Efficacy of High Dose Vitamin D Supplements for Elite Athletes.

PURPOSE: Supplementation with dietary forms of vitamin D is commonplace in clinical medicine, elite athletic cohorts and the general population, yet the response of all major vitamin D metabolites to high doses of vitamin D is poorly characterized. We aimed to identify the responses of all major vitamin D metabolites to moderate and high dose supplemental vitamin D3. METHODS: A repeated measures design was implemented in which 46 elite professional European athletes were block randomized based on their basal 25[OH]D concentration into two treatment groups. Athletes received either 35,000 or 70,000 IU.week vitamin D3 for 12 weeks and 42 athletes completed the trial. Blood samples were collected over 18 weeks to monitor the response to supplementation and withdrawal from supplementation. RESULTS: Both doses led to significant increases in serum 25[OH]D and 1,25[OH]2D3. 70,000 IU.week also resulted in a significant increase of the metabolite 24,25[OH]2D at weeks 6 and 12 that persisted following supplementation withdrawal at week 18, despite a marked decrease in 1,25[OH]2D3. Intact PTH was decreased in both groups by week 6 and remained suppressed throughout the trial. CONCLUSIONS: High dose vitamin D3 supplementation (70,000 IU.week) may be detrimental for its intended purposes due to increased 24,25[OH]2D production. Rapid withdrawal from high dose supplementation may inhibit the bioactivity of 1,25[OH]2D3 as a consequence of sustained increases in 24,25[OH]2D that persist as 25[OH]D and 1,25[OH]2D concentrations decrease. These data imply that lower doses of vitamin D3 ingested frequently may be most appropriate and gradual withdrawal from supplementation as opposed to rapid withdrawal may be favorable

Diabetes and other vascular risk factors in association with the risk of lower extremity amputation in chronic limb-threatening ischemia: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Patients with diabetes are at increased risk of developing chronic limb-threatening ischemia (CLTI) due to peripheral arterial disease, and this often results in lower extremity amputation (LEA). Little is known of the interaction between diabetes and other vascular risk factors in affecting the risk of CLTI. METHODS: We investigated the association of diabetes, and its interaction with hypertension, body mass index (BMI) and smoking, with the risk of LEA due to CLTI in the population-based Singapore Chinese Health Study. Participants were interviewed at recruitment (1993-1998) and 656 incident LEA cases were identified via linkage with nationwide hospital database through 2017. Multivariate-adjusted Cox proportional hazards models were used to compute hazard ratios (HRs) and 95% CIs for the associations. RESULTS: The HR (95% CI) for LEA risk was 13.41 (11.38-15.79) in participants with diabetes compared to their counterparts without diabetes, and the risk increased in a stepwise manner with duration of diabetes (P for trend < 0.0001). Hypertension and increased BMI independently increased LEA risk in those without diabetes but did not increase the risk in those with diabetes (P for interaction with diabetes ≤ 0.0006). Conversely, current smoking conferred a risk increment of about 40% regardless of diabetes status. CONCLUSIONS: Although diabetes conferred more than tenfold increase in risk of LEA, hypertension and increased BMI did not further increase LEA risk among those with diabetes, suggesting a common mechanistic pathway for these risk factors. In contrast, smoking may act via an alternative pathway and thus confer additional risk regardless of diabetes status

ENOX2 (ecto-NOX disulfide-thiol exchanger 2)

Review on ENOX2, with data on DNA/RNA, on the protein encoded and where the gene is implicated

Consistency of Lambda-Lambda hypernuclear events

Highlights of Lambda-Lambda emulsion events are briefly reviewed. Given three accepted events, shell-model predictions based on p-shell Lambda hypernuclear spectroscopic studies are shown to reproduce the Lambda-Lambda (LL) binding energies of LL10Be and LL13B in terms of the LL binding energy of LL6He. Predictions for other species offer judgement on several alternative assignments of the LL13B KEK-E176 event, and on the assignments LL11Be and LL12Be suggested recently for the KEK-E373 HIDA event. The predictions of the shell model, spanning a wide range of A values, are compared with those of cluster models, where the latter are available.Comment: Based on talk given by Avraham Gal at EXA 2011, Vienna, September 2011; Proceedings version prepared for the journal Hyperfine Interactions; v2--slight changes, matches published versio

Graph Metrics for Temporal Networks

Temporal networks, i.e., networks in which the interactions among a set of elementary units change over time, can be modelled in terms of time-varying graphs, which are time-ordered sequences of graphs over a set of nodes. In such graphs, the concepts of node adjacency and reachability crucially depend on the exact temporal ordering of the links. Consequently, all the concepts and metrics proposed and used for the characterisation of static complex networks have to be redefined or appropriately extended to time-varying graphs, in order to take into account the effects of time ordering on causality. In this chapter we discuss how to represent temporal networks and we review the definitions of walks, paths, connectedness and connected components valid for graphs in which the links fluctuate over time. We then focus on temporal node-node distance, and we discuss how to characterise link persistence and the temporal small-world behaviour in this class of networks. Finally, we discuss the extension of classic centrality measures, including closeness, betweenness and spectral centrality, to the case of time-varying graphs, and we review the work on temporal motifs analysis and the definition of modularity for temporal graphs.Comment: 26 pages, 5 figures, Chapter in Temporal Networks (Petter Holme and Jari Saram\"aki editors). Springer. Berlin, Heidelberg 201

The association of cytoplasmic overexpression of cyclin d1 and tumor metastasis in Hepatocellular Carcinoma

published_or_final_versio

A perspective from extinct radionuclides on a Young Stellar Object: The Sun and its accretion disk

Meteorites, which are remnants of solar system formation, provide a direct glimpse into the dynamics and evolution of a young stellar object (YSO), namely our Sun. Much of our knowledge about the astrophysical context of the birth of the Sun, the chronology of planetary growth from micrometer-sized dust to terrestrial planets, and the activity of the young Sun comes from the study of extinct radionuclides such as 26Al (t1/2 = 0.717 Myr). Here we review how the signatures of extinct radionuclides (short-lived isotopes that were present when the solar system formed and that have now decayed below detection level) in planetary materials influence the current paradigm of solar system formation. Particular attention is given to tying meteorite measurements to remote astronomical observations of YSOs and modeling efforts. Some extinct radionuclides were inherited from the long-term chemical evolution of the Galaxy, others were injected into the solar system by a nearby supernova, and some were produced by particle irradiation from the T-Tauri Sun. The chronology inferred from extinct radionuclides reveals that dust agglomeration to form centimeter-sized particles in the inner part of the disk was very rapid (<50 kyr), planetesimal formation started early and spanned several million years, planetary embryos (possibly like Mars) were formed in a few million years, and terrestrial planets (like Earth) completed their growths several tens of million years after the birth of the Sun.Comment: 49 pages, 9 figures, 1 table. Uncorrected preprin

Visible Light-Driven Pure Water Splitting by a Nature-Inspired Organic Semiconductor-Based System

For the first time, it is demonstrated that the robust organic semiconductor g-C3N4 can be integrated into a nature-inspired water splitting system, analogous to PSII and PSI in natural photosynthesis. Two parallel systems have been developed for overall water splitting under visible light involving graphitic carbon nitride with two different metal oxides, BiVO4 and WO3. Consequently, both hydrogen and oxygen can be evolved in an ideal ratio of 2:1, and evolution rates in both systems have been found to be dependent on pH, redox mediator concentration, and mass ratio between the two photocatalysts, leading to a stable and reproducible H2 and O2 evolution rate at 36 and 18 μmol h–1 g–1 from water over 14 h. Our findings demonstrate g-C3N4 can serve as a multifunctional robust photocatalyst, which could also be used in other systems such as PEC cells or coupled solar cell systems