Synbiotic supplementation ameliorates anxiety and myocardial ischaemia-reperfusion injury in hyperglycaemic rats by modulating gut microbiota.

Hyperglycaemia, hyperlipidaemia, hypertension and obesity are the main risk factors affecting the development and prognosis of ischaemic heart disease, which is still an important cause of death today. In our study, male Sprague-Dawley rats were fed either a standard diet (SD) or a high fat and high carbohydrate diet (HF-HCD) for 8 weeks and streptozotocin (STZ) was injected at the seventh week of the feeding period. In one set of rats, a mixture of a prebiotic and probiotics (synbiotic, SYN) was administered by gavage starting from the beginning of the feeding period.

Treatment with oestrogen-receptor agonists or oxytocin in conjunction with exercise protects against myocardial infarction in ovariectomized rats.

What is the central question of this study? Could the activation of oxytocin or oestrogen receptors be protective against myocardial injury after ovariectomy? If so, would exercising have an additional ameliorating effect? What is the main finding and its importance? The results revealed that when accompanied by exercise, both oestrogen receptor agonists and oxytocin improved cardiac dysfunction, inhibited the generation of pro-inflammatory cytokines and reduced myocardial injury in ovariectomized female rats, suggesting a new approach for protecting postmenopausal women against ischaemia-induced myocardial injury. To investigate the putative protective effects of oxytocin or oestrogen receptor agonists against myocardial injury of ovariectomized sedentary or exercised rats, female Sprague-Dawley rats assigned to sham-operated control and ovariectomized (OVX) groups were kept sedentary or undertook swimming exercise for 4 weeks and were treated with saline, an oestrogen receptor (ER) β (DPN) or ERα agonist (PPT) or oxytocin. Ovariectomy increased weight gain and anxiety in sedentary rats, whereas exercise prevented weight gain.

The effect of serum, intestinal and peritoneal visfatin levels on early diagnosis of acute mesenteric ischemia.

Background: Acute mesenteric ischemia (AMI) is a rapidly progressive disease where early diagnosis is life-saving. As a new cytokine, levels of thevisfatin might be affected during the ischema and reperfusion. In our study, we obtained changes of visfatin levels in the serum, peritoneal and intestinal lavage samples in rats, to investigate the effectiveness of these changes in the early diagnosis of AMI.