Therapy of Canine Hyperlipidemia with Bezafibrate.

BackgroundBezafibrate (BZF) is effective in the treatment of hypertriglyceridemia in human patients, but there are no data on its use in dogs.ObjectiveTo assess the safety of BZF in hyperlipidemic dogs and its efficacy in decreasing serum triglyceride (TG) and cholesterol (CHO) concentrations.AnimalsForty-six dogs, 26 females and 20 males, mean (±SD) age of 9 (±3) years, with TG ≥150 mg/dL (33 dogs also were hypercholesterolemic [>300 mg/dL]).MethodsProspective, uncontrolled clinical trial. Dogs were treated with bezafibrate once daily, using 200 mg tablets at a dosage of 4-10 mg/kg (depending on body weight). Serum TG and CHO concentrations and alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and creatine kinase (CK) activity before and after 30 days of treatment were compared.ResultsSixteen dogs (34.8%) had primary hyperlipidemia, and 30 dogs (65.2%) had secondary hyperlipidemia (including spontaneous hyperadrenocorticism [41.3%, n = 19/46], chronic treatment with glucocorticoids [10.8%, n = 5/46], and hypothyroidism [15.2%, n = 7/46]). After 30 days, serum TG concentration normalized (<150 mg/dL) in 42 dogs (91.3%) and CHO concentration normalized (<270 mg/dL) in 22 of 33 dogs (66.7%). There was no difference in baseline TG concentration between the primary and secondary hyperlipidemia subgroups, but the decrease in TG concentration after treatment was greater in the primary hyperlipidemia subgroup. No adverse effects were observed, but ALT activity decreased significantly after 30 days of treatment.Conclusions and clinical importanceOver 30 days, BZF was safe and effective in treatment of primary and secondary hyperlipidemia in dogs

EVALUATING THE OUTCOMES AND THE IMPACT OF SUBSTANCE USE PREVENTION INTERVENTIONS

Substance use among adolescents is a major cause of concern as it can compromise adolescents‘ health, defined in 1948 by the World Health Organization (WHO) as ―a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being‖ and may hinder adolescents from achieving the developmental transitions they are supposed to accomplish. Further, when individuals initiate substance use as adolescents, addiction is established more easily and quickly (Crews, He, & Hodge,2007; Prokhorov et al., 2006) and individuals remain at greater risk for negative outcomes in the future even if they successfully stop using (Georgiades & Boyle, 2007; Meier et al., 2012; von Sydow, Lieb, Pfister, Höfler, &Wittchen, 2002). With substance use being a preventable behaviour, prevention interventions have been implemented worldwide, mostly focused on demand reduction (Kulis, Nieri, Yabiku, Stromwall, & Marsiglia, 2007) and aimed at achieving some form of abstinence (Midford, 2009). Over recent years, efforts to determine whether prevention interventions are effective have increased due to the growing demand for accountability of interventions in public health (Hillebrand & Burkhart, 2009). Programme evaluation, besides considering the positive and desirable effects from prevention interventions, should also taken into consideration its negative and undesirable effects (i.e. iatrogenic effects) (European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA, 2012a). Programme evaluation is the mechanism through which this judgment on efficacy can be made (Midford, 2000), and isan essential tool to enable policy makers and practitioners to decide which projects to fund and whether a particular intervention is worth continuing, adapting, or discarding (EMCDDA, 2012a). However, in Europe, despite prevention interventions now being systematically monitored by the majority of Member States (EMCDDA, 2009a), prevention effectiveness remains poorly researched (EMCDDA, 2010) and very few prevention interventions have actually been evaluated (EMCDDA, 2012b). Thus, evaluation of prevention interventions is urgently required to increase knowledge about how to enhance their intended effects and decrease the unintended, which in turn will contribute to future prevention interventions‘ success in reducing the prevalence of substance use among adolescents

A hybrid intelligent agent for notification of users distracted by mobile phones in an urban environment

Mobile devices are now ubiquitous in daily life and the number of activities that can be performed using them is continually growing. This implies increased attention being placed on the device and diverted away from events taking place in the surrounding environment. The impact of using a smartphone on pedestrians in the vicinity of urban traffic has been investigated in a multimodal, fully immersive, virtual reality environment. Based on experimental data collected, an agent to improve the attention of users in such situations has been developed. The proposed agent uses explicit, contextual data from experimental conditions to feed a statistical learning model. The agent’s decision process is aimed at notifying users when they become unaware of critical events in their surroundings

Treadmill walking differently affects body composition and metabolic parameters of female rats from normal or small litters

This work assessed whether walking affects bodily development and metabolic parameters of female rats raised in small litters (three pups, group S) or control litters (nine pups, group C). After weaning, some of the rats had five sessions per week of a 30-min treadmill walking (CE and SE), while the others remained sedentary (CS and SS) until the age of 120 days. Exercise caused a reduction of body weight (CS/CE = 1.18), Lee index (CS/CE = 1.04), fasting blood glucose (CS/CE = 1.35), mesenteric (CS/CE = 1.23), and ovarian fat (CS/CE = 1.33) in CE, but only glucose was decreased in SE (SS/SE = 1.16). The diameter of adipocytes decreased to a half in the small-litter groups. Exercise increased subcutaneous (CS/CE = 0.88 and SS/SE = 0.71), but decreased retroperitoneal adipocytes (CS/CE = 1.2 and SS/SE = 1.3). Litter size reduction had little impact on females at the age of 120 days, but the light physical activity seemed insufficient to counteract all the effects of lactational overfeeding. On the other hand, pups from exercised mothers had a decrease in their biometric and glycemic indexes, demonstrating the transgenerational action of regular, although light, exercise

Behavior disturbances after corticotherapy in a patient with uncommon neurological manifestation of Behcet Syndrome and the role of the consultation haison psychiatry

Consultation Liaison Psychiatry studies the relationship between psychiatry and all other areas of knowledge of the health-disease process and intends to propose solutions, under a biopsychosocial perspective, to the clinical (assistant) or institutional (service-related) problems. It is described the case of a patient who presented unusual pathophysiologic manifestation of the Behcet's syndrome and also developed mental disorder after the pharmacological treatment with corticosteroids. Despite the remission of mental and behavioral symptoms with psychopharmacological treatment of short duration, her clinical outcome made it need the reintroduction of corticotherapy, with recrudescence of the psychiatric disorder and the need for maintenance treatment to assure its management. Besides illustrating a rare clinical condition, the case described exemplifies the benefits of joint and planned actions between psychiatrists and other professionals involved in ail individual assistance at the hospital ward.36521822

Differential regulation of PGC-1α expression in rat liver and skeletal muscle in response to voluntary running

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The beneficial actions of exercise training on lipid, glucose and energy metabolism and insulin sensitivity appear to be in part mediated by PGC-1α. Previous studies have shown that spontaneously exercised rats show at rest enhanced responsiveness to exogenous insulin, lower plasma insulin levels and increased skeletal muscle insulin sensitivity. This study was initiated to examine the functional interaction between exercise-induced modulation of skeletal muscle and liver PGC-1α protein expression, whole body insulin sensitivity, and circulating FFA levels as a measure of whole body fatty acid (lipid) metabolism.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two groups of male Wistar rats (2 Mo of age, 188.82 ± 2.77 g BW) were used in this study. One group consisted of control rats placed in standard laboratory cages. Exercising rats were housed individually in cages equipped with running wheels and allowed to run at their own pace for 5 weeks. At the end of exercise training, insulin sensitivity was evaluated by comparing steady-state plasma glucose (SSPG) concentrations at constant plasma insulin levels attained during the continuous infusion of glucose and insulin to each experimental group. Subsequently, soleus and plantaris muscle and liver samples were collected and quantified for PGC-1α protein expression by Western blotting. Collected blood samples were analyzed for glucose, insulin and FFA concentrations.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Rats housed in the exercise wheel cages demonstrated almost linear increases in running activity with advancing time reaching to maximum value around 4 weeks. On an average, the rats ran a mean (Mean ± SE) of 4.102 ± 0.747 km/day and consumed significantly more food as compared to sedentary controls (<it>P </it>< 0.001) in order to meet their increased caloric requirement. Mean plasma insulin (<it>P </it>< 0.001) and FFA (<it>P </it>< 0.006) concentrations were lower in the exercise-trained rats as compared to sedentary controls. Mean steady state plasma insulin (SSPI) and glucose (SSPG) concentrations were not significantly different in sedentary control rats as compared to exercise-trained animals. Plantaris PGC-1α protein expression increased significantly from a 1.11 ± 0.12 in the sedentary rats to 1.74 ± 0.09 in exercising rats (<it>P </it>< 0.001). However, exercise had no effect on PGC-1α protein content in either soleus muscle or liver tissue. These results indicate that exercise training selectively up regulates the PGC-1α protein expression in high-oxidative fast skeletal muscle type such as plantaris muscle.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>These data suggest that PGC-1α most likely plays a restricted role in exercise-mediated improvements in insulin resistance (sensitivity) and lowering of circulating FFA levels.</p

Antifouling Marine Coatings with a Potentially Safer and Sustainable Synthetic Polyphenolic Derivative

The development of harmless substances to replace biocide-based coatings used to prevent or manage marine biofouling and its unwanted consequences is urgent. The formation of biofilms on submerged marine surfaces is one of the first steps in the marine biofouling process, which facilitates the further settlement of macrofoulers. Anti-biofilm properties of a synthetic polyphenolic compound, with previously described anti-settlement activity against macrofoulers, were explored in this work. In solution this new compound was able to prevent biofilm formation and reduce a pre-formed biofilm produced by the marine bacterium, Pseudoalteromonas tunicata. Then, this compound was applied to a marine coating and the formation of P. tunicata biofilms was assessed under hydrodynamic conditions to mimic the marine environment. For this purpose, polyurethane (PU)-based coating formulations containing 1 and 2 wt.% of the compound were prepared based on a prior developed methodology. The most effective formulation in reducing the biofilm cell number, biovolume, and thickness was the PU-based coating containing an aziridine-based crosslinker and 2 wt.% of the compound. To assess the marine ecotoxicity impact of this compound, its potential to disrupt endocrine processes was evaluated through the modulation of two nuclear receptors (NRs), peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR gamma), and pregnane X receptor (PXR). Transcriptional activation of the selected NRs upon exposure to the polyphenolic compound (10 mu M) was not observed, thus highlighting the eco-friendliness towards the addressed NRs of this new dual-acting anti-macro- and anti-microfouling agent towards the addressed NRs

Ultracold dense gas of deeply bound heteronuclear molecules

Recently, the quest for an ultracold and dense ensemble of polar molecules has attracted strong interest. Polar molecules have bright prospects for novel quantum gases with long-range and anisotropic interactions, for quantum information science, and for precision measurements. However, high-density clouds of ultracold polar molecules have so far not been produced. Here, we report a key step towards this goal. Starting from an ultracold dense gas of heteronuclear 40K-87Rb Feshbach molecules with typical binding energies of a few hundred kHz and a negligible dipole moment, we coherently transfer these molecules into a vibrational level of the ground-state molecular potential bound by >10 GHz. We thereby increase the binding energy and the expected dipole moment of the 40K-87Rb molecules by more than four orders of magnitude in a single transfer step. Starting with a single initial state prepared with Feshbach association, we achieve a transfer efficiency of 84%. While dipolar effects are not yet observable, the presented technique can be extended to access much more deeply bound vibrational levels and ultimately those exhibiting a significant dipole moment. The preparation of an ultracold quantum gas of polar molecules might therefore come within experimental reach.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figure

Long-Term Impacts of Selective Logging on Amazon Forest Dynamics from Multi-Temporal Airborne LiDAR

Forest degradation is common in tropical landscapes, but estimates of the extent and duration of degradation impacts are highly uncertain. In particular, selective logging is a form of forest degradation that alters canopy structure and function, with persistent ecological impacts following forest harvest. In this study, we employed airborne laser scanning in 2012 and 2014 to estimate three-dimensional changes in the forest canopy and understory structure and aboveground biomass following reduced-impact selective logging in a site in Eastern Amazon. Also, we developed a binary classification model to distinguish intact versus logged forests. We found that canopy gap frequency was significantly higher in logged versus intact forests even after 8 years (the time span of our study). In contrast, the understory of logged areas could not be distinguished from the understory of intact forests after 67 years of logging activities. Measuring new gap formation between LiDAR acquisitions in 2012 and 2014, we showed rates 2 to 7 times higher in logged areas compared to intact forests. New gaps were spatially clumped with 76 to 89% of new gaps within 5 m of prior logging damage. The biomass dynamics in areas logged between the two LiDAR acquisitions was clearly detected with an average estimated loss of -4.14 +/- 0.76 MgC/hay. In areas recovering from logging prior to the first acquisition, we estimated biomass gains close to zero. Together, our findings unravel the magnitude and duration of delayed impacts of selective logging in forest structural attributes, confirm the high potential of airborne LiDAR multitemporal data to characterize forest degradation in the tropics, and present a novel approach to forest classification using LiDAR data