TRPV1 Activation Attenuates High-Salt Diet-Induced Cardiac Hypertrophy and Fibrosis through PPAR- δ

High-salt diet-induced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis are associated with increased reactive oxygen species production. Transient receptor potential vanilloid type 1 (TRPV1), a specific receptor for capsaicin, exerts a protective role in cardiac remodeling that resulted from myocardial infarction, and peroxisome proliferation-activated receptors δ (PPAR-δ) play an important role in metabolic myocardium remodeling. However, it remains unknown whether activation of TRPV1 could alleviate cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis and the effect of cross-talk between TRPV1 and PPAR-δ on suppressing high-salt diet-generated oxidative stress. In this study, high-salt diet-induced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis are characterized by significant enhancement of HW/BW%, LVEDD, and LVESD, decreased FS and EF, and increased collagen deposition. These alterations were associated with downregulation of PPAR-δ, UCP2 expression, upregulation of iNOS production, and increased oxidative/nitrotyrosine stress. These adverse effects of long-term high-salt diet were attenuated by chronic treatment with capsaicin. However, this effect of capsaicin was absent in TRPV1−/− mice on a high-salt diet. Our finding suggests that chronic dietary capsaicin consumption attenuates long-term high-salt diet-induced cardiac hypertrophy and fibrosis. This benefit effect is likely to be caused by TRPV1 mediated upregulation of PPAR-δ expression

Caffeine intake antagonizes salt sensitive hypertension through improvement of renal sodium handling

High salt intake is a major risk factor for hypertension. Although acute caffeine intake produces moderate diuresis and natriuresis, caffeine increases the blood pressure (BP) through activating sympathetic activity. However, the long-term effects of caffeine on urinary sodium excretion and blood pressure are rarely investigated. Here, we investigated whether chronic caffeine administration antagonizes salt sensitive hypertension by promoting urinary sodium excretion. Dahl salt-sensitive (Dahl-S) rats were fed with high salt diet with or without 0.1% caffeine in drinking water for 15 days. The BP, heart rate and locomotor activity of rats was analyzed and urinary sodium excretion was determined. The renal epithelial Na+ channel (ENaC) expression and function were measured by in vivo and in vitro experiments. Chronic consumption of caffeine attenuates hypertension induced by high salt without affecting sympathetic nerve activity in Dahl-S rats. The renal α-ENaC expression and ENaC activity of rats decreased after chronic caffeine administration. Caffeine increased phosphorylation of AMPK and decrease α-ENaC expression in cortical collecting duct cells. Inhibiting AMPK abolished the effect of caffeine on α-ENaC. Chronic caffeine intake prevented the development of salt-sensitive hypertension through promoting urinary sodium excretion, which was associated with activation of renal AMPK and inhibition of renal tubular ENaC

Effect of gender on the association between cumulative cardiovascular risk factors and depression: results from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Background The comorbidity of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and depression has been well established, as depression usually presents simultaneously with CVD risk factors. However, the potential association between cumulative exposure to CVD risk and depression remains unclear, so we conducted the current investigation. To our knowledge, this is the first study that employs the cumulative risk model to examine the effect of CVD risk factors on depression using nationally representative population and gender, age and CVD status-stratified subpopulations.Aims To systematically study the possible individual and cumulative effect of 18 CVD risk factors on depression.Methods A cross-sectional, secondary analysis investigated associations between 18 CVD risk factors and depression. The interaction effect between CVD risk factors and age, gender and CVD status was also examined. Enrolment included 20 816 participants from the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 2005–2016. Participants with Patient Health Questionnaire-9 scores over 15 or who were using an antidepressant were considered depressive; 18 known cardiovascular risk factors were incorporated in the present study.Results At the individual risk factor level, smoking, drinking, living alone, sleep quality, body mass index, waist circumference and diabetes status had differential associations with depression risk according to the gender, age or CVD status of the participants. Most importantly, gender-stratified cumulative risk analysis indicated that similar depression risk was found in both genders with a small number of CVD risk factors (odds ratio (OR)adjusted=1.32; 95% confidence interval (CI): 0.87 to 1.99), but females had a significantly higher depression risk compared with males under high cumulative risk exposure (ORadjusted=2.86; 95% CI: 1.79 to 4.59).Conclusions Clarifying the association of numerous CVD risk factors with depression according to gender, age and overall CVD status may be beneficial for risk stratification and the prevention of depression in clinical practice. Moreover, the observed novel evidence of high cumulative risk exposure-mediated gender disparities in depression risk may shed light on the underlying mechanism of females’ greater vulnerability to depression

The Effectiveness and Safety of Acupuncture for Patients with Chronic Urticaria: A Systematic Review

Background. Acupuncture might have effectiveness in relieving the symptoms of chronic urticaria. There are currently no systematic reviews of acupuncture for chronic urticaria published in English. Objective. We conducted a systematic review to assess the effectiveness and safety of acupuncture for chronic urticaria. Methods. A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized, controlled trials were performed. The primary outcome was global symptom improvement. Results. We included 6 studies with 406 participants. Three trials showed significant difference between acupuncture and drugs in global symptom improvement (relative risk 1.37; 95% CI 1.11–1.70; P=0.003). As an adjuvant to medication, acupuncture was also beneficial for global symptom improvement (relative risk 1.77; 95% CI 1.41–2.22; P<0.01). There were no severe adverse events related to acupuncture. Limitations. Some methodological limitations were observed. The overall risk of bias in the 6 included trials was high and all included RCTs were conducted in China and published in Chinese. Besides, the lack of proper control groups and the use of different rating methods and cut-offs in the included trials also made the evidence of this review limited. Conclusions. Acupuncture might be effective and safe for chronic urticaria in relieving symptoms, based on a low level of evidence. To draw a reliable conclusion, more high quality trials are needed in the future. This trial is registered with PROSPERO CRD42015015702

Heat shock protein 70 acts as a potential biomarker for early diagnosis of heart failure.

Early identification for heart failure (HF) may be useful for disease modifying treatment in order to reduce heart disease progression or even to reverse it. In our previous studies, we have revealed a group of heat shock proteins (HSPs) which might be related to neonatal rat cardiomyocyte hypertrophy by proteomic approach. Here, we confirm that HSPs, including HSP27 and HSP70, altered in the early stage of cardiac remodeling in vivo animal model. Furthermore, plasma concentrations of those HSPs and their potential screening value were evaluated at different stages in 222 patient subjects. Plasma HSP27, HSP70 and HSP90 were measured using enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay. Results indicate that HSP70 was positively correlated to the severity (progression) of HF (r = 0.456, p<0.001). The area under the rate of change (ROC) curve was 0.601 (p = 0.017) in patients with stage B HF and 0.835 (p<0.001) in those with stage C HF. However, HSP27 and HSP90 did not display significant changes in any stage of HF in this study. Taken together, plasma concentrations of HSP70 elevated with the progression of HF and might act as a potential screening biomarker for early diagnosis of HF

Ultrafine Ir nanoparticles decorated on FeP/FeOOH with abundant interfaces via a facile corrosive approach for alkaline water-splitting

In order to generate clean hydrogen fuel, it is necessary to exploit bifunctional catalysts with high activity and excellent stability for overall water-splitting. Herein, we develop ultrafine Ir nanoparticles coupled with FeP/FeOOH with abundant interfaces on iron foam (FF) via facile corrosive strategies. The ingeniously designed catalyst structure not only exposes abundant active centers, but also enhances the electron transport efficiently. Thus, the FF-NaCl-Ir-P catalyst exhibits outstanding catalytic activities for the OER (169 mV at 10 mA cm(-2)) and HER (69 mV at 10 mA cm(-2)) in 1 M KOH, which was better than most of the previously reported catalysts. For water-splitting, it only needs 1.47 V to reach 10 mA cm(-2), and its performance hardly deteriorates after 50 hours test at a large-current density of 1000 mA cm(-2). The overall water-splitting can also be motivated by simple sustainable energy, such as solar, wind and thermal energies

Will metformin use lead to a decreased risk of thyroid cancer? A systematic review and meta-analyses

Abstract Background It has been reported that metformin use may reduce the risk of thyroid cancer, but existing studies have generated inconsistent results. The purpose of this study was to investigate such association between metformin use and the risk of thyroid cancer. Methods Studies of metformin use for the risk of thyroid cancer were searched in Web of Science, PubMed, Embase, Cochrane Library, China National Knowledge Infrastructure, China Biomedical Database, Wanfang Data, and Chinese Scientific Journals Database (VIP) from the establishment date to December 2022. Newcastle–Ottawa scale is adopted for assessing the methodological quality of included studies, and the inter-study heterogeneity was assessed by using the I-squared statistic. Combined odds ratios (ORs) with the corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were calculated through either fixed-effects or random-effects model according to the heterogeneity. Besides, subgroup analyses, sensitivity analyses and test for publication bias were conducted. Results Five studies involving 1,713,528 participants were enrolled in the qualitative and quantitative synthesis. The result of the meta-analyses showed that metformin use was associated with a statistically significant lower risk of thyroid cancer (pooled OR = 0.68, 95% CI = 0.50–0.91, P = 0.011). Moreover, in the subgroup analysis, we found that the use of metformin may also aid in the prevention of thyroid cancer in Eastern population (pooled OR = 0.55, 95% CI = 0.35–0.88, P = 0.012) rather than Western population (pooled OR = 0.89, 95% CI = 0.52–1.54, P = 0.685). Sensitivity analysis suggested the results of this meta-analyses were relatively stable. No publication bias was detected. Conclusion Metformin use is beneficial for reducing the risk of thyroid cancer. For further investigation, more well-designed studies are still needed to elucidate the association between metformin use and the risk of thyroid cancer

Isoproterenol induced cardiac hypertrophy and dysfunction in mice.

<p>(A). Left ventricular posterior wall thickness in end-diastolic (LVPW;d) significantly increased from 3 days to 84 days after ISO treatment; (B). Fractional shortening% (FS%) significantly increased during earlier stages upon ISO treatment, but reduced at 84 days, as compared with sham; (C) Ratio of heart weight to body weight (HW/BW) and (D) Ratio of heart weight to tibia length (HW/TL) of ISO groups was markedly higher than that of sham groups. *P<0.05, **P<0.01, ***P<0.001, compared with sham at the same time points. ^#P<0.05, ^###P<0.001, compared with ISO group at 84 days. ISO, isoproterenol.</p