Skin serves as the first protective line and barrier of the body. Like many other organs, skin ca... more Skin serves as the first protective line and barrier of the body. Like many other organs, skin can be affected by several disorders in response to external factors such as pathogens, ultraviolet light, and pollution, as well as endogenous alterations related to aging and/or oxidative stress disturbance. Researchers have reported new insights into how skin cells are altered in response to caloric restriction diets in mammals. One of the most well-known caloric restriction diets is the Ramadan intermittent fasting, which is a radical change in the diet plan of practitioners for the period of one lunar month. Ramadan fasting represents the fourth of the five pillars of the Islamic creed. Even though infirm individuals are waived to take part in this religious duty, patients with various health problems, including those with different skin disorders, might choose to share this event with peers and family members. No standardized protocols or guidelines exist, however, to advise their ph...
International Journal of Nephrology and Renovascular Disease, 2015
Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed. Even though patients are e... more Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed. Even though patients are exempted from this religious duty, they may be eager to share this particular moment of the year with their family and peers, taking part in the intense spiritual ceremonies and events that characterize this month. However, there are no guidelines or standardized protocols that can help physicians to properly address the issue of patients with chronic kidney disease fasting in Ramadan and correctly advising them. For this purpose, we carried out a systematic review and a meta-analysis to see whether glomerular filtration rate value changed before and after Ramadan. Our main findings are that: chronic kidney disease patients can safely fast during Ramadan since glomerular filtration rate does not change in a statistically significant way and, even though most studies have been carried out during Ramadan falling in cold seasons, the sensitivity analysis did not reveal any impact of seasonality. Further research in the field is needed.
Pacing strategy plays a major role in sport performance. However, there is a dearth of knowledge ... more Pacing strategy plays a major role in sport performance. However, there is a dearth of knowledge concerning pacing during ultra-endurance sport events. The present case study investigated the pacing of an ultra-cyclist in a self-paced attempt to break the world record in 24-h road cycling and, with all the caveats and the limitations affecting a case report, could be useful in generating hypotheses and further studies about pacing dynamics during prolonged sport performances. A well experienced ultra-cyclist completed laps of 11.731 km during 24 h and the support crew recorded for each lap time and power output in Watt. The trend in cycling speed and power output across laps was investigated using regression analyses. A mixed-effects regression model including lap, ambient air temperature, air pressure, air humidity and wind speed as fixed variables was used to investigate a relationship of environmental factors with cycling speed. The athlete achieved 896.173 km within the 24 h. He set a new world record by breaking the old record (Jure Robic, 2004, 834.77 km) by 61.403 km. He cycled at an average speed of 37.34 km/h with an average power output of 250.2 W. The decrease in cycling speed and power output across laps could be modelled linearly. Temperature and wind speed were related to cycling speed during the whole event. There was a significant interaction air temperature × relative humidity for the whole event. The athlete adopted a positive pacing (i.e. speed gradually declined throughout the event) and environmental factors (i.e. temperature and wind speed) influenced cycling speed during the event.
Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology, 2015
Nanobiotechnologies, from the convergence of nanotechnology and molecular biology and postgenomic... more Nanobiotechnologies, from the convergence of nanotechnology and molecular biology and postgenomics medicine, play a major role in the field of public health. This overview summarizes the potentiality of piezoelectric sensors, and in particular, of quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM), a physical nanogram-sensitive device. QCM enables the rapid, real time, on-site detection of pathogens with an enormous burden in public health, such as influenza and other respiratory viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and drug-resistant bacteria, among others. Further, it allows to detect food allergens, food-borne pathogens, such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium, and food chemical contaminants, as well as water-borne microorganisms and environmental contaminants. Moreover, QCM holds promises in early cancer detection and screening of new antiblastic drugs. Applications for monitoring biohazards, for assuring homeland security, and preventing bioterrorism are also discussed.
Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology, 2015
Porous aluminum is a nanostructured material characterized by unique properties, such as chemical... more Porous aluminum is a nanostructured material characterized by unique properties, such as chemical stability, regular uniformity, dense hexagonal porous lattice with high aspect ratio nanopores, excellent mechanical strength, and biocompatibility. This overview examines how the structure and properties of porous alumina can be exploited in the field of public health. Porous alumina can be employed for fabricating membranes and filters for bioremediation, water ultrafiltration, and microfiltration/nanofiltration, being a promising technique for having clean and fresh water, which is essential for human health. Porous alumina-based nanobiosensor coated with specific antibodies or peptides seem to be a useful tool to detect and remove pathogens both in food and in water, as well as for environmental monitoring. Further, these applications, being low-energy demanding and cost-effective, are particularly valuable in resource-limited settings and contexts, and can be employed as point of use devices in developing countries, where there is an urgent need of hygiene and safety assurance.
Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films used as templates for crystallization lead to marked changes in prot... more Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films used as templates for crystallization lead to marked changes in protein stability and water dehydration, despite slight changes in protein atomic structure. Herein, we discuss the importance of LB-based nanocrystallography at the frontiers of cancer proteomics focusing on two model proteins with important biological roles in cancer, namely CK2alpha and RNase A. Computational mutagenesis using the KINARI Mutagen webserver exhibits different behaviors in terms of stability and robustness, as well as in terms of water dynamics. Introduction of LB film leads to the appearance of water molecules close to the protein surface with larger volume, causing changes in crystal stability against radiation and appearing replicated in mutant proteins. Implications for drug design, drug delivery and cancer-causing protein variants are herein presented, along with a review of the most recent findings in LB-based nanobiocrystallography.
Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 2014
Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed according to the Sunnah and... more Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed according to the Sunnah and the second practice of faith for the Shiaa. Even though patients are exempted from observing this religious duty, they may be eager to share this particular moment of the year with their family and peers. However, there are no guidelines or standardized protocols that can help physicians to properly address the issue of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) fasting in Ramadan and to correctly advise them. Moreover, in a more interconnected and globalized society, in which more and more Muslim patients live in the Western countries, this topic is of high interest also for the general practitioner. For this purpose, we carried out a systematic review, including also articles written in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian languages. Our main findings are that: recipients of kidney allograft can safely fast during Ramadan;evidences for safety in patients with nephrolithiasis and CKD are inste...
BMC sports science, medicine and rehabilitation, 2014
This study examined participation and performance trends in 'Ironman Hawaii' regarding th... more This study examined participation and performance trends in 'Ironman Hawaii' regarding the nationality of the finishers. Associations between nationalities and race times of 39,706 finishers originating from 124 countries in the 'Ironman Hawaii' from 1985 to 2012 were analyzed using single and multi-level regression analysis. Most of the finishers originated from the United States of America (47.5%) followed by athletes from Germany (11.7%), Japan (7.9%), Australia (6.7%), Canada (5.2%), Switzerland (2.9%), France (2.3%), Great Britain (2.0%), New Zealand (1.9%), and Austria (1.5%). German women showed the fastest increase in finishers (r(2) = 0.83, p < 0.0001), followed by Australia (r(2) = 0.78, p < 0.0001), Canada (r(2) = 0.78, p < 0.0001) and the USA (r(2) = 0.69, p < 0.0001). Japanese women showed no change in the number of finishers (r(2) = 0.01, p > 0.05). For men, athletes from France showed the steepest increase (r(2) = 0.85, p < 0.0001), f...
Critical Reviews in Eukaryotic Gene Expression, 2014
A full-atom structure of a protein provides an important piece of information for molecular biolo... more A full-atom structure of a protein provides an important piece of information for molecular biologists, but has to be complemented by further knowledge concerning its conformational mobility and functional properties. Some scholars have proposed to integrate proteomics-derived data (mainly obtained with techniques like X-ray and NMR crystallography) with protein bioinformatics and computational approaches, above all molecular dynamics (MD), in order to gain better elucidations about proteins. MD simulations have been applied to different areas of protein sciences, but so far few efforts have been made to couple MD with an understanding of the different crystallization techniques that have been proposed during the decades, like classical vapor diffusion hanging drop and its variants (such as sitting drop), in space- and LB (Langmuir-Blodgett)-based crystallization procedures. Using MD, we show here that the optimal protein crystallization techniques prove to be significantly those based on the LB nanotemplate and on space when compared to the classical vapour diffusion hanging drop and its variants.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) has a well-recognized aetiological role in the development of cervical... more Human papillomavirus (HPV) has a well-recognized aetiological role in the development of cervical cancer and other anogenital tumours. Recently, an association between colorectal cancer and HPV infection has been suggested, although this is still controversial. This study aimed at detecting and characterizing HPV infection in 57 paired biopsies from colorectal cancers and adjacent intact tissues using a degenerate PCR approach. All amplified fragments were genotyped by means of sequencing. Overall, HPV prevalence was 12.3 %. In particular, 15.8 % of tumour tissues and 8.8 % of non-cancerous tissue samples were HPV DNA-positive. Of these samples, 85.7 % were genotyped successfully, with 41.7 % of sequences identifying four genotypes of the HR (high oncogenic risk) clade Group 1; the remaining 58.3 % of HPV-genotyped specimens had an unclassified β-HPV. Examining additional cases and analysing whole genomes will help to outline the significance of these findings.
The main objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the economic burden of Herpes Zoster... more The main objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the economic burden of Herpes Zoster (HZ) infection. The review was conducted in accordance with the standards of the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; guidelines. The following databases were accessed: ISI/Web of Knowledge (WoS), MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, the Cochrane Library and EconLit. Specific literature on health economics was also manually inspected. Thirty-three studies were included. The quality of the studies assessed in accordance with the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards checklist was good. All studies evaluated direct costs, apart from one which dealt only with indirect costs. Indirect costs were evaluated by 12 studies. The economic burden of HZ has increased over time. HZ management and drug prescriptions generate the highest direct costs. While increasing age, co-morbidities and drug treatment were found to predict higher direct costs, being employed was correlated with higher indirect costs, and thus with the onset age of the disease. Despite some differences among the selected studies, particularly with regard to indirect costs, all concur that HZ is a widespread disease which has a heavy social and economic burden.
Skin serves as the first protective line and barrier of the body. Like many other organs, skin ca... more Skin serves as the first protective line and barrier of the body. Like many other organs, skin can be affected by several disorders in response to external factors such as pathogens, ultraviolet light, and pollution, as well as endogenous alterations related to aging and/or oxidative stress disturbance. Researchers have reported new insights into how skin cells are altered in response to caloric restriction diets in mammals. One of the most well-known caloric restriction diets is the Ramadan intermittent fasting, which is a radical change in the diet plan of practitioners for the period of one lunar month. Ramadan fasting represents the fourth of the five pillars of the Islamic creed. Even though infirm individuals are waived to take part in this religious duty, patients with various health problems, including those with different skin disorders, might choose to share this event with peers and family members. No standardized protocols or guidelines exist, however, to advise their ph...
International Journal of Nephrology and Renovascular Disease, 2015
Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed. Even though patients are e... more Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed. Even though patients are exempted from this religious duty, they may be eager to share this particular moment of the year with their family and peers, taking part in the intense spiritual ceremonies and events that characterize this month. However, there are no guidelines or standardized protocols that can help physicians to properly address the issue of patients with chronic kidney disease fasting in Ramadan and correctly advising them. For this purpose, we carried out a systematic review and a meta-analysis to see whether glomerular filtration rate value changed before and after Ramadan. Our main findings are that: chronic kidney disease patients can safely fast during Ramadan since glomerular filtration rate does not change in a statistically significant way and, even though most studies have been carried out during Ramadan falling in cold seasons, the sensitivity analysis did not reveal any impact of seasonality. Further research in the field is needed.
Pacing strategy plays a major role in sport performance. However, there is a dearth of knowledge ... more Pacing strategy plays a major role in sport performance. However, there is a dearth of knowledge concerning pacing during ultra-endurance sport events. The present case study investigated the pacing of an ultra-cyclist in a self-paced attempt to break the world record in 24-h road cycling and, with all the caveats and the limitations affecting a case report, could be useful in generating hypotheses and further studies about pacing dynamics during prolonged sport performances. A well experienced ultra-cyclist completed laps of 11.731 km during 24 h and the support crew recorded for each lap time and power output in Watt. The trend in cycling speed and power output across laps was investigated using regression analyses. A mixed-effects regression model including lap, ambient air temperature, air pressure, air humidity and wind speed as fixed variables was used to investigate a relationship of environmental factors with cycling speed. The athlete achieved 896.173 km within the 24 h. He set a new world record by breaking the old record (Jure Robic, 2004, 834.77 km) by 61.403 km. He cycled at an average speed of 37.34 km/h with an average power output of 250.2 W. The decrease in cycling speed and power output across laps could be modelled linearly. Temperature and wind speed were related to cycling speed during the whole event. There was a significant interaction air temperature × relative humidity for the whole event. The athlete adopted a positive pacing (i.e. speed gradually declined throughout the event) and environmental factors (i.e. temperature and wind speed) influenced cycling speed during the event.
Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology, 2015
Nanobiotechnologies, from the convergence of nanotechnology and molecular biology and postgenomic... more Nanobiotechnologies, from the convergence of nanotechnology and molecular biology and postgenomics medicine, play a major role in the field of public health. This overview summarizes the potentiality of piezoelectric sensors, and in particular, of quartz-crystal microbalance (QCM), a physical nanogram-sensitive device. QCM enables the rapid, real time, on-site detection of pathogens with an enormous burden in public health, such as influenza and other respiratory viruses, hepatitis B virus (HBV), and drug-resistant bacteria, among others. Further, it allows to detect food allergens, food-borne pathogens, such as Escherichia coli and Salmonella typhimurium, and food chemical contaminants, as well as water-borne microorganisms and environmental contaminants. Moreover, QCM holds promises in early cancer detection and screening of new antiblastic drugs. Applications for monitoring biohazards, for assuring homeland security, and preventing bioterrorism are also discussed.
Advances in Protein Chemistry and Structural Biology, 2015
Porous aluminum is a nanostructured material characterized by unique properties, such as chemical... more Porous aluminum is a nanostructured material characterized by unique properties, such as chemical stability, regular uniformity, dense hexagonal porous lattice with high aspect ratio nanopores, excellent mechanical strength, and biocompatibility. This overview examines how the structure and properties of porous alumina can be exploited in the field of public health. Porous alumina can be employed for fabricating membranes and filters for bioremediation, water ultrafiltration, and microfiltration/nanofiltration, being a promising technique for having clean and fresh water, which is essential for human health. Porous alumina-based nanobiosensor coated with specific antibodies or peptides seem to be a useful tool to detect and remove pathogens both in food and in water, as well as for environmental monitoring. Further, these applications, being low-energy demanding and cost-effective, are particularly valuable in resource-limited settings and contexts, and can be employed as point of use devices in developing countries, where there is an urgent need of hygiene and safety assurance.
Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films used as templates for crystallization lead to marked changes in prot... more Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) films used as templates for crystallization lead to marked changes in protein stability and water dehydration, despite slight changes in protein atomic structure. Herein, we discuss the importance of LB-based nanocrystallography at the frontiers of cancer proteomics focusing on two model proteins with important biological roles in cancer, namely CK2alpha and RNase A. Computational mutagenesis using the KINARI Mutagen webserver exhibits different behaviors in terms of stability and robustness, as well as in terms of water dynamics. Introduction of LB film leads to the appearance of water molecules close to the protein surface with larger volume, causing changes in crystal stability against radiation and appearing replicated in mutant proteins. Implications for drug design, drug delivery and cancer-causing protein variants are herein presented, along with a review of the most recent findings in LB-based nanobiocrystallography.
Journal of research in medical sciences : the official journal of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, 2014
Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed according to the Sunnah and... more Ramadan fasting represents one of the five pillars of the Islam creed according to the Sunnah and the second practice of faith for the Shiaa. Even though patients are exempted from observing this religious duty, they may be eager to share this particular moment of the year with their family and peers. However, there are no guidelines or standardized protocols that can help physicians to properly address the issue of patients with chronic kidney disease (CKD) fasting in Ramadan and to correctly advise them. Moreover, in a more interconnected and globalized society, in which more and more Muslim patients live in the Western countries, this topic is of high interest also for the general practitioner. For this purpose, we carried out a systematic review, including also articles written in Arabic, Turkish, and Persian languages. Our main findings are that: recipients of kidney allograft can safely fast during Ramadan;evidences for safety in patients with nephrolithiasis and CKD are inste...
BMC sports science, medicine and rehabilitation, 2014
This study examined participation and performance trends in 'Ironman Hawaii' regarding th... more This study examined participation and performance trends in 'Ironman Hawaii' regarding the nationality of the finishers. Associations between nationalities and race times of 39,706 finishers originating from 124 countries in the 'Ironman Hawaii' from 1985 to 2012 were analyzed using single and multi-level regression analysis. Most of the finishers originated from the United States of America (47.5%) followed by athletes from Germany (11.7%), Japan (7.9%), Australia (6.7%), Canada (5.2%), Switzerland (2.9%), France (2.3%), Great Britain (2.0%), New Zealand (1.9%), and Austria (1.5%). German women showed the fastest increase in finishers (r(2) = 0.83, p < 0.0001), followed by Australia (r(2) = 0.78, p < 0.0001), Canada (r(2) = 0.78, p < 0.0001) and the USA (r(2) = 0.69, p < 0.0001). Japanese women showed no change in the number of finishers (r(2) = 0.01, p > 0.05). For men, athletes from France showed the steepest increase (r(2) = 0.85, p < 0.0001), f...
Critical Reviews in Eukaryotic Gene Expression, 2014
A full-atom structure of a protein provides an important piece of information for molecular biolo... more A full-atom structure of a protein provides an important piece of information for molecular biologists, but has to be complemented by further knowledge concerning its conformational mobility and functional properties. Some scholars have proposed to integrate proteomics-derived data (mainly obtained with techniques like X-ray and NMR crystallography) with protein bioinformatics and computational approaches, above all molecular dynamics (MD), in order to gain better elucidations about proteins. MD simulations have been applied to different areas of protein sciences, but so far few efforts have been made to couple MD with an understanding of the different crystallization techniques that have been proposed during the decades, like classical vapor diffusion hanging drop and its variants (such as sitting drop), in space- and LB (Langmuir-Blodgett)-based crystallization procedures. Using MD, we show here that the optimal protein crystallization techniques prove to be significantly those based on the LB nanotemplate and on space when compared to the classical vapour diffusion hanging drop and its variants.
Human papillomavirus (HPV) has a well-recognized aetiological role in the development of cervical... more Human papillomavirus (HPV) has a well-recognized aetiological role in the development of cervical cancer and other anogenital tumours. Recently, an association between colorectal cancer and HPV infection has been suggested, although this is still controversial. This study aimed at detecting and characterizing HPV infection in 57 paired biopsies from colorectal cancers and adjacent intact tissues using a degenerate PCR approach. All amplified fragments were genotyped by means of sequencing. Overall, HPV prevalence was 12.3 %. In particular, 15.8 % of tumour tissues and 8.8 % of non-cancerous tissue samples were HPV DNA-positive. Of these samples, 85.7 % were genotyped successfully, with 41.7 % of sequences identifying four genotypes of the HR (high oncogenic risk) clade Group 1; the remaining 58.3 % of HPV-genotyped specimens had an unclassified β-HPV. Examining additional cases and analysing whole genomes will help to outline the significance of these findings.
The main objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the economic burden of Herpes Zoster... more The main objective of this systematic review was to evaluate the economic burden of Herpes Zoster (HZ) infection. The review was conducted in accordance with the standards of the &amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot;Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;quot; guidelines. The following databases were accessed: ISI/Web of Knowledge (WoS), MEDLINE/PubMed, Scopus, ProQuest, the Cochrane Library and EconLit. Specific literature on health economics was also manually inspected. Thirty-three studies were included. The quality of the studies assessed in accordance with the Consolidated Health Economic Evaluation Reporting Standards checklist was good. All studies evaluated direct costs, apart from one which dealt only with indirect costs. Indirect costs were evaluated by 12 studies. The economic burden of HZ has increased over time. HZ management and drug prescriptions generate the highest direct costs. While increasing age, co-morbidities and drug treatment were found to predict higher direct costs, being employed was correlated with higher indirect costs, and thus with the onset age of the disease. Despite some differences among the selected studies, particularly with regard to indirect costs, all concur that HZ is a widespread disease which has a heavy social and economic burden.
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