Modulation of N-methyl-N-nitrosourea induced mammary tumors in Sprague–Dawley rats by combination of lysine, proline, arginine, ascorbic acid and green tea extract

INTRODUCTION: The limited ability of current treatments to control metastasis and the proposed antitumor properties of specific nutrients prompted us to examine the effect of a specific formulation (nutrient supplement [NS]) of lysine, proline, arginine, ascorbic acid, and green tea extract in vivo on the development of N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU)-induced mammary tumors in rats. METHODS: A single intraperitoneal dose of MNU was injected into each of 20 female Sprague–Dawley rats (aged 50 days) to induce tumors. Two weeks after MNU treatment, a time by which the animals had recovered from MNU-induced toxicity, the rats were divided into two groups. Rats in group 1 (n = 10) were fed Purina chow diet, whereas those in group 2 (n = 10) were fed the same diet supplemented with 0.5% NS. After a further 24 weeks, the rats were killed and tumors were excised and processed. RESULTS: NS reduced the incidence of MNU-induced mammary tumors and the number of tumors by 68.4%, and the tumor burden by 60.5%. The inhibitory effect of NS was also reflected by decreased tumor weight; the tumor weights per rat and per group were decreased by 41% and 78%, respectively. In addition, 30% of the control rats developed ulcerated tumors, in contrast to 10% in the nutrient supplemented rats. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the specific formulation of lysine, proline, arginine, ascorbic acid, and green tea extract tested significantly reduces the incidence and growth of MNU-induced mammary tumors, and therefore has strong potential as a useful therapeutic regimen for inhibiting breast cancer development

Global patient outcomes after elective surgery: prospective cohort study in 27 low-, middle- and high-income countries.

BACKGROUND: As global initiatives increase patient access to surgical treatments, there remains a need to understand the adverse effects of surgery and define appropriate levels of perioperative care. METHODS: We designed a prospective international 7-day cohort study of outcomes following elective adult inpatient surgery in 27 countries. The primary outcome was in-hospital complications. Secondary outcomes were death following a complication (failure to rescue) and death in hospital. Process measures were admission to critical care immediately after surgery or to treat a complication and duration of hospital stay. A single definition of critical care was used for all countries. RESULTS: A total of 474 hospitals in 19 high-, 7 middle- and 1 low-income country were included in the primary analysis. Data included 44 814 patients with a median hospital stay of 4 (range 2-7) days. A total of 7508 patients (16.8%) developed one or more postoperative complication and 207 died (0.5%). The overall mortality among patients who developed complications was 2.8%. Mortality following complications ranged from 2.4% for pulmonary embolism to 43.9% for cardiac arrest. A total of 4360 (9.7%) patients were admitted to a critical care unit as routine immediately after surgery, of whom 2198 (50.4%) developed a complication, with 105 (2.4%) deaths. A total of 1233 patients (16.4%) were admitted to a critical care unit to treat complications, with 119 (9.7%) deaths. Despite lower baseline risk, outcomes were similar in low- and middle-income compared with high-income countries. CONCLUSIONS: Poor patient outcomes are common after inpatient surgery. Global initiatives to increase access to surgical treatments should also address the need for safe perioperative care. STUDY REGISTRATION: ISRCTN5181700

Weight Gains and Plasma Amino Acid Titers as Criteria for Estimating the Availability of Amino Acids in Soybean Oil Meal

156 p.Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1970.U of I OnlyRestricted to the U of I community idenfinitely during batch ingest of legacy ETD

Understanding oily wastewater treatment via membrane distillation

Membrane distillation (MD) is an emerging green technology, but very few reports are available on its use for treating oily feeds, despite produced water representing a significant source of oily wastewater. Accordingly, this study was targeted at understanding the primary impediments of oily water MD by systematically investigating the influence of the key components (namely, oil-in-water emulsion, surfactant and salt) in such feeds. When the feed contained all three components typical in produced water, the MD performance severely deteriorated in terms of permeate flux and quality. Interestingly, for feeds containing oil or SDS or NaCl alone, the MD performance was reasonable, which indicates each component on its own did not impact the MD process significantly. Furthermore, the performance was also reasonable when the feed contained oil and NaCl, and improved when the feed contained oil and SDS. The adverse impact on the MD process was thereby traced to the combined presence of SDS and NaCl. Even in the absence of oil, increasing the concentrations of SDS and NaCl in the feed progressively deteriorated the permeate flux and quality. Therefore, to use MD for treating oily feeds necessitates a pre-treatment step to remove or significantly dilute either the surfactant or the salt. More understanding of the interaction between NaCl and SDS via molecular dynamics simulations would be useful to not only provide information on the interaction strength but also on means to circumvent such issues.MOE (Min. of Education, S’pore)EDB (Economic Devt. Board, S’pore