Coincidence of remission of postpartum Graves' disease and use of omega-3 fatty acid supplements

I developed Graves' Disease four months postpartum. After one year on propylthiouracil, I learned that omega-3 fatty acids may reduce inflammation associated with certain autoimmune disorders, although no investigations for thyroiditis have been reported. Within eight weeks of beginning flaxseed oil supplements, TSH levels normalized, but fell somewhat when flaxseed was decreased and PTU discontinued. During another pregnancy, plasma TSH normalized, but was again suppressed by four weeks postpartum, then undetectable by four months. This time, flaxseed supplementation alone coincided with TSH normalization. Omega-3 fatty acids should be investigated as a potential treatment for autoimmune thyroid disease

A Theoretical Analysis of Two-Stage Recommendation for Cold-Start Collaborative Filtering

In this paper, we present a theoretical framework for tackling the cold-start collaborative filtering problem, where unknown targets (items or users) keep coming to the system, and there is a limited number of resources (users or items) that can be allocated and related to them. The solution requires a trade-off between exploitation and exploration as with the limited recommendation opportunities, we need to, on one hand, allocate the most relevant resources right away, but, on the other hand, it is also necessary to allocate resources that are useful for learning the target's properties in order to recommend more relevant ones in the future. In this paper, we study a simple two-stage recommendation combining a sequential and a batch solution together. We first model the problem with the partially observable Markov decision process (POMDP) and provide an exact solution. Then, through an in-depth analysis over the POMDP value iteration solution, we identify that an exact solution can be abstracted as selecting resources that are not only highly relevant to the target according to the initial-stage information, but also highly correlated, either positively or negatively, with other potential resources for the next stage. With this finding, we propose an approximate solution to ease the intractability of the exact solution. Our initial results on synthetic data and the Movie Lens 100K dataset confirm the performance gains of our theoretical development and analysis

Age related differences in anxiety-like behavior and amygdalar CCL2 responsiveness to stress following alcohol withdrawal

Behavioral and neuroimmune vulnerability to withdrawal from chronic alcohol varies with age. The relation of anxiety-like behavior to amygdalar CCL2 responses following stress after withdrawal from chronic intermittent alcohol (CIA) was investigated in adolescent and adult rats

Micro-PIXE with 3.5 MeV protons for the study of low copper concentrations in atherosclerotic artery

The onset and progression of many degenerative diseases including atherosclerosis, have been shown to directly link to the presence/absence of certain metal ions. Consequently, the detection of these ions in tissues may improve the understanding of the driving pathophysiology. The Cu content during atherosclerosis development has not been studied due to its low concentration involved. In this work, the Cu level in atherosclerotic rabbit tissue is determined using PIXE with a 3.5 MeV proton beam. The arteries of three animal groups fed with different diets were studied: group 1, rabbits on normal standard diet, group 2, on High Fat Diet (HFD) and group 3, on HFD + Zinc diet. Zinc supplement has been proven to inhibit the beginning of atherosclerotic lesion. The result of this study shows that the Cu levels in all the atherosclerotic lesions were lower than that in the arterial walls of the samples in HFD groupThis work has been partially funded by a UAM-Banco de Santander Interuniversity Cooperation with Asia Grant (2017–2018) and by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacióny Universidades (CTQ2017-84309-C2-2-R

Inorganic nitrate supplementation improves muscle oxygenation, O2 uptake kinetics and exercise tolerance at high but not low pedal rates

Copyright © 2014, Journal of Applied PhysiologyWe tested the hypothesis that inorganic nitrate (NO3-) supplementation would improve muscle oxygenation, pulmonary O2 uptake (VO2) kinetics and exercise tolerance (Tlim) to a greater extent when cycling at high compared low pedal rates. In a randomized, placebo-controlled, cross-over study, seven subjects (mean ± SD, age 21 ± 2 yr, body mass 86 ± 10 kg) completed severe-intensity step cycle tests at pedal cadences of 35 rpm and 115 rpm during separate 9 day supplementation periods with NO3--rich beetroot juice (BR; providing 8.4 mmol NO3-∙day-1) and placebo (PLA). Compared to PLA, plasma nitrite concentration increased 178% with BR (P0.05). However, when cycling at 115 rpm, muscle [O2Hb] was higher at baseline and throughout exercise, phase II VO2 kinetics was faster (47 ± 16 s vs. 61 ± 25 s; P<0.05) and Tlim was greater (362 ± 137 s vs. 297 ± 79 s; P<0.05) with BR compared to PLA. These results suggest that short-term BR supplementation can increase muscle oxygenation, expedite the adjustment of oxidative metabolism and enhance exercise tolerance when cycling at a high, but not a low, pedal cadence in healthy recreationally-active subjects. These findings support recent observations that NO3- supplementation may be particularly effective at improving physiological and functional responses in type II muscle fibers

Mechanistic and Functional Divergence Between Thyrotropin-releasing Hormone and RO 15-4513 Interactions with Ethanol

Both thyrotropin-releasing hormone (TRH) and RO 15-4513 antagonize ethanol-induced depression, but this common property does not infer that both compounds share similar mechanisms of action. In the present studies, both TRH (30 mg/kg, i.p.) and RO 15-4513 (10 mg/kg, i.p.) reversed ethanol-induced depression of locomotor activity, in accord with previous reports. However, the benzodiazepine antagonist, RO 15-1788, blocked this action of RO 15-4513, while exerting no effect on the analeptic action of TRH. Using a model of seizure activity electrically elicited from the inferior colliculus, ethanol exerted a dose-related attenuation of seizure activity. This anticonvulsant action of ethanol was not altered by TRH (30 mg/kg, i.p.), but RO 15-4513 (3 mg/kg) reversed the effect of the 0.5, but not the 1.0 g/kg, dose of ethanol. In addition, pretreatment with RO 15-4513 (1 or 3 mg/kg, i.p.), but not TRH (30 mg/kg, i.p.), caused seizure generalization into the forebrain following inferior collicular stimulation, further verifying the proconvulsant properties of RO 15-4513. In conclusion, the analeptic action of TRH appears independent of benzodiazepine activity, and in contrast to RO 15-4513, TRH does not exhibit proconvulsant properties. Furthermore, because TRH did not antagonize both depressant actions of ethanol studied, it appears unlikely that TRH directly interacts with the molecular basis of ethanol action