Comparative study of the usefulness of a novel insulin therapy in Japanese patients with Type 2 diabetes for concomitant use of an oral antidiabetic agent with twice-daily dosing either of insulin aspart, biphasic insulin aspart-30, or insulin detemir: Two times Insulin injection Combined with oral therapy Efficacy Study (TWICE study).

Objectives: It is common to treat type 2 diabetes by regular injections of insulin. We compared the efficacy and safety of twice-daily administration of short-acting, premixed, and long-acting insulins.

Methods: This was a multi-center, randomized, open-label, 52-week study.

Changes in cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase activity and calmodulin concentration in heart muscle of cardiomyopathic hamsters.

Cyclic nucleotides (cAMP and cGMP) phosphodiesterase (PDE) activities and expression are altered in the cardiac muscle of cardiomyopathic heart failure, and PDE inhibitors improve the abnormal muscle condition through changing the cyclic nucleotide concentration. These observations prompted us to investigate the role of calmodulin (CaM) in the regulation of cyclic nucleotide PDE activities, and moreover to study the modulation of the PDE isozymes in heart failure, using cardiac muscles of cardiomyopathic hamster. The CaM concentrations in the heart muscle of the normal control and cardiomyopathic hamsters (each of three to four hamsters) varied with cell fraction and with the age of the animal.

Alteration of urinary sorbitol excretion in WBN-kob diabetic rats - treatment with an aldose reductase inhibitor.

An accelerated polyol pathway in diabetes contributes to the development of diabetic complications. To elucidate diabetic nephropathy involving also renal tubular damage, we measured urinary sorbitol concentration concomitantly with urinary N-acetyl-D-glucosaminidase (NAG) excretion in WBN-kob diabetic rats.Twenty-four-hour urinary sorbitol concentrations increased in the diabetic rats in parallel with whole blood sorbitol concentrations.

Distinctive response of thyroid-infiltrating mononuclear cells to B cell activation through CD40 and interleukin-4 in Graves' patients.

The possible role of abnormal T cell-dependent B-cell activation in Graves' disease was investigated by comparing lymphocyte subset distribution and the production of soluble CD8 (sCD8), sCD23, IL-10 and IL-12 by peripheral blood cells (PBMC) and thyroid-infiltrating lymphocytes (TL) in vitro. In TL, the percentage of CD8(+) cells was slightly higher and the sCD8 concentration was significantly higher than in PBMC. The ratio CD23(+) cells to CD20(+) cells (activated B/pan B cells) was increased in TL compared to PBMC from Graves' or normal controls, although the percentage of CD20(+) cells was decreased.