Periodic hypoxia, intermittent pain, and caffeine in male and female neonatal rats: corticosterone, insulin resistance, and hepatic gene expression.

Preterm infants experience multiple stressors including periodic neonatal hypoxia, maternal/caregiver separation, and acute pain from clinical procedures. Although neonatal hypoxia or interventional pain are associated with sexually dimorphic effects that may last into adulthood, the interaction of these common preterm stressors and caffeine pretreatment remains unknown. We hypothesize that an interaction of acute neonatal hypoxia, isolation, and pain modeling the experience of the preterm infant will augment the acute stress response and that caffeine routinely given to preterm infants will alter this response.

Serum soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor in adolescents: interaction of chronic pain and obesity.

Introduction: Obesity in adolescents is increasing in frequency and is associated with short-term and long-term negative consequences that include the exacerbation of co-occurring chronic pain.

Objective: To determine whether the interaction between chronic pain and obesity would be reflected in changes in serum soluble urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (suPAR) concentrations, a novel marker of systemic inflammation associated with obesity, insulin resistance, and cardiovascular disease.

Methods: We measured serum suPAR levels in 146 adolescent males and females with no pain or obesity (healthy controls; n = 40), chronic pain with healthy weight (n = 37), obesity alone (n = 41), and the combination of chronic pain and obesity (n = 28).

Bedtime Salivary Cortisol and Cortisone by LC-MS/MS in Healthy Adult Subjects: Evaluation of Sampling Time.

The measurement of late-night salivary cortisol is a mainstay in the diagnosis of Cushing syndrome. Furthermore, the measurement of salivary cortisol is useful in assessing the cortisol awakening response. Because the salivary glands express 11--hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase, the measurement of salivary cortisone may improve the performance of salivary corticosteroid measurements.

Insulin sensitivity, leptin, adiponectin, resistin, and testosterone in adult male and female rats after maternal-neonatal separation and environmental stress.

Care of premature infants often requires parental and caregiver separation, particularly during hypoxic and hypothermic episodes. We have established a neonatal rat model of human prematurity involving maternal-neonatal separation and hypoxia with spontaneous hypothermia prevented by external heat. Adults previously exposed to these neonatal stressors show a sex difference in the insulin and glucose response to arginine stimulation suggesting a state of insulin resistance.

Overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 in rat oral cancers and prevention of oral carcinogenesis in rats by selective and nonselective COX inhibitors.

Oral squamous cell carcinomas induced in rats by 4-nitroquinoline-1-oxide (NQO) show substantial overexpression of cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) when compared with adjacent phenotypically normal oral tissues. By contrast, neither 5-lipoxygenase (LOX) nor 12-LOX is overexpressed in rat oral cancers. Two chemoprevention studies were done to test the resulting hypothesis that COX-2 is a useful target for oral cancer chemoprevention in the rat.