Protein intake in cancer: Does it improve nutritional status and/or modify tumour response to chemotherapy?

Background: Combating malnutrition and cachexia is a core challenge in oncology. To limit muscle mass loss, the use of proteins in cancer is encouraged by experts in the field, but it is still debated due to their antagonist effects. Indeed, a high protein intake could preserve lean body mass but may promote tumour growth, whereas a low-protein diet could reduce tumour size but without addressing cachexia.

Exposure to a mixture of non-persistent environmental chemicals and neonatal thyroid function in a cohort with improved exposure assessment.

Background: In vitro and toxicological studies have shown that non-persistent environmental chemicals can perturb thyroid hormone homeostasis. Epidemiological studies with improved exposure assessment (i.e.

Phenol and Phthalate Effects on Thyroid Hormone Levels during Pregnancy: Relying on Assays and Adverse Outcome Pathways to Inform an Epidemiological Analysis.

Background: Studies characterizing associations between phenols, phthalates and thyroid hormones during pregnancy produce inconsistent results. This divergence may be partly attributable to false positives due to multiple comparison testing of large numbers of chemicals, and measurement error as studies rely on small numbers of biospecimens despite high intra-individual variability in urinary chemical metabolite concentrations.

Objectives: This study employs chemical filtering and expanded urinary biomonitoring to evaluate associations between phenol/phthalate exposures and serum thyroid hormones assessed during pregnancy.

Neonatal screening for congenital hypothyroidism: Time to lower the TSH threshold in France.

Neonatal screening for congenital hypothyroidism (CH) is based on the measurement of thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) in whole dried blood samples on filter paper in all newborns. The objective of screening for CH is to prevent mental retardation, which is irreversible in the event of a late diagnosis, by setting up prompt treatment (before day 15) with levothyroxine. The threshold value of TSH on filter paper on day 3 is 17 mIU/L in France in the GSP method (GSP, Genetic Screening Processor, Perkin Elmer): It is one of the highest thresholds used in the world.

Regulation of citrulline synthesis in human enterocytes: Role of hypoxia and inflammation.

Intensive care unit patients and chronic airway inflammatory disease are characterized by chronic systemic hypoxia and inflammation inducing a decrease in nitric oxide release due to impaired l-arginine (ARG) homeostasis. As ARG is synthesized from circulating l-citrulline (CIT), an alteration of CIT production in small intestine by ornithine carbamoyltransferase could be involved. Here, we posit that hypoxia and/or inflammation has effects on ornithine carbamoyltransferase regulation in enterocytes.