11,857,465 research outputs found
Possible role of vitamin D in Covid-19 infection in pediatric population
No full textPurpose Covid-19 is a pandemic of unprecedented proportion, whose understanding and management is still under way. In the emergency setting new or available therapies to contrast the spread of COVID-19 are urgently needed. Elderly males, especially those affected by previous diseases or with comorbidities, are more prone to develop interstitial pneumonia that can deteriorate evolving to ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome) that require hospitalization in Intensive Care Units (ICUs). Even children and young patients are not spared by SARS-CoV 2 infection, yet they seem to develop a milder form of disease. In this setting the immunomodulatory role of Vitamin D, should be further investigated. Methods: We reviewed the literature about the immunomodulatory role of Vitamin D collecting data from the databases Medline and Embase. Results Vitamin D proved to interact both with the innate immune system, by activating Toll-like receptors (TLRs) or increasing the levels of cathelicidins and beta-defensins, and adaptive immune system, by reducing immunoglobulin secretion by plasma cells and pro-inflammatory cytokines production, thus modulating T cells function. Promising results have been extensively described as regards the supplementation of vitamin D in respiratory tract infections, autoimmune diseases and even pulmonary fibrosis. Conclusions In this review, we suggest that vitamin D supplementation might play a role in the prevention and/or treatment to SARS-CoV-2 infection disease, by modulating the immune response to the virus both in the adult and pediatric population
The genetic background and vitamin D supplementation can affect irisin levels in Prader–Willi syndrome
No full textBackground Prader–Willi syndrome (PWS) is associated to distinctive clinical symptoms, including obesity, cognitive and behavioral disorders, and bone impairment. Irisin is a myokine that acts on several target organs including brain adipose tissue and bone. The present study was finalized to explore circulating levels of irisin in children and adult PWS patients.
Methods Seventy-eight subjects with PWS, 26 children (15 females, mean age 9.48 ± 3.6 years) and 52 adults (30 females, mean age 30.6 ± 10.7) were enrolled. Irisin serum levels were measured in patients and controls. Its levels were related with anthropometric and metabolic parameters, cognitive performance and bone mineral density either in pediatric or adult PWS. Multiple regression analysis was also performed.
Results Irisin serum levels in PWS patients did not show different compared with controls. A more in-depth analysis showed that both pediatric and adult PWS with DEL15 displayed significantly reduced irisin levels compared to controls. Otherwise, no differences in irisin concentration were found in UPD15 patients with respect to controls. Our study revealed that in pediatric PWS the 25(OH) vitamin-D levels affected irisin serum concentration. Indeed, patients who were not supplemented with vitamin D showed lower irisin levels than controls and patients performing the supplementation. Multiple regression analysis showed that irisin levels in pediatric and adult PWS were predicted by the genetic background and 25(OH)-vitamin D levels, whereas in a group of 29 adult PWS also by intelligent Quotient.
Conclusion We demonstrated the possible role of genetic background and vitamin-D supplementation on irisin serum levels in PWS patients
MeSH term explosion and author rank improve expert recommendations
No full textInformation overload is an often-cited phenomenon that reduces the productivity, efficiency and efficacy of scientists. One challenge for scientists is to find appropriate collaborators in their research. The literature describes various solutions to the problem of expertise location, but most current approaches do not appear to be very suitable for expert recommendations in biomedical research. In this study, we present the development and initial evaluation of a vector space model-based algorithm to calculate researcher similarity using four inputs: 1) MeSH terms of publications; 2) MeSH terms and author rank; 3) exploded MeSH terms; and 4) exploded MeSH terms and author rank. We developed and evaluated the algorithm using a data set of 17,525 authors and their 22,542 papers. On average, our algorithms correctly predicted 2.5 of the top 5/10 coauthors of individual scientists. Exploded MeSH and author rank outperformed all other algorithms in accuracy, followed closely by MeSH and author rank. Our results show that the accuracy of MeSH term-based matching can be enhanced with other metadata such as author rank
Insulin-Like Growth Factors and Metabolic Syndrome in Obese Children.
No full textBackground/Aims: Insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-I is related to cardiometabolic risk in adults, whereas the metabolic role of IGF-II is unclear. The aim of this study was to assess IGFs in obese children and correlate them with metabolic syndrome (MetS) components. Methods: This is a retrospective study including 574 obese children (11.34 +/- 3.16 years). All subjects underwent complete anthropometry and biochemical assessment. In a subgroup of 136 subjects, body composition was evaluated. IGF-I was measured in 300 obese subjects and IGF-II in 77 obese and 15 lean children. 177 subjects were divided according to the presence of 1 or more MetS criteria: group 1, subjects with 1 MetS criterion; group 2, subjects with 2 components; and group 3, subjects with MetS diagnosis. Results: IGF-I, IGF-II, and IGF-I/insulinlike growth factor-binding protein-3 ratio were not different among subjects with an increasing number of MetS criteria and were not associated with single components of MetS as well as with body composition parameters. In children younger than 10 years, IGF-I directly correlated with highdensity lipoprotein cholesterol (p < 0.005) even after controlling for confounders. IGF-II was significantly higher in obese children and correlated with parameters of insulin sensitivity (p < 0.05). Conclusion: IGFs were neither related to MetS nor to body composition parameters in obese children. Further studies are needed to clarify the mechanisms underlying the relationship between IGF-II and insulin sensitivity. (C) 2017 S. Karger AG, Base
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
No full textThe 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
Use of metformin in pediatric age
No full textMetformin is currently the most widely used drug worldwide for the treatment of type 2 diabetes (T2DM) in adults. Its primary action appears to be the inhibition of hepatic glucose production and the increase in peripheral insulin sensitivity (1).
Due to the worldwide increase of pediatric obesity and its related complications (2-4), the adoption of treatment with metformin has significantly increased in children and adolescents.
Whereas only short-term data are available on the benefits of metformin in obese children and adolescents with insulin resistance and normal glucose tolerance (5), metformin therapy in adolescents affected by T2DM is well established (6). Metformin is also beneficial in girls with polycystic ovarian syndrome (PCOS) (7). Moreover, the use of metformin has been recently extended to other conditions with promising results (8-10).
This review summarizes scientific evidences and practical considerations for the use of metformin in the treatment of different diseases affecting children and adolescents
Document: Charles D. Drake
No full textExtract from speech of Charles D. Drake, chairman of Committee of Seventy, delivered at St. Louis, October 17, 186
Impaired energy expenditure and physical activity in children affected by GH deficiency measured by SenseWear Armband: preliminary results.
No full textBackground: Influence of growth hormone on energy expenditure and physical performance is clearly known.
Objective and hypotheses: The aim of our study is to evaluate the energy expenditure (EE) during physical (PA) and sedentary activities (SA), in a group of children/adolescents affected by growth hormone deficiency (GHD) compared to healthy subjects, using an
objective measure as SenseWear Armband (SWA-BodyMedia).
Patients, methods and results: These preliminary data included 13 untreated, consecutive GHD children and adolescents (6 males) (GH peak <10 ng/ml; IGF1 SDS -2.0±0.3) and 10 controls (6 males), age and sex matched. As expected, the GHD group showed statistically lower height (-2.7±0.9 vs 0.4±0.5 SDS), weight (-1.5±1.2 vs 1.1±0.6 SDS) and Body Mass Index (BMI) (-0.1±1.2 vs 0.6±0.2 SDS).
The use of SWA demonstrated that the GHD children showed lower Energy expenditure, total (1007±458 vs 1337±125 cal/d;1.7±0.2 vs 1.9
±0.2 Mets/d) and active (214±136 vs 435±88 cal/d;7±3 vs 13±4 cal/Kg/d) and spent statistically less time in physical activity (>3 Mets) (1.5 ±0.8 vs 2.3±1 h/d), especially moderate (3-6 Mets)(1.4±0.8 vs 2.2±0.9 h/d; 5.8±3.1 vs 9.2±3.9% of daily hours) compared with healthy subjects.
A tendency to spend more time in sedentary activities was found in GHD group (16±4 vs 14±3 h/d), although not statistically significant.
In multivariate regression IGF1 and BMISD resulted positive predictors of EE/daily (cal/daily) in GHD children.
Conclusions: In conclusion our preliminary results seem to confirm that children affected by growth hormone deficiency showed lower
energy expenditure as calories/daily and spent less time in physical activities compared to normal children. This result seems correlate to
IGF1 values indicating a possible role of GH in physical performance. Further evaluations on greater number of patients, before and after GH therapy, are ongoing to confirm our findings
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