Background: Self-medication (SM) is a growing phenomenon worldwide that has recently been classified as one of the most serious public health problems. SM can result in an incorrect self-diagnosis, inappropriate treatment, potential adverse reactions, interactions, and the masking of more sinister disease. Objectives: To assess the prevalence of SM practices amongst healthcare professionals and the general population in Saudi Arabia and to identify the sociodemographic contributing factors to this practice. Methods: A total of 540 participants were enrolled in this study. Participants were asked to complete the study questionnaire comprising two sections to gather demographic information and to collect data regarding SM practice. Results: The prevalence of SM practice among the study participants was 78.6%, and it was the highest among the middle age groups of (21–40 years) 82% compared to the younger and older age groups. The observed prevalence was higher in the female participants (53.7%) and those who live alone. Type of education did not affect the attitude of SM (p = 0.374); however, level of education strongly affected the prevalence of the SM, with higher incidence among university graduates (p < 0.001). Analgesics with antipyretics properties were the most self-medicated drugs. Patients considering their illnesses minor was the main reason behind the high prevalence of this practice. Among healthcare professions the highest prevalence of SM was found among pharmacists (95%), followed by physicians, nurses, and other medical practitioners. Conclusion: The general population should be better educated and made conscious about the consequences, risks, and side effects of SM. Awareness campaigns may prove to be useful in this matter, allowing the patient to consider the appropriateness of this practice. Individuals in the age group of 21–40 years, females, and those who live alone should be considered priority target populations in the design and implementation of SM awareness projects.

Objective: To investigate lactate dehydrogenase/Albumin to-urea (LAU) ratio as a potential predictor for COVID-19-induced fatal clinical complications in hospitalized patients. Methods: This is a retrospective study involving blood analyses from 1139 hospitalised COVID-19 infection survivors and 349 deceased cases post-COVID-19 infection. Laboratory tests included complete blood picture, inflammatory markers, and routine organ function tests. Results: The non-survivor group showed lower haemoglobin (p < 0.001), platelet (p < 0.0001) and higher mean corpuscular volume, neutrophil count, neutrophil/lymphocytes ratio (NLR), and LAU (p < 0.001, p < 0.0013, p < 0.001, p < 0.0126) than the patients who survived the infection. The non-survivors also exhibited higher markers for infection-related clinical complications, such as international normalized ratio (INR), D-dimer, urea, total bilirubin, alkaline phosphatase (ALK), creatinine, c-reactive protein (CRP), and serum ferritin levels (all p < 0.05). In addition, LAU ratio was positively correlated with infection prognostic parameters including INR (r = 0.171), D-dimer (r = 0.176), serum urea (r = 0.424), total bilirubin (r = 0.107), ALK (r = 0.115), creatinine (r = 0.365), CRP (r = 0.268), ferritin (r = 0.385) and negatively correlated with serum albumin (r = −0.114) (p ≤ 0.05). LAU ratio had an area under receiver operating characteristic of 0.67 compared to 0.60 with NLR. Conclusion: Patients with a high LAU ratio are at increased risk of mortality due to COVID-19 infection. Therefore, early assessment of this parameter, intensive intervention and close monitoring could improve their prognosis.

Ageing represents a major risk factor for many pathologies that limit human lifespan, including cardiovascular diseases. Biological ageing is a good biomarker to assess early individual risk for CVD. However, finding good measurements of biological ageing is an ongoing quest. This study aims to assess the use retinal microvascular function, separate or in combination with telomere length, as a predictor for age and systemic blood pressure in individuals with low cardiovascular risk. In all, 123 healthy participants with low cardiovascular risk were recruited and divided into three groups: group 1 (less than 30 years old), group 2 (31–50 years old) and group 3 (over 50 years old). Relative telomere length (RTL), parameters of retinal microvascular function, CVD circulatory markers and blood pressure (BP) were measured in all individuals. Symbolic regression- analysis was used to infer chronological age and systemic BP measurements using either RTL or a combination of RTL and parameters for retinal microvascular function. RTL decreased significantly with age (p = 0.010). There were also age-related differences between the study groups in retinal arterial time to maximum dilation (p = 0.005), maximum constriction (p = 0.007) and maximum constriction percentage (p = 0.010). In the youngest participants, the error between predicted versus actual values for the chronological age were smallest in the case of using both retinal vascular functions only (p = 0.039) or the combination of this parameter with RTL (p = 0.0045). Systolic BP was better predicted by RTL also only in younger individuals (p = 0.043). The assessment of retinal arterial vascular function is a better predictor than RTL for non-modifiable variables such as age, and only in younger individuals. In the same age group, RTL is better than microvascular function when inferring modifiable risk factors for CVDs. In older individuals, the accumulation of physiological and structural biological changes makes such predictions unreliable.

Purpose: To assess the similarities and differences in retinal microvascular function between mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients, early-stage primary open angle glaucoma (POAG) patients and healthy controls. Methods: Retinal vessel reactivity to flickering light was assessed in 10 AD, 19 POAG and 20 healthy age matched control patients by means of dynamic retinal vessel analysis (DVA, IMEDOS, GmbH, Jena, Germany) according to an established protocol. All patients additionally underwent BP measurements and blood analysis for glucose and lipid metabolism markers. Results: AD and POAG patients demonstrated comparable alterations in retinal artery reactivity, in the form of an increased arterial reaction time (RT) to flicker light on the final flicker cycle (p = 0.009), which was not replicated by healthy controls (p > 0.05). Furthermore, the sequential changes in RT on progressing from flicker one to flicker three were found to differ between healthy controls and the two disease groups (p = 0.001). Conclusion: AD and POAG patients demonstrate comparable signs of vascular dysfunction in their retinal arteries at the early stages of their disease process. This provides support for the concept of a common underlying vascular aetiology in these two neurodegenerative diseases.