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Serotonin is well known to be involved in the mediation of cognitive processes, but also in the regulation of multiple distinct physiological processes, such as pain. It is also involved in the modulation of nociception of the endogenous analgesic system. Among the monoamine neurotransmitters, serotonin plays an important role in signaling chronic pain, hence the importance of its monitoring in lumbar pain due to degenerative pathology, one of the common cause of this kind of pain. The aim of our study is to evaluate the impact of peloidotherapy on the variation of serum serotonin levels in patients with degenerative low back pain. In our study, conducted in Balneal and Rehabilitation Sanatorium of Techirghiol, we evaluated 130 patients who performed balneal and physical treatments for a period of 2 weeks. The patients were divided into 3 groups: 51 patients were enrolled into the hot mud baths group (HMB), 48 in the cold mud baths (CMB) group and 31 in the control group (CG). Each patient performed physiotherapy treatments which includes electrotherapy, massage and kinetotherapy, patients from HMB group had also hot mud therapy and patients from CMB group had cold mud therapy. Serum serotonin was dosed at admission and at discharge, for each patient, and was determined using ELISA method with kits from Demeditec Diagnostics GmbH for human serotonin. All the data from the study were statistically analized using the SPSS 22.0 program, values were interpreted as mean value and standard deviation, and we used ANOVA and t tests. The statistically significant value considered was p

Obesity is a complex, multifactorial metabolic pathology, within the path of modification of the endocrine system plays a significant role. Changes in growth hormone (GH) and in-sulin growth factor (IGF) have been associated with obesity in various ways, mainly through changes in GH-binding proteins, insulin and ghrelin levels. The balneal treat-ment with Techirghiol Romanian sapropelic mud has an important impact on the endo-crine system, primarily through the action on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. We investigated the secretory changes of the IGF-1 hormone that appeared after the balne-al treatment. It was a total number of 52 patients, divided into two groups: 1 group who performed the treatment with Techirghiol sapropelic mud at thermoneutrality tempera-tures - warm mud baths, and the second group who followed treatment with the balneal therapeutic factor in a thermal contrast regime - cold mud baths. We studied whether there are correlations between the body mass index (BMI) and the secretion of this hor-mone. We also determined the serum levels of blood glucose at admission and discharge. In the cold mud baths- thermal contrast therapy, can be observed a statistically significant increase in IGF-1 values during the balneal treatment (p = 0.044 < α = 0.05). Comparative-ly, in the warm mud baths, the increase in serum IGF-1 reached values close to statistical significance at the end of the treatment (p = 0.067 > α = 0.05). There were no statistically significant correlations between BMI and IGF-1 hormone secretion at admission and at discharge. The results showed a statistically significant decrease in blood glucose values determined at admission and discharge in the group that performed warm mud baths. The balneal treatment with sapropelic mud of Techirghiol lake, from Romania, through the impact on the endocrine system, on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, can be registered as a treatment with a natural therapeutic factor with an impact on obesity, ther-apy carried out within the parameters of metabolic safety, and the conduct of future re-search in this direction it will help develop new concepts and approaches to obesity.

Background: Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a devastating problem for modern society, whether it affects young people in the most productive period of their lives or the elderly. The spinal cord injury is currently without curative treatment and the therapeutic intervention aims to minimize secondary complications and maximize residual function through rehabilitation medicine. The main objective of this scientific paper is to determine whether there is evidence in the literature regarding the importance and/or use of hydrotherapy, as part of the therapeutic management of the SCI patient, in order to decrease the degree of spasticity, of pain symptoms, increase or maintain range of motion, improve respiratory, cardiovascular, and metabolic status, as well as improve function and psychological benefits. Methods: Using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) procedures, the following databases were analyzed between 2000 and 2021: Pub Med, Pub Med Central, Science Direct, Scopus, and SpringerLink. Initial keywords: rehabilitation treatment, spinal cord injury. Additional keywords: hydrotherapy, aqua therapy, spasticity, human. For the scientific quality of the included articles, risk of bias was assessed using the Downs and Black Appraisal Modified Scale. Results: Our research used only four publications as per PRISMA protocol, assessed with Downs and Black Scale. The study models used in the individual studies included in the research are the following: two systematic reviews, one experimental non-randomized control, and one individual semi-structured interview. Due to the low number of studies, despite two of them being reviews, there is the necessity for a more standardized methodology to prove the benefits hydrotherapy for SCI patients for the improvement of lower limb functioning. Conclusion: Hydrotherapy is an important component of the treatment of an SCI patient, despite the limited number of scientific studies that support this aspect. Clinical trials in the future are required.