Nephroprotection with saxagliptin.

The nephroprotective effect of the new anti-diabetic drugs acting on incretin system is suggested by preclinical studies. However, no study evaluating kidney effects of these drugs as primary outcome on the long term has been conducted in patients followed in diabetes centers. We designed a pilot observational study involving two diabetes clinics to evaluate the effect of prolonged treatment with saxagliptin on renal function in type 2 diabetics.

[Anti-diabetics and chronic kidney disease].

Diabetes mellitus (DM) is the most important non-communicable disease after hypertension. Prevalence of type 2 DM has progressively increased over the last decades. In Italy, 11.

Blood glucose changes in diabetic children and adolescents engaged in most common sports activities.

Circulating insulin levels decrease and substrate glycogenolysis-mediated conversion into glucose increases just a few minutes after normal subjects start exercising, but during sustained physical activity muscles massively utilize blood glucose, thus causing glycogenolysis to increase further until the end of the session. After that, in order to get liver and muscle glycogen stores up to pre-exercise levels again, blood glucose is mostly utilized, thus causing late-onset hypoglycaemia in the absence of any extra carbohydrate supply and rebound hyperglycaemia after a while. This and other patho-physiological mechanisms are dealt with in the present paper, and practical hints are provided to the clinician to cope with children-specific adaptation phenomena to exercise in t1DM.

Prevalence of peripheral arterial disease in an elderly rural population of southern Italy.

Blood pressure was measured at the posterior tibial artery by Doppler ultrasonography in 440 elderly subjects (205 men and 235 women) living in a rural community of Southern Italy, together with the evaluation of traditional risk factors for cardiovascular disease. An ankle/arm systolic pressure ratio below 0.90 was considered as a definite pathological sign of peripheral arterial disease (PAD).

Premature aging in Werner's syndrome spares the central nervous system.

Werner's Syndrome is a rare genetic disease, characterized by premature aging of many tissues and organs. We studied the brain morphology and function in two patients with Werner's syndrome to assess the possible involvement of the central nervous system in this premature aging process. The two patients (brother and sister, respectively) were studied by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and angiography (MRA), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) with (99mTc)-d,l-hexamethyl propilene amine oxime (HMPAO), positron emission tomography (PET) with 2(18F)-Fluoro-2-deoxyglucose (FDG), electroencephalography (EEG), and electromyography (EMG).