RESUMEN
OBJECTIVE: Recent studies have shown a possible association between vitamin D deficiency and the severity of primary dysmenorrhea. The present study aimed to investigate the effect of vitamin D supplementation on pain and systemic symptoms in patients with primary dysmenorrhea. METHODS: This double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial was conducted on female students aged 18 to 32 years with primary dysmenorrhea and vitamin D deficiency (25 [OH]D <30 ng/mL). The participants (n=116) received either 50,000 IU of vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) or placebo capsules on a weekly basis for eight consecutive weeks. The outcomes were pain intensity (scored 0 to 10), number of days with pain, number of consumed pain-relief medications (per day), and severity of systemic symptoms (fatigue, headache, nausea/vomiting, and diarrhea; total score of 0 to 12). RESULTS: Compared with baseline, our participants who received vitamin D experienced significant reductions in pain intensity (-1.0 and -1.5 score at weeks 4 and 8, P<0.001), the number of days with pain (-1.0 day at weeks 4 and 8, P<0.001), the number of consumed pain-relief medications (-1.0 at weeks 4 and 8, P<0.001), and systemic symptoms severity (-1.0 score at weeks 4 and 8, P<0.001). No significant improvements were observed in the placebo group in terms of these outcomes. CONCLUSION: Vitamin D supplementation in women with primary dysmenorrhea and vitamin D deficiency could improve systemic symptoms and reduce pain intensity, the number of days with pain, and the need for consuming pain-relief medications.
RESUMEN
The importance of blood serum testing in most medical diagnosis has led researchers to seek for a reliable analysis method. Raman spectroscopy is a potential tool for probing serum components due to its real-time and non-destructive measurements without need to any additional reagents. So, Raman spectroscopy for the analysis and discrimination of human serum of healthy and gastric cancer subjects is investigated in this work. In order to find the correlation between Raman spectra and enzymatic test results of glucose, cholesterol, HDL, LDL and triglycerides of serum samples, the partial least squares regression (PLSR) method is utilized. Moreover, the Raman spectroscopy is used to distinguish between serum samples of healthy people and gastric cancer patients using partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) method. Correlation results reveal that for all serum components, the correlation coefficients between Raman spectra and all enzymatic test results are above 94% significantly. Discrimination results of healthy subjects and gastric cancer patients show that 87.5⯱â¯2.5% of healthy and gastric cancer subjects are diagnosed properly. Our preliminary results can confirm the Raman method in analysis of serum and also as a diagnostic tool in screening of gastric cancer.