Metabolic effects of low glycaemic index diets

The persistence of an epidemic of obesity and type 2 diabetes suggests that new nutritional strategies are needed if the epidemic is to be overcome. A promising nutritional approach suggested by this thematic review is metabolic effect of low glycaemic-index diet

Monounsaturated fatty acid, carbohydrate intake, and diabetes status are associated with arterial pulse pressure

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Diabetes is a global epidemic. Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is one of the most prevalent consequences of diabetes. Nutrition is considered a modifiable risk factor for CVD, particularly for individuals with diabetes; albeit, there is little consensus on the role of carbohydrates, proteins and fats for arterial health for persons with or without diabetes. In this study, we examined the association of macronutrients with arterial pulse pressure (APP), a surrogate measure of arterial health by diabetes status and race.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Participants were 892 Mexican Americans (MA), 1059 Black, non-Hispanics (BNH) and 2473 White, non-Hispanics (WNH) with and without diabetes of a weighted sample from the National Nutrition and Health Examination Survey (NHANES) 2007-2008. The cross-sectional analysis was performed with IBM-SPSS version 18 with the complex sample analysis module. The two-year sample weight for the sub-sample with laboratory values was applied to reduce bias and approximate a nationally, representative sample. Arterial stiffness was assessed by arterial pulse pressure (APP).</p> <p>Results</p> <p>APP was higher for MA [B = 0.063 (95% CI 0.015 to 0.111), p = 0.013] and BNH [B = 0.044 (95% CI 0.006 to 0.082), p = 0.018] than WNH, controlling for diabetes, age, gender, body mass index (BMI), fiber intake, energy intake (Kcal) and smoking. A two-way interaction of diabetes by carbohydrate intake (grams) was inversely associated with APP [B = -1.18 (95% CI -0.178 to -0.058), p = 0.001], controlling for race, age, gender, BMI, Kcal and smoking. BNH with diabetes who consumed more mono-unsaturated fatty acids (MUFA) than WNH with diabetes had lower APP [B = -0.112 (95%CI-0.179 to -0.045), p = 0.003] adjusting for saturated fatty acids, Kcal, age, gender, BMI and smoking.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Higher MUFA and carbohydrate intake for persons with diabetes reflecting lower APP may be due to replacement of saturated fats with CHO and MUFA. The associations of APP with diabetes, race and dietary intake need to be confirmed with intervention and prospective studies. Confirmation of these results would suggest that dietary interventions for minorities with diabetes may improve arterial health.</p

Design and baseline characteristics of the finerenone in reducing cardiovascular mortality and morbidity in diabetic kidney disease trial

Background: Among people with diabetes, those with kidney disease have exceptionally high rates of cardiovascular (CV) morbidity and mortality and progression of their underlying kidney disease. Finerenone is a novel, nonsteroidal, selective mineralocorticoid receptor antagonist that has shown to reduce albuminuria in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) while revealing only a low risk of hyperkalemia. However, the effect of finerenone on CV and renal outcomes has not yet been investigated in long-term trials. Patients and Methods: The Finerenone in Reducing CV Mortality and Morbidity in Diabetic Kidney Disease (FIGARO-DKD) trial aims to assess the efficacy and safety of finerenone compared to placebo at reducing clinically important CV and renal outcomes in T2D patients with CKD. FIGARO-DKD is a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group, event-driven trial running in 47 countries with an expected duration of approximately 6 years. FIGARO-DKD randomized 7,437 patients with an estimated glomerular filtration rate >= 25 mL/min/1.73 m(2) and albuminuria (urinary albumin-to-creatinine ratio >= 30 to <= 5,000 mg/g). The study has at least 90% power to detect a 20% reduction in the risk of the primary outcome (overall two-sided significance level alpha = 0.05), the composite of time to first occurrence of CV death, nonfatal myocardial infarction, nonfatal stroke, or hospitalization for heart failure. Conclusions: FIGARO-DKD will determine whether an optimally treated cohort of T2D patients with CKD at high risk of CV and renal events will experience cardiorenal benefits with the addition of finerenone to their treatment regimen. Trial Registration: EudraCT number: 2015-000950-39; ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT02545049

Seismic ground motion variability over the Bucharest city area

The purpose of this work is to investigate how the local soil conditions in the Bucharest area control the ground motion characteristics using all the available acceleration data for large and moderate size Vrancea earthquakes. The proposed comparative analysis shows no systematic variations from one  site to the other in agreement with the relatively uniform subsurface structure beneath the city. The main conclusion of this study is that for the particular case of Bucharest and Vrancea earthquakes, basically the microzonation is emphasizing no areas with significant variation in the amplification factor.  At the same time, the source radiation is clearly controlling the seismic response depending on the magnitude. Thus, for the largest shocks (Mw ≯ 7), the seismic response in the range of 1-2 s period is exceptionally enhanced leading to the disastrous damage noticed for the high-tall buildings in the city

H/V Spectral Ratios Technique Application in the City of Bucharest: Can We Get Rid of Source Effect?

The main issue of this paper is to show that contrary to many examples of monitored strong earthquakes in different urban areas, the intensity and spectral characteristics of the strong ground motion induced in Bucharest area, by Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes, is controlled by the coupled source-site properties rather than by the local site conditions alone. Our results have important implications on the strategy to follow when assessing the seismic microzoning for Bucharest city: we recommend the application of deterministic approaches rather than empirical techniques, like H/V spectral ratios. However, when applied to noise data, the H/V spectral technique succeeds to reproduce the predominant frequency response characteristic for the sedimentary cover beneath the city and the relatively uniform distribution of this structure over the city area. The same technique is clearly inadequate when small earthquakes are considered and our results strongly disagree with any strategy of extrapolation from small and moderate earthquakes to strong earth- quakes for microzoning purposes

Seismic Hazard of Romania: Deterministic Approach

The seismic hazard of Romania is estimated in terms of peak-ground motion values\u2014 displacement, velocity, design ground acceleration (DGA)\u2014computing complete synthetic seismograms, which are considered to be representative of the different seismogenic and structural zones of the country. The deterministic method addresses issues largely neglected in probabilistic hazard analysis, e.g., how crustal properties affect attenuation, since the ground motion parameters are not derived from overly simplified attenuation \u2018\u2018functions,\u2019\u2019 but rather from synthetic time histories. The synthesis of the hazard is divided into two parts, one that of shallow-focus earthquakes, and the other, that of intermediate-focus events of the Vrancea region. The previous hazard maps of Romania completely ignore the seismic activity in the southeastern part of the country (due to the seismic source of Shabla zone). For the Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes, which control the seismic hazard level over most of the territory, the comparison of the numerical results with the historically-based intensity map show significant differences. They could be due to possible structural or source properties not captured by our modeling, or to differences in the distribution of damageable buildings over the territory (meaning that future earthquakes can be more spectacularly damaging in regions other than those regions experiencing damage in the past). Since the deterministic modeling is highly sensitive to the source and path effects, it can be used to improve the seismological parameters of the historical events

Seismic hazard in Romania associated to Vrancea subcrustal source: Deterministic evaluation

Our study presents an application of the deterministic approach to the particular case of Vrancea intermediate-depth earthquakes to show how efficient the numerical synthesis is in predicting realistic ground motion, and how some striking peculiarities of the observed intensity maps are properly reproduced. The deterministic approach proposed by Costa et al. (1993) is particularly useful to compute seismic hazard in Romania, where the most destructive effects are caused by the intermediate-depth earthquakes generated in the Vrancea region. Vrancea is unique among the seismic sources of the World because of its striking peculiarities: the extreme concentration of seismicity with a remarkable invariance of the foci distribution, the unusually high rate of strong shocks (an average frequency of 3 events with magnitude greater than 7 per century) inside an exceptionally narrow focal volume, the predominance of a reverse faulting mechanism with the T-axis almost vertical and the P-axis almost horizontal and the more efficient high-frequency radiation, especially in the case of large earthquakes, in comparison with shallow earthquakes of similar size. The seismic hazard is computed in terms of peak ground motion values characterizing the complete synthetic seismograms generated by the modal summation technique on a grid covering the Romanian territory. Two representative scenario earthquakes are considered in the computation, corresponding to the largest instrumentally recorded earthquakes, one located in the upper part of the slab (M sub w = 7.4; h = 90 km), the other located in the lower part of the slab (M sub w = 7.7; h = 150 km). The seismic hazard distribution, expressed in terms of Design Ground Acceleration values, is very sensitive to magnitude, focal depth and focal mechanism. For a variation of 0.3 magnitude units the hazard level generally increases by a factor of two. The increase of the focal depth leads to stronger radiation at large epicentral dista and smaller radiation in the near-epicenter area. Certainly, the structural modeling is another essential factor in shaping the hazard distribution pattern. We consider in this paper the influence of the lateral variation of the upper mantle structure, suggested by the new tomography results in Vrancea region (Martin et al., 2002). Our results suggest that the deterministic modeling is a more sensitive way of constraining source parameters (magnitude, depth and focal mechanism) than the usual seismological methods and, that it can be used to improve the knowledge about the seismological parameters of the historical events

Nanostructured W-Cu Electrical Contact Materials Processed by Hot Isostatic Pressing

Nanostructured W-Cu-Ni electrical contact materials to be used in low voltage vacuum switching contactors for nominal currents up to 630 A were developed successfully by hot isostatic pressing. W-Cu-Ni composite powder mixtures with copper content of 20 to 40 wt% and 1 wt% Ni were mechanically alloyed in Ar atmosphere by high-energy ball milling with a ratio of milling steel balls: powders mixtures of 8:1 and rotation speed of 400 rpm for 10 and 20 h. The effect of mechanical alloying on the sintering response of composite compacts was investigated. Also, the sintered contacts were characterized from the point of view of physical, microstructural, mechanical, and functional properties. The nanostructured electrical contacts presented very good sinterability and homogeneous structures with a maximum compactity degree of about 89%. The best W-Cu-Ni compositions with relative density of about 80%, chopping currents lower than 5 A, copper content lower than 40% as W-20Cu-1Ni (10 h of mechanical alloying and 20 h of mechanical alloying) and W-30%Cu-Ni (10 h of mechanical alloying) were selected to be used in vacuum contactors

Seismogenic zones of Romania

Biblioteca Centrale CNR / CNR - Consiglio Nazionale delle RichercheSIGLEITItal