Background: An imbalance in energy intake and expenditure can cause obesity, which is a major risk factor for chronic diseases such as heart disease, type 2 diabetes, insulin resistance, cancers and hyperlipidemia.Methods and Results: In this study, we evaluated the anti-obesity effects of a water extract from the young leaves of barley sprout (BS) in 3T3-L1 cells and in high-fat diet (HFD)-induced obese mice (HF). Lipid accumulation measurement indicates that BS markedly inhibited adipogenesis by reducing lipid droplet production in a dose-dependent manner. Furthermore, the mRNA expression of adipogenic transcription factors peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-γ and fatty acid synthetase, CCAAT/enhancer binding protein-α and fatty acid binding protein 4 in 3T3-L1 cells was significantly inhibited by BS treatment. In an in vivo test, the BSadministered group of HFD-induced mice showed less body weight gain, and lower liver and epididymal white adipose tissue weights. The BS-treated mice showed decreased serum levels of leptin and lipids compared to untreated HFD mice and the levels of adiponectin and the HDL-cholesterol/total cholesterol ratio increased. These results indicate that BS inhibits body fat accumulation by reducing the mRNA expression of lipogenesis transcription factors and increasing serum adipokine concentration in in vitro and in vivo tests.Conclusions: BS reduced high fat diet-induced weight gain and had a positive effect on dyslipidemia.
Glycogen is an immediate source of glucose for cardiac tissue to maintain its metabolic homeostasis. However, its excess brings about cardiac structural and physiological impairments. Previously, we have demonstrated that in hearts from dexamethasone (Dex)-treated animals, glycogen accumulation was enhanced. We examined the influence of 5'-AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) on glucose entry and glycogen synthase as a means of regulating the accumulation of this stored polysaccharide. After Dex, cardiac tissue had a limited contribution toward the development of whole body insulin resistance. Measurement of glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4) at the plasma membrane revealed an excess presence of this transporter protein at this location. Interestingly, this was accompanied by an increase in GLUT4 in the intracellular membrane fraction, an effect that was well correlated with increased GLUT4 mRNA. Both total and phosphorylated AMPK increased after Dex. Immunoprecipitation of Akt substrate of 160 kDa (AS160) followed by Western blot analysis demonstrated no change in Akt phosphorylation at Ser(473) and Thr(308) in Dex-treated hearts. However, there was a significant increase in AMPK phosphorylation at Thr(172), which correlated well with AS160 phosphorylation. In Dex-treated hearts, there was a considerable reduction in the phosphorylation of glycogen synthase, whereas glycogen synthase kinase-3-beta phosphorylation was augmented. Our data suggest that AMPK-mediated glucose entry combined with the activation of glycogen synthase and a reduction in glucose oxidation (Qi et al., Diabetes 53: 1790-1797, 2004) act together to promote glycogen storage. Should these effects persist chronically in the heart, they may explain the increased morbidity and mortality observed with long-term excesses in endogenous or exogenous glucocorticoids.
Hemicortical resection is challenging when a huge fungating tumor is covering the osteotomy site. We report the clinical outcome of hemicortical resection and reconstruction for primary bone tumors, especially with high-grade histology and extensive circumferential involvement.We retrospectively reviewed 44 patients (males, n = 18; females, n = 26) who underwent hemicortical resection from 2005 to 2014.The median follow-up period was 46.0 (23-178) months. Disease-specific, local recurrence-free, and metastasis-free survival rates of patients in the malignant group at 5 years were 96.6%, 84.5%, and 93.6%, respectively. Among 42 patients, there were local recurrences (n = 6), metastasis (n = 2), and death (n = 1). Surgical margin was an independent prognostic factor for local recurrence (hazard ratio = 5.7; p = 0.038). The recycled autograft and strut allograft groups did not show statistical difference in bone union. Failure rate was 31.8% and local recurrence was the most frequent, followed by infection.Hemicortical resection can be a feasible option for extremity malignant bone tumors. Regarding reconstruction, there were no difference between autograft and allograft in bone union rate. Surgical margin was an independent prognostic factor for local recurrence.
Purpose: Sentinel lymph node (SLN) biopsy has been shown to be accurate in axillary node staging in early breast cancer. If any SLN is positive, the standard care remains completion axillary node dissection (ALND). However over 50% of the patients with metastatic SLNs do not show other non-SLN metastasis. The purpose of this study was to identify predictors of non-SLN tumor involvement in patients with metastatic SLNs. Methods: We reviewed 387 breast cancer patients in whom an SLN biopsy was successfully performed using a subareolar injection of 99m Tc-Tin colloid. Results: Among the reviewed patients, 83 patients showed positive SLNs, and subsequently underwent ALND. In 47 of 83 patients (56.6%), SLNs were the only metastatic nodes. The following factors were assessed for predictors of nonSLN metastasis: age of the patient, size, grade, histologic type, multicentricity of the primary tumor, number of SLNs removed, number of positive SLNs, number of negative SLNs, size of the SLN metastasis, percentage of SLNs replaced by metastasis, and extracapsular extension (ECE). By multi-variate analysis, the size of SLN metastasis (<2 mm), absence of ECE, and the percent replacement ( �10%) were negative predictors of non-SLN metastasis. Among 18 cases in which micrometastasis were found in the SLNs, additional metastasis in non-SLN has been found in 3 cases. This result suggests that micro-metastasis in a SLN is not a sufficient condition for not performing ALND. However, in 9 cases, in which all of three factors (micrometastasis, absence of ECE, no more than 10% replacement of SLNs by tumor cells) were present, additional metastasis had not been found in the nonSLNs. Conclusion: Although further study is needed to verify the result, it would seem that the presence of all three factors (micrometastasis, absence of ECE, no more than 10% replace-ment of SLNs by tumor cells) in combination might be sufficient to safely omit ALND. (J Breast Cancer 2007;10:95-100)
A deep-learning technology for knowledge transfer is necessary to advance and optimize efficient knowledge distillation. Here, we aim to develop a new adversarial optimization-based knowledge transfer method involved with a layer-wise dense flow that is distilled from a pre-trained deep neural network (DNN). Knowledge distillation transferred to another target DNN based on adversarial loss functions has multiple flow-based knowledge items that are densely extracted by overlapping them from a pre-trained DNN to enhance the existing knowledge. We propose a semi-supervised learning-based knowledge transfer with multiple items of dense flow-based knowledge extracted from the pre-trained DNN. The proposed loss function would comprise a supervised cross-entropy loss for a typical classification, an adversarial training loss for the target DNN and discriminators, and Euclidean distance-based loss in terms of dense flow. For both pre-trained and target DNNs considered in this study, we adopt a residual network (ResNet) architecture. We propose methods of (1) the adversarial-based knowledge optimization, (2) the extended and flow-based knowledge transfer scheme, and (3) the combined layer-wise dense flow in an adversarial network. The results show that it provides higher accuracy performance in the improved target ResNet compared to the prior knowledge transfer methods.
Eleven compounds (1–11) were isolated from the rhizomes of Osmunda japonica, and their structures were elucidated based on1H,13C-NMR and LC-IT-TOF MS data. Of these compounds, all compounds (1 – 11) have been previously reported, although five (6 – 9, 11) have not previously been isolated from this plant. The antioxidant activities of isolated compounds (1 – 11) were measured by DPPH and ABTS assays, and compound 10 showed the high antioxidant activity.
Abstract Background The data regarding long-term outcomes of early versus delayed invasive strategies in elderly patients who have undergone percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) for non-ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (NSTEMI) is limited. Purpose We aimed to investigate the long-term clinical benefit of early versus delayed invasive strategies in elderly patients who underwent PCI for NSTEMI. Methods From a nationwide, prospective, real-world registry of 13,104 patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) who underwent PCI, 2818 elderly patients (aged ≥70 years) who underwent PCI for NSTEMI were included. Of these, 2299 patients were treated with an early invasive strategy (early invasive group), and 519 were treated later (delayed invasive group). The incidence of major adverse cardiac events (MACE; all-cause death, recurrent MI, any revascularization, stroke, readmission due to heart failure [HF], or definite/probable stent thrombosis [ST]) and the components of MACE were compared using multivariable Cox regression, propensity score (PS) matched, and PS-adjusted analyses. Results During a median follow-up of 1047 days, MACE, all-cause death, and cardiac death occurred in 1018 (36.1%), 660 (23.4%), and 423 patients (15.0%), respectively. The early invasive group showed significantly lower risks of MACE (entire: 35.0% vs. 41.2%, hazard ratio [HR] 0.77, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.66-0.90, p=0.001; PS-matched: n=984, 33.3% vs. 40.8%, HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.62-0.91, p=0.005), all-cause death (entire: 22.5% vs. 27.4%, HR 0.76, 95% CI 0.63-0.92, p=0.004; PS-matched: 21.8% vs. 27.2%, HR 0.75, 95% CI 0.58-0.90, p=0.005), cardiac death (entire: 13.8% vs. 20.2%, HR 0.64, 95% CI 0.51-0.79, p<0.001; PS-matched: 13.1% vs. 19.4%, HR 0.67, 95% CI 0.55-0.86, p=0.011), and readmission due to HF (entire: 6.5% vs. 9.2%, HR 0.64, 95% CI 0.46-0.89, p=0.007; PS-matched: 6.7% vs. 9.4%, HR 0.68, 95% CI 0.51-0.96, p=0.017) than the delayed invasive group. There were no significant differences in the risks of recurrent MI, any revascularization, stroke, and definite/probable ST between the groups. Furthermore, in patients aged ≥80 years, the early invasive group had significantly reduced rates of MACE (42.9% vs. 49.5%, HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.55-0.91, p=0.039), all-cause death (31.7% vs. 39.0%, HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.55-0.92, p=0.010), and cardiac death (20.9% vs. 31.0%, HR 0.59, 95% CI 0.44-0.80, p=0.001) compared to the delayed invasive group. Conclusions In elderly patients with NSTEMI, an early invasive intervention strategy was associated with favorable long-term clinical outcomes compared to a delayed invasive intervention strategy.
Abstract Background Data on contemporary clinical practice and long-term outcomes for sex differences in elderly patients with acute myocardial infarction (MI) who have undergone percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) presenting with cardiogenic shock (CS) is limited. Purpose This study aimed to investigate contemporary clinical data and long-term clinical outcomes according to sex differences in elderly patients undergoing PCI for acute MI complicated by CS. Methods We analyzed data from a nationwide, prospective, and real-world registry comprising elderly patients (≥65 years) with acute MI who have undergone PCI and presented with CS. Of the 540 patients included, 228 were women, and 312 were men. We compared major adverse cardiac events (MACE; all-cause death, recurrent MI, any revascularization, stroke, heart failure [HF] readmission, or definite/probable stent thrombosis [ST]) and the components of MACE between the groups using multivariable Cox regression, propensity score (PS) matching, and PS-adjusted analyses. Results Compared to men, women were younger and had higher incidences of hypertension and elevated pro-BNP levels. No significant differences were observed in other cardiovascular risk factors, left ventricular systolic function levels, or adherence to guideline-directed medical therapy between the groups. Over a median follow-up of 1035 days, MACE, all-cause death, and cardiac death occurred in 257 (47.6%), 212 (39.3%), and 170 (31.5%) patients, respectively. Women exhibited significantly increased risks of MACE (overall: 53.5% vs. 43.3%, hazard ratio [HR] 0.76, 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.59-0.97, p=0.023; PS-matched: n=368, 52.3% vs. 41.8%, HR 0.73, 95% CI 0.53-0.94, p=0.033), all-cause death (overall: 44.7% vs. 35.3%, HR 0.77, 95% CI 0.58-0.97, p=0.032; PS-matched: 42.8% vs. 33.4%, HR 0.71, 95% CI 0.54-0.95, p=0.041), cardiac death (overall: 35.1% vs. 28.8%, HR 0.81, 95% CI 0.60-0.97, p=0.048; PS-matched: 34.4% vs. 26.9%, HR 0.78, 95% CI 0.54-0.95, p=0.043) compared to men. There were no significant differences in the risks of recurrent MI, any revascularization, stroke, HF readmission, and definite/probable ST between the groups. Conclusions In this nationwide registry, women compared to men exhibited increased risks of long-term clinical outcomes in elderly patients with acute MI who have undergone PCI presenting with CS.