2,721 research outputs found
Associations of retinol-binding protein 4 with oxidative stress, inflammatory markers, and metabolic syndrome in a middle-aged and elderly Chinese population
BACKGROUND: Retinol-binding protein 4 (RBP4), a novel adipokine secreted by adipocytes and the liver, has elevated levels in type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). However, its association with human metabolic diseases remains controversial. The present study was designed to investigate the associations of plasma RBP4 levels with oxidative stress, inflammatory markers, and metabolic syndrome (MetS) in a Chinese population. METHOD: We evaluated plasma RBP4 levels in a cross-sectional sample of 1748 Chinese men and women aged 50 to 70 years in Guangzhou using an in-house developed and validated sandwich ELISA. Plasma glucose, insulin, lipid profile, serum adiponectin, adipocyte fatty acid-binding protein (A-FABP), 8-iso-prostaglandin F2α (8-iso PGF2α), 13-(S)-hydroxyoctadecadienoic acid (13-HODE), high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hsCRP), interleukin 6 (IL6), monocyte chemotactic protein 1 (MCP1) and tumor necrosis factor α (TNFα) were all measured. MetS was defined according to the updated National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III criteria for Asian Americans. RESULTS: Circulating RBP4 levels were positively correlated with A-FABP (r = 0.104, P < 0.001), 8-iso PGF2α (0.236, P < 0.001), and 13-HODE (0.204, P < 0.001) and were inversely correlated with HDL cholesterol (r = −0.072, P = 0.004). After multivariable adjustment, the RBP4 levels were strongly associated with MetS and its components. The ORs (95% CIs) for the comparisons of the extreme quartiles of RBP4 were 3.46 (2.87, 4.42) for MetS, 5.92 (4.47, 8.02) for hypertriglyceridemia, 1.42 (1.11, 1.68) for reduced HDL cholesterol, 1.87 (1.48, 2.36) for central obesity and 2.74 (2.15, 3.36) for hyperglycemia (all P < 0.001). When we further controlled for adipokines, markers of oxidative stress and proinflammatory response, the association of RBP4 with central obesity was abolished but not the association with other MetS components. CONCLUSIONS: Plasma RBP4 levels are associated with an adverse profile of oxidative stress and inflammatory markers and an increased risk of MetS in this Chinese population. These associations are independent of conventional risk factors
Natural plant polyphenols for alleviating oxidative damage in man: Current status and future perspectives
The balance between oxidation and reduction is important for maintaining a healthy biological system. Oxidative stress results from an imbalance between excessive formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and/or reactive nitrogen species (RNS) and limited endogenous defense systems, and this imbalance can adversely alter lipids, proteins and DNA, causing a number of human diseases. Thus, exogenous antioxidants that can neutralize the effect of free radicals are needed to diminish the cumulative effects of oxidative damage over human life span. Current research reveals that phenolic compounds in plants possess high antioxidant activity and free radical scavenging capacity and can prevent the body from oxidative damage over human life span. This review focuses on the present understanding of free radicals and antioxidants and their importance in human health and disease. Information about the chemical features of free radicals as well as their deleterious effects on cell structures is reviewed. The chemical structure and anti-oxidative mechanisms of essential polyphenols and their potential health benefits are presented. In addition, the limitation of natural antioxidants and a perspective on likely future trends in this field are also discussed.Keywords: Free radicals, Oxidative stress, Natural antioxidants, Polyphenols, Health benefits, Reactive oxygen species, Reactive nitrogen specie
The in the single Cabibbo-suppressed process
In this work, we have investigated the Cabibbo-suppressed process , by taking into account the intermediate scalar state
, which could be dynamically generated from the -wave
pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar interaction within the chiral unitary approach. We
have calculated the invariant mass distribution, and found that
there is a significant structure associated to the . We have also
roughly estimated the branching fraction . We encourage our experimental colleagues to measure the
process for searching for the state
signal in this reaction.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure
New application of decomposition of U(1) gauge potential:Aharonov-Bohm effect and Anderson-Higgs mechanism
In this paper we study the Aharonov-Bohm (A-B) effect and Anderson-Higgs
mechanism in Ginzburg-Landau model of superconductors from the perspective of
the decomposition of U(1) gauge potential. By the Helmholtz theorem, we derive
exactly the expression of the transverse gauge potential in A-B
experiment, which is gauge-invariant and physical. For the case of a bulk
superconductor, we find that the gradient of the total phase field
provides the longitudinal component , which reflects the
Anderson-Higgs mechanism. For the case of a superconductor ring, the gradient
of the longitudinal phase field provides the longitudinal component
, while the transverse phase field produces
new physical effects such as the flux quantization inside a superconducting
ring.Comment: 6 pages, no figures, final version to appear in Modern Physics
Letters
Saliency in Augmented Reality
With the rapid development of multimedia technology, Augmented Reality (AR)
has become a promising next-generation mobile platform. The primary theory
underlying AR is human visual confusion, which allows users to perceive the
real-world scenes and augmented contents (virtual-world scenes) simultaneously
by superimposing them together. To achieve good Quality of Experience (QoE), it
is important to understand the interaction between two scenarios, and
harmoniously display AR contents. However, studies on how this superimposition
will influence the human visual attention are lacking. Therefore, in this
paper, we mainly analyze the interaction effect between background (BG) scenes
and AR contents, and study the saliency prediction problem in AR. Specifically,
we first construct a Saliency in AR Dataset (SARD), which contains 450 BG
images, 450 AR images, as well as 1350 superimposed images generated by
superimposing BG and AR images in pair with three mixing levels. A large-scale
eye-tracking experiment among 60 subjects is conducted to collect eye movement
data. To better predict the saliency in AR, we propose a vector quantized
saliency prediction method and generalize it for AR saliency prediction. For
comparison, three benchmark methods are proposed and evaluated together with
our proposed method on our SARD. Experimental results demonstrate the
superiority of our proposed method on both of the common saliency prediction
problem and the AR saliency prediction problem over benchmark methods. Our data
collection methodology, dataset, benchmark methods, and proposed saliency
models will be publicly available to facilitate future research
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