The study investigated whether there is a male reproductive system coronavirus disease‐2019 (COVID‐19) phenomenon. Thirty participants who met the inclusion criteria were enrolled in the study between April and May 2020. The participants were assigned in one of the three groups including COVID‐19 patients before and after treatment, and controls. Presence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2) within the semen samples was investigated. Additionally, participant's demographics, semen parameters and serum sex hormone levels were compared between the groups. SARS‐CoV‐2 was not detected within the semen samples. Sperm morphology and serum sex hormone levels were significantly different between the groups. In the post hoc analysis, sperm morphology was significantly lower in the COVID‐19 patients. Patients before treatment had significantly lower serum FSH, LH and T levels than controls. However, patients after treatment had similar serum FSH, LH and T levels with controls and patients before treatment. In our opinion, COVID‐19 and its treatment had no specific deteriorative effect on male sexual health at a short‐time period. In the patients before treatment, decreased serum of T, FSH and LH levels was consistent with acute patient stress due to COVID‐19. Similarly, it seems that decreased sperm morphology was associated with the acute fever.

Objective:This study aimed to evaluate the frequency of seasonal 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] deficiency and insufficiency in children and adolescents living in Bağcılar, district of İstanbul city.Methods:Serum vitamin D levels of 280 children aged 3-17 years old were measured at the end of winter and at the end of summer. Of the total group, vitamin D levels were re-measured in 198 subjects. Vitamin D deficiency was defined as a serum 25(OH)D level less than 15 ng/mL and insufficiency-as levels between 15 and 20 ng/mL. Patients whose vitamin D levels were less than 15 ng/mL at the end of winter were treated with 2000 units/day of vitamin D for 3 months.Results:In the “end of winter” samples, 25(OH)D deficiency was present in 80.36% of the subjects and insufficiency in 11.79%. In the “end of summer” samples, vitamin D deficiency was detected in 3.44% and insufficiency in 27.75%. Vitamin D levels in the “end of winter” samples were not significantly different between boys and girls, while “end of summer” levels were significantly lower in girls (p=0.015). Sunlight exposure was significantly higher in boys (p=0.011). The group with sufficient dairy product consumption had significantly higher vitamin D levels in both “end of summer” and “end of winter” samples. Limb pain was frequently reported in children with low vitamin D levels in the “end of winter” samples (p=0.001). Negative correlations were observed between vitamin D levels and season and also between vitamin D levels and age.Conclusion: It is essential to provide supplemental vitamin D to children and adolescents to overcome the deficiency seen especially at the end of winter.

Background: Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM) is a common genetic heart disease characterized by ventricular hypertrophy, myocardial fibrosis, and impaired ventricular relaxation. The exact mechanisms by which fibrosis is caused remain unknown. Hypothesis: Circulating TGF-β is related to poor prognosis in HCM. Methods: We compared TGF-β levels of 49 HCM patients with those of 40 non-HCM patients. We followed the patients with HCM for 18 months and divided them into 2 groups: low TGF-β (≤4877 pg/mL) and high TGF-β (>4877 pg/mL). We compared the 2 groups in terms of brain natriuretic peptide (BNP), echocardiographic parameters, and clinical outcomes including myocardial infarction, arrhythmias, implantable cardioverterdefibrillator implantation, hospitalization, New York Heart Association (NYHA) class, acute heart failure, and mortality. Results: The HCM patients had higher TGF-β levels than those in the control group (P = 0.005). In the follow-up, those in the high TGF-β group had higher BNP levels, larger left-atrial size, thicker interventricular septum, NYHA class, more hospitalizations, and a greater number of clinical adverse events (P < 0.001, P = 0.01, P < 0.001, P = 0.002, P < 0.001 and P = 0.003, respectively). TGF-β level of >4877 pg/mL can predict adverse events with a specificity of 75% and a sensitivity of 72% (P = 0.014). In multivariate regression analysis, TGF-β, BNP, and interventricular septum thickness were significantly associated with adverse events (P = 0.028, P = 0.030, and P = 0.034, respectively). Conclusions: The TGF-β level is higher in HCM patients and associated with a poor prognosis in HCM.

Background Obesity is an important cause of morbidity, and it has an increasing frequency in childhood. Studies have reported that 33% of adults and 20–27% of children and adolescents are obese. Recently, it has been shown that the prevalence of obesity in the childhood group is higher than the past years. Omentin-1 is an adipokine which is synthesized from the visceral fat tissue but not synthesized in the subcutaneous fat tissue. Omentin-1 has been shown to increase insulin-mediated glucose uptake, especially in the adipose tissue. Studies have shown that plasma omentin-1 levels, which play an important role in the pathogenesis of insulin resistance, are significantly lowered in obese, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and diabetic patients. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between obesity and omentin-1 levels in children. Methods The study included obese children with a body mass index (BMI) greater than the 95th percentile and healthy children with a BMI lower than the 85th percentile. Obese and healthy individuals had similar age and sex distributions. Glucose, insulin, lipid profiles, thyroid panels and metabolic markers were evaluated. Results The levels of omentin-1 in obese children were significantly lower than in the control group (p<0.05). Results of Spearman’s correlation analysis for all participants showed that omentin-1 levels were negatively related with triglycerides, total cholesterol, serum free thyroxine (FT4), insulin, homeostatic model assessment of insulin resistance (HOMA-IR), body weight, waist circumference (WC) and BMI percentile values. Conclusions Our findings indicate that serum omentin-1 levels are lower in obese children than in non-obese individuals. Omentin-1 can be used as a metabolic biomarker in children and adolescents.

In this study, 2 probabilistic methods are presented for seismic hazard assessment in Turkey: Markov chains based on modeling the transition probabilities of states (related to the presence or absence of the earthquakes having magnitude M ≥ 4 during the time interval Δt = 0.07 years in each region of Turkey located between 36°N and 42°N and 26°E and 45°E), and the Poisson model, used for computing occurrence probability and recurrence periods of earthquakes. In particular, it should be stated that in this study, our purpose is not to compare the results obtained from these 2 methods. The main purpose is to show that earthquakes occurring in Turkey can be modeled successfully by both a Markov chain, in which we have a different zoning, and the Poisson model, which can determine seismic hazard.