Water aerobics II: maternal body composition and perinatal outcomes after a program for low risk pregnant women

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>To evaluate the effectiveness and safety of water aerobics during pregnancy.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>A randomized controlled trial carried out in 71 low-risk sedentary pregnant women, randomly allocated to water aerobics or no physical exercise. Maternal body composition and perinatal outcomes were evaluated. For statistical analysis Chi-square, Fisher's or Student's t-tests were applied. Risk ratios and their 95% CI were estimated for main outcomes. Body composition was evaluated across time using MANOVA or Friedman multiple analysis.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>There were no significant differences between the groups regarding maternal weight gain, BMI or percentage of body fat during pregnancy. Incidence of preterm births (RR = 0.84; 95%CI:0.28–2.53), vaginal births (RR = 1.24; 95%CI:0.73–2.09), low birthweight (RR = 1.30; 95%CI:0.61–2.79) and adequate weight for gestational age (RR = 1.50; 95%CI:0.65–3.48) were also not significantly different between groups. There were no significant differences in systolic and diastolic blood pressure and heart rate between before and immediately after the water aerobics session.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Water aerobics for sedentary pregnant women proved to be safe and was not associated with any alteration in maternal body composition, type of delivery, preterm birth rate, neonatal well-being or weight.</p

Fetal cardiotocography before and after water aerobics during pregnancy

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Objective</p> <p>To evaluate the effect of moderate aerobic physical activity in water on fetal cardiotocography patterns in sedentary pregnant women.</p> <p>Method</p> <p>In a non-randomized controlled trial, 133 previously sedentary pregnant women participated in multiple regular sessions of water aerobics in a heated swimming pool. Cardiotocography was performed for 20 minutes before and just after the oriented exercise. Cardiotocography patterns were analyzed pre- and post-exercise according to gestational age groups (24-27, 28-31, 32-35 and 36-40 weeks). Student's t and Wilcoxon, and McNemar tests were used, respectively, to analyze numerical and categorical variables.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>No significant variations were found between pre- and post-exercise values of fetal heart rate (FHR), number of fetal body movements (FM) or accelerations (A), FM/A ratio or the presence of decelerations. Variability in FHR was significantly higher following exercise only in pregnancies of 24-27 weeks.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Moderate physical activity in water was not associated with any significant alterations in fetal cardiotocography patterns, which suggests no adverse effect on the fetus.</p

Acute aortic dissection type A discloses Corpus alienum

We report an unusual case of an aortic type A dissection with a corpus alienum which compresses the right ventricle. The patient successfully underwent an aortic root replacement in deep hypothermia with re-implantation of the coronary arteries using a modified Bentall procedure and the resection of the corpus alienum. Intraoperative finding reveals 3 greatly adhered gauze compresses, which were most likely forgotten in the operation 34 years ago

Dislocations and vortices in pair density wave superconductors

With the ground breaking work of the Fulde, Ferell, Larkin, and Ovchinnikov (FFLO), it was realized that superconducting order can also break translational invariance; leading to a phase in which the Cooper pairs develop a coherent periodic spatially oscillating structure. Such pair density wave (PDW) superconductivity has become relevant in a diverse range of systems, including cuprates, organic superconductors, heavy fermion superconductors, cold atoms, and high density quark matter. Here we show that, in addition to charge density wave (CDW) order, there are PDW ground states that induce spin density wave (SDW) order when there is no applied magnetic field. Furthermore, we show that PDW phases support topological defects that combine dislocations in the induced CDW/SDW order with a fractional vortex in the usual superconducting order. These defects provide a mechanism for fluctuation driven non-superconducting CDW/SDW phases and conventional vortices with CDW/SDW order in the core.Comment: 6 pages,1 figure, 1 tabl

Co-Administration of a Plasmid DNA Encoding IL-15 Improves Long-Term Protection of a Genetic Vaccine against Trypanosoma cruzi

Background: Immunization of mice with the Trypanosoma cruzi trans-sialidase (TS) gene using plasmid DNA, adenoviral vector, and CpG-adjuvanted protein delivery has proven highly immunogenic and provides protection against acute lethal challenge. However, long-term protection induced by TS DNA vaccines has not been reported. the goal of the present work was to test whether the co-administration of a plasmid encoding IL-15 (pIL-15) could improve the duration of protection achieved through genetic vaccination with plasmid encoding TS (pTS) alone.Methodology: We immunized BALB/c mice with pTS in the presence or absence of pIL-15 and studied immune responses [with TS-specific IFN-gamma ELISPOT, serum IgG ELISAs, intracellular cytokine staining (IFN-gamma, TNF-alpha, and IL-2), tetramer staining, and CFSE dilution assays] and protection against lethal systemic challenge at 1 to 6 months post vaccination. Mice receiving pTS alone developed robust TS-specific IFN-gamma responses and survived a lethal challenge given within the first 3 months following immunization. the addition of pIL-15 to pTS vaccination did not significantly alter T cell responses or protection during this early post-vaccination period. However, mice vaccinated with both pTS and pIL-15 challenged 6 months post-vaccination were significantly more protected against lethal T. cruzi challenges than mice vaccinated with pTS alone (P6 months post immunization. Also, these TS-specific T cells were better able to expand after in vitro restimulation.Conclusion: Addition of pIL-15 during genetic vaccination greatly improved long-term T cell survival, memory T cell expansion, and long-term protection against the important human parasite, T. cruzi.National Institutes of HealthFundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq)Millennium Institute for Gene TherapySt Louis Univ, Dept Internal Med, St Louis, MO 63103 USAUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ctr Terapia Celular & Mol, Escola Paulista Med, São Paulo, BrazilSt Louis Univ, Dept Mol Microbiol, St Louis, MO 63103 USAUniv Fed Minas Gerais, Inst Ciencias Biol, Dept Microbiol, Belo Horizonte, MG, BrazilUniversidade Federal de São Paulo, Ctr Terapia Celular & Mol, Escola Paulista Med, São Paulo, BrazilNational Institutes of Health: RO1 AI040196CNPq: 420067/2005-1Web of Scienc

Quality changes and shelf-life prediction of a fresh fruit and vegetables purple smoothie

The sensory, microbial and bioactive quality changes of untreated (CTRL) and mild heat−treated (HT; 90 ºC/45 s) smoothies were studied and modelled throughout storage (5, 15 and 25 ºC). The overall acceptability was better preserved in HT samples being highly correlated (hierarchical clustering) with the flavour. The sensory quality data estimated smoothie shelf−life (CTRL/HT) of 18/55 (at 5 ºC), 4.5/12 (at 15 ºC), 2.4/5.8 (at 25 ºC) days. The yeast and moulds growth rate was lower in HT compared to CTRL while a lag phase for mesophiles/psychrophiles was observed in HT−5/15 ºC. HT and 5 ºC−storage stabilized the phenolics content. FRAP reported the best correlation (R2=0.94) with the studied bioactive compounds, followed by ABTS (R2=0.81) while DPPH was the total antioxidant capacity method with the lowest adjustment (R2=0.49). Conclusively, modelling was used to estimate the shelf−life of a smoothie based on quality retention after a short time−high temperature heat treatment that better preserved microbial and nutritional quality during storage.The financial support of this research was provided by the Ministerio Español de Economía y Competitividad MINECO (Projects AGL2013−48830−C2−1−R and AGL2013−48993−C2−1−R) and by FEDER funds. G.A. González−Tejedor thanks to Panamá Government for the scholarship to carry out his PhD Thesis. A. Garre (BES−2014−070946) is grateful to the MINECO for awarding him a pre−doctoral grant. We are also grateful to E. Esposito and N. Castillejo for their skilful technical assistance

Rationale and methods of the multicenter randomised trial of a heart failure management programme among geriatric patients (HF-Geriatrics)

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Disease management programmes (DMPs) have been shown to reduce hospital readmissions and mortality in adults with heart failure (HF), but their effectiveness in elderly patients or in those with major comorbidity is unknown. The Multicenter Randomised Trial of a Heart Failure Management Programme among Geriatric Patients (HF-Geriatrics) assesses the effectiveness of a DMP in elderly patients with HF and major comorbidity.</p> <p>Methods/Design</p> <p>Clinical trial in 700 patients aged ≥ 75 years admitted with a primary diagnosis of HF in the acute care unit of eight geriatric services in Spain. Each patient should meet at least one of the following comorbidty criteria: Charlson index ≥ 3, dependence in ≥ 2 activities of daily living, treatment with ≥ 5 drugs, active treatment for ≥ 3 diseases, recent emergency hospitalization, severe visual or hearing loss, cognitive impairment, Parkinson's disease, diabetes mellitus, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), anaemia, or constitutional syndrome. Half of the patients will be randomly assigned to a 1-year DMP led by a case manager and the other half to usual care. The DMP consists of an educational programme for patients and caregivers on the management of HF, COPD (knowledge of the disease, smoking cessation, immunizations, use of inhaled medication, recognition of exacerbations), diabetes (knowledge of the disease, symptoms of hyperglycaemia and hypoglycaemia, self-adjustment of insulin, foot care) and depression (knowledge of the disease, diagnosis and treatment). It also includes close monitoring of the symptoms of decompensation and optimisation of treatment compliance. The main outcome variables are quality of life, hospital readmissions, and overall mortality during a 12-month follow-up.</p> <p>Discussion</p> <p>The physiological changes, lower life expectancy, comorbidity and low health literacy associated with aging may influence the effectiveness of DMPs in HF. The HF-Geriatrics study will provide direct evidence on the effect of a DMP in elderly patients with HF and high comorbidty, and will reduce the need to extrapolate the results of clinical trials in adults to elderly patients.</p> <p>Trial registration</p> <p>(ClinicalTrials.gov number, <a href="http://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01076465">NCT01076465</a>).</p

A literature-based similarity metric for biological processes

BACKGROUND: Recent analyses in systems biology pursue the discovery of functional modules within the cell. Recognition of such modules requires the integrative analysis of genome-wide experimental data together with available functional schemes. In this line, methods to bridge the gap between the abstract definitions of cellular processes in current schemes and the interlinked nature of biological networks are required. RESULTS: This work explores the use of the scientific literature to establish potential relationships among cellular processes. To this end we haveused a document based similarity method to compute pair-wise similarities of the biological processes described in the Gene Ontology (GO). The method has been applied to the biological processes annotated for the Saccharomyces cerevisiae genome. We compared our results with similarities obtained with two ontology-based metrics, as well as with gene product annotation relationships. We show that the literature-based metric conserves most direct ontological relationships, while reveals biologically sounded similarities that are not obtained using ontology-based metrics and/or genome annotation. CONCLUSION: The scientific literature is a valuable source of information from which to compute similarities among biological processes. The associations discovered by literature analysis are a valuable complement to those encoded in existing functional schemes, and those that arise by genome annotation. These similarities can be used to conveniently map the interlinked structure of cellular processes in a particular organism

A Comprehensive Microarray-Based DNA Methylation Study of 367 Hematological Neoplasms

Background: Alterations in the DNA methylation pattern are a hallmark of leukemias and lymphomas. However, most epigenetic studies in hematologic neoplasms (HNs) have focused either on the analysis of few candidate genes or many genes and few HN entities, and comprehensive studies are required. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here, we report for the first time a microarray-based DNA methylation study of 767 genes in 367 HNs diagnosed with 16 of the most representative B-cell (n = 203), T-cell (n = 30), and myeloid (n = 134) neoplasias, as well as 37 samples from different cell types of the hematopoietic system. Using appropriate controls of B-, T-, or myeloid cellular origin, we identified a total of 220 genes hypermethylated in at least one HN entity. In general, promoter hypermethylation was more frequent in lymphoid malignancies than in myeloid malignancies, being germinal center mature B-cell lymphomas as well as B and T precursor lymphoid neoplasias those entities with highest frequency of gene-associated DNA hypermethylation. We also observed a significant correlation between the number of hypermethylated and hypomethylated genes in several mature B-cell neoplasias, but not in precursor B- and T-cell leukemias. Most of the genes becoming hypermethylated contained promoters with high CpG content, and a significant fraction of them are targets of the polycomb repressor complex. Interestingly, T-cell prolymphocytic leukemias show low levels of DNA hypermethylation and a comparatively large number of hypomethylated genes, many of them showing an increased gene expression. Conclusions/Significance: We have characterized the DNA methylation profile of a wide range of different HNs entities. As well as identifying genes showing aberrant DNA methylation in certain HN subtypes, we also detected six genes DBC1, DIO3, FZD9, HS3ST2, MOS, and MYOD1 that were significantly hypermethylated in B-cell, T-cell, and myeloid malignancies. These might therefore play an important role in the development of different HNs