Multiple effects of bariatric surgery on human biochemical status

Beneficial effect of bariatric surgery is expressed not only in reducing body weight, but also in improving the functioning of the body as a whole. On the one hand, numerous studies devoted to the investigations of specific mechanisms of the influence of bariatric surgery on the general condition of an organism testify to the enormous interest of scientists in this problem. On the other hand, the range of changes is so vast that it covers almost all physiological and biochemical processes. The most noticeable response to bariatric surgery is from the digestive (including the composition of the microbiota), immune (reducing the level of systemic and local inflammation), cardiovascular (reducing the risks of atherosclerosis and other diseases) systems. Partial or complete compensation of type 2 diabetes mellitus and metabolic syndrome also occurs. Among the variety of data, there is insufficient research on only standard biomarkers: leptin, C-reactive protein, interleukin 6, etc. A detailed study of the profiles of both circulating biomarkers and local ones is necessary. At the same time, it is obligate to continue to accumulate evidence on the positive effect of bariatric surgery, since this type of surgical intervention has come into practice relatively recently. Unfortunately, at the present time in Russia bariatric surgery is not an affordable and popular treatment for morbid obesity (MO). Nevertheless, it is extremely important to change the current situation, since bariatric treatment is an optimal and effective solution to socially significant diseases such as MO or type 2 diabetes mellitus

SARS-CoV-2 Impact on Red Blood Cell Morphology

Severe COVID-19 alters the biochemical and morphological characteristics of blood cells in a wide variety of ways. To date, however, the vast majority of research has been devoted to the study of leukocytes, while erythrocyte morphological changes have received significantly less attention. The aim of this research was to identify erythrocyte morphology abnormalities that occur in COVID-19, compare the number of different poikilocyte types, and measure erythrocyte sizes to provide data on size dispersion. Red blood cells obtained from 6 control donors (800–2200 cells per donor) and 5 COVID-19 patients (800–1900 cells per patient) were examined using low-voltage scanning electron microscopy. We did not discover any forms of erythrocyte morphology abnormalities that would be specific to COVID-19. Among COVID-19 patients, we observed an increase in the number of acanthocytes (p = 0.01) and a decrease in the number of spherocytes (p = 0.03). In addition, our research demonstrates that COVID-19 causes an increase in the median (p = 0.004) and interquartile range (p = 0.009) when assessing erythrocyte size. The limitation of our study is a small number of participants