Browsing by Author "Aidoo, E."
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Item Assessing the vibration perception threshold in a community sample of adult Ghanaians(PLOS ONE, 2023) Djankpa, F.T.; Amoah, A.G.B.; Adzaku, F.K.; Aidoo, E.; BoatengI, I.Background The vibration perception threshold (VPT) helps evaluate human somatosensory function and diagnose peripheral neuropathy. To optimize its use as a primary neurologic tool, it is imperative to establish its typical values in healthy subjects and assess the factors affecting its variability in an individual to ensure consistency in its application. Methods Demographic data and a brief medical history were collected from 391 non-diabetic adults aged 30–80 at Kpone-on-Sea in Ghana. The VPT was measured at the tip of the big toe, the medial malleolus, the tip of the middle finger, and the head of the ulna of each participant using a Horwell Neurothesiometer. The variability of VPT was assessed vis-à-vis the follow ing factors: gender, age, fasting plasma sugar and body mass index. Results The mean age of participants was 48.4 ± 0.7 years, and the female-to-male ratio was 1.46. The overall VPT values ranged from 5.74 ± 0.14 volts to 8.55 ± 0.18 volts in the lower limbs and 3.61 ± 0.06 volts to 5.00 ± 0.08 volts in the upper limbs. Age was found to be the only factor that could predict VPT for both the lower and upper limbs (P < 0.001). One-Way Anal ysis of Variance with Tukey’s posthoc showed that the VPT in the feet was significantly higher than that in the hands. Conclusions Generally, the VPT was high on proximal sites and low on distal sites indicating that the vibration sensation increased from proximal to distal direction. Therefore, distal areas should be used for VPT testing with a Neurothesiomer. Age was found to be the only factor that affected VPT variability. Hence, the practical application of VPT will require age-specific reference ranges to cater for older adults.Item Studies on the Cytotoxicity and Antioxidant Activity of Tea Kombucha(University Of Ghana, 2015-08) Aidoo, E.; Gbewonyo, W.S.K.; Okine, L.K.N.; Appiah-Opong, R.; University Of Ghana, College of Basic and Applied Sciences ,School of Biological Sciences, Department of Biochemistry, Cell and Molecular BiologyFermentation of sugared tea with a symbiotic culture of acetic acid bacteria and yeast (tea fungus) yields kombucha tea which is consumed worldwide for its refreshing taste and beneficial effects on human health. It is claimed to prevent various types of cancer and cardiovascular diseases, promote liver function, and stimulate the immune system. The antiproliferative and antioxidant activities of tea kombucha and unfermented tea were, therefore, investigated in this study. The cytotoxic effect of the tea kombucha was studied using an MTT (3-(4,5-dimethylthiazole-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium) assay while its antioxidant activity was performed using 2,2-diphenyl-1-picrylhydrazyl (DPPH) and reducing power (the ferric reducing/antioxidant power (FRAP)) assays. The total phenolic content of the tea kombucha was also studied using the modified Folin-Ciocalteau colorimetric assay. It was observed that the antioxidant activity of tea kombucha was higher compared to the unfermented tea and this reflected in the total phenolics contents. Tea kombucha had 2.4-fold and 7.3-fold significantly (p<0.05) higher phenolic content at concentrations of 2.5 and 5.0 mg/ml, respectively than the unfermented tea. The tea kombucha showed insignificantly low cytotoxicity against the Jurkat P9 leukemia cells many orders of magnitude below that of the standard drug, curcumin, which had an IC50 = 7.22 mg/ml whilst the unfermented tea was without such effect. These results suggest that kombucha tea with its high antioxidant activity may help protect cells against oxidative damage and possibly cancerItem Volatility Analysis of Exchange Rate with Correlated Errors: A Sliding Data Matrix Approach(Hindawi, 2022) Mettle, F.O.; Kallah-Dagadu, G.; Aidoo, E.; Debrah, G.; Arku, D.The main objective of this study is to propose a method of analysing the volatility of a seemingly random walk time series with correlated errors without transforming the series as performed traditionally. The proposed method involves the computation of moving volatilities based on sliding and cumulative data matrices. Our method rests on the assumption that the number of subperiods for which the series is available is the same for all periods and on the assumption that the series observations in each subperiod for all the periods under consideration are a random sample from a particular distribution. The method was successfully implemented on a simulated dataset. A paired sample t-test, Wilcoxon signed rank test, repeated measures (ANOVA), and Friedman tests were used to compare the volatilities of the traditional method and the proposed method under both sliding and cumulative data matrices. It was found that the differences among the average volatilities of the traditional method and sliding and cumulative matrix methods were insignificant for the simulated series that follow the random walk theorem. The implementation of the method on exchange rates for Canada, China, South Africa, and Switzerland resulted in adjudging South Africa to have the highest fluctuating exchange rates and hence the most unstable economy.