Kinetics of phosphorus in tissues of lambs fed different sources of calcium

Foram utilizados 12 cordeiros machos, inteiros, com peso médio de 31,6kg. Os cordeiros foram alimentados com dietas à base de milho e farelo de soja, suplementadas com diferentes fontes de cálcio: calcário calcítico (CC), feno de alfafa (FA), polpa cítrica (PC) e farinha de conchas de ostras (FCO). Os animais receberam injeção de 7,4 MBq do radiofósforo (32P) e após sete dias foram abatidos para posteriores análises. Utilizou-se o delineamento em blocos ao acaso, com quatro tratamentos e três repetições. A taxa de retenção de 32P, as atividades específicas relativas e padronizadas, e a quantidade de P inorgânico nos tecidos foram iguais para todos os tratamentos (P>0,05). A comparação entre os tecidos mostrou que a concentração de P inorgânico e a taxa de retenção de 32P (P0.05). The comparison between tissues showed that the concentration of inorganic P and rate of 32P retention was greater in bone (P<0.01) than in soft tissue. The 32P retention presented the following decreasing order: kidney, liver, heart, muscle and bone (P<0.01). P resorption in bone was higher than P accreted in bone, leading to a negative balance of P in bone for the majority of animals. The means for P accreted in bone were 1.56, 3.29, 2.74 and 2.06g/animal and the means for P resorption in bone were 2.82, 4.51, 4.09 and 3.05g/animal for limestone (CC), alfalfa hay (FA), citrus pulp (PC) and oyster shell meal (OSM), respectively. P resorption values were higher than P accretion in bone leading to a negative balance of P for the majority of animals. It was concluded that the different sources of calcium did not interfere in the kinetics of phosphorus and the amount of P absorbed did not attend P demands of the animals

Early life risk factors and their cumulative effects as predictors of overweight in Spanish children

Objectives: To explore early life risk factors of overweight/obesity at age 6 years and their cumulative effects on overweight/obesity at ages 2, 4 and 6 years. Methods: Altogether 1031 Spanish children were evaluated at birth and during a 6-year follow-up. Early life risk factors included: parental overweight/obesity, parental origin/ethnicity, maternal smoking during pregnancy, gestational weight gain, gestational age, birth weight, caesarean section, breastfeeding practices and rapid infant weight gain collected via hospital records. Cumulative effects were assessed by adding up those early risk factors that significantly increased the risk of overweight/obesity. We conducted binary logistic regression models. Results: Rapid infant weight gain (OR 2.29, 99% CI 1.54–3.42), maternal overweight/obesity (OR 1.93, 99% CI 1.27–2.92), paternal overweight/obesity (OR 2.17, 99% CI 1.44–3.28), Latin American/Roma origin (OR 3.20, 99% CI 1.60–6.39) and smoking during pregnancy (OR 1.61, 99% CI 1.01–2.59) remained significant after adjusting for confounders. A higher number of early life risk factors accumulated was associated with overweight/obesity at age 6 years but not at age 2 and 4 years. Conclusions: Rapid infant weight gain, parental overweight/obesity, maternal smoking and origin/ethnicity predict childhood overweight/obesity and present cumulative effects. Monitoring children with rapid weight gain and supporting a healthy parental weight are important for childhood obesity prevention

Trends and outcome of neoadjuvant treatment for rectal cancer: A retrospective analysis and critical assessment of a 10-year prospective national registry on behalf of the Spanish Rectal Cancer Project

Introduction: Preoperative treatment and adequate surgery increase local control in rectal cancer. However, modalities and indications for neoadjuvant treatment may be controversial. Aim of this study was to assess the trends of preoperative treatment and outcomes in patients with rectal cancer included in the Rectal Cancer Registry of the Spanish Associations of Surgeons. Method: This is a STROBE-compliant retrospective analysis of a prospective database. All patients operated on with curative intention included in the Rectal Cancer Registry were included. Analyses were performed to compare the use of neoadjuvant/adjuvant treatment in three timeframes: I)2006–2009; II)2010–2013; III)2014–2017. Survival analyses were run for 3-year survival in timeframes I-II. Results: Out of 14, 391 patients, 8871 (61.6%) received neoadjuvant treatment. Long-course chemo/radiotherapy was the most used approach (79.9%), followed by short-course radiotherapy ± chemotherapy (7.6%). The use of neoadjuvant treatment for cancer of the upper third (15-11 cm) increased over time (31.5%vs 34.5%vs 38.6%, p = 0.0018). The complete regression rate slightly increased over time (15.6% vs 16% vs 18.5%; p = 0.0093); the proportion of patients with involved circumferential resection margins (CRM) went down from 8.2% to 7.3%and 5.5% (p = 0.0004). Neoadjuvant treatment significantly decreased positive CRM in lower third tumors (OR 0.71, 0.59–0.87, Cochrane-Mantel-Haenszel P = 0.0008). Most ypN0 patients also received adjuvant therapy. In MR-defined stage III patients, preoperative treatment was associated with significantly longer local-recurrence-free survival (p < 0.0001), and cancer-specific survival (p < 0.0001). The survival benefit was smaller in upper third cancers. Conclusion: There was an increasing trend and a potential overuse of neoadjuvant treatment in cancer of the upper rectum. Most ypN0 patients received postoperative treatment. Involvement of CRM in lower third tumors was reduced after neoadjuvant treatment. Stage III and MRcN + benefited the most

The European Solar Telescope

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project aimed at studying the magnetic connectivity of the solar atmosphere, from the deep photosphere to the upper chromosphere. Its design combines the knowledge and expertise gathered by the European solar physics community during the construction and operation of state-of-the-art solar telescopes operating in visible and near-infrared wavelengths: the Swedish 1m Solar Telescope, the German Vacuum Tower Telescope and GREGOR, the French Télescope Héliographique pour l'Étude du Magnétisme et des Instabilités Solaires, and the Dutch Open Telescope. With its 4.2 m primary mirror and an open configuration, EST will become the most powerful European ground-based facility to study the Sun in the coming decades in the visible and near-infrared bands. EST uses the most innovative technological advances: the first adaptive secondary mirror ever used in a solar telescope, a complex multi-conjugate adaptive optics with deformable mirrors that form part of the optical design in a natural way, a polarimetrically compensated telescope design that eliminates the complex temporal variation and wavelength dependence of the telescope Mueller matrix, and an instrument suite containing several (etalon-based) tunable imaging spectropolarimeters and several integral field unit spectropolarimeters. This publication summarises some fundamental science questions that can be addressed with the telescope, together with a complete description of its major subsystems