Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0028754 (obesity)
 124,988 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Methotrexate is easily administered, widely accepted by patients, and has a rapid therapeutic effect. With careful attention to known risk factors, such as alcoholism, diabetes, obesity, and renal disease, it is a useful agent for the treatment of refractory rheumatoid arthritis (RA). Although rheumatologists have been using methotrexate in the treatment of RA for some time, controlled studies have been needed to establish the safety and efficacy of this agent. This paper will review the findings of the Cooperating Clinics of the American Rheumatism Association, as well as other studies that have investigated the short term efficacy of methotrexate.
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PMID:Short term efficacy of methotrexate in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis. 391 72

The dynamics in schoolchildren's health status varies in time, as the incidence of some chronic diseases decreases and that of the others increases. As a result, the health status of schoolchildren has deteriorated due to a reduction in the number of healthy children and an increase in the number of chronic patients in the past 30 years. Nervous, immune (allergic), and blood diseases have become frequent. Chronic ENT diseases have been encountered more infrequently due to the noticeable reduction in the incidence rates of tonsillitis and otitis. The positive trend is that schoolchildren have no rheumatism, infective allergic myocarditis, chronic pneumonia and diffuse glomerulonephritis and that the prevalence of locomotor disorders, renal and metabolic (obesity) diseases is low. During school time, the health status of children slightly improves due to the lower incidence rates of chronic diseases and the higher proportion of healthy children, but it has remained still worse than it was 30 years ago. The formation of chronic diseases has been found to occur in health group II children, who have morphological and functional changes, in 50% of cases from the first to the sixth forms and in 20% of cases from the seventh to the tenth forms. The present-day children are characterized by a combination of abnormalities and functional disturbances. This all require active and timely prophylactic measures to block chronization at the premorbid stage. Lifestyle (to keep the hygienic school regime, to do exercises and to go in for sports), sociohygienic conditions and genetic factors have profound effects on the health status.
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PMID:[The health status dynamics of schoolchildren and the importance of biomedical factors in its development]. 768 98

In pre-colonial times, health in some Pacific countries was good compared with that of Europe. Illnesses such as scrofula, rheumatism, and filariasis often received herbal treatment. More recently, however, traditional diet throughout the region have been replaced by canned fish, biscuit, white flour products, and sugar-laden food. New illnesses and diseases have emerged in Pacific countries since European intrusion. Though malaria is still the primary cause of death in Vanuatu, diabetes, hypertension, obesity, and coronary heart disease are prime health concerns in most Pacific countries. In Kiribati, health educators use materials in discussion groups and schoolteachers use special materials on AIDS in their teaching, Calendars are produced in cooperation with national nutrition and family planning (FP) groups and agencies that highlight health topics such as AIDS and vitamin-A deficiency. Material produced by the Vanuatu health education unit features nutrition, the environment, FP, and AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases. The government's Women's Affairs Department the International Labor Organization and other agencies are involved in FP and family life education. In Fiji and the Solomon Islands, nutrition has been highlighted in health education campaigns. In both countries surveys indicated alarming levels of diet-related disease. Another important nutrition project in the Solomon Islands is the village education program. At a training center, trainers conduct 15 practical courses for mobile workers, community workers, and village resource persons. Under this program, 60 village-level workshops are held each year focusing on nutrition, cooking, and gardening. Nutrition is now a major focus of health in the Pacific. The health, nutrition, education, fisheries, and agricultural sectors work with other agencies for success through community participation and through an integrated approach.
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PMID:Popular participation in community health programmes. 818 58

Rheumatic symptoms are often associated with obesity. The usual symptom is pain in the knee due to gonarthrosis, of which one of the causes is obesity; there is a correlation between the degree of overweight and the severity of gonarthrosis. It is likely, though not demonstrated, that overweight aggravates the arthrosis of supporting joints. On the other hand, obesity limits the post-menopausal bone loss. The intestinal bypass created to obtain a loss of weight may generate complications, and in particular an inflammatory rheumatism due to proliferation of bacteria in a blind intestinal loop, and osteomalacia caused by disorders of vitamin D absorption sometimes develops. The risk of perioperative complications is increased in obese patients. The mid-term results of hip or knee surgical replacement seem to be good. In the present state of our knowledge, its seems to be rational to convince obese patients complaining of rheumatic illness that they should lose weight.
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PMID:[Osteoarticular pathology and massive obesity]. 831 Feb 46

The prevalence of rheumatic diseases in developing countries is largely unknown. Studies which allow comparison of data within the contrasting communities of the Third World and the developed world have the potential to provide insights into disease aetiologies. The current study compared the frequency of rheumatic symptoms (point prevalence) amongst 1997 adults distributed evenly between poor rural and poor urban communities and relatively affluent urban people. Comparisons were also made with similarly but previously derived prevalence rates of rheumatic symptoms and rheumatoid arthritis (RA) in south Pakistan and Pakistanis in England. A significantly higher prevalence of joint pain was seen in the north compared with the south. RA was more common in the north and similar to the frequency amongst Pakistanis resident in England. Ethnic and genetic susceptibility might have accounted for this. There was significantly more soft-tissue rheumatism and back pain in the northern rural population compared with those in the city. Fibromyalgia was almost completely absent from the urban affluent, but osteoarthritis of the knee was significantly more common in this community, perhaps due to relative obesity. RA was least in the urban poor, a phenomenon that might be attributable to earlier death of females or other undetermined factors.
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PMID:Prevalence of the major rheumatic disorders in the adult population of north Pakistan. 965 Oct 74

Guggulsterone is the active ingredient in gugulipid, an organic extract of the Commiphora mukul plant. Gugulipid has been used for nearly 3000 years in Ayurvedic medicine, mainly as a treatment for arthritis. Herbal practitioners currently use gugulipid therapy in conditions as diverse as rheumatism, coronary artery disease, arthritis, hyperlipidemia, acne, and obesity. The active ingredient in gugulipid is guggulsterone, a plant sterol compound recently identified as a pregnane X receptor (PXR; NR1I2) ligand. We show herein that guggulsterone treatment represses the expression of cytochrome P450 2b10 (Cyp2b10) gene expression by inhibiting constitutive androstane receptor (CAR; NR1I3) activity in hepatocytes lacking functional PXR (PXR-knockout). We also show that PXR-CAR cross-talk determines the net activity of guggulsterone treatment toward Cyp2b10 gene expression. Using mammalian two-hybrid assays, we show that treatment with guggulsterone differentially affects protein cofactor recruitment to these two nuclear receptors. These data identify guggulsterone as an inverse agonist of the nuclear receptor CAR. When viewed together with the data showing that PXR and CAR expression is highly variable in different ethnic populations and that CAR expression is under the control of a circadian rhythm, our data provide important insight into the molecular mechanism of interindividual variability of drug metabolism. These data, together with the recent resolution of the crystal structures of PXR and CAR, will likely aid in the rational design of more specific CAR inverse agonists that are currently viewed as potential antiobesity drugs.
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PMID:The ratio of constitutive androstane receptor to pregnane X receptor determines the activity of guggulsterone against the Cyp2b10 promoter. 1583 98

Babassu is the popular name of Orbignya phalerata Mart. [Arecaceae (Palmae)], which fruits mesocarp has been used in Brazil as medicine for the treatment of pains, constipation, obesity, leukemia, rheumatism, ulcerations, tumors and inflammations. In this study, we investigated the effect of babassu mesocarp flour aqueous extract (BM) on C3H/HePas mice peritoneal cellular migration and macrophage activation by measuring the nitric oxide (NO), hydrogen peroxide (H(2)O(2)) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF) release, spreading activity and major histocompatibility complex (MHC) class II expression. Our results demonstrate that BM injected once ip in mice at 10 and 20 mg/kg increased the cellular influx to the peritoneal cavity, the MHC class II expression and the spreading ability, and also induced the production of NO, TNF and H(2)O(2). The increase in NO-production and MHC expression was also observed after the addition of BM to resident macrophage cultures (100 microg/ml). Thus, BM-treatment was able to activate peritoneal macrophages in vitro and in vivo inducing the production of inflammatory and cytotoxic metabolites, which could justify the popular use of babassu mesocarp in the treatment of tumor diseases, but not in inflammatory pathologies.
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PMID:Macrophage activation induced by Orbignya phalerata Mart. 1615 4

Ageing, like all physiological effects, has a multifactorial origin and is linked to the progressive reduction in the function of some organs and systems. Feeding can play an important role in the control of the ageing process by the improvement of quality of life and the prevention of some pathologies associated with age (renal diseases, obesity, rheumatism, dental pathologies, cardiovascular disorders). Clinical nutrition of old dogs allows us to clarify the animals' nutritional requirements, the required balance of nutrients, the quality of ingredients and dietetic function of some substances. Twenty commercial dry foods formulated for old dogs were analysed. A wide variability of chemical composition was observed among the samples. Very different values were found for size and hardness of kibbles (parameters correlated with the incidence of some dental diseases). Good availability of foods with different nutritional characteristics could be useful to the needs of geriatric dogs. Similarly, a balanced home-made ration could satisfy the specific requirements of old dogs and gratify their owners. In conclusion, a diet for ageing dogs should be "personalized", considering both the nutritional and extra-nutritional factors, which contribute to guarantee optimal well-being and health.
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PMID:The role of feeding in the maintenance of well-being and health of geriatric dogs. 1624 25

The cardiovascular impact of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs and the higher cardiovascular mortality during treatment of inflammatory rheumatism impose a rigorous evaluation of the cardiovascular risk of rheumatic patients. Large epidemiological studies have identified risk factors for cardiovascular diseases such as the age, male gender, family history (infarct, stroke), tobacco consumption, systolic arterial pressure, renal insufficiency, hypercholesterolemia, diabetes mellitis, sedentariness, obesity and "electric" ventricular hypertrophy. Some equations make it possible to evaluate the absolute cardiovascular risk at the individual level, which corresponds to the onset risk of a stroke in the 10 years to come in a subject according to the number and importance of each of his risk factors. It has been demonstrated that the correction of one or more risk factors reduce the overall cardiovascular risk justifying the strategies for evaluating this risk to define therapeutic intervention thresholds. The impact of a long-term anti-inflammatory treatment or an inflammatory disease such as rheumatoid arthritis has not been the subject of specific epidemiological study allowing these elements to be included in an equation of the estimation of the cardiovascular risk. However, the introduction of on anti-inflammatory treatment, likely to increase the cardiovascular risk of a patient, certainly justifies an evaluation of the absolute cardiovascular risk.
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PMID:[How to evaluate the cardiovascular and renal risk at the individual level?]. 1707 93

Babassu is the popular name of Orbignya phalerata Mart. (Arecaceae). The mesocarp flour obtained from their fruits has been used in Brazil as medicine in the treatment of pains, constipation, obesity, leukemia, rheumatism, ulcerations, tumors, inflammations and venous diseases. The effect of the chronic oral treatment with aqueous extract of babassu mesocarp (500mg/kgday) on the number of platelets, the prothrombin time (PT), the activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT), the nitric oxide (NO) production and the carrageenin-induced thrombosis was evaluated, using C57Bl/6 mice. The chronic oral treatment with babassu mesocarp induced an anti-thrombotic effect. There was a 88.9% reduction in the necrosis of the tail. This effect seems to be related to an increase in the ability of the macrophage to produce NO and to a slow coagulation process associated to an increase of 12.0 and 13.9% in PT and aPTT, respectively. However, the anti-thrombotic effect seems to be not related to alterations in the number of platelets. It is possible to conclude that the oral treatment with babassu mesocarp has a significant anti-thrombotic effect, which could justify the popular use of babassu mesocarp in the treatment of venous diseases. Meanwhile, this study suggests a potential use of babassu mesocarp as a prophylactic agent to avoid thrombosis events.
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PMID:Anti-thrombotic effect of chronic oral treatment with Orbignya phalerata Mart. 1714 96


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