Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are major causes of death worldwide. Recently, new roles for intestinal microbiota in pathology and treatment of CVD have been proposed. Butyrate, a bacterial metabolite, is synthesized in the gut and performs most of its functions in there. However, researchers have discovered that butyrate could enter to portal vein and interact with various organs. Butyrate exhibits a broad range of pharmacological activities, including microbiome modulator, anti-inflammatory, anti-obesity, metabolic pathways regulator, anti-angiogenesis, and antioxidant. In this article we review evidence supporting a potentially therapeutic role for butyrate in CVD and the mechanisms and pathways involved in the cardio-protective effects of butyrate from the gut and circulation to the nervous system. In summary, although butyrate exhibits a wide variety of biological activities in different pathways including energy homeostasis, glucose and lipid metabolism, inflammation, oxidative stress, neural signaling, and epigenetic modulation in experimental settings, it remains unclear whether these findings are clinically relevant and whether the molecular pathways are activated by butyrate in humans.

We present a female neonate with arthrogryposis, renal tubular abnormalities and cholestasis syndrome and complex renal structural and functional abnormalities that include medullary nephrocalcinosis, hydronephrosis, nephrogenic diabetes insipidus, Fanconi syndrome, proximal and distal hyperkalemic renal tubular acidosis, near-nephrotic range proteinuria, hypercalciuria and severe hypovitaminosis D.

Introduction: Blood pressure (BP) measurement is essential for epidemiological studies and clinical decisions. It seems that tissue characteristics can affect BP results and we try to find edema effect on BP results taken by different methods. Methods: BP of 55 children before open heart surgery were measured and compared according to three methods: Arterial as standard and reference, oscillometric and auscultatory methods. Peripheral edema as a tissue characteristic was defined in higher than +2 as marked edema and in equal or lower than +2 as no edema. Statistical analyses: data was expressed as Mean and 95% of confidence interval (CI 95%). Comparison of two groups was performed by T independent test and of more than two groups by ANOVA test. Mann–Whitney U and paired T-test were used for serially comparisons of changes. P less than 0.05 was considered significant. Results: Fifty five children aged 29.4±3.9 months were divided into two groups: 10 children with peripheral edema beyond +2 and 45 cases without edema. Oscillometric method overestimated systolic BP and the Mean (CI 95%) difference of oscillometric to arterial was 4.8 (8/-1, P=0.02) in edematous and 4.2 (7/1, p=0.004) in non edematous. Oscillometric method underestimated diastolic BP as -9 (-1.8/-16.5, P=0.03) in edematous group and 2.6 (-0.7/+5, P= 0.2) in non edematous compared to arterial method. Conclusion: Oscillometric device standards cannot cover all specific clinical conditions. It underestimates diastolic BP significantly in edematous children, which was 9.2 mmHg in average beyond the acceptable standards.

Introduction: Ramadan can alter the course of diseases by changing nutrition patterns, sleep habits, and medication-taking schedules. There are some concerns that patients with asthma may be affected by these alterations during Ramadan and experience deterioration of their symptoms. This study aimed to investigate the effect of fasting in Ramadan on the severity of the disease and spirometric parameters in patients with asthma. Methods: An overall 120 patients with moderate to severe asthma were investigated during Ramadan and categorized into two groups of fasting (60 cases) and non-fasting (60 cases) groups. Patients underwent spirometry before and after Ramadan and asthma control status was also assessed. The parameters measured in spirometry were compared in each group before and after Ramadan and also between the two groups. Results: Spirometric measurements including forced expiratory volume in the first second (FEV1), forced vital capacity (FVC), peak expiratory flow (PEF), and FEV1/FVC were not significantly different before and after Ramadan in both groups of fasting and non-fasting patients. Furthermore, there was no significant difference between the two groups in terms of these spirometric parameters changes from baseline. Nevertheless, FEV1 change in the fasting group was significantly higher than that in the non-fasting group (1.46±5.37 vs. -0.13±3.08, respectively; P=0.040). Conclusion: The results of this study demonstrated that fasting has no significant effect on the severity of asthma and spirometric findings in patients with moderate to severe asthma. Therefore, fasting during Ramadan can be considered safe for patients with asthma.

The aim of this study was to investigate the characteristics and outcomes of treating pulmonary stenosis with percutaneous valvuloplasty, and to compare them among three childhood age groups. All children under 15 years of age who had undergone pulmonary valve balloon valvuloplasty in Madani Heart Center from 2005–2009 were enrolled in this study. Data were analyzed using IBM SPSS software (SPSS, Inc, Chicago, IL). Mean (± standard deviation) age of patients was 55.5 ± 47.4 months. Two-thirds of the subjects had moderate pulmonary valve stenosis. Balloon valvuloplasty failed in nearly one-fifth of the treated patients. There were 17 failures and two cases of mortality, descriptively less frequent among children >5 years; however, the observed difference was not statistically significant. Mild pulmonary valve insufficiency was a common finding.