Low adiponectin blood concentration predicts left ventricular remodeling after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention

Background: Left ventricular remodeling (LVR), an increase in left ventricular end-diastolic volume index &#8805; 20%, is an adverse consequence of myocardial infarction. The aim of this study was to assess the association between LVR and adiponectin, which has been shown to protect against myocardial ischemia-reperfusion injury. Methods: In 75 patients echocardiographic examination was performed one year after ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction, successfully treated with primary percutaneous coronary intervention (pPCI). Two groups of patients were analyzed: those with LVR (n = 15) and those without LVR (n = 60). Results: The predictors of LVR were: anterior myocardial infarction, glucose at admission, baseline C-reactive protein, adiponectin, and echocardiographic parameters: left ventricular end-diastolic and end-systolic volume indices, ejection fraction < 40% and left ventricular wall motion score index (WMSI) at discharge. On multivariable regression analysis, lower adiponectin level (OR = 0.67, 95% CI 0.49-0.91, p < 0.05) and higher WMSI (OR = 20.14, 95% CI 2.62-154.82, p < 0.01) were the only independent negative predictors of LVR. The optimal cut-off for adiponectin for predicting LVR was &#8804; 4.7 mg/mL (sensitivity: 73%, specificity: 85%) and this level increased the risk of LVR 15-fold (95% CI 4.05-59.87, p = 0.0001). Conclusions: Baseline low blood adiponectin concentration, along with WMSI, can be considered as a predictor of the LVR in male patients one year after myocardial infarction and pPCI. (Cardiol J 2010; 17, 1: 49-56

Plasma renin activity, serum aldosterone concentration and selected organ damage indices in essential arterial hypertension

Introduction: The aim of this study was to assess the relations between plasma renin activity (PRA), serum aldosterone concentration (ALDO) and selected asymptomatic organ damage (AOD) indices in mild primary arterial hypertension (AH). Material and methods: We measured PRA, ALDO, and selected AOD indices (carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), central aortic pulse pressure (cPP), estimated glomerular filtration rate (eGFR)) in 122 patients with untreated AH. Results: Patients with high PRA (≥ 0.65 ng/ml/h) were characterized by lower plasma sodium and aldosterone to renin ratio (ARR), higher ALDO, but a similar level of AOD indices compared to patients with low PRA. cfPWV (p = 0.04) and cPP (p = 0.019) increased with ARR, while eGFR decreased with ALDO (p = 0.008). Only eGFR was independently correlated with ALDO. In subjects with simultaneously high PRA and ARR values, we found significantly higher cfPWV (p = 0.02) and cPP (p = 0.04) and lower eGFR (p = 0.02) than in those with high PRA but low ARR values. Conclusions: Assessment of the influence of the renin-angiotensin-aldosterone system (RAAS) on AOD should include the relationship between renin and aldosterone. The PRA itself has no predictive value for AOD. More advanced arterial stiffness and renal impairment are associated with increased PRA and ARR. The RAAS activity might be useful in AOD prediction and hypertension severity assessment

Quantifying origin and character of long-range correlations in narrative texts

In natural language using short sentences is considered efficient for communication. However, a text composed exclusively of such sentences looks technical and reads boring. A text composed of long ones, on the other hand, demands significantly more effort for comprehension. Studying characteristics of the sentence length variability (SLV) in a large corpus of world-famous literary texts shows that an appealing and aesthetic optimum appears somewhere in between and involves selfsimilar, cascade-like alternation of various lengths sentences. A related quantitative observation is that the power spectra S(f) of thus characterized SLV universally develop a convincing `1/f^beta' scaling with the average exponent beta =~ 1/2, close to what has been identified before in musical compositions or in the brain waves. An overwhelming majority of the studied texts simply obeys such fractal attributes but especially spectacular in this respect are hypertext-like, "stream of consciousness" novels. In addition, they appear to develop structures characteristic of irreducibly interwoven sets of fractals called multifractals. Scaling of S(f) in the present context implies existence of the long-range correlations in texts and appearance of multifractality indicates that they carry even a nonlinear component. A distinct role of the full stops in inducing the long-range correlations in texts is evidenced by the fact that the above quantitative characteristics on the long-range correlations manifest themselves in variation of the full stops recurrence times along texts, thus in SLV, but to a much lesser degree in the recurrence times of the most frequent words. In this latter case the nonlinear correlations, thus multifractality, disappear even completely for all the texts considered. Treated as one extra word, the full stops at the same time appear to obey the Zipfian rank-frequency distribution, however.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Information Science

Selected matrix metalloproteinases activity and hypertension-mediated organ damage in relation to uric acid serum level

Background: Atherosclerosis is as a systemic inflammatory disease associated with the activation of many mediators, including matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), and may be amplified by abnormal high serum uric acid (UA) concentration (hyperuricemia, HU). The aim of the study was to determine the relationship between serum UA concentration and activity of MMPs and their correlation with the hypertension-mediated organ damage (HMOD) intensity. Methods: 109 patients untreated with antihypertensive, hypolipemic or urate-lowering drugs with diagnosed stage 1–2 essential hypertension were included in this study. In all participants blood pressure (BP) was measured, carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (PWV), intima–media thickness (IMT),  echocardiography and blood tests including UA, lipids and serum concentrations of MMPs (1, 2, 3, 9) were observed. The participants were divided into hyper- and normuricemic groups. Results: Uric acid concentration in the whole study group positively correlated with some HMOD parameters (IMT, PWV, left ventricular mass index, left atrial dimension). Among the studied metalloproteinases only MMP-3 activity positively correlated with serum UA concentration independently of age, body mass index and serum lipids (R2 = 0.11, p = 0.048). Multivariate regression analysis showed positive association between IMT and BP, UA concentration and MMP-3 activity, independently of waist circumference and serum lipids (R2 = 0.328, p &lt; 0.002). Patients with HU were characterized by higher activity of MMP-3 than those without (19.41 [14.45; 21.74] vs. 13.98 [9.52; 18.97] ng/mL, p = 0.016). Conclusions: The present results may support the thesis that UA and the increased by UA activity of MMPs may take part in the development of HMOD, especially IMT