Vegetarian diet may ameliorate uremic pruritus in hemodialysis patients.

Objectives: Systemic inflammation has been reported to be associated with uremic pruritus (UP). Although a vegetarian diet can reduce systemic inflammation in hemodialysis patients, the effect of vegetarian diet on UP is not clear. The purpose of the study was to know the possible effects of vegetarian diet on UP.

Longer dialysis times are associated with a lower chance of dementia among chronic hemodialysis patients.

Dementia is common in chronic hemodialysis (HD) patients and is associated with a higher mortality. Factors associated with dementia in HD patients are not clear. We investigated factors associated with early dementia in HD patients.

Nutritional status of vegetarians on maintenance haemodialysis.

Aim: Vegetarian diets have long been thought of as beneficial to health. However, vegetarian diets are often low in protein, which is contradictory to the high protein diet guideline for uraemia patients. The purpose of the study was to investigate the impact of a vegetarian diet on the nutritional status of haemodialysis (HD) patients.

HIV vaccine candidates.

Amino acid sequences of the HIV-1 surface protein gp120 show extensive variations. Some of the peptide or DNA vaccines using the V3-loop of gp120 can trigger antibody production against some isolates of HIV, but these antibodies are not protective against other isolates. Thus, more conserved peptides from other HIV proteins have also been tried as vaccines.