Malondialdehyde, Antioxidant Defense System Components and Their Relationship with Anthropometric Measures and Lipid Metabolism Biomarkers in Apparently Healthy Women.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of mortality worldwide. Since atherosclerosis, an inflammatory, lipid-driven disease, is an underlying basis for the development of cardiovascular disease, it is important to understand its relationship with confounding factors, such as oxidative lipid degradation. In contrast, circulating antioxidants prevent oxidative lipid damage, and therefore, may be associated with reduced development of atherosclerosis.

Association of hair glucocorticoid levels with sleep quality indicators: a pilot study in apparently healthy perimenopausal and menopausal women.

Background: Poor sleep quality is associated with different physical and mental health diseases. It is proposed that increased hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity is a potential contributor affecting sleep pattern and quality. We aimed to analyze the relationship between subjective sleep quality indicators and hair glucocorticoid levels among relatively healthy perimenopausal and postmenopausal women.

A De Novo 8q22.2q22.3 Interstitial Microdeletion in a Girl with Developmental Delay and Congenital Defects.

Only nine patients with interstitial de novo 8q22.2q22.3 microdeletions have been reported to date.

Computational pharmacology: New avenues for COVID-19 therapeutics search and better preparedness for future pandemic crises.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an unprecedented global healthcare emergency prompting the exploration of new therapeutic avenues, including drug repurposing. A large number of ongoing studies revealed pervasive issues in clinical research, such as the lack of accessible and organised data. Moreover, current shortcomings in clinical studies highlighted the need for a multi-faceted approach to tackle this health crisis.

Higher Levels of Stress-Related Hair Steroid Hormones Are Associated with the Increased SCORE2 Risk Prediction Algorithm in Apparently Healthy Women.

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are the major cause of death worldwide. Although the importance of conventional CVD risk factors, including older age, male gender, hypertension, obesity, dyslipidemia and hyperglycemia, is well-studied, psychosocial stress, which is considered an independent CVD risk factor, requires further investigation. Thus, we aimed to investigate the association between long-term secretion of stress-related steroid hormones, including cortisol, cortisone and dehydroepiandrosterone, and the 10-year fatal and non-fatal CVD risk estimated by the SCORE2 risk prediction algorithm, as well as traditional CVD risk factors in a group of apparently healthy women.

Biophysics is reshaping our perception of the epigenome: from DNA-level to high-throughput studies.

Epigenetic research holds great promise to advance our understanding of biomarkers and regulatory processes in health and disease. An increasing number of new approaches, ranging from molecular to biophysical analyses, enable identifying epigenetic changes on the level of a single gene or the whole epigenome. The aim of this review is to highlight how the field is shifting from completely molecular-biology-driven solutions to multidisciplinary strategies including more reliance on biophysical analysis tools.

Association between hair cortisol concentration and metabolic syndrome.

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a highly prevalent disorder defined as a cluster of cardiometabolic risk factors including obesity, hyperglycemia, hypertension, and dyslipidemia. It is believed that excessive cortisol secretion due to psychosocial stress-induced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activation might be involved in the pathogenesis of MetS. We sought to explore the association between MetS and psychosocial risk factors, as well as cortisol concentration measured in different biological specimens including saliva, blood serum, and hair samples.

Insights into therapeutic targets and biomarkers using integrated multi-'omics' approaches for dilated and ischemic cardiomyopathies.

At present, heart failure (HF) treatment only targets the symptoms based on the left ventricle dysfunction severity; however, the lack of systemic 'omics' studies and available biological data to uncover the heterogeneous underlying mechanisms signifies the need to shift the analytical paradigm towards network-centric and data mining approaches. This study, for the first time, aimed to investigate how bulk and single cell RNA-sequencing as well as the proteomics analysis of the human heart tissue can be integrated to uncover HF-specific networks and potential therapeutic targets or biomarkers. We also aimed to address the issue of dealing with a limited number of samples and to show how appropriate statistical models, enrichment with other datasets as well as machine learning-guided analysis can aid in such cases.

The impact of metformin on survival in patients with melanoma-national cohort study.

Purpose: The primary study outcome was melanoma-specific mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) using metformin.

Methods: Data regarding patients were provided by the Lithuanian Cancer Registry and were linked with National Health Insurance Fund in accordance with unique personal identification numbers during the period of thirteen years.

Results: About 2817 patients met eligibility criteria and were included in the retrospective cohort study.

Association of Platelet Membrane Fatty Acid Composition with Markers of Oxidative Stress in Healthy Men.

BACKGROUND Platelet membranes are extremely susceptible to peroxidation, forming a variety of lipid peroxides, including malondialdehyde (MDA), which has been implicated in the etiology of cardiovascular diseases. Moreover, platelet-leukocyte aggregates (PLAs) are known to contribute to advanced endothelial injury and atherogenesis. MATERIAL AND METHODS Fatty acid (FA) methyl esters of the platelet membranes of 79 apparently healthy men without any acute clinical condition at the time of the study were identified by GC/MS.

Association of Hair Cortisol Concentration with Prevalence of Major Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Allostatic Load.

BACKGROUND The high prevalence of cardiovascular diseases cannot be explained completely by conventional risk factors such as older age, smoking, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, obesity, and dyslipidemia. Results of recent studies indicate that chronic stress may be an independent risk factor for cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. Thus, the aim of our study was to investigate the associations between the hair cortisol concentration (HCC), which is considered as a potential biomarker of long-term psychosocial stress, and traditional cardiovascular risk factors, including smoking, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and obesity.

Chronic and oxidative stress association with total count of endothelial microvesicles in healthy young male plasma.

Background: Chronic and oxidative stress promotes injury to the endothelium. This happens early in the disease and novel biomarkers describing the rate of the damage may be important in early diagnostics and prevention. Microvesicles are shed from endothelial cells in response to oxidative stress, inflammation, coagulation, and angiogenesis.

Natural killer cell-based immunotherapy: a new fighter against melanoma?

Changes in the expression of proteins on cancer cell surface are a typical outcome of malignant transformation. Natural killers (NKs) utilize a set of activating and inhibitory receptors that enable them to recognize altered protein expression and then destroy 'stressed' cells such as cancer or virus-infected cells. Major histocompatibility complex class I polypeptide-related sequence A and B (MICA and MICB, respectively) are expressed by various human tumors and can be recognized by activating NK cell receptor NKG2D.

Classical rather than genetic risk factors account for high cardiovascular disease prevalence in Lithuania: A cross-sectional population study.

Purpose: Cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality accounts for 54% of all deaths in Lithuania, making it the highest among all of the European Union countries. We evaluated the prevalence of several CVD risk factors, including lifestyle, blood biochemistry and genetic predisposition to determine the reasons behind significantly increased CVD prevalence in Lithuania.

Materials And Methods: In total 435 volunteers of Lithuanian ethnicity and stable geographic settlement for 3 generations, had their anthropometric, biochemical and behavioural risk factors measured.

Heterogeneity of nutritional habits of Lithuanian ethnolinguistic groups: population-based study.

Background: Lithuania is a Northern European country consisting of two main ethnolinguistic groups: Samogitians and Highlanders. The objective of the paper is to investigate differences in nutritional habits of 18-65-year-old Lithuanians living in different ethnolinguistic regions.

Materials And Methods: A representative, population-based, random sample of the 18-65-year-old ethnic Lithuanian population was interviewed from 17 December 2008 to 20 May 2013.