Dr. Hr. Joshaghani, Dr. A. Shafiee, Volume 13, Issue 1 (vol-1 2007)
Abstract
Background and Aim: Despite of success in treatment of cardiovascular disease by drugs and other methods, cardiovascular disease and myocardial infarction are the most common causes of death in developing countries. Many reports spread about correlation between free radicals and increase of homocysteine with atherosclerosis pathogenesis. The aim of this research was study of correlation between elevations of homocysteine with changes of superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity after myocardial infarction.
Materials and Methods: This research was a descriptive cross-sectional study that performed in 2006. In fasting condition, blood was taken from 48 patients and 48 health people under 76 years. Serum homocysteine determined by ELISA method, erythrocyte SOD (rSOD) activity assayed by Randox company kit and serum SOD (sSOD) activity assayed by Cayman chemical company kit.
Results: In patients group was 36 men and 12 women in controls group was 29 men and 19 women. The mean of homocysteine in patients were 30.3±5.3 µmol/L and in controls were 11.1±3.1 µmol/L, that was significant differences between two groups (P<0.001). The mean activity of sSOD in patients and controls were 2705±2078 U/g Hb and 2509±2450 U/g Hb, respectively. The mean activity of rSOD in patients and controls were 47.8±25.6 U/mL, 44.8±24.6 U/mL, respectively.
Conclusion: In this study was observed increase in homocysteine, sSOD and rSOD in patients compare to controls however increase of SOD was not significant. To seem, elevation of SOD is due to cellular damages. This enzyme inhibits free radicals.
Aims: Alexithymia is a personality trait that demonstrates inability in emotional expression. This trait emerging from emotion disregulation has an effective role in etiology of psychosomatic illnesses. Psychosomatic patients, due to somatic illness and also difficulty in emotion regulation, experience anxiety and depression symptoms that exacerbate each other in a cycle with dermatologic illnesses.
Methods: In this post-hoc, cross-sectional and correlational study, Toronto Alexithymia Scale-20 (TAS-20) and the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS) were administered to all 215 patients who were referred to psychodermatology clinic of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences from autumn 2010 to autumn 2012. The final sample consisted of 140 patients. To analyze the data, we used SPSS software V.18.
Results: The results showed that the frequency of high alexithymia, anxiety and depression in psychodermatologic patients were 41.8%, 51.2% & 40%, respectively. Assessing the relationship between alexithymia and its subscales with anxiety and depression showed that there were significant positive correlations between alexithymia and difficulty in identifying and describing feelings with anxiety and depression (p<0/001). The results of regression analyses of alexithymia on anxiety and depression showed that difficulty in identifying and describing feelings predicts depression and difficulty in identifying feelings predicts anxiety in patients.
Conculusion: Alexithymia predicts anxiety and depression of psychodermatology patients and a complete treatment of these patients should be considered.
