Background:Adulterated herbal weight loss products with containing undeclared synthetic drugs are common and responsible for many serious health damages.Objectives:The purpose of the study was to determine five synthetic adulterants in eight common herbal weight loss supplements, which are currently sold in Iran markets, to verify their presence in supplements, without mentioning on the labels.Materials and Methods:Eight common herbal weight loss samples were obtained from the Iran pharmaceutical market after advertising in the Persian language on satellite channels and internet. Five pharmacological classes of drugs used for weight loss, namely sibutramine, phenolphthalein, phenytoin, bumetanide and rimonabant, were investigated and quantified by GC-MS for the first three and LC-MS for the last two medications.Results:The most undeclared ingredients, which were illegally added include sibutramine, phenolphthalein, bumetanide, and phenytoin in the original super slim, herbaceous essence, super slim green lean, and fat loss, supplements, respectively. Rimonabant was not found. Caffeine, pseudoephedrine, theobromine and amfepramone were also found in the supplements using GC-MS assay.Conclusions:Adulterated synthetic substances were detected in the herbal weight loss products. Health care professionals should make people aware of the risks of taking herbal weight-loss supplements.

This study, for the first time, establishes the trimester-specific reference intervals for FT4I in a reference population of normal iodine-sufficient pregnant Iranian women.

Background:The purpose of this study was to evaluate the validity and reliability on the Persian translation of the Modifiable Activity Questionnaire (MAQ) in a sample of Tehranian adolescents.Methods:Of a total of 52 subjects, a sub-sample of 40 participations (55.0% boys) was used to assess the reliability and the validity of the physical activity questionnaire. The reliability of the two MAQs was calculated by intraclass correlation coefficients, and validation was evaluated using Pearson correlation coefficients to compare data between mean of the two MAQs and mean of four physical activity records.Results:Intraclass correlation coefficient was calculated to assess the reliability between two MAQs and the results of leisure time physical activity over the past year were 0.97. Pearson correlation coefficients between mean of two MAQs and mean of four physical activity records were 0.49 (P < 0.001), for leisure time physical activities.Conclusions:High reliability and relatively moderate validity were found for the Persian translation of the MAQ in a Tehranian adolescent population. Further studies with large sample size are suggested to assess the validity more precisely.