Introduction: Epstein-Barr Virus (EBV) infection prevails in underdeveloped and developing countries. The tonsils seem to be candidate replication sites for EBV and some studies have exposed a close association among viral infections and chronic tonsillitis. The objective of this study was identifying the EBV prevalence in Mexican patients who had undergone tonsillectomy because of chronic tonsillitis. Methodology: Frozen tissues and medical records were obtained from 50 Mexican patients. DNA was extracted and subjected to PCR to amplify the EBER-2 region of EBV. Next, the patients were classified according to general and clinical characteristics searching a relation with the EBV-DNA positivity. Results: EBV genome was detected in 46% (23/50) of the analysed tonsil tissues. Trends were found regarding the relationship of viral presence with lower values in terms of age (6.1 ± 2.8 vs 7.6 ± 3.7) , a greater degree of hypertrophy (3.5 ± 0.4 vs 3.0 ± 0.6) and an increase in the number of episodes of tonsillitis (11 ± 7.4 vs 9 ± 6.5). Conclusions: The prevalence found of EBV-DNA positivity in tonsillar tissues from patients diagnosed with chronic tonsillitis , supports the fact that palatine tonsils can be occupied by EBV and highlights the importance of conducting future studies focused on understanding the role of the EBV infection in chronic inflammatory processes in the population involved in this study.

Environmental psychological factors such as mood states can modify and trigger an organic response; depressive disorder is considered a risk factor for oncological development, leading to alterations both in the genesis and in the progression of the disease. Some authors have identified that personality relates to mood since a high score in neuroticism is associated with intense and long-lasting emotions of stress and therefore with the development of depressive behaviors. The objective of this study was to analyze the relationship between personality and depression in skin cancer patients. A total of forty-seven clinically and histopathologically diagnosed patients were scheduled for an hour-long interview, during which they provided informed consent and sociodemographic information. The psychological questionnaires applied were the revised Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and the clinical questionnaire for the diagnosis of the depressive syndrome. The patient’s mean age was 66.5 years (SD ± 12.4) and the majority were diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma (70.2%). The frequency of anxious/depressive symptoms was 42.5%, with an increase in depression scores in the female gender (p < 0.001). Furthermore, a difference was found in the neuroticism dimension related to gender, with higher values in women (p = 0.002). Depressive symptomatologic portraits were correlated with the dimensions of neuroticism (p < 0.001, r = 0.705), psychoticism (p = 0.003, r = 0.422) and lying (p = 0.028, r = − 0.321). Our results support the hypothesis that personality dimensions are related to the presence of anxiety/depressive symptomatology in patients with skin cancer, especially in the female gender. Highlighting the need for future research that delves into the implications at the psychological level, the quality of life, and the biological mechanisms that link personality and depressive symptoms in the development and evolution of skin cancer.

This study examined the association between tumour necrosis factor-alpha (TNF- α) (–308 G/A) polymorphism and gingivitis, and serum and salivary TNF- α levels, in a Mexican population.This study en...

Obesity is the result of a complex combination of psychological, biological, and environmental factors. In this work, we evaluate whether obesity is related to eating habits, depressive symptomatology, as well as interleukin-8 and cortisol. A descriptive cross-sectional study was carried out in 232 university students. All youths were surveyed to determine their eating habits and depressive symptomatology. Anthropometric measures and a blood sample were taken to determine its biochemical profile and its concentration of interleukin-8 and cortisol. The results show that interleukin-8 increase in the overfat group. The altered eating behaviors were frequent in the studied group; they were associated with the presence of obesity and the variation of interleukin-8 and cortisol. Besides, we found correlations of interleukin-8 with age, glucose, and lipid profile in the overfat group. In conclusion, these results indicate that high adiposity is related to changes in the concentrations of interleukin-8 and eating habits, confirming that obesity is the consequence of a complex network of various factors.

From a psychoneuroimmunology standpoint, stress and cigarette smoking are plausible modulators of periodontal inflammation through neuroendocrine–immune pathways and cytokine networks. Interleukin-18 (IL-1 family), interleukin-21 (common γ-chain cytokine), and interleukin-15 (tissue-resident lymphocyte activation/homeostasis) are mechanistically relevant candidates to characterize in relation to these exposures. We aimed to quantify serum IL-15, IL-18, and IL-21 and examine their associations with stress, smoking, and periodontal status in Mexican adults. Methods: Cross-sectional study (n = 65; 18–60 years; 70.8% female). Smoking status (23.1% smokers) and periodontal status were recorded; due to low periodontitis frequency (n = 3), periodontal status was analyzed as healthy (23.1%) versus periodontal disease (76.9%; gingivitis + periodontitis). Stress was assessed using the 18-item Symptomatic Stress Questionnaire and dichotomized as no/low stress (0–10; 52.3%) versus pathological stress (11–54; 47.7%). Systolic and diastolic blood pressure were recorded. IL-15, IL-18, and IL-21 were measured in serum by immunoassay. Analyses used medians (IQR), Mann–Whitney U tests with rank-biserial effect sizes, and exploratory Benjamini–Hochberg false discovery rate (FDR) adjustment across the nine primary cytokine-by-contrast tests; correlations with age and diastolic blood pressure were exploratory. Results: Cytokine distributions were right-skewed, particularly for IL-21. Across smoking, stress, and periodontal-status contrasts, no comparison met q < 0.05 after FDR adjustment. Effect-size patterns were heterogeneous rather than uniformly monotonic across exposures (e.g., IL-18 showed higher central tendency in healthy vs. periodontal disease; IL-21 showed higher central tendency in no/low stress vs. pathological stress), indicating substantial inter-individual variability in circulating cytokines within this cohort. Conclusions: In this exploratory cross-sectional sample, serum IL-15, IL-18, and IL-21 did not show robust, multiplicity-resistant differences by smoking, stress, or periodontal status. The findings provide a transparent description of distributional properties and hypothesis-generating patterns that motivate larger, longitudinal studies with repeated cytokine sampling, standardized periodontal assessment, and improved control of key confounders to clarify the relevance of these cytokines to periodontal inflammation under behavioral exposures.