Association Between Alcohol Intake and Cardiac Remodeling

Background: Alcohol-induced cardiotoxicity is incompletely understood. Specifically, the long-term impact of alcohol use on ventricular remodeling or dysfunction, its modulators, and effect thresholds among young adults remain controversial. Objectives: The authors sought to evaluate a potential relationship between alcohol intake and cardiac remodeling, assessed by echocardiography, over 20 years of follow-up. Methods: Among the CARDIA (Coronary Artery Risk Development in Young Adults) study cohort, the authors studied all subjects without baseline heart disorders who provided adequate information on their drinking habits and underwent echocardiographic evaluation at years 5 and 25 of the study. The echocardiographic outcomes were left ventricular (LV) ejection fraction, indexed LV end-diastolic volume and LV mass, and left atrial diameter. Participants were grouped according to their weighted-average weekly drinking habits. An additional analysis used the estimated cumulative alcohol consumption. Regression models and multivariable fractional polynomials were used to evaluate the association between alcohol consumption and the outcomes. Results: Among the 2,368 participants, alcohol consumption was an independent predictor of higher indexed LV mass (p = 0.014) and indexed LV end-diastolic volume (p = 0.037), regardless of sex. No significant relationship between alcohol intake and LV ejection fraction was found. Drinking predominantly wine was associated with less cardiac remodeling and there was a nonsignificant trend for a harmful effect of binge drinking. Conclusions: After 20 years of follow-up, alcohol intake was associated with adverse cardiac remodeling, although it was not related with LV systolic dysfunction in this initially healthy young cohort. Our results also suggest that drinking predominantly wine associates with less deleterious findings in cardiac structure.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Conjugated Linoleic Acid: good or bad nutrient

Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is a class of 28 positional and geometric isomers of linoleic acid octadecadienoic.Currently, it has been described many benefits related to the supplementation of CLA in animals and humans, as in the treatment of cancer, oxidative stress, in atherosclerosis, in bone formation and composition in obesity, in diabetes and the immune system. However, our results show that, CLA appears to be not a good supplement in patients with cachexia

Improve protective efficacy of a TB DNA-HSP65 vaccine by BCG priming

Vaccines are considered by many to be one of the most successful medical interventions against infectious diseases. But many significant obstacles remain, such as optimizing DNA vaccines for use in humans or large animals. The amount of doses, route and easiness of administration are also important points to consider in the design of new DNA vaccines. Heterologous prime-boost regimens probably represent the best hope for an improved DNA vaccine strategy. In this study, we have shown that heterologous prime-boost vaccination against tuberculosis (TB) using intranasal BCG priming/DNA-HSP65 boosting (BCGin/DNA) provided significantly greater protection than that afforded by a single subcutaneous or intranasal dose of BCG. In addition, BCGin/DNA immunization was also more efficient in controlling bacterial loads than were the other prime-boost schedules evaluated or three doses of DNA-HSP65 as a naked DNA. The single dose of DNA-HSP65 booster enhanced the immunogenicity of a single subcutaneous BCG vaccination, as evidenced by the significantly higher serum levels of anti-Hsp65 IgG2a Th1-induced antibodies, as well as by the significantly greater production of IFN-γ by antigen-specific spleen cells. The BCG prime/DNA-HSP65 booster was also associated with better preservation of lung parenchyma

Routine provision of information on patient-reported outcome measures to healthcare providers and patients in clinical practice

This is the final version. Available from Cochrane Collaboration via the DOI in this record.This is the protocol for a review and there is no abstract. The objectives are as follows: To assess the impact of the routine use of patient-reported outcomes (PROs) in clinical practice on the process of care (including patient-physician communication, professionals awareness of patients' quality of life, diagnosis and recognition rates, treatment rates, health services and resource use, as well as patient behaviour); patients' and professionals' experiences of care; and health outcomes (both generic and disease-specific, using both routinely-used clinical measures and PROs).Spanish Ministry of ScienceInnovation and the European commissionNational Institutes of Health Research (NIHR

Responding empathically : a question of heart, not a question of skin

Empathy entails the capacities to resonate with another person’s emotions, understand his/her thoughts and feelings, separate our own thoughts and emotions from those of the observed and responding with the appropriate prosocial and helpful behavior. While there is abundant research on the neurobiological mechanisms of some components of empathy (e.g., emotional contagion), few studies have considered the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the empathic response. The present study explores psychophysiological correlates (skin conductance level and the interbeat interval) as a function of the empathic response while participants watch and respond to actors portraying emotionally laden vignettes. Forty undergraduate psychology students were each presented with 40 emotional vignettes of positive or negative valence and asked to choose among three different empathic responses while their electrodermal and cardiac responses were measured. Overall, the study shows that higher levels of additive empathy are associated with increased cardiac activity (i.e., decreased Interbeat Interval) but not electrodermal activity.BIAL Foundation by the grant ‘‘The Neuropsychophysiological Basis of Empathy: The role of neuroendocrine; autonomic and central nervous system variables (89/08)’’ that supported this research

Comparison of different delivery systems of DNA vaccination for the induction of protection against tuberculosis in mice and guinea pigs

The great challenges for researchers working in the field of vaccinology are optimizing DNA vaccines for use in humans or large animals and creating effective single-dose vaccines using appropriated controlled delivery systems. Plasmid DNA encoding the heat-shock protein 65 (hsp65) (DNAhsp65) has been shown to induce protective and therapeutic immune responses in a murine model of tuberculosis (TB). Despite the success of naked DNAhsp65-based vaccine to protect mice against TB, it requires multiple doses of high amounts of DNA for effective immunization. In order to optimize this DNA vaccine and simplify the vaccination schedule, we coencapsulated DNAhsp65 and the adjuvant trehalose dimycolate (TDM) into biodegradable poly (DL-lactide-co-glycolide) (PLGA) microspheres for a single dose administration. Moreover, a single-shot prime-boost vaccine formulation based on a mixture of two different PLGA microspheres, presenting faster and slower release of, respectively, DNAhsp65 and the recombinant hsp65 protein was also developed. These formulations were tested in mice as well as in guinea pigs by comparison with the efficacy and toxicity induced by the naked DNA preparation or BCG. The single-shot prime-boost formulation clearly presented good efficacy and diminished lung pathology in both mice and guinea pigs

Tamoxifen Is Effective in the Treatment of Leishmania amazonensis Infections in Mice

Leishmaniasis is an antropozoonotic disease with a wide range of clinical manifestations. In humans, signs of disease vary from skin and mucosal ulcers to enlargement of internal organs such as the liver and spleen. The unicellular parasite Leishmania amazonensis is able to infect humans and cause localized or diffuse skin lesions. The treatment for this disease is difficult, as it requires prolonged and painful applications of toxic drugs that are poorly tolerated. Therefore, a key area in leishmaniasis research is the study of new therapeutic schemes and less toxic drugs. The present report is based on the investigation of tamoxifen's activity (a compound that has been in clinical use since the 1970s for the treatment of breast cancer) in the treatment of mice experimentally infected with L. amazonensis. We observed that infected mice treated with 20 mg/kg/day of tamoxifen for 15 days showed a significant clinical and parasitological response, with reduction in the size of lesions and ulcers and decreased numbers of parasites. These promising results pave the way for further testing of this drug as a new alternative in the chemotherapy of leishmaniasis