Serum Homocysteine Concentration of US Adults Associated with Fortified Cereal Consumption

Background: Elevated serum total homocysteine (tHcy) concentration is implicated in the etiology of cardiovascular disease (CVD). A significant food source of B-vitamins involved in homocysteine metabolism is ready-to-eat cereal (RTEC) in the U.S.

Objective: To test the hypothesis that tHcy concentration is inversely associated with RTEC intake and blood B-vitamin levels in the U.S. general population.

Design: A cross-sectional study using data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES 1999–2000). Data were stratified according to age and gender. Men and women ≥ 19 y (n = 4,218) were classified as RTEC consumers (RTEC-C; n = 824) and RTEC non-consumers (RTEC-NC; n = 3,394) based on 24-hr dietary recall.

Results: Forty nine percent of participants showed folate intake with below the estimated average requirements (EARS). Serum folate and red blood cell (RBC) folate concentrations were increased with age in both genders, and significantly higher among RTEC-C than RTEC-NC (p < 0.05). Mean tHcy concentration increased with age, and was significantly lower among both men and women RTEC-C than among RTEC-NC. In multivariate linear regression analyses, RTEC consumption strongly predicted serum folate and tHcy concentrations.

Conclusion: tHcy concentrations were significantly lower in RTEC-C among the majority of age/gender groups than in RTEC-NC. RTEC consumption may potentially reduce the risk for CVD, mediated through tHcy.     

Stereotactic body radiation therapy with or without transarterial chemoembolization for patients with primary hepatocellular carcinoma: preliminary analysis

Background  

The objectives of this retrospective study was to evaluate the efficacy of stereotactic body radiation therapy (SBRT) for small non-resectable hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) and SBRT combined with transarterial chemoembolization (TACE) for advanced HCC with portal vein tumor thrombosis (PVTT).     

Establishment of doxorubicin-resistant subline derived from HCT15 human colorectal cancer cells

Doxorubicin, one of the clinically most useful anticancer agents, is used alone or in combination with other drugs against a wide variety of tumors, recently. But cancer cells developed resistance to this agent in many ways. This resistance is an important limiting factor of doxorubicin for anticancer drug. We newly established doxorubicin-resistant HCT15/CL02 subline from parental HCT15 human adenocarcinoma colon cancer cells. HCT15/CL02 revealed resistance to doxorubicin about 85-fold of its parental cells, and it also revealed cross-vealed to actinomycin D, etoposide and vinblastine but not to cisplatin and tamoxifen. And verapamil, a reversal agent of multidrug-resistance (MDR) by P-glycoprotein, elevated the cytotoxicity of doxorubicin against both HCT15 and HCT15/CL02 cells. But the relative resistant rate was not reduced. Verapamil had no effects on the toxicity of cisplatin to the both cell lines. These results indicate that HCT15/CL02 cells have some functionally complex mechanisms for MDR.     

Isolation of handelin fromChrysanthemum boreale

The flowers ofChrysanthemum boreale afforded handelin, a unique guaianolide dimer and a mixture ofn-hydrocarbons andn-hydrocarbon alcohols in addition to β-sitosterol and β-sitosterol glucoside. Detailed analysis of the¹H-and¹¹C-NMR spectra of handelin was carried out by the application of two-dimensional¹H-¹H-COSY and¹H-¹¹C multiple-bond, multiplequantum sepctroscopic correlation techniques. Handelin was inactive in thein vitro anti-tumor activity.     

Antitumor activity ofPsoralea corylifolia

The activity-oriented fractionation ofPsoralea corylifolia led to an isolation of a (+)-bakuchiol1 as an active principle of its antitumoral propertyin vitro.1 was observed to exhibit a mild cytotoxicity against five kinds of cultured human cancer cell lines,i.e. the A549, SK-OV-3, SK-MEL-2, XF498 and HCT15. The synthesized 2,3-epoxide of (+)-bakuchiol3 showed the similar activity as the (+)-bakuchiol1, whereas the other oxidation derivatives4 and5 including the acetyl-(+)-bakuchiol2 showed a decreased activity.