American palm ethnomedicine: A meta-analysis

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Many recent papers have documented the phytochemical and pharmacological bases for the use of palms (<it>Arecaceae</it>) in ethnomedicine. Early publications were based almost entirely on interviews that solicited local knowledge. More recently, ethnobotanically guided searches for new medicinal plants have proven more successful than random sampling for identifying plants that contain biodynamic ingredients. However, limited laboratory time and the high cost of clinical trials make it difficult to test all potential medicinal plants in the search for new drug candidates. The purpose of this study was to summarize and analyze previous studies on the medicinal uses of American palms in order to narrow down the search for new palm-derived medicines.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Relevant literature was surveyed and data was extracted and organized into medicinal use categories. We focused on more recent literature than that considered in a review published 25 years ago. We included phytochemical and pharmacological research that explored the importance of American palms in ethnomedicine.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Of 730 species of American palms, we found evidence that 106 species had known medicinal uses, ranging from treatments for diabetes and leishmaniasis to prostatic hyperplasia. Thus, the number of American palm species with known uses had increased from 48 to 106 over the last quarter of a century. Furthermore, the pharmacological bases for many of the effects are now understood.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Palms are important in American ethnomedicine. Some, like <it>Serenoa repens </it>and <it>Roystonea regia</it>, are the sources of drugs that have been approved for medicinal uses. In contrast, recent ethnopharmacological studies suggested that many of the reported uses of several other palms do not appear to have a strong physiological basis. This study has provided a useful assessment of the ethnobotanical and pharmacological data available on palms.</p

Threonine requirement of broiler from 22-42 days

Threonine is considered to be the third limiting amino acid for broiler chicks fed low protein corn-soybean meal diets. Very limited information is available on the requirement of the threonine for broilers. The aim of this study was to determine the threonine requirements of broiler chickens from 22-42 days of age. Seventy five Ross 308 one-day-old male broiler chicks were divided into five dietary treatment groups of similar mean weight, comprising 15 birds each. They were fed a basal starting diet containing 23% CP, 3200 ME kcal/kg, 0.81% threonine and 1.24% lysine for first 3 weeks. Chicks were randomly assigned to five treatments involving 0.70, 0.75, 0.80, 0.85 and 0.90% of total threonine for 21 days (between 22-42 days). Results indicated that a linear response to dietary threonine for final body weight, body weight gain and threonine intake occurred in experiment but other live performance parameters were not impacted by dietary threonine. Our results suggest that the current NRC recommendation of 0.74% threonine for 3-6 week old broilers is adequate to support comparable growth performance. © Asian Network for Scientific Information, 2009

Quantitative three-dimensional computed tomography analysis of sinus tympani volume in temporal bones with petrous apex pneumatization

Objective: To investigate the association between sinus tympani volume and petrous apex pneumatization in this retrospective-archival temporal bone computed tomography study. Methods: We included 46 temporal bones with pneumatized petrous apex from 26 patients and 52 temporal bones without petrous apex pneumatization from 26 other patients. Using OsiriX software for MacOS (version 3.8.1, Pixmeo), we measured the volumes from three-dimensional sinus tympani models and compared the sinus tympani volumes and depths between the temporal bones with and without pneumatized petrous apex. Results: Among 150 patients totally reviewed, 26 (17.3%) had petrous apex pneumatization. The median sinus tympani volume was 16.05 (5.6–59.7) mm3 in temporal bones with pneumatized petrous apex and 8.7 (1.76–59.7) mm3in temporal bones without. The sinus tympani volume was significantly greater in temporal bones with pneumatized petrous apex compared to those without (p &lt; 0.001). Additionally, temporal bones with pneumatized petrous apex had a significantly deeper sinus tympani [median depth = 2.17 (0–3.04) mm] compared to the temporal bones without [median depth = 1.69 (0–3.73) mm] (p = 0.045). We found that petrous apex pneumatization was associated with deeper and larger sinus tympani. Conclusion: Patients with pneumatized petrous apex had a greater sinus tympani volume associated with the increased risk of residual cholesteatoma. © 202

Deletion analysis and clinical correlations in patients with Xp21 linked muscular dystrophy

PubMed ID: 15641267We carried out molecular deletion analysis on 142 patients with Duchenne/Becker muscular dystrophy which covered 25 exons of the dystrophin gene. We also evaluated the results by comparing with the clinical findings and examples in the literature. A deletion ratio of 63.7% was achieved. Exon 46 was the most frequently affected region. Interestingly we also observed four cases with muscle promoter (Mp) region deletions which have been rarely reported in the literature