Search results for "lean"

What Healthcare Workers Should Know about Environmental Bacterial Contamination in the Intensive Care Unit

2017

Intensive care unit- (ICU-) acquired infections are a major health problem worldwide. Inanimate surfaces and equipment contamination may play a role in cross-transmission of pathogens and subsequent patient colonization or infection. Bacteria contaminate inanimate surfaces and equipment of the patient zone and healthcare area, generating a reservoir of potential pathogens, including multidrug resistant species. Traditional terminal cleaning methods have limitations. Indeed patients who receive a bed from prior patient carrying bacteria are exposed to an increased risk (odds ratio 2.13, 95% confidence intervals 1.62–2.81) of being colonized and potentially infected by the same bacterial spec…

Effects of a ketogenic diet in overweight women with polycystic ovary syndrome.

2019

Abstract Background Polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) is the most common endocrine disorder in women during reproductive age. It is characterised clinically by oligo-ovulation or anovulation, hyper-androgenism, and the presence of polycystic ovaries. It is associated with an increased prevalence of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The onset of PCOS has been associated to several hereditary and environmental factors, but insulin resistance plays a key pathogenetic role. We sought to investigate the effects of a ketogenic diet (KD) on women of childbearing age with a diagnosis of PCOS. Methods Fourteen overweight women with diagnosis of PCOS underwent to a ketoge…

Betaine and Choline Improve Lipid Homeostasis in Obesity by Participation in Mitochondrial Oxidative Demethylation

2018

We investigated the metabolic effects of betaine (Bet) supplementation on CTP:phosphoethanolamine cytidylyltransferase/Pcyt2 heterozygous mice (HET). HET received either no treatment or were allowed access to 1% Bet supplemented water for 8 weeks. As we previously showed with choline (Cho), Bet improved hypertriglyceridemia, and hepatic steatosis in HET. The protection from obesity associated with reduced hepatic steatosis and increased lipid breakdown in adipocytes was attributed to increased energy requirements for metabolism and elimination of supplemented Bet and Cho. 1H-NMR-based profiling revealed metabolic changes caused by Bet and Cho supplementation. Cho increased the citric acid c…

Ubiquitous Structural Signaling in Bacterial Phytochromes

2015

The phytochrome family of light-switchable proteins has long been studied by biochemical, spectroscopic and crystallographic means, while a direct probe for global conformational signal propagation has been lacking. Using solution X-ray scattering, we find that the photosensory cores of several bacterial phytochromes undergo similar large-scale structural changes upon red-light excitation. The data establish that phytochromes with ordinary and inverted photocycles share a structural signaling mechanism and that a particular conserved histidine, previously proposed to be involved in signal propagation, in fact tunes photoresponse.

Mitochondrial CB1 receptors regulate neuronal energy metabolism

2012

The mammalian brain is one of the organs with the highest energy demands, and mitochondria are key determinants of its functions. Here we show that the type-1 cannabinoid receptor (CB(1)) is present at the membranes of mouse neuronal mitochondria (mtCB(1)), where it directly controls cellular respiration and energy production. Through activation of mtCB(1) receptors, exogenous cannabinoids and in situ endocannabinoids decreased cyclic AMP concentration, protein kinase A activity, complex I enzymatic activity and respiration in neuronal mitochondria. In addition, intracellular CB(1) receptors and mitochondrial mechanisms contributed to endocannabinoid-dependent depolarization-induced suppres…

Furcocercous cercariae (Trematoda) from freshwater snails in Central Finland

2007

AbstractA total of eight species of furcocercous cercariae of four families (Strigeidae, Diplostomidae, Schistosomatidae and Sanguinicolidae), were found in 2005 in Lake Konnevesi in Central Finland in four snail species (Valvata macrostoma, Lymnaea stagnalis, Bathyomphalus contortus and Planorbarius corneus). Australapatemon burti (Miller, 1923), Australapatemon sp., Cotylurus brevis Dubois et Rausch, 1950, Cercaria spinulosa Ginetsinskaya, 1959 and Sanguinicola sp. are new species records for Finland. Ichthyocotylurus variegatus (Creplin, 1825) and Bilharziella polonica (Kowalewski, 1895) were first recorded as cercariae in Finland. The most common cercariae were A. burti (prevalence 13.3…

Surviving the heat: heterogeneity of response inSaccharomyces cerevisiaeprovides insight into thermal damage to the membrane

2015

Environmental heat stress impacts on the physiology and viability of microbial cells with concomitant implications for microbial activity and diversity. Previously, it has been demonstrated that gradual heating of Saccharomyces cerevisiae induces a degree of thermal resistance, whereas a heat shock results in a high level of cell death. Here, we show that the impact of exogenous nutrients on acquisition of thermal resistance differs between strains. Using single-cell methods, we demonstrate the extent of heterogeneity of the heat-stress response within populations of yeast cells and the presence of subpopulations that are reversibly damaged by heat stress. Such cells represent potential for…

2020

In midlife, women experience hormonal changes due to menopausal transition. A decrease especially in estradiol has been hypothesized to cause loss of muscle mass. This study investigated the effect of menopausal transition on changes in lean and muscle mass, from the total body to the muscle fiber level, among 47–55-year-old women. Data were used from the Estrogenic Regulation of Muscle Apoptosis (ERMA) study, where 234 women were followed from perimenopause to early postmenopause. Hormone levels (estradiol and follicle stimulating hormone), total and regional body composition (dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) and computed tomography (CT) scans), physical activity level (self-reported…

How does a newly born mouse get to the nipple? odor substrates eliciting first nipple grasping and sucking responses

2012

It is a mammalian female strategy to emit odor cues and signals that direct their inexperienced newborns to the nipple, and optimize their initial sucking success and, hence, viability. Here, natural odorous substrates that contribute to nipple grasping were investigated in mice, a species that has not been much scrutinized on this topic. The response of pups toward the nipples of lactating females (LF) versus nonlactating females (NLF) were first assessed right after watched birth, before and after the first suckling experience, and at 1 day old, after more extended suckling experience. It appeared that only nipples of LF induced grasping at these early ages, leading to take NLF as the bas…

Compound conditionals as random quantities and Boolean algebras

2022

Conditionals play a key role in different areas of logic and probabilistic reasoning, and they have been studied and formalised from different angles. In this paper we focus on the de Finetti's notion of conditional as a three-valued object, with betting-based semantics, and its related approach as random quantity as mainly developed by two of the authors. Compound conditionals have been studied in the literature, but not in full generality. In this paper we provide a natural procedure to explicitly attach conditional random quantities to arbitrary compound conditionals that also allows us to compute their previsions. By studying the properties of these random quantities, we show that, in f…