New research into physical activity suggests that it is no longer sufficient just to meet minimum levels recommended by health guidelines in order to reduce cardiovascular risk. Both physical inactivity and sedentary behavior have their own health hazards and need to be addressed separately, in order to explore their different deleterious mechanisms. The aim of this review was to define and to characterize both concepts, and their relationship with major non-communicable chronic diseases. A PubMed database search was undertaken, using the following key words: physical activity, physical inactivity, sedentarism, sedentary behavior, and non-communicable chronic disease. This literature review provides an updated view on physical inactivity and sedentary behavior, and reevaluates their prevalence and association with major non-communicable chronic disease.
We here describe the application of novel programs that allow definition of phylogenetic relationships in transport protein superfamilies. These programs are used to provide information about the four major superfamilies of secondary carriers that include members that export hydrophobic and amphipathic compounds including drugs. These novel programs must be used when sequence divergence among superfamily members is too great to allow construction of reliable multiple alignments. We test the validity and demonstrate the reliability of these trees by conducting comparative analyses. We examine all of the largest superfamilies of secondary drug efflux pumps found in nature, the MOP, DMT, RND, and MFS superfamilies. Depending on the superfamily, phylogenetic clustering of the families and individual members of these families can occur according to organismal source, substrate type, polarity of transport, and/or mode of transport. In this chapter we define the phylogenetic relationships of sequence divergent drug exporters. The programs developed should be applicable to all classes of proteins and nucleic acids.
Objectives: to assess the efficacy of thalidomide in the treatment of relapsed or refractory bleeding secondary to gastrointestinal angiodysplasia. Material and methods: we carried out a prospective study of 12 patients with bleeding due to gastrointestinal angiodysplasia refractory to conventional therapy who were treated with thalidomide. For each patient, we considered: age, sex, underlying disease, previous therapies, dose and duration of thalidomide treatment, evolution of haemoglobin levels and adverse effects of treatment. The data obtained were analysed using descriptive statistics with SPSS v. 16. Results: seven men and 5 women with a mean age of 77 years were included in the present study. Five had some underlying pathology and all of them had received prior endoscopic/octreotide treatment. The dose of thalidomide administered was 200 mg/24 h and the duration of the treatment four months, with the exception of two patients in whom treatment was discontinued because of adverse side effects. Mean haemoglobin concentration before onset of treatment was 6.5 g/dL, at two months it was 11.3 g/dL and at the end of treatment 12.1 g/dL. Conclusions: thalidomide is an effective treatment in gastrointestinal bleeding due to angiodysplasia, but it was withdrawn due to side effects in 16% of the patients included in our study.
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