Effect of Seyoeum on Obesity, Insulin Resistance, and Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease of High-Fat Diet-Fed C57BL/6 Mice

Background. This study was performed to evaluate the effect of Seyoeum (SYE), a novel herbal meal replacement, on insulin resistance and nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) in obese mice fed with a high-fat diet (HFD). Methods. SYE contained six kinds of herbal powder such as Coix lacryma-jobi, Oryza sativa, Sesamum indicum, Glycine max, Liriope platyphylla, and Dioscorea batatas. Male C57BL/6 mice were divided into four groups: normal chow (NC), HFD, SYE, and HFD plus SYE (HFD + SYE). The mice in groups other than NC were fed HFD for 9 weeks to induce obesity and then were fed each diet for 6 weeks. Clinical markers related to obesity, diabetes, and NAFLD were examined and gene expressions related to inflammation and insulin receptor were determined. Results. Compared with HFD group, body weight, serum glucose, serum insulin, HOMA-IR, total cholesterol, triglyceride, epididymal fat pad weight, liver weight, and inflammatory gene expression were significantly reduced in SYE group. Insulin receptor gene expression increased in SYE group. Conclusions. Based on these results, we conclude that SYE improved obesity and insulin resistance in high-fat fed obese mice. Our findings suggest that SYE could be a beneficial meal replacement through these antiobesity and anti-insulin resistance effects

Association between Inflammatory Potential of Diet and Bone-Mineral Density in Korean Postmenopausal Women: Data from Fourth and Fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys

Post menopause is considered a critical period for bone-mass loss. Impaired bone metabolism during this phase can increase the risk of fractures in old age. Inflammation is a risk factor for bone health, and diet is a potential source of inflammation. However, few studies have examined the association between the dietary inflammatory index (DII®) and bone-mineral density (BMD) in postmenopausal women in Korea. The objective of this study was to determine, by means of a Korean cross-sectional investigation, whether higher DII scores are associated with decreased BMD in postmenopausal women. To that end, the raw data from the fourth and fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys (KNHANES, 2009–2011) for 2778 postmenopausal women aged over 50 years were analyzed. The subjects’ BMD were measured by dual-energy x-ray absorptiometry, and their DII® scores were calculated from a single 24-h dietary recall. Further, the participants were classified into three groups according to DII® score. Women with more pro-inflammatory diets (i.e., those in the highest tertile of DII®) had significantly lower BMD in the femoral neck as compared with women in the lowest tertile (p for trend \u3c0.05) after adjustment for age, body-mass index (BMI), household income, education status, smoking habits, physical activity, total calcium intake, female-hormone use, age at menopause, and blood vitamin D levels. Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that the odds ratio (OR) of total femur osteopenia/osteoporosis was higher in women in the highest tertile of DII® than in those in the lowest (OR 1.27, 95% CI 1.00-1.62, p for trend \u3c 0.05). This study established that more pro-inflammatory diets might be associated with lower BMD in postmenopausal Korean women

In situ rumen degradability characteristics of rice straw, soybean curd residue and peppermint (Mentha piperita) in Hanwoo steer (Bos Taurus coreanae)

This study was intended to evaluate in situ rumen degradability characteristic of soybean curd residue (SCR) and peppermint compared to rice straw, which are used as a functional feed source for beef cattle for high quality beef production. Two steers were fitted with rumen and duodenum cannulae and in situ degradable and nylon bags were used to assess digestion of rice straw, SCR and peppermint in three replicated experiments. The highly effective dry matter (DM) degradability of peppermint was attributable to the high rate of the a and b fractions. Dry matter disappearance rate of SCR after 48 h was higher (p < 0.05) than that of peppermint. Based on DM disappearance, SCR showed the highest digestibility (p < 0.05). Crude protein disappearance (%) was higher for SCR and peppermint than rice straw (p < 0.05), and neutral detergent fibre disappearance (%) was higher for SCR (p < 0.05). Soybean curd residue and peppermint have great nutritive values as feed sources for ruminants, and using SCR and peppermint would have possibilities for efficient and functional livestock production.Keywords: Beef cattle, digestibility, effective degradability, soybean curd residue, peppermintAfrican Journal of Biotechnology Vol. 12(14), pp. 1710-171

The Association Between Dietary Inflammatory Index (DII) and Cancer Risk in Korea: A Prospective Cohort Study within the KoGES-HEXA Study

Several epidemiological studies have shown that there are consistently positive associations between dietary inflammatory index (DII (R)) scores and cancer incidence in Western populations. However, few DII-cancer studies have been conducted in East Asian populations. In a large cohort representative of the general Korean population, we investigated whether the DII is associated with overall cancer risk. A total of 163,660 participants (56,781 males and 106,879 females) had evaluable data for analyses. This follow-up study was carried out over the course of 7.9 years. DII scores were calculated based on Semi-Quantitative Food-Frequency Questionnaire (SQ-FFQ) data for 106 food items. Cancers were self-reported based on notification by the participants\u27 medical doctors. Multivariable Cox proportional hazard regression was used to estimate hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs). After the follow-up, 1643 incident cases of cancer (520 males and 1123 females) had developed. In a fully adjusted model, women in the highest DII quintile showed a 44% increased risk of getting cancer (HRQ5vsQ1 = 1.44; 95% CI = 1.14-1.82; p-trend = 0.0006), while men showed no apparent association (HRQ5vsQ1 = 0.80; 95% CI = 0.58-1.10). These results indicate that in Korean women, a more pro-inflammatory diet is associated with a higher risk of incident cancer

Hanja alexia with agraphia after left posterior inferior temporal lobe infarction: a case study.

Korean written language is composed of ideogram (Hanja) and phonogram (Hangul), as Japanese consists of Kanji (ideogram) and Kana (phonogram). Dissociation between ideogram and phonogram impairment after brain injury has been reported in Japanese, but few in Korean. We report a 64-yr-old right-handed man who showed alexia with agraphia in Hanja but preserved Hangul reading and writing after a left posterior inferior temporal lobe infarction. Interestingly, the patient was an expert in Hanja; he had been a Hanja calligrapher over 40 yr. However, when presented with 65 basic Chinese letters that are taught in elementary school, his responses were slow both in reading (6.3 sec/letter) and writing (8.8 sec/letter). The rate of correct response was 81.5% (53 out of 65 letters) both in reading and writing. The patient's performances were beyond mean-2SD of those of six age-, sex-, and education-matched controls who correctly read 64.7 out of 65 and wrote 62.5 out of 65 letters with a much shorter reaction time (1.3 sec/letter for reading and 4.0 sec/letter for writing). These findings support the notion that ideogram and phonogram can be mediated in different brain regions and Hanja alexia with agraphia in Korean patients can be associated with a left posterior inferior temporal lesion

Autosomal dominant transmission of complicated hereditary spastic paraplegia due to a dominant negative mutation of KIF1A, SPG30 gene.

KIF1A is a brain-specific anterograde motor protein that transports cargoes towards the plus-ends of microtubules. Many variants of the KIF1A gene have been associated with neurodegenerative diseases and developmental delay. Homozygous mutations of KIF1A have been identified in a recessive subtype of hereditary spastic paraplegia (HSP), SPG30. In addition, KIF1A mutations have been found in pure HSP with autosomal dominant inheritance. Here we report the first case of familial complicated HSP with a KIF1A mutation transmitted in autosomal dominant inheritance. A heterozygous p.T258M mutation in KIF1A was found in a Korean family through targeted exome sequencing. They displayed phenotypes of mild intellectual disability with language delay, epilepsy, optic nerve atrophy, thinning of corpus callosum, periventricular white matter lesion, and microcephaly. A structural modeling revealed that the p.T258M mutation disrupted the binding of KIF1A motor domain to microtubules and its movement along microtubules. Assays of peripheral accumulation and proximal distribution of KIF1A motor indicated that the KIF1A motor domain with p.T258M mutation has reduced motor activity and exerts a dominant negative effect on wild-type KIF1A. These results suggest that the p.T258M mutation suppresses KIF1A motor activity and induces complicated HSP accompanying intellectual disability transmitted in autosomal dominant inheritance. © The Author(s) 20171