The long-term (five years) effects of prednisone therapy in children with frequently relapsing nephrotic syndrome: A controlled study of anthropometric parameters and metabolic abnormalities.

Background: Steroids are the main drugs used for the treatment of nephrotic syndrome (NS) in children.

Aim Of The Study: We investigated the steroid effect on linear growth and weight gain as well as the prevalence of different metabolic components and dysglycemia in children with NS with multiple relapses for 5 years in relation to the cumulative dose of steroids. Study population and sample size: Data of 30 children with NS were analyzed retrospectively.

Bioarchaeology-related studies in the Arabian Gulf: potentialities and shortcomings.

Archaeological studies provide a powerful tool to understand the prehistoric societies, especially when combined to cutting-edge morphological and molecular anthropological analyses, allowing reconstructing past population dynamics, admixture events, and socio-cultural changes. Despite the advances achieved in the last decades by archaeological studies worldwide, several regions of the World have been spared from this scientific improvement due to various reasons. The Arabian Gulf represents a unique ground to investigate, being the passageway for human migrations and one of the hypothesized areas in which Neanderthal introgression occurred.

Visceral adiposity index is a better predictor of type 2 diabetes than body mass index in Qatari population.

The prevalence of type 2 diabetes (T2D) has increased recently in Qatar. Body mass index (BMI) is a predictor of T2D in many populations. However, BMI is based on height and weight measurements and not on body adiposity.

Experimental dog model for assessment of fasting and postprandial fatty acid metabolism: pitfalls and feasibility.

The dog is a widely-used model for conducting metabolic studies. This is mainly due to its large size and its physiology which is relatively similar to that of humans. Here, we attempted to optimize a postprandial metabolic study protocol used in dogs.

Lasting alterations of the sodium current by short-term hyperlipidemia as a mechanism for initiation of cardiac remodeling.

Clinical and animal studies indicate that increased fatty acid delivery to lean tissues induces cardiac electrical remodeling and alterations of cellular calcium homeostasis. Since this may represent a mechanism initiating cardiac dysfunction during establishment of insulin resistance and diabetes or anaerobic cardiac metabolism (ischemia), we sought to determine if short-term exposure to high plasma concentration of fatty acid in vivo was sufficient to alter the cardiac sodium current (INa) in dog ventricular myocytes. Our results show that delivery of triglycerides and nonesterified fatty acids by infusion of Intralipid + heparin (IH) for 8 h increased the amplitude of INa by 43% and shifted its activation threshold by -5 mV, closer to the resting membrane potential.

ZnO-based FBAR resonators with carbon nanotube electrodes.

Film bulk acoustic resonator (FBAR) devices with carbon nanotube (CNT) electrodes directly grown on a ZnO film by thermal chemical vapor deposition have been fabricated. CNT electrodes possess a very low density and high acoustic impedance, which reduces the intrinsic mass loading effect resulting from the electrodes¿ weight and better confines the longitudinal acoustic standing waves inside the resonator, in turn providing a resonator with a higher quality factor. The influence of the CNTs on the frequency response of the FBAR devices was studied by comparing two identical sets of devices; one set comprised FBARs fabricated with chromium/ gold bilayer electrodes, and the second set comprised FBARs fabricated with CNT electrodes.

Competition, facilitation, and niche differentiation in two foliar pathogens.

We studied competition between the obligate biotroph Puccinia triticina (designated here as Puccinia) and the facultative saprophyte Pyrenophora tritici-repentis (designated here as Pyrenophora) in older and younger leaves in a set of three host genotypes selected to be resistant to Puccinia only, Pyrenophora only, or neither. Age-related resistance is important for both of these pathogens. The facultative saprophyte Pyrenophora was generally a stronger competitor than the biotrophic Puccinia, even experiencing facilitation from the presence of Puccinia when Pyrenophora had the advantage of earlier inoculation.

Are the annual reproductive and body weight rhythms in the male European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) dependent upon a photoperiodically entrained circannual clock?

Most of the data obtained so far on the European hamster (Cricetus cricetus) suggest direct photoperiodically driven seasonal changes in sexual activity and body weight. The results of the present long-term study support the hypothesis that these annual changes are the expression of photoperiodically driven endogenous circannual rhythms. When subjected following capture (April-May) to constant conditions of long photoperiod (LP) and constant temperature a large number of the European hamsters present, in September-December, complete gonadal atrophy associated with a decrease in body weight.