Objective. To evaluate the effect of gender and menopause in cardiovascular risk (CVR) in a healthy population based on both classical and nontraditional markers. Methods. 56 men and 68 women (48 pre- and 20 postmenopause) were enrolled in the study. The following markers were analyzed: blood pressure (BP), body mass index (BMI), waist circumference (WC), glucose, total cholesterol (total-c), triglycerides (TGs), low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c), oxidized-LDL (Ox-LDL), HDL-c and subpopulations, paraoxonase-1 activity, hsCRP, uric acid, tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-α), adiponectin, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), and intercellular adhesion molecular 1 (ICAM1). Results. Relative to the women, men present significantly increased BMI, WC, BP, glucose, total-c, TGs, LDL-c, Ox-LDL, uric acid, and TNF-α and reduced adiponectin and total and large HDL-c. The protective profile of women is lost after menopause with a significantly increased BMI, WC, BP, glucose, LDL-c, Ox-LDL, hsCRP, and VEGF and decreased total and large HDL-c. Significant correlations were found in women population and in postmenopausal women between Ox-LDL and total, large, and small HDL-c and between TNF-α and total, large, and small HDL-c, LDL-c, and Ox-LDL. Conclusions. Men present higher CVR than women who lost protection after menopause, evidenced by nontraditional markers, including Ox-LDL and HDL subpopulations.

In this largely-expository note, we describe a class of divisors on elliptic curves that index the inflection points of linear series arising (as subspaces of holomorphic sections) from line bundles on P 1 via pullback along the canonical 2-to-1 projection. Associated to each inflection divisor on an elliptic curve E λ : y 2 = x(x − 1)(x − λ), there is an associated inflectionary curve in (the projective compactification of) the affine plane in coordinates x and λ. These inflectionary curves have remarkable features; among other things, they lead directly to an explicit conjecture for the number of real inflection points of linear series on E λ whenever the Legendre parameter λ is real.

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Given a real hyperelliptic algebraic curve X with non-empty real part and a real effective divisor D arising via pullback from P 1 under the hyperelliptic structure map, we study the real inflection points of the associated complete real linear series |D| on X.To do so we use Viro's patchworking of real plane curves, recast in the context of some Berkovich spaces studied by M. Jonsson. Our method gives a simpler and more explicit alternative to limit linear series on metrized complexes of curves, as developed by O. Amini and M. Baker, for curves embedded in toric surfaces.