186,179 research outputs found
An open-label study on the short-term effects of a novel EFSA-compliant nutraceutical combination in mild-to-moderate hypercholesterolemia
No full textOBJECTIVE: Recently, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has recommended to limit the use of total monacolins in red yeast rice (RYR) products to a dose <3 mg/day. However, data concerning the lipid lowering efficacy of the reduced dosage remain limited. A monacolin dose reduced due to safety issues may be expected to be less effective as a lipid lowering strategy and, for this reason, nutraceutical combinations with other active compounds may offer a viable solution as they can act synergistically through different mechanisms. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This 8-week open-label study was designed to investigate the safety and efficacy of a novel ESFA-compliant lipid lowering nutraceutical combination (Colestarmony Plus(®); containing total monacolins from RYR at a dose of 2.9 mg/day, a highly bioavailable berberine formulation, and pomegranate extract) in subjects (n=40) with mild-to-moderate hypercholesterolemia and no history of cardiovascular disease. RESULTS: After 8 weeks of supplementation, Colestarmony Plus(® )significantly reduced total cholesterol (−10.4%, p<0.05), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (−14.8%, p<0.05), oxidized low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (−12.0%, p<0.05), and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (−14.0%, p<0.05) compared with baseline values. A subgroup of 22 patients underwent measurements of flow-mediated dilation, with values increasing by 18.0% at 8 weeks with respect to baseline (p<0.05). The supplement was generally well-tolerated. CONCLUSION: Our short-term results indicate that the tested ESFA-compliant nutraceutical is effective in a primary prevention setting, even by providing only <3 mg/day of monacolins
Coronary spasm and acute myocardial infarction due to a mutation (V734I) in the nucleotide binding domain 1 of ABCC9
No full textElevated plasma N-terminal ProBNP levels in unmedicated patients with major depressive disorder
No full textThere is considerable evidence that cardiovascular diseases are more prevalent in patients with major depressive disorder (MDD). Secretion of N-terminal pro-B-type natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP) increases in several cardiac illnesses, making this neurohormone a reliable diagnostic and prognostic biomarker of cardiovascular risk. We measured plasma NT-proBNP levels in the following three groups of subjects free of overt cardiovascular disease: unmedicated patients with MDD (n=40), unmedicated patients with schizophrenia (n=44), and normal control subjects (n=42). The severity of depressive symptoms was rated using the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale (HAMD). Plasma NT-proBNP levels were assayed by ELISA. Plasma NT-proBNP levels were significantly higher in the MDD group (median: 217.1 pmol/L; interquartile range: 179.4-277.1 pmol/L) than in patients with schizophrenia (175.7 pmol/L [139.0-218.9]; P<0.05) or in the control group (158.9 pmol/L [98.3-212.1]; P<0.001). Among patients with MDD, there was a significant positive correlation (Spearman's rank correlation=0.422, P=0.008) between plasma NT-proBNP and HAMD scores. Altogether, our results indicate that elevated NT-proBNP levels may play a role in linking MDD with increased cardiovascular risk
Increased Plasma Aldosterone Concentrations in Patients with Clinical Depression
No full textBACKGROUND: Clinical depression has been increasingly recognized as an independent risk factor for adverse cardiovascular events, but the biological mechanisms of this association remain unclear. Recent evidence for renin system dysregulation in patients with depression led us to hypothesize that aldosterone--a well-recognized contributor to vascular injury--could be increased in depressed patients. The present study was designed, therefore, to be a cross-sectional investigation of plasma renin and aldosterone levels in depressed patients as compared with healthy controls with no history of psychiatric illness. METHODS: A total of 65 depressed patients and 65 age- and gender-matched control subjects were enrolled. Following a fixed sodium and potassium diet, venous blood samples were obtained at 9:00 a.m. to avoid the influence of circadian rhythms. RESULTS: Although there were no significant differences in plasma level of renin among subjects with depression and controls (7.9 +/- 5.8 vs. 6.4 +/- 4.3 pg/mL, respectively; p=0.10), depressed subjects exhibited greater mean aldosterone levels as compared with control subjects (157.2 +/- 67.5 vs. 125.7 +/- 38.1 pg/mL, respectively; p=0.0014). After adjusting for potential confounders, multivariate logistic regression analysis showed that subjects with depression had 2.77 times higher odds of elevated aldosterone levels compared with healthy control subjects (95% confidence interval, 1.30-5.92, p=0.008). CONCLUSIONS: Our present findings support the hypothesis that hyperaldosteronism could be a common feature among depressed patients, thereby suggesting that increased aldosterone levels may act as a mediator in the pathway linking depression to unfavorable vascular events
Relationship between apolipoprotein(a) size polymorphism and coronary heart disease in overweight subjects
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.
No full textAuthor-wise bibliometric analysis based on entropy.</p
Effect of the functional toll-like receptor 4 Asp299Gly polymorphism on susceptibility to late-onset Alzheimer's disease
No full textExperimental data have shown an upregulated expression of toll-like receptors, particularly toll-like receptor 4 (TLR4), in neurodegeneration. The Asp299Gly polymorphism of the TLR4 gene has been associated with an attenuated receptor signalling and a blunted inflammatory response. In the present study, we sought to determine whether this common genetic variant could influence susceptibility to late-onset Alzheimer's disease (LOAD) in an Italian population sample. A cohort of 277 LOAD patients and 300 cognitively healthy controls were genotyped for the TLR4 Asp299Gly polymorphism using restriction isotyping. The frequency of the minor 299Gly allele was significantly higher in the controls than in the LOAD cases (7.2% versus 3.1%, respectively, P = 0.003). Additionally, the frequency of the variant genotypes (Asp/Gly and Gly/Gly) was 13.0% in the controls and 5.4% in LOAD patients (P = 0.002). After adjustment for age, gender, and the APOE ε4 carrier status, the odds ratio for the development of LOAD associated with the Asp/Gly and Gly/Gly versus Asp/Asp genotype was 0.37 (95% CI: 0.20-0.69, P = 0.002). Our data further support a role for innate immunity in neurodegeneration and give the first evidence that the TLR4 Asp299Gly variant may be protective toward the development of LOAD
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
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
No full textWe 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
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