Background: Health related quality of life (HRQOL) has become a field of extensive research involving children and adolescents with diabetes. There are no HRQOL instruments designed or adapted for the Arabic culture and language. The objectives of the study are to test the Arabic translated version of the PedsQL^TM 4.0 Generic Core Scales (GCS) and the PedsQL^TM 3.0 Diabetes Module (DM) in children and adolescents with type 1 diabetes (T1DM) in Kuwait and analyse their psychometric properties. Methods: After the process of translation, committee review and pre-testing (linguistic validation), 131 children and adolescents with and 104 without T1DM, with their parents completed the Arabic version of GCS. Those with T1DM completed the Arabic DM. Demographic and diabetes-related data were collected using specially designed questionnaires. Internal consistency was checked by Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The intraclass correlations coefficient, celling and floor effects and construct validity were assessed to determine the psychometric properties of both instruments. Results: Cronbach’s alpha of the child self-report and parent proxy-report was greater than 0.70, for both instruments, indicating internal consistency reliability. Items of both instruments had minimal missing responses, and required a brief time (5 - 7 minutes) to finish indicating their feasibility. No floor effect was demonstrated. Ceiling effect ranged from 5.8% to 15.8%. The GCS distinguished between healthy and diabetic children. The intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) between child self-report and parent proxy-report of GCS scores showed good to excellent agreement, p < 0.001. However, in the DM reports, the correlation was lower, but still significant. Girls reported lower HRQOL scores in worries and communication subscales of the diabetes module than boys, p < 0.05. Conclusions: The Arabic version of the PedsQL GCS and PedsQL DM showed sufficient feasibility, reliability and validity to be used for research purposes in public health setting for children 2 - 18 years old and their parents

Many Arab women in the Gulf region cover their bodies for cultural and religious reasons, limiting the skin’s exposure to sunlight and therefore its ability to synthesize vitamin D. The aim of this study is to determine whether the clothing style of Kuwaiti premenopausal women affects their vitamin D status, bone marker expression, and bone density. Three groups of healthy unmarried single Kuwaiti females (20-35 years old; n=30 per group) were recruited randomly from the general community: a control group who wear Western-style clothing (unveiled group), a group who wear a hejab that covers the whole body except for the face and hands (hejab group), and a group who wear a black veil with the entire body covered (veiled group). Bone mineral density (BMD), bone markers (procollagen type 1 N-terminal propeptide [P1NP], osteocalcin, and β-CrossLaps), 25-hydroxy vitamin D, intact parathyroid hormone [iPTH], and calcitonin were measured. The bone marker osteocalcin was significantly higher in the hejab group compared to the control group, whereas P1NP and β-CrossLaps were significantly higher in the veiled group compared to the control group. 25-hydroxy vitamin D, iPTH, calcitonin, and BMD were not significantly different across the three groups despite the observed elevation in bone turnover markers. The majority of participants in all three groups exhibited vitamin D deficiency; however, the lowest vitamin D levels were observed among the hejab and veiled participants. These findings suggest that clothing style may contribute to vitamin D deficiency in young Kuwaiti women.

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Background: Arterial myointimal hyperplasia (MIH) has a significant impact on the long-term outcomes of vascular procedures such as bypass surgery and angioplasty. In this study, we describe a new and innovative technique to induce MIH using a dental flossing cachet in Wistar rats. Methods: The intimal damage in the common carotid artery was induced by inserting the tip of the dental flossing cachet through the external carotid artery into the common carotid artery and turning it on for 3 rounds of 20 s each (n = 10). After 2 weeks, the rats were anesthetized and the common carotid arteries of the experimental side and the contralateral side (control) were harvested and preserved for histopathological studies. Results: The experimental carotid arteries showed significant intimal proliferation and thickening compared to the controls. The intima/media ratio of the experimental and normal (control) common carotid arteries were 1.274 ± 0.162 and 0.089 ± 0.023 (mean ± SEM), respectively (p < 0.001). Conclusion: This technique is simple, inexpensive, and highly reproducible and it induces sufficient MIH to study this phenomenon in animal models.