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

The aim of our work was to develop an assay for the determination of angiopoietin-like protein 3 (Angptl3) in human blood, and investigate its levels in healthy volunteers and donors suffer from metabolic syndrome and familiar hypercholesterolemia. We developed and evaluated the sandwich ELISA method for the quantitative determination of human Angptl3 in serum samples. We conducted also the pilot study on individuals with metabolic syndrome or familiar hypercholesterolemia and healthy probands. The following parameters were measured: blood pressure, waist circumference, Angptl3 serum levels, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, insulin, glucose, A-FABP, and BMI and Quicki insulin sensitivity index was calculated. In the study on 93 healthy volunteers we demonstrated that sex or age is not the determinant for Angptl3 serum values. Futhermore, 118 individuals with metabolic syndrome and 200 patients with familiar hypercholesterolemia were tested and it was found that probands with metabolic syndrome or familiar hypercholesterolemia had higher Angptl3 values than healthy individuals from the first study (medians 289.5 vs. 277.1 vs. 224.8 ng/ml, p < 0.01). All of groups did not differ in sex or age. Angptl3 values correlated with the systolic blood pressure, LDL and A-FABP (p < 0.05). No connection of Angptl3 with triglycerides was found (presumably influences of statins, fibrates via PPARs, etc). However, we performed stepwise regression and found A-FABP and Angptl3 serum values as the independent markers for metabolic syndrome presence only (F ratio 29, p < 0.01). Then we adjusted Angptl3 to A-FABP (reputable metabolic syndrome marker) and recognised that Angptl3 is the A-FABP-independent marker. The pilot study supports the hypothesis about the role of Angptl3 as a new class of lipid metabolism modulator. Their values could be a new key predictors of metabolic syndrome. Further research is necessary to confirm our findings in individuals with dyslipidemia, obesity, CAD and different medication in order to assess Angptl3 value as a risk predictor of accelerated atherosclerosis.
Gen Physiol Biophys 2007 Sep
PMID:Angiopoietin-like protein 3: development, analytical characterization, and clinical testing of a new ELISA. 1806 51

Obesity has become an international public health problem. Unfortunately, effective treatment options are limited. In the last 20 years, research in obesity and associated pathologies has derived in a significant increase in the knowledge of the physiological and molecular mechanism regulating body mass, such as gastrointestinal-neuroendocrine communications. Gut-brain peptides may provide attractive therapeutic targets against this disease. This review summarizes research into energy balance through gastrointestinal tract peptides. Understanding these molecular mechanisms will provide new pharmacological targets for the treatment of obesity and appetite disorders.
Gen Comp Endocrinol 2008 Feb 01
PMID:Gastrointestinal peptides controlling body weight homeostasis. 1816 7

In view of the limited success rates of all weight-loss strategies to date, this article hypothesises that in situations where previous dieting attempts have failed, better outcomes and health improvements will arise from advocating weight-stability goals. This means the promotion of weight maintenance (to ensure any reduction in weight is maintained) and weight constancy (where steps are taken to maintain existing weight without attempting weight loss), rather than advocating existing 5-10% weight-loss targets for these patients. The majority of approaches to obesity focus on weight reduction despite poor evidence of effectiveness. Primary care remains reluctant to engage in ineffective approaches, yet is well placed to give advice, and would undoubtedly adopt effective obesity-management approaches if they were developed. Despite guidance for overweight or obese people to aim for a 5-10% weight reduction, current trends demonstrate escalation of average weights and obesity. A literature review found little information about evaluation of weight-stability approaches (either weight maintenance or weight constancy), despite theoretical support for them. Yet taking steps to protect weight reduction where it is achieved, and to promote weight constancy (without weight loss) where further dieting is predicted to fail, would have a beneficial effect on preventing further growth of obesity-related morbidity in the population. Some evidence exists to support simple behavioural approaches to improve weight stability, but these measures do not feature in current advice and hence are not widely advocated.
Br J Gen Pract 2008 Feb
PMID:Obesity in primary care: evidence for advising weight constancy rather than weight loss in unsuccessful dieters. 1830 55

The aim of our work was to develop an assay for the determination of angiopoietin-like protein 4 (Angplt4) in human blood, and to investigate its levels in healthy volunteers and donors suffer from metabolic syndrome. We developed and evaluated the sandwich ELISA method for the quantitative determination of human Angplt4 in serum samples. We conducted also the pilot study on individuals with metabolic syndrome or familiar hypercholesterolemia and healthy probands and measured blood pressure, waist circumference, Angplt4 serum levels, serum cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL-cholesterol, LDL-cholesterol, insulin, glucose, A-FABP and calculate BMI and QUICKI insulin sensitivity index. In the study on 30 healthy volunteers we demonstrated that sex or age is not the determinant for Angplt4 serum values. Furthermore, we tested 115 individuals with metabolic syndrome and found that probands with metabolic syndrome did not differ in Angplt4 values than healthy individuals from the first study (medians 8.7 vs. 8.1 ng/ml, p = 0.6). Individuals with metabolic syndrome did not differ in sex or age from healthy. Angplt4 values correlated with the HDL-cholesterol (r = -0.25; p < 0.01), FGF-21 (r = 0.23, p < 0.01), glucose (r = 0.17; p = 0.03), uric acid (r = 0.17; p = 0.49), lipocalin-2 (r = 0.23, p < 0.01), triacylglycerols (r = 0.25; p < 0.01) and number or characters of metabolic syndrome (r = 0.21; p < 0.01). No significant correlation was found between serum Angplt4 and BMI, WC or QUICKI. However, we performed stepwise regression and we found that Angplt4 was not an independent marker for metabolic syndrome. The patients from the metabolic syndrome group suffering diabetes mellitus (n = 83) did not differ in serum Angplt4 from the group of healthy patients, too. The pilot study supports the hypothesis about the role of Angplt4 as a new class of lipid metabolism modulator. Their values could be a new key predictors of metabolic syndrome. Further research is necessary to confirm our findings in individuals with dyslipidemia, obesity, coronary artery diseases and different medication in order to assess Angplt4 value as a risk predictor of accelerated atherosclerosis.
Gen Physiol Biophys 2008 Mar
PMID:Angiopoietin-like protein 4: development, analytical characterization, and clinical testing of a new ELISA. 1843 85

Participants were 25 older men (M age = 72 years, SD = 10 years) and 27 older women (M age = 71 years, SD = 8 years) who examined multiple line-drawing figures of babies, children, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults. Participants picked a number on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (very thin) to 9 (very obese) in response to questions including "Which is the most attractive?" and "Which figure would you most like to look like?" They also completed questionnaires about their body image and body shape. In response to the age-specific line drawings (e.g., those depicting older men and older women), older women endorsed thinner figures (e.g., picked smaller numbers) than did men. Likewise, older women reported thinking more about their body shape and appearance than did men and perceived their body image as "a little too big" in comparison with the older men who perceived their body image as "just the right size." However, a breakdown of normal and overweight women in this sample revealed that for some overweight elderly women, obesity could become a satisfactory way of life. Much as with college-aged women, the endorsement of a thinner body image by many of the older adult female participants appeared to persist into late adulthood and suggests that research into body image issues with older adults is relevant and necessary.
J Gen Psychol 2008 Oct
PMID:Aging, body image, and body shape. 1895 28

Previous research (e.g., R. Puhl & K. P. Brownell, 2001) has indicated that stigma associated with obesity contributes to diminished social engagement for the obese, but there is evidence that this stigma is more pronounced in younger age groups. The present authors investigated whether the negative association between obesity and social participation that is apparent in younger age groups continues in older adulthood. The authors analyzed interview data from 1,439 participants aged 60-93 years (M age = 71 years, SD = 5.7 years) from the Changing Lives of Older Couples Study (D. Carr, R. Nesse, & C. Wortman, 2005). Regression results indicated that hypothesized interactions between age and body mass index (BMI) in predicting social participation were not significant after controlling for demographic variables, health status, depression, and self-esteem. In fact, higher BMI was associated with greater overall and formal social participation (i.e., organizations, volunteer work, church), suggesting not only that stigmatization against the obese appears to decrease with age but also that additional factors play a role.
J Gen Psychol 2008 Oct
PMID:The impact of obesity on the social participation of older adults. 1895 30

Obesity is a major public health issue and numerous clinical guidelines have been published to support management. One of the most comprehensive guidelines on obesity was published by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) in 2006 (NICE guideline 43) which aims to offer practical recommendations based on the available evidence and has a strong focus on primary care both in terms of prevention and clinical care. The current article summarises these guidelines in relation to primary care, reports on new evidence and developments since they were published, and critically appraises the usefulness of guidelines for management of obesity.
Br J Gen Pract 2009 Nov
PMID:How useful are clinical guidelines for the management of obesity in general practice? 2087 62

The female reproductive system is very sensitive to different harmful environmental factors. A great danger is hidden in an increased use of food additives like monosodium glutamate (MSG). Numerous studies have shown that application of high doses of MSG to different kinds of animals during the neonatal period may cause lesions of neural structures and the retina. Later in adulthood animals exhibit a series of neuroendocrine disorders: a stunted growth, obesity and infertility. The mechanism of MSG action is not well explained yet. We hypothesized that high concentration of MSG could alter permeability of neural membrane for calcium. We studied whether pretreatment with diltiazem prevented the effects of MSG on ovaries in rats. Female rat pups were treated with: 0.9% NaCl, MSG, diltiazem or diltiazem with MSG. MSG treatment resulted in a cystic degeneration of ovaries and irregular and prolonged estrus phase of estrus cycle. The other treated groups of rats had normal ovarian histology and estrus cycle. The pretreatment with diltiazem prevented development of morphological and functional disorders of ovaries. Our results suggest that calcium overloading play an important role in mechanisms of MSG toxicity.
Gen Physiol Biophys 2009
PMID:Diltiazem prevention of toxic effects of monosodium glutamate on ovaries in rats. 1989 93

Body mass index (BMI) is widely used as an index of obesity in adults. In trained population, individual with low body fat could be classified as overweight by BMI. To evaluate this problem, the purposes of this study were to determine the BMI and body fat percentage (BF%) of trained and untrained subjects and to evaluate the accuracy of BMI classification (> or =25 kg.m(-2)) as a prediction of overweight/obesity in trained subjects. The total number of 299 trained (basketball players) and 179 untrained male subjects participated in this study. Body height and body mass were measured; BMI was calculated for all subjects. BF% was determined via Tanita bioimpedance body composition analyzer. BMI >or = 25 kg.m(-2) and BF% > 20% were used to define overweight. There was no significant age differences. Body mass, height (p < 0.01) and BMI (p < 0.05) were significantly higher, although BF% was significantly lower (p < 0.01) in trained group when compared to untrained. Eighty-five trained subjects had a BMI of 25 or higher, indicating overweight. Of these, only three individuls had excess BF%. The results of the present study suggest that a BMI > or = 25 kg.m(-2) is not an accurate predictor of overweight in trained subjects.
Gen Physiol Biophys 2009
PMID:Overweight in trained subjects - are we looking at wrong numbers? (Body mass index compared with body fat percentage in estimating overweight in athletes.). 1989 1

Obesity causes complex metabolic and endocrine changes that may lead to adverse outcomes, including hypogonadism. We herein studied the reproductive axis function in male rats under a high-fat diet and analyzed the impact of changes in glycosylation of pituitary LH on the bioactivity of this gonadotropin. Rats were fed with a diet enriched in saturated fat (20% of total calories) and euthanized on days 90 or 180 of diet. Long-term (180 days), high-fat feeding rats exhibited a metabolic profile compatible with insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome; they concomitantly showed decreased intrapituitary and serum LH concentrations, low serum testosterone levels, and elevated serum 17beta-estradiol concentrations. A fall in biological to immunological ratio of intrapituitary LH was detected in 180 days control diet-treated rats but not in high-fat-fed animals, as assessed by a homologous in vitro bioassay. Chromatofocusing of pituitary extracts yielded multiple LH charge isoforms; a trend towards decreased abundance of more basic isoforms (pH 9.99-9.0) was apparent in rats fed with the control diet for 180 days but not in those that were fed the diet enriched in saturated fat. It is concluded that long-term high-fat feeding alters the function of the pituitary-testicular axis, resulting in hypogonadotropic hypogonadism. The alterations in LH function found in these animals might be subserved by changes in hypothalamic GnRH output and/or sustained gonadotrope exposure to an altered sex steroid hormone milieu, representing a distinctly different regulatory mechanism whereby the pituitary attempts to counterbalance the effects of long-term obesity on reproductive function.
Gen Comp Endocrinol 2010 Apr 01
PMID:Reproductive axis function and gonadotropin microheterogeneity in a male rat model of diet-induced obesity. 2000 31


<< Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next >>