The sodium-proton exchangers sNHE and NHE1 control plasma membrane hyperpolarization in mouse sperm.

Sperm capacitation is a complex process that takes place in the female reproductive tract and empowers mammalian sperm with the competence to fertilize an egg. It consists of an intricate cascade of events that can be mimicked in vitro through incubation in a medium containing essential components, such as bicarbonate, albumin, Ca, and energy substrates, among others. Genetic and pharmacological studies have underscored the unique significance of the K channel SLO3 in membrane potential hyperpolarization, as evidenced by the infertility of mice lacking its expression.

The role of Nutri-Score and NutrInform Battery in guiding the food choices of consumers with specific nutritional needs: A controlled study.

Background And Aims: There is a significant knowledge gap regarding the effectiveness of front-of-pack labeling (FoPL) systems in helping food choices that meet specific nutritional requirements. This study sought to compare the effectiveness of the Nutri-Score (NS) and NutrInform Battery (NIB) labels in assisting consumers to select food products with low sodium or low saturated fat.

Methods And Results: Utilizing a controlled experimental design, a sample of 1512 participants (aged 18-70, 50.

Urban diabetes: analysis of diabetes prevalence in cities of the Lombardy region participating in the cities changing diabetes project.

Aim: The urban population increases by about 60 million people/year. Urbanization, unhealthy lifestyle and aging of the population are reflected in a constant growth in the prevalence of diabetes. In 2014, Steno Diabetes Centre in Copenhagen, University College London and Novo Nordisk, launched the Cities Changing Diabetes® program with the aim of creating a unified movement that would stimulate policy-makers to prioritize urban diabetes.

Italian guidelines for the management of adult individuals with overweight and obesity and metabolic comorbidities that are resistant to behavioral treatment.

Aim: This guideline (GL) is aimed at providing a clinical practice reference for the management of adult patients with overweight or obesity associated with metabolic complications who are resistant to lifestyle modification.

Methods: Surgeons, endocrinologists, gastroenterologists, psychologists, pharmacologists, a general practitioner, a nutritionist, a nurse and a patients' representative acted as multi-disciplinary panel. This GL has been developed following the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.

The sodium-proton exchangers sNHE and NHE1 control plasma membrane hyperpolarization in mouse sperm.

Sperm capacitation, crucial for fertilization, occurs in the female reproductive tract and can be replicated using a medium rich in bicarbonate, calcium, and albumin. These components trigger the cAMP-PKA signaling cascade, proposed to promote hyperpolarization of the mouse sperm plasma membrane through activation of SLO3 K channel. Hyperpolarization is a hallmark of capacitation: proper membrane hyperpolarization renders higher fertilizing ability, while KO mice are infertile.

Amino acids contribute to adaptive thermogenesis. New insights into the mechanisms of action of recent drugs for metabolic disorders are emerging.

Adaptive thermogenesis is the heat production by muscle contractions (shivering thermogenesis) or brown adipose tissue (BAT) and beige fat (non-shivering thermogenesis) in response to external stimuli, including cold exposure. BAT and beige fat communicate with peripheral organs and the brain through a variegate secretory and absorption processes - controlling adipokines, microRNAs, extracellular vesicles, and metabolites - and have received much attention as potential therapeutic targets for managing obesity-related disorders. The sympathetic nervous system and norepinephrine-releasing adipose tissue macrophages (ATM) activate uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), expressed explicitly in brown and beige adipocytes, dissolving the electrochemical gradient and uncoupling tricarboxylic acid cycle and the electron transport chain from ATP production.

Role of Portion Size in the Context of a Healthy, Balanced Diet: A Case Study of European Countries.

Over the past decades, a generalised increase in food portion sizes has probably contributed to the growing global obesity epidemic. Increasing awareness of appropriate portion sizes could contribute to reversing this trend through better control of calorie intake. In this study, a comparison of standard portion sizes in European countries for various food categories shows a wide variability of their importance for food, nutrient, and energy consumption according to government and institutional websites.

The three facets of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic during the first two waves in the northern, central, and southern Italy.

Background: There is a scarcity of information in literature regarding the clinical differences and comorbidities of patients affected by Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which could clarify the different prevalence of the outcomes (composite and only death) between several Italian regions.

Objective: This study aimed to assess the heterogeneity of clinical features of patients with COVID-19 upon hospital admission and disease outcomes in the northern, central, and southern Italian regions.

Methods: An observational cohort multicenter retrospective study including 1210 patients who were admitted for COVID-19 in Infectious diseases, Pulmonology, Endocrinology, Geriatrics and Internal Medicine Units in Italian cities stratified between north (263 patients); center (320 patients); and south (627 patients), during the first and second pandemic waves of SARS-CoV-2 (from February 1, 2020 to January 31, 2021).

Efficacy and tolerability of a specific blend of amino acids in patients with anorexia nervosa treated in a hospital setting: study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.

Background: Specific blends of essential amino acids (EAA) containing a high percentage of branched-chain amino acids preserves mitochondrial metabolism and higher physical resistance in elderly mice, increasing their survival and improving physical performance and cognitive functions in malnourished elderly patients. However, no study has been yet done on patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) who regain weight with specialized intensive treatment. The present study aims to evaluate the efficacy of supplementation with EAA on the change in lean body mass (LBM) and other physical and psychological outcomes in patients with AN who are undergoing specialist treatment for eating disorders.

A designer mixture of six amino acids promotes the extracellular matrix gene expression in cultured human fibroblasts.

The deterioration of the skin is caused by dermatological disorders, environmental conditions, and aging processes. One incisive strategy for supervising the skin aging process is implementing healthy nutrition, preserving a balanced diet, and a good supply of food supplements. Here, we compared H-Pro-Hyp-OH peptide, hydrolyzed collagen, and an original mixture of six amino acids (we named 6aa)-including glycine, l-alanine, l-proline, l-valine, l-leucine, and l-lysine-effects on the production of extracellular matrix (ECM) components, particularly the elastin, fibronectin, collagen 1, and collagen 4.

The density of crown-like structures in epicardial adipose tissue could play a role in cardiovascular diseases.

Purpose: The visceral fat of patients affected by abdominal obesity is inflamed, and the main histopathologic feature is the high density of crown-like structures (CLS). Epicardial adipose tissue (EAT) is a visceral fat of paramount importance for its relationships with coronary vessels and myocardium. Its inflammation in patients with abdominal obesity could be of clinical relevance, but histopathological studies on CLS density in EAT are lacking.

Molecular and metabolic effects of extra-virgin olive oil on the cardiovascular gene signature in rodents.

Background And Aims: Overweight and obesity are major risk factors for degenerative diseases, including cardiometabolic disorders and cancer. Research on fat and fatty acids' type is attracting less attention than that on carbohydrates. High adherence to a Mediterranean diet is associated with a better prognosis.

An original amino acid formula favours in vitro corneal epithelial wound healing by promoting Fn1, ITGB1, and PGC-1α expression.

Corneal disorders are frequent, involving most diabetic patients; among its manifestations, they include delayed wound healing. Since maintenance of mitochondrial homeostasis is fundamental for the cell, stimulation of mitochondrial biogenesis represents a unique therapeutic tool for preventing and treating disorders with a deficit in energy metabolism. We have recently demonstrated that a branched-chain amino acid (BCAA)-enriched mixture (BCAAem) supported mitochondrial biogenesis in cardiac and skeletal muscle, reduced liver damage caused by alcohol, and prevented the doxorubicin-dependent mitochondrial damage in cardiomyocytes.

An amino acid-defined diet impairs tumour growth in mice by promoting endoplasmic reticulum stress and mTOR inhibition.

Objective: Profound metabolic alterations characterize cancer development and, beyond glucose addiction, amino acid (AA) dependency is now recognized as a hallmark of tumour growth. Therefore, targeting the metabolic addiction of tumours by reprogramming their substrate utilization is an attractive therapeutic strategy. We hypothesized that a dietary approach targeted to stimulate oxidative metabolism could reverse the metabolic inflexibility of tumours and represent a proper adjuvant therapy.

Antibody responses to BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine: Infection-naïve individuals with abdominal obesity warrant attention.

Objective: The excess of visceral adipose tissue might hinder and delay immune response. How people with abdominal obesity (AO) will respond to mRNA vaccines against SARS-CoV-2 is yet to be established. SARS-CoV-2-specific antibody responses were evaluated after the first and second dose of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine, comparing the response of individuals with AO with the response of those without, and discerning between individuals with or without prior infection.

Front-of-pack (FOP) labelling systems to improve the quality of nutrition information to prevent obesity: NutrInform Battery vs Nutri-Score.

Many systems for classifying food products to adequately predict lower all-cause morbidity and mortality have been proposed as front-of-pack (FOP) nutritional labels. Although the efforts and advances that these systems represent for public health must be appreciated, as scientists involved in nutrition research and belonging to diverse Italian nutrition scientific societies, we would like to draw stakeholders' attention to the fact that some FOP labels risk being not correctly informative to consumers' awareness of nutritional food quality. The European Commission has explicitly called for such a nutrition information system to be part of the European "strategy on nutrition, overweight and obesity-related issues" to "facilitate consumer understanding of the contribution or importance of the food to the energy and nutrient content of a diet".

Abdominal obesity phenotype is associated with COVID-19 chest X-ray severity score better than BMI-based obesity.

Purpose: Chest X-ray (CXR) severity score and BMI-based obesity are predictive risk factors for COVID-19 hospital admission. However, the relationship between abdominal obesity and CXR severity score has not yet been fully explored.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study analyzed the association of different adiposity indexes, including waist circumference and body mass index (BMI), with CXR severity score in 215 hospitalized patients with COVID-19.

Tri-Ponderal Mass Index vs body Mass Index in discriminating central obesity and hypertension in adolescents with overweight.

Background And Aims: Recently, it has been hypothesized that Tri-Ponderal Mass Index (TMI) may be a valid alternative to Body Mass Index (BMI) when measuring body fat in adolescents. We aimed to verify whether TMI has better accuracy than BMI in discriminating central obesity and hypertension in adolescents with overweight.

Methods And Results: This monocentric and retrospective cross-sectional study included 3749 pupils, 1889 males and 1860 females, aged 12-13.

Telemedicine and urban diabetes during COVID-19 pandemic in Milano, Italy during lock-down: epidemiological and sociodemographic picture.

Background: Since 2010, more than half of World population lives in Urban Environments. Urban Diabetes has arisen as a novel nosological entity in Medicine. Urbanization leads to the accrual of a number of factors increasing the vulnerability to diabetes mellitus and related diseases.

The relationship between air pollution and diabetes: A study on the municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Milan.

Aims: Urbanisation has been linked with an increased risk of developing diabetes mellitus, dramatically worsening the healthcare system's financial burden. Environmental influences are emerging among the causing factors of the urban diabetes epidemic. We evaluated the relationship between air pollution and the prevalence of diabetes in the Municipalities of the Metropolitan City of Milan, comprising more than 3,4 million citizens.