In addition to having a negative impact on the health of people and domestic animals, rodents often cause enormous damage to the environment by disrupting natural biodiversity. The negative impacts of rodents in urban and rural areas have required intensive use of rodentcides in spite of the proven risk of secondary poisoning of non-target predators and scavengers. Continuous and intensive use of rodenticides has led to environmental pollution through their retention in the environment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGlycosaminoglycans are complex carbohydrates used as nutraceuticals for diverse applications. We studied the potential of the glycosaminoglycan dermatan sulfate (DS) to counteract the development of diet-induced obesity (DIO) using obesity-prone mice fed a high-fat diet (HFD) as a model. Oral DS supplementation protected the animals against HFD-induced increases in whole-body adiposity, visceral fat mass, adipocyte size, blood glucose levels, insulin resistance, and pro-inflammatory lipids levels in brown adipose tissue (BAT) and the liver, where it largely counteracted the HFD-induced changes in the nonpolar metabolome.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAtmospheric pollution remains one of the growing concerns in the twenty-first century, with particular focus on metal trace elements (MTE) from anthropogenic sources, due to their adverse effects on biota. The concentration and type of MTE in the atmosphere and in the soil are diverse, depending on the origin of pollutants, which can cause diverse detrimental effects on organisms living in the nearby environment. Three sites in Central Serbia with different origins of MTE pollution (urban contamination, smelting, and fly ash area) were assessed, using terrestrial Roman snails (Helix pomatia) as biomarker organisms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFood webs on forest trees include plant pathogens, arthropods, and their natural enemies. To increase the understanding of the impact of a plant pathogen on herbivore-natural enemy interactions, we studied the powdery mildew fungus , the phytophagous mite , and the predatory and mycophagous mite in pedunculate oak () leaves. In June, July and August of 2016, we assessed the severity of powdery mildew, mite population density and adult female mite size in 30 trees in three forests near Belgrade, Serbia.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAnti-obesity activity has been reported for beta-carotene (BC) supplementation at high doses and metformin (MET). We studied whether BC treatment at a closer to dietary dose and MET treatment at a lower than therapeutic dose are effective in ameliorating unwanted effects of an obesogenic diet and whether their combination is advantageous. Obesity-prone mice were challenged with a high-fat diet (HFD, 45% energy as fat) for 4 weeks while receiving a placebo or being treated orally with BC (3 mg/kg/day), MET (100 mg/kg/day), or their combination (BC+MET); a fifth group received a placebo and was kept on a normal-fat diet (10% energy as fat).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCarotenoids entail a vast potential to tackle health problems including obesity and some of its comorbidities. The use of animal models remains necessary, particularly at early stages of research (preclinical) and for advancing in mechanistic aspects of carotenoid action. No single animal model completely mimics human absorption and metabolism of carotenoids, and the best model must be chosen considering the specific application, characteristics of the individual models, and funding and facilities available.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF() comprise several lipophilic constituents with proposed anti-obesity and anti-diabetic properties. We investigated the effect of an ethanolic extract (PTE) on energy metabolism in obesity-prone mice fed a high fat diet (HFD). Six- to eight-week-old male C57BL/6J mice were switched to HFD and, at the same time, received orally placebo or PTE (100 mg or 300 mg/kg body weight/day).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFA patient, male, aged 36, clinically presented as an unstable angina pectoris following myocardial infarction, who came from general hospital of Banja Luka for further examination is presented. According to the medical report, he was treated for acute myocardial infarction in 1994 at Banja Luka's general hospital, when he was resusciated due to of cardiac arrest. The anginous pain was still present regardless of prescribed therapy.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt has been shown that regional myocardial ischemia during angioplasty is associated with retarded apical filling. To test the importance of retarded apical filling by color Doppler M-mode to detect ischemia during dipyridamole stress echocardiography, we evaluated 29 patients (12 women, aged 57 to 87 years). High-dose dipyridamole (0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe effect of right ventricular pacing on left ventricular relaxation was studied in 13 patients (age 62 +/- 3 years), with the atrial sensing ventricular pacing mode (VDD). A control group of similar age (64 +/- 4 years) consisted of 11 patients with atrial pacing (AAI). The timing of events was determined in both groups at similar R-R intervals (921 +/- 77 ms vs 967 +/- 37 ms).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPulsed Doppler echocardiographic and hemodynamic examinations were performed in 31 patients (mean age 17.8 years) with isolated ventricular septal defect (VSD). Three groups were studied: group I (n = 6) patients had severe pulmonary vascular obstructive disease (PVOD); group II (n = 12) patients had pulmonary hypertension (PH) without severe PVOD; group III (n = 13) patients had no PH.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn 13 patients with isolated mitral stenosis in sinus rhythm the pulmonary venous flow was evaluated by transoesophageal pulsed Doppler echocardiography. The patients were divided into two groups according to their mitral valve area (MVA); Group I (MVA < 1.5 cm2, n = 7 patients); and Group II (MVA > 1.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFVojnosanit Pregl
February 1994
Between 1961 and 1992, 45 patients with intracardiac myxomas localised in the left ventricle--40 (89%) and in the right ventricle--5 (11%) were operated on. There were 27 women and 18 men, aged 15-63, mean age, 46.5 years.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFObjective: To study the mechanisms underlying the dominant 'a' wave seen in patients with primary pulmonary hypertension.
Design: Retrospective and prospective examination of the jugular venous pulse recording, flow in the superior vena cava, and Doppler echocardiographic studies.
Setting: A tertiary referral centre for both cardiac and pulmonary disease, with facilities for invasive and non-invasive investigation, and assessment for heart and heart-lung transplantation.
Objective: To examine the effects of pulmonary hypertension on left ventricular diastolic function and to relate the findings to possible mechanisms of interdependence between the right and left sides of the heart in ventricular disease.
Design: A retrospective and prospective analysis of echocardiographic and Doppler studies.
Setting: A tertiary referral centre for both cardiac and pulmonary disease.
We describe a simple, non-invasive and practical method to determine the peak velocity of tricuspid regurgitant flow (and hence derive systolic pulmonary artery pressure) from examination of the dynamics of retrograde tricuspid flow on Doppler. Based on a previously described relationship between right ventricular systolic pressure and the time interval between pulmonary valve closure and tricuspid valve opening, our technique does not require the peak tricuspid regurgitant velocity to be recorded; nor, as in previous studies does it rely upon recording the jugular venous pulse, right ventricular apexcardiogram or invasive pressure measurements. We have studied 65 patients with right ventricular disease (53 with pulmonary hypertension), and 24 with dilated cardiomyopathy, with M-mode, two-dimensional echocardiography, Doppler, and phonocardiography.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFTex Heart Inst J
February 2005
From January 1986 through December 1990, we used pulsed Doppler echocardiography to evaluate left ventricular diastolic function in 43 patients with an ostium secundum atrial septal defect. The study population included 27 females and 16 males, whose ages ranged from 6 to 58 years (mean, 26 years). The patients were grouped according to degree of pulmonary hemodynamic impairment: patients in Group 1 (n = 6) had severe pulmonary hypertension, those in Group 2 (n = 10) had mild-to-moderate pulmonary hypertension, and those in Group 3 (n = 27) had no pulmonary hypertension.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContinuous-wave Doppler echocardiography was used to assess the hemodynamic role of left atrial systole and its effect on left ventricular performance in 31 patients with pure mitral stenosis. Seventeen (group I) had severe stenosis, and 14 (group II) had mild-to-moderate stenosis. The contribution of atrial systole to cardiac output was 15% in group I and 24% in group II (p < 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFContinuous wave Doppler echocardiography was used to assess the hemodynamic role of left atrial systole and its effect on left ventricular performance in 31 patients with isolated mitral stenosis. Fourteen of the patients had mild stenosis, whereas the remaining 17 had severe stenosis. The contribution of atrial systole to the cardiac output was 24% in the patients with mild stenosis and 15% in those with severe stenosis (p less than 0.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFUsing continuous-wave Doppler echocardiography, we evaluated the mitral flow velocity pattern in 30 ventricular septal defect patients, 11 of whom had severe pulmonary vascular obstructive disease (Group I); 10 of whom had severe pulmonary hypertension without pulmonary vascular obstructive disease (Group II); and 9 of whom had no pulmonary hypertension and hemodynamically unimportant left-to-right shunts (Group III). In addition, 25 healthy subjects (Group IV) were studied for comparative purposes. The peak velocity of early left ventricular filling (E) was significantly lower in Group I than in all the other groups (p < 0.
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