1,720,968 research outputs found
Mitochondrial Dysfunctions and Altered Metals Homeostasis: New Weapons to Counteract HCV-Related Oxidative Stress
Full text linkMicroRNAs in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease: novel biomarkers and prognostic tools during the transition from steatosis to hepatocarcinoma.
Full text link
Prediction of carotid intima-media thickness in obese patients with low prevalence of comorbidities by serum copper bioavailability.
No full textBACKGROUND AND AIM:
Western societies, with growing prevalence, suffer from various metabolic diseases like obesity and hepatic steatosis, better defined as non-alcoholic fatty liver disease, or cardiovascular (CV) diseases that are strictly linked to each other. The association of their occurrence with the altered homeostasis of metals is an intriguing issue. Copper in particular was identified as key player in various metabolic derangements. On these bases, we aimed at investigating the possible association of serum copper levels with an indicator of early CV risk as the intima-media thickness (IMT) of carotid artery and its predictive value in a selected population of obese patients.
METHODS:
We performed a cross-sectional study recruiting 100 obese patients characterized by a low prevalence of comorbidities. Ultrasound investigation for hepatic steatosis and IMT evaluation were performed. Serum samples were collected and then analyzed through atomic absorption spectrometry to evaluate their copper content. Possible correlations between copper bioavailability and biochemical, clinical, and anthropometric characteristics of patients were sought.
RESULTS:
Age negatively predicted copper serum levels of patients (P = 0.009). However, the most interesting finding is the negative prediction of IMT by the copper serum levels (t = -2.23, P = 0.028, least absolute deviations regression). Factor analysis confirmed the aforementioned inverse correlation and highlighted the strong inverse correlation between smoking and copper serum levels.
CONCLUSION:
Our data show that an altered copper bioavailability predicts early atherosclerosis as main CV risk in obese patients with hepatic steatosis detected by ultrasound, shedding some light in this pathological scenario
A possible novel role of kruppel-like transcription factor 15 during HCV infection in PBMCs from HCV positive patients
No full textOleuropein counteracts systemic inflammation and hepatic immune cells infiltration in a mouse model of NAFLD
No full text
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
- …
