AIM The aim was to investigate serum vitamin D (25-OH) level among females with hypothyroidism. MATERIALS AND METHODS A case-control study (58 in each arm) was conducted in Arar Central Hospital, Kingdom Saudi Arabia. The cases were females with hypothyroidism, and healthy females were controls. TSH, thyroid hormones: Free T3 (FT3) and Free T4 (FT4) and haemoglobin levels were measured in all...

Carbohydrate metabolism plays a crucial role in the ecophysiology of human gut microbiota. Mechanisms of transcriptional regulation of sugar catabolism in commensal and prevalent human gut bacteria such as Bacteroides thetaiotaomicron remain mostly unknown. By a combination of bioinformatics and experimental approaches, we have identified an NrtR family transcription factor (BT0354 in B. thetai...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE Appendicectomy for acute appendicitis is one of the most commonly performed surgical procedures. Acute appendicitis has remained a clinical entity and an ongoing diagnostic challenge. A retrospective study was performed to determine histological diagnosis, demographic data, the rate of perforated appendicitis and negative appendicectomies. METHODS Histopathological re...

Background Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are among the main causes of premature death and hospital admission worldwide, constituting a great economic burden on health care systems. Additionally, thyroid diseases may exert a deleterious effect on the outcomes of CVD patients. Aim This study was conducted to identify the pattern and factors associated with CVD distribution and the relation with...

OBJECTIVES To determine students' perception of bedside teaching, to find out barriers in its effective implementation and to suggest strategies to make it an effective learning tool. METHODS This study was conducted in Faculty of Medicine, Northern Border University Arar, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia between November 2013 and January 2014. The study design was qualitative inductive thematic analy...

The development of chronic complications of type 2 Diabetes Mellitus can cause premature death mainly via cardiovascular disease and other chronic complications. It is known from previous studies that Acetylcholinesterase activity of the erythrocyte cell membrane increases in Diabetic patients. High levels of Acetylcholinesterase enzyme concentration can lead to a decrease in the levels of Acet...

BACKGROUND Changes in the anatomical structures and function of the ear can result in ear diseases, and may affect all age groups including the elderly as a result of aging. OBJECTIVE To identify the frequency and types of ear diseases among the elderly attending Abdullah bin Abdul-Aziz bin Musa'ed Al Saud hospital, Arar city, in the Northern Province of KSA, and factors associated with ear i...

Natural products have been used for medical applications since ancient times. Commonly, natural products are structurally complex chemical compounds that efficiently interact with their biological targets, making them useful drug candidates in cancer therapy. Here, we used cell-based phenotypic profiling and image-based high-content screening to study the mode of action and potential cellular t...

Hyperthermophilic bacteria from the Thermotogales lineage can produce hydrogen by fermenting a wide range of carbohydrates. Previous experimental studies identified a large fraction of genes committed to carbohydrate degradation and utilization in the model bacterium Thermotoga maritima. Knowledge of these genes enabled comprehensive reconstruction of biochemical pathways comprising the carbohy...

The GNTR family of transcription factors (TFs) is a large group of proteins present in diverse bacteria and regulating various biological processes. Here we use the comparative genomics approach to reconstruct regulons and identify binding motifs of regulators from three subfamilies of the GNTR family, FADR, HUTC, and YTRA. Using these data, we attempt to predict DNA-protein contacts by analyzi...