To assess the associations between TSH and free thyroxine (FT4) levels and decline in functional status in euthyroid older patients at risk of frailty.
Longitudinal prospective study.
Participants ...from the geriatric outpatient clinic of a university hospital, who fulfilled the criteria for frailty or were at risk of frailty, were recruited. Only those euthyroid, defined by age-specific reference range of TSH, were included. Serum was collected during enrollment and at the third and sixth years of follow-up to assess the mean value of all follow-up levels of serum TSH and FT4. Functional status assessing activities of daily living (ADL) and instrumental ADL were evaluated using the Katz Index and the Health Assessment Questionnaire, respectively. Functional decline was defined by a positive variation in any of the applied scales in the absence of disagreement between the scales or if the patient was institutionalized.
Of the 273 participants (72.5% females) enrolled (mean age 80 years old), 48 died and 102 presented functional decline at the end of follow-up (mean 3.6 ± 1.7 years). Each 0.1 ng/dL increase in baseline and mean follow-up serum FT4 levels increased the risk of functional decline by 14.1% and 7.7%, respectively. The risk of functional decline was 9 times greater with baseline FT4 levels in the fourth and fifth quintiles (p = 0.049) and 50% lower with baseline FT4 levels in the first quintile (p = 0.046). No association between TSH and the outcome was found.
Higher and lower FT4 levels were, respectively, a risk and a protective factor for the decline in functional status in a cohort of euthyroid older adults at risk of frailty.
The aim of the present work was to evaluate the impact of xerostomia on the quality of life of patients who underwent radiotherapy in the head and neck region.
This was a cross-sectional, ...quantitative study. The sample comprised 40 patients whose xerostomia was classified through the xerostomia inventory and the quality of life evaluated through the oral health impact profile questionnaire (OHIP).
The majority of participants were male (75%), mean age 58.7 years. According to the degree of severity of the xerostomia, the average score among the participants was 36 points, this being considered moderate xerostomia. A significant impact was observed, with the median score 11 points, with the highest scores in the domains related to functional limitation, physical pain and physical disability. The majority of the participants (97.5%) had reduced salivary flow after the end of radiotherapy. There was a significant positive correlation between the degree of xerostomia and reduced quality of life, Pearson correlation 0.5421, (p<0.05).
Based upon the results it is concluded that xerostomia has a negative impact on the quality of life of patients who undergo radiotherapy in the head and neck region.
•Both rehydrated corn grain silage and high-moisture corn were well conserved.•Inoculation with L. buchneri increased the aerobic stability of both grain silages.•Ruminal degradability increased with ...storage length due to decreased prolamin.•Main changes in the silages occurred during the first two months of storage.
The objective of this study was to compare the conservation of rehydrated corn grain silage (RCGS) and high-moisture corn (HMC), treated or not with Lactobacillus buchneri, and to determine the minimum storage length necessary to improve ruminal in situ dry matter (DM) degradability. The treatments consisted of two grain sources, HMC and RCGS (rehydrated to 350 g/kg of moisture), inoculated with L. buchneri NCIMB 40788 at 1 × 105 cfu/g (LB) or chlorine free water (Control), and stored for 15, 30, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240, and 300 days. The concentrations of lactic, acetic, and propionic acids, and 1,2-propanediol were higher (P < 0.044), whereas butyric acid was lower (P < 0.001) in RCGS compared with HMC. Inoculation with LB reduced (P < 0.001) the concentration of lactic acid and increased (P < 0.001) the pH, acetic acid, and lactic acid bacteria counts. Therefore, silages inoculated with LB had prolonged aerobic stability. Silages inoculated with LB had more (P < 0.001) ammonia and less (P < 0.001) prolamin than that in Control silage, although ruminal in situ DM degradability was not affected by inoculation (P > 0.588). The content of ammonia and ruminal in situ DM degradability increased (P < 0.001) with the storage length, which coincided with a gradual decrease (P < 0.001) in prolamin concentration. According to a broken-line regression, higher gains in ruminal in situ DM degradability occurred up to 71 and 52 days of storage for HMC and RCGS, respectively. In summary, RCGS is an alternative to HMC, and L. buchneri improved the aerobic stability of RCGS and HMC. Based on the ruminal in situ DM degradability, it is recommended storing corn grain silages for at least two months before feeding.
Axon guidance is required for the establishment of brain circuits. Whether much of the molecular basis of axon guidance is known from animal models, the molecular machinery coordinating axon growth ...and pathfinding in humans remains to be elucidated. The use of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSC) from human donors has revolutionized in vitro studies of the human brain. iPSC can be differentiated into neuronal stem cells which can be used to generate neural tissue-like cultures, known as neurospheres, that reproduce, in many aspects, the cell types and molecules present in the brain. Here, we analyzed quantitative changes in the proteome of neurospheres during differentiation. Relative quantification was performed at early time points during differentiation using iTRAQ-based labeling and LC-MS/MS analysis. We identified 6438 proteins, from which 433 were downregulated and 479 were upregulated during differentiation. We show that human neurospheres have a molecular profile that correlates to the fetal brain. During differentiation, upregulated pathways are related to neuronal development and differentiation, cell adhesion, and axonal guidance whereas cell proliferation pathways were downregulated. We developed a functional assay to check for neurite outgrowth in neurospheres and confirmed that neurite outgrowth potential is increased after 10 days of differentiation and is enhanced by increasing cyclic AMP levels. The proteins identified here represent a resource to monitor neurosphere differentiation and coupled to the neurite outgrowth assay can be used to functionally explore neurological disorders using human neurospheres as a model.
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•Quantitative proteomic analysis of human neurospheres during differentiation using isobaric labeling (iTRAQ).•Axon guidance proteins are increased during differentiation.•Increased neurite outgrowth during differentiation is shown in a neuron outgrowth assay.•Neuron outgrowth in neurospheres is regulated by PKA and cAMP.•Axon guidance proteins related to neurological disorders are highlighted.
Trypanosoma evansi is an important pathogen that causes changes in nitric oxide (NO) levels and antioxidant enzymes, as well as oxidative stress. The present study evaluated the in vivo effect of ...T. evansi infection on frequency and index of DNA damage in liver, heart, spleen and total blood of rats. Twenty rats were assigned into two groups with ten rats each, being subdivided into four subgroups (A1 and A2, 5 animals/group; and B1 and B2, 5 animals/group). Rats in the subgroups A1 and A2 were used as control (uninfected) and animals in the subgroups B1 and B2 were inoculated with T. evansi (infected). NO in serum and the comet assay were used to measure DNA damage index (DI) and damage frequency (DF) in liver, heart, spleen and total blood of infected rats. Increased NO levels on days 3 and 9 post-infection (PI) was observed (P < 0.001). Also, it was verified an increase on DI and DF in the evaluated organs on days 3 and 9 PI (P < 0.001). Our data show that T. evansi infection causes genotoxicity due to the production of NO, causing not only the death of the protozoan, but also inducing DNA damage in the host.
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•Trypanosoma evansi infection cause increased frequency damage using comet assay.•T. evansi infection cause increased damage index using comet assay.•Histopathological alterations in liver, spleen and heart were observed.•T. evansi infection causes genotoxicity due to the production of NO.
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