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Depressive disorder and neurodegenerative diseases are two different clinical entities. Depression is a common psychiatric disorder in the general population. However, when present concomitantly with neurodegenerative disorders, its diagnosis becomes challenging. In many cases, patients remain undiagnosed and hence, untreated, worsening the prognosis of the neurodegenerative diseases and impairing the quality of life. One of the possible reasons for the difficulties in diagnosis in such cases is that both conditions affect the central nervous system, so there might be an overlap of symptoms leading to a missed diagnosis of depression in a neurodegenerative disease patient and vice versa. Symptoms such as irritability, apathy, and decreased cognition are common to both types of disorders. Some neurodegenerative diseases, especially Alzheimer's disease, can initially present as a depressive prodrome. This may cause a difficulty in differentiating between these two conditions and a diagnosis of either conditions may be missed; hence an opportunity for timely intervention and improved outcomes is missed. An approach towards analyzing and comparing the pathological mechanisms common to both disease types will create a better understanding of depression and neurodegenerative diseases, identify their similarities, and develop improved clinical criteria to help clinicians make a timely diagnosis of these conditions present together. In the present review, various studies related to common pathological links, concomitant diagnosis challenges, and ongoing research about different treatment options are discussed.

Hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) is a popular invaluable tool in the diagnosis of Type 2 diabetes for red blood cells (RBCs) with a lifespan of 120 days; however, many factors, including hemoglobinopathies, affect its accuracy. Sickle cell trait, primarily a benign medical condition, is a point mutation in only one of two beta-globin genes on chromosome 11. We performed a traditional review to identify how the sickle cell trait (SCT) affects the interpretation of HbA1c and the further implications it may have on the diagnosis and management of Type 2 diabetes. A literature search was performed using PubMed®/MEDLINE® and Google Scholar with formulated keywords (sickle cell trait, HbAS, HbA1c, glycosylated hemoglobin, diabetes, RBC lifespan, race, and genetics), with the majority of results being mainly observational studies. The National Glycohemoglobin Standardization Program (NGSP) is responsible for standardizing HbA1c results and also highlights factors that can interfere with HbA1c, including hemoglobin variants. Studies that utilize only an NGSP-certified method with no clinically significant interference by HbS in patients with and without SCT showed contrasting results. Additional studies showed that persons of African ancestry, the group to which the majority of SCT patients belong, have a higher HbA1c than non-Hispanic whites (NHWs), just based on race, and a greater probability of having glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency, which lowers HbA1c. The most extensive study investigating the RBC lifespan in SCT patients showed a reduction in the cell lifespan compared to normal patients; however, other smaller studies were contradictory. Our study highlights the need for hemoglobinopathy detection before or during HbA1c measurement in populations with a high degree of African ancestry and the importance of patient notification. It also shows that SCT affects the accuracy of HbA1c, through its likely reduction of RBC lifespan and its increased association with African ancestry and G6PD deficiency. This review recommends that for SCT patients with potential Type 2 diabetes, HbA1c should be used in combination with another diagnostic tool such as fasting blood glucose, fructosamine, or glycated albumin to decrease the chances of a missed diagnosis.

… Background: Zingiber Officinale Roscoe (Zingiberaceae family) is known as Ginger. It is famous for its antioxidant properties. Objectives: To evaluate the effects of Ginger aqueous extract on the serum creatinine and paired kidney weight in Alloxan induced diabetic nephropathy of albino rats. Study Design: Experimental study. Period: 06 months 01-01-2013 to 30 June 2013. Setting: Anatomy Department, Sheikh Zayed, PGMI Lahore. Materials and Methods: Diabetes mellitus was induced with Alloxan intraperitoneally (150 mg/ kg body weight) in Experimental groups B & C. Then the rats of experimental group C received 200mg/kg body weight of ginger aqueous extract by gavage daily for five weeks starting from 8 th day after Alloxan injection. Results: Serum creatinine levels increased more in experimental group B as compared to experimental group C. Group wise comparison of creatinine level revealed that the difference among control (A group) and experimental (B & C Groups) was significant having p-value <0.001. We observed that Paired kidney weight in experimental group B increased as compared to control group A. Less increase in the paired kidney weight was observed in experimental group C as compared to experimental group B. The difference of mean paired kidney weight among three groups was significant having p-value <0.001. Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated that the co-treatment of Ginger aqueous extract prevented alloxan induced diabetic nephropathy in albino rats. The aqueous extract of Ginger showed amazing results on paired kidney weight.

This research aims to investigate the contemporary situation of ‘cyber-ethics’ that is prevailing among the users of the internet. The cyber world seems to be a second or virtual world for all of those who use the internet. Three diverse perspectives of cyber-ethics, i.e. Professional, Philosophical and Descriptive give a better understanding of how different philosophers, social scientists and even computer professionals view cyber-ethics and how the advancement in the field of technology can be embedded into the social system. Along with the advantages of being ‘connected’ to the world at large, it also brings some disadvantages on the ethical side and it is no astonishment that Pakistan is also not liberated from the cyber space dilemma. A survey was conducted in four major universities of Islamabad in order to measure the perception of internet users regarding the concept of ‘cyberethics’. The survey was carried out on 304 respondents (152 males, 152 females) and a detailed questionnaire was used as the prime tool of the survey method. Although the perception of male and female students differ from each other in various regards (as supported by the Ethical Theory of Relativism), the results reveal that there is a positive attitude of respondents towards the main concept of cyber-ethics on the whole, but there is still a long way to go in order to obtain a better understanding and to adopt the proper ways of using cyber technology.