Goat milk oligosaccharides are anti-inflammatory in rats with hapten-induced colitis

Oligosaccharides are included among the anti-inflammatory components of milk because of their prebiotic properties and their capacity to act as receptors of microorganisms. Here the intestinal anti-inflammatory effect of goat milk oligosaccharides (O) was assessed in trinitrobenzenesulfonic (T) acid-induced colitis in rats. Rats were randomly assigned to three different groups. Two groups (T and OS) of colitic rats and a control group (C) were studied. Group OS received 500 mg/(kg.d) of goat milk oligosaccharides orally, starting 2 d before the colitis induction until d 6, and groups T and C received the vehicle. When compared with the T group, the OS group showed decreased anorexia and body weight loss; reduced bowel wall thickening and longitudinal extension of necrotic lesions; downregulated colonic expression of interleukin 1beta, inducible nitric oxide synthase, cyclooxygenase 2, and mucin 3; and increased trefoil factor 3. Thus, goat milk oligosaccharides have anti-inflammatory effects in rats with experimental colitis and may be useful in the management of inflammatory bowel disease.     

Potentiation of ribavirin-induced teratogenesis by natural purines

Ribavirin, a nucleoside analog, has been shown to possess much promise as an effective antiviral and antitumor agent. In addition, ribavirin has been reported to have significant, reproducible teratogenic activity (Kilham and Ferm, 1977). As the teratogenic effects of certain nucleoside analogs have been found to be altered by natural nucleic acid bases, it was of interest to investigate ribavirin's teratogenic properties in this light. The experiments reported here evaluated the effects of simultaneous administrations of ribavirin and purine nucleic acid bases on developing hamster embryos. The injection of ribavirin-adenine and/or ribavirin-guanine on Day 8 of gestation was observed to significantly increase the percentage of resorbed implantation sites and the percentage of malformed hamster fetuses as compared with the administration of an equivalent dose of ribavirin alone. The anomalies in the hamster fetuses produced by the administration of ribavirin-purine combinations were observed to be generally more severe than anomalies in those fetuses exposed to an equivalent amount of ribavirin alone.     

Long-term results and competing risk analysis of the H89 trial in patients with advanced-stage Hodgkin lymphoma: a study by the Groupe d'Etude des Lymphomes de l'Adulte (GELA)

From 1989 to 1996, 533 eligible patients with stage IIIB/IV Hodgkin lymphoma (HL) were randomly assigned to receive 6 cycles of hybrid MOPP/ABV (mechlorethamine, vincristine, procarbazine, prednisone/Adriamycin [doxorubicin], bleomycin, vinblastine; n = 266) or ABVPP (doxorubicin, bleomycin, vinblastine, procarbazine, prednisone; n = 267). Patients in complete remission (CR) or partial response of at least 75% after 6 cycles received 2 cycles of consolidation chemotherapy (CT) (n = 208) or subtotal nodal irradiation (RT) (n = 210). A better survival probability was observed after ABVPP alone: the 10-year overall survival (OS) estimates were 90% for ABVPP x 8, 78% for MOPP/ABV x 8, 82% for MOPP/ABV with RT, and 77% for ABVPP x 6 with RT (P = .03); and the 10-year disease-free survival (DFS) estimates were 70%, 76%, 79%, and 76%, respectively (P = .09). The 10-year DFS estimates for patients treated with consolidation CT or RT were 73% and 78% (P = .07), and OS estimates were 84% and 79%, respectively (P = .29). These results showed that RT was not superior to consolidation CT after a doxorubicin-induced CR in patients with advanced HL. An analysis of competing risks identified age more than 45 years as a significant risk factor for death, relapse, and second cancers. Prospective evaluation of late adverse events may improve the management of patients with HL.     

Pharmacological treatment of the irritable bowel syndrome and other functional bowel disorders

Functional digestive disorders constitute one of the main causes of consultation in gastroenterology and primary health care. Is still unclear whether therapy has to be aimed to the gut, to the neural pathways controlling bowel motility and perception, or to the processing mechanisms of symptoms and disease behaviour. It is conceivable that in the next future better understanding of functional bowel disorders pathophysiology will help us to tailor treatment for different patients. At the moment, subclassification of the diverse patterns of symptomatology allows to adjust new treatments for irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) according to the clinical predominance for each patient. The knowledge of motor and sensorial response to different stimuli in IBS patients and the pathways to the central nervous system is an important source of information for the development of new molecules. Fiber-enriched diet is frequently given for constipation-predominant IBS. Loperamide, antispasmodic drugs and tricyclic antidepressants are nowadays the basis for pharmacological treatment of diarrhea- predominant IBS. The scientific evidence supporting this therapeutical approach is however limited. Visceral analgesics and serotonin agonists and antagonists may play an important therapeutical role in the near future. However, it is not likely that one single treatment will help every functional bowel disorder patient and many of them will need a more complex approach with a multidisciplinary therapy (diet, psychotherapy, medications).     

Category specificity in the processing of color-related and form-related words: an ERP study

In this study, we investigated the spatio-temporal patterns of category-specific cortical activation elicited by the visual presentation of words whose meaning relates to a color or to a visual form or shape. We recorded the event-related potentials (ERPs) of ten healthy, right-handed volunteers while they passively read words presented tachistoscopically. As early as 150 ms after stimulus onset, the ERPs revealed significant neurophysiological differences between words and strings of hash marks. Around 200 ms after stimulus onset, we found significant differences in the ERPs elicited by color- and form-related words. We used minimum norm current estimates to investigate the spatial location of these differences. This revealed that, at the 150 ms peak, the activation advantage of words over sequences of hash marks was located in a left posterior area, proximal to what has previously been called the visual word form area. At the 200 ms peak, the advantage of words related to colors over words related to forms seemed to reside in temporal cortical areas, whereas the form-related words elicited greater activation in frontal areas than color-related words. These results provide evidence for early access to detailed category-specific representations of word meaning, with subtle differences in meaning being reflected in the activation of different cortical areas, as early as 200 ms after stimulus presentation. In line with previous studies, these differences can be related to the areas involved in the conceptual processing of sensory (visual) and action-related information.     

Positive correlation between Epstein-Barr virus viral load and anti-viral capsid immunoglobulin G titers determined for Hodgkin's lymphoma patients and their relatives

Markers of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) infection include measures of specific serological titers and of viral load (VLo) in peripheral blood mononuclear cells. Few studies have investigated the correlation between these two phenotypes. Here, we found that there was no correlation between VLo and either anti-EBV nuclear antigen type 1 or anti-early antigen immunoglobulin G (IgG) titer but that anti-viral capsid antigen (VCA) IgG titer increased with VLo in peripheral blood mononuclear cells in patients with Hodgkin's lymphoma (P = 3.10(-3)). A similar pattern was observed in healthy first-degree relatives (parents and siblings) of patients (P = 6.10(-4)). Our results indicate that anti-VCA IgG titers and EBV VLo are specifically correlated EBV phenotypes.