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Background: Both benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and Type-1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) share similar epidemiologic features and are all associated with the insulin-like growth factor (IGF)-mediated hormonal imbalance. The purpose of this study is to understand whether exercise (EX) could alleviate DM and DM + BPH.Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were divided into eight groups: normal control, EX, BPH, BPH + EX, DM, DM + EX, BPH + DM, and BPH + DM + EX. T1DM was induced by intraperitoneal (ip) injection of streptozotocin (65 mg/kg) in Week 2, and BPH was induced by successive ip injections of Sustanon® (testosterone, 3.5 mg/head) plus estradiol (0.1 mg/head) from Week 3 to Week 9. Treadmill exercise training (20 m/min, 60 min per time) was performed three times per week for 6 weeks.Results: In BPH + EX, EX maintained at a constant body weight (BW); and suppressed stromal layer thickening, collagen deposition, blood glucose (BG), levels of testosterone (Ts), 5α-reductase(5αRd), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), androgen receptor (AR), serum hydrogen peroxide, TBARs, and interleukin-6 (IL-6). EX recovered testes size and substantially increased nitric oxide (NO) levels. In DM + EX group, EX decreased BW, PW, nuclear proliferation, inflammatory cell aggregation, collagen deposition, and BG. As contrast, EX upregulated insulin, IGF, Ts, NO, 5αRd, AR, and DHT, and substantially reduced PSA. In BPH + DM + EX, EX maintained BW at a subnormal level, slightly suppressed prostate stromal inflammation, collagen deposition, and BG, moderately restored sIn and IGF. Although failed to suppress Ts, EX highly upregulated 5αRd and suppressed DHT and AR, together with highly upregulated NO resulting in substantially reduced PSA.Conclusion: EX, by remodeling androgen and NO expressions, can effectively alleviate BPH, DM, and BPH + DM. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background The hypothalamic-pituitary (h-p) unit is a particularly radiosensitive region in the central nervous system. As a consequence, radiation-induced irreversible, progressively chronic onset hypopituitarism (RIH) commonly develops after radiation treatments and can result in variably impaired pituitary function, which is frequently associated with increased morbidity and mortality. Case presentation A 38-year-old male subject, previously having received radiotherapy for treatment of nasopharygeal carcinoma (NPCA) 16 years ago, appeared at OPD complaining about his failure in penile erection, loss of pubic hair, atrophy of external genitalia: testicles reduced to 2×1.5 cm; penile size shrunk to only 4 cm long. Characteristically, he showed extremely lowered human growth hormone, (HGH, 0.115 ng/mL), testosterone (<0.1 ng/mL), total thyroxine (tT4: 4.740 g/mL), free T4 (fT4, 0.410 ng/mL), cortisol (2.34 g/dL); lowered LH (1.37 mIU/mL) and estradiol (22 pg/mL); highly elevated TSH (7.12 IU/mL). As contrast, he had low end normal ACTH, FSH, total T3, free T3, and estriol; high end normal prolactin (11.71 ng/mL), distinctly implicating hypopituitarism-induced hypothyroidism and hypogonadism. serologically, he showed severely lowered Hb (10.6 g/dL), HCT (32.7%), MCV (77.6 fL), MCH (25.3 pg), MCHC (32.6 g/dL), and platelet count (139×103/L) with extraordinarily elevated RDW (18.2%), together with severely lowered ferritin (23.6 ng/mL) and serum iron levels; highly elevated total iron binding capacity (TIBC, 509 g/dL) and transferrin (363.4 mg/dL), suggesting microcytic anemia. Severely reduced estimated glomerular filtration rate (e-GFR) (89 mL/mim/1.73 m2) pointed to CKD2. Hypocortisolemia with hyponatremia indicated secondary adrenal insufficiency. Replacement therapy using androgen, cortisol, and Ringer's solution has shown beneficial in improving life quality. Conclusions To our believe, we are the first group who report such complicate PTX dysfunction with adrenal cortisol insufficiency concomitantly occurring in a single patient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper will focus on how applying Systems Thinking to the problems of implementing a Government Managed Health Care System in the United States. We will apply systemically thinking to the main entities affected and the trickle-down effect such an implementation will have on the various variable entities affected. When applying system thinking to the problem, many subsets of systems are affected. Although we could never identify all effects the implementation of a Managed Health Care System would have, we have focused on the areas that will incur the greatest impact. We will focus on the effects that a free National Health Care plan would have on the population, the government's involvement, advancement of research and the economic factor within the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We hypothesized that doxorubicin (DR) induced chronic kidney disease (CKD) could trigger the intrinsic and the extrinsic renal cell apoptotic pathways, while treadmill exercise could help prevent adverse effects. Male Sprague-Dawley rats were subjected to treadmill running exercise at a speed of 30 m/min, 30 or 60 min/day, 3 times per week, for a total period of 11 weeks. The physiological and biochemical parameters were seen substantially improved (DR-CKD control, 30min, 60min exercise): the ratio of kidney weight/body weight (0.89, 0.74, and 0.72); the WBC (1.35,1.08, and 1.42 × 104 cells/ΜL); RBC (5.30, 6.38, and 6.26 × 106 cells/ΜL); the platelet count (15.1, 12.8, and 11.3 × 105/ΜL); serum cholesterol (659, 360, and 75 mg/dL); serum triglyceride (542, 263, and 2llmg/dL); BUN (37, 25, and 22 mg/dL). Bcl-2 and intramitochondrial cytochrome c were upregulated, while the levels of Bax, SOD, MDA, cleaved caspases 9, 3, 8,12, and calpain were all downregulated in DRCKD groups with exercise. CHOP (GADD153) and GRP78 were totally unaffected. FAS (CD95) was only slightly suppressed in the 60 min exercise DRCKD group. Conclusively, exercise can ameliorate CKD through the regulation of the intrinsic and extrinsic apoptosis pathways. The 60 min exercise yields more beneficial effect than the 30 min counterpart. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ferulic acid (4-hydroxy-3-methoxycinnamic acid) (FA) is a ubiquitous health beneficial phenolic acid. Although FA has shown a diversity of biological activities including anti-inflammatory, antihypercholesterolemic and anticancer bioactivities, studies revealing its adverse effects are accumulating. Recently, 3D-cultures are shown to exhibit uniquely biological behaviors different from that of 2D cultures. To understand whether the cytotoxicity of FA against the T24 cell line (a bladder cancer cell line) in 2Dculture could consistently retain similar bioactivity if cultured in the 3D-systems, we conducted this experiment with 2 mM FA. Much higher cytotoxicity was found for 3D- than 2D-culture, showing (2D vs. 3D): apoptotic rates, 64% and 76%; cell killing rates, 3.00 X 105 cells mmol-1 .h-1 and 2.63 x 106 cells mmol-1.h-1, attaining a 8.77-fold. FA upregulated the activities at 72 h (2D vs. 3D in folds that of control): SOD, 1.73-folds (P < 0.05)versus3.18folds(_P < 0.001); and catalase, 2.58 versus 1.33-folds. Comparing to the control (without FA), Bcl-2 was prominently downregulated while Bax, caspase-3 and cleaved caspase-9 were more upregulated in 3D-cultures (_P < 0.05). Conclusively, different microenvironments could elicit different biological significance which in part can be ascribed to different mass transport rate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Dictyophora indusiata (Vent. ex Pers.) Fish Phallaceae (Chinese name Zhu-S¯un, the bamboo fungi) has been used as a medicinal mushroom to treat many inflammatory, gastric and neural diseases since 618AD in China. We hypothesize that the soluble polysaccharides (SP) present in D. indusiata and their monosaccharide profiles can act as an important role affecting the antioxidative capability, which in turn would influence the biological activity involving anti-inflammatory, immune enhancing and anticancer. We obtained six SP fractions and designated them as D1, a galactoglucan; D2, a galactan; D3, the isoelectrically precipitated riboglucan from 2% NaOH; D4, a myoinositol; D5 and D6, the mannogalactans. The total SP accounted for 37.44% w/w, their molecular weight (MW) ranged within 801–4656 kDa. D3, having the smallest MW 801 kDa, exhibited the most potent scavenging effect against the α,α-diphenyl-β-picrylhydrazyl, •OH−, and •O2- radicals, yielding IC50 values 0.11, 1.02 and 0.64 mgmL−1, respectively. Thus we have confirmed our hypothesis that the bioactivity of D. indusiata is related in majority, if not entirely, to its soluble polysaccharide type regarding the MWand monosaccharide profiles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aqueous extract of Psidium guajava budding leaves (PE) bears an extremely high content of polyphenolic and isoflavonoids. Whether it could be used as an anti-tumor chemopreventive in view of anti-angiogenesis and anti-migration, we performed the Assay methods including the MTT assay to examine the cell viability; the ELISA assay to test the expressions of VEGF, IL-6 and IL-8; the western blot analysis to detect TIMP-2; the gelatinolytic zymography to follow the expression of MMPs; the wound scratch assay to examine the migration capability; and the chicken chorioallantoic membrane assay to detect the suppressive angiogenesis. Results indicated that the IC50 of PE for DU145 cells was ~0.57 mg ml-1. In addition, PE effectively inhibited the expressions of VEGF, IL-6 and IL-8 cytokines, and MMP-2 and MMP-9, and simultaneously activated TIMP-2 and suppressed the cell migration and the angiogenesis. Conclusively, PE potentially possesses a strong anti-DU145 effect. Thus, clinically it owns the potential to be used as an effective adjuvant anti-cancer chemopreventive. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With an aim to effectively shorten the ageing period and reduce process cost, a nanogold photocatalyzed process was developed. This process successfully accelerated maturity of young sorghum spirit less than 120 min at ambient temperature. Process parameters relevant to process design were determined to be (1) the amount of acetic acid (≥1.53 g/100 ml); (2) an operation temperature ≤37°C; (3) a degree of mineralization ≤4.87%. Kinetic analysis indicated that to cautiously control dissolved oxygen (DO) to facilitate optimum production of hydroxyl free radical [-OH] could be a crucial step, while the kinetic equations elucidated to indicate production of ethyl acetate and acetic acid could be applicable to reactor scale-up. More importantly, this process provides several benefits including container-saving, spacesaving, labor-saving, and no storage-loss due to evaporation; hence, a huge amount of cost reduction (20-24%) in a 4-year aging period could be attainable for each batch cycle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim: To study the change of lipid metabolism by antiandrogen therapy in patients with prostate cancer. Materials and methods: We studied with a 2.5 years follow-up the changes in plasma cholesterols (C), triglycerides (TG), lipoproteins (LP), and apolipoproteins (Apo) B-100, A-I, and A-II profiles in 24 patients of mean age 60 years with low risk prostate cancer (stage: T1cN0M0, Gleason score: 2–5) during treatment with cyproterone acetate (CPA) without surgical management or radiation therapy. Results: Significant decreases of HDL-C, Apo A-I and Apo A-II and an increase of triglyceride levels in VLDL were induced by CPA. After a period of 2.5 years on CPA treatment, four patients out of twenty-four were found to be affected by coronary heart disease. Conclusions: Ischaemic coronary arteriosclerosis with an incidence rate of 16.6% as caused by prolonged CPA therapy is mediated through changes in HDL cholesterol, Apo A-I and Apo A-II profiles, other than the well-known hyperglyceridemic effect caused by estrogen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Thailand has some of the finest conference venues in Southeast Asia, and the convention/exhibition industry is important to the development of the nation's overall tourism industry. The convention/exhibition industry is good for the tourism industry, because it helps to enhance the quality of accommodations, hospitality, and services that are located in such an exotic location. Also, it stimulates the convention/exhibition industry investment in terms of associated facilities and services. An analysis of the performance of the convention and exhibition industry in 1996 and 1997 was conducted in this paper. The results solidly suggest that Thailand has a strong convention and exhibition industry which should produce substantial economic impact in the years ahead. Recommendations for future research are also provided. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We describe the 2 unique Asian cases of pure urinary bladder lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma (LELCA). One patient had metastatic pelvic lymphoadenopathy and the other with superficial tumor. The EBER in situ hybridization both showed negative results despite racial or geographical factors might influence the peculiar susceptibility of individuals of Asian ancestry to Epstein-Barr virus-associated lymphoepithelioma-like carcinoma. The 2 patients were treated pertinently with satisfactory outcomes and intravesical BCG instillation is performed to prevent superficial LELCA recurrence rationally. Copyright © 2005 S. Karger AG, Basel [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]