Lipid Composition of the Human Eye: Are Red Blood Cells a Good Mirror of Retinal and Optic Nerve Fatty Acids?

International audienceBACKGROUND: The assessment of blood lipids is very frequent in clinical research as it is assumed to reflect the lipid composition of peripheral tissues. Even well accepted such relationships have never been clearly established. This is particularly true in ophthalmology where the use of blood lipids has become very common following recent data linking lipid intake to ocular health and disease. In the present study, we wanted to determine in humans whether a lipidomic approach based on red blood cells could reveal associations between circulating and tissue lipid profiles. To check if the analytical sensitivity may be of importance in such analyses, we have used a double approach for lipidomics. METHODOLOGY AND PRINCIPAL FINDINGS: Red blood cells, retinas and optic nerves were collected from 9 human donors. The lipidomic analyses on tissues consisted in gas chromatography and liquid chromatography coupled to an electrospray ionization source-mass spectrometer (LC-ESI-MS). Gas chromatography did not reveal any relevant association between circulating and ocular fatty acids except for arachidonic acid whose circulating amounts were positively associated with its levels in the retina and in the optic nerve. In contrast, several significant associations emerged from LC-ESI-MS analyses. Particularly, lipid entities in red blood cells were positively or negatively associated with representative pools of retinal docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), retinal very-long chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC-PUFA) or optic nerve plasmalogens. CONCLUSIONS AND SIGNIFICANCE: LC-ESI-MS is more appropriate than gas chromatography for lipidomics on red blood cells, and further extrapolation to ocular lipids. The several individual lipid species we have identified are good candidates to represent circulating biomarkers of ocular lipids. However, further investigation is needed before considering them as indexes of disease risk and before using them in clinical studies on optic nerve neuropathies or retinal diseases displaying photoreceptors degeneration

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The sociological significance of domestic violence: Tensions, paradoxes and implications

Sociology and sociological theory has been effective in analyzing societal and institutional conflict and violence, but less so the specifics of interpersonal violence. This article examines the sociological significance of domestic violence. This relationship, or sometimes its neglect, is underlain by several tensions and paradoxes, which in turn have broader implications for sociology and sociological theory. These matters are examined through: the possible paradox of violence and intimacy in the phenomenon of domestic violence; the importance of the naming and framing of such violence; explanation, responsibility and agency; and gender, hegemony and discourse in men’s violence to known women, as part of a multifaceted power approach

The Perpetration of Abuse in Intimate Relationships: Does Religion Make a Difference?

This chapter examines the relationship between religion and perpetration of intimate partner violence and abuse. The chapter opens with a brief overview of the problem, including several risk factors that have been examined extensively in empirical research. Very little research has examined how religion may affect likelihood of intimate partner violence and abuse perpetration; despite the fact that there are several reasons to hypothesize that religion could serve as either a protective or a risk factor. We focus largely on the religiosity construct and review the research literature on religiosity and intimate partner violence and abuse, noting the limitations of many of the studies, including narrow operationalizations of religiosity. We then turn to an examination of studies that use multidimensional measures of religiosity as well as research that indicates that religiosity per se is less important in predicting intimate partner violence and abuse perpetration than is style of religious self-regulation, that is, introjected versus identified religious self-regulation. We highlight some of the critical gaps in empirical research on the relationship between religion and intimate partner violence and abuse perpetration and identify directions for future research in this area