7 research outputs found
Aortic elastic properties and left ventricular diastolic function in patients with Adamantiades-Behcet's disease
OBJECTIVES We investigated whether Adamantiades-Behcet’s disease (ABD)
is related to impaired aortic (Ao) elastic properties and left
ventricular (LV) function.
BACKGROUND Adamantiades-Behcet’s disease is an inflammatory disorder
characterized by vasculitis leading to vascular complications and,
rarely, myocarditis.
METHODS We studied 82 patients with ABD (age: 40 +/- 12 years) and 24
normal control subjects by echocardiography. Abdominal Ao diameter
(mm/m(2)) and Ao elastic indexes-namely, Ao strain (%), distensibility
(cm(2) x dyn(-1) x 10(-6)), stiffness index, and pressure strain modulus
(Ep) (cm(2) x dyn(-1) x 10(-6))-were calculated from the
echocardiographically derived thoracic Ao diameters (mm/m(2)), and the
measurement of pulse pressure obtained by cuff sphygmomanometry.
Isovolumic relaxation time (TVRT) (ms), deceleration time (DT) (ms), and
flow propagation velocity (FPV) (cm/s) were measured by Doppler
echocardiography to assess diastolic LV function. The duration of
disease and presence of vascular complications were noted.
RESULTS Patients versus control subjects had increased Ao, diameters (p
< 0.01), lower mean Ao strain and distensibility (4 vs. 9 and 1.4 vs.
3.4, respectively, p < 0.01), higher mean aortic stiffness index and Ep
(15.6 vs. 6 and 1.17 vs. 0.44, respectively, p < 0.01), and impaired
IVRT and FPV (p < 0.01). Aortic function indexes were related to the
duration of disease (p < 0.01) and increased DT (p < 0.01). Deceleration
time >190 ms predicted vascular complications with 80% sensitivity and
71% specificity (odds ratio 6.52 [confidence interval: 2.23 to
19.03]).
CONCLUSION Aortic elastic proper-ties and diastolic LV function are
impaired in patients with ABD and are interrelated. The link between
diastolic LV dysfunction and vascular complications suggests the
presence of a common pathophysiologic pathway and provides a possible
marker of risk for vascular disease
Stochastic dietary restriction using a Markov-chain feeding protocol elicits complex, life history response in medflies
Lifespan in individually housed medflies (virgins of both sexes) and daily reproduction for females were studied following one of 12 dietary restriction (DR) treatments in which the availability of high-quality food (yeast–sugar mixture) for each fly was based on a Markov chain feeding scheme – a stochastic dietary regime which specifies that the future dietary state depends only on the present dietary state and not on the path by which the present state was achieved. The stochastic treatments consisted of a combination of one of four values of a ‘discovery’ parameter and one of three values of a ‘persistence’ parameter. The results supported the hypotheses that: (i) longevity is extended in most medfly cohorts subject to stochastic DR; and (ii) longevity is more affected by the patch discovery than the patch persistence parameter. One of the main conclusions of the study is that, in combination with the results of earlier dietary restriction studies on the medfly, the results reinforce the concept that the details of the dietary restriction protocols have a profound impact on the sign and magnitude of the longevity extension relative to ad libitum cohorts and that a deeper understanding of the effect of food restriction on longevity is not possible without an understanding of its effect on reproduction.
PubMed Central versio
Global assessment of seasonal potential distribution of Mediterranean fruit fly, Ceratitis capitata (Diptera: Tephritidae)
The Mediterranean fruit fly (Medfly) is one of the world's most economically damaging pests. It displays highly seasonal population dynamics, and the environmental conditions suitable for its abundance are not constant throughout the year in most places. An extensive literature search was performed to obtain the most comprehensive data on the historical and contemporary spatio-temporal occurrence of the pest globally. The database constructed contained 2328 unique geo-located entries on Medfly detection sites from 43 countries and nearly 500 unique localities, as well as information on hosts, life stages and capture method. Of these, 125 localities had information on the month when Medfly was recorded and these data were complemented by additional material found in comprehensive databases available online. Records from 1980 until present were used for medfly environmental niche modeling. Maximum Entropy Algorithm (MaxEnt) and a set of seasonally varying environmental covariates were used to predict the fundamental niche of the Medfly on a global scale. Three seasonal maps were also produced: January-April, May-August and September-December. Models performed significantly better than random achieving high accuracy scores, indicating a good discrimination of suitable versus unsuitable areas for the presence of the species