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Objective: Genital infections that occur mostly in women are called vulvovaginal candidiasis. The study was conducted to determine the effect of genital hygiene behaviors on vulvovaginal candida in women with type 2 diabetes. Methods: Descriptive relational and the multi-centered study was conducted with 120 patients with type 2 diabetes who applied to the obstetrics and gynecology outpatient clinic of a public hospital in seven cities. The data were collected by using a questionnaire and the Genital Hygiene Behaviors Inventory. Frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum values, and Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed in the analysis of the data. Results: In the study, 94.2% of women with Type 2 diabetes had various vaginal symptoms, 63.7% of them applied to an obstetrician due to vaginal symptoms and, 54.9% of them were diagnosed and treated for vaginal candidiasis. 36.2% of them did not apply to the obstetrician despite having some symptoms. Women had some wrong behaviors and insufficient information on sexual health and genital hygiene although no difference was found between Genital Hygiene Behaviors Inventory and vulvovaginal candida. However, a significant difference between Genital Hygiene Behaviors and the history of urinary tract (p=0.004) and obstetric surgery or disease history (p=0.013). Conclusions: This study showed that diabetic women need to inform on genital hygiene behaviors as dimensions of diabetes education in order to prevent diabetes complications although no was found difference between genital hygiene behaviors and vulvovaginal candida. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives: To investigate the difference of serum estrogen, serum lipids and inflammatory factors levels in postmenopausal women with coronary heart blood stasis syndrome and non-blood stasis syndrome. Methods: Twenty five healthy postmenopausal women were selected as a healthy control group who were compared with 43 postmenopausal women with coronary heart disease (CHD) first visiting a doctor for the CHD. Among the postmenopausal women with CHD, There were 23 patients with blood stasis syndrome (BSS) and 20 patients with non-blood stasis syndrome (NBSS). The levels of plasma triglyceride (TG), total cholesterol(TC) were determined in blood samples taken after patients' admission in Beijing Anzhen Hospital. The serum estradiol(E2) was measured by electrochemiluminescence assay and soluble intercellular adhesion molecule-1(sICAM-1) was measured by enzyme-linked immune sorbent assay (ELISA). Results: Compared with the healthy control group, the levels of TG and TC, sICAM-1 in coronary heart disease group were all significantly increased (P<0.05),but serum E2 were significantly decreased (P<0.05). The levels of E2 of patients with blood stasis syndrome (BSS) were decreased further (P>0.05), and there was an increasing trend of serum sICAM-1 levels (P>0.05). There were negative significant correlations between serum E2 levels and TC, sICAM-1 levels in patient with coronary heart disease. Conclusion: The estrogen level of menopausal women with coronary heart disease is lower than healthy menopausal women. With the low estrogen levels, postmenopausal women tend to have high levels of blood lipids and sICAM-1, which elucidates that the estrogen could regulate lipids and attenuate inflammatory response to play a protective role on blood vessels. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]