Testosterone and sex hormone-binding globulin (SHBG) have been shown to be associated with metabolic syndrome (MS) in men. This study aimed at validating these relationships in a group of middle-aged and elderly men and assessing their strength of association to MS. A cross-sectional study of 332 Malaysian men aged 40 ...

Data on psychopharmacological treatment of individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are scarce, especially for European countries. This study evaluated psychopharmacotherapy utilisation in children and adolescents with a diagnosis of ASD in Germany. Data of a large statutory health insurance company were analysed and outpatients aged 0-24 years with a ...

Age-related hearing loss (presbyacusis) has a complex etiology. Results from animal models detailing the effects of specific cochlear injuries on audiometric profiles may be used to understand the mechanisms underlying hearing loss in older humans and predict cochlear pathologies associated with certain audiometric configurations ("audiometric phenotypes"). Patterns of hearing loss ...

AIMS: To investigate the changes in polypharmacy and the Drug Burden Index (DBI) occurring during hospitalisation for older people. The secondary aims were to examine the associations of these two measures with length of hospital stay and admission for falls or delirium. METHODS: A retrospective analysis of patients' medical records ...

Modeling aging and age-related pathologies presents a substantial analytical challenge given the complexity of gene-environment influences and interactions operating on an individual. A top-down systems approach is used to model the effects of life-long caloric restriction, which is known to extend life span in several animal models. The metabolic phenotypes ...

Middle and Late Pleistocene fossil hominin specimens with severe antemortem tooth loss are often regarded as evidence for the precocious evolution of human-like behaviors, such as conspecific care or cooking, in ancient hominin species. The goal of this project was to ask whether the theoretical association between antemortem tooth loss ...

OBJECTIVEWe hypothesized that the minor allele of the atrial natriuretic peptide (ANP) genetic variant rs5068 is associated with a favorable cardiometabolic phenotype in a general Mediterranean population.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSWe genotyped a random sample of the residents of Ventimiglia di Sicilia, Sicily, for rs5068.RESULTSGenotype frequencies of rs5068 are AA, 93.5%; ...

Recent studies have elucidated that expression of certain glycoproteins in human saliva are increased or decreased according to age, meanwhile, human saliva may inhibit viral infection and prevent viral transmission. However, little is known about the age- and sex-associated differences in the glycopatterns of human salivary glycoproteins and their significant ...

This study sought to analyze the associations between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF), waist circumference (WC) and metabolic risk in children and adolescents. Participants were 633 subjects (58.7% girls) ages 10-18 years. Metabolic risk score (MRS) was calculated from HDL-cholesterol, triglycerides, fasting glucose and mean arterial pressure. MRS was dichotomized into low ...

BACKGROUND: A weak relationship exists between obesity and mortality risk in older populations, however, the influence of age on the relationship between obesity and morbidity is unclear. The objective of this study was to determine the influence of age on the relationship between obesity and cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, ...

Telomeres are chromosome ends that control functions related to cell division. Short telomeres are proposed to underlie infertility, female reproductive ageing and abnormal embryogenesis, but there is little direct evidence on telomere length in gametes and embryos. The aim of this study was to measure telomere lengths in individual human ...

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVE: Major changes in cytochrome P450 (CYP) 3A activity may be expected in the first few months of life with, later, relatively limited changes. In this analysis we studied the maturation of in vivo CYP3A-mediated clearance of midazolam, as model drug, from preterm neonates of 26 weeks gestational age ...

Abstract This is an attempt to establish the normal stretched penile length and prevalence of male genital anomalies in full-term neonates and whether they are influenced by prenatal parental exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals. A thousand newborns were included; their mothers were subjected to the following questionnaire: parents' age, residence, occupation, ...

OBJECTIVES: To examine epidemiological and clinical data of individuals aged 65 and older with influenza virus A (H1N1) admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and to identify independent predictors of ICU mortality. DESIGN: Prospective, observational, multicenter study to determine prognostic factors in individuals infected with influenza A (H1N1) admitted ...

BACKGROUND: A recent large-scale replication and heterogeneity study reported the new described GWAS locus (MCCC1/LAMP3 rs11711441) was associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson disease (PD) in Asian and Caucasian populations. Its role is still unknown in a Han Chinese population from mainland China. We genotyped the rs11711441 variant to ...

Obstetric selection acts on the female pelvic canal to accommodate the human neonate and contributes to pelvic sexual dimorphism. There is a complex relationship between selection for obstetric sufficiency and for overall body size in humans. The relationship between selective pressures may differ among populations of different body sizes and ...

BACKGROUND: Ghrelin stimulates growth hormone (GH) secretion and regulates energy and glucose metabolism. The two circulating isoforms, acyl (AG) and desacyl (DAG) ghrelin, have distinct metabolic effects and are under active investigation for their therapeutic potentials. However, there is only limited data on the pharmacokinetics of AG and DAG. OBJECTIVES: ...

Schizophrenia is a common psychiatric disorder with high heritability. The age of onset is an important phenotype of schizophrenia and may be under considerable genetic control. Our previous study showed that a single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) rs139887 in sex-determining region Y-box 10 (SOX10) gene was associated with the age of ...

Being born small for gestational age (SGA) and a rapid increase in weight during early childhood and infancy have been strongly linked to metabolic syndrome. A transversal study was conducted on 167 pre-pubertal and 102 pubertal subjects; auxological parameters, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, laboratory data, and carotid-wall thickness (CA-IMT) ...

This investigation aimed to quantify craniofacial variation in a sample of modern humans. In all, 187 consecutive orthodontic patients were collected, of which 79 were male (mean age 13.3, SD 3.7, range 7.5-40.8) and 99 were female (mean age 12.3, SD 1.9, range 8.7-19.1). The male and female subgroups were ...

OBJECTIVE: To compare the cardio-metabolic risk profile between moderately obese and severely obese children and adolescents. STUDY DESIGN: Cross-sectional study involving 463 obese 6- to 19-year-olds who were referred to an inpatient weight-loss program. Anthropometric data were assessed and fasting blood samples were analyzed for lipid and glucose metabolism, adipokines, ...

Background There is little evidence on benzodiazepine misuse and associated factorsin transitional countries of the Western Balkans. Objective The aim of this study was to assess the level and socioeconomic correlates of misuse of benzodiazepine drugs in the Albanian adult population. Method We conducted a cross-sectional study including a representative ...

Aging is associated with decreased insulin sensitivity and impaired cerebral glucose homeostasis. These changes increase neural sensitivity to metabolic damage contributing to cognitive decline, being the decrease in plasma estrogen following menopause one of the main factors involved in aged females. Phytoestrogens as genistein are structurally similar to 17β-estradiol, bind ...

Human exposure to phthalates occurs through multiple sources and pathways. In the Canadian Health Measures Survey 2007-2009, 11 phthalate metabolites, namely, MMP, MEP, MnBP, MBzP, MCHP, MCPP, MEHP, MEOHP, MEHHP, MnOP, and MiNP were measured in urine samples of 6-49 year old survey respondents (n=3236). The phthalate metabolites biomonitoring data ...

The PRNP gene encodes the cellular isoform of prion protein (PrP (c) ). The M129V polymorphism influences the risk of prion diseases and may modulate the rate of neurodegeneration with age. We present the first study of the polymorphism among Polish centenarians. In the control group (n = 165, ages ...

Widespread human exposure to phenols has been documented recently, and some phenols which are potential endocrine disruptors have demonstrated adverse effects on male reproduction in animal and in vitro studies. However, implications about exposure to phenols and male infertility are scarce in humans. Case-control study of 877 idiopathic infertile men ...

BACKGROUND: Cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, is a biomarker of tobacco, nicotine and carcinogen exposure. However a given cotinine level may not represent the same tobacco exposure; for example, African Americans have higher cotinine levels than Caucasians after controlling for exposure. METHODS: Cotinine levels are determined by the amount of cotinine ...

BACKGROUND: During the summer of 2005, multiple cities in the United States began to report outbreaks of fentanyl-associated fatalities among illicit drug users. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine if an outbreak of fentanyl-associated fatalities occurred in mid-2005 to mid-2006 and (2) to examine trends and compare ...

We investigated the animal and human Baby Schema Effect (BSE) in relation to gender, parental status, and individual features. In three, independent online surveys, conducted during three consecutive years, (N(total)=1389), ratings of photographs of human and animal infants as well as of adults, sociodemographic variables (age, gender, parental status) and ...

OBJECTIVEWe investigated whether television (TV) viewing and low leisure-time physical activity in adolescence predict the metabolic syndrome in mid-adulthood.RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODSTV viewing habits and participation in leisure-time physical activity at age 16 years were assessed by self-administered questionnaires in a population-based cohort in Northern Sweden. The presence of the ...

BACKGROUND: The response to dietary fat plays a key role in metabolic health. Although this can vary widely between individuals, variation within an individual and the associated contribution of phenotypic and genotypic factors to this variation are less defined.Objectives: The objectives were to quantify within-person variation in triacylglycerol response by ...

Advanced age results in crucial alterations of the innate and adaptive immune system leading to functional defects resulting in infection and chronic diseases. Toll-like receptors (TLR) recognize pathogenic structures and are important in the immune response to infections and vaccination. However, the role of TLR single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNP) ...

Research on male animals suggests that the hormone testosterone plays a central role in mediating the trade-off between mating effort and parental effort. However, the direct links between testosterone, intrasexual aggression and parental care are remarkably mixed across species. Previous attempts to reconcile these patterns suggest that selection favors behavioral ...

Audiometric hearing deficits are a common symptom of age-related hearing loss (ARHL), as are specific histopathological changes in the cochlea; however, very little data have been collected in non-human primates. To examine this relationship further, we collected auditory brainstem responses (ABRs) from rhesus monkeys spanning in age from 10 to ...

Lab studies have suggested that ubiquitous phthalate exposures are related to obesity, but relevant epidemiological studies are scarce, especially for children. To investigate the association of phthalate exposures with body mass index (BMI) and waist circumference (WC) in Chinese school children. A cross-sectional study was conducted in three primary and ...

Background. Garlic (Allium sativum) has been shown to have important benefits in individuals at high cardiovascular risk. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effects of the administration of aged garlic extract (AGE) on the risk factors that constitute the cluster of metabolic syndrome (MS). Methods and ...

Personality traits and cardiorespiratory fitness in older adults are reliable predictors of health and longevity. We examined the association between personality traits and energy expenditure at rest (basal metabolic rate) and during normal and maximal sustained walking. Personality traits and oxygen (VO(2)) consumption were assessed in 642 participants from the ...

Prolactin is a versatile hormone with over 300 known functions and predominantly expressed in the pituitary. However, its expression has additionally been found in a number of extrapituitary organs. Recently, we described the expression of prolactin in the inner ear of mice, where it was correlated to age. Previous research ...

PURPOSE: Our objective was to analyze the association between different intensities of physical activity (PA), physical fitness, and metabolic syndrome (MS) in young adults. METHODS: Cross-sectional study including 275 university students, aged 18-to-30 years, from Cuenca, Spain. We evaluated: (1) physical activity, by accelerometry; (2) aerobic capacity (VO2max); and (3) ...

The objectives of this study were to assess the effects of season, breeding activity, age and latitude on fecal testosterone metabolite concentrations in captive, adult male polar bears (Ursus maritimus). Fourteen polar bears from 13 North American zoos were monitored for 12-36 months, producing 25-year-long testosterone profiles. Results indicated that testosterone ...

To investigate if APOE E4 allelic status is associated with the cognitive functioning of elderly individuals. Participants (n = 1,408) from the Bambuí Cohort Study of Aging were selected based on the results from both variables (APOE genotype and MMSE score). Gender, age, education, marital status, skin color, GHQ score ...

Rotaviruses (RVs) are a major cause of severe diarrhea in children less than 5 years of age worldwide. The rotavirus positivity rate in Iran was 15.3%-67.6% in all patients less than 5 years of age hospitalized for acute gastroenteritis, which was significantly higher than recorded in outpatient departments. Moreover, the ...

We investigated gender differences in the identification of personally familiar voices in a gender-balanced sample of 40 listeners. From various types of utterances, listeners had to identify by name 20 speakers (10 female) among a set of 70 possible classmates who were all 12(th) grade pupils from the same local ...

Reproductive interference includes any interspecific interaction that reduces the fitness of one or both species involved. There are several types of reproductive interference, but they normally involve the direct cost of interacting or mating with heterospecifics. An indirect cost of interacting with heterospecific individuals is a consequent reduction in successful ...

To investigate whether the G6721T polymorphism (rs.7003908) of the non-homologous end-joining DNA repair XRCC7 gene contributes to the development of exudative age-related macular degeneration (ARMD). The present case-control study consisted of 111 patients with exudative ARMD and 112 sex frequency-matched healthy controls that were randomly selected from unrelated volunteers in ...

With aging, an increased prevalence of a clustering of metabolic abnormalities has been observed. These abnormalities include obesity, dyslipidemia, hypertension, and insulin resistance and are collectively known as metabolic syndrome (MetS), a low-grade, systemic, inflammatory condition associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and other adverse health outcomes. ...

One male of Amblyomma parvitarsum and one male and a female of Ornithodoros sp. were recovered from archaeological layers of the Middle Holocene in a rock shelter in the province of Catamarca, used by hunter-gatherer groups. Another two ticks identified as a female and a nymph of Argas cf. neghmei ...

CYP450 enzymes are basics for the metabolism of several medications such as numerous AEDs. As AEDs polypharmacy could lead to hidden pharmacokinetic interactions due to CYP450, therefore, the aim of this study was to determine a proper guideline for AEDs prescription in Iranian epileptic population. A cross-sectional study of fifty-four ...

BACKGROUND: Sleep-disordered breathing (SDB) has emerged as an independent risk factor for carotid atherosclerosis (CA) and cerebrovascular disease in middle-aged subjects. Currently, there is no study providing a causal relationship between SDB and cerebrovascular lesions in elderly. OBJECTIVE: To assess the impact of SDB on CA in a cohort of ...

The cytotoxicity of Au/Ag nanoparticles (NPs) on human spermatozoa was investigated in vitro. Semen from donors were incubated (37 °C, 60'-120') with 30, 60, 125, 250 and 500 μM Au/Ag-NPs. Sperm motility was evaluated following WHO guidelines; sperm viability was assessed with eosin Y test. Au-NPs were characterised and localised with field ...