Effects of vitamin C supplementation on oxidative stress and serum paraoxonase/arylesterase activities in patients on long-term hemodialysis.

Background: Oxidative stress increases oxidizability of apolipoprotein-B containing lipoproteins and decreases paraoxonase (PON) activity in hemodialysis (HD) patients and plays an important part in the development of atherosclerotic cardiovascular diseases. In HD patients, plasma ascorbic acid (AA) levels are decreased either due to the loss by hemodialysis membranes or due to malnutrition and contribute to the imbalance of antioxidant defense mechanisms. We hypothesized that long-term ascorbic acid (AA) supplementation recovers oxidizability of lipoproteins in HD patients by reinforcing PON activity.

Evaluation of visual pathways using visual evoked potentials in the patients with impaired fasting glucose and impaired glucose tolerance.

Purpose: There are many studies on degeneration of the ganglion cells using visual evoked potential (VEP) in Diabetes mellitus (DM). The present study intended to investigate whether the retinopathy findings would be helpful for detecting the degeneration to develop or not in retinal ganglion cells with the VEP test before being detectable in ophthalmoscopic examination on prediabetic patients.

Materials And Methods: The present study was conducted prospectively after obtaining approval from the Ethics Committee.

Oxidative stress and ferritin levels in haemodialysis patients.

Background: Increased oxidative stress (OS) and inflammation are associated with atherosclerotic coronary artery disease in haemodialysis (HD) patients. Ferritin may have other effects in addition to its role in storing intracellular iron. This study was performed to determine any relationships between markers of OS, nutrition and inflammation in HD patients with normal and high ferritin levels.