European journal of internal medicine
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To assess the prevalence of decreased iron stores and anemia in pregnant women. To determine whether the risk factors: socio-demographic background, age, BMI, and parity are associated with abnormal hemoglobin concentrations and/or abnormal iron status. ⋯ In our study population with low parity, the prevalence of abnormal hemoglobin and abnormal iron status was 50.2% (236/470), and socio-demographic background was the most important risk factor of anemia.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2012
Review Historical ArticleDelirium: its historical evolution and current interpretation.
Delirium was one of the first mental disorders ever to be described, though it remains an elusive concept to this day. Historically, delirium has developed from the prototype of acute confusion with psychomotor agitation. ⋯ Four core features defines delirium at present: a disturbance of consciousness, a disturbance of cognition, limited course and external causation. However, these features do not include common manifestations of delirium in elderly patients with dementia; therefore the concept of delirium should be revised and corrected.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2012
Anaemia in the elderly: an aetiologic profile of a prospective cohort of 95 hospitalised patients.
Anaemia is a significant problem in the elderly, and the cause of anaemia in approximately one third of the general population is unidentified. To date, only a few studies have focused on hospitalised patients. ⋯ A predefined protocol for older hospitalised patients was ability to identify the aetiology of anaemia in 91.6% of the cases; strikingly, anaemia was frequently caused by more than one factor (43.5%). Diagnostic orientation based on the mean corpuscular volume does not appear to correlate with mean cellular volume profile. Finally, anaemia caused by an unknown aetiology is rare and copper deficiency was not documented in any case.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2012
Association between leptin and its soluble receptor with cardiometabolic risk factors in a Brazilian population.
Most studies evaluating the conjoint effects of leptin and human soluble leptin receptor (hs-LR) on cardiometabolic risk factors have been conducted in well-characterized ethnic groups. We aimed to assess the associations of leptin and hs-LR with the cardiometabolic risk factors that reflect the components of metabolic syndrome (MetS) in a Brazilian population with varying degrees of adiposity. ⋯ In a Brazilian population with complex interethnic admixture, levels of hs-LR and leptin were independently associated with systolic blood pressure and insulin, respectively. Leptin increased with increasing number of MetS components. In turn, hs-LR decreased as the number of MetS components increased.
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Eur. J. Intern. Med. · Sep 2012
Meta Analysis Comparative StudyIntensive versus conventional glucose control in critically ill patients: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.
Critically ill patients commonly develop hyperglycemia. It remains unclear, however, to what extent correcting hyperglycemia will benefit these patients. We performed this meta-analysis to evaluate the benefits and risks of intensive glucose control versus conventional glucose control in critically ill adult patients. ⋯ This meta-analysis found that intensive glucose control in critically ill adults did not reduce mortality but is associated with a significantly increased risk of hypoglycemia.