Search results for "Linear Models"
showing 10 items of 440 documents
Gentamicin alters nitric oxide production in semicircular canals and otolith organs.
2010
Objectives/Hypothesis: Intratympanic application of gentamicin is an important therapeutic option to control vertigo spells in Meniere's disease. Low doses eliminate the function of semicircular canal ampullae (SCCA) and saccule in most patients, although utricular function is maintained in many cases. Local alteration in free radical production might be responsible for these differences. Therefore, the gentamicin-induced nitric oxide (NO) production was determined in an animal model using separate organ cultures of SCCA, saccule, and utricle. Study Design: Prospective pilot study in male guinea pigs. Methods: SCCA, saccule, and utricle of 28 guinea pigs were isolated and incubated separate…
Serum uric acid is not independently associated with plasma renin activity and plasma aldosterone in hypertensive adults
2017
Background and Aims In experimental investigations conducted in rats, raising serum uric acid (SUA) levels resulted in the stimulation of intrarenal renin expression. Studies in humans exploring the association of SUA with plasma renin activity (PRA) yielded conflicting results. Moreover, little is known about the relationship of SUA with plasma aldosterone concentration (PAC). The study aimed to assess the relationship between SUA levels, PRA, and PAC and the influence of age, gender, body mass index (BMI), and hyperuricemia on these relationships in subjects with essential hypertension (EH). Methods and Results We enrolled 372 hypertensive patients (mean age 45 ± 12 years, men 67%) with u…
Protective role of the Mediterranean diet on several cardiovascular risk factors: Evidence from Sicily, southern Italy
2014
Background and aims: Epidemiological studies conducted in European countries demonstrated that the adoption of a Mediterranean diet protect against clustered risk factors but those evaluating such benefits specifically in southern Italy are scarce. Thus, the aim of this study was to assess the association between the adherence to the Mediterranean diet and cardiovascular risk factors obesity, diabetes, and hypertension. Methods and results: A cross-sectional population-based survey including 3090 subjects was conducted in Sicily, southern Italy. Food intake was evaluated through a validated food frequency questionnaire and adherence to the dietary pattern was assessed using the MedDietScore…
Polypharmacy, length of hospital stay, and in-hospital mortality among elderly patients in internal medicine wards. The REPOSI study
2011
PURPOSES: We evaluated the prevalence and factors associated with polypharmacy and investigated the role of polypharmacy as a predictor of length of hospital stay and in-hospital mortality. METHODS: Thirty-eight internal medicine wards in Italy participated in the Registro Politerapie SIMI (REPOSI) study during 2008. One thousand three hundred and thirty-two in-patients aged ≥65 years were enrolled. Polypharmacy was defined as the concomitant use of five or more medications. Linear regression analyses were used to evaluate predictors of length of hospital stay and logistic regression models for predictors of in-hospital mortality. Age, sex, Charlson comorbidity index, polypharmacy, and numb…
Opposites detract: Middle school peer group antipathies
2009
This study examines variability in patterns of peer group antipathy. Same-grade adolescent peer groups were identified from sociometric nominations of preferred affiliates in a community sample of 600 Finnish ninth-grade middle school students (mean age = 15.0 years). Hierarchical linear modeling determined characteristics of youths in actor groups (nominators) that predicted antipathy for youths in target groups (nominatees) on the basis of target group characteristics. Most antipathies were based on dissimilarity between groups representing the mainstream culture and groups opposed to it. The higher a peer group’s school burnout, the more its members disliked students in peer groups with …
Immuno-inflammatory activation in acute cardio-embolic strokes in comparison with other subtypes of ischaemic stroke
2009
Few studies have examined the relationship between inflammatory biomarker blood levels, cardioembolic stroke subtype and neurological deficit. So the aim of our study is to evaluate plasma levels of immuno-inflammatory variables in patients with cardio-embolic acute ischaemic stroke compared to other diagnostic subtypes and to evaluate the relationship between immuno-inflammatory variables, acute neurological deficit and brain infarct volume. One hundred twenty patients with acute ischaemic stroke and 123 controls without a diagnosis of acute ischaemic stroke were evaluated. The type of acute ischaemic stroke was classified according to the TOAST classification. We evaluated plasma levels o…
Sociodemographic profiles regarding bitter food consumption. Cross-sectional evidence from a general French population
2013
International audience; Certain beneficial foods taste bitter (e.g., cruciferous vegetables) and might be aversive to consumers. Here, individual characteristics according to bitter food consumption patterns were assessed. The study included 2327 participants in the SU.VI.MAX antioxidant-based randomized controlled trial (1994-2002). The sample was drawn from the general French population. Dietary data were obtained from a minimum of twelve 24-h dietary records provided during the first 2 years of follow-up. Two bitter food consumption scores were computed - one assessing the variety of items consumed (unweighted score) and the other reflecting exposure to bitterness estimated via complemen…
Linear and non-linear brain-heart and brain-brain interactions during sleep.
2015
In this study, the physiological networks underlying the joint modulation of the parasympathetic component of heart rate variability (HRV) and of the different electroencephalographic (EEG) rhythms during sleep were assessed using two popular measures of directed interaction in multivariate time series, namely Granger causality (GC) and transfer entropy (TE). Time series representative of cardiac and brain activities were obtained in 10 young healthy subjects as the normalized high frequency (HF) component of HRV and EEG power in the δ, θ, α, Ï, and β bands, measured during the whole duration of sleep. The magnitude and statistical significance of GC and TE were evaluated between each …
Intensive care unit strain should not rush physicians into making inappropriate decisions, but merely reduce the time to the right decisions being ma…
2016
The effect of capacity strain in an ICU on the timing of end-of-life decision-making is unknown. We sought to determine how changes in strain impact timing of new do-not-resuscitate (DNR) orders and of death.Retrospective cohort study of 9891 patients dying in the hospital following an ICU stay ≥72 h in Project IMPACT, 2001-2008. We examined the effect of ICU capacity strain (measured by standardized census, proportion of new admissions, and average patient acuity) on time to initiation of DNR orders and time to death for all ICU decedents using fixed-effects linear regression.Increases in strain were associated with shorter time to DNR for patients with limitations in therapy (predicted ti…
High serum uric acid levels increase the risk of metabolic syndrome in elderly women: The PRO.V.A study
2015
Background and aims: Serum uric acid (SUA) is the end-product of purine metabolism in humans, and its levels often increase in subjects with metabolic syndrome (MetS). Despite several studies demonstrating a relationship between increased SUA levels and the prevalence of MetS, prospective data on SUA as a predictor of the incidence of MetS in the elderly are limited. Our aim was to conduct a prospective study on the association between SUA concentrations and the onset of MetS in an elderly Italian cohort. Methods and results: This is a cohort study (Progetto Veneto Anziani Pro.V.A.) involving community-dwelling subjects aged ≥65 years and followed up for a mean 4.4 years. We included 1128 p…