Background — Recent data indicate increasing rates of mortality from cardiovascular (CV) disease in Turkey. This study aimed to evaluate CV disease risk factors among university students in Northern Turkey. Methods — In this cross sectional descriptive study, 302 students were randomly recruited (171 females (57%) and 131 males (43%), mean age of 20±2.1 years). Blood glucose, cholesterol profile (total, high density lipoprotein (HDL) and low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterols), triglyceride, glycosylated haemoglobin, resting blood pressure, and body mass index were measured using standard protocols. All participants were asked to complete a questionnaire including questions on lifestyle, genetic predisposition, smoking habit, and psychosocial factors. Results — The mean systolic and diastolic blood pressure of students were 127.1±13.5 mmHg and 78.3±12.4 mmHg. The mean values were 98.4±14.2 mg/dL for fasting blood glucose value, 5.4±0.4 for HbA1C, 80.0±10.3 beats/min for heart rate, for total cholesterol 199.1±24.6 mg/dL, 43.8±9.9 mg/dL for HDL, 114.7±24.1 mg/dL for LDL, 199.1±24.6 mg/dL for trygliceride, 24.8±3.6 kg/m2 for body mass index, 97.6±17.9 cm for waist circumference. No significant difference was observed between gender according to CV risk factors’ values statistically. It was observed that 111 (36.8%) students were overweight, 32 (10.6%) were obes. About 135 (44.0%) of students had abnormally unacceptable WC value. Smoking habit was seen in 130 (43.0%) students [73 (24.2%) male and 57 (18.9%) female]. Conclusion — A substantial proportion of Turkish students were overweight or obese, and had smoking habit. Our results underscore the need to implement health promotion programmes and perform large-scale epidemiological studies within the general Turkish young adult population.
Rasim Kutlu, Mehmet Erdem Memetoglu Evaluation of cardiovascular risk factors among university students in Turkey: a cross-sectional survey // Russian Open Medical Journal, Vol. 2, Issue 3, 2013, pp. 307-0

We investigated the heart rate variability (HRV) parameters in patients with rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and assessed their relationship with disease characteristics. Twenty-three female patients with RA [age 48+/-7 (mean+/-SD) years] free of cardiovascular diseases and 23 age- and gender-matched healthy controls were evaluated. After careful clinical examination, the following parameters were obtained after 24-h Holter recordings: average of all normal-to normal (NN) intervals over the entire 24-h ECG recording (meanNN, ms); the standard deviation for the time between NN complexes (SDNN, ms); the standard deviation of the average NN intervals for each 5-min period (SDANN, ms) and the square root of the mean-squared differences of successive NN intervals (rMSSD, ms). We also assessed quantitative parameters of the Poincaré plot: the standard deviation of the points perpendicular to the line-of-identity (SD1, ms); the standard deviation along the line-of-identity (SD2, ms) and their ratio (SD12). HRV parameters excluding SD2 were significantly lower in patients with RA, than in control group (p<0.05). Significant correlations of SDNN and SDANN with swollen joints count, Ritchie articular index, disease activity score (DAS) and disease duration were found. SDNN also correlated with leucocyte count and smoking. SD1 significantly correlated only with disease duration. Relationships between SDNN and smoking, swollen joints count and DAS were confirmed using multivariate analysis. Our data indicate that in patients with RA reduced HRV is independently associated with high disease activity and smoking. HRV assessment may be useful as a part of cardiovascular risk stratification in RA patients.
Int J Clin Pract. 2007 May;61(5):777-83. Epub 2007 Mar 16.