Willingness to work with people with disabilities in future Brazilian professionals.

BACKGROUND: The Quota Law in Brazil determines that the organizations with over 100 workers must hire people with disabilities. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this investigation was to verify the willingness of future professionals to work with people with disabilities. PARTICIPANTS: A survey was conducted with 341 Brazilian university students. METHODS: The following factors were taken into account: the Quota Law favorability (attitude); the conceptions about disability (beliefs); the evaluation of consequences (positive or negative) which the individual attributes to the fact of working with people with disabilities; and the perception of the level of difficulty to insert these people (beliefs about control). RESULTS: Three patterns of willingness have been identified: willingness guided by the focus on the disability; willingness guided by the instrumental focus; and willingness guided towards accessibility. It has also been verified that these forms of willingness were associated to the perception of difficulties in inserting people with disabilities. CONCLUSIONS: These results empirically reinforce the fact that part of the difficulties in inserting people with disabilities is found in the social environment and conditions, suggesting that these aspects need to be taken into account in the studies on attitudes towards people with disabilities.

Association between CYP1A1m1 gene polymorphism and primary open-angle glaucoma.

The CYP1A1 gene is related to the generation of secondary metabolites that are capable of inducing DNA damage. The CYP1A1m1 polymorphism has been examined in many studies, and is located in a region near loci that have been linked to glaucoma, including the locus GLC1I. As a result, this polymorphism has been related to several diseases that are influenced by exposure to xenobiotic as well as primary open-angle glaucoma. We compared the prevalence of the CYP1A1m1 polymorphism in 152 Brazilian patients, 100 patients with primary open-angle glaucoma, and 52 normal controls using restriction fragment length polymorphism analysis. The frequency of the homozygous wild-type (w1/w1) CYP1A1 gene among patients with primary open-angle glaucoma (N = 100) was 16%, for genotype w1/m1, the frequency was 77%, and for m1/m1 it was 7%. Among the control group (N = 52), the frequency of the homozygous wild-type (w1/w1) CYP1A1 gene was 54%, the frequency of w1/m1 was 46%, and the frequency of m1/m1 was 0%. The presence of the CYP1A1m1 polymorphism may interfere with xenobiotic metabolism and exacerbate direct or indirect damage to the optic nerve. These CYP1A1m1 polymorphisms may be risk factors for primary open-angle glaucoma.

Association between primary open angle glaucoma and genetic polymorphisms GSTM1/GSTT1 in patients from Goiânia Central-West Region of Brazil.

In this study, we evaluated the genotype profile of GSTM1 and GSTT1 polymorphisms in patient carriers of primary open-angle glaucoma in the population of Goiânia, GO, Brazil. This case-control study included 100 Brazilian patients with glaucoma and 53 patients without glaucoma. Blood samples were genotyped for polymorphisms in GST genes using polymerase chain reaction-based methods. Polymorphism frequencies were compared using the X(2) test and odds ratio (α = 0.05). The GSTM1-present genotype was 40% in the glaucoma group and 71.6% in the control group, while the GSTM1 null genotype was 60 and 28.3% in the same groups, respectively. The GSTT1-present genotype was 52% in the primary open-angle glaucoma group and 66% in the control group; the null genotype was 48% in the case group and 34% in the control group. The GSTM1 null genotype was more frequent in the glaucoma group than in the control group (P = 0.0004; odds ratio = 6.7; 95% confidence interval = 2.7- 20.3). The combined GSTM1 null and GSTT1-present genotypes were more frequent in the primary open-angle glaucoma group compared to the control group (P = 0.02; odds ratio = 3.1; 95% confidence interval = 1.2-7.9).

GSTM1 polymorphism in patients with primary open-angle glaucoma.

Primary open-angle glaucoma (POAG) is characterized by loss of retinal ganglion cells, optic nerve damage and irreversible loss of visual field. Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness worldwide. It was estimated that in 2010 there were about 60.5 million glaucoma cases worldwide; among these patients, 4.5 million will become bilaterally blind. Glutathione S-transferases (GST) are a group of drug-metabolizing enzymes of phase-II that act in the detoxification of xenobiotics and inactivate end-products formed as secondary metabolites during oxidative stress. Through PCR amplification, we analyzed the GSTM1 gene in DNA samples from 25 patients with POAG and 25 controls; 14 of the patients presented the GSTM1 gene null polymorphism while only eight of the control group had this gene.Although the POAG patients had a higher frequency of GSTM1, the difference was not significant (P = 0.0874); this lack of significance could be due to the small sample size.

Efeitos de corantes naturais nos níveis séricos de colesterol - HDL em ratos hiperlipidêmicos / Effects of natural dyes on seric levels of cholesterol and HDL - cholesterol in hyperlipidemic rats

Distúrbios no metabolismo lipídico tem levado a uma série de desordens do organismo, dentre elas as hiperlipidemias primárias, defeitos na via exógena, alteraçöes no metabolismo de LDL etc. O presente trabalho avaliou a açäo de cúrcuma, antocianina, carmin e monascus nas doses de quarenta e oitenta miligramas misturados à raçäo Nuvilab e fornecidos a ratos Wistar hiperlipidêmicos induzidos por Triton. Os resultados indicaram uma percentagem de reduçäo nos níveis de colesterol total de 22,1, 31,6, 32,1 e 22,7 por cento respectivamente para os corantes cúrcuma, antocianina, carmin e monascus e de 20,1, 17,9, 12,6 e 18,1 por cento para a mesma seqüencia de corantes em relaçäo ao colesterol - HDL.