1,721,000 research outputs found
Antioxidant therapy and drugs interfering with lipid metabolism: could they be effective in NAFLD patients?
No full textThis review is part of a special issue dealing with various aspects of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). We will focus on promising treatments of NASH with antioxidants and drugs that interfere with lipid metabolism.The other therapies of interest, such as diet, behavioral changes, and insulin sensitizers are presented elsewhere. Oxidative stress is believed to play a key role in the pathogenesis of NASH and other liver diseases. Antioxidants aimed at improving chronic alcoholic or viral liver diseases have been an object of study for some time. However, only a few high quality, randomized, versus placebo-controlled, double-blinded trials have been carried out to assess these drugs. Vitamin E is currently the most widely assessed antioxidant. Several questions need to be answered, including long-term tolerance and efficacy of vitamin E in particular subsets, such as diabetes and NASH-related cirrhosis. Other antioxidants are promising, and should be assessed using the standards of evidence-based medicine. NAFLD frequently coexists with hyperlipidemia and carries an increased risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Furthermore, altered lipid metabolism is thought to be central to the pathogenesis of liver injury in NASH. Therefore, lipid-lowering drugs are attractive therapeutic tools in the treatment of NAFLD. Statins have ameliorated surrogate markers of steatosis in several randomized controlled trials, but their impact on liver histology is unknown. They have, however, been found to be the only class of lipid-lowering drugs that reduces cardiovascular risk in NAFLD. Preliminary evidence suggests that ezetimibe, an inhibitor of intestinal and hepatic cholesterol absorption, may improve liver histology, but its impact on the risk of CVD and on clinical outcome remains to be determined. Despite strong experimental evidence supporting the use of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids in NAFLD, the studies published on humans have consisted of small sample sizes and had a number of methodological flaws, including the absence of post-treatment histology. Association of antioxidants and/or lipid-lowering drugs plus other drugs of interest in NASH, such as insulin sensitizers, warrant investigation. However, as promising as these drug treatments may continue to be, they should be associated with diet and modifications in lifestyle
Assessment of liver graft steatosis: where do we stand?
No full textThe growing number of patients on waiting lists for liver transplantation and the shortage of
organs have forced many centres to adopt extended criteria for graft selection, moving the limit of
acceptance for marginal livers. Steatotic grafts that were, in the past, considered strictly unacceptable for
transplantation because of the high risk of early non-function, are now considered as a potential resource for
organ implementation. Several methods to diagnose, measure, classify and stage steatosis exist but none
can be considered qualitatively and quantitatively “the ideal method” to date. Clinical, biology and imaging
data can be very helpful to estimate graft steatosis but histology still remains the gold standard. There is an
increasing need for rapid and reliable tools to assess graft steatosis. Herein we present a comprehensive
review of the approaches that are currently used to quantify steatosis in liver grafts
Severe Protein Malnutrition After Bariatric Surgery and Liver Failure. a Dangerous Sequence
No full textNo abstract availabl
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
Bariatric surgery significantly improves the quality of sexual life and self-esteem in morbidly obese women
No full textBackground: The impact of bariatric surgery (BS) on the sexual functioning of patients is poorly studied. Our aim was to analyze the sexual function, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem
of morbidly obese women (MOW) undergoing BS.
Patients and methods: Quality of sexual life was prospectively 5 evaluated in 43 consecutive
MOW (18–50 years) who underwent BS. Female sexual function index (FSFI), Beck
depression inventory (BDI), and Rosenberg self-esteem scale (RSES) questionnaires were administered to evaluate sexual satisfaction, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem, respectively. A control group of 36 healthy, non-obese, female patients (HW) was recruited
for comparison. Results of questionnaires were compared between three periods (before BS and at 3- and 6-months follow-up) and between MOW and HW.
Results: Before BS, the FSFI score was significantly lower in MOW compared to HW
(17±12 vs 27±8, p=0.0001) while at 3 and 6-months post-BS a significant amelioration
(p=0.01) occurred. In particular, after BS, all components of the FSFI score (sexual desire, excitement, lubrification, orgasm, satisfaction, and pain) were ameliorated. The pre-BS BDI
score was higher in MOW than in HW (8±6 vs 5±5, p=0.004) while at postoperative months
3 and 6, a significant amelioration was found (p=0.025 and 0.005, respectively). Before BS,
no significant differences occurred in the RSES score between MOW and HW (30±7 vs
32±6, p=0.014), whereas the MOW RSES scores at 6-months post-BS were improved when
compared with the HW RSES scores.
Conclusions: BS results in a significant improvement in the quality of sexual life, depressive symptoms, and self-esteem in MOW
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
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