28 research outputs found
Effect of air pollution on diabetes and cardiovascular diseases in São Paulo, Brazil
Type 2 diabetes increases the risk of cardiovascular mortality and these patients, even without previous myocardial infarction, run the risk of fatal coronary heart disease similar to non-diabetic patients surviving myocardial infarction. There is evidence showing that particulate matter air pollution is associated with increases in cardiopulmonary morbidity and mortality. The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of diabetes mellitus on the association of air pollution with cardiovascular emergency room visits in a tertiary referral hospital in the city of São Paulo. Using a time-series approach, and adopting generalized linear Poisson regression models, we assessed the effect of daily variations in PM10, CO, NO2, SO2, and O3 on the daily number of emergency room visits for cardiovascular diseases in diabetic and non-diabetic patients from 2001 to 2003. A semi-parametric smoother (natural spline) was adopted to control long-term trends, linear term seasonal usage and weather variables. In this period, 45,000 cardiovascular emergency room visits were registered. The observed increase in interquartile range within the 2-day moving average of 8.0 µg/m³ SO2 was associated with 7.0% (95%CI: 4.0-11.0) and 20.0% (95%CI: 5.0-44.0) increases in cardiovascular disease emergency room visits by non-diabetic and diabetic groups, respectively. These data indicate that air pollution causes an increase of cardiovascular emergency room visits, and that diabetic patients are extremely susceptible to the adverse effects of air pollution on their health conditions.Disciplina de Clínica Médica, Departamento de MedicinaUniversidade de São Paulo - Laboratório de Poluição Atmosférica Experimental, Faculdade de Medicina, USP (FM-USP
Reduced SLIT2 is associated with increased cell proliferation and arsenic trioxide resistance in acute promyelocytic Leukemia
The SLIT-ROBO axis plays an important role in normal stem-cell biology, with possible
repercussions on cancer stem cell emergence. Although the Promyelocytic Leukemia (PML) protein
can regulate SLIT2 expression in the central nervous system, little is known about SLIT2 in acute
promyelocytic leukemia. Hence, we aimed to investigate the levels of SLIT2 in acute promyelocytic
leukemia (APL) and assess its biological activity in vitro and in vivo. Our analysis indicated that
blasts with SLIT2high transcript levels were associated with cell cycle arrest, while SLIT2low APL
blasts displayed a more stem-cell like phenotype. In a retrospective analysis using a cohort of
patients treated with all-trans retinoic acid (ATRA) and anthracyclines, high SLIT2 expression was
correlated with reduced leukocyte count (p = 0.024), and independently associated with improved
overall survival (hazard ratio: 0.94; 95% confidence interval: 0.92–0.97; p < 0.001). Functionally,
SLIT2-knockdown in primary APL blasts and cell lines led to increased cell proliferation and resistance
to arsenic trioxide induced apoptosis. Finally, in vivo transplant of Slit2-silenced primary APL blasts
promoted increased leukocyte count (p = 0.001) and decreased overall survival (p = 0.002) compared
with the control. In summary, our data highlight the tumor suppressive function of SLIT2 in APL and
its deteriorating effects on disease progression when downregulated