The cardiovascular disease continuum is a sequence of events, which begins with a host of risk factors consisting of diabetes mellitus, dyslipidemia, hypertension, smoking and visceral obesity. If left untreated, it will inexorably progress to atherosclerosis, CAD, myocardial infarction, left ventricular remodeling, LVH, left ventricular enlargement, and eventually end-stage heart failure and death. Treatment intervention at any stage of its course will prevent or delay its further progression. However, the best results are expected to be achieved when treatment is initiated at the beginning, or at an early stage of its course. A Pub-Med/MEDLINE search was conducted for relevant English language, randomized clinical trials and epidemiologic studies for the years 1995-2009 using the terms, cardiovascular continuum, obesity, hyperlipidemia, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, metabolic syndrome, renal disease, stroke, and blockers of the renin angiotensin system (RAS). A total of 34 pertinent studies were selected for review. This concise review will focus on prevention and the aggressive treatment of the existing cardiovascular risk factors with emphasis on the blockers of RAS, and demonstrate that RAS blockers are the best drugs for its treatment.

Olmesartan medoxomil is an angiotensin II (Ang II) receptor blocker (ARB) that has been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for the treatment of hypertension. It is a prodrug that is hydrolysed in the gut into its active metabolite, olmesartan (RNH-6270). Olmesartan is highly selective for the Ang II type 1 receptor (AT1) to which it binds completely and insurmountably and has very little affinity for the other receptor subtypes AT2 and AT4. After oral administration, in animals and humans, it achieves a maximal blood drug concentration within a maximal time of approximately 2 h. It is then slowly eliminated in the urine and faeces. His half-life is approximately 13 h, which makes it suitable for once-daily administration. Olmesartan medoxomil given orally in single daily doses of 20-40 mg has demonstrated significant blood pressure (BP) lowering effects in hypertensive patients. A medline search for the preparation of this manuscript was conducted and revealed 128 references, from 2000 to 2007. Of these, only 16 well-designed prospective clinical trials were selected. The remaining were either animal studies, reviews or studies in progress. In well-designed clinical trials, olmesartan medoxomil has demonstrated similar antihypertensive actions to the other antihypertensive drugs, as well as other members of its class given the highest recommended doses. In addition, the BP lowering effect of olmesartan, like the other members of its class, is greatly enhanced in combination with a diuretic. Its safety profile is similar to the other ARBs and no different than placebo.

Background: Although obesity is considered as the main cause of Type II diabetes (T2DM), non-obese individuals may still develop T2DM and obese individuals may not. Method: The mRNA expression of PI3K/AKT axis from 100 non-obese and obese participants with insulin sensitivity and insulin resistance states were compared in this study toward the understanding of obesity heterogeneity molecular mechanism. Result: In present study, there was no statistically significant difference in gene expression levels of IRS1 and PTEN between groups, whereas PI3K, AKT2 and GLUT4 genes were expressed at a lower level in obese diabetic group compared to other groups and were statistically significant. PDK1 gene was expressed at a higher level in nonobese diabetic group compared to obese diabetic and non-obese non-diabetics groups. No statistically significant difference was identified in gene expression pattern of PI3K/AKT pathway between obese non-diabetics and nonobese non-diabetics. Conclusion: The components of PI3K/AKT pathway which is related to the fasting state, showed reduced expression in obese diabetic group due to the chronic over-nutrition which may induced insensitivity and reduced gene expression. The pathogenesis of insulin resistance in the absence of obesity in non-obese diabetic group could be due to disturbance in another pathway related to the non-fasting state like gluconeogenesis. Therefore, the molecular mechanism of insulin signalling in non-obese diabetic individuals is different from obese diabetics which more investigations are required to study insulin signalling pathways in greater depth, in order to assess nutritional factors, contribute to insulin resistance in obese diabetic and non-obese diabetic individuals.

Background: GSK3 is a serine/threonine kinase that is involved in the storage of glucose into glycogen through the negative regulation of glycogen synthase. Defects in GSK3 and glycogen synthase function are early stages of the development of insulin resistance, which may cause impaired glycogen synthesis in Type II diabetes. Methods: In this cross-sectional study, the gene expression level of GSK3 from Type II diabetic and non-diabetic participants was compared via real-time RT-PCR. To investigate the relationships between GSK3 expression and indicators of insulin resistance, Pearson's correlation analysis was performed. To compare the differences between GSK3 expression levels based on BMI categories, one-way ANOVA was used. Results: Gene expression of GSK3 was slightly higher in diabetic participants compared to non-diabetics, but it was statistically insignificant. Also, no significant difference was found based on BMI categories in the two groups. No significant association between GSK3 expression and indicators of insulin resistance was observed in non-diabetic participants. There was only a positive significant correlation between GSK3 expression and FBS in diabetic participants. Conclusion: These results indicate that the regulation of GSK3 may occur at the translation level, as gene expression level was unaltered between diabetic and non-diabetic participants. Also, since circulating levels of both glucose and insulin regulate GSK3 activity, tissue specificity for the expression and post-translation regulations of GSK3 may exist, which cause hyperactivation or overexpression in some target tissues in diabetes. Furthermore, it is probable that glycogen synthase activity is also regulated by non-insulin mediated mechanisms like exercise or allosteric changes, independent of GSK3 expression.

Nanotechnology permits advance research in several areas and opens a large scope in the field of biotechnology and agriculture industry due to unique physiochemical properties. To fulfill the increasing demand of world population higher agricultural productivity is needed to boost the yield. This review presents the current literature and key role of nanoparticles on plant growth, development and yield. The synthesis of nanoparticles by green method with the use of plant extract which is nontoxic, cost effective, ecofriendly over physical and chemical methods. Phytochemical constituents in the plant extract such as phenols, proteins, flavonoids, carbohydrates, alkaloids and amino acids is responsible for the reduction of size of nanoparticles.