Iranian Journal of

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Background: Atherosclerosis is the leading cause of mortality in the developed and some developing countries. Some people believe that opium abuse has beneficial effects for reducing blood lipids and atherosclerosis prevention. In this study, the effect of oral opium addiction on lipid profile and atherogenesis in normal and hypercholesterolemic rabbits was studied.

Methods: Thirty two male Newzeland White rabbits were used in this study. They were divided into four groups including control, hypercholesterolemic, addicted, and hypercholesterolemic addicted and were studied for three months. The blood samples were obtained and lipid profile was determined at the beginning of the study and at the end of every month thereafter. After 90 days aorta was removed to assess for lesion formation.

Results: The levels of cholesterol, triglyceride (TG), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C), and atherogenic index (total cholesterol/HDL-C) in the hypercholesterolemic and hypercholesterolemic addicted rabbits were increased significantly (P<0.001). These increases in lipids and aorta lesion areas were higher in hypercholesterolemic addicted group than hypercholesterolemic group.

Conclusion: These findings suggest that oral opium abuse affects cholesterol metabolism and depending on the dietary condition can have an aggravating effect on atherosclerosis. The protective effect of morphine on cardiac disease is not probably through the modulation of lipid metabolism.

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Background: The ion mobility spectrometry (IMS) is an analytical technique that is widely used due to its high sensitivity and speed for the detection of ionized molecules in gas phase and under atmospheric pressure. Breath analysis is a new method for obtaining information about person's clinical conditions that is considered by researchers. Human exhaled air contains a variety of components such as water vapor, hydrogen, acetone which in case of disease changes the amount of them. Some of these substances are highly related to diseases like asthma, lung cancer, diabetes. In this research work, the detection and measurement of acetone in breath of diabetics is described using an ion mobility spectrometer with a corona-positive ionization source.
Methods: Instrumental parameters such as cell and injection temperatures, drift and corona voltages, carrier and drift gas flow rates, and pulse width were investigated. Under optimum conditions, calibration curve and other figures of merits were determined. Under optimum conditions, the breath of diabetics were sampled by syringe and then injected to IMS.
Results: Under optimum experimental conditions, the calibration curve was linear in the range of 10-80 ng. The relative standard deviation for 20 and 50 ng of acetone with 6 times the measurement were 7.2 and 6.2%, respectively. The limits of detection and quantification were 2.7 and 9 ng, respectively. The developed method has been used satisfactory to determine of acetone in the breath of diabetics.