Goran Belojević

• MD, PhD, Professor
• Professor (Full) at University of Belgrade

Exposure to sound energy may be a risk factor or a therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s disease (AD). On one hand, noise has a harmful effect on people with AD by contributing to hearing loss, sleep disturbance, oxidative stress, inflammation, and excitotoxicity. But on the other hand, clinical trials and nursing home interventions with soundsc...

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common form of degenerative dementia and the seventh leading cause of death. Numerous influencing factors for AD have been investigated: aging, female gender, genetics, unhealthy diet, hearing loss, unhealthy lifestyle, physical inactivity, insufficient sleep, head injury, depression, hypertension, and environme...

Polyphenols are nutrients that are classified as phytochemicals because they are found exclusively in foods of plant origin. They are divided into flavonoids (flavonols, flavones, isoflavones, anthocyanins, flavon-3-ols, and flavones) and nonflavonoids (phenolic acids, stilbenes, lignans, dihydrochalcones, and coumarins). Research shows that polyph...

Introduction: Tinnitus is conscious perception of sound without an external sound stimulus. The origin of the name has its root in the Latin word tinnire (to ring). The sound can be buzzing, ringing, hissing, and is rarely heard as voice, music, or several different sounds simultaneously. Tinnitus occurs in one-third of people at least once in thei...

The aim of this narrative review is to present up-to-date facts concerning hospital cleaning (HC). HC is essential in the prevention of healthcare associated infections (HAI). If a proper HC is followed by a proper use of disinfectants even the HAI caused by the most dangerous nosocomial pathogens like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, v...

Introduction: Selenium is a trace element whose importance for the functioning of the organism in health and disease is very intensively studied in modern research. This scientific evidence is constantly being supplemented, which requires monitoring and evaluation. Aim: The aim of this review paper is to systematize the results of relevant scientif...

The relationship between magnesium and hypertension has been intensively investigated in the last few decades. Most of the so far reviews were focused on either dietary magnesium or serum magnesium or magnesium supplements. Our goal was to merge these findings with a more comprehensive approach. Internet search was performed in PubMed database with...

Background: The aim of this work is to present two case reports of successful prevention and treatment of the COVID-19 and to propose a model for stopping the COVID-19 pandemic with probiotics. Material and Methods: We present two case reports during the COVID-19 epidemic in Serbia in which probiotics were used for the prevention and treatment of t...

The number of people suffering from constant tinnitus is ever-increasing and has spread to all age groups, including adolescents. The etiology of tinnitus is multifactorial, but dietary factors have been rarely investigated. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between dietary factors and constant tinnitus among adolescents from...

Objectives This study aimed at investigating poverty and other correlates of childhood underweight and obesity in two urban regions with lower (Podgorica, Montenegro) and higher economic development (Osijek, Croatia). Study design Comparative study. Methods A comparative study was conducted on 693 children (52% boys), aged 7 years old (224 from P...

Background To the best of our knowledge, studies are lacking on burnout among veterinary students in Serbia, and this is the first study trying to address such a problem. Therefore, the aim of this cross-sectional study was to investigate the predictors of burnout among Belgrade veterinary students. Methods Maslach Burnout Inventory (MBI) and anon...

Main objective: There are still gaps in the knowledge about the factors that influenceburnout among medical students. This study examines the relationship between thelength of medical studies, academic achievement, self-estimated health and burnout.Sample: We administered an anonymous questionnaire to 769 second-year and sixthyearmedical students (...

Introduction/Objective. Body fat percentage (BFP) is the most reliable indicator of a nutritional status. For clinical practice it is important but scarcely investigated whether to exclusively use contemporary methods of BFP measurement, or classic anthropometric methods are also reliable. The aim was to investigate the correlation between the resu...

Self-medication of children by their parents (SMCP) is an important public health issue as the effects and potential risks may be unpredictable. The objective of this first national Montenegrin study was to assess the prevalence of and factors influencing SMCP among schoolchildren. Data were obtained from a national representative sample of 4496 sc...

Lateralization is one of the central questions in neurology, neuropsychology, and other related scientific disciplines. There has been very little change in the proportion of left-handers since the Upper Paleolithic Age about 10,000 years ago and it is estimated to be around 10%. As the history of human thinking has developed from superstition to s...

Background The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of TV, magazines, radio, and internet following on body mass index (BMI) and obesity-related literacy among adults. Methods In this cross-sectional study, the subjects were recruited from an outpatient center in the city of Sombor, Serbia during Mar–Apr 2013. We collected data by a qu...

The objective of this study was to examine the changes of blood pressure and hemodynamic parameters after oral magnesium supplementation in patients with essential hypertension. The single-arm non-blinded intervention study comprised 48 patients (19 men; 29 women) whose antihypertensive therapy was not changed for at least one month. The participan...

Timely detection of a deliberate epidemic and the engagement of security and law enforcement forces are of crucial importance, because breaking the epidemiological chain does not guarantee that evil human minds will not start another epidemic. There are four available methods of differentiation between a biological attack and other epidemics: Gruno...

This volume is based on a multidisciplinary approach towards biological and chemical threats that can, and have been previously used in bioterrorism attacks around the globe. Current knowledge and evidence-based principles from the fields of synthetic biology, microbiology, plant biology, chemistry, food science, forensics, tactics, infective medic...

Objectives: In one of the few national studies of children in a former Eastern bloc country emerging as a Western democracy and the first such study ever in Montenegro, this study establishes the prevalence and correlates of childhood hypertension (CH). Study design: A cross-sectional national study. Methods: The study was conducted with 3254...

Objectives: To propose a simple and effective tool for decision-making regarding general evacuation during a rapid river flood. Study design: Virtual testing of a tool in a real event. Method: A four-component tool was applied to build an alternative scenario of the catastrophic river flood in Obrenovac, Serbia, on May 2014. The components of...

Introduction/Objective. Childhood obesity is an emerging public health problem. The national prevalence of child overweight/obesity in Montenegro has increased by one third in the last decade. As the overwhelming majority of Montenegrin population is urban, investigation of obesity and correlates among urban children is of special public health int...

Aim:The aim of the study was to further clarify the origin of Escherichia coli O104:H4 outbreak in Germany in 2011 (German Ec) as the likelihood of a deliberate act has not been excluded in previous analyses. Methods: We use an original and the most detailed scoring method so far, with 33 parameters pertaining to the source of infection/reservoir o...

Non-auditory effects of noise on humans have been intensively studied in the last four decades. The International Commission on Biological Effects of Noise has been following scientific advances in this field by organizing international congresses from the first one in 1968 in Washington, DC, to the 11th congress in Nara, Japan, in 2014. There is a...

The Guidelines include systematic reviews of the scientific evidence of the critical health effects of environmental noise: effects on sleep, annoyance, cognitive impairment, cardiovasc ular diseases, hearing impairment and tinnitus. Other potential health outcomes with less evidence are also systematically reviewed, but have less impact on the dev...

Objective: To assess the prevalence of high blood pressure among primary school children and to explore the role of body weight, age and gender to the occurrence of high blood pressure. Design and method: A cross-sectional study was performed on 1745 school children (811 boys and 934 girls) aged 7-14 years (first to eight grade), who attended 8 pri...

Newly emerging Western style economic systems provide new opportunities to study the prevalence and predictors of childhood obesity. We also provide for the first time a national study of childhood obesity using all three international anthropometric criteria. The sample included 4097 Montenegrin children, 2076 boys (50.7%) and 2021 girls. Anthropo...

The Belgrade team for biological effects of noise, comprising experts in the fields of hygiene and cardiology, has carried out population studies in Belgrade on the sample of 2503 adults, 328 preschool children and 1113 schoolchildren to investigate the effects of urban noise on blood pressure. In the first phase of investigation acoustic measureme...

The aim of this pilot study was to calculate the disability-adjusted life years (DALY) as a quantification of the burden of myocardial infarction (MI) attributable to road-traffic noise in Belgrade, Serbia. Exposure to road-traffic noise was estimated on a sample of almost 6000 adult inhabitants living in the central municipality Stari Grad in Belg...

In 2011, Germany was hit by one of its largest outbreaks of acute gastroenteritis and haemolytic uraemic syndrome caused by a new emerging enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli O104:H4 strain. The German Haemolytic Uraemic Syndrome/Enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (GHUSEC) outbreak had unusual microbiological, infectiological and epidemiological features a...

Aims and background: Bladder cancer (BC) is the most expensive cancer to treat. Its incidence and mortality have not decreased in the last three decades. Numerous uncertainties are still surrounding the etiology of BC. There is a need for a low-cost screening test for BC that would be applicable for early detection in asymptomatic persons, a test...

The association between noise annoyance and public transport as a source of noise has not been studied previously. The aim was to study noise annoyance in an urban population due to the presence, the type and the number of public transport vehicles, in relation to other acoustical and non-acoustical parameters. The study sample comprised 5861 adult...

Although tinnitus is a very common symptom, risk factors related to behavior and habits have not been sufficiently investigated. As no investigation on this problem has been performed in Serbia, the aim of our study was to establish the prevalence of tinnitus among Serbian adolescents and to investigate the relationship between their behavior and h...

Noise exposure increases blood pressure in both experimental and field studies. The underlying mechanisms may be evaluated by thoracic bioelectrical impedance. The aim of this experimental study was to assess changes in blood pressure, cardiac and hemodynamic parameters provoked by recorded traffic noise in young adults. The study included 130 part...

Background: Health inequalities may begin during childhood. The aim of this study was to investigate the main effect of poverty and its interactive effect with gender on children's blood pressure. Methods: The study was performed in two elementary schools from a rural region near Podgorica, the capital of Montenegro. A questionnaire including qu...

Controversial results on the relationship between the left-handedness and neurotic disturbances have been obtained in so far investigations. The aim of this study was to investigate the link between the left-handedness and neurotic disturbances in an adult urban population. A cross-sectional study was performed on 1,202 adult residents of the Stari...

The case studies collected in this book illustrate the considerable ­differences in bioterrorism threat perception, levels of biopreparedness, and views on how to balance general public health efforts and biopreparedness measures. While investing too little in biopreparedness leaves countries ill-equipped for a potential disaster, spending too much...

The aim of the study was to investigate the relationship between noise levels, traffic density and the presence of public transport and children's blood pressure. Another aim was to assess the applicability of public transport as a proxy indicator of noise exposure. A cross-sectional study involved 1113 children aged 7-11 years from a central munic...

Researches on noise and performance in central and Eastern Europe and South-East Europe countries and Newly Independent States have been performed in last 40 years in Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics, Russia, Serbia and Yugoslavia, mainly at u...

Recent turbulent historic events in the territory of Serbia have been an enormous challenge for the Serbian Government and disaster responders in coping with war destruction, the problem of hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons and usual natural disasters. Furthermore, the geographic position on the crossroads between E...

The terrorist use of diseases as bioweapons has been one of the major security concerns in recent years, particularly after the anthrax letter attacks in the USA in 2001. This uncertain threat of intentional outbreaks of diseases exists side by side with the constantly changing very real threat from diseases, epidemics and pandemics as recently ill...

The objective of this study was to examine the relationships between noise and school children's executive functioning (EF). The study included 311 children (146 boys and 165 girls) aged 7-11 years, who lived in the center of Belgrade. Teachers rated children's EF on a standard scale evaluating their ability to work independently in a focused manne...

The primary aim of this field study was to investigate the relationships among residential noise exposure at home and at school and blood pressure in low-socioeconomic status African-American children. Children were recruited from Boys and Girls Clubs in a mid-sized, Northeastern city. The sample consisted of 250 schoolchildren (128 boys and 122 gi...

Utilizing data from the Large Analysis and Review of European Housing and Health Status (LARES) research program conducted by the WHO in eight European cities (Forli, Vilnius, Ferreira do Alentejo, Bonn, Geneva, Angers, Bratislava, Budapest), we examined whether the well-documented inverse correlation between family income and children's BMI might...

The authors propose a bioterrorism risk assessment model comprising 22 qualitative and 10 quantitative parameters. Scores 0 and 1 refer to low and high probability of a bioterrorist attack, respectively. Vulnerability analysis is related to targets, while feasibility analysis refers to perpetrators, agents and means/media of delivery. The model is...

Of crucial importance in studying noise annoyance in children is to pose a question that a child would understand and can readily answer. The ICBEN standardized noise annoyance questions that are widely used among adults seem to be inappropriate for children for several reasons: it may be difficult for children to choose an answer on a five-graded...

To develop a model for quick and accurate evaluation of unusual epidemic events (UEE), based on the original model of bioterrorism risk assessment. A new scoring system was developed for quick differentiation between a biological attack and other epidemics, using eight qualitative and six quantitative indicators. A new scoring system was applied to...

The adverse effects of noise on health have been intensely explored in the previous fifty years. However, the scope of research conducted in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), SouthEast European countries (SEE) and Newly Independent States (NIS) has remained unknown. The aim of this review is to present the variety of studies on non-audi...

The adverse effects of noise on health have been intensely explored in the previous fifty years. However, the scope of research conducted in Central and Eastern European countries (CEE), South-East European countries (SEE) and Newly Independent States (NIS) has remained unknown. The aim of this review is to present the variety of studies on non-aud...

The goal of this review was to investigate methodological differences in studies on the effects of aircraft or road-traffic noise on blood pressure (BP) of urban children, emphasizing the similarities and differences in blood pressure measurements. A literature search has identified eight peer-reviewed studies, four conference proceedings and one P...

Research on the cardiovascular effects of noise in Serbia started in the year 2002, including experimental studies on humans and epidemiological studies on the adult and children population of Belgrade and Pancevo. Experimental exposure to noise [L eq = 89 dB (A)] had a hypodynamic effect, significantly lowering the cardiac index, cardiac work, and...

Throughout human history left-handedness has been considered as sinful. It has been associated with the devil, weakness, female gender, unhealthiness, evil, something that has to be turned to a "good"--right side by force. Left-handedness is being more and more acceptable at rational level, but in everyday life it is still considered to be unusual...

Hand dominance is defined as a proneness to use one hand rather than another in performing the majority of activities and this is the most obvious example of cerebral lateralization and an exclusive human characteristic. Left-handed people comprise 6-14% of the total population, while in Serbia, this percentage is 5-10%, moving from undeveloped to...

There has been an abundance of different bioterrorist attack scenarios and consequently an unclear biodefense strategy so far. We present a framework for bioterrorism risk assessment that we believe would be useful for policymakers and understandable without needing to be an expert in this field. We retrieved the Medline database via PubMed (from J...

Effects of Traffic Noise on Sleep in an Urban Population Urban noise is an important environmental stressor, and sleep disturbance is its major health effect. Substantial inter-individual variance in these effects might partly be explained by different sensitivity to noise. The aim of this study was to assess the effects of urban noise on sleep and...

Objectives: Although noise annoyance is a major public health problem in urban areas, there is a lack of published data on predictors for noise annoyance in acoustically different urban environments. The aim of the study was to assess the predictive value of various factors on noise annoyance in noisy and quiet urban streets. Methods: Equivalent...

A bioterrorist attacks usually cause epidemics of panic in a targeted population. We have presented epidemiologic aspect of this phenomenon as a three-component model--host, information on an attack and social network. We have proposed a mathematical model of panic and counter-measures as the function of time in a population exposed to a bioterrori...

A cross-sectional study of the prevalence of obesity in urban and rural areas of South-East Serbia was performed on 541 children (273 boys and 268 girls), aged 6-7 years. Prevalence of obesity in urban boys and girls was 6.3% and 3.8% respectively (P > 0.05). Prevalence of obesity in rural boys and girls was 1.1% and 3.3% respectively (P > 0.05). T...

Noise annoyance is influenced by sound-related factors: type of noise, noise level and frequency, and person-related factors-physiological, psychological, and social factors. Prior to implementation of the Directive 2002/49/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council in Serbia, there was a need for the first comprehensive study on noise annoya...

Commonly used daytime measurements in previous investigations on community noise and arterial hypertension (AH) may be a source of exposure bias, as urban residents spend most of their daytime hours out of the home on workdays. For this reason, we focused on the relation of nighttime noise and AH. A cross-sectional study was performed on a sample o...

Night time noise exposure has very rarely been used in previous studies on the relationship between community noise and children's blood pressure, although children spend a larger part of their night time sleeping at home than adults. For this reason, we focused on night time noise exposure at children's residences and daytime noise at kindergarten...

Recent studies have pointed out a relation between urban noise and the occurrence of myocardial infarction in population. Public health importance of these results derives from the fact that 20% of the European population and 31% of the Japanese are exposed to equivalent noise levels exceeding 65 dBA, considered as "black acoustic zones" according...

Air pollution is the leading environmental problem in Pancevo. Sources are traffic, home heating, industry, land fields, and street dust. Air pollution has harmful effect on population health, particularly the health of children. To estimate school-children's respiratory health in Pancevo. The air quality in Pancevo and Vrsac was measured by standa...

A cross-sectional study was performed on 225 textile workers from a wool production company in Montenegro to test the hypothesis of a relationship between exposure to intense industrial noise and tooth abrasion. The group exposed to intense noise (104 dB (A) Leq) consisted of 111 weavers (82 males and 29 females), while the control group (81 dB (A)...

To explore the relationship between sleep disturbances caused by traffic noise and relevant personality traits, such as extroversion-introversion, neuroticism, and subjective noise sensitivity. A cross-sectional study was carried out from January to April 2005 in a central municipality of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia and Montenegro. Noise measur...

Lateralisation associates the extremities and senses of one side of the body, which are connected by afferent and efferent pathways, with the primary motor and sensory areas of the hemisphere on the opposite side. Dominant laterality denotes the appearance of a dominant extremity or sense in the performance of complex psychomotor activities. Latera...

Rezultati dosadasnjih epidemioloskih studija o vezi saobracajne buke i hipertenzije kontradiktorni su. Znacajan broj istrazivanja ima metodoloske propuste u nedovoljno kontrolisanim pridruzenim faktorima. U epidemioloskim studijama koje su utvrdile statisticki znacajnu pozitivnu povezanost izlaganja saobracajnoj buci i obolevanja od arterijske hipe...

Introduction: Polypliagia and morbid obesity appears in patients with sarcodosis may be signs of neurosarcoidosis in the medial hypothalmus where satiety center is located. It is estimated that about 1% of all patients with sarcoidosis may have sarcoidosis of the hxpothalamus. It is of utmost importance to diagnose and treat hxpothalamie sarcoidos...

Lateralisation associates the extremities and senses of one side of the body, which are connected by afferent and efferent pathways, with the primary motor and sensory areas of the hemisphere on the opposite side. Dominant laterality denotes the appearance of a dominant extremity or sense in the performance of complex psychomotor activities. Latera...

To investigate the connection between alcohol consumption and general and specific mortality in the Serbian population. Total of 286 healthy middle-aged participants of both genders enrolled in a prospective follow-up study in 1974. During the following 20 years, 80 deaths occurred. The data on underlying causes of death were obtained from official...

Alcohol consumption has both adverse and beneficial effects on health and survival. The aim of this prospective study was to examine the association between alcohol consumption and arterial hypertension as well as general mortality rate. The study included 286 participants, middle-aged men and women examined in 1974, and again in 1994 during twenty...

Consumption of alcoholic beverages has been known in many cultures since the ancient civilizations, so harmful consequences of excessive alcohol intake have been well explained. Many epidemiological studies confirmed lower morbidity and mortality rates of cardiovascular diseases in persons who drink alcohol "moderately" (1-2 drinks a day), independ...

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between laterality and spine deformities in early adolescence, with special reference to sex differences. Interviews, anthropometric measurements and clinical examinations of body posture were carried out on a sample of 2546 schoolchildren, aged from 11 to 14 years, in seven elementary schools i...

The contradictory and confusing results in noise research on humans may partly be due to individual differences between the subjects participating in different studies. This review is based on a twelve year research on the role of neuroticism, extroversion and subjective noise sensitivity during mental work in noisy environment. Neurotic persons mi...

A cross-sectional study was performed on a 5% sample of the adult population of the city of Pancevo (3622 residents). The response rate was 79 % (2874), with 1243 interviewed males (43%) and 1631 females (57%). Noise annoyance was assessed on a five- grade verbal scale (Not at all; Slightly; Moderately; Very; Extremely). Arterial hypertension was d...

A mental arithmetic task was applied on 123 medical students (43 males and 80 females) under quiet (42 dB/A/Leq) and noisy laboratory conditions (recorded traffic noise, 88 dB/A/Leq). Personality trait of intro-extroversion was estimated with the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire. Two groups of subjects were formed concerning intro-extroversion, us...

This study was designed to define the individual variables influencing subjective noise sensitivity in an urban population and to investigate the distribution of subjective noise sensitivity with regard to noise exposure. A general questionnaire, a ten-graded noise annoyance scale, the Weinstein's Noise Sensitivity Scale, and the Eysenck Personalit...