Engineering geological map of the Chiavari city area (Liguria, Italy)

An engineering geological map at a scale of 1:10,000 of the Chiavari city area (Northern Italy) – a major tourist and economic attraction of the Ligurian East Riviera – is presented in this paper. The municipality land shows an excellent geomorphological case-study of the well-known Ligurian coast: a floodplain, fairly wide and inhabited, formed by several floods of the two main rivers, a hill hinterland, reasonably inhabited, developed in marly limestones and sandy shales flysch and the coast – featuring cliffs and narrow pebbly beaches – deeply modified. This map was compiled by combining available geological data with a new engineering geomorphological field survey and including geotechnical data which were obtained from studies carried out for town planning and building purposes. On the basis of the critical review of the available lithostratigraphic data from drilling, as well as geotechnical and geophysical analyses carried out between 1981 and 2010 on the municipality land, an engineering geologica..

Prevention of high-fat diet-induced muscular lipid accumulation in rats by alpha lipoic acid is not mediated by AMPK activation

Skeletal muscle triglyceride accumulation is associated with insulin resistance in obesity. Recently, it has been suggested that α lipoic acid (ALA) improves insulin sensitivity by lowering triglyceride accumulation in nonadipose tissues via activation of skeletal muscle AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK). We examined whether chronic ALA supplementation prevents muscular lipid accumulation that is associated with high-fat diets via activation of AMPK. In addition, we tested if ALA supplementation was able to improve insulin sensitivity in rats fed low- and high-fat diets (LFD, HFD). Supplementing male Wistar rats with 0.5% ALA for 8 weeks significantly reduced body weight, both on LFD and HFD (−24% LFD+ALA vs. LFD, P < 0.01, and −29% HFD+ALA vs. HFD, P < 0.001). Oil red O lipid staining revealed a 3-fold higher lipid content in skeletal muscle after HFD compared with LFD and ALA-supplemented groups (P < 0.05). ALA improved whole body glucose tolerance (∼20% lower total area under the curve (AUC) in ALA supplemented groups vs. controls, P < 0.05). These effects were not mediated by increased muscular AMPK activation or ALA-induced improvement of muscular insulin sensitivity. To conclude, the prevention of HFD-induced muscular lipid accumulation and the improved whole body glucose tolerance are likely secondary effects due to the anorexic nature of ALA