Arab Individuals Research Articles

Ethnic differences in population approach and experience regarding complementary‐alternative medicine (CAM)

The aim of this survey was to characterize one urban Arab population who turns to complementary-alternative medicine (CAM). Outpatient participants were selected randomly by their ethnical affiliation. The questionnaire was filled during patient visit to their assigned urban outpatient clinic. The answers to the first two questions determined whether the questionnaire was to be completed or not (if at least one answer was Yes, the questionnaire was completed). More males (19%) seek for CAM in the Arab group in comparison to more females in the Jewish population (27%). Fifteen per cent and 7% of the individuals in the Jewish and Arab groups who used CAM have academic education. Fifty-two per cent and 27% of the Jewish and Arab populations declared themselves seculars, 72% of the Arab individuals declared to be traditionalists-religious-orthodox in their believes in comparison to 47% in the Jewish population. Twenty-eight per cent and 0% in the Jewish and Arab populations, respectively, preferred a conventional doctor (MD) in CAM practice. More than 30% in both populations preferred CAM to be delivered in medical and nursing schools. Forty per cent and 31% in the Jewish and Arab groups experienced complementary medicine intervention at least once. When comparing people who used complementary medicine to those who did not, it is observed that the percentage of individuals holding academic degrees in the Jewish group is higher than in the Arab interviewed in the group utilizing complementary medicine. Traditionalist-religious-orthodox individuals seek more complementary medicine in the Arab population (72%) in comparison to 47% in the Jewish individuals. Only 17% of the Arab individuals and 19% in the Jewish group knew about the adverse reactions caused by CAM therapies. More than 30% in both ethnic groups were in favor of 'legalizing' complementary medicine.

CTGA: the database for genetic disorders in Arab populations

The Arabs comprise a genetically heterogeneous group that resulted from the admixture of different populations throughout history. They share many common characteristics responsible for a considerable proportion of perinatal and neonatal mortalities. To this end, the Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS) launched a pilot project to construct the ‘Catalogue of Transmission Genetics in Arabs’ (CTGA) database for genetic disorders in Arabs. Information in CTGA is drawn from published research and mined hospital records. The database offers web-based basic and advanced search approaches. In either case, the final search result is a detailed HTML record that includes text-, URL- and graphic-based fields. At present, CTGA hosts entries for 692 phenotypes and 235 related genes described in Arab individuals. Of these, 213 phenotypic descriptions and 22 related genes were observed in the Arab population of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These results emphasize the role of CTGA as an essential tool to promote scientific research on genetic disorders in the region. The priority of CTGA is to provide timely information on the occurrence of genetic disorders in Arab individuals. It is anticipated that data from Arab countries other than the UAE will be exhaustively searched and incorporated in CTGA ().

Polymorphisms in Drug Metabolism/Disposition Genes and Increased Susceptibility to Adult De Novo AML: MDR1 and CYP3A4.

Primary AML may be induced by environmental toxins in the same way as chemotherapy-induced genotoxic damage leads to therapy-related AML (t-AML). The genotypes of MDR1 and CYP3A4 genes may be important in predisposing to both primary and t-AML. Hoffmeyer et al (PNAS, 2000) found that a silent single nucleotide polymorphism, C3435T was associated with higher plasma concentrations of digoxin after oral dosing. The T allele increases effective exposure to toxins, and may predispose to renal tumors. We previously reported (ASH 2002) an association of t-AML with C3435T in a small sample (17 pts). The cytochrome P450 (CYP) enzymes including CYP3A4 metabolize drugs and toxins, and can activate procarcinogens. Some studies found that an A to G substitution in the CYP3A4 promoter (CYP3A4*1B) “protects” against t-AML, while the wild type allele was associated with t-AML (including our study, ASH 2002).Aims: To determine if either the MDR1 or CYP3A4 polymorphism affects predisposition to develop primary AML, and to determine ethnic differences in the frequency of the polymorphisms.Methods: The MDR1 C3435T polymorphism was analyzed using PCR and Sau3A1 digestion. CYP3A*1B was studied using PCR and hybridization to a wild type or mutant 19-mer oligonucleotide probe. We studied primary and t-AML patients (68 Jewish and 43 Arab for C3435T, and 81 Jewish and 37 Arab for CYP3A1*1B), and control DNA samples of the same ethnic origin (58 Caucasian Jewish and 44 Arab and 88 Ethiopian Jews).Results: The TT genotype at position 3435 of MDR1 was found more frequently in AML patients (both primary and t-AML) than in controls (p value: 0.0302). There was an additive effect of the T allele, with fewest AML patients having the CC genotype, more with CT and the most with the TT genotype (P value: 0.0015). The relative risk of primary AML is 0.5975 (C.I- (0.3135, 1.1389) for patients with the CC genotype versus those with CT/TT. The relative risk of t-leuk is 0.1180 (C.I- (0.0073 1.8952) for patients with the CC genotype versus those with CT/TT. Of 23 t-AML patients analyzed, none had the CC genotype. Because the allele may affect response to therapy, we analyzed survival. Using Kaplan-Meier analysis, we found no statistically significant difference in the survival of AML patients of different MDR1 C3435T genotypes. Among controls, there was a statistically significant difference in the frequency of the different genotypes among Arabs, Caucasian Jews and Ethiopian Jews. Arab individuals had a lower frequency of the CC genotype and more frequent TT, Ethiopian Jews had a high frequency of the CC genotype (p value: 0.0072). Among AML patients of different ethnicity, there was no difference in genotype. The CYP3A*1B polymorphism was found in approximately 15% of the Israeli population (Caucasian Jews and Arabs alike). In comparison, 52% of Ethiopian Jews carried CYP3A*1B. 9/118 primary AML patients (7%) carried CYP3A*1B and only 1 (2.4%) of 41 t-AML patients was found to carry CYP3A4*1B (p value < 0.05).Conclusions: The MDR1 C3435T polymorphism is associated with a higher risk of developing primary as well as t-AML. Arabs may be at higher risk for AML due to a high frequency of the T allele. In addition, the CYP3A4*1B polymorphism might be protective against primary AML, and we confirm previous reports that it may protect against t-AML in adults. Lastly, Ethiopian Jews have a high frequency of the C allele of the MDR1 C3435T polymorphism, and high frequency of CYP3A4*1B, which may underlie the relatively low incidence of AML in this ethnic group in Israel.

Why Are Rags Tied To the Sacred Trees of the Holy Land?1

Abstract A field study to survey the custom of tying rags on sacred trees in the northern part of Israel was carried out during 2000–2001. It included 60 interviewees: 24 Druze, 18 Moslem Arabs, 12 Moslem Bedouins and 6 Christian Arab individuals. Tree veneration was found to be quite uncommon among the Bedouins and rare among the Christian Arabs. The results of the present study suggest there are 17 reasons for tying rags on sacred trees. Five reasons, as far as the author is aware, were not previously reported from the literature (i.e., breaking an oath, marking a blessed tree, marking the road to a blessed tree, asking for permission to pick fruit, and setting out rags for needy people). These usages appear to be endemic to Israel and to the Druze. Two customs previously reported from Israel but not corroborated by the present survey are to pacify a tree’s spirit and as a charm for new clothes. Three of the 17 known reasons for tying rags on sacred trees are also known from regions beyond the Middle Ea...

Allele frequencies of nine STR loci of Jewish and Arab populations in Israel.

DNA typing of nine short tandem repeat (STR) loci was carried out on unrelated Israeli Jewish and Arab individuals. All loci were highly polymorphic and the distribution of the obtained genotypes did not deviate from Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium. A comparison between Jewish and Arab population data revealed statistically significant differences in allele frequency distributions for some of the loci. The results presented in this study enable the use of these nine STR loci for forensic, identification and paternity cases in the Jewish and the Arab populations of Israel.

Apples from the Desert (review)

Reviewed by: Apples From the Desert Stacy N. Beckwith Apples From the Desert, by Savyon Liebrecht. New York: The Feminist Press at the City University of New York, 1998. 234 pp. $19.95. Apples from the Desert is the first collection in English of short stories by one of Israel’s most lyrical, penetrating, and measured women authors, Savyon Liebrecht. The volume is the fourth to appear in the Helen Rose Scheuer Jewish Women’s Series, of the Feminist Press at the City University of New York. Comprising stories published in Hebrew between 1986 and 1992, this collection introduces Savyon Liebrecht to English readers as a writer who, finely translated, interweaves past and present times, and the coping efforts of Jewish and Arab individuals, families, and communities, in ways that invite repeated exploration of the intimate texture of contemporary life in Israel. Savyon Liebrecht was born in Germany in 1948 to Holocaust survivors from Poland. She came to the newly established State of Israel as a young girl. The particular strength of this anthology is that it allows the first- or second-hand Holocaust memories of a number of Liebrecht’s central characters to mingle with the personal resonances of the more current Israeli-Palestinian conflict, as the reader moves through the stories and experiences the echo of those just finished. Lily Rattok is a prominent scholar of Hebrew literature and a pioneer of Women’s Studies in Israel. As she explains in her introduction to this volume, Savyon Liebrecht was raised in a household that remained tethered to her parents’ memories of the Holocaust and to their past struggles for survival. The particular language of this formative home was silence, while visual exchange, through glances and meaningful looks, as well as facial expressions, enabled more substantive communication. In 1982, European film critic Yvette Biró described “visual thinking” as the cinematographer’s awareness that the human eye, both on and in society, “always compares.” 1 “Seeing is the confrontation of perception and knowledge,” per Biró, and in their varying realization of this, as if captured on film, Liebrecht’s characters exhibit their private and socially driven fears and foibles in sharp relief. Rattok writes that, “Liebrecht tries to play the role of a healer, presenting possibilities for mending the rifts that threaten the existence of Israeli society” (p. 20). The author may appear to be such a mender with respect to the cross-cultural encounters she sets up. These include confrontations between young Israelis and their seemingly intractable Holocaust survivor relatives, and encounters between different generations of Israelis with distinct socio-historical perspectives. Liebrecht also portrays relations between more and less advantaged Ashkenazic and Sephardic Israeli Jews, between Jews and Arabs, and in each of the above categories, encounters among and between men and women. [End Page 141] However, once brought together, Liebrecht’s various selves and Others develop through the eye of a realist. Liebrecht does not allow past trauma, of whatever magnitude, to beatify survivors in a modern, fast-paced Israel, nor new cross-cultural experiences, often registered in meaningful looks, to herald cure-all ententes. Even in the space of a short story, Liebrecht’s elderly characters are fascinating because of their obsessions and their inescapable degrees of self-centeredness. In this way they are on par with the protagonists in the only full-length Israeli novel to focus on an interplay of indomitable personalities in a suburban old age home and in Tel Aviv: Yehoshua Kenaz’s The Way to the Cats (1991). 2 From a different angle, the surprising insight that a young Ashkenazi war widow gains from her Sephardic mother-in-law after a silence of twelve years, illustrates the distance traveled by Israeli literature in representing this type of encounter. Savyon Liebrecht’s story, “Written in Stone,” reads like an inversion of Israel’s first urban, “inter- ethnic,” and immensely popular novel, The Street of Steps. 3 Set in Haifa in the early 1950s, the daughter of a wealthy Ashkenazi entrepreneur (Erella, just as in Liebrecht’s story) has thoughts of marrying a motherless young man from the city’s squalid Sephardic district. Beyond the anger of her father, Erella is ultimately dissuaded...

Psychodynamic psychotherapy as applied in an arab village clinic

The Arab-Palestinian sector in Israel is undergoing significant transition in all social and cultural domains, including mental health. Throughout the past decade, mental health professionals have witnessed a substantial increase in the number of Arab individuals and families seeking psychotherapeutic treatment. The vast majority of the professional literature that deals with the use of Western psychotherapy with non-Western patients urges the therapist to accommodate the patient's cultural sensitivities, even to the point of modifying therapeutic theory and technique in order to meet the patient's needs. This article, supported by a decade of psychotherapeutic experience with Arab patients, argues against this approach. A case study illustrates the effective application of psychodynamic psychotherapy to an Arab-Palestinian patient, where the standard concepts and techniques of psychotherapy were retained.

The typology of the Arab individual: implications for management and business organizations

Takes a look at the state of Arab society. Classifies Arab individuals into eight categories – traditionalist, spectator, idealist, illusionist, transitional, revivalist, manipulator, and existentialist. Explores each of these in more depth, providing some specific illustrative examples. Claims that work values have changed in Arab society, with the new generation taking part in political and economic decision making. Reflects on the implications this could have for multinational corporations. Concludes that Arab society is in transition, discarding its old tribal and traditionalist beliefs to move towards the basis for a more modern economy. Provides some tables summarizing each typology of individual and the attributes required to conduct business successfully.

Distribution of HLA-DQA1 alleles in Arab and Pakistani individuals from Dubai, United Arab Emirates

PCR-based typing of the HLA-DQA1 locus, using allele specific oligonucleotide (ASO) probes and reverse dot blot methodology was used to determine allelic distributions and construct a database for Arab and Pakistani individuals living in Dubai. Genotype and allelic frequencies were calculated, and the data were tested for departures from Hardy-Weinberg (HWE) equilibrium. The most frequent HLA-DQA1 alleles among Dubaian Arabs are DQA1 4 and 1.2. Among Pakistanis, the most frequent allele is also DQA1 4. No significant deviations from HWE were detected.

A high-frequency polymorphism of NADH-cytochrome b5 reductase in African-Americans

NADH-cytochrome b5 reductase (b5R) is a member of a flavoenzyme family of dehydrogenases-electron transferases that participates in the transfer of electrons from the NADH generated in glycolysis to cytochrome b5. b5R is involved in the steady-state reduction of methemoglobin to hemoglobin in erythrocytes and is also involved in lipid metabolism in other cell types. In a search for mutations of the b5R gene in two unrelated African-American families, a high-frequency polymorphism was detected in the propositi from both families, as well as unrelated normal controls, consisting of a C-to-G transversion in exon 5 that changes threonine to serine at codon 116 (T116S). This is the first polymorphism found in the b5R gene. Using allele-specific PCR on the two propositi, their family members, and unselected populations of African-American, Caucasian, Asian, Indo-Aryan, and Arabic individuals, the C/G polymorphism was found in 26 of 112. African-American chromosomes (allele frequency = 0.23), but not in 108 Caucasian, 46 Asian, 44 Indo-Aryan, or 14 Arabic chromosomes. In preliminary studies, this polymorphism did not correlate with b5R enzyme activity or cause any disease phenotype. It remains to be determined whether this African-specific polymorphism that apparently originated recently in human evolution provides any special survival advantage.

Addressing the Repressed Needs of the Arabic Client.

In comparison to families in Western society, the traditional Arabic family plays a relatively greater role in providing support for adult progeny. This serves to condition adult offspring to continue to comply with the will and values of the family. Therefore, in exchange for familial support, Arabic individuals learn to repress authentic needs and emotions, and within that process they relinquish the need for self-actualization. Arabic society discourages individualism and opposes self-actualization by means of simultaneous punishment and moralization. Thus, there is a relatively greater development of the social value system (or superego) and comparatively less development of the self (or ego). In comparison to Western society, Arabic individuals continue to experience greater oppression during adulthood. Given these cultural differences, the processes of reliving and activating repressed needs and emotions, which ultimately serves to promote self-actualization, will transform intrapsychic conflicts into interpersonal and social ones. Thus, personal actions typically encouraged during Western psychotherapy are likely to produce significant social oppression. Indeed, promoting awareness of repressed needs and emotions often leads the Arabic client to become more helpless, because such wishes will rarely be socially sanctioned or satisfactorily fulfilled. Therefore, when addressing repressed needs and emotions in psychotherapy, ego strength, cultural identity, and degree of strictness of the client's family of origin must be considered.

Conservation of genes encoding HLA-B5 and B35 cross-reactive group antigens in various races

HLA-B5 and B35 CREG antigens include HLA-B35, B51, B52, B53, and B78. Recent studies suggest that the genes encoding the HLA-B5, B35 CREG, and HLA-B58 antigens share a common ancestor. We sequenced the exons of the genes encoding HLA-B51, B53, and B58 from American black individuals and the gene HLA-B52 encoding from an Arabic individual, and compared them with previously reported sequences of HLA-B51 (B ∗5101) and HLA-B52 (B ∗5201) from Japanese, HLA-B53 (B ∗5301) from an Algerian, and HLA-B58 (B ∗5801) from a Sardinian. The sequences of the genes from the American black and Arabic individuals were identical to those from the other races. These findings support the hypothesis that these antigens have evolved prior to divergence of the major ethnic groups.

The Nature of the Defect in Familial Male Pseudohermaphroditism in Arabs of Gaza*

Studies in six Arab individuals from Gaza with familial male pseudohermaphroditism (MPH) due to 17-ketoreductase deficiency revealed several metabolic aberrations associated with the disorder. Plasma LH, FSH, testosterone, and androstenedione concentrations were low in the two prepubertal patients. After hCG administration plasma androstenedione increased markedly. The four postpubertal MPH patients had very high plasma gonadotropin and androstenedione concentrations, the latter increasing further after hCG administration. Plasma testosterone concentrations in all six patients were moderately low or normal for age and increased little after hCG administration. Spermatic venous testosterone concentrations, measured in three adults, were within the normal range in two and low in one, while androstenedione concentrations were markedly elevated (15- to 32-fold) in all three patients. Kinetic analyses of progesterone and androstenedione metabolism were performed in testicular tissue of these patients and compared to the results in two control subjects. While testicular tissue from the two prepubertal patients metabolized progesterone only to androstenedione, and that to a limited extent, the tissue from the four postpubertal patients metabolized progesterone to 16 alpha- and 16 beta-hydroxyprogesterone, 17 alpha-hydroxyprogesterone, androstenedione, and testosterone and metabolized androstenedione to testosterone. The Michaelis constants of these reactions were similar in the tissue from the MPH and the control subjects. The production of 16 alpha- plus 16 beta-hydroxyprogesterone was 5.4- to 10.3-fold greater, and 17-hydroxylase activity was 5.8- to 8.1-fold lower in the testes of the postpubertal MPH patients compared to values in the control subjects. The preference of androstenedione production through the delta 4- or delta 5-pathways was examined in the testes of two adult MPH patients using an equimolar concentration of [14C]progesterone and [3H]pregnenolone as substrates. While the flow of substrates in the control testes was equal or slightly greater through the delta 4-pathway, the delta 5-pathway predominated in the testes of the MPH patients. A large amount of dehydroepiandrosterone accumulated when NAD, the cofactor for 3 beta-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase-isomerase, was omitted, supporting the contention that androstenedione was produced in the testes of the MPH patients mainly through the delta 5-pathway. Additional support for this suggestion was the finding that the 3H/14C ratio in androstenedione and testosterone produced from both substrates was 8 times higher in the testes from MPH patients than in those from the control subjects.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)