年轻女性多囊性卵巢综合征患者中非酒精性脂肪性肝炎和非酒精性脂肪肝的研究

Setji TL…//J Clin Endocrinol Metab,2006(Epub ahead of print)非酒精性脂肪肝(NAFLD)和多囊性卵巢综合征(PCOS)与胰岛素抵抗相关。然而,患有PCOS的女性患者NAFLD,包括非酒精性脂肪肝(NASH)的发病率较高。作者希望通过研究发现PCOS患者NASH的患病率和特征以及转氨酶活性的异     

Dietary factors related to physical fitness among navy shipboard men

Abstract This study examines the relationship between habitual dietary practices and performance on the physical readiness test required of active duty Navy personnel. Participants were 1,013 men (mean age = 26.2 years) stationed aboard nine Navy ships. The men completed a self-report survey of lifestyle and dietary habits and were evaluated on four tests of physical fitness: 1.5-mile Run, Sit-ups, Sit-reach, and Percent Body Fat. A standardized Overall Fitness score was also computed for each person. Results indicated that the participants tended to skip breakfast, ingest moderate amounts of caffeine, and favor a high-fat, low-fiber diet. Fitness scores were associated with a number of dietary variables, including caffeine intake, between-meal snacking, and overeating (all negatively related to fitness, p <.01), and having a general "nutrition orientation" (positively related to fitness, p <.001). The relationships were confounded by the influence of age, exercise, and smoking, but even after controlling for these, diet was a significant predictor of fitness (p <.001).     

Safety and immune responses to attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar typhi oral live vector vaccines expressing tetanus toxin fragment C

Attenuated Salmonella enterica serovar Typhi vaccine strain CVD 908-htrA was used as a vector to deliver fragment C of tetanus toxin as a single-dose oral tetanus vaccine candidate to elicit protective levels of serum tetanus antitoxin. Twenty-one healthy adult volunteers received doses of 1.6 x 10(7) to 8.2 x 10(9) CFU of one of two strains, CVD 908-htrA(pTETnir15) or CVD 908-htrA(pTETlpp), which contained plasmid-encoded fragment C, with sodium bicarbonate, and the safety and immune responses to serovar Typhi antigens and tetanus toxin were assessed. No volunteer had fever or positive blood cultures after vaccination, although diarrhea occurred in 3 volunteers and vomiting in 2 volunteers within 3 weeks after vaccination. Most volunteers excreted the vaccine strain in the first 72 h after vaccination. Three of nine volunteers who received 10(8) CFU or higher doses of the CVD 908-htrA(pTETlpp) construct developed rises in serum antitoxin antibodies. The serum and cellular immune responses to serovar Typhi antigens were less frequent than those previously observed in volunteers who ingested the parent strain CVD 908-htrA. This study demonstrates that fragment C of tetanus toxin delivered orally to volunteers in an S. Typhi vector can elicit protective levels of serum antitoxin.     

Enduring effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on selective attention and reactivity to errors: evidence from an animal model

Adult Long-Evans rats, exposed prenatally to 1 of 4 doses of cocaine (0.0,0.5,1.0, or 3.0 mg/kg iv), were tested on a 3-choice visual attention task with an olfactory distractor presented unpredictably on one third of the trials. The performance of all 3 cocaine-exposed groups was significantly more disrupted than that of controls by the presentation of distractors. Results demonstrate that prenatal cocaine exposure increases susceptibility to distractors, using a task specifically designed to measure this function. In addition, the present study revealed that individuals exposed to cocaine in utero exhibit greater performance disruption after an error than controls, in certain types of tasks. Both areas of dysfunction, impaired selective attention and impaired arousal regulation, have important functional consequences in humans, possibly affecting the school performance and social development of cocaine-exposed children.     

Development of a molecular-beacon assay to detect the G1896A precore mutation in hepatitis B virus-infected individuals

The 1896 precore (PC) mutation is the most frequent cause of hepatitis B virus e-antigen (HBeAg)-negative chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection. Detection of the 1896 PC mutation has application in studies monitoring antiviral therapy and the natural history of the disease. Identification of this mutation is usually performed by direct sequencing, which is both costly and laborious. The aim of this study was to develop a rapid, high-throughput assay to detect the 1896 PC mutation using real-time PCR and molecular-beacon technology. The assay was initially standardized on oligonucleotide targets and plasmids containing the wild-type (WT) and PC mutation and then tested on plasma samples from children with HBV DNA of >10(6) copies/ml. Nine individuals were HBeAg negative and suspected to harbor HBeAg mutations, while 12 children were HBeAg positive and selected as controls. Ninety percent (19 of 21) of plasma samples tested with molecular beacons were in complete agreement with sequencing results. The remaining 10% (2 of 21) of samples were identified as heterogeneous mixtures of WT and mutant virus by molecular beacons, though sequencing found only a homogeneous mutant in both cases. Overall, the 1896 PC mutation was detected by this assay in 55.5% of the children with HBeAg-negative infection. In summary, this assay is a rapid, sensitive, and specific technique that effectively discriminates WT from 1896 PC mutant HBV and may be useful in clinical and epidemiological studies.     

Molecular subtyping of Vibrio cholerae O1 and O139 by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis in Hong Kong: correlation with epidemiological events from 1994 to 2002

Two hundred twenty isolates of Vibrio cholerae O1 and O139 collected from 1994 to 2002 in Hong Kong were analyzed by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Chromosomal DNAs from all V. cholerae isolates in agarose plugs were digested with the restriction enzyme NotI, resulting in 20 to 27 bands. Sixty distinctive PFGE patterns in the range of 10 to 300 kb were noted among 213 isolates typeable by PFGE. By comparing the common PFGE patterns obtained from four well-defined outbreaks of V. cholerae O1 and O139 with those obtained from other, epidemiologically unrelated isolates during the study period, indistinguishable and similar PFGE patterns were identified, indicating their close relatedness, in agreement with the results of epidemiological investigations. Heterogeneous PFGE patterns (with four to six banding differences), however, were identified among strains that were imported from other parts of Asia, including Indonesia, India, and Pakistan. Correlations with epidemiological information further support the usefulness of PFGE as an epidemiological tool in laboratory investigations of suspected outbreaks. Standardization of PFGE methodology will allow international comparison of fingerprint patterns and will form the basis of a laboratory network for tracking V. cholerae.