Gender Effect on Clinical Profiles, Pharmacological Treatments and Prognosis in Patients Hospitalized for Heart Failure.

Heart failure (HF) is a significant disease affecting 1-2% of the general population. Despite its general aspects, HF, like other cardiovascular diseases, presents various gender-specific aspects in terms of etiology, hemodynamics, clinical characteristics, therapy, and outcomes. As is well known, HF with preserved ejection fraction more frequently affects females, with diabetes and arterial hypertension representing the most critical determinants of HF.

Ultrasound-assisted dispersive solid-liquid microextraction with eutectic solvents for the determination of cannabinoids in different hemp products.

The wide range of applications of hemp products, together with the environmental benefits that come from hemp cultivation are driving up the market demand for Cannabis sativa L. plant. One of the main restrictions for hemp cultivation and marketing concerns the content of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabidiol (Δ-THC), which is known to have psychotomimetic effect.

A New Blend of Litsea cubeba, Pinus mugo, and Cymbopogon winterianus Essential Oil Active as an Anti-tyrosinase Ingredient in Topical Formulations.

Tyrosinase is a target enzyme to be inhibited in order to reduce excessive melanin production and prevent typical age-related skin disorders. Essential oils are complex mixtures of volatile compounds, belonging mainly to monoterpenoids and sesquiterpenoids, which have been relatively little studied as tyrosinase inhibitors. Among the monoterpenoids, citral (a mixture of neral and geranial) is a fragrance compound in several essential oils that has shown interesting tyrosinase inhibitory activity.

Promising inhibition of diabetes-related enzymes and antioxidant properties of leaves extract.

Type 2 diabetes (T2D) is a progressive metabolic disorder of glucose metabolism. One of the therapeutic approaches for the treatment of T2D is reducing postprandial hyperglycaemia through inhibition of the digestive enzymes α-glucosidase and α-amylase. In this context, aimed at identifying natural products endowed with anti-T2D potential, we focused on (L.

Clinical Presentation and Emergency Department Management Checkpoints of Acute Aortic Syndromes during the First Two Waves of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic has deeply affected the activity and patient flows of Emergency Departments (EDs), and concern for the worsening outcome of cardiovascular emergencies has been raised. However, the impact of COVID-19 on all subtypes of acute aortic syndromes (AASs) has not been evaluated so far. Cases of AASs managed in the ED of three hub hospitals in a large area of Northern Italy were retrospectively analyzed, comparing those registered during the pandemic (March 2020 to May 2021) with corresponding pre-COVID-19 periods.

Make the Quality Control of Essential Oils Greener: Fast Enantioselective GC-MS Analysis of Sweet and Bitter Orange as a Case Study.

Quality control of essential oils is fundamental for verifying their authenticity and conformity with quality standards, ensuring their safety and regulatory compliance, and monitoring their consistency. Companies that produce or market essential oils routinely evaluate the quality and authenticity of their products. However, they also must deal with increasing attention to environmental sustainability as well as practical considerations such as productivity, cost, and simplicity of methods.

Free Amino Acids and Biogenic Amines Profiling and Variation in Wild and Sub-Endemic Cardueae Species from Sardinia and Corse.

The cardueae are a common species in the Mediterranean area where they grow spontaneously and are traditionally employed as food and for health purposes. In this work, five Cardueae, including two sub-endemic species (four and three (L.) Greuter samples from different locations) were collected from Sardinia and the Corse islands.

Acrylamide in coffee: What is known and what still needs to be explored. A review.

Acrylamide (AA) is a product of food heating process that is widely present in cooked foods and known to be toxic to humans. Exposure data has revealed coffee to be one of the sources of this toxicant in adult diets. A great deal of effort has been invested into finding ways of reducing AA formation during coffee processing.

Immobilization of phosphonium-based ionic liquid stationary phases extends their operative range to routine applications in the flavor, fragrance and natural product fields.

Phosphonium-based ionic liquids (ILs) have proven to be successful stationary phases (SPs) for gas chromatography (GC) in several fields of application because of their unique selectivity and good chromatographic properties. This study focuses on the use of two ILs as GC SPs that are based on the phosphonium derivatives trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium chloride ([P] [Cl]), and trihexyl(tetradecyl)phosphonium bis[(trifluoromethyl)sulfonyl]imide ([P][NTf]), which have previously been shown to be complementary in terms of chromatographic selectivity and retention. Their application in routine analysis has been limited by their lower maximum allowable operating temperatures (MAOT) (200 °C for the [P][Cl] IL and 180 °C for [P][NTf]), which restricts their use to samples that consist of analytes with relatively high volatility.

Gas chromatography of essential oil: State-of-the-art, recent advances, and perspectives.

This review is an overview of the recent advances of gas chromatography in essential oil analysis; in particular, it focuses on both the new stationary phases and the advanced analytical methods and instrumentations. A paragraph is dedicated to ionic liquids as gas chromatography stationary phases, showing that, thanks to their peculiar selectivity, they can offer a complementary contribution to conventional stationary phases for the analysis of complex essential oils and the separation of critical pairs of components. Strategies to speed-up the analysis time, thus answering to the ever increasing request for routine essential oils quality control, are also discussed.

In Vitro Anti-HIV-1 Reverse Transcriptase and Integrase Properties of L. Leaves, Bark, and Peel Extracts and Their Main Compounds.

In a search for natural compounds with anti-HIV-1 activity, we studied the effect of the ethanolic extract obtained from leaves, bark, and peels of L. for the inhibition of the HIV-1 reverse transcriptase (RT)-associated ribonuclease H (RNase H) and integrase (IN) LEDGF-dependent activities. The chemical analyses led to the detection of compounds belonging mainly to the phenolic and flavonoid chemical classes.

Adulteration of Essential Oils: A Multitask Issue for Quality Control. Three Case Studies: Mill., (L.) Osbeck and (Maiden & Betche) Cheel.

The quality control of essential oils (EO) principally aims at revealing the presence of adulterations and at quantifying compounds that are limited by law by evaluating EO chemical compositions, usually in terms of the normalised relative abundance of selected markers, for comparison to reference values reported in pharmacopoeias and/or international norms. Common adulterations of EO consist of the addition of cheaper EO or synthetic materials. This adulteration can be detected by calculating the percent normalised areas of selected markers or the enantiomeric composition of chiral components.

Derivatization-targeted analysis of amino compounds in plant extracts in neutral loss acquisition mode by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry.

Amino compounds, such as amino acids and biogenic amines, are important metabolites that can be found in diverse natural matrices. The most common method for amino compound analysis nowadays is reversed-phase liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (RPLC-MS/MS). However, due to the polar and the basic nature of amines, their RPLC retention is often insufficient or peaks are tailing.

Citral-Containing Essential Oils as Potential Tyrosinase Inhibitors: A Bio-Guided Fractionation Approach.

Excessive melanin production causes serious dermatological conditions as well as minor aesthetic problems (i.e., freckles and solar lentigo).

Chemical fingerprinting strategies based on comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography combined with gas chromatography-olfactometry to capture the unique signature of Piemonte peppermint essential oil (Mentha x piperita var Italo-Mitcham).

Accurate, reliable, and informative mapping of untargeted and targeted components across many samples is here performed by combining off-line GC-Olfactometry (GC-O) and comprehensive two-dimensional gas chromatography (GC×GC) coupled to time-of-flight mass spectrometry with variable ionization energy (TOF MS featuring Tandem Ionization™). In particular, untargeted and targeted (UT) features patterns are processed by chromatographic fingerprinting, giving differential priority to potent odorants' retention-times regions. Distinguishing peppermint essential oil (EO) from Piedmont (Italy - Mentha × piperita L.

Chromatographic Fingerprinting Strategy to Delineate Chemical Patterns Correlated to Coffee Odor and Taste Attributes.

Coffee cupping includes both aroma and taste, and its evaluation considers several different attributes simultaneously to define flavor quality and therefore requires complementary data from aroma and taste. This study investigates the potential and limits of a data-driven approach to describe the sensory quality of coffee using complementary analytical techniques usually available in routine quality control laboratories. Coffee flavor chemical data from 155 samples were obtained by analyzing volatile (headspace-solid-phase microextraction-gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (HS-SPME-GC-MS)) and nonvolatile (liquid chromatography-ultraviolet/diode array detector (LC-UV/DAD)) fractions, as well as from sensory data.

Analytical strategies for in-vivo evaluation of plant volatile emissions - A review.

Biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) are metabolites emitted by living plants that have a fundamental ecological role since they influence atmospheric chemistry, plant communication and pollinator/herbivore behaviour, and human activities. Over the years, several strategies have been developed to isolate and identify them, and to take advantage of their activity. The main techniques used for in-vivo analyses include dynamic headspace (D-HS), static headspace (S-HS) and, more recently, direct contact (DC) methods in association with gas chromatography (GC) and mass spectrometry (MS).

Bio-Guided Fractionation Driven by In Vitro α-Amylase Inhibition Assays of Essential Oils Bearing Specialized Metabolites with Potential Hypoglycemic Activity.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a metabolic disorder characterized by unpaired blood glycaemia maintenance. T2DM can be treated by inhibiting carbohydrate hydrolyzing enzymes (α-amylases and α-glucosidases) to decrease postprandial hyperglycemia. Acarbose and voglibose are inhibitors used in clinical practice.

Punica granatum Leaf Ethanolic Extract and Ellagic Acid as Inhibitors of Zika Virus Infection.

Zika virus, an arthropod-borne flavivirus, is an emerging healthcare threat worldwide. Zika virus is responsible for severe neurological effects, such as paralytic Guillain-Barrè syndrome, in adults, and also congenital malformations, especially microcephaly. No specific antiviral drugs and vaccines are currently available, and treatments are palliative, but medicinal plants show great potential as natural sources of anti-Zika phytochemicals.

Evaluation of the Farming Potential of DC. Accessions Grown in Italy by Root-Marker Compound Content and Morphological Trait Analyses.

The genus includes a number of species that are commercially employed for the preparation of herbal products. DC. is one of these and is widely used, mainly for its immunomodulating properties, as it contains a wide range of compounds that belong to different chemical classes.

Sustainable Micro-Scale Extraction of Bioactive Phenolic Compounds from Leaves with Ionic Liquid-Based Surfactants.

This paper proposes a new sustainable and simple strategy for the micro-scale extraction of phenolic compounds from grapevine leaves with analytical purpose. The method is based on a microwave-assisted solid-liquid extraction approach (MA-SLE), using an aqueous solution of an ionic liquid (IL)-based surfactant as extraction phase. The method does not require organic solvents, nor any clean-up step, apart from filtration prior to the injection in the analytical system.

Melaleuca alternifolia Essential Oil: Evaluation of Skin Permeation and Distribution from Topical Formulations with a Solvent-Free Analytical Method.

essential oil (tea tree oil) is widely used as an ingredient in skin care products because of its recognized biological activities. The European Scientific Committee on Consumer Products constantly promotes research and collection of data on both skin distribution and systemic exposure to tea tree oil components after the application of topical formulations. This study quantitatively evaluates permeation, skin layer distribution (, epidermis, and dermis), and release into the surrounding environment of bioactive tea tree oil markers (i.