Leukocyte peroxidase and leptin: an associated link of glycemic tolerance and bronchial asthma?

Recent observations suggest the presence of an interaction between leptin and the inflammatory system during bronchial asthma. Although there is evidence of a positive association between asthma and obesity in adults and children, little is yet known about the role of serum leptin, as a potential mediator for bronchial epithelial homeostasis, and intraleukocyte myeloperoxidase (MPO), a hemoprotein with a molecular weight of 140 kDa, expression of the inflammatory system, in asthmatic children. Glycemic tolerance is an important pathogenetic element in developing type 2 mellitus diabetes and a confirmed predictor of incident asthma-like symptoms in adults. This work is aimed at assessing a possible correlation between basal leukocyte myeloperoxidase levels, basal leptin and insulin-glycemic tolerance in obese children. Thirty obese children aged between 7 and 15 years were examined. The analyzed data showed a normal response to the insulinemic stimulus in children of both sexes whose basal leptin and MPO values, expressed as MPO intracellular index, were within the normal range

A pilot study: pirfenidone, 8% (KitosCell) as a treatment for striae distensae

Striae distensae (SD; stretch marks) are well-recognized skin lesions that occur in a large percentage of the population. Although they rarely cause significant medical concern, they can be a source of extreme physiological stress to affected patients. They occur commonly in pregnancy, puberty and obesity, but also become manifest following various medical conditions and therapeutic interventions. The precise etiological mechanism of SD has yet to be determined, however numerous theories have been proposed and risk factors have been identified. To date, there are many different treatment modalities to improve size and color of striae including diet and exercise, topical and laser therapies and surgery but none have demonstrated a consistent effectiveness. This unmet medical need may be addressed by the use of Pirfenidone. Pirfenidone is a small synthetic non-peptide molecule of low molecular weight (185.2 Daltons) that has been identified to have immuno-modulatory and anti-inflammatory properties. Clinical evidence indicates that Pirfenidone can modulate collagenase and fibroblastic activity by the modulation of cytokines in the wound healing process, such as TFG-β and TNF-α, which lead to effective collagen remodeling. Pirfenidone has exhibited low-toxicity in pre-clinical and clinical studies. These in vitro and in vivo findings suggest that Pirfenidone may be a safe and effective treatment of patients with SD

Management of immigration and pregnancy screening in northeastern Italy

This study assesses the impact of immigration in Friuli Venezia Giulia, a region of northeastern Italy, on the epidemiological features of hemoglobin patterns and on prothrombotic and trisomy risk in pregnancy for patients of non-Italian origin. This study follows a series of studies on the incidence of thalassemia and other hemoglobinopathies with reduced globin chain synthesis, that were performed during the postwar (1939–45) period in Friuli Venezia Giulia following immigration into the region from Istria and Sardinia (regions of northern and central Italy). Current data show that today’s constantly growing immigration into the region differs from previous decades, in terms of origin and quantity of migrants, who mainly come from third world countries. This has a significant impact on health care issues, and more specifically on prospective health screening for foreigners. The authors conclude that scholastic education and hospital services, either public or private, and voluntary associations, may contribute to solving the problem, but only in terms of training and organization, for non-European Union citizens arriving in northern Italy and neighboring areas, especially those from Africa, Asia, Latin America, and eastern Europe

Potential Maximization and Coalition Government Formation

A model of coalition government formation is presented in which inefficient, non-minimal winning coalitions may form in Nash equilibrium. Predictions for five games are presented and tested experimentally. The experimental data support potential maximization as a refinement of Nash equilibrium. In particular, the data support the prediction that non-minimal winning coalitions occur when the distance between policy positions of the parties is small relative to the value of forming the government. These conditions hold in games 1, 3, 4 and 5, where subjects played their unique potential-maximizing strategies 91, 52, 82 and 84 percent of the time, respectively. In the remaining game (Game 2) experimental data support the prediction of a minimal winning coalition. Players A and B played their unique potential-maximizing strategies 84 and 86 percent of the time, respectively, and the predicted minimal-winning government formed 92 percent of the time (all strategy choices for player C conform with potential maximization in Game 2). In Games 1, 2, 4 and 5 over 98 percent of the observed Nash equilibrium outcomes were those predicted by potential maximization. Other solution concepts including iterated elimination of dominated strategies and strong/coalition proof Nash equilibrium are also tested.Coalition formation, Potential maximization, Nash equilibrium refinements, Experimental study, Minimal winning

Supplementary use of HbA1c as hyperglycemic criterion to detect metabolic syndrome

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) refers to a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors including hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, abdominal obesity and hypertension. An effective detection of MetS not only reflects the prediction risk of diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular diseases but also helps to plan for management strategy which could reduce the healthcare burden of the society. This study aimed to compare the use of hemoglobin A1c (HbA1c) to fasting plasma glucose (FPG) as the hyperglycemic component in MetS diagnosis. Methods: Waist circumference, blood pressure, blood triglyceride, high-density lipoprotein (HDL)-cholesterol, FPG, and HbA1c were examined in 120 Hong Kong Chinese adults with MetS and 120 without MetS. After reviewing the subject basal characteristics, 11 of them were found with undiagnosed diabetes (FPG ≧7.0 mmol/L) and were excluded for further analysis. Results: The most prevalent MetS components among the included subjects were elevated systolic blood pressure and central obesity. Significant correlation relationships existed between FPG and HbA1c in both subject pools diagnosed with and without MetS (p < 0.001). The diagnostic rate of MetS using HbA1c was compared to FPG by the receiver operating characteristics (ROC) analysis which suggested an area under curve of 0.807 (95% CI: 0.727 to 0.887). The agreement was 90.7% in MetS-positive group with increased FPG as one of the criterion co-existed with elevated HbA1c. If including HbA1c as an additional criterion to FPG in the MetS diagnosis, 30 more participants in MetS-negative group would be MetS-positive leading to an increase in detection rate. Furthermore, 47 subjects (38 from MetS-positive group and 9 from MetS-negative group) were found having HbA1c ≧6.5%, who would have been diagnosed with diabetes based on the diagnostic criteria implemented by the Expert Group in 2009. Conclusion: These findings suggest that HbA1c enhances the detection of hyperglycemia for the diagnosis of MetS.Department of Health Technology and Informatic

Careful with understudied phyla: The case of chaetognath

Background: A recent study by Barthélémy et al. described a set of ribosomal protein (RP) genes extracted from a collection of expressed sequence tags (ESTs) of the chaetognath (arrow worm) Spadella cephaloptera. Three main conclusions were drawn in this paper. First, the authors stated that RP genes present paralogous copies, which have arisen through allopolyploidization. Second, they reported two alternate nucleotide stretches conserved within the 5' untranslated regions (UTR) of multiple ribosomal cDNAs and they suggested that these motifs are involved in the differential transcriptional regulation of paralogous RP genes. Third, they claimed that the phylogenetic position of chaetognaths could not be accurately inferred from a RP dataset because of the persistence of two problems: a long branch attraction (LBA) artefact and a compositional bias. / Results: We reconsider here the results described in Barthélémy et al. and question the evidence on which they are based. We find that their evidence for paralogous copies relies on faulty PCR experiments since they attempted to amplify DNA fragments absent from the genomic template. Our PCR experiments proved that the conserved motifs in 5'UTRs that they targeted in their amplifications are added post-transcriptionally by a trans-splicing mechanism. Then, we showed that the lack of phylogenetic resolution observed by these authors is due to limited taxon sampling and not to LBA or to compositional bias. A ribosomal protein dataset thus fully supports the position of chaetognaths as sister group of all other protostomes. This reinterpretation demonstrates that the statements of Barthélémy et al. should be taken with caution because they rely on inaccurate evidence. / Conclusion: The genomic study of an unconventional model organism is a meaningful approach to understand the evolution of animals. However, the previous study came to incorrect conclusions on the basis of experiments that omitted validation procedures

Sistema Integrado de Gestión Administrativa y Control Patrimonial en la Sede Administrativa de la Dirección Regional de Salud Ayacucho – 2020

La investigación titulada “Sistema Integrado de Gestión Administrativa y Control Patrimonial en la Sede Administrativa de la Dirección Regional de Salud Ayacucho – 2020”. “La investigación fue elaborada mediante el método científico de enfoque cuantitativo; el tipo de investigación fue la aplicada, de nivel correlacional. El objetivo general de nuestra investigación fue, Establecer la relación que existe entre el Sistema Integrado de Gestión Administrativa y el Control Patrimonial en la Sede Administrativa de la Dirección Regional de Salud Ayacucho - 2020. La población estuvo conformada por 277 trabajadores de la DIRESA de Ayacucho, de donde se obtuvo la muestra del total de trabajadores de la Sede Administrativa de la DIRESA de Ayacucho. En consecuencia, nuestra hipótesis de estudio fue: Existe relación directa entre el Sistema Integrado de Gestión Administrativa y el Control Patrimonial en la Sede Administrativa de la Dirección Regional de Salud Ayacucho - 2020, asimismo, para probar la hipótesis se utilizó el estadístico Rho de Spearman. La validez de los instrumentos fue corroborada con el Alpha de Cronbach. Se concluye que, existe relación directa entre el Sistema Integrado de Gestión Administrativa y el Control Patrimonial en la Sede Administrativa de la Dirección Regional de Salud Ayacucho - 2020. Consecuentemente se observa una correlación positiva muy alta con un r = 0,994, por lo tanto, podemos decir que, a mejor aplicación del sistema integrado de gestión administrativa, entonces mejorara el control patrimonial en la sede administrativa de la DIRESA de Ayacucho