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Backgrounds & Purpose : Ramadan fasting is a unique cycle in which man should avoid eating and drinking. In many conditions such as plasma LDL and IGF-1 concentration, effects of prolonged & Ramadan fasting are different. This study was conducted to determine the effect of Ramadan fasting on LDL & IGF-1 and their correlations.

Material & Methods: 132 healthy adult volunteers (60 women, 72 men) took part in this quasi-experimental study. All participants fasted for at least 25 days in the lunar month of Ramadan.The amount of serum IGF-1 was measured by radioimmunoassay 1 week before and on the 14^th and 28^th days of Ramadan. Statistical analysis with ANOVA, the Student's paired t-test, and Pearson's regression analysis were all carried out in this respect.

Results : No significant change in the serum concentration of IGF-1 was found in men, women or the group during this study ,but serum level of LDL was decreased significantly.

Conclusions: Ramadan fasting has no effect on plasma IGF-1, but it decreases plasma LDL significantly

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Background: The current medical treatment for hepatitis C is a combination of antiviral therapy along with pegylated interferon alpha and ribavirin. Recent studies have demonstrated that single nucleotide polymorphisms near the interleukin 28B gene coding for IFN-λ3 were associated with the antiviral response. Therefore, this study aimed to determine the frequency of G/T polymorphism of rs8099917 among the Iranian population.
Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study was performed on 93 blood samples (71 sensitive and 22 resistant to treatment) collected from individuals suffering from chronic HCV, and 57 healthy controls. DNA was extracted from the samples and the frequency of the polymorphism was analyzed using the PCR-RFLP method. Finally, the products were detected on 3.5% agarose gel electrophoresis.
Results: The frequency of the G/T polymorphism between the healthy individuals and patients were TT: 75%, TG: 23%, GG: 2%, and TT: 57%, TG: 35%, GG: 8%, respectively. Moreover, the TT genotype was identified in 46 patients of whom 71 achieved SVR, while the GT heterozygous was found in 33 patients and SVR was achieved in 19. Finally, the GG was detected in 7 patients and only one patient was resistant to treatment.
Conclusion: Results show a significant effect of G allele on susceptibility to HCV compared to the other allele T (P=0.013). Although no correlation was seen between the polymorphism and SVR among the patients, further studies with more samples are necessary.