automated model based on deep learning, which helps ophthalmologists detect and classify diabetic retinopathy severity through fundus images. In this work, a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) with transfer learning and fine tunes has been proposed by using pre-trained networks known as Residual Network-50 (ResNet-50). The overall framework of the proposed
... Show MoreLeft ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) caused by high blood pressure is linked to increased mortality and arrhythmia risk. This study aimed to evaluate arrhythmia in hypertensive patients due to left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH). A cross-sectional study was performed, assessing participants' blood pressure, echocardiography and electrocardiography, and Holter monitoring in certain cases. There were 300 hypertensive patients >18 years attending the cardiology unit of Baghdad medical city. The study was conducted between January–June 2022. The electrocardiograms at rest for 300 adults with hypertension were investigated. 130 (43.5%) were females, and 170 (56.5%) were males. The mean age of participants was 58 years. Forty-nine (16.3
... Show MoreThe present study was designed to shed light on the molecular effects caused by acute myeloid leukemia (AML). It was also aimed to investigate ASXL1 point mutations in newly AML patients as compared to healthy control. The study comprised of 43 AML Iraqi patients and their ages ranged between 16-75 years. It included 23 females and 20 males compared with 20 healthy controls. Results revealed that the extracted DNA from 30 AML patients and amplified by PCR to obtain ASXL1 gene from exon 12 showed larger bands (479). Among forty three patients, two of them displayed point mutations of deletion and substitution, while the others were normal since no mutations were detected. The total of mutations in two mutated patients was 27 mutations, the m
... Show MoreBackground: Spices and herbs have been used by many cultures to enhance the flavor and aroma of food and for their medicinal value. Black cardamom is one of these spices widely used in cooking because of its unique taste and powerful flavor. The aim of study was to test the effect of black cardamom on Mutans Streptococci in comparison to chlorhexidine gluconate (0.2%) and de-ionized water. Materials and methods: Dried fruits of black cardamom were extracted by using alcohol (70% ethanol). Saliva was collected from seven volunteers. Agar well technique with different concentrations of black cardamom extracts was used to test the sensitivities of Mutans Streptococci, as well black cardamom extracts effect on viable counts of Mutans Streptococ
... Show MoreBackground: Herbs are being widely explored to discover alternatives to synthetic antibacterial agents.Small Cardamom often referred to as queen of spices because of its very pleasant aroma and taste, have a history as old as human race. Most people use cardamom as a spice and are largely unaware of its numerous health benefits. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of different concentrations of water and alcoholic cardamom extracts on sensitivities, growth, and adherence of Mutans streptococci in vitro. Materials and Methods: In this study, saliva was collected from ten volunteers (College students 18-22 years). Agar well technique was used to study the sensitivities of Mutans streptococci to different concentrations of s
... Show MoreThe objective of the research is to identify the effect of an instructional design according to the active learning modelsالباحثين in the achievement of the students of the fifth grade, the instructional design was constructed according to the active learning models for the design of education. The research experience was applied for a full academic year (the first & the second term of 2017-2018). The sample consisted of 58 students, 28 students for the experimental group and 30 students for the control group. The experimental design was adopted with partial and post-test, the final achievement test consisted of (50) objectives and essays items on two terms, the validity of the test was verified by the adoption of the Kudoric
... Show MoreIn this work dithine complexes prepared from dithiol benzil ligand and central ion to the Ni,Pd,Pt, element the ligand and complexes have been investigated using FTIR spectrophotometer and uv-vis-NIR spectral reigns show higher intensity represents the ?-?* transition in the chromopher cycle .These absorption which appear in visible and near IR spectral regions ,According to the complexes of one group ,the spectral shifting due to the change of central ion has been found to be related to atomic number of central ion .This shifting is increased while decreasing the central ion atom number These complexes have been implemented in Nd+2:YAG cavity because each posses resonant absorption band near Nd+2:YAG, Nd+2:Glass emitting at (106
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