•Fifty-one variables related to beef quality were clustered into 10 groups comprising different physiological, muscular, and sensorial characteristics.•Some of the muscular characteristics (lipid ...content, maturation enzymes, and oxidative metabolism) are positively associated with beef sensorial characteristics.•Some of the physiological characteristics (animal maturity, growth rate, muscle mass) are negatively associated with beef sensory quality.
Sensory beef quality is an important parameter for consumers, but it is difficult to understand what determines quality because of the large variation due to breed, type of animal, sex, and farm management. To address these challenges, meat samples from Longissimus thoracis (LT) were collected 24 h after slaughter from a total of 436 young bulls representing 15 cattle breeds. The samples were analysed for physiological, muscular, and sensory characteristics to evaluate beef quality. Ten groups of variables were identified by hierarchical cluster analysis of individual variables and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The variables described distinct characteristics, including Physiologicaltraits (animal maturity, growth rate, muscle mass), Sensorytraits (tenderness, juiciness, flavor, meat colour), and some Muscularcharacteristics such as lipid content, maturation enzymes and oxidative metabolism, which are likely to discriminate among breeds. The analyses showed that muscular characteristics are positively associated with beef sensory characteristics whereas physiological characteristics are negatively associated with sensory quality. Dairy breeds produced beef rich in lipids with a strong flavour, French breeds showed fast growth rate and highly flavoured meat, and Italian breeds were characterised by good muscular development. In contrast, British breeds have oxidative muscles and produce beef with a strong flavour. Danish breeds have an intermediate score for the sensorial and muscular characteristics.
Sensitization and pain Aguggia, Marco; Saracco, M. G.; Cavallini, M. ...
Neurological sciences,
05/2013, Letnik:
34, Številka:
Suppl 1
Journal Article
Recenzirano
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Migraine is often accompanied with signs of increased intracranial and extracranial mechanical sensitivities. The prevailing view today is that migraine headache is a neurovascular disorder with ...intracranial origin and involvement of meningeal blood vessels and their pain nerve fibers. Allodynia, defined as perception of pain following not painful stimulation, is a common clinical feature in various pain syndromes, and as part of migraine pain, it can be considered an indicator of trigeminal neural network sensitization. The cutaneous allodynia that accompanies the migraine headache in a large percentage of patients may be considered the clinical expression of central nervous system sensitization and is characterized by pain provoked by stimulation of the skin that would ordinarily not produce pain. An altered codification process of sensory impulses in the brainstem, in particular by the nucleus caudalis trigeminalis, may justify the temporal aspects and symptoms in the course of migraine attack.
Self potential (SP) anomalies over Piton de La Fournaise volcano (La Réunion Island) are generally interpreted as resulting from meteoritic water porous flow. However, there is no clear evidence that ...the subsurface is permanently saturated. Recently, a convective subsurface airflow has been evidenced within a quiescent cone at Piton de La Fournaise (Formica Leo). SP and thermal anomalies are reported on the unsaturated edifice and are seen to be correlated. It is proposed that the SP signal is generated by the movement of water films present on the porous matrix, induced by the intense humid airflow within Formica Leo. The structure of the cone, determined from electrical resistivity tomography (ERT), ground penetrating radar (GPR), microgravimetric and kinematic GPS data, is used to constrain a 3D numerical model of the air convection. The calculated temperature is then used to derive the related SP signal, the electrokinetic coupling coefficient being estimated from direct observations of the electrical resistivity of the soil. Extrapolating these results to the scale of the volcano, it is thus proposed that a cold humid airflow enters the flanks of the 400m-high terminal dome, flows up along the sloped and stratified volcanic layers before exiting through the vertical fractures around the Dolomieu collapse. It is demonstrated that the SP anomalies catches the main features recovered over the entire volcano. This result strongly suggests that humid airflow may play a major role on the generation of SP anomalies at Piton de la Fournaise volcano, and perhaps in other unsaturated volcanic edifices.
To identify a core set of preliminary items considered as important for the very early diagnosis of systemic sclerosis (SSc).
A list of items provided by European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) ...Scleroderma Trial and Research(EUSTAR) centres were subjected to a Delphi exercise among 110 experts in the field of SSc. In round 1, experts were asked to choose the items they considered as the most important for the very early diagnosis of SSc. In round 2, experts were asked to reconsider the items accepted after the first stage. In round 3, the clinical relevance of selected items and their importance as measures that would lead to an early referral process were rated using appropriateness scores.
Physicians from 85 EUSTAR centres participated in the study and provided an initial list of 121 items. After three Delphi rounds, the steering committee, with input from external experts, collapsed the 121 items into three domains containing seven items, developed as follows: skin domain (puffy fingers/puffy swollen digits turning into sclerodactily); vascular domain (Raynaud's phenomenon, abnormal capillaroscopy with scleroderma pattern) and laboratory domain (antinuclear, anticentromere and antitopoisomerase-I antibodies). Finally, the whole assembly of EUSTAR centres ratified with a majority vote the results in a final face-to-face meeting.
The three Delphi rounds allowed us to identify the items considered by experts as necessary for the very early diagnosis of SSc. The validation of these items to establish diagnostic criteria is currently ongoing in a prospective observational cohort.
Abstract
Background
Volatiles organic metabolites (VOMs) are a large group of carbon-bound chemicals elements, gaseous at room temperature that are the products of metabolism. There is increasing ...evidence that variations in faecal VOMs indicate gastroenterological diseases. No study assessed VOMs in the setting of predicting therapeutic response in inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).
Methods
We conducted a prospective study in which we consecutively recruited IBD patients with indications for treatment with biologics.
The primary outcome of our study was the evaluation of prediction ability of VOMs of clinical response at 12 months of adalimumab or vedolizumab therapy. Secondary outcomes included correlations of VOM with clinical features of IBD.
Results
We recruited 50 patients with IBD whose stools were analysed with gold standard technique mass spectrometer (MS) / gas chromatography (GC). Thirty-one patients were treated with adalimumab (of which 30 Crohn’s disease, and 1 ulcerative colitis, UC), 19 patients with vedolizumab (of which 12 CD and 7 UC).
VOMs were not influenced by age, disease duration, sex, smoking habit. Two VOMs, octenol and, in particular, methyl indole were able to distinguish ulcerative colitis (UC) from Crohn’s disease (CD) (AUC = 0.72 and 0.85, respectively) and correlate with higher inflammation markers (C-reactive protein, CRP and calprotectin, respectively). Methylbutanal, instead, was a marker of CD and, in particular, of ileal location (p = 0.01). These results were confirmed at principal component analysis (PCA). Lower levels of ethanol and methyl butanoate correlated with disease remission. Methyl butanoate was able to distinguish remission from active clinical disease, with an accuracy at least equal to that of calprotectin (AUC = 0.69 and AUC = 0.62, respectively). We furthermore demonstrated pre-biologics methyl butyrate prediction ability of clinical response after 12 months of therapy (AUC = 0.68, 95%CI = 0.53-0.81, p = 0.02). Lower levels of methyl indole or of octenol or higher levels of indole were able to predict calprotectin <250 mg/kg without steroid at month 12; undetectable levels of basal ethyl butanoate correlated with calprotectin <250 mg/kg without steroid at month 12 (p = 0.04) in the subgroup of patients treated with vedolizumab, while higher levels of ethyl butanoate correlate with higher CRP levels. Our finding of a lower piperidone level in patients undergoing previous bowel resection is consistent with literature data that found an association between active CD and higher piperidone levels.
Conclusion
The characterization of the intestinal metabolome, using VOMs technology, seems to be a promising method for better characterizing IBD and better speculating on their etiopathogenesis.
Objective
Second‐generation antipsychotics (SGAs) are among the first‐line treatments for bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, but have a tendency to generate metabolic disturbances. These features ...resemble a metabolic syndrome for which a central autonomic imbalance has been proposed that may originate from the hypothalamic suprachiasmatic nuclei. In a clinical trial, we hypothesized that melatonin, a hormone that regulates the suprachiasmatic nucleus, could attenuate SGA‐induced adverse metabolic effects.
Methods
In an eight‐week, double‐blind, randomized, placebo‐controlled, parallel‐group clinical trial, we evaluated the metabolic effect of melatonin in SGA‐treated patients in terms of weight, blood pressure, lipid, glucose, body composition, and anthropometric measures. A total of 44 patients treated with SGAs, 20 with bipolar disorder and 24 with schizophrenia, randomly received placebo (n = 24) or melatonin 5 mg (n = 20).
Results
The melatonin group showed a decrease in diastolic blood pressure (5.1 versus 1.1 mmHg for placebo, p = 0.003) and attenuated weight gain (1.5 versus 2.2 kg for placebo, F = 4.512, p = 0.040) compared to the placebo group. The strong beneficial metabolic effects of melatonin in comparison to placebo on fat mass (0.2 versus 2.7 kg, respectively, p = 0.032) and diastolic blood pressure (5.7 versus 5.5 mmHg, respectively, p = 0.001) were observed in the bipolar disorder and not in the schizophrenia group. No adverse events were reported.
Conclusions
Our results show that melatonin is effective in attenuating SGAs' adverse metabolic effects, particularly in bipolar disorder. The clinical findings allow us to propose that SGAs may disturb a centrally mediated metabolic balance that causes adverse metabolic effects and that nightly administration of melatonin helps to restore. Melatonin could become a safe and cost‐effective therapeutic option to attenuate or prevent SGA metabolic effects.
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