A newly developed snack effective for enhancing bone volume

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The incidence of primary osteoporosis is higher in Japan than in USA and European countries. Recently, the importance of preventive medicine has been gradually recognized in the field of orthopaedic surgery with a concept that peak bone mass should be increased in childhood as much as possible for the prevention of osteoporosis. Under such background, we have developed a new bean snack with an aim to improve bone volume loss. In this study, we examined the effects of a newly developed snack on bone volume and density in osteoporosis model mice.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Orchiectomy (ORX) and ovariectomy (OVX) were performed for C57BL/6J mice of twelve-week-old (Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbar, ME, USA) were used in this experiment. We prepared and given three types of powder diet <it>e.g.</it>: normal calcium diet (NCD, Ca: 0.9%, Clea Japan Co., Tokyo, Japan), low calcium diet (LCD, Ca: 0.63%, Clea Japan Co.,) and special diet (SCD, Ca: 0.9%). Eighteen weeks after surgery, all the animals were sacrified and prepared for histomorphometric analysis to quantify bone density and bone mineral content.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>As a result of histomorphometric examination, SCD was revealed to enhance bone volume irrespective of age and sex. The bone density was increased significantly in osteoporosis model mice fed the newly developmental snack as compared with the control mice. The bone mineral content was also enhanced significantly. These phenomena were revealed in both sexes.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>It is shown that the newly developed bean snack is highly effective for the improvement of bone volume loss irrespective of sex. We demonstrated that newly developmental snack supplements may be a useful preventive measure for Japanese whose bone mineral density values are less than the ideal condition.</p

Detection of SARS-CoV-2 using qRT-PCR in saliva obtained from asymptomatic or mild COVID-19 patients, comparative analysis with matched nasopharyngeal samples

Objectives: The accurate detection of severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is essential for the diagnosis of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). We compared the quantitative RT-PCR results between nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva specimens.Methods: A COVID-19 outbreak occurred on a cruise ship at Nagasaki port, Japan. We obtained 123 nasopharyngeal swabs and saliva each from asymptomatic or mild patients in the late phase of infection.Results: The intervals from the diagnosis to the sampling were 25.5 days for nasopharyngeal swabs and 28.9 days for saliva. The positive rate was 19.5% (24/123) for nasopharyngeal swabs and 38.2% (47/123) for saliva (P = 0.48). The quantified viral copies (mean ± SEM copies/5 μl) were 9.3±2.6 in nasopharyngeal swabs and 920±850 in saliva (P = 0.0006).Conclusions: The advantages of saliva specimens include positive rate improvement and accurate viral load detection. Saliva may be used as a reliable sample for SARS-CoV-2 detection

Vascular Endothelial Growth Factor (VEGF)の破骨細胞分化誘導能

広島大学(Hiroshima University)博士(歯学)Dentistrydoctora

咀嚼による求心性刺激が海馬領域の神経細胞の動態ならびに記憶・学習機能に及ぼす影響

研究期間:平成13-14年度 ; 研究種目:基盤研究B2 ; 課題番号:1347045