Analysis of access to hypertensive and diabetic drugs in the Family Health Strategy, State of Pernambuco, Brazil

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the access to drugs for hypertension and diabetes and the direct cost of buying them among users of the Family Health Strategy (FHS) in the state of Pernambuco, Brazil. METHODS: Population-based, cross-sectional study of a systematic random sample of 785 patients with hypertension and 823 patients with diabetes mellitus who were registered in 208 randomly selected FHS teams in 35 municipalities of the state of Pernambuco. The selected municipalities were classified into three levels with probability proportional to municipality size (LS, large-sized; MS, medium-sized; SS, small-sized). To verify differences between the cities, we used the χ2 test. RESULTS: Pharmacological treatment was used by 91.2% patients with hypertension whereas 85.6% patients with diabetes mellitus used oral antidiabetic drugs (OADs), and 15.4% used insulin. The FHS team itself provided antihypertensive medications to 69.0% patients with hypertension, OADs to 75.0% patients with diabetes mellitus, and insulin treatment to 65.4%. The 36.9% patients with hypertension and 29.8% with diabetes mellitus that had to buy all or part of their medications reported median monthly cost of R$18.30, R$ 14.00, and R$ 27.61 for antihypertensive drugs, OADs, and insulin, respectively

Inhibition Of Epithelial-mesenchymal Transition And Metastasis By Combined Tgfbeta Knockdown And Metformin Treatment In A Canine Mammary Cancer Xenograft Model

Epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a process by which epithelial cells acquire mesenchymal properties, generating metastases. Transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β) is associated with this malignancy by having the ability to induce EMT. Metformin, has been shown to inhibit EMT in breast cancer cells. Based on this evidence we hypothesize that treatment with metformin and the silencing of TGF-β, inhibits the EMT in cancer cells. Canine metastatic mammary tumor cell line CF41 was stably transduced with a shRNA-lentivirus, reducing expression level of TGF-β1. This was combined with metformin treatment, to look at effects on cell migration and the expression of EMT markers. For in vivo study, unmodified or TGF-β1sh cells were injected in the inguinal region of nude athymic female mice followed by metformin treatment. The mice’s lungs were collected and metastatic nodules were subsequently assessed for EMT markers expression. The migration rate was lower in TGF-β1sh cells and when combined with metformin treatment. Metformin treatment reduced N-cadherin and increased E-cadherin expression in both CF41 and TGF-β1sh cells. Was demonstrated that metformin treatment reduced the number of lung metastases in animals bearing TGF-β1sh tumors. This paralleled a decreased N-cadherin and vimentin expression, and increased E-cadherin and claudin-7 expression in lung metastases. This study confirms the benefits of TGF-β1 silencing in addition to metformin as potential therapeutic agents for breast cancer patients, by blocking EMT process. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to report metformin treatment in cells with TGF-β1 silencing and their effect on EMT. © 2017, Springer Science+Business Media New York.221274

Advances in chemometric control of commercial diesel adulteration by kerosene using IR spectroscopy

Adulteration is a recurrent issue found in fuel screening. Commercial diesel contamination by kerosene is highly difficult to be detected via physicochemical methods applied in market. Although the contamination may affect diesel quality and storage stability, there is a lack of efficient methodologies for this evaluation. This paper assessed the use of IR spectroscopies (MIR and NIR) coupled with partial least squares (PLS) regression, support vector machine regression (SVR), and multivariate curve resolution with alternating least squares (MCR-ALS) calibration models for quantifying and identifying the presence of kerosene adulterant in commercial diesel. Moreover, principal component analysis (PCA), successive projections algorithm (SPA), and genetic algorithm (GA) tools coupled to linear discriminant analysis were used to observe the degradation behavior of 60 samples of pure and kerosene-added diesel fuel in different concentrations over 60 days of storage. Physicochemical properties of commercial diesel with 15% kerosene remained within conformity with Brazilian screening specifications; in addition, specified tests were not able to identify changes in the blends’ performance over time. By using multivariate classification, the samples of pure and contaminated fuel were accurately classified by aging level into two well-defined groups, and some spectral features related to fuel degradation products were detected. PLS and SVR were accurate to quantify kerosene in the 2.5–40% (v/v) range, reaching RMSEC < 2.59% and RMSEP < 5.56%, with high correlation between real and predicted concentrations. MCR-ALS with correlation constraint was able to identify and recover the spectral profile of commercial diesel and kerosene adulterant from the IR spectra of contaminated blends

Cat epididymal semen cryopreserved with and without vitamin E: effect on sperm parameters and lipid peroxidation

The aims of this study were to investigate: 1) if the addition of \u3b1-tocopherol (vitamin E) in three concentrations (0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 mM) is able to preserve spermatozoa integrity after thawing and 2) the effect of \u3b1-tocopherol supplementation on lipid peroxidation. Fifty four domestic cats were used in this study constituting 18 pools (3 cats per pool). Each pool was submitted at four experimental groups: group 0 (control) \u2013 epididymal sperm were frozen with a commercial Botucrio\uae extender; group 0.3, group 0.6 and group 0.9 \u2013 the extender was supplemented with 0.3, 0.6 and 0.9 mM of \u3b1-tocopherol, respectively. Each semen sample was evaluated for motility, progressive forward motility, morphology, sperm viability (plasma membrane integrity-PMI), hypo-osmotic swelling test (HOST), before and after thawing. The evaluation of lipid peroxidation reaction by Thiobarbituric Acid Reactive Substances (TBARS) test was performed on thawed semen only. Results demonstrated that there was no significant difference between control and the three \u3b1-tocopherol groups with regards to motility and progressive motility after thawing (P > 0.05). As expected, in fresh samples viability was significantly higher than in all the cryopreserved groups in which there was no positive influence of any of the \u3b1-tocopherol concentration used. Lipid peroxidation was higher in the supplemented groups 0.6 and 0.9 mM of \u3b1-tocopherol than in control and in 0.3 mM group. In conclusion, the addition of \u3b1-tocopherol to the commercial extender had no positive influence on reduction of lipid peroxidation. This topic deserves further investigations to better understand the effect of cryopreservation procedures on epididymal spermatozoa and to establish adequate strategies to counteract sperm cryodamages

Balanços energéticos agropecuários: uma importante ferramenta como indicativo de sustentabilidade de agroecossistemas.

No Brasil, pouca atenção se tem dado às formas e caminhos com que os fluxos energéticos se distribuem nos sistemas produtivos. Na agropecuária, a atenção tem sido voltada a novas fontes de energia (biomassa) ou em tecnologia alternativa, visando a racionalização do uso de energia fóssil ou elétrica. Entretanto, a agricultura tem se desenvolvido baseada fortemente na utilização intensiva de máquinas agrícolas, com conseqüente uso de combustíveis fósseis. Um fator de estrangulamento muito forte no consumo energético geral tem sido a utilização massiva de fertilizantes derivados do petróleo nos agroecossistemas. Estudos de Balanços Energéticos visam determinar os pontos de estrangulamento energético fundamentando a busca por tecnologias poupadoras de energia, especialmente aquelas de origem fóssil (combustível, fertilizante, agrotóxicos, energia despendida na fabricação das máquinas e implementos, etc.). No Brasil, a Região Sul, é onde se encontram vários trabalhos buscando uma agricultura mais auto-sustentável, do ponto de vista da utilização da energia. Em vista da possibilidade de eventuais futuras crises energéticas, o presente trabalho procura analisar o estado-da-arte dos estudos em Balanço Energético, no Brasil e no Mundo, como uma ferramenta de indicação da sustentabilidade dos sistemas agropecuários

Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory

Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from Sagittarius $A$. Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio